The First Two Letters of Mom101: Mo. Coincidence?

One of the strange and unexpected effects of having more than like six readers a day now is that marketers contact me and ask me to promote their products from time to time.

Dear Mom101 (because we haven't bothered to take the time to learn your real name),

Love your blog. Especially the post about [drop in reference to most recent post here]. Ha ha ha!

So enough about you, we here at Toxic Household Products Incorporated would love if you'd write up our new toxic cleaning fluid that's now available in WalMarts across the country! All you have to do is write about it on your blog. And tell your readers to buy it. Isn't that a great deal?

What's in it for you? Well, um...we'll send you a sample valued at 2 dollars and 98 cents retail! Seriously, it's like us PAYING YOU almost THREE DOLLARS to write an ad for us. Isn't that awesome? You should feel very very proud that we want to pay you for your writing.

Plus you get to be affiliated with the very impressive Toxic Household Products Incorporated. And WalMart. You do like WalMart right? Or are you a Communist?

Best regards,
Clueless about marketing on blogs and not a Communist

Needless to say, I'm not generally interested in advertising someone's product for free. I get paid good money to do that in my day job. And I get paid no good money to do that at Cool Mom Picks. Mom-101 is basically my endorsement-free asylum. Unless I can get sex out of it.

But recently, I received an email from a very clever guy who approached me in a very clever way. He dropped Gloria Steinem's name (hello!) and told me about this new radio network she's involved with called Greenstone Media, which, when I clicked over to the website, was totally exciting to me. It's talk radio for women, by women. And no, I don't mean twelve consecutive hours of women yammering about their periods. These are funny, smart women like Mo Gaffney and Lisa Birnbach. And yes, Gloria Steinem.

I was intrigued by the idea because I like talk radio. But if you look at what talk radio has become with very few exceptions, it's hardly anything woman should be interested in. It's dominated by men, mostly angry white men, and that's something too many women get at the office anyway. Or worse--at home.

I wrote back to David and said if Mo Gaffney is involved, sign me up.

Ever since I saw the Kathy & Mo show off-broadway - way back before it was on HBO like every four seconds - I've been smitten with her and Kathy Najimi. I laughed so hard at their sketches that I actually may have spit on them. And if you've ever been to the theater, then you know what a turnabout that is. I think she's one of those smart, thoughtful comedians that understands the balance between promoting an ideology (coughcoughDennisMillercough) and just being funny.

Besides, she was on AbFab.

The next thing you know, David is telling me, "you like Mo? I can get you ten minutes with Mo."

Really? Really?

Now let me ask you, blogworld, is this not the most genius marketing tactic you have ever heard? I mean, if Toxic Household Products Incorporated told me that I could get ten minutes with say, George Clooney, do you not think I would suddenly find something decent to say about WalMart?

The answer is no.

No way. Never. No.

But I certainly would take them up on the George Clooney chat.

So of course I prepare for my ten minute call by stressing out for three days straight. I may be funny at the Thanksgiving table but against a real professional comic actress? Um, no.

Then I spending an entire afternoon reading about the network and listening to back episodes of Women Aloud, the show Mo co-hosts with her best friend Shana. And what are they discussing? The same things we do here: The "motherhood is boring" article that Her Bad Mother was (mis?)quoted in. The Forbes article about why men shouldn't marry career women - the very article brought to my attention by Christine at A Mommy Story.

I thought, I know these topics! I can talk about these topics! Mo will not think I'm as much of a dork as Arianna Huffington did when I met her, and could think of nothing to say except how nice her triceps were.

(Do not worry. I did not say that out loud. But I did think it.)

"Hi, is this Mo?"

"Yeah?"

"Hi this is Liz from Mom-101 and Cool Mom Picks?"

silence

"Oh okay, you're the blogger."

"Yeah, yeah. So um, do you know why I'm on the phone with you right now?"

"Ummmmm....radio?"

Let me just assure you now--because I see you sweating there, I can sense it, right through the computer screen--that the call got much better from this point on. I stopped the stammering and nervous giggling, and we settled into a nice rhythm where frankly, I felt less like she was pitching me and more like I was on a first date. No way, you were at that pro-choice rally? I was there too!

We discussed feminism and those women who diss it even (as she put it) while they're not standing around barefoot baking cookies. We talked about Women for Women International, a great organization we've both been involved with. We agreed that pundits describing all of so-called Middle America as the same, are being as unproductive as calling a state that went 50.3% Bush in the last election, "red."

We traded stories about our kids; I even picked up a few parenting tips like how to confront your kid's bully. Or what to do when your son asks to wear blackface to school on Halloween. I also learned that if your son thinks girl bands are "stupid," dust off the Joan Jett.

We ranted about the Pussycat Dolls. And sexism. And homophobia. And racism. At which point she said:

Actually today on my radio show, I was telling this story about giving my son a black doll when he was 2 and a half..."

So of course I interrupt right away and say WHAT? WHAT? OH MY GOD I WROTE ABOUT THAT VERY THING TODAY.

Which surely came out like PLEASE PLEASE BE MY FRIEND OH MY GOD WE ARE SOULMATES!

Because of course you knew I had to dork it up at least one time over the course of the call.

But I didn't dork it up entirely. In fact in the 46 minutes and 42 seconds that I wound and unwound the phone cord nervously around my fingers, I believe made Mo Gaffney laugh twice. And this, in my book, is the Nobel Prize, World Cup, and Homecoming Queen, all wrapped up in one. But even better, she made me laugh. And think. And want more.

I am officially the newest fan of Women Aloud. And I have no problem shouting it from the rooftops, out my windows or across the blogosphere.

Hooray for smart funny women. Hooray for smart funny women on the radio. Hooray for the distinct possibility that all it will take is one more illegal prescription drug incident to free up some much-needed airtime.

Niece-102

Beatrice Caroline was born this morning at 10:11 to my brother and his wife.

Ten fingers, ten toes, and (so I've been told) adorable.

A 19-inch, 7 lb 5 oz reason to keep doing everything we can to make this world better.

Black and White

Recently I was removing the piles of books from Thalia's bedroom floor and lining them up on her new wall shelves. I thought I'd give it a full year before I got her room organized. Just because I could.

While there is something sort of Zen about displaying sixteen identical volumes of Goodnight Moon side by side, I thought I'd change things up with a few knicknacks. I grabbed a hammered sterling piggy bank, a vintage pink Erico phone--the kind with the dial at the base--and two of the cuter dolls she'd recieved as gifts and added them to the display.

