LaurieWrites

Falls

I knew this weekend might be hard. I've been struggling with some anxiety-slash-existential crisising that tends to be worse around holidays that mean a lot of social and family stuff going on. So I did what I don't want to do at all when that's happening (because I never said I was normal, what?) and I started reaching out to make some plans to be with some, you know, other human beings.

My friend Jen likes to hike and look at leaves and climb things, and in fact works to teach little children to enjoy these things as well. These are things I'm not prone to doing at all usually when left to my own devices, but that means it's good for me to get off my ass and do it, I just need a little help figuring out where to go, apparently. Maryland, in spite of an unfair reputation as DC's phantom limb plus Baltimore (which I love, too) is really quite beautiful, and there are some mountainy places within an hour of my house. 

We went here: 

I sat on a rock at the bottom of a place near there, while she did that: 

There are days when I would be willing to push myself to go up there, too. Yesterday I felt kind of like a jerk that it was not one of those days, but I also knew that I wasn't feeling so strong. I hadn't slept much. I needed peace more than adrenaline right now, enjoyment rather than mastery of my surroundings (Fancy!), and plus I'd already walked a lot on the Cliffs Trail, so whatever.

I also got it that what I was thinking of mostly as I sat there at the bottom of those falls, rather than the accomplishment of scaling the rocks and seeing the little water pools and colorful, poorly-placed tattoos of those high-schoolers up there up close, was how many more calories I'd burn doing that rather than sitting right there on my rapidly-expanding ass. I've got some body image stuff going on right now, heyyyyyyy, and I really need to show it who's alpha or I'll end up 'round the mental bend and I do not need that right now for any other reason. 

Anyway, this day altogether at the end of it was a completely soul- and mind-clearing experience, all of those things you may like to think are dirty lies that people tell you about hiking and camping (which I have still never done) but they really aren't. The weather was perfect and I got time to spend with a friend and talk through the stuff going on in our lives, when I wasn't wheezing and leaning against a rock hoping I wouldn't die as she said "YOU wanted to take the CLIFFS TRAIL, LAURIE WHITE. When they FIND US just REMEMBER THAT."  

Plus I put my dirty, unpedicured feet into this, you guys: 

Look at this at your feet and tell me you don't see Nature Jesus. Go ahead. 

I also learned the origin of the phrase "blaze a trail," so, linguistics! Idiomatic studies!

Please don't tell me if this isn't true, because it would ruin me. 

Then I saw goats on the highway on the way back, and  I got to yell "GOATS!" because honestly, I pathetically love goats and if I had an animal farm it would be a goat farm, even though I know that making that crazy expensive cheese is a fat load of work that I don't really want to do, so I'd be, like, a social media writer person with goats, and I don't know if that would be the best idea.  

I was kind of done in emotionally at that point. How much can a nature-starved suburban person take in a day before leaves start to sprout from your brain? It was like that time I had an art hangover in Florence, except everything was mostly green and not Catholic and gilt and boobs. That is until we passed a huge spray-painted sign that said "BIKER BASH" in front of a highway bar called Fat Daddy's, because this weekend is Rolling Thunder in DC (I skipped going this year, but if you're ever in DC on Memorial Day Weekend, you should go. This is where I tell you why. It's pretty great.) And we joked about going in, but I was only half-joking, one because bikers are generally nice and fun guys who are way less creepy than your average guy in a bar, true story, and they will never, ever judge you for how much beer you drink (that is how you tell a fake biker from a real one: beer judgment.) And two because I was imagining somehow being a bit player or maybe the main girl (AU REVOIR SIMONE!) in a reenactment of the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure Tequila scene, which is some fine cinema with which I hope you are acquainted.

Afterwards, there was beer, and these perfect little bloody Mary oyster shooters, because the best kind of naturalist friend is the one who knows her not-quite-so-naturalist-friend quite well. 

I hate this picture of me, but I am happy in it, so there, so here it is, killing me softly, living on my internet website. 

After two of these I ended up reeling off all of the ways in which Jen needed a social media strategy and dammit, she was going to have a blog, because there had to be other people on the internet who were as interested in showing children and even people like me who really don't care about leaves and plants and general woodland life.  

