avocado8
bloggity goodness archives (summaries | full text)

More Travels Around the Web

My list of regularly-read weblogs is growing. Found another woman out there who's on the fence about the war too, for similar reasons. (She's also just plain neat.) She had a link on her site to an interesting article about a guy who went to Iraq to become a human shield without really understanding what he was doing.

This, at the same time that I've lost any sympathy I might have had for anti-war protestors in San Francisco. It seems the social terrorists have moved on from blocking streets and assaulting commuters to staging vomit-ins. (I do admit I have some sympathy for the knitters, even though crocheting is my blanket-making method of choice.)

In other news, my friend Heather discoverd a few years ago, when she started Jezebel's Mirror (and later Friends of Jezebel's Mirror), that she wasn't the only one who had a penchant for taking self-portraits in mirrors. (I think we all think we're the only ones who are doing it; like Heather, I had zillions of prints of me taken in various reflective surfaces over the years—and this was before I got a digital camera!—but I didn't realize that everyone else did, too.) FOJM eventually blossomed into the Mirror Project, and it has only increased in popularity since... which brings us to the present dilemma: the current MP servers can't handle the load. Please consider making a donation (no amount too small!) so the narcissism-as-art can continue. And while you're at it, submit a photo. C'mon, you know you've got one.

Mysteries

I love the misuse of the quotation marks on the hand-written sign: http://www.cbc.ca/news/sars/index.html (Link courtesy of LaLaLand.)

Do you ever read a blog and assume the gender of the writer (because there is no about page, or because the about page is ambiguous, or because the about page is too hard to find, or because you're too lazy to read the about page), only to find out later that you were wrong? I do.

Stop Blogging Me!

Just read the NYT article that dooce referred to in her latest post. I asked Al once if he minded that I blogged about our activities, or described conversations we had, or attributed thoughts to him (mostly on "our" site rather than this one). He basically responded that he doesn't necessarily *enjoy* it, but he knows it makes me happy to write about whatever's on my mind, and he's happy that I'm happy. That he tolerates it is all I can ask for.

Wait for It

Why I love dooce. Stick with it til the end (and don't skip anything!): the rambling is totally worth it.

Celebrity in the Hood

My husband is no fan of blogs, blogging, or bloggers. He loves me, of course, but he tries to forget that I blog. Despite this aversion to blogging—and because of the connection I feel to certain bloggers and their chosen subjects, and my penchant for telling him what I read that day—he knows who Mightygirl, Defective Yeti, Chez Miscarriage Woman, and Rittenhouse Guy are.

Ladies and gentlemen, Rittenhouse Guy has moved into the neighborhood. He's literally right around the corner from us. There is a possibility of coffee in our future. I am petrified.

I am petrified of being boring. Of being ill-informed, ill-read, ill-prepared to discuss current events. Of being far more interesting on my website (ha!) than I am in person. Of being judged, as much for what I have as for what I lack. I think this (and the fact that it usually takes a Herculean effort to drag me out of the house for any social event) is what kept me from going to more Girls' Brunch events when I lived in the Bay Area. A Girls' Brunch book-swap/brunch is where I met Maggie, though she probably doesn't remember me; I also met a bunch of other cool women who happen to have blogs at that and another GB event, but instead of really bonding with these women and developing real-life friendships, I felt like the least-cool person in the room both times and just sort of slunk away.

So, I am petrified. I'm looking forward to meeting Rittenhouse Guy, of course, since he's the source of most of my Philadelphia knowledge (I started reading his blog in preparation for the move), but I also harbor a secret wish to remain anonymous behind my keyboard. Given that he's likely to be out on his front steps smoking a cigarette someday as I pass on my way to the library or to Whole Foods, a meeting seems inevitable. I just hope he doesn't think I'm a dork.

My husband, meanwhile, is a little unnerved. The only thing that could possibly be weirder is if dooce moved in next door.

I Met Rittenhouse Guy!

Just realized I left this on Draft rather than Publish, which is why it's showing up suddenly between the pink ribbon post and the one on the vice presidential debate...

This morning I got over my in-person shyness (I'm fine over e-mail, but dialing telephones and meeting people in person sometimes scare the shit out of me) and actually called my new neighbor Jim Capozzolla, of the Rittenhouse Review. Of course, I then went on to embarrass myself completely by ordering a drink that made even the cashier at Startbucks shake her head and laugh (a decaf grande 2-pump 2% mocha, for the record; I like chocolate with my coffee, but not sugar, so I try to split the difference by asking for less than half the usual amount of chocolate syrup). Jim went with a much more straightforward large drip coffee.

We then found a spot near the window and talked about everything from books, politics, and living in Philadelphia to our families, significant others, and employment histories (and several topics in between). It was a pretty wide-ranging conversation, now that I think of it; at the time, I just enjoyed it. So often we feel like we know people because we read their blogs—and actually, I think having read each other's blogs did make it easier to jump into a conversation in mid-stream rather than starting from scratch—but meeting someone in person is an altogether different thing. In this case, a very pleasant thing.

In short: tasty coffee, tasty pastries, tasty conversation. I'll be getting out from behind my keyboard to knock on Jim's door again soon. (And next time, I hope I get to meet Mildred!)

The Picture of Autumn

This fabulous photo from CuriousLee totally deserves a trackback ping.

It's Fewer, I Know

Not that anyone ever reads it (except you, Hoche!), but I've finally converted the 255 Characters or Less blog to Movable Type—which means I can update it with random small thoughts again. (It used to be in Blogger, and the fact that my server supports neither FTP nor SFTP prevented me from updating it regularly since I had to add entries by hand.)

Miscellany

A few random items:

• dj blurb opened up comments on his endorsement post, and I loved reading all most of the different points of view. (Most—but not all—commenters support Kerry, but whom each person supports not as interesting as why.)
• Al and I start childbirth classes tonight. This week's pregnancy newsletter from ParentsPlace.com seemed to suggest that I'd be nervous about the birth by now, but for some reason I'm not.
• I am loving The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. Fascinating book that is helping me make the distinction between Bush and his inner circle and other, honest Republicans whose views simply differ from mine (or don't, actually). I've been reading huge sections of it out loud to Al, a sure sign that it's a life-changing read (similar to And the Band Played On and Nickel and Dimed).
• I am not a designer. So sue me.
• As promised, I converted the all hallows eve blog (and its archives) to Movable Type last night. I can't wait until Sunday!
• I'm making headway (literally) on my Patrick costume; I got his eyes, eyebrows, and mouth done last night, and I'm looking less like a klansman. This afternoon's project: painting purple flowers on his bermuda shorts (actually a pair of green Gap Body sweatpants, pinned up a few inches).
• Warning: There will be another post about Annie later today. With photographs.
• Today is my 36th birthday. And I feel fine.

Get Outta My Dreams (and Into My Blog)

Last night I had my third dream about Dooce. In addition to the girls' night out dream I had a couple weeks ago, I have also dreamed:

• That my friend Heather introduced me to Dooce, and Dooce replied, "are you the one who sends me all those dorky e-mails?"
• That Dooce, Jon, and I were nightclub-hopping in Minneapolis (how we came to be there I don't know, since the Armstrongs live in Salt Lake City and I live in Philadelphia, but it was definitely Minneapolis). As we ran from club to club, Jon and I talked about him helping me with a project I'm going to be doing that involves XML and XSL. I worried that Jon seemed to want to take over the whole project (I wanted to do most of the work myself), and that I was going to catch some nasty disease from running barefoot through Minneapolis' garbage-strewn and sludge-covered alleys.

For the record:

• I am a dork.
• I will be working on a project that involves XML and XSL soon, but as he doesn't know who the hell I am (and because I think I have the situation well in hand), I won't be asking Jon for help. I will be asking my mom to help me watch the baby, however.
• I have been to Minneapolis several times, and I have never even seen an alley there, much less a sludge-covered one.
• What happened to my shoes, I have no idea.

The Gates Are Up

Christo's Gates may have come down in Central Park, but I've put the photos we took of them up at ~ lori and al ~.

Looby, Shattered

While vacuuming the kitchen this morning, I got the cord to the vacuum wrapped around my Loobylu mug and yanked it to the hard, tile floor. Needless to say, it shattered. :(

The mug had been fading for months, thanks to our overzealous dishwasher, but I was still very much attached to this mug. It captured a moment in time, a moment when I was just starting to read other blogs. Loobylu was among the first of my daily reads.

I know I can get another Looby mug, but it won't be the same. Looby looks different now, and I don't think this design is available anymore. <sigh> At least I'll have the memory of my last mug of tea with Looby, and of Austen reaching for it with both hands, raising it to his mouth, and making what he thought was the same sucking motion I was making at the rim.

Wouldn't You Like to Be a Number Too?

On Babysitters, Blogging, and A Hard Day's Work

This whole nanny blog thing just creeps me out. (The nanny in question's actual blog is here.) Possibly because I had a dodgy babysitter experience; possibly because another potential babysitter happened to include her blog link in e-mail correspondence, and I had to fight not to be unnerved by what I read; or possibly because I myself am a regular blogger (and I've posted about the vomitous feeling the dodgy babysitter inspired), I've been thinking a lot about the article and the response over the past couple hours.

There are many things to be creeped out about in Helaine Olen's piece, but the three I find most creepy are (a) that Olen read the nanny's blog so obsessively, (b) that she doesn't seem to see the hypocrisy in writing about her experience—hyperbolically and occasionally libelously—in the New York Times, and (c) that the straw that broke the camel's back—the thing that led to the nanny's firing—was that the nanny considered watching Olen's children "work". Um, I've got news for you: caring for children *IS* WORK.

I know that some families want a babysitter/nanny "who'll be part of the family," as one of our current sitter's references put it, but the fact is that you are PAYING this person to watch your kids. (Incidentally, we weren't looking for someone to be part of our family, though I can totally see how our sitter would fit that bill if we were.) This person may love your children and treat them as if they were her own, but she's not your mother or your sister or your aunt. She's trying to earn a living watching your kids, not doing you a favor.

Watching kids is hard. Keeping them entertained, interested, fed, changed, and generally cared for requires patience, imagination, strength, and stamina. How do I know? Because when our sitter isn't here, it's what I do—and it's at least as challenging as the software engineering that I do when the sitter *is* here. It's actually surprising to me that babysitters don't charge more per hour for all this effort. When I first talked to my friend Jean about how to go about hiring a sitter, she mentioned that the going rate in San Francisco was $50/hour. This would have been tough for me to manage, but honestly, it wasn't completely shocking. I was prepared for anything. It was only when Jean mentioned that some nannies charge $20/hour for two children that I realized she'd said $15 for one, not $50.

Would I want my babysitter to blog about us? Well, probably not. But if it were really important to me, I'd probably make it a stipulation of employment: no blogging about this job. I think I'd feel somewhat hypocritical doing it, however, given that I write about so much of what's going on in our lives here, so I've never made such a request. (I did request that the former babysitter not post photos of Austen on her site, however.) As for blogging in general, what our babysitter does on her own time is her business; I'm actually more comfortable not knowing all the details of her life, so if she had a blog, I wouldn't seek it out anyway. I know enough to feel that Austen's safe and well-cared for in her company, and I see evidence of her common sense, good judgement, and strong work ethic on a daily basis. Anything else I need to know, I'll ask her. And as long as she never lies to me, tries to pass off complaining as conversation, or asks me to write her another check because she misplaced the one I wrote her yesterday, I'll never vomit on her—in person, online, or in print.