When I stepped back into the room later that day, one of the dolls had been replaced with a small Winnie the Pooh. Let's just say I'm not a big fan of the licensed characters, which is why I noticed the change right away. I'm sure in good time it will be all Elmo (Dora/Blue's Clues/Arthur/Sponge Bob) all the time 'round these parts, but until then, I'm limiting the free advertising to whatever comes printed on the diaper.

I walked into the living room where Nate was zoning out on some sports event or another.

"Did you move one of the dolls?" I asked Nate.

"Oh, you mean the politically correct dolls." he answered through cheeks stuffed full of sunflower seeds. "Yeah, I moved one."

I had no idea what he was talking about.

He grabbed my arm to pull himself up from the couch then led me into the baby's room, handing me the two dolls out that I had originally placed on the shelves. The first was a handmade folk art doll my father and stepmother had brought back from a trip to Costa Rica. She had deep brown skin, an ebony mop of yarn hair, jewelry fashioned from teeny orange and yellow beads, and a festive orange dress traditional to the Ngobe tribe.

The second doll, the one he tossed into the armoire, was a beautiful little Sugarplum Fairy finger puppet. She wore a purple tulle skirt with silver accents, and had gauzy violet wings jutting from her back. Her handknit hair was interwoven with delicate purple little flowers and her skin was the color of a latte.

"They're both black," Nate pointed out.

"So?"

"So it looks like you're trying to make a statement."

Of course I responded in the only appropriate way. I told him he was an idiot and I took down the Pooh doll.

He put it back up.

I took it down.

He put it up.

Aren't we a fun couple?

"It just looks like, ooh aren't I PC mom? Ooh, look at my kid's PC room," Nate said in his characteristically cynical way. "Give me a pat on the head for being sooooo PC."

Now first you have to know that Nate is as liberal as they come. He thinks that should the entire Republican party accidentally fall into an active volcano that the world would be better off; with the exception of Hannity who I think we'd both want to keep around simply to see how he behaves when there's no one left on earth to agree with his hatefulness.

You also have to know that Nate is the kind of guy who, when his best friend arrives at his birthday dinner, can get away with shouting, "hey everyone, the token black guy is here! We can start now!"

So let me be clear: Nate is not saying we should have only white dolls around the house. He is saying that when we have only non-white dolls (even if we are only talking about two here), we project an agenda.

Does he have a point?

Now I am not interested here in how the world should be, but how the world is.

The way the world should be: Skin color doesn't matter and we don't even notice it, and you go and put out thirty non-white dolls, Mom101! The way the world should be is what you see in pizza delivery commercials where the pepperoni-loving Caucasian frat boy has three best frat friends--one Indian, one Japanese, one African-American. Because you know, that happens all the time. Like at University of Southern Give Me a Freaking Break.

The way the world really is: Well, maybe it's a place where black little girls can have any kind of Barbie, but white little girls with black Barbies are the product of bleeding heart parents.

Of course I do have an agenda and I'm proud to admit it. I want Thalia to grow up knowing that Koreans aren't just the women who do your nails, and Domincans aren't just the women who take care of the children of rich women. I want her to understand that diversity doesn't mean having one second-generation Mexican-American student in her classroom. I want her to know that there are children with two mommies and children with two daddies and those parents love their children as much as we love her. I want her to be the kid who can have a black friend without calling her my black friend.

So maybe my choice of dolls was absolutely unintentional. I really did pick the prettiest two dolls she owned. Or maybe it did come from an unconscious move to surround her with some semblance of diversity, even at this early stage.

But then Nate unwittingly did it too. The enormous stuffed tiger he bought her when she was born is surely of African descent. And that Pooh? If the label is any indication, he's Chinese.

---

Edited to add: The tiger is in fact Indian. Possibly Bangladeshi. Mea culpa, and thank you J! Geography was never my strong suit.

Some Ego Stroking for Your Inner MILF

Actual quote: Um, well I thought the shirt was funny. Then um, I realized like, hey, it's true. I DO like hot moms! So uh, well I got it. That's it.

Ignore the fact that he has the second head of a large black man growing out of his shoulder. This guy's a catch and a half. Single moms, start your engines.

There's A New Pick-Up Line In Town

Nate: "So, what are you doing for the next two minutes?"

Crazy People Say the Craziest Things

In New York there are any number of characters. And I do not mean the Singing Cowboy. These are real, honest to goodness crazy people whose goals are not necessarily to sign a book deal or land a recurring spot on Letterman. They're just living their lives in the only way they know how. The characters are part of what makes New York, New York; and if you can manage to stop blocking out the chaos of the world around you, they're hard to miss.

There's an elderly man who's ridden a bicycle around the West Village for years. He has a boom box strapped to the handlebars and it plays Sinatra singing New York, New York on a loop. The man doesn't seem to go anywhere in particular; he just circles the tree-lined streets around Bleecker and Hudson, spreading his love of the city.

If you ever spent time in NoHo before it was called NoHo (acronyms gone wild, if you ask me) you would be rather familiar with Crazy Plant Man who was eventually immortalized in an Adam Sandler SNL sketch. He literally walked up to you while you were eating at a sidewalk cafe and, sporting a potted plant on his head, would growl, "give me your money! I'm crazy! I'm crazy!"

Intimidation through horticulture.

This week however, I was introduced to a new one who may just have taken the cake.

I was riding the subway home around 7 when a deep, gravelly voice caught my attention. I half tuned him out, assuming it was a standard issue E train panhandler. But for some reason the passengers seated around me were giggling, even as they tried to avert their eyes. I glanced down at one end of the car and saw a middle-aged black man behind darkly tinted glasses, all gangly arms and legs. He carried a wadded old red tee shirt which he coughed into every so often. But what stood out, besides his strong, rhythmic voice was his body language which was more that of a performer than a downtrodden addict repeating an "I'm hungry" spiel for the 160th time that day.

Then I realized

(holy crap)

the man was doing stand-up.

He had an entire homeless guy comedy schtick, punctuating every punchline with man, I tell you...

Man, I tell you folks....you wonder why I'm panhandling right? After all, I got me a/c. It's called the express train. And I got me an oven. It's called the third rail. Man, I tell you...

I been living down in these tunnels for nine years. That's when I left my wife. 389 pounds that woman was. 389 pounds. She used to ask me for designer jeans. Jordache, she said. I said woman, the size of the jeans that we'd have to buy to fit you, they ain't called designer any more. They called heffer. Man, I tell you...

