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  • Never Never Land

    The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is closed . . .for good. All of the exhibits are being dismantled, the artifacts sold. Michael Jackson’s glove? Elvis’ jukebox? Grace Slick’s fringy vest? Jim Morrison’s Cub Scout shirt? Bet you can find ‘em all on ebay. At least, that’s what my son thinks.

    A little background is in order here. When I still thought I would find a full-time teaching job, we made plans for a family car trip from Illinois to Boston, where we’d check out the Berklee School of Music, our son’s dream college. Since Cleveland is sort of on the way, we figured we’d stop at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Then, since Boston is closer to upstate New York than Illinois is, we thought we should check out the Eastman School of Music, our son’s dream-on college. Sure looked like Canada was pretty close, so we added a trek up to Toronto. By the end of our planning night, we were going to be on the road for about three weeks and our son was wondering if it was possible to drive to China.

    Fast forward to today. I am still under-employed so the three-week driving trip to Cleveland, Boston, Toronto and Beijing is out of the question. Still, my husband and I believe that our under-motivated son needs the kick in the pants that a meeting with an admissions counselor might provide. And, we reasoned, touching the actual college might make more real the idea that he has to work to get there. Sort of “See, Mom and Dad weren’t lying. There really is a place called college.” We decided that I would accompany our son on a trip to Boston. I was looking forward to it, thinking my son would, too. A couple of days with Mom—the fun parent—in a pretty cool city without his sister. What’s not to like?

    “Son,” I said, “Dad and I decided that we can’t afford the big family trip. So, you and I are going to fly out to Boston to check out Berklee.”

    “What?! We’re not going to Cleveland?”

    “No, we can’t do Cleveland and Boston and the point behind this whole trip was for you to check out Boston and see Berklee. We’ll have fun, just us!”

    “Oh, my god!” he yelled. “Now, I’ll never see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!”

    It is a sign of my maturity as a parent that I simply rolled my eyes and walked away.

    Never seeing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is just one of the things that will never happen in my son’s family. For instance, we never have anything good to eat. Typically, we have a wide variety of foods, from fresh fruit, yogurt and gourmet cheeses to crackers, popcorn, cold cuts and, of course, bacon. There is enough food that my husband and I work at not eating too much. Still, there is nothing to eat, according to our son.

    We never do anything fun, either. This Sunday evening, for instance, the four of us played poker together. Our son happens to be one of the funniest people I know and he was in very good form. He noticed our cat, Oliver, had crawled into a shopping bag. Now, you need to understand that Oliver is a terrible cat otherwise what I am about to say might make you think that we are cruel to our cat. Feel free to check out my post about our pets, then come back for the rest of the story.

    So, we were all playing poker. Oliver was hanging out in the shopping bag. My son picked up the bag and Oliver settled down into the bottom, belly up and all four paws sticking up in the air. It was one of those permanent shopping bags, made out of recycled bottles, very sturdy. I, half joking but remembering all of the teapots Oliver has broken, said, “Hang it from a hook!” Just as my son was about to hang the shopping bag from a door handle, my daughter burst past me saying, “Wait, I’ll get my bungee cord!” Now, I don’t know about you, but I was thinking this was some fun stuff, in addition to wondering why my daughter has a bungee cord.

    “Never” is not the only negative thrown around in our house. Its close cousin is “no one.” No one cares about my daughter. She makes a point of telling me this at least twice each week. No one cares about her when her best friend has gone home for the night and I am busy making dinner, forcing her to entertain herself. Frequently, no one cares about her when she is expected to clean up her messy room by herself since she’s the one who made the mess.

    I’m convinced that my children’s catastrophic thinking comes from years of watching Dora, the Explorer.  I realize that Dora is beloved by generations of children around the world but, to me, she’s just a wimp with a head shaped like a football. Dora’s gotta know by now that Swiper is waiting around the corner just itching to screw up her plan to get the baby bird past the Grumpy Old Troll and over the bridge to Blueberry Hill. But every time Swiper throws a monkey wrench into Dora and Boots’ best-laid plans, Dora has the same reaction, “Now we’ll never. . .” Well, you get the picture.

    Recently, my daughter was so convinced that no one cared about her that she decided she would leave.

    “Where will you go?” I asked, watching her stuff one of my tote bags with her clothing.

    “I’ll go live on the streets,” she said, turning back to stuffing the tote bag.

    As she continued to pack, I remembered my own running away from home adventure. Convinced no one cared about me, I got on my bike to ride away, expecting my mother to run out of the house, begging me to stay. She didn’t. She merely said, “We’ll miss you if you go.” I didn’t go.

    “I’d better take some sweaters,” my daughter said, mostly to herself, but loud enough for me to hear. “I might get cold.”

    “Yes,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to get cold. You know, we’ll miss you if you go.”

    She snorted a little “Sure, Mom” snort and continued packing. But she didn’t go.

    Life’s problems come in black and white for my children. “Never,” “no one,” “always,” “everything” are their constant companions. I envy them their certainty but don’t have the heart to disabuse them of it. Besides, I’ve got to go check out the auctions on eBay. I’m thinking Grace Slick’s fringy vest would look pretty stylish on me.

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • The Stupid Files

    My son grew up with better cartoons than I had. Oh, the Jetsons were ok and I really did love “Rastro,” but my son was lucky enough to be a ‘toon watcher when “Dexter’s Laboratory” was in its heyday on Cartoon Network. Dexter, the boy genius, was constantly vexed by his less intellectual sister, Dee Dee. In every episode, Dexter would tell her “Dee Dee, you are stupid. You are stupid. And don’t forget, you are stuuupid.”

    I think I love that line so much because there is so much that is stupid in this world. As evidence, I offer the following. There is a road that runs east and west through Aurora and Naperville, crossing Route 59. On the Naperville side of 59, it is called “Aurora Avenue.” On the Aurora side, it is called “New York Avenue.” If you go north on Ogden Avenue from my house and you keep going north, you have to turn right to continue onto Ogden. Continuing north, without turning, will not keep you on Ogden. You will find yourself on Raymond as if you had entered an alternate universe. And, while turning east to stay on Ogden keeps you on Ogden, turning left does not put you on the westbound part of Ogden. A left hand turn will put you on North Aurora Avenue.  The Naperville area is not alone in street naming stupidity. There is a sign in Palatine, I’m told, identifying Meacham Road that reads: “Meacham Road road.”