I Need an Editorial Calendar

I have so many things I want to blog about that there's a sort of logjam in my brain. It's kind of like how when I have a ton of things to do, I often get completely overwhelmed with the length of my To Do list and end up doing nothing. In college I combatted this tendency to become overwhelmed and just go back to bed by scheduling my days in 15-minute increments so I could see that it was technically possible to get through my To Do list in a single day. Usually I'd only get through 70-80% of it, but hey, that's better than 0%.

The blog version of the schedule in 15-minute increments would probably be an editorial calendar. I guess I have something like an editorial calendar already, in the form of keywords scribbled on hotel stationery (for example, "40 y-o virgin", "stout at Legal", "no 2T at MIT", and three pages' worth of additional notes on Austen's 9-month milestones, written when he was napping and I could find nothing in the room to read except the TV Guide) and in the little spiral notebooks I've sprinkled around the house with CAR, NIGHTSTAND, DIAPER BAG, and STROLLER scrawled in black Sharpie on their covers.

The problem is that not everything that's interesting at the time is blogworthy when I get in front of the computer, or worse, it becomes less blogworthy over time—when I procrastinate so long that the window of opportunity to write on a topic closes. What I should probably do tomorrow (ha!) is write one bullet-point post that briefly explains all the keywords I've scribbled on pieces of paper over the past two weeks, and then move on. If the next post you see here is entitled Impressed With the Breast, then you'll know that I was overcome with laziness (or overwhelmed by the length of the keyword list) and didn't do it, because Impressed With the Breast is the next topic on the editorial calendar I've been formulating in my brain as I write this.

In the meantime, if you've been coming here looking for new posts and have been shocked and apalled that there haven't been any in two weeks, allow me to direct you to my Flickr photostream, which I've been updating with photos from our trip to Boston last week as well as other adventures (the latest three photos are what appear in the three squares on the front page of this blog); the ice hockey escapades, where after listening to the nagging of my teammates I finally got around to posting news from the four most recent games I played in; and about town II, where I've recently posted some shots taken during a family walk at sunset. Oh, and here's a recent photo of Austen, who is now "furniture surfing," as one of Al's work colleagues calls it (you can also see our new, child-friendly cube ottomans to Austen's right, which we picked up on Saturday):

Bottom Feeder

So Derek had an interesting post on his site recently about the importance of putting something at the bottom of your pages to reward those dedicated souls who actually read all the way down. I hadn't thought specifically of adding the kind of bottom navigation/highlights section that Derek does, but I did give some consideration to those who read down when I redesigned my site recently. It's why the archives are listed near the bottom of the sidebar (so when you're done reading the most recent entries, you can explore the older ones if you want), and why I've always had previous and next navigation at the bottom as well as the top of my archive pages. Derek's really onto something, though, when he talks in terms of rewarding dedicated readers rather than punishing them. It makes me want to add more goodies down below.

On a related note... Ever heard the expression "above the fold"? Of course you have—and you don't even have to be a newspaper journalist to know what it means. The term is used all the time in web design circles, even though there's no "fold" on a web page. Conventional wisdom says that if you want a site visitor to see something, it has to be "above the fold"—or visible in the browser window at the default size. (Whether this is 600 pixels high, 724 pixels high, or more is up for debate.) Common sense will tell you, however, that if something worth reading starts above the fold and then continues below it, the reader will scroll down.

Stats bear this out, too. A colleague of my husband's told him recently that at his last company, all the research they did on clickthroughs showed virtually no difference between items placed above the fold and those placed below. Even folks who don't follow the text of an article below the fold are willing to scroll to find what they're looking for.

My blogging time is limited these days, so I don't have an opportunity at the moment to explore these ideas further, but allow me to summarize: At the very least, it's a good idea to give people who scroll down the same navigation options you give people who don't. And if you can, give those dedicated readers/explorers even more: ways to dig deeper, to explore further, to get somewhere worth going.

Good Plan

I'm going to try this: Instead of writing in the little book beside my bed each night what we did that day, I'm going to write what we did tomorrow!

Gratuitous Site Plug

I almost called this a gratuitous baby photo post (a phrase stolen from ratphooey), but really it's more of a gratuitous site plug that just happens to be on a baby.

Looking at the Logs

I'm finding a lot of hilarious (and not-so-hilarious) stuff in my referrer logs. It turns out like a third of my traffic is from people linking directly to the Red Sox logo (and by directly, I mean including the actual image in their pages with an http link, not linking to the post), which irritated me enough to turn off hotlinking of images. Let me know if this interferes with your ability to see any images in their proper context.

Among the hilarious stuff was this entry on hairfinder.com (yes, it's true: everything you ever wanted to know *is* on the web):

Avocado - hairstyle change
The hair cuts of a young lady. Browse through her many webcam images and see her evolution from mid-length to really short punky hair in daring colors like purple and pink.

For some reason they link to the third page of the Gallery of Silly Faces (aka the webcam archives) instead of to the intro page; I should probably put a link back to the intro so that visitors from hairfinder can find their way around.

An Interesting Idea From Derek

I love visiting Derek's site because in addition to great writing, great photographs, and great links, This Is Powazek is also full of great ideas. Today's interesting idea: create a mosaic of photos from your Flickr stream (or your favorites list, or any other photos on the web). I've used Picasa2's Collage feature to create mosaics before (most notably the one commemorating Austen's first year), so the mosaic part isn't the great idea. It's that Derek chose to make a mosaic of the top 20 photos from his Flickr stream, as determined by the number of people "favoriting" them.

This seemed like a really interesting idea—one so interesting that I decided to create a mosaic of my most interesting photos of 2005. "Interestingness" takes account of a bunch of factors, not just whether someone has clicked the Favorite button. (While I do have 20 photos in my Flickr stream that people have marked favorites, I don't have the kind of traffic Derek does—and thus "most-favorited" seems a vast overstatement.) The photo of Austen watching Valerie play the violin, for example, is #17 among my most interesting photos even though no one has marked it a favorite. (How no one could mark this a favorite I'll never understand, since it's definitely one of mine.) The fact that small audience is my most-viewed photo certainly is a contributing factor to its interestingness, but it can't be the only one; none of my other top 20 most-viewed photos made the top 20 most interesting.

So anyway, here's to interestingness—and to being more interesting in 2006.

Tag Me! Tag Me!

OK, so here's where I admit that I occasionally do wish that I were one of the Cool Kids. Most of the time I'm like, "yeah, I know the cool kids, but I don't hang out with them. Because, you know, I've got my own stuff to do," but lately several of my favorite blogs have all been doing the Four Things Meme, and I confess I was feeling a little left out. Although no one's technically tagged me, and I can't pretend that I never do memes (because why would you do that?), I'm going to pretend that John tagged me because I'm listed among the four blogs he's following. Thanks, John, for making me feel cool.

Four jobs I've had

1. Temp, Executive Office of the President
2. Research Assistant, The World Bank
3. Webmaster, Mecklermedia
4. Senior Developer Support Engineer, Macromedia

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. A Letter to Three Wives
2. Christmas in Connecticut
3. Wife vs. Secretary
4. The Shawshank Redemption

Four places I've lived

1. Athens, GA
2. Arlington, VA
3. Norwalk, CT
4. San Francisco, CA

Four TV shows I love

1. Veronica Mars
2. Entourage
3. My Name is Earl
4. Flip This House

Four places I've vacationed

1. The Wicklow Way, Ireland
2. Kapalua, Maui
3. New Orleans, Louisiana
4. Auckland, New Zealand

Four of my favorite dishes

1. Bulldog tofu
2. Homemade frittata with potatoes, scallions, red peppers, and a mix of boursin and cream cheeses
3. Mutter paneer
4. Spicy tuna rolls with mango and black sesame seeds (ONLY IF the spicy sauce is made with mayonnaise)

Four sites I visit daily

1. Google
2. Flickr
3. ratphooey
4. Val's wicked cool blog

Four places I'd rather be right now

1. Snuggling my poor, sick husband
2. In Portland with Val
3. Anywhere with Kristin
4. Pushing Austen around San Francisco

Four people I'm tagging
(I have to say this is the hardest category, since practically everyone I know and read has already been tagged, some of them months ago...)

1. Val
2. nj
3. Shuna
4. foggyknit

Requiring E-mail Addresses From Commenters

I've re-enabled the option to require valid e-mail addresses from commenters, so if you've already been approved as a commenter via TypeKey but haven't provided an e-mail address, you may be asked to enter one.

Why am I doing this? Honestly, it isn't to prevent comment spam (or to invite it for those ponying up e-mail addresses); rather, it's because I often like to respond personally to commenters, and it drives me nuts to write a long response only to find that I'm replying to myself.

Of course, if turning this option on makes things go horribly, horribly wrong, I'll probably turn it back off again. <sigh>

Trixie Tracker!

It's kinda too late for Austen (although the sleep telemetry might still be interesting), but the Trixie Tracker has FINALLY launched. If you're about to have a baby and you're (a) anal, (b) technophilic, (c) a fan of Edward Tufte, or (d) all of the above, get yourself over there and sign up. It's way better than writing everything on little index cards!

*Seriously, Benmac has totally outdone himself. The long wait was worth it.

Unscrewy

It's been a busy week here, both workwise and familywise; I can barely keep up with my personal e-mail, and I obviously haven't had time to write here. If I owe you an e-mail response, please sit tight (or send me a reminder). I'm going to use the time I would have otherwise spent on answering an e-mail or two to give an update here before I forget all the things I wanted to say. Be warned: this is going to be a really random post.

[Oh FART! I just realized that I blew by the 17 month milestone. Geez, that's twice in a row! I'm not sure I'm going to bother writing one, since I've posted about a lot of the stuff that's happened this month already, and I was planning to mention a couple more things in this post anyway.]

For probably the past 15 years or so, I've coveted the non-childproof caps on prescription bottles. The child-proof ones are often impossible to open, and it seemed silly for someone who didn't have—or want—children to have them. They're the default, however; you have to ask for non-childproof caps, and even sometimes when you ask you don't get one. The pharmacists are just too used to reaching for the childproof ones, I suspect.

Weirdly, I continued to covet the non-childproof caps even after Austen was born. At first, it didn't even occur to me that I might actually need childproof caps now, and then when it dawned on me that, hey! I have a child!, I rationalized that Austen couldn't even crawl yet. He wasn't about to go messing in my nightstand without my knowledge. Of course, all that's changed now; Austen's perfectly mobile, very nosy, and excellent at unscrewing caps. When my latest supplies of Zyrtec and Levothyroxin arrived a while back with childproof caps on them, however, I still felt a pang of annoyance: why had I not remembered to ask for non-childproof ones?