My wife, she used to ask me for everything, my wife. She asked me for champagne. I said, I'll show you champagne. We walked down the corner with a dixie cup, opened up a fire hydrant, poured a nice cool glass of water and dropped in two Alka Seltzer. There's your champagne, woman. Man I tell you...

I asked this gentleman for a dollar once on the subway. Rich looking gentleman, nice suit. One dollar, that's all I asked for. It took him twenty full minutes to get that dollar out of his pocket. By the time that dollar made it to me, George Washington himself was crying. Man I tell you...

He cleaned up.

I mean, if you're going to give a dollar to someone on the train it might as well be someone who actually did a little work for it.

Today, Yesterday

There are certain places that New Yorkers are absolutely not allowed to go lest someone accidentally mistake us for Nebraskans.

1. Times Square. You are only permitted to go there if you have a meeting at MTV, or if you're taking out-of-towners to a show--which must be the original cast, ideally still in previews. In other words, not Phantom. In fact, even calling it Phantom is a little uncomfortable.

2. The Olive Garden. Unless you're drunk, it's a dare, and there is money on the line.

3. A taping of Regis and Kelly. You are able to say you saw Kelly at the playground. Or at the salon. Or at the gym. That's as far as contact with them can go. No eye contact either, especially not with Regis.

4. The Today Show Plaza. The people waving signs? Yelling for Al? Proposing on TV? It's all just too much perkiness. Not to mention all the individuals wearing turquoise. In fact, it's been whispered that you have to hand over your 212 area code if ever you find yourself within one block of 30 Rock between 7 and 10 in the morning. The Today show, in other words, is the ultimate New Yorker no-no.

So guess where Nate and Thalia and I went yesterday!


Oh yes we did.

Because we thought hey, we're already up at 6:30 am with the baby anyway. So what's the difference if we're home or at this Justin Roberts kids' concert were invited to, right? Thalia will love it and we'll have her home in time for her morning nap.

I'll tell you the difference - making bottles at 7:30 am is not the same as making conversation with well-groomed NYC mommies and their awesome shoes and their kids in their own awesome shoes at 7:30 am. That's for sure.

Thalia models her free but somewhat ill-fitting Justin Roberts Meltdown tee.

Of course not all the mommies we met were as awesome as their shoes and their kids' shoes. Okay, all except one.

Enter (cue the scary music) Me Me Me Mommy.

Expensive skirt. Expensive pedicure. Expensive nose. And the tightly-held belief that the she is the axis upon which this fair planet spins.

Hey, it's that guy! You know, that guy, who's always on Today!

There were about thirty of us, plus kids, spread out picnic style on the cordonned-off red carpet in front of the stage. There's plenty of room, certainly enough for the kids to crawl around and gnaw on each other's free Putamayo CDs. And despite the early-morning fatigue that's hanging over the lot of us, the vibe is pleasant and extremely friendly.

Suddenly the fashionably late Me Me Me Mommy stomps through the seated crowd like Godzilla and stakes out a small spot for herself. And her kid. And her sister. And her sister's kid. Of course this small spot just so happens to be right in front of me.

Actually, right in front of me doesn't quite describe it. The spot was me.

"Oh you don't mind do you," she says without actually waiting for an answer. Then she plops her bag down practically in my lap and sits her kid on my foot. She looks down, sees him sitting on my foot, smiles at me. And then she plants her own ass down, right against my other foot. And despite the disingenuous smiles that she flashed me every few seconds, she made it perfectly clear that she was not going to budge.

Let's not forget now that Me Me Me Mom's sister is also there, dragging her own preschooler behind her.

Me Me Me Mom waves her over, and then points to a convenient three inches of available space. And by available, I mean the space right in between Nate and I.

Oh yes. She broke up my family.

Nate and I looked disbelievingly at each other, then did the only thing we could do: we moved our stuff over and slid back a few feet.

It became abundantly clear that it was not a seat near the stage that Me Me Me Mom and her sister were looking for; it was a seat near the cameras. Every time those things were pointed her way, she forced her kid up to standing and told him to dance. You would have thought she was auctioning him off, the way she was turning him to face forward and wiggling his limp little body around. But at least it got him off my foot.

What does one throw towards the stage at a kiddie concert anyway? A nursing bra?

Of course Me Me Me Mom's behavior violated yet another New Yorker rule: Pretend you don't care about the cameras. Also: Stay the hell out of people's personal space because you never know who's carrying a knife.

But since Nate and I are too non-confrontational to actually bring the situation to some sort of satisfying resolution, we handled it the way adults do: We made passive-aggressive jokes about them, loud enough to hope they'd hear us.

Then we enjoyed the song Justin Roberts played.

It was a good song.

Sometimes in life--not always, but sometimes--the good guys come out ahead. Guess who ended up on camera without any position-jostling, foot-sitting, cameraman-flirting, or family-dividing:

T-Bone! Accompanied by Ezekiel, whose resolution not to shave for weeks nicely coincided with his appearance on national television

And wait! I was there too!

D'oh...

There we go. In the black. Clapping NOT to the beat.
Also there's a nice view of Me Me Me Mom's sister's enormous back pressed against my nose.

I would say that when it came down to it, it was a very New York day after all.

#2

I want to be the woman who can look at my new post-baby body and sigh and smile and love it and accept it. La la la life is beautiful because I have a baby and hey, is that a rainbow over there?

But I'm not.

I suppose I'm shallow that way.

It's not that I'm aerobicized, pilate-d or yoga-ed--on the contrary. I hate excercising. Almost as much as I hate eating anything that isn't entirely a carbohydrate. (With the exception of cheese, which is the one substance in the world I could not live without.) But I do admit that now, thirteen months post-baby, my body is starting to again resemble its former self and it makes me happy.

It makes me happy to only have to suck my stomach in half as much as I did before.

It makes me happy that my XL oxfords no longer require the strength of J-Lo quality doublestick tape between the buttons to keep them closed at my bustline.

It makes me happy that I'm starting to acquire some photos of me that I'm not mortified to put in Thalia's baby album.

It makes me happy to be nearing my pre-baby weight.

So sue me.

(Meanwhile, could someone please explain to me exactly how this new weight distribution works? How is it possible to be the same weight as you once were, only everything about your body is bigger--bigger boobs, bigger hips, bigger belly, bigger arms. What exactly is smaller then? Do my toenails weigh less? Have several pounds worth of bones somehow sloughed off into my system and disintigrated? I'm confounded. )

I recently bought some new clothes to replace the maternity skirts and tees that overstayed their welcome in my closet. I bought some new bras to keep the droopy new (but mercifully smaller) boobs hoisted up to a reasonable half-mast position. I even bought some new thongs. Good ones.