    Massive amounts of stupidity emanate from the myriad fast food drive-thrus in our area. I just adore those disembodied voices that don’t even say “hello” or “welcome” before diving into a guess as to why I drove up there in the first place. “Would you like to try the Triple Burger Death from Hell?” they ask. I am always polite and say “No, thank you” to their gracious suggestion. Some day, though, I’m going to say “Wrong! Guess again!”

    A friend recently visited a drive through to order three two-cheeseburger meals, one cheeseburger and two shakes. Well, of course, the little video screen beneath the disembodied voice (let’s call it “DV,” shall we?) showed that my friend ordered two cheeseburgers and two shakes. My friend corrected DV; the order became three cheeseburger meals. My friend corrected DV twice more and the order was finally correct, but that is not the most egregious incidence of DV’s stupidity. No! Each burger had to be decorated with the proper condiments, so DV asked, “Do you want cheeseburger number one with everything: pickles, lettuce, tomato, mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup?” “Sure,” said my friend. DV went on to cheeseburger number two. “Do you want it with everything: pickles, lettuce, tomato, mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup?” “Sure,” said my friend. Cheeseburger number three got similar treatment. Finally all of the cheeseburgers had been decorated and accounted for. DV forgot the shakes.

    My kids can do some stunningly stupid stuff. My son, for instance, can stand within arm’s distance of the back door. Should he open it, he could step directly out onto our deck. No stairs required and he’d be outdoors. Instead, he shouts to his father, “What’s it like out?” Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I wanted nothing more than to sit in my gazebo with a cup of tea and scan the news on my iPod. I finally got my wish and was glorying in a beautiful morning when my son appeared at the patio door. He looked at me pleadingly through the glass. I got up and went into the house, hoping for a “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.” I got, “What do we have for breakfast?” Now, this is the child who went with me to the grocery store the night before. He himself selected two boxes of cereal and a half-gallon of milk and placed them in the shopping cart.

    The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard come out of my children has probably come out of every child in the world at some point. Hell, I’ve said it. “Are we there yet?” they ask. Every time the car has been moving more than 15 minutes, one of my children will ask it. They will repeat it. I have always said the same thing: “No, not yet.” I have, in short, been patient. The last time I was asked if we were “there” yet, something broke in my good-mommy brain segment. Smart Ass Mom replied.

    “Dear child,” I asked, “what happens when we get where we are going?”

    “We’re there,” said the child.

    “Yes. And then what happens?”

    “I don’t know, Mommy. What?”

    “Well, the same thing happens every time. Mommy parks the car, I turn it off and we all get out. Now, has Mommy parked the car? Have I turned it off? Are we getting out?”

    The child was silent. A few miles later, she said, “Mommy are we getting close to being there?” No child of mine is stupid for long.

    The most consistent sources of stupidity in our lives, though, are the administrators of our children’s schools. They truly shine at registration time. Each year, for the past four years, I have been asked to complete the forms contained in a registration packet. Even though the first page of the packet is a computer-generated form, printed front and back, containing all the information that is necessary for my child’s continued presence at school, I am required to fill out five additional forms with the same information. I write my daughter’s name five times. I write my own name five times. I write my husband’s name five times. I fill out the same information on the new Emergency Card that I supplied in prior years. Ditto with the health card. One year, I pointed out that the school had all of the information on the cards I completed the prior year and that nothing had changed. Ah! But something had changed. They threw those cards away. They sent the un-completed cards back and threatened to exclude my daughter from classes until they received the completed cards.

    Now, all of that sounds pretty darn stupid, doesn’t it? But, it’s not the dumbest thing that has come out of one of my kids’ schools. Not by a long, long shot. No, the dumbest thing that has come out of their schools—maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen—came from my son’s principal. Apparently, the staff at my son’s school spent too much time delivering stuff students had forgotten to the forgetful little buggers’ classrooms. Henceforth, Mr. Principal announced, the staff would no longer deliver such items. Nay, he said, they would be reserving their efforts for “more poignant responsibilities.” Yup. He said it. All I can say is “Mr. Principal, you are stupid, you are stupid. And, don’t forget, you are stuuupid.”

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • The Other “F” Word

    I collect refrigerator magnets. I’ve never stopped to count how many there are but I’ve got quite a few. My favorites are the ones you get in trendy gift shops that have a vintage picture of a woman with a witty saying. For instance, I have one very large one with a picture of a woman leaning on a pillow. The saying? “I dreamed my whole house was clean.” I also have one with a pensive woman. Her caption reads, “She thought she might enjoy being mature.”

    My favorites, though, go hand in hand. One, of a woman embracing a man states, “Darling, let’s get deeply into debt!” Its mate shows a picture of a beautiful woman with bleached blonde hair and deep red lips. She’s saying, “Frugal is such an ugly word.”

    I firmly believe that frugal is an ugly word, but as we are deeply in debt, I’ve resolved that I shall attempt to become frugal.

    My grandmother was very good at being cheap—I mean, frugal. I remember she had a wire basket with a long handle in her kitchen. You know those little hunks of soap that are too little to effectively wash your hands with but too big to throw away guilt-free? My grandmother collected them, put them in the wire basket then, when she needed soap for doing dishes, she would swish the basket around in the hot water.

    I’m pretty sure they don’t make the soap my grandmother used anymore. Until my own family entered the frugal zone, I bought really nice soap. One particular favorite is French-milled and smells like gardenias. I’m not really sure what French-milled means, but it makes the soap nice and hard, but not too hard. Unfortunately, my favorite gardenia soap costs $5 for a bar. Now, it’s a big bar, but one can purchase a crate of Ivory soap for $3.99 at Target so I switched to Ivory. My husband liked that it’s cheap—I mean inexpensive. My daughter liked that it floats. I remember liking that when I was her age. I don’t remember the soap costing more than $100 to use, though. Here’s the problem with Ivory: it’s soft. It’s soft and gushy and all that soft, soapy gushiness combined with my daughter’s long, long hair creates a drain clog that requires a plumber to remove. Our foray into cheap soap cost us $65 per hour to remove. That gardenia-scented soap is smelling better and better these days.

    I’ve tried to save money on clothes and shoes. Back when I was young and trendy, I had more than twenty pairs of black shoes. “How can one person need twenty pairs of black shoes,” my husband asked? I was astounded that he could question owning so few black shoes. I tried to explain to my husband the difference between sandals, pumps, sling backs, oxfords, loafers and ballet flats. All he retained is that the ones he thinks are hot are called “pumps.”