As it turns out, the "childproof" caps on the bottles that Caremark sends aren't particularly childproof anyway, unless you make sure to screw the cap on very tightly and then check to make sure it's secure with a counter-clockwise twist. (They're also far too large for the amount of medicine in them, which seems like a waste.) Austen has gotten the top off the Levothyroxin bottle several times, which usually means several minutes of me scrounging around on the floor and reaching under the bed and nighstand to fish out tiny green pills. Thank goodness Austen hasn't shown any interest in eating the things as of yet. He's more concerned about why his shaker isn't working.

Last Saturday, as we were getting ready to head down to Al's parents' house, Austen brought his stepstool into the bathroom, where I stood in front of the sink brushing my teeth. Instead of plopping the stool in front of the toilet, he tried to bump me out of the way so he could put it in front of the sink. I finished unscrewing the head off the electric toothbrush and then moved out of the way. As Austen climbed onto the stool, I said, "do you want to brush your teeth?" He nodded, so I got out his little kid toothbrush and put some training toothpaste on it. He shook his head no and did the reach-and-whine for my toothbrush head. "You want to use Mommy's toothbrush?" I asked. He nodded, so I handed it to him. He stuck it in his mouth and went, "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". Apparently he thinks *I* make that buzzing sound when I brush my teeth.

Austen has become enamored of late with reaching his hand back as far as he can and then bringing his palm to my chest. He knows he's hitting me, and I always tell him rather sharply "you do NOT hit Mommy." If I see him winding up, I'll grab his arm and tell him NO. Whether he gets the first whack in or not, after the reprimand he tries to push it a little by patting me a little roughly on the chest. It's not really hitting, but sometimes I give him the evil eye or another reprimand to let him know it's pretty darn close. Unfortunately, I didn't see him wind up when we were celebrating Al's dad's birthday at Woo Lae Oak on Saturday, and this time he slapped me in the face, hard enough to leave a red mark on my cheek (not to mention knock my glasses askew). Obviously we were out in public, and I have no desire to spank Austen, but there was definitely a grab of both of his hands and a dangerous growl in my voice when I told him that he was NEVER EVER, EVER TO DO THAT AGAIN.

On a related note, while I had already picked out a specific chair in our house to be used as a Naughty Chair, I had hoped we wouldn't be needing it until Austen was old enough to sit still and not try to climb out of it. Now I'm thinking that we may need to rig a child-proof seatbelt on the thing.

Austen and I are both sick again with sinus infections. I'd finally gotten rid of the last of the green goo from the one I caught in San Francisco in March (yes, it took four weeks!) when this one struck on Sunday morning. I suspect the Spring allergens are partly to blame for inflaming my entire respiratory system, and I also suspect that Austen has allergies, too. The doctor says he's too young to have seasonal allergies, but he shows all the signs: red, itchy eyes; sneezing; and numerous respiratory infections.

I finally pulled the trigger and registered for BlogHer. I waffled for a long time about whether I really wanted to go, especially since I'll probably end up standing in a corner and not socializing anyway, but I figured that it would be useful for a project my team is working on even if I didn't actually walk up to Eden and say, "hi, I'm the nut who sent you Prep; thanks for sending The Curious Dog in return." (I recommend both books, btw; writing reviews of them is yet another thing I haven't had time for lately.)

I'm going to fly out to SFO on Thursday July 27th and spend the day in the office, and then I'll head down to San Jose for the conference. I should be at the hotel sometime Thursday night. Sadly, I couldn't extend my trip—Austen, Hannah, and Al are all staying in Philly—so I'll be leaving from SJC early Sunday morning. If you'll be at BlogHer, too, come say hi. I'll be the one standing in the corner, being antisocial.

BlogHer Panic Sets In

As I was getting dressed for my walk this morning, it occurred to me that BlogHer is only three weekends away... and I totally panicked. My first thought was, "I DON'T WANT TO GO," and then the following internal conversation ensued:

me: You do too want to go.
me: No, really, I don't. We just got back from Maine! That's enough traveling.
me: You're just chicken. You don't want to meet new people, you big pussy.
me: It's true, I'm chicken. I don't want to meet new people. I like the people I already know just fine; why complicate things? I object to the 'pussy' characterization, however.

I'm sure I'm not the only introvert who signed up for BlogHer in a moment of self-delusion. There are probably plenty of women who feel very confident when they're writing from behind a computer screen, plenty of women who feel like they know the bloggers whose names they regularly drop in conversation ("Mrs. Kennedy had this really interesting post on sugar the other day... Alice—you know, Finslippy—had a nightmare experience with her babysitter that totally brought back bad memories...Oh, no! Mainely Madge isn't going to make it to BlogHer!..."), plenty of women who feel that blogs and blogging have saved their lives, plenty of women who are now scared shitless that no one will really like the not-as-funny, not-as-skinny, not-as-hip, not-as-connected, not-as-extroverted, and still-somewhat-acne-prone real person behind the keyboard. In fact, we might actually outnumber the blog celebrities at the conference. We'll probably never know the power of our numbers, however, because we'll each be hiding behind a different potted plant.

Busy Weekend Update Coming

I wish Mondays weren't my short days (Hannah's here from 8am-3pm, and then I work again for a couple hours after Al gets home at 6pm) because inevitably I have weekend news to share, and no time to blog. Hopefully I'll hit a good breaking point at bathtime and use the time between when Austen goes to sleep and I do to blog instead of work.

Short synopsis: On Saturday I got a new haircut, and we went to our first Rock 'n Romp afterwards in Baltimore. On Sunday Austen and I spent the day riding the subway, learning to share at the playground, eating pizza, and walking around NYC with Tris and Henry. Tons of photos and a few stories to come, hopefully tonight!

BlogHer Day 0

OK, I'm sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt San Jose, and there are women with laptops EVERYWHERE. And women eating. And women drinking. And women laughing. This woman is reading her e-mail and trying to decide if the nausea means I should eat something or that I'm just freaking EXHAUSTED. Probably both. I'm seriously fading, folks. The only reason I'm in the lobby is for wireless access, and so the room has time to cool down (the A/C wasn't on when I arrived). OK, a few more e-mails to read, and then I eat. Or sleep. Whichever comes first.

Snarfle

OK, it's almost 9pm, and I'm eating a room service caesar salad with shrimp. I'm stil exhausted, but I can now confirm that the nausea and headache were mostly due to hunger. The reason for having to re-type that last sentence four times? THAT'S due to the exhaustion.

I know nobody cares what I had for lunch dinner, but here it is anyway

The hotel room is fine, if a little dated/shabby. I can't decide if they're going for colonial, western rustic, or antique chic.

A $3.00 charge will be added to your bill upon consumption. Enjoy!
(Notice the layer of dust on the left bottle.)

I'll be carrying the Mac around with me tomorrow and seeing how it works as an actual laptop rather than a source-code building workhorse. I've already had reason to be glad I brought it: At 3:45pm my time (6:45pm EDT), Austen, Al and I experienced our first video iChat. Al hooked up the iSight to the Mac mini, and I used the one built-in to the MacBook, and we could see and hear each other so well it was like we were in the same room. Several of my co-workers came over to wave at the camera and see Austen in person—suddenly all the recent photos I loaded onto the Mac in case anyone asked what he looked like seem so irrelevant—and Austen and I clapped and pointed and laughed and smooched. His laugh came through loud and clear, and it was so nice to share his normal personality with my colleagues (last time he visited the office he'd just woken from a nap and wouldn't stop crying).

The main reason I brought the Mac was so I could verify builds before checking in, of course, but it'll also be handy for downloading BlogHer photos (iPhoto will do the trick just fine, no proprietary camera software necessary), taking fun PhotoBooth shots, and now that I've had a taste of heaven and know what I've been missing, video chatting with Austen. I can't wait to wave at him again tomorrow!

Whew, I May Have Reached My Daily Socializing Limit

I don't know how I'm going to make it to the cocktail party. I've spoken to about a dozen women so far (I know, I know—I haven't even made a dent, given that there are about 750 women here), and I'm already running out of steam. Mrs. Kennedy is sitting here with me now, listening to the podcasting presentation, but we're both mostly blogging and having a bit of quiet time. I'm finding that I don't want to have to think about things to say anymore.

Time to Rally

I rallied for a little bit during the Q & A part of the podcast session to chat with Mrs. Kennedy about ice hockey and haircuts and our living/working arrangements, but now I'm taking a break in my room. I'm hoping that Al and Austen get back from the King of Pizza in the next 10 minutes, so I'll have time to video chat with them before going to the Design/Style/Customization session at 5:15.

I'm also hoping that this little break will get me psyched for more schmoozing. If only I could nap and video chat at the same time! Actually, I probably could; all I'd have to do is leave the laptop on and let Austen watch me sleep. Of course, then I wouldn't see him.... Well, fart.

By the way, I'm tagging all my BlogHer photos with both blogher and blogher06, so if you search by tag you'll see the latest. The last couple sessions were fairly dimly lit, so I didn't get much worth seeing, but hopefully—if I rally successfully—I'll get some shots from the cocktail party by the pool.

Yeah, So, Day 2

I realized that I haven't blogged at all today, which is probably a good sign—it means that I'm actually out socializing and interacting and watching presentations rather than hiding behind my computer. This is really the first session that I've felt like I could listen partway while blogging at the same time.

I had a pretty nice time at the cocktail party last night, talking with old friends and making new ones. (For those of you who read about my anxiety over whether or not to drink, I ended up having half a glass of wine, followed by a glass of milk.) I also ended up staying up a bit too late, but whatever, I enjoyed all the conversation and I'm not sleeping well right now anyway.

This morning I'd intended to go to the Mommy Blogging session, even though that term is making me increasingly nauseous, but just as it was getting started Al called. I made my way outside to take the call, and when I poked my head back into the room afterwards, it was completely full. I figured I'd go see Maggie's session on Is the Next Martha Stewart a Blogger?, and boy, did that turn out to be cool. Maggie, who was moderating, made some fabulous points, as did the panelists. Maggie's got an idea that women need to talk more about money—how much they make, how much they charge for their services, how much they pay for help, etc.—and I really think she's right. So many women give their talents away for free because they either don't know what to charge or don't think their services are worth charging for. If we get together and talk about these things, we gain leverage. Think about it, my fellow women.

After Maggie I had lunch with Jeanne and Suzanne and met Suebob from red stapler, and then Jeanne and I flipped a coin to decide whether to go to From Here to Autonomy or Let's Talk About Sex. It was heads, so we went to From Here to Autonomy. We were sitting in the back, so it took me a minute to realize that one of the speakers was the Arieanna that I'd met at yesterday's keynote. When she explained that she had 17 blogs, including ones for Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff—both of whom she apparently hates—I realized why I might have detected a wry little twist of the eyebrow from her yesterday when it was clear that I'd never heard of her before.

We both rather enjoyed the session, especially Heather Armstrong's part, but we ended up leaving about 15 minutes early because the room got so freaking hot. Instead we risked getting serious sunburns by sitting by the pool and sticking our feet in the water.

Is it time for cocktails yet?

Eventually, There Will Be an Update

Hi, yes, I'm back from BlogHer (after a few flight delays in Denver that caused me to miss saying goodnight to Austen), and I hope to write up a postmortem in the next couple days. Austen also turned 20 months yesterday, so I need to summarize the past month in parenthood as well. Luckily, I've already sort of done all the photo bits with my recap of our busy pre-BlogHer weekend, so I'll just need to review the developmental milestones. (Which reminds me... weren't we due for another visit with the pediatrician about now?)