And just as I'm feeling like me again, like a woman who can walk down the street without being entirely obsessed with the size of every single other woman's ass relative to my own--Nate and I start to have the baby number two talk.

And inside, I freak a little. Just a little.

I was not one of those cute pregnant women that I pass on the streets of New York every day. I did not have chiseled little arms and a tight little butt and a cute little bump. I had the body that made the salesgirl at an overpriced Madison Avenue maternity boutique look me up and down and sneer, "I don't think we have anything that will fit you here."

I bought a ridiculously priced black maternity dress just to spite her.

And then, four days later, I made the shameful trek back to Manhattan, back to the dreaded Upper East Side, back to the store, along with my stepmother for moral support, just hoping that that same saleswoman would not be there when I begged them to take it back.

She was there.

I exchanged it for the only item that would fit me: A $200 diaper bag.

Yeah, I showed her.

If it were only the weight that I was worried about now, I would be selfish. Disgusting. One of Those Women. I certainly know there are women who had it worse than me, still have it worse than me, wish they could have the hips that I pour into my Fat Jeans, wish they could have the stomach that hangs over my seat belt in the car. But it's more than the weight.

I had a pregnancy that--what's the technical term again? Oh yeah: It sucked.

Besides the sciatica, the nausea, the clumps of hair in the drain, the standard war stories and pregnancy complaints that forever bond us to one another as materniveterans, I had lots and lots of bedrest.

Bedrest, if you haven't heard, is not fun. Not really. I would not for a second compare it to, say, karaoke night with your best friends or a shopping spree at Bendel's.

Thanks to a cautious high-risk OB and the threat of cervical incompetence (Hi, your cervix? Yeah, tooootally incompetent. Can't do its job at all, and considering what we're paying - well we just might replace it with a cheaper cervix from South America.) I was confined to my home for much of the 41.5 weeks of my pregnancy.

I was sometimes allowed to walk my dog. I was sometimes allowed to walk to the corner deli for lunch. I was sometimes allowed only to walk to the bathroom and back.

Exercise: Not even.

Travel: Verboten.

Sex?

Pfffffft.

Instead I immersed myself in online message boards, in registry research, in reality show reruns I had no business watching. I am far too intimate with Danny Bonaduce's freckles. I went through the entire third season of The Surreal Life. Twice. But it's what I could manage from bed.

You could safely say I was depressed.

For the first time in my life, I had no control over this thing that was happening to me. I couldn't work harder and make it go away. There was no more I could do. What I had to do was less.

I'm not good at doing less. I would not list that as one of my skills on a job interview.

To make matters worse, I had to force gracious responses to well-meaning friends who assured me, it's for the good of the baby - you want a healthy baby, right? Oh it's for the baby in the end the baby the baby a healthy baby baby baby baby. Their words had the opposite effect than intended. Because then I felt both shitty and guilty--guilty for wanting my life back when meanwhile, the baby the baby oh the baby.

I felt like an incubator. A fat, depressed, bedridden incubator.

And now, even as I read this, I fear that I sound like an insensitive jerk. Please don't think I'm an insensitive jerk?

I know there are people who are desperate for a baby, would do anything to have a pregnancy as "easy" as mine was. I know, as Nate reminded me this weekend, that it's nine months of yuck for a whole lifetime of joy. I know that should I be lucky enough to put the almost 38 year-old ovaries to good use again, that it will of course be worth it. Every minute of the pain, the misery, the weight gain, the sacrifice. There isn't even a question about that.

But still, I freaked. Just a little.

-----

Edited to add: To clarify, I wasn't on bedrest the entire pregnancy. It was off and on the entire pregnancy - weeks here, days there. I've known those who had it for 7 months straight and their experiences made mine seem like roses and sunshine.

And, Once Again, My Dork Meter Goes to 11

Nate and I emerged from the trendy Brooklyn bistro early this afternoon after a quiet little brunch a deux.

Nate: You're ready to leave? You sure you don't want to go back in there just to look at Jude Law one more time?

Me: WHAT???

Nate: Jude Law. He was sitting right next to us.

Me: NO!! How did I miss him? How is that possible?

Nate: You didn't see him? Really?

Me: That's it. I'm going back in.

Nate: Oh my God. If you go back in there and pretend you left something at the table just to look at him I will totally lose all respect for you. That's the kind of thing that people who...Liz? LIZ!! Get back here! Oh Jesus.

Mom-101, P.I.

What goes on when your sitemeter says someone clicked on 14 pages in 1 minute, 09 seconds:

PAGE 1
I wonder who this blogger is that Amalah linked to...

PAGE 2
What's this? Boring.

PAGE 3
Boring.

PAGE 4
Oh, snore. If she has nothing to say why even bother to post?

PAGE 5
Hm, what about...hm....skim skim skim...okay that's sort of funny...

PAGE 6
That's not funny at all. And long as shit. She expects us to read all that?

PAGE 7
That's too long for me.

PAGE 8
Blah blah blah, you don't like going to work. Yeah, we got it.

PAGE 9
Too long.

PAGE 10
Seriously, Amalah really reads this crap? Too long. But cute baby.

PAGE 11
HA! That's kind of f-...oh wait, I thought this was going somewhere else. Pass.

PAGE 12
Pass.

PAGE 13
Pass.

PAGE 14
Skim skim skim...cute baby picture, whatever. Hey wait, a link to Amalah. I'm out.

The Isle of Needy, Scary, F*cked up, Misfit Toys

I never entirely understood the Isle of Misfit Toys in that animated Rudolph movie. I mean the basic concept was clear: A train with square wheels, a fish who flew, a gay Charlie-in-the-Box doing a mean Charles Nelson Reilly impression. These were not "normal" toys. Thus, misfits. Got it.

(Of course there is the exception of the seemingly conventional doll who has inspired four decades of debate as to the possible reason for her misfit designation. My vote: Syphilis.)

In any case, I always hated their pariah status. To me, even at a young age, they seemed less like misfits than rejected playthings of spoiled kids with no imagination. Can you not play with an elephant with polka dots? Is a cowboy riding an ostrich less fun than a cowboy on a boring old horse? And what kind of parents would let their kids toss their toys for superficial flaws anyway. Didn't they teach their kids that what matters is not shallow surface traits like the shape of one's wheels but kindness, thoughtfulness, inner beauty?