    I used to spend a LOT of money on shoes. One pair was made entirely of leather, from the buttery smooth uppers to the little stacked heels. They were sleek, almost austere and I wore them with everything from pants to skirts. They were $200. I wear them still. Last year, I bought a pair of tan Mary Jane pumps at Target. They cost $19. Within half an hour of putting them on, my feet are screaming in agony. I remind myself of this every time I am drawn into the shoe section at Target. For me at least, there is no cheap and chic when it comes to shoes.

    I can’t save money on my daughter’s shoes, either. She has long, narrow feet that can only be shod by the local outrageously expensive children’s shop or Nordstrom. My son, however, wears the same pair of shoes every day. While I admire his cheapness—I mean, frugality—I am sure we will have a doctor visit for some disgusting fungal growth in the near future.

    Since our grocery expense is rather large, I thought I’d cut costs there. I bought the huge store-brand of frosted flakes. It came in a floppy bag with “Cheap Frosted Flakes” plastered all over it in big, bold letters. I needed a proper disguise. I bought a really cool plastic, reusable cereal container. My mother would have called it “Tupperware,” but a genuine Tupperware cereal container costs $20. I think I paid $5 for mine and felt guilty about it. I put the $1.99 worth of cereal in the $5 cereal-serving container. The next day, my son poured a huge bowl of flakes, added three pints of milk and took a bite. He immediately ran to the sink, spitting the flakes out as if they were coated with arsenic. “These aren’t Kellogg’s!  These suck!!” His sister heard his pronouncement; hence she wouldn’t eat the offending flakes either. So, I tasted the flakes. They suck.

    I moved on to makeup, another considerable expense. Foundation, in particular, is something I am very particular about. I routinely bought $45 foundation, made specifically for me by Prescriptives. Apparently, I didn’t buy enough of it. Prescriptives went out of business. There being three aisles of makeup at Target, I selected a promising shade. It cost $15. I put it on. Though a lovely shade of rose in the bottle, it turned instantly orange on my skin. I tried another brand for $12. It turned orange. Another brand. Another $15. It turned orange. Forty-two dollars later, I still need a foundation that doesn’t turn orange.

    My husband would say that one of our biggest problems is the fact that our regular grocery store is Target, coupled with the fact that I like nothing better than going to Target and pushing a cart around for an hour or two. I’m better about non-grocery items landing in the cart, but the kids aren’t. Some surprise treat always makes its way onto the belt. And, while I bring a list, I always find something we need that isn’t on it. At the check out counter, the children have fun guessing if the total will go over $200. I’m pleased to say it frequently doesn’t. Still, one of my son’s favorite jokes is that Dad goes to Target to get milk and comes out with milk. Period. Mom goes to Target for milk and comes home with milk and a flat screen TV. What? You mean you don’t? What are you, cheap—I mean, frugal?

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • Neighbors and Naked Barbies

    I like to sit on the deck looking at my garden. Some people find gardening relaxing. I’ve found that looking at the garden is actually much more relaxing than working in the garden. I particularly like to look at the garden in the morning and especially on significant days. So, it’s no surprise that Easter morning found me sitting on the step of my deck sipping a mug of hot tea while I surveyed my yard. What was surprising was the sight of three naked Barbies playing on the neighbor’s swing set, which sits just on their side of the property line.

    My daughter’s Best Friend lives in the naked-Barbies-on-the-swing-set house. In fact, the naked Barbies are hers. I wasn’t so much surprised to see the Barbies as I was surprised to see them on the swing set. They had been lounging on the chaise in our gazebo for the past week or so. Saturday night we had celebrated Passover with friends of ours we seldom see. They have a daughter who is close in age to ours. When these two meet, they form that fast, frenetic bond that only children who rarely play together achieve, as if they need to pack years’ worth of activity into three hours or so. In the maelstrom of their interaction, the Barbies somehow went from the chaise lounge to the slide and whatever you call that thing that two kids swing on facing each other.

    I smiled when I saw the Barbies and I knew Best Friend’s mother would smile, too. We have informally vowed to leave the area between our houses fenceless so things like naked Barbies on swing sets can happen while the children flow freely from one yard to the other.

    These are the best kind of neighbors. I consider them my reward because I also live near the worst kind of neighbor. Best Friend lives directly behind us. Worst Neighbor lives next door. Worst Neighbor bought the house and moved in with his wife and son. Every couple that has lived in the house has divorced and it wasn’t long before Mrs. Worst Neighbor and their child skipped out of the country.

    So now I live next door to Mr. Single Worst Neighbor. Given the current real estate market and the fact that he lives in “The Divorce House,” I’m pretty sure we’re in it for the long haul with Worst Neighbor.

    Worst Neighbor, being single, neglects many things in his house, most notably his dog. I’m sure the dog was purchased to appease Mrs. Worst Neighbor but as the dog is the Worst Dog, the purchase was for naught.  We’ll call Worst Neighbor’s dog “Lucy,” because that is her name and I don’t care about protecting her privacy.

    Frankly, Lucy doesn’t need privacy. She’s the neighborhood tramp. One particularly difficult day, I was pouring out my troubles in a phone call with my best friend. As we dished and drank our coffee I was beginning to chipper up, until I spied Lucy on my back deck and my own dog on Lucy. “I’ve gotta go!” I said, “Pogo’s humping the bitch from next door.” I separated the dogs and returned Lucy to her home. She was out and about soon afterward. Pogo lay whining in his cage.

    In an attempt to contain his canine strumpet, Worst Neighbor installed an electric fence, but did it himself and did it wrong. Lucy continued to roam the streets, looking for love. Last year, Worst Neighbor finally had her spayed and I held out some hope for a more peaceful life for us and for Lucy. It was a dark and stormy night when my hopes were dashed. Really. It was dark and stormy. It was night. And there was Lucy, whining at my back door. I called Worst Neighbor. He asked me to hold on to her while he finished having dinner with friends. We don’t call him about Lucy anymore. We call Animal Control. Maybe Worst Neighbor and Lucy will be getting divorced soon.

    Much as Worst Neighbor vexes us now, he is not the Worst Neighbor Ever. I believe that honor goes to the neighbors whose back porch rotted after years of neglect. With no safe way of getting from their back door to the garbage dumpster, they simply dropped their trash out the door into the yard where it accumulated. Eventually, of course, it attracted vermin, which were then attracted to the warmth in our house. I found them frolicking in the laundry hamper one memorable morning. Exterminators and health department officials got involved.