I am just dim enough to need days like this to remind me that things in my life that are troubling me look different, and often not as overwhelming, when I change my scenery with some purpose. They were still there, they were still things that were concerning me or that I had framed as problems that I needed to solve with my imperfect little mind, but I was in motion. I was taking pictures because I like to, which is something I forget to do an awful lot for someone who loves to do it so much. I wasn't sitting still and fretting in my living room or in my car or wherever else I like to turn over to the bad neighborhoods in my mind. 

I wasn't panicking and missing the present. I was moving my body in a healthy way. I don't know when this became such a remarkable occurrence, honestly. 

I basically need to get outside more often. 

Going to California Pt. 1

It's Wednesday of the sunniest week of the year. I say let's get on a boat, and you say okay, and we wander and we do. The air is so much lighter here, it's possible to find the second wind. 

I see one of the places where I most like to see the ocean. It's how it should be, for a little while. I know from so many other times that you can't hold onto hours, no matter how much you want to. In fact, the more you want to, the more you can't. It's just the way, you just have to let it roll. 

Amazing cheese and margaritas hours later the texts come in and the excitement of all those faces a few miles away, waiting with the gift of who they are, the brains and hearts and general Christmas morning of themselves, because we are lucky and likeable and were somehow at a few points in the right places at the right times. It blows up from there into what it always is, the friends, the schedule alternately adhered to and ignored, the ideas of how we justify ourselves, how we make ourselves the business forces and party people, the last minute decision of this or that, the drinks and hugs and passed hors d'oeuvres, the weird statues and the new city, the beauty and the bitching, the place we all find ourselves in no matter where it is each year, thousands of us, from here or there. 

(All of these things that you can't pick up free off of a table, that would never fit into a suitcase. Baggage jokes aside, you can't stuff feelings in there, not even if you sit on it.)

It's our luck and our randomness and our -- somehow -- ultimately defined place. It goes too fast and overwhelms and sometimes it irritates me because I'm an overly sensitive soul, but I move easily within it every time. It's a gargantuan home, one of the most certain things in my 365, what I'll always do until it's over, that I discovered (thank God) out of thin air. 

On Sunday I say let's get in a cab, and two of you who have been with me for years say okay, and that's what we do. We walk and drink. I show you where I liked most (really most) to see the ocean. It's how it should be. 

I don't know how I got so lucky. I don't know how the sky and sea and people came together six years ago to say "You can have this, for a few days each year. It's yours." but they did. It does. It rolls along.

And no matter how hard it is to come back into the inadequacy of everything else (because it is very, very hard), I don't really ever lose that time, not even when the walls close in and the engines blow, because you know that just a touch away there is a nation of these people, there is that sun-soaked memory.

There is that smile and those eyes and the hand that reaches out and says "Here, you are known." 

 

Today It's Suebob's Birthday

Once upon a time in the land of Chicago, I was on a panel of women who blogged and did not concurrently have children. Suebob Davis was on that panel with me. 

I had never met her, but I knew of her, and oddly enough, I was a little intimidated by her. I don't know why. She's not particularly menacing in person. She doesn't carry a gun or any weapon, other than her brain, and I guess the stapler could be used as a projectile. She is a peace freak of sorts, and a smiley person, too. But regardless, I was intimidated. Sometimes I'll randomly decide that a person doesn't like me for no reason at all, because I am a special sort of paranoid when I get anxious. And that BlogHer, I was anxious. After a few years of flying happily under the blogging radar, I was on that panel and I was also a community keynote reader, so I was operating at a high level of Xanax need for pretty much the whole conference.

So when the lady who was moderating, who herself did not have children, asked the final question -- "Just what was it we ladies on the panel did with our lives, as we were not busy parenting?" -- my mind started racing. 

I blog! I, uh, take pictures! I work a mind-numbing, soul-sucking job that nonetheless helps people! I take care of my grandmother sometimes! I manage my life and work out and eat and go on vacation and screw around on the internet! I see my friends and my family and listen to music and take long walks in the suburbs!

Sue, however, wasn't having any of that. She calmly stated that she didn't feel that she needed to reel off a laundry list of activities to justify her existence. She lived a life, and it was good, and that was that. 