Anyway, the updates will be a bit late because I'm (a) trying to get caught up on my buglist after missing a day of work on Friday, (b) sorting through my feelings about BlogHer, and (c) not sure I kept track of any of Austen's developments in the past month. In the meantime, here are my photos from BlogHer:

BlogHer Roundup

I'd really like to be honest about my BlogHer experience, but I think it's also probably wise to be a bit circumspect. I apologize in advance if I hurt anyone's feelings with my honesty or bore anyone to death with my circumspection.

When I first heard about BlogHer in 2005, I was conflicted. On the one hand, I wanted to support women and blogging. On the other hand, it just seemed like it would be a gathering of the popular bloggers we all know and love, and I worried it would just be a love fest among the elite—without any larger implications for women or blogging. I waffled in my conflictedness long enough that registration filled up, and the decision whether to go was taken out of my hands. I think Austen (who, at 7 months, was still nursing) and Al (who's in the "why would you do that?" camp when it comes to blogging) were secretly relieved.

This year I waffled again, though more because the conference had expanded so much rather than because I feared it would be too limited in scope. I knew I wanted to participate this time, but I was a little afraid of ALL THOSE WOMEN, [a] because I'm a bit of an introvert, and [b] because I'm generally not a fan of girls-only anything. In any case, I finally pulled the trigger and registered, and for the most part, I'm glad I did. If I hadn't gone to BlogHer, I probably wouldn't have met Mrs. Kennedy, with whom I'd started to feel I had something in common over the past year. (One thing I didn't realize we had in common until I met her in person: I'm tall, and she's taller.) We happened to meet when I was feeling a little worn out by all the frenzied socializing on the morning of Day One, and the fact that we were able to share a companionable silence at the Podcasting session—the fact that though we weren't talking to each other it felt like we were there together and not just there at the same time—made me like her more than anything else she could have said or done. (We did end up chatting toward the end of the session, and that was lovely, too.)

If I hadn't gone to BlogHer, I definitely wouldn't have met Jeanne, who made me laugh so often and so heartily (and yet without inducing an asthma attack! how did she do that??) that I think she singlehandedly propelled me through Day Two. In addition to being amazingly fun to be around, Jeanne is a voracious reader and prolific writer of amazingly articulate book and movie reviews, so from now on I'm sure never to be without a good book to read. I only wish she lived closer to me (sadly, she's in Seattle), because I would so hang out with her every day if she were nearby.

If I hadn't gone to BlogHer, I also probably would never have crossed paths with Sheryle. I met Sheryle at the cocktail party on Day Two (in other words, a mere hour or so before the end of the conference), when she joined Jane (who's a firecracker in her own right), Jeanne, and me in conversation. It turned out that Jeanne and Sheryle had sat next to one another at an earlier panel (or perhaps at lunch on Day One?), which is how she happened to pick us out at the cocktail party. (So in addition to being great for all the reasons I listed above, Jeanne is also a MAGNET for interesting people.)

Anyway, after listening to Sheryle for a sentence or two and being unable to decide whether her accent was more Georgia or more North Carolina, I split the difference and asked if she was from South Carolina (I figured maybe she was from the Augusta, GA area, which is on the border). She said no, Georgia, but she'd also lived in Virginia, which is probably why I'd had difficulty identifying the accent. At that point Jeanne, Jane, and I got into a frenzied dissection of the origins of various Southern accents ("it was the Irish in Appalachia!" "no, it was the British who colonized Georgia and New England, which is why the Southern and Boston accents are actually pretty similar!"). Sheryle, thank god, only let us go on for about a minute before finding an opening in which to announce, "I should probably confess that I have a Master's in linguistics and dialectology" BEFORE YOU MAKE JACKASSES OF YOURSELVES, she could have added, but didn't.

It occurred to me to mention, since Sheryle was from Georgia, that I had attended the University of Georgia. "In Athens?" asked Sheryle. "Me too!" I replied that I suspected a few years separated our tenures there, at which point Jane's jaw dropped, and she gave me a look like, "I can't believe you just insulted her that way." I read the look correctly and said, "hey, I'm not saying she's OLD. I'm saying that she's probably more than 4 years older than I am, is all." We went on to discover that we'd both been English majors ("Park Hall!") and tried to come up with any professors that we might have had in common. Finally, because I wasn't sure whether Jane had forgiven me the smart-ass "young" person remark, I said, "so what year did you graduate?"

Sheryle laughed and said, "oh, probably before you were born!" I said no, come on, hit me. "1968," she said. Me: "OK, that was the year I was born. See?" I said to Jane, "I wasn't being mean when I suggested that there were a few years between us... though when I said it, I didn't imagine that there were as many as 22!" We all laughed and talked some more about Sheryle's career (she's currently CEO of a company called Quixit), meeting Vince Dooley and other minor celebrities (like, say, Kofi Annan), keeping our brains fit, and where Sheryle gets her hair cut (Ode, in San Francisco).

If I hadn't gone to BlogHer, I wouldn't have had so much time to hang out with Heather, whom I've known for 10 years but whom I rarely get to see. We both lived in the NYC area when we met—at a web conference in Chicago in Feburary 1996—but I moved to San Francisco 6 months later. We taught a couple clases and sat on a couple panels together at various Internet Worlds, but we didn't see each other regularly until Heather moved out to San Francisco herself a couple years later. Then, of course, I met Al, I moved to the boondocks of Mountain View, and then together Al and I moved to Philadelphia, which meant Heather and I were on opposite coasts again. It was so great to catch up and just relax around someone I already knew and felt comfortable around.

I must confess that I went to Heather's session on becoming a better photographer mainly to support Heather, but without seriously expecting to learn anything new (which is not to say that I don't have far, far to go in my photography efforts; I just thought that she couldn't possibly cover anything in depth in an hour). I was surprised and delighted to find that she was able to touch on many useful points, not least of which was how to use the Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop (or Fireworks, which is what I've been using until recently). Who knew that I'd been doing it wrong all these years? Who knew that it was called Unsharp MASK for a reason? I have two words for anyone who, like me, has been unhappy with the results of Sharpen in Photoshop or Fireworks or even with adjusting the Sharpness slider in iPhoto: SELECTIVE SHARPENING. (Apparently this was a revelation for Amy, too, as we looked at each other afterwards and said simultaneously, "OMG, Unsharp MASK? I always sharpened the WHOLE THING!"

OK, now that I've gotten the top 4 reasons I'm glad I went to BlogHer out of the way, a quick summary of other things I liked and didn't like about BlogHer:

The Good
Meeting new people.
The Accessibility portion of the Primp Your Blog session. BEST PRESENTATION EVER.
My new Eggbeater t-shirt (buying it from Shuna was pretty cool, too).
It wasn't all women.
The "All You Need is Love" spontaneous sing-a-long when the sound on the "how has your blog changed your world?" Flash movie failed at the Day Two welcoming session.
Arianna Huffington at the closing keynote. I'd seen her in political debates before, but I wasn't sure she'd have anything relevant to say to a bunch of bloggers. Turned out she did.
The Is the Next Martha Stewart a Blogger? session. This was another session I attended more to support the speakers than because I thought I'd be interested, but it was incredibly interesting and informative. Maybe that should be my strategy next year: Go to the sessions I don't expect to be interested in.
Videochatting with Austen every night (and once during the Art Bloggers session; Mrs. Kennedy gave me a "what the hell are you waving at?" look when I got a little enthusiastic in front of the iSight).
The weather. Oh, how I miss Northern California, with its cool, overcast mornings and its warm, dry afternoons.

The Bad
Meeting new people. OK, this wasn't bad, per se—just so, so overwhelming.
The food: Not enough protein at breakfast or lunch, not enough vegetables at dinner. Also, can we get some sponsors willing to provide real, full-fat, full-taste snacks next year? May I suggest Luna bars?
The water: Now with extra minerals! Yuck! I don't think I've ever been so dehydrated.
The wireless acess. Totally sucked, but not exactly for the reason given; it was more about misconfiguring the servers than about expecting 800 businessment to check e-mail occasionally. The 800 businessmen made for a better story, though.
The snubbing. Luckily this only happened to me once, but it was still a scowl-inducer: She-who-will-not-be-named: "Hey, good to see you here!" Me: "Oh, hi!" SWWNBN (to friend): "I know her because of X." Me: "Yeah, X, that was fun. I really appreciate..." (at this point I kinda trailed off, because SWWNBN turned her back to me in a gesture that unmistakeably meant "I'm done with you now, move along.")
The hot, hot session rooms. The mind, it tends to melt down as the temperature goes up.

The Ugly
The Hyatt San Jose. Dudes, can you say 'maintenance'? My room was apparently in better shape than most, was only shabby and ill-designed rather than in downright disrepair, and luckily, it didn't reek of anything unusual, but I'm with Suzanne's husband in that it was below my usual standards.

The Missed Opportunities
I didn't get to meet Julie.
Although I met Alice, I think I kind of turned her off with my assertion that "80 to 90 percent of the people here are probably introverts." Alice, as an extrovert (surprise!, at least to me), obviously disagreed, and we never really got to explore our differing views further.
There were probably a bazillion other women (and men!) whom I would have really loved to meet / with whom I probably had LOTS in common, but I just couldn't put myself out there any farther. (Or is this another case for further?)

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, as I've obviously been a lot more positive about the whole experience than I thought I'd be when I started writing this, but before I wrap up the roundup, allow me to point you to this interesting post from 2003 on Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality (thanks to Al for IMing it to me, and to Karl Martino for showing it to Al). It directly addresses all the griping about "A-listers" vs. "B-listers" (and "first-generation mommybloggers" vs. "second-generation mommybloggers") that I heard this weekend, and makes me wonder where we'll all be next year, when the size of BlogHer (and the blogging community in general) doubles again.

Edited to add: Following are two pull-quotes from the article to whet your appetite. It's not long, and it's definitely worth reading.

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list, a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world. This complaint follows a common pattern we've seen with MUDs, BBSes, and online communities like Echo and the WELL. A new social system starts, and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems. Then, as the new system grows, problems of scale set in. Not everyone can participate in every conversation. Not everyone gets to be heard. Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us, and so on.

Prior to recent theoretical work on social networks, the usual explanations invoked individual behaviors: some members of the community had sold out, the spirit of the early days was being diluted by the newcomers, et cetera. We now know that these explanations are wrong, or at least beside the point. What matters is this: Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality, and the greater the diversity, the more extreme the inequality.

...

Inequality occurs in large and unconstrained social systems for the same reasons stop-and-go traffic occurs on busy roads, not because it is anyone's goal, but because it is a reliable property that emerges from the normal functioning of the system. The relatively egalitarian distribution of readers in the early years had nothing to do with the nature of weblogs or webloggers. There just weren't enough blogs to have really unequal distributions. Now there are.