    My husband insists even they are not the Worst Neighbors Ever. To his mind, the Worst Neighbor Ever was the woman who lived in the apartment next door to his in graduate school. Or, I should say, “women,” as the person in question clearly suffered from multiple personality disorder. Every other night, just about 2 am, she would argue with herself, screaming and railing. Eventually, she would kick herself out of the apartment, slamming the heavy metal door on herself and waking the entire building.

    Sleep deprived, my husband called the landlord, who refused to believe him. Out of desperation and sleep-deprivation, my husband took to calling the landlord every time the women next door kicked themselves out. The landlord caught on eventually, answering the phone and immediately hanging up, but never evicted the woman/women. My husband moved out six months early but his middle-of-the-night phoning binge established a life-long habit of relieving pent-up frustration through creative, albeit hostile, retribution.

    Lately, the Best Neighbors have been dropping hints about moving, mumbling such selfish nonsense as needing a guest room for visiting grandparents. Our declining property values have forestalled what is probably inevitable, but Mrs. Best Neighbor assures me that they are taking us with them when they move. I hope this is true. I am far too old to discover what could be worse than living next to a promiscuous pooch, a vermin farm or the local psych ward.

    In the meantime, I’ll sit on my deck, survey my quarter acre of the American Dream and ponder where the naked Barbies will pop up next.

  • I See London

    Lately, my daughter has been asking about embarrassing moments.  “Mama,” she said, “what was your most embarrassing moment?” I don’t embarrass easily, so I had to think hard. I recalled a truly embarrassing incident in fourth grade when a teacher wouldn’t allow anyone to use the bathroom. I really had to go; the teacher really wouldn’t let me. I waited until lunch period, but we weren’t allowed to use the bathroom at lunch either. So, I got in the lunch line. My bladder reached the end of the line just when I did. I wet my underpants, copiously, as I handed my lunch money to the cafeteria lady.  I understand my dad come to school and ripped the teacher a new one. I take great satisfaction in this.

    My daughter, however, was not satisfied. Apparently, wetting my pants more than forty years ago isn’t embarrassing enough. She wanted something more up-to-date, so she supplied it.

    You need to understand that I am on a first name basis with my pharmacist. These things happen when you’re on the auto-refill until eternity program. For some reason known only to the god of chaos, my prescriptions auto-refill on different days. For some other reason, known only to the god of reason, this cannot be changed so that I can maintain my version of sanity with a once-monthly visit to “Chris.” Until the planets align, I am at the pharmacy counter at Target a minimum of two times per month.

    Last week’s toothache and antibiotics to cure it required an additional visit to Chris. He’s a pleasant guy, always ready to answer a question. As I chatted with Chris about drug interactions and other pharmacy-related topics, I heard my daughter say, “Ewwww!!!”

    “What is it,” I asked?

    “That!” she said, and pointed to the latest Target flyer. I admit to feeling a little awkward explaining pretty lingerie to my daughter in front of Chris. But I thought I had it covered when I told her that some women like to wear pretty underwear and reminded her that she, in fact, likes to have things like princesses and ponies on her undies.  She didn’t let the subject go, though.

    “My mommy doesn’t wear panties sometimes,” she said to Chris.

    I had no idea what she was referring to. Really. Honestly. So I said the first plausible thing that came to mind.

    “That was only once when I had to run down to the laundry room to get some, Sweetie.” “Sweetie” was the only publicly acceptable name I could think of for her at the time.

    Somehow, Chris filled my prescription without looking at me. I managed to pay for it without looking at him.

    Two days ago, I remembered what she was talking about.

    “Mommy,” the evil mistress of embarrassment said, “you went commando at the Y.”

    And she’s right. I did indeed go commando at the Y. See, I can get my kids to school with everything they need from lunches and homework to water bottles and notes to the teacher. Me? Not so much. I am usually stuffing my stuff into my gym bag as I push the kids toward the car. Frequently, I find myself missing some essential workout ingredient. One day—and it really was just one day—I finished my shower and reached into my bag to find no underwear. I looked right, I looked left, then pulled my pants on and got my GI-Joe self home as quickly as possible.

    My mother would have been appalled. What if, God forbid, I had been in an accident on the way home? What if I had been grievously injured? What if I had been taken to the hospital where the doctors cut away my pants to find that I had not just failed to wear nice underwear but had failed to wear underwear at all?

    Many mothers have the same rule mine did—wear your nicest panties when you go out because you never know when you’ll be in a terrible car accident. My best friend’s mother had that rule. Naturally, my best friend was in an automobile accident on a low-laundry day. She blessed her luck that she wasn’t grievously injured else the doctors would cut away her pants to find her wearing her husband’s tidy whities.

    Sometimes wearing panties can be a source of embarrassment. Another friend prides herself on her appearance in public. No gnarly sweats and socks with Birkenstocks for her. She undoubtedly wears nice panties when she goes out. Sometimes she wears them in surprising places. Once, in a hurry, she grabbed a pair of pants from the laundry basket. She tossed them on and ran out the door. At the grocery store, she felt as if she stepped on something once or twice, but thought nothing of it until the third time. She looked down to find a pair of panties peeking out of the leg of her pants. It says something about my friend that she was embarrassed not only about the panties but by the fact that they were her everyday plain old white ones. I have another friend who is as frazzled on her way to workout as I am. She found herself at dance class once with her underwear on over her workout pants.

    Wearing thongs is particularly problematic. My best friend reports that her daughter believes women over fifty should not wear thongs. Apparently, we are supposed to suffer VPL in our yoga pants. I gave up thongs with yoga-type pants a few years ago, when I bent down to retrieve something while wearing a pair of lovely pale pink sweat pants. A man standing behind me, who I thought was a gentleman, remarked, “I thought thongs were no longer fashionable with you girls.” My daughter doesn’t believe anyone should wear thongs. I’m following her advice these days.

    About three days after I started the antibiotics for my tooth, the phone rang. Though I didn’t recognize the number, I answered anyway. It was Chris, the pharmacist, wondering how I was doing on the antibiotic. I’m betting that isn’t all he was wondering.

  • Let Me Take You To Funky Town

    It had to happen eventually. I’ve been riding pretty high on this writing thing. Every week, I told myself, I would write 1,000 words. I would get them written and published without fail. I set my deadline: Monday before noon. It’s been about six months now and I’ve achieved my goal every week. Copious pats on the back for me.

    Then, this week rolled around and shoved me right into the writer’s block wall. I’m not really surprised. I kind of felt it coming early in the week. “What will I write about,” I asked myself. “Hell if I know,” I told myself. “Maybe I’ll write about what goes on inside my brain,” I thought, then realized there wasn’t enough going on to fill 1,000 words. There wasn’t enough going on to fill the back of a Target receipt.