And then she stopped talking. She wasn't going to entertain it, which was then a much more foreign concept to me than it is now, due to the example of Sue and other women in my life, who have shown my by example and a well-placed "Oh God will you please just cut that OUT" as I reached my 40th year that just because someone asks a question, it doesn't mean I have to answer it. I do not -- I DO NOT -- have to justify my existence or my choices or myself.  That panel was the first time, but not the last, that she has said something and I've thought, "Damn. I need to be more like that." 

Time and months and years went on, and that panel turned into a community keynote that turned into a Twitter relationship that turned into hanging out at BlogHers and every year. I've been pleasantly surprised that this very well-regarded, powerful source for good in my blogging world has sought me out and wanted to spend time with me. That is no kind of false modesty, either. These events are zoos, yes, but they are also populated with hundreds of people, and the basic truth is that there are a lot of people there that we all want to see. They come alive from the internet for just a few days, like toys in an animated film, and then they go back in. You have to take what you can get where you can. 

And as I get older, I realize the honor it is for any human being to want to spend their limited time with any other one. Time is all we have that makes any nevermind, and when someone I respect and admire and find interesting chooses to use it up with me? I appreciate it, and I acknowledge it as a meaningful thing. 

Since then, Sue and I have hung out in New York and Chicago again, and this year we will spend some time together in San Diego, I'm sure. We sat together in a canyon in Ojai last fall, and one of the greatest days I've had, she drove me and Deb up (down? I fail geography) the coast to her house and then on to L.A. I got to see her adorable house and eat at her tacqueria that I would transport to DC in an instant, if I could. I got to meet Goldie, and her mom. It was a great day. She came here once, too, and Sarah and I met her for brunch on our turf, which was fun. 

Virtually, we have spent hours Gchatting about jobs and family and writing and just what on earth it is we're here to do. And there is, of course, always Twitter, for good or for ill. (Just please don't say the p-word.) 

I am lucky that she is my friend. 

But beyond the micro-confines of this particular one-on-one relationship, I find Sue worth celebrating for a very simple fact that goes far beyond me. And that is that she is always the one to see the good in other people. She gets pissed off, sure, at situations, mostly, and the occasional blowhard with a vuvuzela or what have you in her neighborhood. But when it comes to people she knows and cares about? Super forgiving. Ridiculously forgiving, and, most valuable: preemptively forgiving. Even that time I broke my phone and never answered and she texted "Fuck you!" to me so that was the first thing I saw when I turned the replacement back on? I knew it was only temporary. 

I admit it, there are times when I read stuff on the Internet and I think "Holy hell, what is that person's deal. Could they shut up already? OMFG." And that is unfailingly the moment where Sue will pipe up with a tweet to that person that offers some kind of kindness, a good word or a comment or a thoughtful detail about her life that acknowledges not only their current situation but in a broader sense, what is redeeming about them. And I'll think, why didn't I notice that first? What is she, some kind of friggin' saint, showing me up, as I sit here in my living room all judgmental and dark-hearted? 

No. It has nothing to do with me. It's just her. She sees the goodness. She sees the gold, and that is a remarkable quality. I don't always understand it, and I sure as hell don't always agree, but I always admire it.

Happy birthday, Suebob. I hope you enjoy the good words of people from around the internet about you today, and know that they couldn't be offered in more friendship, appreciation, kindness and love. We owe each other a 40/50 toast in San Diego, for sure. I thank you for everything you have done and said to make my world a better place, and I love you very much. 

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Suebob's favorite charities right now are Write Girl (an amazing organization in L.A. that supports self-expression for young women, where I wish I was the director) and Planned Parenthood, which has obviously suffered major cuts in funding and support this year. I have set up a fund via my PayPal, and bloggers have already kicked in a few hundred dollars. When it is all done, I will be splitting the proceeds in half and donating equally to these organizations, taking care to make sure that the funds are diverted as closely as possible to her region.

If you would like to participate in this birthday gift for Sue, please leave a comment below, and I will send you my PayPal contact information. (I am documenting all donations, so there should be no worry about fund transfers to me for this purpose.) I'd like to finish this up by Wednesday of next week, so please get your messages to me by then. Thanks! 

