When preschoolers attack. Or at least attack their closets.

If I am so proud that Thalia dressed herself this morning, why is it leaving me with bad 80s flashbacks?

Brands of Substantial Awesomeness: Taking the High Fructose Corn Syrup Out

Yesterday I got home from Information Resources' Consumer Package Goods conference (sexy!), where I spoke on a smart panel of mom bloggers to a roomful of close to 1000 marketers, salespeople and retailers about marketing to moms, the power of The Blogger, and what matters to us when make decisions for our families.

We were straightforward. We were honest. And I think we scared them a little talking about things like honesty, corporate responsibility and doing right by your consumers; and that considering how the internet works these days, transparency is going to happen with or without your participation. Essentially, you can fix problems now and address reasonable customer concerns as they come, or you can wait until the number two google search for your brand X soap is Brand X Soap Sucks and Here are 46 Reasons Why

At one point I said: I'm putting you on notice: High fructose corn syrup is your next big problem.

It was kind of quiet at that point.

This afternoon, entirely coincidentally, I got a press release from Log Cabin Syrup, the official maple-esque syrup of my own childhood. It would seem that that they are officially removing HFCS from their syrups and replacing it with real sugar.

Real sugar!

I like real sugar.

Now personally, I'm all about real maple syrup too. Stick a pail under a maple tree and tap that sucker. But still, the effort gets a big honkin' whoo from me. So here I am shilling for Log Cabin Syrup (r), just to let you know that there's a company out there doing the right thing.

Any other brands out there taking HFCS out of your products? Let me know and I'll list you here so we can sing your praises. (At least until I get tired of this and move onto the next crazy consumerist rant.) And I'm kind of hoping Coke gets in touch. Because God, I love a nice cold Coke.

1. Log Cabin Syrup
2. Oroweat Breads
3. Snapple (coming soon)
4. Pepsi Raw, Pepsi Throwback, Mountain Dew Throwback (coming April)
5. Ocean Spray juices (I have it on good word but would still like to see the press release)
6. Hansen's Cane Sodas
   
7. Simply Heinz Tomato Ketchup
8. 
   

Big news in the Mom-101 household, and no I'm not pregnant

You may know that Nate is hilarious (mostly) and an awesome dad (pretty much always), a Redskins fanatic (sigh) and generally cool guy (I know he's reading this). What you may not know that he is also a food savant.

He's the guy who can stick his nose in a glass of Tempranillo and tell you exactly which berries are in there. He stocks more kinds of salt in the pantry than most cooks have herbs, and he would sooner slice out his own tongue than use margarine. Get him going, and he can wax on for hours about sriracha and salt cod and the merits of Rare Breed ham - just be warned that he may not stop.

His greatest fear in life is, perhaps, that his children will turn out like their mother and not eat pork chops.

Nate is, without a doubt, a foodie.

When I first started Mom-101, I described Nate as a fledgling comedy writer/waiter turned stay-at-home-dad. Three years later, he's now the fledgling comedy writer/waiter turned stay-at-home dad turned retired stay-at-home-dad turned disgruntled waiter turned nascent food blogger.

And now, culinary school student.

Can I get a big whoo for men in uniform?

He started last week--the professional pursuit of his one true joy in life, with the hope that down the road someone will hire him to write hilariously and passionately about it all. I mean, come on. Name one food writer who can drop Mr. Show references at the same time he rambles on about chorizo.

It's a massively gaping void in the food writing world, if you ask me.

I couldn't be more proud. I couldn't be more terrified that we will be poor for the rest of our lives. I am also a little sketchy on when we'll exactly have sex considering I'm working days and he's gone most nights for the next nine months.

So how's 6:45 AM Sunday for you? Can we pencil it in before pancakes and after the dream about Charo wearing a giant emu costume in my high school bio class?

But mostly, I'm proud. Because if there's one thing that the universe (and Gourmet Magazine? Ahem...) can never have too much of, it's smart funny guys who know how to treat a stick of butter.

This is what happens when you breed with a comedian

Nate is playing with Thalia on the other side of the living room right now and I'm on the computer, half listening. But every time I tune in, I hear him, addressing her in a silly falsetto, saying things like,

Which do you like? Vodka in the morning or rum?

Fix me a bourbon, sweetie and go get my slippers.

And finally,

Here, have a cigarette, Thalia...