Okay, perhaps that's overstating my ten year-old mindset. But I did feel bad for those toys. No toy should be without a child, as the miracle birth of Jesus Christ, and Master Card holiday commercials have taught us.

But now at last, I understand.

I get it.

There should be an Isle of Misfit Toys. Because there are some toys that don't deserve your love.

I first noticed it a few weeks ago when I was visiting my brother. He pointed out a little electronic keyboard toy of his daughter's that--get this-- reminds you to play it. If you have stopped for a while, it admonishes, TIME TO PLAY THE PIANO!

Just like a mother calling time to wash up for dinner, or time to do your math homework, your child hears TIME TO PLAY THE PIANO. The voice is childlike and friendly, of course, but almost frighteningly upbeat. Not quite like a Stepford Wife; more like a preadolescent Tatum O'Neil after getting into her parent's cocaine stash. She's excited. She's eager. She doesn't realize how hard she's squeezing your arm as she pulls you into the second floor music room repeating, TIME TO PLAY THE PIANO.

Annoying, but all in all, relatively harmless.

Then I realized a toy cell phone Thalia had received as a gift does essentially the same thing. She stops playing with it for a moment and it rings.

It calls you.

A toy that literally calls you, and tells you to play with it. A mechanical way of imploring, Pick me up! Playyyyy with meeeeeee. I don't want to be alooooooone.

For a minute you might almost forget that it's just a plastic shell inhabited by a couple of AA batteries and not the ghost of Carol Anne.

The call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!

I started to think, what is with all these needy toys? Toys that ask--nay, demand--that you play with them? My brother's keyboard toy doesn't ask you in that polite sort of British way, "would you mind, I mean, if you're not really doing anything else...you know, just sort of (aw shucks) take a moment and play with me? " It implores you to play. Insists that you play. Or...or....or else. It's not normal.

And then came the drum.

Not any old drum, but one with electronic lights and bells and music and a switch with four different settings. With every flat-palmed smack of its taut plastic skin, it recites a letter of the alphabet, a number, a note of music. For all I know it can also predict the future and feng shui your apartment, this thing is that impressive.

At first Thalia amused herself with it, happy enough to strike the drum and hear the synsthesized snare sound it played in response. But she's just a year old. After a brief spell the drum became less interesting than, say, the cat. Or a book. Or the petrified Cheerio that's been hiding amongst the dust bunnies under the couch for six weeks.

She tossed the drum aside.

That's when we heard the haunting chorus for the first time.

PLAY THE DRUM, EVERYONE PLAY THE DRUM.

And then again. PLAY THE DRUM EVERYONE, PLAY THE DRUM.

Finally, just one more eerie melodic warning before knocking glasses off our shelves and mysteriously slamming our windows shut: PLAY THE DRUM EVERYONE, PLAY THE DRUM.

There are children in there, I tell you. Zombie children. Drum-playing freaky needy zombie children that want the world's toddlers to bend to their will. They will repeat this mantra over. And over. And over. Until you have no choice but to succumb to the percussive temptation. They do not want you to learn the alphabet or how to count to ten. They don't want you to eat or sleep, to kiss your mama or pet your dog. They just want you to hit that drum at any expense.

Children of the Drum.

And then after the third warning, like they never existed, the voices are gone.

And the house is quiet.

Too quiet if you ask me.

A Sentimental Journey (No, This is Not About Journey)

I'm not often a fan of writing prompts and memes. It's not that I'm too good for them (yeah, Mom101 you beyatch), it's just that I just have too much crazy schizophrenic chatter inside my head at all times that needs to come out or else; let alone taking the time to write on someone else's crazy schizophrenic chatter. My head would surely explode into tiny bits, and what with Nate doing all the cleaning these days, that just wouldn't be fair to him.

But when the Lovely Mrs. Davis asked her loyal, pop culture-savvy readers:

What television, music, movie or book from your childhood are you excited about sharing with your own children?

I had to heed the call. Hey, it's in honor of the anniversary of Sesame Street. Sesame Street! If you can't honor the place where the air is sweet and everything's A-okay, you have no soul.

The first thing that came to mind was the soundtrack to Free to Be You and Me, hands down. It was the first CD I bought when I was pregnant, and then, when it somehow disappeared, I went and bought it again. I wanted to make sure I had it on hand the first time I turned on the stereo for my first child. Before Mozart, before Brahams, even before They Might Be Giants.

Even before Journey.

The one downside is that I cannot play it for Thalia without my eyes welling up with tears, that nostalgic am I for the 70s-era post-feminist lessons the album teaches. Surely it helped shape my own values: that boys can play with dolls, girls can grow up to be firefighters, the princess doesn't have to marry the prince, and that it's alright to cry, especially when the Rams' defensive lineman Rosie Grier tells you so.

Of course there is that bit of weirdness in hearing Michael Jackson sing about how when he grows up, he doesn't want to change at all.

Um.

And while I love Free to Be with every fiber of my being, there's perhaps one thing from my childhood I love even more.

Where the Sidewalk Ends is the single greatest children's book of all time, anywhere, ever, even in parallel universes and time warps and planets that have yet to be invented and I don't know where else--and I just dare you to disagree.

On second thought, no, I don't dare you. I pity you, all you Ann of Green Gables lovers, you Little House on the Prarie fan club members. Not because those aren't wonderful books. But because you just don't get as much mileage at cocktail parties quoting sappy Laura Ingalls lines about Ma and Pa as you do quoting Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who would not take the garbage out.

When I was in fifth grade, there was social currency in being able to memorize the entirety of Sick, an opus to hypochondria and preadolescent truancy.

I still remember the first few lines:

I cannot go to school today
Said Little Peggy-Ann McKay
I have the measles and the mumps
A gash a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet my throat is dry
I'm going blind in my right eye...

Of course Thalia is a little too young to sit still for much more than Brown Bear Brown Bear these days. So when the nephew came to stay with us last month--the Game Boy-addicted nephew--I forced a few readings from Sidewalk on him.

"But I haaaaaate poetry," he whined. "Poems are lame."

May I now present to you: Brodie, a kid who likes poetry.

Each morning he woke up eager to tell us about his new favorite part: The king who ate all the peanut butter sandwiches. The stupid kid who trades a dollar for four quarters because four is more than one. The dirtiest man in the world. Captain Hook who must remember not to pick his nose.