Finally, Karen came up with this wonderful idea to celebrate Suebob's birthday. If you write a post too, please leave a link on her site as well. 

My Five Fabulous Bloggers

Thanks to Trop50 for sponsoring my writing about fabulous bloggers. This year Trop50 is granting 50 Fabulous Wishes. Click here to enter for a chance to win $1,000 to celebrate a friend with a refreshing attitude about looking and feeling fabulous!

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Picking five fabulous bloggers out of the hundreds that I've met over the years is an out-of-control task. I've been sitting here thinking about it longer than anyone should have, really, but that's just my way. In the end, I decided to go with the five people who came to the top of my mind first, whose words, pictures and online presence have significantly influenced my daily life and my own work as a blogger. 

Short story: I've been really, really lucky. 

Deb, Deb on the Rocks. 

Deb is brilliant. Everyone who meets her or reads her says pretty much the same thing, but it's never played out because it's just the perfect word. She is also riotously funny, a well of compassion, an outstanding writer and a savvy businesswoman and entrepreneur. 

I mean, just read this, this about earworms. I'm obsessed with earworms, I'm always singing in my head, and I talk about them a lot. Yet, yet! Deb writes about them like that, and I never even want to try. Even now, I'm writing about Deb, feeling a little anxious because I know I could never write about Deb as well as Deb writes about anything.

That's sort of meta, which is fitting, as she's also into all things meta. But the thing about her is, that she would want me to try. She would tell me that I could write the little earworm post that could, in my own style, and that it would be fine. This is another reason why she's fabulous. 

This all has me thinking that I don't know why Deb isn't world famous, honestly, why some big bucks site or Vanity Fair hasn't snapped her up as a columnist. I mean it. Somebody get on that. You won't be sorry. 

Jonna, Jonniker.

Jonna makes me laugh and makes me think and makes me start these DM chains that end 12 messages later with us both in the right place, because we have that kind of brain meld. This is fitting, because I met Jonna on Twitter and like most of my favorite online relationships I have no idea how it started. I have also had the attention span of a gnat for the past two years and have not been the best blog citizen, so I have to admit that I hadn't read her blog much when we first started talking. I'm still an erratic reader, at best, but what you get from Jonna is the real deal diarist material that got most of us into this in the first place.

She is also one of the best writers in my corner of the web. She's smart and passionate and funny. Whenever people have expressed surprise at the fact that I read blogs written by parents that are to some extent about their children I've had to explain that if a person can tell an engaging story, they can be writing about kids or cars of canoes, I don't care. Jonna is one of those people. The way she tells her story grabs you and carries you along if you let it, and I like to let it. She is also not afraid to share the more difficult things with simple honesty, and that is something I don't see done so frequently or so well anymore. 

Also, and I know this may be shocking, but people without children can actually read stories by people with children -- some of them even containing information about these children -- and be completely interested. As Jonna would say, "OMFG!" 

(That's her on the right. I'm in the middle in the glowy thing, and Jennie is on the left.) 

Sarah, Sarah and the Goon Squad.

I have not even known Sarah for three years. I just had to do that simple math several times over in my head to make sure it was right because that is just crazy.   

Sarah is my best friend, which if you've read this blog for any amount of time or seen us bicker online you probably know. I met her for the first time at a blogging event after years of us writing for the same website but never really interacting, and because I was busy suffering from a freak accident and having a weird immediate connection with her, I didn't ask her the main question I had at the time, which was "What in the hell is a goon squad?" (Now that I've met them I know it's kind of difficult to explain, so just go with "small people with a lot of stuff and words.")

Sarah belongs on my list for so many reasons besides the fact that she gets my blog and Twitter password when I die, and we've spent a significant amount of time talking about sports together at Draft Day Suit. She is funny as hell.  (Really.) She has been blogging faithfully for years,  but she's not afraid to try new things and to challenge herself as a writer and, more recently, a photographer. I love hearing that she didn't consider herself a writer before she got into this -- that the medium itself helped her develop these skills and the confidence to pursue it as a personal outlet and as a profession -- because I think that's one of the greatest things about it. 