At which point I yelled from the couch, "Nate! WHAT are you doing over there?"

"Oh," he said, with the awkward grin of a kid caught sneaking a cookie who doesn't actually regret it.

"We're playing bad grandma."

On motherhood and identity and generalizations and the crazy jeckyl and hyde-ness of it all

You are all too smart.

I mean, literally. Too smart.

I write some little rant (again) about how I hate a term like mommyblogger and you lead it to a conversation about motherhood and identity and fear and community, all with so much insight and self-reflection that I am staying awake at night just trying to make some sense of it all.

Now I'm tired.

[photo: city threads]

I am fascinated that so many women who I love and respect and connect with have so many entirely different ways of defining themselves. That's just so cool.

You see yourselves as life bloggers or beat bloggers or diarists or humourists (she's Canadian), as parental pundits or batshit crazy bloggers or cranky wine-swilling bloggers who aren't moms at all but kinda like what some of us have to say once in a while. Not that we can expect the world at large to categorize us in these niche little ways. (Especially "batshit crazy bloggers" - sorry Mrs. Chicky.) But still, it's fun to talk about.

I'm also fascinated by this pervasive fear that so many of us have of being "just" moms. Or more specifically, being labeled "just moms." Because none of us are any single thing in life. None of us. It's also why I think it's interesting that so many comments centered around the perception that marketers think moms are one-dimensional.

Quite the hot button.

Maybe it speaks to some deep-rooted fear, latent or not-so-latent we have of giving up pieces of ourselves when we became parents?

In defense of marketers, I don't think this perception is wholly accurate. Of course there are faulty advertising executions that portray moms in painfully shallow and stereotypical ways. That's generally a failure of imagination and creativity, not necessarily a failure of understanding. If you polled the average laundry detergent account copywriter, he wouldn't say "I believe in my heart that all moms are idiots." The tough thing is, if you're selling laundry detergent, you've got to talk to moms about laundry detergent. Not about how multidimensional we are or how we might have double post-graduate degrees or Michelle Obama on speed dial. Gee it would be nice though right?

(And before we lynch all marketers, let me say I think brands have come a long way in how they talk to women.)

But I'm starting to understand that there's something profoundly personal about that same generalization when it goes right to your inbox and addresses you by name. There's something uncomfortable about an email (or a panel discussion at a conference) that deems you a mommyblogger, if that's not something you want to be called.

It's like having your art misunderstood. Even if your art equals writing haikus for your boobs, riffing on subway posters, or ranting about toys that talk to you in the middle of the night.

Okay on second thought, not art - soul. It's like having your soul misunderstood.

Our blogs are personal. We lay it all out there. We want to know that someone's listening, that someone gets us.

It's totally a woman thing.

And I fully support it.

Here, I have to share that several men (oh, you men) contacted me through the back channels or twittered stealthily in disagreement that no, actually we should be fine with the term mommyblogger. They each--by either coincidence or some odd male genetic imperative--expressed the same reaction to my post which was basically: You can't accept the perks of "mommyblogging" while rejecting the label.

Um, yeah. We can.

And we will.

And you will like it.

Communities have the right to self-define. It's the reason we don't go around talking about those Orientals anymore.

There are close to 80 eloquent commenters--from moms--on this week's post and counting, about why they don't like the term mommyblogger. It almost doesn't matter why they don't. Just that they don't.

It's hard accepting a general label of any kind when we don't feel general inside. And some of us personalize that.

(Women feel things. We just do.)

The fact is, moms who blog are complex beings. We want to be recognized for our complexity and we want to be seen as we see ourselves.

Just yesterday, the lovely guy I'm freelancing for said, "It's so funny about you - at home you manage this whole household. I know you're a mom and everything but you'd almost never know it here; you're so focused on work."

It was great. Because, well - yeah. That's what we do. We compartmentalize, and we multitask and we juggle like fucking crazy. We use the mom thing when it suits us and push it gently aside for a moment when it doesn't. Deal with it, America.

To be clear, I don't want to confuse rejecting the "mommyblogger" moniker with rejecting our roles as mommies to our children. Like so many of you said so eloquently, mommy is a term my three year-old calls me and I adore it. It's funny and sweet and earnest and in a lot of ways, ironic. (How can I be someone's mommy? I hate cooking! I have sex toys!) But mommy--and any derivative thereof-- is not what I want to be called by a peer and equal in a venue where I hope to be taken seriously.