    I’ve gotten to Saturday and wondered what I would write for Monday many times. I’ve always come up with something. Maybe not what I originally intended, or how I originally intended, but generally, Saturday ends with me set on Monday’s topic. Not this week. At the end of the day on Saturday all I knew was that “Camelot,” the new series on Starz, looks like it might be good, though Joseph Fiennes looks really silly bald.

    This week, though, it was Sunday night and I still didn’t know what to write. It became our dinner table conversation.

    “What should I write about?” I asked.

    “Write about me and my friends,” my daughter said.

    “Did it already.”

    “Pets!,” she said. “Write about pets.”

    “Done,” I said.

    Not to be deterred, she said, “Houses. Write about houses and how they protect you.”

    “I try to write about funny things.”

    “Oh,” she said. “It has to be funny?” That ruled out houses in her mind though I had considered writing about how I coped with a portion of Spring Break by allowing her to string yarn all over the house.

    “Write about condoms,” my son said.

    “I have,” I told him. “You came up in it.”

    He offered suggestions for a number of truly obscene things about which I could write. I informed him that my mother’s cousin reads my blogs. He shut up.

    I turned to my husband, who had said nothing throughout the children’s suggest-o-rama, though I did see him hide his head in his hands over one or two of our son’s suggestions. He looked at me and without saying a word, I knew that he knew the problem.

    “I’m in a funk,” I said, “and it’s not very funny to write about being depressed.”

    The conversation turned to lethargy, which is a fancy word for feeling so tired that you just want to stay in bed forever even though you aren’t really tired and you know you’re not tired but somehow getting out of bed just seems impossible. I mentioned that antidepressants can actually give some depressed people the energy they need to off themselves. I am already on antidepressants so there’re no worries about that here.

    My neighbor calls our house “The Fun House.” I know she means that I don’t care if the kids paint or build a blanket fortress in the family room or tie the house up with yarn. But, to me, it’s a pretty good description of the atmosphere in our house. Things are a little wonky, often outrageous, definitely not normal and that’s fine by us. So, I laughed full and loud when my son described how I could commit suicide without leaving the bed by having our cat nap on my face.

    While I’m in no danger of taking the feline express to the afterlife, I am most decidedly down. I’m sure its primary cause is the whole morbidly underemployed thing and the now-due student loans that are part of my economy-induced nightmare. There are also a number of other factors inhibiting my ability to maintain my generally cheerful-ish demeanor.

    First, there’s my health. You know how people will go on about the problems they are having in their lives and you don’t know what to say and so eventually you wind up saying something lame like “Well, at least you have your health”? Well, I don’t have my health. Now it’s not like I’m really, really sick. I don’t need a benefit for me. (Wait . . .a benefit might help pay off those loans.) No, I’m not gravely ill. I have a nagging respiratory infection of some sort with one of those coughs that doesn’t bother you until someone makes you laugh and then you wind up hacking up a chunk of lung. And a toothache. I have never had a toothache in my life. Now I have a toothache. And a pulled groin muscle. What the heck is that about? I’m not a linebacker. How do I rate a groin pull?

    Ordinarily, I’d be running and laughing to cope with my troubles. Can’t run, because I’m still resting and rehabbing the offending muscle. Can’t laugh without paroxysmal coughing.  I thought I might garden away the blues, so I decided to clean out the garden beds. Seeing all those little green and purple shoots sticking through the soil would surely improve my mood.

    Gardening didn’t improve my mood at all. On the contrary. with every dead grass whacked back and every dried-up leaf pulled, I was more and more convinced that it was time to move into a nice little townhouse. It was sounding better and better in my mind until I got to the selling the house we already own part. Then I got to the packing up everything we have part and the part where the movers somehow misplace the box containing all of my shoes. I went inside for a cup of tea. The garden beds looked better, but my pity party continued.

    With laughing, running and gardening put out to pasture, all that was left was reading. Usually, reading helps me relax. Lately, though, reading is just making me feel terrible. It started with “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss. I am thoroughly enjoying the story and its imaginative setting. There are just enough fantasy elements to remove the story from reality but not so much as to overwhelm the narrative. It is, in short, wholly imaginative and beautifully crafted. And it makes me feel completely inadequate as a writer. When I tell my husband this, he tells me I am being ridiculous and that, if I were a full-time writer who started full-time writing when I was in my twenties and who had someone to take care of everything else, I would be writing wholly imaginative, beautifully crafted fiction.

    He’s right, of course. I am a mom, a wife, a teacher, a dog trainer, a cat wrangler, a gardener, a runner and a writer who somehow managed to write more than 1,000 words despite a week-long bout of the blues.

  • With Friends Like These

    When I was a teenager, I fell in with a bad crowd. Cognizant that some of my loyal readers were friends of mine when I was a teenager, I should immediately state, “I’m not talking about you.” It is most likely that none of the bad crowd with which I fell in are regular readers of Snide Reply. I suspect one or two may not be regular readers of anything, but that is neither here nor there. My parents felt it their duty to point out that I had fallen in with said crowd and to do all they could to discourage further falling.

    Though I don’t necessarily believe it, apparently the crowds children fall into these days are even badder—in the bad sense of bad—than those I encountered. There was binge drinking when I was a teen, there was sex when I was a teen, there were drugs when I was a teen. (Again, my high school buddies, I am not talking about you. Oh, OK, I am but I’m not telling who did what or with whom.) The drinking, the drugs and the sex are all bad enough and I’ve worried about my kids doing them since probably a day or two after they started kindergarten. I don’t need to think about worse vices my children may be pressured to try.

    Now that I own a teenager, my parental friend radar has been tuned to high gear. It’s a wonder my son hasn’t noticed the brain hum in the background. Every time a new name is mentioned, my “who the hell is that” button gets switched. I try to be nonchalant as I grill my son.

    “Fred?” I’ll say, “I don’t think I’ve heard you mention a ‘Fred’ before.”

    “He’s a friend,” my son will say.

    “Well, duh!” I think.

    “Well, duh,” I say. “Where did you meet him? Is he in one of your classes? Does he drink, do drugs or have unprotected sex? Is he a member of a weird religious cult?” Well, maybe I don’t say that last bit, but it’s only because I know that’s not an appropriate thing for a parent to say outside of her head.

    As if worrying about new friends weren’t enough, I’ve discovered old friends can go bad.