Yes, Captain

As a kid, I was NOT a fan of Star Trek. I WAS a fan of Star Wars, and it used to bug me royally when people would confuse the two or mistake me for a Trekkie. After I married Al, however, Star Trek started to grow on me a little. It's still probably not a show I'd ever watch on my own, but I enjoy watching it with Al, who explains all the relationships between the characters and the significance of the plots, the gadgets, and the locations to me as we're watching. I like that he likes it, and that I can understand each episode without having to watch every other episode. His enthusiasm for it is contagious, at least for the duration of an episode.

So all that's by way of saying, if I'd come across this quiz on ratphooey's blog before I met Al, I would have just moved on to the next blog in my RSS reader. But because I read it today, after almost 4 years of marriage to Al and a good number of Star Trek episodes from each generation, I clicked the link to take the quiz. Here are the results:

Interestingly, the first time I took it, it came up as a tie between completely expendable redshirt guy and Jean Luc Picard, but for some reason redshirt trumped Picard, and I only got to see the description of Mr. Expendable. After reading the description, however, I figured out which factor to adjust*, and I knocked it down a notch to get the Picard description, which actually sounds a bit more like me. :)

*I'd put ABSOLUTELY YES for "Do you often go unnoticed?", which was probably a stretch. My reason for doing so was that people often bump into me—physically bump into me—and then seem startled, like they hadn't seen me walking down the street toward them until they ran right into me. However, I think it's not an ABSOLUTELY YES situation, since there are probably ten times as many people who *do* notice me as who slam into me as if I were invisible. Thus I think the Picard designation is probably the right one, and Expendable Guy probably shouldn't even be ranked as high as he is.

Networking

I still haven't made my way to the sites of all the women I met at BlogHer, partly because my blog-reading time is limited by work and family obligations, and partly because as I read each woman's site, I end up getting sidetracked by her archives and photos and links to other sites. I'm finding myself down fascinating side roads this way.

Today I finally made it to Ariel's site and discovered that [a] she's probably the reason one of my Flickr photos has over 600 views, about 6 times more than the rest of my "popular" photos, and [b] she came up with a great way to share details from all the interesting conversations she had at BlogHer without violating any confidences. Check out BlogHer, The game!.

Yes, Siree

Suddenly it's clear to me why grocery-store checkers say, "thank you, sir" when handing me my receipt. I can't blame ratphooey for my haircut or my bone structure, but I *can* blame her for linking to this:

Also, do you think it's just a coincidence that Patrick Stewart is in my celebrity look-alike array?

NaBloPoMo

Ok, don't laugh, but I've finally signed up to participate in NaBloPoMo (nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?). The reason I procrastinated for so long is that I wasn't sure I'd really be able to keep up the pace of 1 blog entry per day. Well, actually, that's not quite right. What I'm most worried about is being able to post every day here on avocado8 while also posting at least weekly on my hockey blog (I'm playing for a local women's team this season) *and* keeping my Flickr photostream up to date. Oh, yeah, and doing the job I'm paid to do during the day.

See? I'm already feeling overwhelmed again. The good news is that through Mrs. Kennedy's blog post about NaBloPoMo, I discovered dinky, who psyched herself up for a month of posting by formulating a plan—an editorial calendar, if you will. (Hmmm, seems to me that I mentioned months ago that I needed an editorial calendar, didn't I?) Well, here's my plan:

1. This post right here (it counts!)
2. Halloween
3. The Beaner's 3-days-overdue 23-month update.
4. That post about The Devil Wears Prada that I keep meaning to write.
5. A review of my new Fujifilm FinePix F30
6. Recipe of the week [I love this idea, because it can be repeated at least 4 times!]
7. Election day rants and endorsements
8. Book review of whatever was most interesting among my recent readings.
9. A review of a Philadelphia restaurant, park, or attraction.
10. Funny photo with caption/story.
11. ...

This does not bode well.

Maybe She's Born With It

As I suspected would happen, I'm actually finding it harder to blog on the weekend, when I theoretically have no other obligations, than I do during the work week, when I'm supposed to be, well, working. I can think of plenty of things to write about on the weekends, but finding the time to actually write about them is difficult because I'm on parent duty, and I don't want to be too selfish with my personal time. I already take advantage of Al's goodwill by baking, cleaning, reading, or running quick errands whenever I can on weekends. At the moment we're all in the basement, watching Kipper the Dog and other PBS Kids Sprout shows On Demand while The Beaner plays at our feet. Earlier today we walked to Reading Terminal Market and then did some shopping on Walnut Street together; while we walked, I composed the review of my new Fuji Finepix F30 in my head and discussed the outline of it with Al. I hope to get that written up tomorrow.

Today my post is about makeup. Because before we left for our walk this morning, I was standing in the bathroom, looking at the array of beauty products jumbled on the counter and wondering if anyone would care which products I used. Two things were running through my head simultaneously: (1) Such a topic sounds more like a LiveJournal meme than one of the writing prompts in Maggie's book (which I admit I've only read bits of; after this idea, it'd probably be a good thing if I won a copy of Maggie's book for participating in NaBloPoMo, and if I don't, I'm going to buy one myself), and (2) I wonder if anyone would still say "albino—needs to wear makeup or something" when I *am* wearing makeup, as happened to me in 11th grade.

So, without further ado, here's what's on my bathroom counter. What's on yours?

1. L'OREAL Visible Lift foundation in Soft Ivory (102).
2. Tea tree oil from Trader Joe's (used on zits).
3. Shiseido eye pencil in purple. I've been using this pencil (well, not this exact one; I've obviously bought replacements every couple years) since my mom got one for me for my birthday when I was in 8th grade.
4. No-name brand eyelash curler. Should have stuck with Revlon.
5. Neutrogena Rapid Clear salicylic acid acne treatment. I hate the smell of this stuff, but it's effective. Neutrogena stopped making the similarly-formulated but fragrance-free—and much larger—Clear Pore gel I used to use, and I'm allergic to benzoyl peroxide, so my options are limited. It royally pisses me off that I still get zits at age 38, especially with combination normal/dry skin.
6. No-name large brush for dusting off extra loose powder.
7. Neutrogena Skinclearing oil-free concealer. Another zit-fighter. It works to conceal zits for a couple days, and then my skin dries out so badly that it peels, and I'm left with a red mark that I can't quite cover up properly (though I try with #17).
8. Maybelline Expertwear eyeshadow in Crown Jewels. I wear eyeshadow probably 4 or 5 days a week; this is my choice about 60% of the time.
9. Maybelline Expertwear eyeshadow in Vanilla. I got this when I saw Carmandy on What Not to Wear repeatedly recommend brushing a sparkly white shadow just under your eyebrows and around your tear ducts to "really open your eyes". I almost never use it. I use the tray of Champagne shadow that's in #21 more often, usually on days when I don't feel like doing my eyes up nicely but don't want to look tired.
10. Maybelline Expertwear eyeshadow in Almond Truffles. This is the neutral shadow I wear 40% of the time that I do up my eyes nicely.
11. Trish McEvoy Sheer Blush 3 from 11 or 12 years ago. My friend Stacia Lynds was a makeup artist working for Trish McEvoy back when we both lived in the Washington, DC area, and I happened to stop in to Nordstrom one day after work when she was there doing makeovers. There was a lull in the foot traffic because it was dinner time, so she asked if she could do me. I said yes. When she was finished I wanted to buy something because she'd spent so much time on my face, so I got the blush she'd used. I wasn't convinced it was the right color for me, however, so I didn't start using it until about 2002, as an experiment. (I'd pretty much gone blushless since high school because everything I tried looked garish on me.) The first day I wore it, two women at work asked me if I'd lost weight because my face looked thinner. I was a devotee from that day forward. As you can see if you look closely, however, it's almost gone.
12. Trish McEvoy blush in Pick Me Up, bought about a month ago to replace the depleting Sheer Blush 3... which sadly (though not surprisingly), Trish doesn't make anymore. Pick Me Up is a little less sheer and a bit pinker, but Al says it looks great on me—very natural.
13. Revlon powder brush, used to apply blush.
14. Maybelline Great Lash mascara in Soft Black. I wear this non-waterproof mascara every few days, whenever I think it's unlikely that I'll cry, get wet, or play hockey.
15. Maybelline Great Lash waterproof mascara in Soft Black. My standard mascara; it's pretty bulletproof, which also means it doesn't come off all the way every night, and tends to accumulate. Hence the application of the non-waterproof variety, or no mascara at all, every few days.
16. L'OREAL Translucide loose powder in Translucent (956).
17. Almay Kinetin undereye concealer, used on zits when #7 causes major peeling. I never use it under my eyes.
18. d:fi pliable molding cream (for my hair). Technically not makeup, I know, but if my husband ever uses this list to determine which items to pack for a surprise weekend away, I want him to include the d:fi.
19. Cover Girl eye pencil in Midnight Black. Used when I'm not feeling the purple, or when I'm really angry. (I tend to go heavy on the eye makeup when I'm angry.)
20. Neutrogena Active Copper 20 SPF moisturizer. On days when I'm too lazy to bother with applying foundation, I'll just mix a bit of foundation in with my moisturizer and distribute as evenly as possible.
21. My makeup travel bag (a quart size Ziploc freezer bag). It's currently holding a small jar of foundation, a small jar of powder, a small Clinique sample jar into which I've put some Neutrogena Active Copper night cream, the Champagne eyeshadow, and a bottle of Optcon allergy eyedrops (never leave home without 'em).

Not pictured: What I take all this crap off with; namely, Olay makeup-removing towelettes and a homemade version of Neutrogena's discontinued alcohol-free toner (I'm allergic to the fragrance in the line that replaced it). My version of the toner is witch hazel with some glycerin, some tea tree oil, a drop of peppermint oil, a drop of rosemary oil, and in winter, a bit of olive oil.

Edited to add: I don't carry a bit of this stuff in my purse, btw. I apply my makeup in the morning and then forget about it. The only makeup-related items you'll find in my purse or pocket are a Natural Ice Original Flavor SPF 15 lip balm and, if I'm going somewhere fancy, a Neutrogena lip gloss in Coy. (I actually have a lip balm in a pocket of every jacket, vest, purse, or bag I own. There's also one in the kitchen, on my desk, in my nightstand, and in the car. I can't live without it.)

Let's Get Ready to Ramble

I actually started working on this post on Monday, but I didn't have enough time to make it coherent that day, and other events caused me to post something else, so decided to post it on Tuesday. On Tuesday I edited and added and tried again to be coherent, but again I ran out of time and other more pressing events were blogged about, so I put it off until Wednesday. On Wednesday... same thing. So here we are on Thursday the 30th and I can just go ahead and delete the original first paragraph that talked about how I was posting these thoughts on a month of posting daily a little early because the 30th was (is) The Beaner's second birthday, and I'd probably be posting about birthday-related stuff on the 30th. (Ha, ha! What was I thinking? Of course I will put all birthday posting off for at least a week, if not a month.) So anyway, I've kinda given up on being coherent. Here are some random/rambly thoughts about the past month of blogging.

Which is worse: All of us posting daily, or only 0.1% of us posting daily?
On Monday one of my work colleagues forwarded an article on Participation Inequality by Jakob Neilsen that included the following tidbit:

There are about 1.1 billion Internet users, yet only 55 million users (5%) have weblogs according to Technorati. Worse, there are only 1.6 million postings per day; because some people post multiple times per day, only 0.1% of users post daily.