I also don't want our expressed fear of being thought of as "just a mom" to indicate that we're not proud of our mom-ness, our motherhood, our mothering, or the community of fellow mothers that we adore.

These are, in fact, the things I think we're proud of most.

The annual post about why I hate the term mommyblog

Next week I'm heading to a marketing conference in Las Vegas to speak on a panel about what moms are looking for when they hit the stores. Besides free full-body massages from Clive Owen with every purchase, of course.

I'm happy for the opportunity and I think it will be great experience - plus um, Vegas? Hello? I have half a mind to bet my remaining 401(k) savings on black. I figure my odds are close to what they'll be if I let it fester in some mutual fund these days.

So yes, I'm excited. But I must confess -- every time I get an email titled Re: Mommyblog Panel I kind of get all squirmy and squidgy inside.

I have spent countless posts exploring my discomfort with the term mommyblog. I hate it hate it hate it. I hate the diminutive. I hate the cutesiness of it all. I hate the fact that before you've even read a single post, it makes it beyond easy to dismiss a blog as being less clever/engaging/insightful/important as anyone else's. (See also: "Oh those mommybloggers have nothing better to do than whine about some stupid Motrin ad.") I especially hate that I'm being introduced to a roomful of Executives In Dark Suits, some of whom I've probably worked with in the past, as a mommyblogger.

Bah.

And then, just like that, spurred on by a twitter chat with Angie and Izzy, it became clear why, all in 140 characters or less:

Mommyblog describes the blogger and not the content.

Tech bloggers blog about tech. Food bloggers blog about food. Fashion bloggers blog about fashion.

I don't blog about mommies.

(Except, ocassionally, the ones who suck.)

I do blog about parenting. Which, I suppose, makes me a parenting blogger.

That, I can live with.

How about you - love it? Hate it? Want to reclaim it? Want to shave your head and tattoo it across your bald scalp? Let's call it my once a year check-in and all opinions are welcome. Besides, Executives In Dark Suits may be reading.

---
Edited to add: The comments are so amazing! I love hearing how women choose to label themselves and then, how that conflicts with how marketers want to define you. Susan Getgood and Amy in Ohio bring up a wonderful point below about how "mommyblog" is so much about demographics. I think marketers are going to need some new terminology - There are so many kinds of blogging moms out there right now and yet we're all on the same lists. Some write about politics, some about products, some about sex toys, some about freebies, some about homeschooling, some about health issues, some about design - and they all have "mom" in the title. And don't forget the blog with dad in the title that's written by a mom. Oh no! What's a marketer to doooooo?

Edited again: The folks putting together the conference changed the panel name. It's now called Marketing to Moms: A panel discussion with top bloggers. How great is that?

22 months, 5 days

Today Sage is 22 months and 5 days, which should be an entirely unremarkable occasion, not worthy of fanfare or fireworks or really even a post.

Except for the fact that it's exactly the age that Thalia was the day Sage was born.

And it's completely blowing my mind.


I keep thinking of Thalia that weekend - showing up at the hospital so proud of her new dress from grandma (and how Sage is so not into dresses), singing the entire alphabet (and how Sage can't quite get past E yet), getting ready to give up the binkies (which, well, no way. Sage isn't even close). It's hard not to compare.

Somehow Thalia seemed so much older at this age. Like she had been around longer, seen more, traveled more, done more.

Like I knew her better.

I suppose that's the irrevocable benefit of being the firstborn: More uninterrupted time with mommy during which you get solo playground visits, swimming pool time, and a chance to learn the alphabet right through to Z.

But then I think of how at 22 months and 5 days, we still had Thalia playing in a Pack n Play. Or how she was still sleeping in our bed. (Oy.) And she sure didn't have a sister around to teach her how to slurp her pasta, play "Baby Groundhog," or use a red-handled scissors.


She also had no one to read the Nutcracker with or dance wildly to Go for G.

And now they have each other.

A lot can happen in 22 months and 5 days. Even if it's not what you think it will be.

Maybe it was the full moon?

This week I found myself tangled in a little blogger brouhaha, something I normally try to avoid. Because really, getting in heated debates with people you don't know on the internet and whose values you will never share, is pretty much up there on my Continuum of Time Wasted on Stupid Things along with making your own pie crust and watching The Bachelor.