Oh, and another thing about Sarah: people genuinely like her -- all of the time, everyone. Maybe I shouldn't find this so impressive, but I do. I've also never heard her talk about authenticity, because she doesn't have to. That's why she's my favorite. 

Shannon, aka Mr. Lady, aka Whiskey in My Sippy Cup. 

I was thinking of how to describe Shannon's work and all that keeps coming to me is that every one of her posts is an offering. She's a beautiful writer and a beautifuler soul, a lyrical genius with a sense of humor that will kick your ass and take its name, but maybe give you a hug after. She also takes some pretty pictures, and finds and supports the great work of other writers at StoryBleed. She got the part about it going both ways, how we can serve to feed each others work and not suck the air out of it. So if Shannon likes your post? You'll feel like a beautiful lady Robin Williams just went all Dead Poet's Society on you, that she's standing up on a virtual desk somewhere giving you a high five from the air. And if there's anything that makes your inner writer want to go back out and sit under that tree and keep at it? It's that. It's her. 

She's my blog magnet. If I see a post of hers come up on Twitter or in my reader, I go there immediately, because I know it will make my day better. I pretty much think there's nothing she can't do, and I'm so glad she's my friend. 

(I'm a huge fan.) 

Suebob Davis, Suebob's Red Stapler. 

You may know her by her stapler. Suebob is this good citizen of my corner of the blog world, someone who doesn't seek any kind of spotlight who nonetheless has gained an impressive voice and reach, one conversation, one blog post, one BlogHer at a time. Besides that, I know no one, really, with her kind of compassion and gift of reaching out, in comments, on Twitter, and in person if you're lucky, whenever someone has a problem or an illness or a moment of despair. 

(She probably wouldn't say this is a big deal. I think it's a big deal, so whatever.) 

Her 50 for 50 birthday series just kicked off. In honor of her upcoming birthday, she is featuring that many organizations, talking about what they do and how people can get involved.  Suebob's tendency to tell you exactly who she is and what she cares about was what drew me to her in the first place, so I love that this series will do this for the next couple of months. 

(Suebob has good pictures of the two of us, I think, but I know she'll appreciate this one, because she was there.)  

My fabulous five are pretty different on the surface. But it seems clear that when it comes to bloggers and people in general, I'm drawn to funny, creative, ambitious, impossibly smart people who love words, pictures, their people, and writing all over the internet. This makes perfect sense to me.

Those are mine. Who are yours? 

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Don't forget to enter the 50 Fabulous Wishes contest for a chance to win $1,000 to celebrate a friend with a refreshing attitude about looking and feeling fabulous. I was selected for this Tropicana Trop50 sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do. I received compensation to use and facilitate my post.

Some of my best friends are mom bloggers

I met Laura Mayes a few years ago. It was probably because of Laurie Smithwick, who plucked me drunken from a curb (me, not her, obviously) in front of a Chicago hotel at BlogHer and said hey, we oughta know each others' phone numbers, because she is a take-charge kind of woman who has been nominated for a Grammy award and I am a name-dropping ass who likes to tell you how cool my much-cooler friends are like twice a year. 

 And then I ended up in a limo with the Kirtsy girls talking smack about mythical cameras and that was that. 

[This is the actual night of the curb and the number, etc. Photo unapologetically ripped from Sarah Goon Squad Sarah's Flickr. That's Sarah between two Lauries. There are worse fates, honestly. I love this picture so much. It makes me happy just looking at it. That was a kickass BlogHer and these are two of my favorite people in the world.] 

So that was how I met Laura Mayes. I think. But for all of the specifics that I don't know, what I can say from the first time I met her was that when Laura entered a room, any time, I felt better about things in general. She has this smile and all-around vibe and approach to things that makes me feel like "Hey world, check this out. This is all going to be okay." 

Or, as she herself is often prone to saying, "This is rad." Or, more to the point, it could be. It could be pretty fucking rad, if we let it. WHY ARE WE NOT LETTING IT BE RAD, EXCUSE ME? Except I say the eff word and maybe she doesn't. Bygones. 