What's not to like, I ask you with a thick Yiddish accent? Nose picking--that's good stuff.

-----

If you want to play along, everyone's welcome! Just take a trip over to the online abode of Amy Davis, pop culture maven and Cool Mom Picks music expert, and get this nostalgia party started.

-----

Edited to add:
There seems to be some discussion about whether or not Michael Jackson was in Free to Be. From what I can tell, he doesn't perform on the CD, Diana Ross assumes that role--but he is in the original cast on the DVD according to IMDB. So apparently the Diana-Michael morphing started way earlier than anyone was even aware.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to...(sob)

It seems that my working at home while Nate stays at home with Thalia adds up too many people at home in our not very large apartment.

Darn, I knew I should have come back in this lifetime as a person rich enough to own a four- bedroom West 10th Street townhouse between 6th and 7th with a private yard and an office on the top floor. Stupid karma.

But as far as this lifetime, Nate has expressed--fairly so--that he can no better manage the responsibility of day-to-day parenting with me venting to coworkers on the phone during Thalia's naptime, than I could pour out Cannes Lion-winning ad copy while he and Thalia dance along to Mr. Noodle in my office. And so, several weeks ago, I agreed to go to work.

Go to work.

I am officially a go-to-work mom.

Whether or not I have a full day of work to do, I go to work. And Nate, in turn, stays home.

It seems less than extraordinary, I know, for a working mom and a stay-at-home dad to actually...well, work and stay at home. But it's new for us. We're rebels that way.

What is extraordinary, however, is that over the past several weeks, Nate--Master of boxer shorts on the floor, King of "I'll do the dishes tomorrow," Grand Archduke of saliva-encrusted sunflower seed carcasses that litter every available surface--has been put in charge of managing the household.

And managing is exactly what he has been doing. Splendidly.

Get out the ice skates, Beelzebub. We've got a date and the hot chocolate's on me.

You can imagine my delight at coming home each night to a made bed, a bathed baby, a nicely chilled bottle of wine, and a spectacular homemade Oriental chicken salad with alternating orange segments and crisp asparagus tips around the rim of the bowl. To say nothing of the toasted slivers of almonds. C'mon, who doesn't like toasted slivers of almonds?

There's something wonderful about handing over the homefront. Something invigorating about diverting brain cells from shopping list-remembering to useless pop culture trivia-remembering. Something liberating about...

about...

oh my God.

I miss it.

I can already hear your repsonses in my head: Oh, I'd looove not to have to pick up the toys from under the couch. Oh I'd loooove if my husband washed the bottles. You're crazy, lady. Be grateful!

And I am grateful. For a million reasons. But I also have to tell you that it's hard.

Not doing housework I hate is hard.

What's not to understand? Stop looking at me that way!

How could I possibly miss any of this? Me, who didn't know that there were mice living in my broiler for nearly nine months in my old apartment, because that was the last time I had turned the thing on. (And let's just say that if you ever have mice living in your broiler pan, you might not want to preheat the oven. Especially not to 450.)

It's not that I enjoyed cleaning or grocery shopping or cooking, none of which I did very often or very well. But it was my cleaning. My grocery shopping. My ordering Thai food in lieu of cooking. I think it was the control I loved. Over my environment. Because the only thing I hate more than doing it all is doing half. I'm not good at that at all. I'm going to need some practice.

And now Nate is doing half, as he should be. And he's doing it well. He's not even failing, just a little, so that I can come in and save the day, show him up, roll my eyes and say gawwwwwd Nate, don't you know that's not the right vacuum attachment to get the cat litter out of the corners.

I bet he's doing it to spite me.

Like an amputee with a missing limb, I keep reaching to fulfill responsibilities that are no longer there for me, and I don't know quite what to do instead. The strange thing is, I knew how hard it would be to have to ask Nate, "what's the baby eating these days?" Or "does she need a bath tonight?" Hard and heartbreaking and probably an essay unto itself.

But I never imagined it would be so tough to have to ask Nate, "why did you change paper towel brands?"

He did, he changed them. Didn't even ask me. Just went right ahead and tossed my lifelong loyalty to Bounty aside without a second thought. Bounty out, Brawny in. The bastard.

And so what I'm learning is that I can't tell Nate to get the Bounty instead. I can't tell him about the super absorbency and the handy select-a-size feature, and how you really do need two Brawny sheets to one Bounty. It's his domain now. I'm trying to let him find his own path.

This weekend, Nate called to me from the kitchen while I caught up with my emails in the bedroom.

"Liz!" he yelled. "You left the milk out again."

"Sorry," I murmured rather unconvincingly from behind my computer.

"This is like the fourth time this week. I'm tired of putting it away for you every day," he huffed. I heard him slam the refrigerator door shut in exasperation, and then stomp off to the kitchen sink where half a dozen soapy bottles awaited his attention.

"Sorry," I said mindlessly shoving another potato chip into my mouth without averting my eyes from the computer screen. "Sorry."

"And don't be getting crumbs in the bed either!"

The transformation is almost complete.

Down to one dog, one cat, one baby, two adults, and 50% less pet hair on the couch

The kitties are gone.

Final score:

Practicality 1, Sentimentality 0.

I'm Hairy and My Feet Smell

I feel the need to call a moratorium on post-BlogHer schwag bag whining. Yes, I admit I too had a yearning for a goodie bag containing a certificate for a free weekend at Canyon Ranch or a brand new PowerBook G5. But I'll happily settle for the free condom.

Good lord people, if you could afford the price of the conference, you could certainly afford to buy whatever $2.50 trinket you wish you had recieved instead of a corkscrew. I even read yesterday via Elizabeth that some ranting, raging so-and-so was offended to have received a bib and a kids calendar, which are evidently items exclusively for "white, married, heterosexual women." Who knew that single women, women of color, and lesbians couldn't procreate? I for one am shocked. Shocked.

Or wait, maybe it's that lesbian moms don't care if their kids get food on their clothes. Yes, I'm sure this is it: Lesbians like doing laundry.

You learn something new every day.

Let me just say, if you were insulted by "presumptions" made about you at the conference based on free gifts that offset the price of the weekend, you have too much time on your hands. You also have not ridden the New York City E train.

Just to give you a little perspective, here's what advertisers think about me, judging from the posters in my subway car on my commute to work.

I'm hairy.

I'm feeble.

I have disgusting feet.

I have some combination of bald patches, age spots, thin unattractive lips, spider veins, razor bumps, eczema, acne, unsightly wrinkles, nail problems, warts, and a creeping, communicable fungus.