This bit seemed relevant to NaBloPoMo, which is all about posting daily. (Aside: I wonder if we will throw off Technorati's numbers for November?) Why is it "worse" that only 0.1% of users post daily? I guess I understand that Neilsen is trying to make a point about participation on the web, and the fact that only 5% of web users blog and only a tiny fraction post daily supports the point that participation on the web is skewed toward a handful of users. But should we all be posting daily? At the end of it all, I think I'm in the "probably not" camp.

On the plus side, writing daily encouraged me to analyze events that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. I often process what's going on around me by writing about it—see six years of hockey blogging, not to mention many of the entries here on avocado8, for evidence of this—so the prompt to write daily has been extremely useful in what's turned out to be a difficult month of parenting. On the minus side, I often rushed to post a filler piece about something that really needed more mulling over just to remain in strict compliance with NaBloPoMo. I guess that's not a huge minus, though, since my normal M.O. would be to scribble some notes on a piece of paper and then not write about the subject at all. There's not much difference between the two, really... and if I post the scribble to my blog, at least I have a record that something happened, even if it's not clear what.

I've got a million of 'em
Despite my nervousness about filling 30 WHOLE DAYS with blog posts, I found I had plenty of things to write about. It's very normal for me to have 2 or 3 blog posts (or rather, potential blog post subjects) knocking around my head at any given time; what usually keeps me from writing daily is a lack of time to fully develop those posts, or a sense that maybe no one else is as fascinated with the topic as I am (although, to be honest, that hasn't stopped me before). I actually wrote two whole posts this month that I discarded completely because when I finished writing, they just sounded... dumb. Boring. Below my usual standard (which isn't even very high). I also posted twice in one day a few times, so in the past 30 days I've written more than 30 posts. There are also a few things that I intended to write about but haven't yet; how is it that I could have a bunch of thoughts about The Devil Wears Prada (both book and movie) sitting in my mental Outbox for nearly six months without writing them down? And hello, I took tons of notes and photos about our dinner at Nobu on the 18th, and I *still* haven't written about it. (That one's easier to explain: the photos are all on the downstairs Mac, and I spend the day upstairs. I've learned to download photos to my work Mac now so I can upload them to Flickr while I'm waiting for builds.) UPDATE SINCE I WROTE THIS ON MONDAY: I totally thought I had this problem solved last night—I uploaded the remaining dinner photos while I was downstairs doing laundry... only to discover that Flickr had timed out, and none of the photos actually made it into my stream. <sigh>

Welcoming positive feedback since 2000
In addition to writing in my own blog (and keeping up with my day job and parenting responsibilities), I tried to keep up my commenting on other blogs this month. I know how much it means to me when someone takes the time to comment on a post I've written, and sometimes a comment can even bring a recommendation or insight that helps break through some of the frustration I've been feeling about some situation or other. For example, Jane happened to use the phrase "getting down on his level" in a comment on the Toddler Time post, and it dawned on me how much The Beaner's 24th month and his 12th have had in common. I need to explore that further; at the moment, it just feels like a light has gone on over my head. (Thanks for that, Jane!)

Er, did I say "positive"?
I started out fairly strong on the commenting front, but over time I found I just didn't have the energy to seek out new blogs after a while... which actually brings me to some thoughts on the wider blogosphere, as well as back to my original question: Should we all be posting daily? I don't know how we'd all keep up with one another if we did... and honestly, I'm also not sure the quality would be sustainable. Since I'm often disappointed when the blogs I read regularly don't update as often as I'd like, I was surprised to find that suddenly some of my favorites weren't my favorites anymore when postings were coming on a daily basis. Mostly this was because the quality of writing just wasn't there anymore. I think I'd rather refresh impatiently for a couple days than read drivel daily, wouldn't you? (And yes, I knowingly posted drivel a couple times myself this month.)

As for the wider blogosphere (or at least that part that participated in NaBloPoMo), at the risk of calling the kettle black when I am most decidedly a pot, I feel compelled to confess that I found few gems whenever I went surfing with the NaBloPoMo Randomizer. For every blog I added to my RSS reader, I hit another 10 or 20 sites that were Not For Me. Some of these were well-written, thoughtful, original sites...on topics I wasn't particularly interested in. Others didn't differentiate themselves in any way (and some even went to so far as to remind me of the time I worked as a student assistant to a Spanish teacher and had to grade 30 papers that all started with the sentence, "As far back as 100,000 years ago, people were living in what is now Spain." After the first four papers, I reported to the teacher that I thought there was some cheating—or at least plagiarism—going on. After the next 20, I faced the fact that these students were just incapable of an original thought, or at least incapable of an original approach to a tired topic). If that sounds incredibly harsh, I don't mean it to be—just as, I'm sure, many of these blog authors never meant for anyone other than close friends or family (if even that small crowd) to read their blogs.

Moving on....
Back to the Neisen article for a second. He writes:

User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.

He goes on to say:

Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1.

It's hard to imagine that my readership extends so far beyond the people who actually comment; I had assumed that about 30% of the people who read my blog comment once in a while, and about 10% comment regularly. (And that may actually be the case, since my blog isn't particularly popular, nor is it the center of an online community.) It may also be the case that my commenters represent 100% of my blog audience, which would probably make Jakob Neilsen happy. I'm not sure active participation by a large percentage of a blog's audience is really necessary, however. Although I enjoy both making and receiving comments, I would write my blog even if I thought no one was reading it, and I get the feeling many others out there feel the same way.

In summary:

• I *like* the current level of participation in the blogosphere, and though I welcome new readers and constructive commenters, I don't plan to seek them out. (I do, however, tend to find RSS reader-worthy kindred spirits from among my commenters, so if you haven't commented yet and think we have something in common, please add your two cents! Chances are I'd enjoy reading your blog.)
• I'm not sure the number of daily posters is a good measure of participation on the web... although I guess it *is* fairly representative of the type of participation found in other online media. There will always be a few people who seem to spend ALL their time online, but honestly, it's the people who have lives outside the computer whose blogs I want to read. And generally, that means waiting a couple days between posts.
• I will probably try to post more regularly, if not exactly daily. If you see drivel posted here after today, it'll be because I couldn't help myself, not because I was forced to post it.
• Goddamn, the world needs more blog template options (and easier ways to change default styles). I actually hit 4 blogs in a row with the exact same Blogger template one day, and I thought the Randomizer was broken. It's bad enough that every blog author thinks she's being original by calling her site "my own little corner of the Internet"; do all the sites have to look identical, too?
• I hope the NaBloPoMo Randomizer or (something like it) stays in business; it's fun to cruise around the web that way, even if all I learn from my travels is that I'm not really missing anything.

And that's the end of that.

Obviously Taking a Break After NaBloPoMo

I didn't actually plan to take a blogging break after NaBloPoMo (I won prize for sticking with it, btw—yay!), but I'm actually on a roll with work at the moment, and I haven't wanted to take time out between snuggle breaks with The Beaner to convert all the notes I have on my desk into blog posts. Sorry about that.

Speaking of work, I found out last night that one of the most senior engineers on the team—and the only one in my time zone—is leaving. I'm sad for the team because he's going to be wicked tough to replace, and I'm sad for myself because it's going to mean three hours every morning when I won't have anyone to ping when I have a question. The odds of finding another engineer like him are low enough, but the odds of finding someone who'll be in my time zone are virtually nonexistant. It's hard to work remotely when you don't know the team or the product well, even if you're a superstar. Heck, it's hard to work remotely when you *do* know the team and the product well.

Oh well, at least my manager—who's also knowledgeable, patient, and willing to help whenever he's not in a meeting—gets up early most days.

Unfortunate

Eden was just talking about the burden of being named Eden, and how her husband trumped her by being named Jack Kennedy. From Fussy I cruised over to the NY Times website, where I happened to find this quote in an article about how circumcision can cut the risk of getting HIV from heterosexual intercourse in half:

Circumcision is “not a magic bullet, but a potentially important intervention,” said Dr. Kevin M. De Cock, director of H.I.V./AIDS for the World Health Organization.

Oh yes. I think we have a winner.

It's Never Too Late for Resolutions

Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself: That just because I've waited until January 4 to make any resolutions at all doesn't make them invalid. Not allowing myself a resolution would sort of be like eating the whole bag of cookies because what the hell? you've already eaten four of them!, only the opposite... or something.

Anyway, is it absolutely crazy of me to resolve to post every day? I feel the same nervousness I did when I signed up for NaBloPoMo, so something tells me that this is indeed crazy, but also the right thing to do. Writing every day was a good thing for me in November; why wouldn't it be in January, February, March, etc.? I might not catch up with all I want to say with this resolution, but at least I will have *some* record of my life in 2007.

Speaking of having a record of my life, I've been uploading a gazillion photos taken over the holiday break to Flickr, with more to come. (Actually, I think I started uploading the ones from New Year's weekend before I finished uploading the Christmas ones, so my photostream will be slightly out of order.) I realized when we were in NYC over the weekend how LONG it's been since I've gone on a photo walk, and how much I've been jonesing for one. I tried to get a few snaps of the city while also documenting The Beaner's adventures with his cousin, aunt, and uncle, and the little I got only made the ache to go on a photo walk stronger.

I can't remember if I mentioned that the two-month period of bliss where The Beaner never woke up before 7:20am has ended; sometime in November we went to an erratic schedule of him waking anywhere between 5:45am and 8:45am (and usually on the earlier end of the scale). It's made getting up for a walk in the morning nigh impossible, but I'm thinking that I'm going to have to come up with a solution to that problem. I NEED my morning walks, dammit, and I think they could be a way to assuage some of the photography jones, too. If I could stay out for an hour, I could get a walk *and* some photos in at least once a week.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites from the NYC photos I've uploaded so far:

And oh! Before I forget: I got one of my most-desired items on my Amazon wishlist from Al for Christmas—namely, the Canon Speedlite 580EX Flash. I didn't use it for any of the NYC photos (too big to carry around when traveling with kids), but I tried it out on Christmas morning, and I'm going to try to practice more with it this week.

The Water Buffalo Story

I want this beautifully-produced video by the brother of a friend makes its way around the Internet, so I'll do my small part to expand its audience. Please go read the story behind the "Four Generations" water buffalo movie, and then watch the video. It's an amazing video, and an even more amazing story.

Two Posts Worth Reading

I have a bunch to write about and hope to have time to do so later today, but for now I wanted to make sure these two posts by other women got a read. (I'm sure they will, since both blogs are far more widely read than mine, but in case you missed them...)

Stand-Off at Starbucks by Mom 101

The lie. by Alice of Finslippy

Both describe the crap that we as women put ourselves through. Why do we do this to ourselves and each other? It's a phenomenon I noticed long before I became a mother: that women often do not support other women. Or rather, we do, or we appear to, until such point as we ourselves feel threatened. It happens in the workplace all the time, and it happens outside it, too. The threat need not be real for us to come out fighting, either.

Anyway, something to think about... and mourn.

Afternoon Tea, Alternate Universe

In an alternate universe 700 miles and one day away, I am also having afternoon tea.