So last year I pitched a panel to Laura for Mom 2.0 that I thought was weird but would totally work and she liked it. I remember talking to her about it while I drove from Virginia into North Carolina and the conversation meandered into good places and I probably cut her off about three times because AT&T on 95 is a nightmare plus there were state troopers everywhere and I couldn't remember the phone laws in the states I was in, but she'd just keep calling back. And so I went to Mom 2.0 in Houston and had a better time than I'd had in memory and that was that.

Weiner Mobiles. Taco trucks. Social media/writing learnin'. Pictures. Galleries. And then I got to go back this year and talk about cameras. 

Look, I am not a mom. I am not a mom at all awash in a beautiful sea of women who write on the internet who are moms, and I can't rightly explain how that happened either, except that I write on the internet and I'm a woman and the group of people I've found who do the same have generally produced or acquired a child, as women (especially) just shy of or at or past 40 are prone to doing. 

And that is a vague way of explaining why I go to to Mom 2.0. 

I think Mom 2.0 is one of the best events in the blogging world. I don't care where it is. It could be in a church basement in {insert name of city I don't want to offend} and it would kick all manner of ass, because you know what? French Quarter (I love you New Orleans) or downtown Houston or {HELL YEAH} Miami resort? Mom 2.0 attracts women and a few dudes who do some of the coolest things that are happening on the world wide internet web who also happen to be your girls who will walk back alleys with you and crack up laughing and drink and dance but are also determined to stay with you to make sure you find your damn phone that you drop on the floor of a bar and you're sure is gone but holy hell if the dj doesn't have it when you crawl back in shame to ask. (Thanks Amie. You really are one of the best there is.) 

We need to find these people.

We needed to find them when we were little girls and (god help us) when we were in high school and college and certainly now when we are supposed to be grown-ups with ideas and plans and certainties. We need friends and colleagues and mentors and associates, especially in a media/communications/writing world that is changing at lightning speed every minute.

We need people who give us benchmarks and opinions and places for our ideas to sit at tables and take shape. We need people to help us figure out our businesses and our relationships and where we are to meet for dinner. We need people who will tell us we are good at what we do when we are, and maybe (especially) when we're missing the mark so we can fix it. 

This event is still small enough for this to happen, I promise you. It's relaxed enough for it to  seem possible, and it's cool enough to give us the  venues in which to accomplish this while still feeling happily removed from our workaday circumstances. 

It's rad.  You should go next year. 

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This year, the following people and experiences made my Mom2.0 experience especially rad: 

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah, who makes everything more fun, who babysits me on planes when I honestly think I'm going to die every time, but especially this time if I don't get to sit with her because that has to be some kind of sign of impending death (flying anxiety is no joke, y'all), and without whom, well, you know I really just don't know. 

The Dads, particularly BetaDad, Whit Honea and the Muskrat, plus Yvonne and Miss Britt, with whom I tagged along on Thursday night in the Quarter, one of the most fun nights I've had in a very, very long time. 

(Extra special thanks to Whit, Sarah and BetaDad for the beauty of "I'm going to pull the fire alarm... DO IT NOW" plus beer at the keynote, because that was one of the best things of all conference time.) 

Janet. I love Janet. And the rest of those miscreants named above plus Faiqa who went on the awesome PBS Kids Jazz tour, which ended at Preservation Hall where I geeked out hard, and got a little crush on the bandleader who knew pretty much everything about jazz off the top of his head and managed to impart it in a manner in no way as annoying or pedantic as my ex-boyfriend. 

Maile, who is one of the kindest, most talented people I know, and with whom it was a privilege to lead our photo workshop. 

Deb, proprietress of Deb on the Rocks, who laughs at the stupid shit I say like she's not seven million times funnier. It spoils me to have her a hotel floor away, and to get to sit with her at lunch and soak up her words and ideas. 

Shannon, who is one of the best friends I've got who I've seen in person thrice, and with whom I finally got to watch a hockey game, at least on tv. 

Our blog reader and friend Marissa, who met Sarah and me uptown on Sunday and who is just lovely and kind. I'm so glad we got a chance to connect with you because that was a real highlight. 

Three Community Coffee travel mugs to bring home for me and my parents -- best trip gift ever that I didn't have to buy, and my parents are frequent New Orleans visitors who are in their coffee club, so I was ethical and everything! Thanks, Community Coffee. I will continue to drink you all of the time. 