I am flaccid.

You're in America, You Damn Kid...Speak English.

There are times that we newer, less experienced parents come to you, the wiser and more knowledgable moms and dads. We come humbled, on bended knee, begging for you to lend us even a modicum of your expertise. This is one of those times.

I can't understand my 13 month-old daughter.

Help?

In her langauge, dat, dat and dat seem to mean CAT, THAT and DOG. Respectively.

Thithhhhhhh I think is THIS, but it also might mean DISH, LIZ and I LIKE LOOKING AT THE LITTLE BOY ON THE YOBABY CARTON.

I used to think that nye-nye-nye-nye was some sort of term for rejection. Then I realized that she also employs it when she wants to pet the dog. Or grab my necklace. Or gleefully stick her fingers in her own poo then wipe them on Pat the Bunny.

And then of course, there's Thalia's new favorite sound, chhhhhhhhhhhh. While it doesn't seem to actually mean anything, I pretty much assume she's got a paper clip lodged in her throat, oh, about 19 times a day now.

I'm a fan of language. Sometimes I read random pages in the dictionary for fun. I've been known to buy the Sunday Times solely for the crossword. Hell, I chose WordPlay as my one movie theater outing in the past six months. So it's frustrating to me that the only phrase of Thalia's I can admit to understanding with any sort of confidence is dadadadada.

(In case you're wondering, it means YOU THERE...YEAH, YOU HOLDING MY BOTTLE. GIVE ME THAT.)

All of this has made me come to realize that "so, is she talking yet?" is a terrible question to ask the parent of a thirteen-month old. Of course she's talking.

The better query would be, of course:

"So, are you understanding yet?"

Eeep. Op. Ork. Ah-ah. That means I love you.

Dragged Kicking And Screaming Into The New Millennium

Now that I'm finally reading the actual recaps of the BlogHer conference panels I missed, I'm having the best time pretending I actually know a damn thing about technology. Ooh, add an RSS feed icon thingie! Ooh, monetize your blog! Ooh, insert secret James Bond-esque codes in invisible ink to increase your technorati rank!

It's all pretty funny considering I am a woman who has yet to activate her year-old, office-issued Blackberry and who, like Karen Rani, thought html was pronounced "hatemail" until like five minutes ago.

See look - I just linked to someone. As I've learned, that's a good thing. Without linking to like a hundred people a day apparently, I'm in serious danger of losing my blog license.

If I can be honest, I think I was happier not knowing any of these wacky blog secrets like reading level scores. I liked those early days when I dropped a BlogLines button and a Top Sites button in my sidebar not because I knew what they meant, but because they looked so authentically techy and made me feel like I could pass myself off as a geniune blogger. And that Bust button: Preeeeetty. I knew I wanted one of those right away.

It was purely an aesthetic decision.

For the past six months, I've been content never thinking once about what time of day to post, or how often to post, or how short or long it should be, and certainly not that you're "supposed to" drop some sort of keywords into a headline to optimize search engine traffic and get very important people to read you and link to you and make you famous--at least among those who read Technorati. Which is to say, not your parents, but very likely your babysitter's boyfriend.

It's not that I do any of these things. In fact I don't. It's just that I'm conscious of them now which makes me squirmy.

I mean, can't I just write? Link when I feel like it? Make the headlines 29 words long? Is my lack of interest in The Way Things Are Done I messing things up entirely, like Frasier's dad insisting on keeping his old comfy, battered La-Z-Boy in an Eames-heavy postmodern pad? Am I just a blogging neophyte who will Get It one day?

I'm trying to understand these uncomfortable pangs I feel reading about actively pursuing readers with the help of gadgety thingies and fancy bloggy know-how. Maybe I'm aspiring to be one of those cool kids who's all, yeah, I just blog for me, ya know? And if anyone happens to read, well whatev. I'm FAR too busy being self-confident to think about it. Also, I have a pedicure appointment. Ciao.

But I'm not one of those kids. I've admitted here before that readership and dialogue and feedback all inspire me to continue writing. I'm not good at writing just for me, as much as I wish I were. And I don't think I'm alone here. Also, I don't think that finding an audience is a bad thing--and certainly not one that should make me feel quite so dirty as I'm feeling when I read about how to achieve that very thing.

All of which makes me feel caught between a very uncomfortable rock and an extremely icky hard place.

So, well...ack.

Ack.

Maybe I'm just insanely behind the times, as with my iTunes playlist and my fear of instant messaging.

(If I may digress for a moment, it's turning out to be a not very good idea to have Don't Stop Believin' as my ringtone. I'll be waiting on line at CVS, starting to hum along to the familiar Journey tune that I think is streaming in through the speakers before I realize, shoot, that's no piped-in music--that's my phone! By which point I've already missed the call and annoyed my fellow shoppers.)

Maybe I should just catch up with the 21st century and accept the fact that this is a medium with its own rules, and I can't treat it like a newspaper column with backlighting. Maybe I need to say goodbye to the battered recliner, no matter how comfortable it is.

Or maybe what I'll do is go back to my early blogging mindset, and treat all the thingies as, simply, accessories.

You know how I like the accessories.

Welcome, Mrs. Siegelbaum's Fifth Grade Class!

If MotherGoosemouse were to check her site meter, she'd notice about a 16 hour stint on her Blinded Me with Science BlogHer post coming from my IP address.

Go there and you'll find links to all the info presented at the conference breakouts that you missed. And um, that would be me. Because I am a little embarrassed to admit, I spent far too many of the sessions either blogging, talking, or foraging for berries and edible bark thanks to a food service schedule at odds with both east coast jet lag and my blood sugar levels.

Mo G.M.'s links led to links led to links which led me to Lynne D Johnson's suggestion of exploring a readability assessment tool. In plain English: how easy is it fer peeple to follow wot yer saying on yer blog.

My results:

Average number of syllables per word: 1.44

Words with one syllable: 2669

Two syllables: 795

Three syllables: 251

(Notice how I just used three more three-syllable words by using the word syllable three times? Ha! Now it's five more!)

Flesch Reading ease (A 100 point scale, 100 being Dr Seuss and 1 being medical texts written in Aramaic. 60-70 is ideal.): 75.65

And finally, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade, or how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the conten): 5.09

Wait til I tell my parents that my overpriced private college degree has enabled me to write at a fifth grade level. They'll be delighted. (That's another three-syllable baby right there, just in case you're keeping track.)