Celebrity Thai

A few decisions Al and I made in the past month (namely, to put the Beaner to bed at a regular, earlier time each night; to spend less money on frivolous things; and not to sit in traffic needlessly) have meant that we've been eating out less lately. Probably the colder weather also has something to do with it, as we're less inclined to walk to restaurants in the dark when it's 20 degrees out. We've been eating pretty well from the pantry and supplementing with a few key ingredients from Trader Joe's, which means we've been able to stick to our schedule and our budget.

Tonight, however, we decided to go out for a meal. I was craving pizza but didn't want to drive to New Jersey to visit King of Pizza (both because it would violate the 'sitting in traffic needlessly' rule and because I was craving a different kind of pizza), and below-freezing temperatures and stiff winds meant a walk to that coal oven place on Walnut was out, too. When you don't want to drive, don't want to walk, and especially don't want to walk with the stroller, eating out can be tough. Eating in was tricky, too, since we weren't in the mood for any of our delivery regulars.

I finally hit on the idea of driving to Manayunk. It'd be driving, yes, but against traffic. It'd probably mean paying for parking, true (which would negate any bridge toll savings), but we'd have several restaurant choices, and we could get in a little walk without having to take the stroller. The universe smiled on this idea by giving us street parking and a table at Chabaa Thai Bistro without a reservation. (Wait, what happened to the pizza craving? Well, once Manayunk came to mind, I knew I'd jump at the chance to have Thai fried rice with shrimp if it were in the offing. And if it weren't, I was sure we could find a pizza place.)

We ended up sharing a YUMMY, YUMMY meal of fried rice, Pad Thai with tofu, Tom Yum, and a fried tofu appetizer that was meant for the Beaner but which I and Al ate most of. The Beaner loved the rice, the noodles, the "pickles" (i.e., cucumber slices), and especially the shrimp. He tried the soup but immediately made a very sad face and said, "I don't like the soup, Mommy! I DON'T LIKE THE SOUP!" When I tasted it for myself, I realized why: like all tom yum, it had a strong lemongrass and kefir lime flavor, but this one was also spicier than most. It had a serious kick. As a bonus, the first serving of soup they brought us was made with tofu instead of shrimp, and when Al mentioned the error, the waitress asked if we wanted to wrap up the tofu version and take it home. "They're just going to throw it out anyway," she explained. We said sure. (Yay, lunch for tomorrow!)

The Beaner was very well behaved during dinner, thanks to my handy Finepix, with which I entertained him until the food came, and to the food itself once it arrived. He knelt in his own seat (as usual) with a cloth napkin tucked into the front of his shirt and happily fed himself. Dinners out are so much nicer when there's no Beaner-wrangling involved, I must say. It's possible that dinner out seemed special to him, too, after so many meals at home lately.

The bonus of the evening (as if great food, free parking, no traffic, and a well-behaved two year-old were not enough!) was that as I was putting on my coat and gathering our doggie bags, a really cute woman came over and said, "Lori?" (At this point Al and the Beaner were already downstairs.) I'm afraid I stared blankly at her for a moment, possibly with my head cocked to one side, until she introduced herself as Girlfiend. I said "oh, HI!," of course, and then I asked, "am I that recognizable? Or was it him?" (and here I pointed to the chair that had, until recently, been occupied by the Beaner). She said she was pretty sure when she saw us that it WAS us, "you know, with Flickr and all." I remembered that she'd commented on my previous post about Chabaa, but I hadn't put two and two together when she'd said it was her "favorite restaurant in the neighborhood" and deduced that she actually lived in Manayunk. In any case, I thought it was incredibly cool that she came up and introduced herself. I love meeting people I only know online; it's fun to put faces and mannerisms together with online personalities. (Sometimes they match, sometimes they don't.) Girlfiend, I hope to run into you again sometime—maybe even on purpose! Oh, and I love your hair. :)

No Really, What Was I Thinking?

My to-do list has reached a length—and the items on it an urgency—that has brought me back to Outlook's Task List and its useful reminder system. It's time to Get Things Done, and not be paralyzed by this sense that EVERYTHING must be done first.

I was going through and deleting all the completed items from the last time I resorted to using Outlook's Task List, and I found an UNcompleted item titled "Girlfriend dreams". It was in the blog category, with a due date of 10/5/06, and I vaguely remember that last fall I had a string of dreams about my female friends that seemed like a pattern. However, these bullet items are doing nothing to jog my memory now:

• With Kristin in Germany
• Wedding dress/Jeanne
• Heart rate, hospital, and yom kippur
• Beating Lisa (myself) up while BlogHer was going on, forgetting something important

The Yom Kippur reference is especially puzzling; perhaps it had something to do with Ratphooey's posts about the holiday at the time? No idea.

A Sigh and a Tear from the Blogosphere

Mainely Madge's four year ordeal, which at times seemed to resemble a sicko version of Deal or No Deal, is finally over. Congratulations are in order.

I Need a Hug

This, from Mimi Smartypants, was wonderful:

Yesterday Nora and LT were playing catch, and in the process of trying to throw the ball precisely into her tiny mitt and thus increase her slim chances of success, he accidentally beaned her right in the nose. Blood gushed. Nora stood there dumbfounded for a split second, then threw down her mitt and ran straight for LT, wailing. I really wish the next baseball player to get hit with a ball would charge the mound in a similar fashion, crying and holding his arms up for a hug. The fistfights are so predictable.

I did this once after getting in a minor car accident. I was so shook up when the other car slammed into mine that the first thing I did when I got out of the car was go over and hug the guy who hit me. He and his girlfriend (who was in the passenger seat) were mighty confused, I can tell you.

Blog Backlog

I have a sticky note on my monitor and a sheet of notepaper in my purse with a list of things I need to blog about, and I've been trying t decide whether to stick them all in one post or spread them over separate ones. I think I'm going to go the latter route mainly so the posts are easier to categorize (and for readers to scan). I'm also debating about whether I should post in chronological order; I think I'm going to go with the things that are most important to me to get down, regardless of when they happened, in case I run out of steam before I get everything out. Stand by.

Do Do Do Do Doot Doot Do Do...

Thanks to Mrs. Kennedy, I cannot stop humming Lovecats by the Cure. I may have to download the damn thing off of iTunes if this keeps up.

Rockin' Girl Bloggers

So guess what? Yesterday Schmutzie commented to say that she'd given me an award: The Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. I think it makes me sound a bit like a 22 year-old punk rocker banging out the angst on my keyboard—in other words, hipper than I actually am. If it weren't for the hair, I wouldn't have much credibility on the hip front.

And speaking of my hair, the award kind of matches it:

Anyway, now it's my turn to pass on the love. I know some rockin' women bloggers out there who are wicked hip (or just wicked wacky, which in my book earns bonus points). Please go check out:

1. Valerie. It says right in her tagline that she's not glamorous or hip, but I suspect that's only because she doesn't have time. She teaches computer programming, violin, and Tango; plays in a band called Tango Mucha Labia; dances regularly; makes her own jam and pickles; chops wood; maintains her car and her house; studies permaculture.... and I know I'm forgetting a few things. She's an inspiration to me daily.
2. If you hadn't heard, Mainely Madge is back, and she's Madgetastic!
3. Here's a twofer: The amazingly creative Summer Pierre turned me on to a college friend who homeschools in Vermont. Their lives are so different from mine, and so interesting.

OK, I can think of tons more, actually, but I promised myself I'd log off the computer at 10pm, and it's now 10:08. No time for updating my blogroll with the actual blogs I've been reading via RSS feed lately; that will have to wait until tomorrow, at which point you'll be able to see many more lovely ladies whom I've been reading regularly. Rock it, chiquitas!

Talking About It

I was trying to think of a name for this post before I started writing it (sometimes a good idea, but just as often it's better to wait until I'm finished), and Fat Boy Slim's "Won't Talk About It" is playing on my iPod at the moment, so there you go. I was worried about signing up for NaBloPoMo this year, especially with my full plate and the still-trying-to-keep-myself-on-the-upward-spiral situation (I've been mostly successful in, if not exactly staying up, then at least in keeping myself from spiraling down), but now I'm more worried about blowing my wad all on day 1 and having nothing to say for the next few days.

Anyway, what I'm posting again to say is that I did talk to the Beaner about the school situation before I blogged about it, but that it was bugging me so much I went downstairs to talk to him again. I know this is tricky with toddlers, but man, I was sad. (See above re: trying not to spiral downward.)

Luckily he and Aura were sitting in the big chair watching Diego, so I just asked if I could have Aura's spot. She quickly gave it up and went upstairs to wash dishes (thanks for that, Aura!) while I snuggled the Beaner. I realized pretty quickly that his entire attention was consumed by Diego, so I just went with that. When the credits rolled, I mentioned that I was sad about school still. That I wanted him to do well, get along, and not interfere with other kids' work.

"I can do better tomorrow, Mommy," he said.

"Really?" I asked. "You will keep your hands behind your back when watching others work, and not push other kids? If someone else wants to work on the same thing you want to work on, you'll say, 'Can I have a turn when you're finished?'"

"Yes," he said. "I can do that."

I smiled at him weakly, and he smiled back, much more broadly. "Are you happy now, Mommy?"

"Yes, Boo. It makes Mommy happy to know that you are doing well at school, that you're getting along with others."

Incidentally, one of the things I was planning to post about this week but hadn't gotten around to was our playdate with Sarah and the Goon Squad. Sarah lives close to my in-laws in Northern Virginia, and we went down for a visit last weekend, so we arranged to meet at a small playground near a Little League field. This is related to the above discussion because right when Sarah asked how I'd managed to potty train the Beaner, he saved me from having to try to remember all the advances and setbacks along that route by shoving Claudia away from the steering wheel attached to the play structure and making her cry.

He was positioned above my head at that point, which made it difficult for me to grab and separate him from Claudia, but I gave him a stern "[NAME]! Claudia was using that! You have to wait your turn!"... at which point he burst into tears. I tried to grab him from the slide side [see photo below; the steering wheel is just to the right of Ian], which is when he made the grab for his crotch. Visions of him peeing in his pants from the stress flashed through my brain. "How could you do this to me???" I thought frantically. "Sarah was just asking about my brilliant potty training skillz, and now you're going to wet your pants!"

Instead I said, rather urgently, "do you need to pee?" He nodded while continuing to wail. I said, "just hold on, buddy, we'll find you a bathroom. Hold it, please." I asked Sarah if there was a bathroom nearby, and she indicated that the square building a few yards away was my best bet. Good news: It did indeed have bathrooms on the other side. Bad news: They were locked. I said to the Beaner, "OK, we don't usually do this; it's only for real emergencies, and this is one. We're going to pee outside. Here, step over to this area, and I'll help you avoid peeing in your pants."

"Look," he said. "I'm peeing through the fence." Yes, folks: Mad potty training skillz *and* great aim.

Anyway, after I'd gotten his clothing straightened, I picked him up and said, "it's not OK to push people. If Claudia is doing something you want to do, say 'can I have a turn when you're finished?' Whether she says yes or no, step back and let her have some space. She'll be done soon anyway. OK?" He nodded, and play resumed amicably.