    We moved to Naperville just as our son was entering fourth grade. He spent his entire first year here friendless. Oh, we made sure he saw his Oak Park friends and installed a phone line in his room so he could call them whenever he liked. Still, fourth grade was tough. In fifth grade, he made friends with a very nice boy. So, he had a friend. One friend.

    Middle school started out miserably, friend-wise. Our son was placed into the gifted program; his one friend wasn’t. Friend ground zero all over again. But, having found his tribe, he started making friends more easily. Eventually, he had a bunch of friends.

    All of his friends, at least all that I’ve met and I’ve met quite a few, appeared to be fine young people. I might have written, “appear to be fine young people” but recent events necessitate a change in verb tense. One of those fine young people has turned out to be quite a . . .hm. . . what’s the word . . .well, it rhymes with “spit head.”

    Spit Head has twice, in the last month, hurt my son’s feelings deeply. The first time, Spit Head convinced my son that he was over-reacting. I wanted to give Spit Head a good talking to, but held my tongue. If my son wanted to remain friends with Spit Head, then I needed to let him do it, I reasoned.

    The second time Spit Head hurt my son, Spit Head’s mother got involved. Now, before you think that she was telling Spit Head he was behaving badly, stop yourself. Spit Head’s mother was proving the old apple falling from the tree thing. Surprisingly, my son has dealt with Spit Head’s latest antic much more calmly than me. “He’s a douche,” he said. “He’s a douche,” one of his other friends agreed. Then, they moved on.

    Me? I never want to see the kid again. And I if I ever see his mother? Well, let’s just say Naperville is gonna look a little bit more like the Jersey Shore that day.

    My daughter is having friend troubles but it wasn’t her feelings that were being hurt. Instead, my daughter is the grand prize in a battle for affections that is largely waged by a gang of siblings we’ll call “The Delightful Children” with all due credit to “Code Name: Kids Next Door.”

    The Delightful Children include two brothers and their younger sister. She adores my daughter, who I’m sure she sees as a big sister substitute. Problem? The Delightful Children seem intent on breaking my daughter’s considerable bond to her Best Friend.

    My daughter plays with Best Friend nearly every day. They can play together for hours on end. In the winter months, things are fairly quiet on the friend front. The Delightful Children are, for some reason, not allowed to play in other people’s houses. So my daughter and Best Friend trash, I mean, “play” in our house. Sometimes they “play” in Best Friend’s house.

    In the summer, the wars begin. The Delightful Children have one of those redwood things with a playhouse on top. The monstrosity is nestled in the branches of willow tree so the playhouse is hidden from sight. I believe the tree may be a Whomping Willow because, invariably, Best Friend rushes home from the playhouse in tears. It being illegal to water board children, we’ll probably never know the details of what ensues in the Playhouse of Pain but it seems to involve harsh words from The Delightful Children toward Best Friend.

    My daughter recently wailed, “It’s like I’m being forced to choose between hurting my Best Friend and hurting a little girl!” My little girl being the one getting hurt, I decided to lay down a law. No playing with Best Friend and The Delightful children together. My husband reports the law is being respected with unexpected results. Recently, Best Friend and The Delightful children played together while my daughter practiced gymnastics in the family room.

    I figured we were finished with friend issues for a while until my son started a conversation like this, “Well, I was talking with one of my pothead friends . . .”

  • A Shameless Mom

    Lately, my son and I have been watching the Showtime series, “Shameless,” together. He’s not a very demonstrative kid. He hasn’t kissed me since he was eight and has to be coerced into giving me a hug. So, when he voluntarily bonds with me over something, I welcome the opportunity. We’re having a good time watching the show together, talking about the characters, loving the songs and downloading our favorites. The problem is, deep inside, I feel like I’m a bad mother for letting my son watch what is clearly a series for adults.

    I’m sure other parents wouldn’t allow their teenage children to watch “Shameless.” It’s loaded with graphic sex. The characters smoke pot. The father is an unrepentant alcoholic and a con artist. The children do whatever they need to get by, including stealing an entire truckload of meat. There is, in short, everything to which a child should not be exposed. I remind myself that my son has the digital version of girly magazines and that he regularly locks his bedroom door to, I’m sure, avail himself of them. Still, every time my son and I watch “Shameless,” I feel I’m a bad influence on my own child.

    Certain of my son’s friends’ parents would agree. I’m thinking, in particular of the parents of one of my son’s closest friends. His parents are fine, upstanding people. They would never let their children watch “Shameless.” On the contrary, I’m sure they only watch wholesome family shows. They probably have a boxed set of “The Waltons.” I’ll bet they don’t allow girly magazines, digital or otherwise, in their house. I’m pretty sure they are a little intimidating to their son. Hell, they intimidate me.

    My husband thinks I’m insane when I tell him I’m a bad influence on our son. He points out that our son has similar values to ours. We happen to think our values are pretty good ones, though they are rather to the left of many of our neighbors. Our son’s friends were amazed to hear that he sometimes—ok, often—uses the “F” word at home but he is not allowed, under any circumstances to use the “G” word. Recently, a friend of his posted, “Are you gay?” on his Facebook wall in response to something our son posted as his status. Our son responded, “Why, yes, I’m pretty happy right now.” My husband and I were pleased. His friend was confused.

    I worry about different influences with my daughter. She’s become quite sassy lately and has developed what my parents called a “smart mouth.” I never really understood that phrase. Wasn’t very smart of me to use it. It always got me in trouble.

    I’ve been trolling other mommy blogs, scoping out the competition, particularly those who’ve managed to turn their rambles into cash. On one such blog, I found moms complaining about their own children’s smart mouths. They attributed the phenomenon to “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and its sequel, “The Suite Life on Deck.”

    As in many shows targeting children, the characters in the “Suite Life” series sass talk the largely incompetent adults. It never occurred to me that the show might be a bad influence other than to convince my daughter we should be living on a cruise ship.

    I started tracking her behavior following episodes. Damned if her mouth didn’t get smarter almost immediately after viewing a half hour of the show. I decided to follow the blog moms’ prescription and encourage exposure to a different sweet life.

    The remedy was The Food Network. According to the blogosphere, kids eat up cooking shows. So we tried Food Network for a while. My children have never watched a television show that I didn’t watch with them the first time. This means I’ve suffered through Telly Tubbies, SpongeBob, Dora, Bob the Builder, Imagination Movers and some strange thing called “Bobobo-bo Bobo-bo.” I’ve pulled the plug on a number of requested programs but what I saw on Food Network was truly frightening.