Try it yourself and let me know your Flesch-Kincaid Grade. I'd love to know what I'm spending most of my time reading these days.

A Tale of Two Kitties

As my mother always said, there's three stories to every story: My side, your side, and the truth. There's been a whole lot of she said/she said round the internets lately and I suppose it's just one more example of my mom ocassionally knowing what she's talking about.

So I have a story. But I want to tell it two ways. May I?

-------

1.

Last week, I came home from work, weary, tired, ready to...what? What's this? Right in my front hallway?

Two kittens. Hello.

"The vet strong-armed me," Nate insisted. "When I took the dog in for her shots, she told me I had to take them."

"You had to take them," I said folding my arms. Nate had been begging for a new kitten for months now, to replace the evil hissing feline spawn of satan who currently resides with us. I have declined. Desdemona may be the most evil cat ever to drag her bloated, furless belly across a carpet, but she's my most evil cat. And I love her. Besides, one cat, two kittens, one needy, attention-deprived bulldog, one baby, and two adults in one Brooklyn apartment? That'd be a big uhhhhhh..no.

Nate made a grand gesture of picking both kittens up at once and cuddling them close to his face. "They need to be fostered for two weeks until they can legally be adopted," he told me. He went on making faces as he talked in sad, sad tones about their missing mother and how young they are and need a mommy and how the baby loves them...the baby, Liz! The baby loooooves them!

I was not buying.

"Do NOT name them, Nate!" I said. "Two weeks and they are going back. That's the end of it."

I have been very clear. Like my old 78 of Grease that used to play Hopelessly devo... Hopelessly devo... Hopelessly devo... I have been unmistakable in my mantra: No. More. Animals.

And he went and did it anyway. With the hopes that once I see them I'll like them, and once I like them I'll keep them. It's manipulative. It's so very Nate. And it pisses me off.

"The vet strong-armed you?" I asked. "She forced you to take them?"

"Uh-huh."

"She handed them to you, with the carrying case and the food and shoved you out the door?"

"Pretty much."

"So bascially, if I go back there right now, hand the cats back to her, and yell at her for taking advantage of you, even after you told her that I would not allow them and that our building doesn't permit four pets, I'm not going to hear a different story?"

"Well...okay, um, so here's the thing...."

Well okay, um, nothing. The kittens are going back next week. They are eating everything in sight. They're clawing my couch. They're terrorizing the dog. They're shedding on my clothes. They're dragging poo remnants across the carpet in the baby's room, not yet having learned how to properly rid their hind parts of the hangers-on. They're keeping me up all night long as they roll and pounce on the wrestling mat otherwise known as my sleeping body.

And they're really fucking cute.

The bastard.

--------------

2.

Nate has always loved animals. A regular Doctor Doolittle, they love him right back, like nothing you've ever seen. He can walk into a pet store with a big DO NOT TOUCH THE PARROT, HE BITES sign right on the cage, and I swear that parrot will break out of his cage, fly right to Nate, land on his shoulder and start cooing.

Me? The parrot will bite. From Nate's shoulder no less.

This is to say nothing of Nate's relationship with dogs and cats. Rottweilers at the dog run lie down at Nate's feet, subservient and humble. Lumbering old bulldgogs spring up on his legs for a pet. Little yappy nasty dogs on the street stop yapping just long enough to rub themselves against Nate's ankles, before being yanked back down the sidewalk on rhinestone-studded chains by their equally yappy owners.

Even Desdemona, my own vile excuse for a cat, tolerates Nate. Which is to say she only hisses at him half the time. This is no insignificant matter; just ask any of our overnight guests who have woken us up in the middle of the night to beg that we might remove Desi from the bathroom doorway--that unnerved are they by the prospect of stepping over her fat, prone body.

Nate's love of animals (and their reciprocal love for him) would be beautiful on its own, let alone coupled with the intense desire he has to save each and every one of them. He cannot hear of a puppy in need of an owner without personally calling every person he knows and begging them to take it. He is physically unable to walk past PetCo without donating the last 79 cents in his pocket towards the kitties up for adoption in the small teetery cages in the back.

And then coming back and asking me for another dollar.

I fear taking him to Italy, where cats roam the streets like New York City pigeons. I have an image in my head of a suspicious customs agent on our return to JFK opening his bag, only to find sixteen Calicos and a single Burmese Shorthair scampering away towards the baggage carousel.

Nate would simply shrug and smile. Then ask me for a check to pay the fine.

So when he came home last week with two six week-old motherless kittens, using every devious trick in his repetoire to compell me to agree to keep them--including coopting my camera and taking about a hundred ridiculously cute pictures of the baby petting them--it annoyed me to no end. But it also reminded me of one of the things I love most about Nate.

We're not keeping the cats. But I am keeping Nate.

"Don't you want to keep them now?"

"But look how happy they make her!"

"A motherless kittie in a stroller, Liz. A STROLLER! Have you no heart?"

Hatin' On and Lovin' On

People to be mad at besides a stranger on the internet who may not say nice things about you:

-Ann Coulter

-Mel Gibson

-Whoever decided that leggings should be back in this fall. (Lynch him, girls!)

-Comment spammers

-People in front of you on line at the grocery store who don't realize that they are actually supposed to pay for their groceries until after the cashier has rung them up--at which point they begin the long, arduous search for their teeny-tiny wallets in those great big bags of theirs.

-The saleswoman who sold you the strapless bra that makes you look like you have four boobs.

-The inventor of the fart machine that Nate bought.

-Men (with small penises) who diagonal park their sports cars (because they have small penises) between two spaces in crowded lots (to compensate for their small penises).

-The guy who turned off the air conditioning on the E train while it sat in the Chambers Street station yesterday morning. Although on the up side, I did lose about four pounds.

-Me. For forgetting to nominate last month's Perfect Post.

Well, if I had remembered to do it, I would have nominated Hally's hiliarious post on bootleg DVDs in Tanzania. And not just because I'm biased because she's my best friend since Kindergarten or anything.

And if I could have nominated a second post? Just so you know? It would be Hally's take on the 4th of July party (held on July 8th, no less) at the US Embassy in Tanzania. Embassy people and US Marines mingling with damn dirty hippies - what could be more interesting than that?

Sorry I don't have any fancy button codes to give out, Hal. Next month, I swear.

(Also, huge gracious heartfelt thanks to One Tall Momma for nominating my birthday post to Thalia. It's nice when the ones that mean the most to me also mean something to someone else.)