After this incident at the playdate, it wasn't hard for me to imagine the scenario involved when his teacher mentioned on the phone that he was having trouble with pushing. I also knew that the "don't push, ask if you can have a turn" message would be somewhat familiar to him, and I reminded him of the steering wheel dispute with Claudia to jog his memory. It's why this time I believe him when he says he can do better tomorrow; I know he has a frame of reference for improvement. I assume he knows what his teacher expects of him; now he knows what I expect of him, too. Hopefully my message is very similar to hers (or rather, vice versa), and that he'll take it to heart.

Before I leave the subject of the playdate entirely, I want to say what a fun time I had. Sarah was really normal, and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order. I've been trying to think of a way to explain it that the extroverts in the audience will also understand, and "normal" is the best I could come up with. To introverts I would say that I didn't have to work to be around her, and they'd get it immediately.** (See stars for side story that just occurred to me.) She's totally down to earth, smart, nice, and funny. Her kids were a riot, too. There was a small dispute between Claudia and the Beaner over the wagon in addition to the steering wheel incident, but it was funny (at least to me) rather than stress-pee-inducing.

Claudia tries to extract the Beaner from the wagon, but he's all, "I can't hear you."

I can't show you the rest of the photos from the playdate because all three kids ended up taking their shirts off, and posting pictures of shirtless kids on the Internet is asking for trouble. (The photos are available to close friends and family only on Flickr.) It all got a little crazy when the Beaner spotted the ball field and said, "look, a baseball field! I'm going to need my golf clubs." Hilarity (and surprisingly few injuries) ensued when I got his set of 3 clubs (convenient!) out of the trunk of the car, and Sarah and I spent the next 45 minutes or so trying to keep enough space between the kids that nobody got clubbed.

Oh wait, here's one of Ian with his shirt still on, inspecting his driver for defects:

So bottom line here:

• Sarah: very cool.
• Playdate: fun.
• School situation: will improve tomorrow. crosses fingers
• Lori: easily-saddened introvert, prone to giving small children blunt weapons with which to play.

** The story that occurred to me was about MAX, where I presented four sessions this time last month, to the dismay of my bowels. My colleague, Kin, said that it was interesting to see the behind-the-scenes stress and then how I "turned it on" as soon as the microphone went on. He said it was like seeing a split personality in action. This may help explain better what I mean by having to work at it; I think I'm a decent speaker (not a great one, but adequate), but it takes an enormous toll on me emotionally and physically to get into my "on" state. Being able to interact with people without having to switch "on" is an enormous relief.

Can't Do It

Yeah, so NaBloPoMo is pretty much over for me. I'll keep writing when I can—and for all I know, that might be every day for the rest of this month and into December—but it's just not my first priority these days. Keeping myself above water emotionally, writing my version of my annual review (yep, it's even *more* fun this year, when I feel like a total failure—woo!), giving feedback on no less than five colleagues, fixing bugs, paying bills, writing new code, keeping track of five engineers to make sure they're happy and on track, managing two hockey schedules, a Thanksgiving commitment, a soon to be three year-old's birthday party, my first parent-teacher conference, and... oh crap, open enrollment for our benefits.

Didn't I already write this post, you ask? Yeah, I think I did. Sorry about that. Hopefully whatever I write next will be totally original.

Oh, and though I'm behind in posting my photos to the NaBloShoeMo pool, I *have* been taking pictures of my Danskos every day. I'm also catching up on my My Every Day photos in spurts because sometimes the photo I want to use for that day is on a roll of film, and I only get those developed every 3 or 4 days. So I do have a creative outlet, and of course I have hockey (though I haven't been writing about that, either, I *have* been posting some videos to vimeo). I guess it's more about the photos and videos than the words these days.

It's Amazing What a Bottle of Wine, a Polaroid Camera, and Some Good Conversation Can Do

I started the day sleep-deprived (on account of staying up late to see the west-coast Sharks beat the Dallas Stars in overtime—woot!) and a bit depressed, and there was a moment where I almost burst into tears for no particular reason except that I was sad and not liking the feeling. BUT! things improved as the day went on, mostly due to three important factors: (1) Al recognized the malaise and most generously offered to stop the car along Lancaster Avenue so I could get out and take photos (I'd mentioned that I'd like to do that sometime, but I didn't think we had the time or he'd have the inclination to do it today); (2) after a shaky end to the school picnic, I opened a bottle of really yummy wine and ordered pizza for me and the Beaner; and (3) HeatherB came over to share the wine and hang out for a few hours.

I'm too tired to post the Polaroids I took along Lancaster Ave and at the school picnic, and despite having no less than 6 cameras within easy reach, I completely forgot to take a photo of Heather when she was here, so for the moment you'll just have to trust me that all of this really happened. I blame the sparkling conversation (and the yummy wine) for the lapse in photodocumentation. Heather was lovely company, and she handled the constant interruptions from the Beaner with aplomb. It was really the most pleasant afternoon I could imagine, especially after the cloudy start to the day (both literally and figuratively).

I, Too, Am Psychic

I had a Mrs. Kennedy moment this morning. I woke up, rolled over, and thought, "I wonder if I'm ever going to meet juliloquy in person." I thought about the missed connections at the playground—when we said we'd be there after tee ball and then ended up skipping tee ball—and how I'd run into HPR once at Trader Joe's, but Julie and I never seemed to run into one another, despite visiting the same places frequently.

So I lay there thinking this, and then I got up and started my day. Did some work. Had some good ideas. Did some more work. Then left the house to meet my husband for lunch in the basement of the Comcast building.

I got there first, so I started checking out the food offerings... when suddenly who should walk up and say, "hi!" but Julie. I felt like I'd imagined her into being with my early-morning wishful thinking. Aside from that, it was a totally normal encounter. Julie mentioned that she felt like she already knew me, and I felt the same way. I got another chance to interact with the super-sweet Roo (who'd been at TJs with her dad), and to meet the Shmoo (we shook hands), and we talked about potential playdates and the fact that the Shmoo and the Beaner are a very similar size and shape (they're also 3 weeks apart in age).

I'm already looking forward to the next time we meet up—and next time I won't be leaving it to wishful thinking or chance encounters. I'm going to e-mail Julie and make a date.

This Might Be a Joke

I finally cleaned out my Inboxes last night after being in California for about 10 days, and I came across the April NaBloPoMo e-mail. The theme is GROWING (UP), which kind of makes sense for April; by this time last year, I had several seedlings well on their way. This year I've yet to plant anything (yes, I know, I'm way behind in gardening as in many other things), but I PLAN TO. So I gave some thought to participating in NaBloPoMo for April.

I'm not sure I'll be able to do it—lately I've been posting every 3-4 weeks, it seems—but it's worth a try. I do have a garden to get into the ground (or into containers, I should say), and I do have a 4 year-old who's growing up fast, and I probably have a story or two about growing up myself that I could share (maybe). To get things started, here's a story from the archives about why I hate April 1st.

Photos of seeds tomorrow, if I remember.

Be a Dork. And Take Lots and Lots of Photos.

This ("Do Interesting Things", from zenhabits.net) is so good. Thanks to @stellargirl and @alexknowshtml for pointing me to it. Among my favorite suggestions:

• Be yourself, loudly.
• Read, and read, and then write.
• Dare to be wrong.
• Take lots and lots of pictures.
• Be a dork, but do it boldly.
• Get really, really good at something.
• Practice a lot.
• A lot.
• Start now.
• Try.

Short-Term Resolutions

It's not quite New Year's yet, but I already have a couple resolutions that I want to make. One is to spend the three days that I have off this weekend taking photos. It's been too long since I've just walked around, looking for the beauty in everyday things. And the women at the Walgreens photo counter are starting to miss me and my negatives only + CD orders, too.

The other thing I'm resolving to do is blog every day in January. I want to spend a little time taking stock, and all the year-end and decade-end "best" lists around have gotten me thinking about the books, movies, TV shows, and experiences I've enjoyed most over the past few years. Coincidentally, the NaBloPoMo theme for January is BEST, so I've submitted my site to the blogroll and hope to stick with it.

See you all in a couple days. :-)

Does Anybody Blog Anymore?

I used to feel bad about the fact that I didn't sit down to write on a regular basis anymore, and I've resolved many times to write more often, as much to chronicle this part of my life as to practice stringing coherent thoughts together. It was only when I saw the caption on an Instagram photo of one of my contacts, recently—a person whose blog I used to read regularly—mentioning that she'd blogged for the first time in a long time, and then a follow-up comment that said, "It's rare that I go check out blogs anymore..." that I realized that a tipping point had been reached, and non-blogging might be A Thing now. Not even a thing we all complain about, as we used to ("I'm way behind on my blogging," yadda yadda), but just A Thing. It reminds me of that scene in When Harry Met Sally when Sally says something about her friend who complains that now that she has kids she and her husband never have sex anymore, and then she says, actually, now that I think about it, she didn't even complain about it.

I think it's that we all have Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and Instagram and are able to share our stories in smaller bits, more frequently and more easily than ever before, and so who needs a blog, really? Unless you're getting paid to write posts or trying to establish a media empire (again, with the goal of getting paid) or trying to establish yourself as an expert on a particular topic (most likely for eventual, if not immediate, gain), why invest the time in writing what amounts to an essay (at best) or a letter to your future self?

The answer for me is that I actually enjoy reading letters from a former self. I already have a pretty thorough chronicle of what we were doing at any given time over the past few years from photos (published and unpublished) and tweets and notes scribbled in calendars and on sticky notes, but I miss the old longer-form writing I used to do. I have cracked myself (and the Beaner and Al) up many a time by re-reading old avocado8 posts, and usually after doing so one of us laments that I don't really blog anymore.

I'm not sure if the resolutions I jotted down (or rather, tapped into the Notes app on my iPhone) the other day—Run. Write. Read. Raw.—will stick going forward, but I hope to give them the old college try, if only for the amusement (and possibly the mental and physical health) of my future self. In a way, knowing, or at least suspecting, that nobody blogs (or reads blogs) anymore takes the pressure off—and turns writing these entries back into the Just For Me endeavor it started out as 15 years ago.

Good Lord, That Was Painful

My plan today was to work out, finish updating my blog's templates and CSS to make them more mobile-friendly (I started the other day), and then get some work done ahead of our official return to work tomorrow.

It turns out that while I remembered about half of the CSS I used to know, a lot has happened in the past decade that I'd had no reason to pay attention to until now. In any case, after reading a bunch of CSS references and articles and trimming and twiddling my stylesheets and MovableType templates, I think I've got something workable... but I didn't get any work done, and I haven't gotten to the Fitness+ workout I'd planned yet (tho thanks to a morning bike ride and the random dance and HIIT moves I've learned from Kim, Bakari, LaShawn, and Jamie-Ray—which I now do while waiting for the microwave or the Chemex—I'll still close all my rings before bedtime).

I did watch a whole lot of news shows today while futzing with website code, so I'm fully up on another round of impeachable offenses, the new strain of SARS-CoV-2, slow vaccine rollouts, and the state of the Senate runoff in Georgia. I also continue to be pleasantly surprised by how coherent and powerful Joe Biden's public speeches are. Keep it up, Joe!

I don't think I'll be turning comments back on... probably ever, but if you spot a weird style or dead-end blog page link (I can't do much about the external ones, sadly) and you know me in real life, do let me know. Thanks!