(Although don't be dissing my Rock of Love, now - you hear?)

But this week, a friend of mine was feeling hurt by a post written about her, I didn't like the situation, and I tend to see myself--rather unfortunately at times--as Mom-101, Righter of Wrongs and Combatter of Injustice.

Also Carrier of Proverbial Small Pointy Sticks That Do No Harm,
and Imaginer of Taught Abs

[via The Hero Factory, courtesy Alexis. Again.]

So I jumped in on the original post and sprung to my friend's defense trying to be as diplomatic and level-headed as possible along the way.

Somewhere in one of the comment threads, long after I had bowed out, I returned to find myself called all sorts of fun names by that beloved ubiquitous commenter, Anonymous and her best friend, Anonymous. Mostly about how I am soooo mean, and soooo horrible and (once more for emphasis) soooo mean and part of a group of bloggers who goes around being soooo mean to everyone because we're just big meany-faced poopy heads.

Um...what?

It stung. Not because it's true, but because it's the very thing I hate most in the world.

The blog space is funny sometimes, and I forget that by only sharing aspects of our lives online, it can lead people to draw all sorts of conclusions when they attempt to fill in the blanks.

I've learned that just because someone writes about a spectacular anniversary dinner does not mean she has a perfect marriage. Because someone doesn't have the time to friend 600,466 people on Facebook does not mean she's snotty. Because someone doesn't return my email doesn't necessarily mean she's rude. Because someone uses apostrophe's (heh) wrong every single time doesn't mean she's stupid. Because two bloggers are friendly doesn't mean they think with one mind.

And yet, I've thought those things myself. So, I guess - touché, Anonymous.

I'm going to use whatever hurt I'm feeling as a lesson to try, best I can, to jump to conclusions less. To assume the best instead of the worst. To remember that the people I see online aren't complete people - they are sides of themselves that they choose to share, limited by time, personal boundaries, and ability to express themselves to varying degrees.

Of course, some people in the world are just plain asshats. But they'll have to prove it first.

I'm also going to continue living by Katherine Hepburn's awesome quote that I don't care what people say about me as long as it isn't true.

Not so crafty

I was really excited to open up my email and find an invitation to attend the taping of a Martha Stewart craft show. I love supporting the crafting community, and let's face it, don't we all have total Martha love/hate/envy/fascination/didIsayenvy?

Then I got to the kicker:

We'd love for you to bring your favorite craft project. Please make sure it's small enough that you're able to hold it on your lap during the show.

My favorite craft project? As in, one that I, myself created? Well that's that's going to be challenging.

Here's what I've got lying around that could possibly pass for "crafts."

-Greeting card with melted Bonbel cheese wax on top

-Accordion pleated construction paper fan decorated with Dora stickers

-Two safety pins holding wrap dress together, arranged in an artful way

-Cookie tin with bow on it from Christmas 2007

-Broken coffee mug with handle glued back on

-Doily

I'm guessing I should RSVP no?

----

Edited to add: Thanks for the reminder mom. I forgot, I could totally bring my knitting!

--
Edited to add again: Know who I stole the title for this blog post from? Alexis. Click over and you'll see why.

Wishful thinking

I just want to live in a home where I am not outnumbered 3:1 by beings who yet have the ability to wipe their own asses.

Is that so much to ask?

Really?

Cat scan fever

Somewhere between starting to write yesterday's post about getting beaned in the head with a block of ice and hitting publish, I realized that things weren't exactly as they were supposed to be. I was a little dizzy, a little disoriented, I was finding concentration was a little...um...hey, look at that thing over there!

So I picked myself up and took a 10 block walk to the nearest Brooklyn ER.

And oh, what an ER it was.

While I was happy to get into see a doctor after a three hour wait, I literally recoiled at some of the filth in the room. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence when they point me towards a bed and I feel the need to I set my coat down on it first.

My stepmother is gagging right now

What's in the draw? I don't no.

I also had to call an orderly to clean the bathroom. It is no small feat to try and squat over a toilet bowl to pee in a cup, let alone doing it while dizzy with a possible concussion. So yes, the bathroom was fairly nasty when I entered, but me dripping pee up my arms and onto my jeans didn't exactly help me feel fresh as a daisy in there, especially with no paper towels in the room.