    I try to eat a healthy diet and encourage my children to as well. I buy lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, low-fat milk, yogurts. My son routinely spits them out then buys the junk he prefers with his allowance. I’ve pointed out to him that he is literally crapping his money away, but it doesn’t faze him. He won’t walk his dog, but he’ll walk ten minutes to the local Walgreen’s when he’s jonesing for a Mint Milano.

    I’m particularly interested in teaching my daughter the importance of healthy food choices. She’s got more holes in her teeth than a block of baby Swiss and a sugar habit that’ll keep Willy Wonka in top hats for the next ten years. But thanks to Food Network she now has recipes for pink lemonade layer cake, corn chowder chock full of heavy cream and brownies the size of The Hulk’s fist.

    I should have known better than to flip the channel to Food Network. I once witnessed Paula Deen cook a juicy hamburger, top it with cheese and a fried egg then place the whole works between Krispy Kreme donuts. Paula says she doesn’t eat that way every day, but geez, eating that way once is bad enough.

    Paula’s not the only bad influence on FN. The Neely’s lay on the sugar and fat in ways that make their corpulence make sense. And have you seen Ina Garten lately? I’m loath to say it, but she is morbidly obese. I’m loath to say it for two reasons. First, I realize obesity is a complex problem. Second, Ina is apparently a very nice lady and has lots of fans that flame anyone who criticizes her weight. But Ina’s health and temperament are not my concern. My daughter is back to watching “The Suite Life on Deck.”

    I feel a little bit better about my parenting lately. My son’s friend had dinner at our house. The dinner conversation ranged wildly from my son’s condom sandwich caper at school to the shows the boys watched when they were younger. The friend was gob smacked to learn that I not only knew the names of the shows my son watched, but I actually watched them. When I said, “What was up with the hair on that Bobobo guy?” his friend said, “Wow. My parents never watched anything I watched.”

    “Woooo hoooo,” I thought and gave myself a mental pat on the back. Finally, something I can be parentally smug about. My son may make sandwiches with condoms in them. My daughter may clap her hands together and say, “Breakfast! Now!” But I’ve approved every bit of media they’ve consumed. It is definitely something to feel gay about.

     

  • Puh-leeeeze Read My Post About Whining

    I like to watch brain surgery. Really. I’m not being sarcastic. I am leading up to something, but, seriously, I like to watch brain surgery. My favorite brain surgery to watch is the kind where the top of the patient’s head has been taken off and the surgeon is rummaging around in the brain looking for a particular section that will elicit a particular response from the patient. The surgeon calls for the patient to be wakened. Then he (OK, or she) prods the identified brain section with his brain prodding thingy and the patient starts talking about some long forgotten incident. I’ve seen it lots of times and I still think, “Cool!”

    I want a brain surgeon to open my head and look for a particular spot and then sever its neural pathways. The one I want him to find is the one that causes my entire body to convulse when triggered by that parental nightmare: the whine.

    Whining slices straight through me. My entire body contracts, my eyes squinch, my brain crackles. I will do anything to make the noise cease. Some people can’t stand fingernails on a chalkboard. Some can’t stand ringing telephones. I can’t stand to hear the sound of whining children. This is a problem. I have children.

    I don’t recall whining being a huge problem with my son. He wasn’t a particularly whiny kid but all kids have something they do that is completely and utterly obnoxious. My son’s obnoxiousness was physical. He liked to hang on people. Literally. We knew it was annoying, but we never tried to stop him. The then-current parenting fad was logical consequences. The logical consequence of our son hanging on people was that they would be annoyed with him and tell him so. They did. He didn’t care. The logical consequence of our attempts at logical parenting was that lots of people thought we were indulgent parents afraid to discipline our child. Who? Us?

    Our daughter is the one who makes me want a lobotomy. Like many an eight-year-old, she is a charming child. She is beautiful and delicate. She is bashful around strangers. Her teachers report that she is popular, helpful, considerate and kind.

    These people have never denied her a thing. I know the monster that lurks within her. I have told her, “No.” I know the keening banshee that lies beneath her placid exterior, the one who comes out to play when the Empress is thwarted.

    A typical exchange might happen at breakfast. My daughter will say, “I know you’re going to say ‘no’, but can I have sugar cookies?” I will ask, “Have you had something healthy?” “No,” she will say, “but you said I could have them yesterday and I didn’t eat them then.” I will remind her that yesterday she asked to eat the cookies after she had eaten something healthy.

    “You can have the cookies after you eat your bagel and cream cheese.”

    “But I don’t want the bagel and cream cheese.”

    “You asked for a bagel and cream cheese. You will have to get your own breakfast if you don’t want what I made you.”

    “Ok. I’ll eat the cookies.”

    “No, you may not eat the cookies until you’ve eaten the bagel and cream cheese.” By now, the pre-whine tone has entered her voice. I can feel the tension building in my toes.

    “But I don’t want the bagel and cream cheese.”

    “Then get your self something else that’s healthy.”

    “You’re supposed to make my breakfast! I’m just a little girl!” She is now in full-on whine. I am resolved to remain tough. She is my little Zen master and I will not rise to her call to chaos.

    “You know the rule. If you don’t eat what Mommy makes, you make your own breakfast.”

    “Fine! I’m having the coo. . .” Before she can say “. . .kies,” I say, “No, we talked about this. You may not have the cookies. You must eat something healthy first.” I can feel myself slipping. The knife-edge of her whine has sliced my brain in two.

    “You interruuuuuuuuuuupted MEEEEEEEEEEE,” she wails. “I’m trying to talk and you interrupted meeeeeeee!  You always do that! I’m trying and trying to explain to you and you interuuuuupt meeeeeee!”

    And she has me. I cave.

    “Fine! Eat the cookies!” I say, thinking I would probably let her eat glass at this point if she would just stop whining.

    I don’t always cave in. Sometimes I hang tough. I remember that she is acting, that she can turn the tantrum off at will and that I have proof.

    Our children do nothing together but bicker. We spend lots of money on therapy so that they will learn how to do something other than bicker. After two years, they are able to tolerate playing video games together for about 20 minutes, in the therapist’s office. Progress.

    One night at dinner, our son was lobbying hard for some electronic or musical hundred-dollar-plus gizmo. Probably a Les Paul, but maybe a 40,000-gigabyte iPod Touch. Whatever it was, he was pushing with all his considerable negotiating talent. His father and I were resisting mightily. We were winning. Then, our daughter started whining. The whine turned to a wail. She was sobbing, tears were falling down her cheeks. All conversation stopped. We turned to her. “Sweetie,” her father said. “What’s wrong?” When she had all of our attention, she abruptly stopped wailing, looked at us and said, “Now will you give him what he wants?”