(Shut up - I had an excuse.)

In any case, I was fully clothed so I decided not to be too grossed out by any of it.

Going in for my first ever CAT scan was a trip. I look up at the ceiling and there are all these bad stencils painted on the tiles, presumably to give the impression of leaves falling from the sky. And then I thought you know, the last thing some people getting CAT scans of the head (um, like me) want to think about are OBJECTS FALLING FROM THE SKY.

I lay down on the little stretcher thing not exactly knowing what I was supposed to do - stay perfectly still? Close my eyes so the alien gamma rays can't penetrate my eyeballs? The technician, who looked uncannily like Arthur Ashe, never gave me any instructions. I kept finding myself holding my breath, like it would keep me from breathing in radiation or something.

Again, not thinking too straight.

Arthur headed back into his little darkened chamber of doom behind some plexiglass and just then the phone rang. I could hear him talking in a Charlie Brown voice Wahwah wah wahwah wahhhhhh.

Suddenly I was stricken with giggles: He actually the banker on Deal or No Deal. He was in there bargaining for my diagnosis.

Do you want to take the traumatic concussion? You might want to because while we have Clean Bill of Health on the board, we also have Inter-cranial Hemmorrhage and Squished and Entirely Useless Cerebellum.

No Deal!

In the end I took the Mild Concussion which came with a consolation prize, a stack of discharge papers. I was pretty happy on that front. It was presented to me in a sealed case held by one of fifty hot guys in Speedos. Which kind of made up for that ER room.

Spared

It started as a pretty normal day. Some work, some meetings, some more work. I even ate a big sugar cookie going down the Conde Nast elevators just to provoke gawking.

A subway ride later, I was walking down Park Avenue South when a homeless person asked for 35 cents. She looked blind. I thought that's uncanny, I have exactly 35 cents in my coat pocket. There must be some reason here. And as I turned back to hand it to her, the sky fell.

Well, not the sky. But chunks of ice the size of bricks, which tumbled from the fourth story church roof overhead.

One of them beaned me in the head. Hard. Like, try to maintain consciousness hard.

I was dazed. Passersby rushed forward to see if I was okay. (New Yorkers are cool that way.) I brushed them off as I rubbed the top of my scalp. I made my way to the 35 cents to the homeless woman who said, "YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED!" "Well," I mumbled, "you must really deserve this money if something made me turn around to give it to you and get hit with a brick of ice." It seemed to make sense at the time.

All I could think of was that she wasn't actually blind. And that she had almost a full moustache. And her eyes were kind of weird.

Then I thought of my girls. And that's when I lost it.

Through tears, I made my way to my mother's apartment a few blocks away and thankfully she was on her way there too. Even at forty, sometimes we need our mommies. I sat on the couch in her big plush bathrobe coddling a glass of water, and sobbed, thinking of all the headlines of random people killed each year by falling cranes or electrified manholes or broken sidewalk grates. And, maybe, ice.

My mother reminded me that I could look at it like why me?, or I could look at it like why was I spared? Coincidentally, she had been struck by lightning as a kid. She asked if I was feeling okay--dizzy or nauseous. I told her I was in shock, not feeling anything. It was probably a little post-traumatic stress disorder.

She told me she thought that that ended last week. I said no, you're thinking of pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder. I suppose there's another blessing - that I don't have both at once.

When something like this happens, your mind starts to create meaning out of it to try and explain it away. Was it a sign I shouldn't give money to homeless people? Was it a sign that life is fleeting? Was it a sign that I should really get that will together that I've been putting off? Was it a sign that I should follow my dreams while I can? Was it a sign that I should wear a hardhat when I walk down Park Avenue South? I can't really say.

Then we got on the computer and looked up what one does for a possible concussion.

The first step: Apply ice. Which was actually the last thing I wanted to do.

Mean girls, chapter 1. 1 of a million, no doubt.

"Alice* told me she didn't want to play with me today. She only wanted to play with a big kid. So she said GO AWAY."

My heart sank as Thalia described how her "best friend" in school left her alone on the playground.

Oh God...they're three and-a-half. Does the mean girl thing have to start now? Now? Can't Thalia get a brief respite? Like say...til she's 37? Maybe 36. I'm not inflexible.

"And so what did you do?"

"I was sad."

And with that she made her best ever pouty face, with her lips thrust out and the corners turned down, and her head lowered to an angle that achieved perfect dramatic effect.

"But then," Thalia brightened, "I played with Gracie!"

Gracie being the other teeny girl in the class.

I understand they're just very young kids, still trying to figure out social norms and etiquette and the rules of friendship and kindness. I even like Alice. And yet it doesn't stop me from wanting to storm the school yard with a pair of nunchucks, sussing out the mean girls in training, and going ninja on some preschool ass.

I've got a kind, sensitive, beautifully empathetic daughter who I just know is going to have her heart stomped on with frequency. The me that's read the books says Nothing wrong with toughening her up a bit and teaching her how to handle adversity. It's good for her! Everyone needs those lessons in life. Besides, I'd rather raise a kind girl than a mean girl, even if it means a little heartache.

But the me that's actually her mom wants to lock her away in a happy palace in the sky surrounded only by doting grandparents and declawed cats and care bears and whoever else will promise never ever to break such a lovely spirit.

Who would not want to play with a girl like this every minute of every day?

*Not the kids' real names. Ooooobviously.

On bloggers and self-promotion, or the art of commerce

Yesterday on Twitter, a mostly polite (save for the totally useless THEIR JUST JELUS! tweets) but passionate discussion broke out about my recent post about mom bloggers and marketing inspired by Lindsay's post about the same. It centered around the question of leaving your business cards on store shelves or other random places, and why I think that's not the best idea.

I guess there are several basic premises I've come to around the discussion and I thought it would be easier to put them here instead of limiting myself to 140 characters--which I can't even do when I'm discussing Rock of Love let alone marketing.

Ads are fantastic! Buy ads for your blog. Do banner trades with friends. Make postcards about your website at the local copy shop and hand them out at kids events. Stencil your blog name on the sidewalk and carve it into trees. Do barter for space in your preschool auction program. Sign up for blogrolls and blogrings and blogcovens or whatever else is out there these days.

Heck, rent the Goodyear blimp. If you want to tell the world about your blog, then go for it.


You are not your blog. When you're getting the word out, you need to think really hard about whether what you're promoting is your blog, or whether you're using your blog to promote yourself.

That distinction is everything.

Business cards are not ads. Ads are designed to reach many people. Business cards are designed to start relationships. When you throw business cards with your name and contact info on it around the coffee shop, the zoo, or the proctologist's office, it looks amateur at best.

You could argue an exception for people offering personal services - guitar lessons, house painting, exotic pet grooming. Even so, has anyone here ever gone with a tax accountant who pinned his card up on a bulletin board at the community center? Eek.


Business cards as a form of advertising do not offer a good return on your investment. Save them for people you actually meet and hand them out to people who actualy want them. Because the person making the most money off your cards is most likely to be the manager of Kinkos.

Add a little art to your commerce. Cutting through the clutter isn't just about SEO, it's about creativity. Something tells me that if Jenny the Bloggess created a t-shirt to promote her blog it would be worth wearing. Then soon after, everyone would be wearing t-shirts to promote their blogs and you'd need to do one that really stands out. Or better yet, don't do a t-shirt. Do branded pasties.

(And with that, I've probably just become the top google hit for "branded pasties." Awesome.)



Don't be cheesy. However you self-promote, do it with class, dignity, and pride. It's not enough to be proud that you're promoting, be proud of how you're promoting.

The converse of my original statement is true too: Nothing kills a great product faster than bad advertising.



The blogworld is not closed to new members, or even new superstars. I know that it may seem like there are a whole lot of blogs and it's hard to get heard above the noise. But Finslippy came after Dooce. Motherhood Uncensored came after Finslippy. The Pioneer Woman came after MU. The Wind in Your Vagina came less than a year ago and it's freaking hilarious and gets damn near 100 comments on every post. Surely there's some incredibly brilliant mom blog that started this very week that is rockeing to stratospheric popularity as we speak.

But I still stand by my original premise that content is king. Put more of your energy into writing well and being relevant to your audience and they will spread the word for you. Now this doesn't mean the best bloggers always rise to the tippy top or that there aren't some lame bloggers that get decent enough traffic. Life isn't always fair that way.

Which brings me to my last thought.

For every rule there's a brilliant exception. Which means all of the above may be total BS. In which case...carry on.