    We did not give him what he wants. But, while condemning her methods, we applauded her solidarity with her brother.

    There’s not much evidence that our daughter will leave the League of Fine Whiners any time soon. Why would she? It’s the most effective weapon in her arsenal. She may even be recruiting her brother. He has begun using whining as a tool to achieve his desires. So far, he does it playfully and it’s really rather amusing to see him smoosh his very teen-aged, semi-bearded face into childish pleading. He even holds his hands clasped together and gives me puppy dog eyes, while saying, “Pweeze, Mommy.” It’s ridiculously endearing. The first sign of serious whinery, though and I’m headed for the nearest neurosurgeon.

  • Of Bacon, Breasts and BPD

    When I started this blogging thing, I had two goals. I needed something to occupy the time between caring for children and filling out job applications. I also thought I’d keep digital dinosaur status at bay by learning some of the new fangled social media. Apparently, I am under-ambitious. People are making money at this blogging thing.

    In fact, people are making freaking boatloads of money at this blogging thing. Heather Armstrong, according to the New York Times, is the queen of the “mommy bloggers,” those women who blog about their kids, their husbands, their tract houses. Sound familiar? What doesn’t sound familiar is that Heather is on the Forbes list of the most influential women in media. Heather’s blog brings in as much as $50,000 per month. I, on the other hand, make about $80 a week tutoring.

    I may be under-ambitious, but I am not stupid. Though I didn’t start blogging thinking I would make money at it, I also didn’t become a teacher thinking I wouldn’t. The blogging thing is going better than the teaching thing, so why not look into making money blogging, I thought.

    I did some research. I’ve discovered that you can make money blogging if you are willing to be infamous or odd, reveal intimate details of the misfortunes in your life or endorse products. For what I hope are obvious reasons, I explored endorsing products first.

    I use lots of products. I use products all over my house. Problem is, the products I use don’t really excite me. Except for bacon. I love bacon. Bacon is like a kiss on a boo-boo. It won’t fix anything, but it makes me feel better just thinking about it. Endorsing bacon is a problem, though. I don’t have a favorite bacon brand. It’s bacon, for crying out loud. All bacon is good. Bacon is the little black dress of the food world. Doesn’t matter who made it, it goes with everything.

    So bacon’s out. I used to endorse the hell out of Prescriptives makeup. They folded. I loved the restaurant, L’Escargot. It went. Finding products to endorse was starting to make me feel very old and very out of touch. Then I remembered mayonnaise. I could live without dark chocolate. I cannot live without mayonnaise, specifically Hellman’s. My love of Hellman’s comes from being raised by a Southern woman. As a child, I believed that all sandwiches were made with Hellman’s, just as I believed that anyone who wasn’t Catholic or Republican would go to hell.

    My mother put Hellman’s on every sandwich she ever made. Once, at our house, my dad’s mother was making him a sandwich. She buttered the bread. “Ewwww!” I thought. “Grandma, Dad likes his sandwiches with mayonnaise,” I said. “Oh, no, he likes them with butter,” she said confidently. Now, at this point in my life, my father had been eating sandwiches with mayonnaise for nearly 30 years. “Hey, Dad,” I said, “do you like your sandwiches with butter or mayonnaise?” My grandmother was generally a humble person, but I could have sworn I saw a smug little smile cross her lips as he said, “Butter.” My father’s sandwich lunacy aside, I can say without pause that I thoroughly and heartily endorse Hellman’s Mayonnaise. I also endorse therapy to resolve conflict avoidance issues, but my dad is making his own sandwiches these days so it’s a little late for that.

    Unfortunately for me, endorsing Hellman’s is only going to pay off if I have more than a handful of visitors every day. Heather, the Mom Blog Queen, gets about 100,000 every day. Clearly, I’ve got some subscriber base building to do. That’s where being infamous or odd or willing to reveal intimate details of your life come in.

    Heather built her base through infamy. She, famously, was fired for doing a very naughty thing: posting rotten things about the people she works with on her personal blog. The story went viral. (That’s what the kids call it when something gets very popular on the Internet and millions of people are clicking on it, sharing it, posting it. Going viral is not to be confused with going postal.) With no co-workers to malign, Heather turned to blogging the intimate details of her life. When Heather got pregnant, her subscriber base soared. I hope she didn’t blog the details of how she got pregnant. Now, Heather blogs about everything that happens to her, including getting her washer fixed.

    My appliances all seem to be in working order. The motherboard on the dishwasher went wacky a few weeks ago, but so far my biggest dishwasher problem is worry that the dog is too heavy to stand on the open door while he licks the plates clean. If he climbs in and accidentally gets washed, then I’ll probably have to call the appliance repair guy. But I’ll be able to cancel the grooming appointment.

    Unlike Heather, I feel my everyday life is just a little boring. I could do odd, I thought. There is a woman who calls herself “Pioneer Woman.” She got picked up by a cowboy in a bar, they got married and she traded her “high heels for cowboy boots.” Now she blogs about her life as a city slicker on the ranch with four kids and a cowboy.

    I thought about being odd for a while. Oh, OK, I thought about being more odd. Yes, I could be more odd, so shut up! Problem here is that you have to be really odd to cut through the clutter. So, I decided that it would be really odd to blog about having a third breast installed. I could write about my struggles to find a doctor who would install said breast. I could blog about where on my body I would put said breast. Would it go in the middle? To the side of one of the existing girls? If so, which side? There are so many possible tangents to the third breast avenue. Of course, the problem with writing about installing a third breast is actually having to go through with it. Maybe if I learn Photoshop®, I’ll start the “and booby makes three” blog. Until then, I’ll be buying my bras off the rack.

    So, I’m left with sharing intimate details of the misfortunes in my life. There are women who’ve built loyal followings writing about deaths of husbands and children, about battles with cancer, about living with mental health issues. My husband isn’t dead and I’m not planning on killing him this week. If one of my children dies, I don’t think I’ll be in a writing mood. I could write about living with bipolar disorder, which I do on a daily basis—the living with it part, not the writing about it part. The thing about writing about my chemically imbalanced life is that then I’m “the bipolar blogging mom” when really, I’m just a mommy blogger who happens to be bipolar. Did I mention that generic lamotrigine is really crappy? If you can, get Lamictal® brand. Otherwise, take the generic stuff with bacon.

    Copyright© 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.