Meeting people whose work I admire and who I've gotten to know on Twitter but never in person -- Marinka, Wendi Aarons, Stacy Morrison, Doug from Laid Off Dad (who will be bringing you Dad2.0 next year.) Seeing Kyran for just a few minutes and hearing her read from a book I first saw in very raw form and it was wonderful then, so I know it will be amazing when I finally get my hands on it now. The conversations with these people were very helpful to me this time out -- hearing what people are working on, what they're writing, how they're hoping to shape it. That was good for me. 

As far as programming, this may sound crazy, but the Oprah video at the end made me cry and think and question what the hell it is I'm doing in general and online -- what it's been and could be and what I need to do to make that happen. I'm not a wholesale fan of hers, really, and I'm not saying I co-sign everything she said, even in that clip. But as a woman without kids at a conference designed for moms, her statement about being a woman without her own children who nonetheless felt called to teach and lead carried a lot of weight with me. I did not make the conscious choice that she did to remain childless. My life has moved in different ways that have made that my reality, and in a lot of ways it's my central struggle, what my legacy can be besides that. What my purpose is, if it's not to be a mom and in a family structure, and it's my job to figure out how to manage that without going insane, to determine what to say, how, and for what purpose. 

And for some reason that video of Oprah talking about similar things put me in the right space to contemplate that. 

I love New Orleans. For all its crazy I love my blogging life and the people who are in it with me. So it was lovely to be in that place with some of my best friends and favorite new people, trying to figure all of this out for the next phase. I carried that away with me, flying out over Lake Ponchartrain into a life where I don't know at all what is going to happen next, except I did know for sure that I had a hell of a good time at Mom 2.0.

(It was, indeed, rad. Thanks, Laura. You're the best queso who ever queso'd.) 

BlogHer Five

I know, I know, it's been a few weeks. I've been busy. At least it's still August, for a few hours anyway. This will also be the longest post I've likely written for this website. That's just how it turned out, because it's been a long time coming, I guess.

(It's not even August anymore. Oh well. The perils of working in education at the end of the summer.)

I got on a plane to San Jose, California, in July, 2006. It was my first trip to the state. I had written for  BlogHer.com for six months -- my first online writing job, and my first paid gig anywhere in awhile. I loved the concept. The people seemed great. What they were doing was very exciting, and I just felt like I wanted to be a part of it.

The truth was I hadn't felt like being a part of much of anything for a year, since the only thing I had planned on being a part of with any enthusiasm had said see ya bye and moved 1,000 miles away. Also, when I turned 35 I decided that as part of my recovery plan from this hellish breakup I would travel somewhere new every month. I'd been to Arizona and Nevada already, so California seemed reasonable. I told my family and friends that I was going to a women's writing conference, which they probably interpreted as "that terrible boy turned her lesbian and she's going to hang with the ladies," which was really fine with me. Then I booked a couple of days on the end to go to Santa Cruz, and I left.

I wasn't nervous. I don't get anxious in groups until the first time I'm standing by a bar by a pool and I'm looking at someone in a "Writing Well Is the Best Revenge" t-shirt and I feel like an inarticulate fool with nothing of any consequence to say except maybe "Hey I have that shirt in red and black too the red has the long sleeves for when it is chilly like it sort of is now isn't this California what the hell is up with that so wine now yeah?" For an extrovert I'm not really one to mosey up to strangers or invite myself to sit at tables. I like to hover on the fringes and case the joint, actually, until someone takes pity on me or a less than excruciating conversation presents itself.

I was a little concerned that I had maybe presented myself as more competent at audio recording than I really was, since I had volunteered to be on the conference podcasting team so I could score a free ticket. I think that when someone asks you if you can do something that you're fairly sure you can handle you should say yes. I'm not going to volunteer to perform surgery or solve equations because I don't want to kill people and I suck at math, but I can press buttons and understand recording equipment. I figured I could swing it and if I couldn't I deserved the embarrassment.

I ended up so grateful for this job. It made the conference smaller and more manageable for me. It gave me a task to focus on if the effort of talking to hundreds of strangers with cameras got to be too much, and it was also really fun.

These are a few of the podcasting ladies. My hair was extremely red verging on purple here, I have an ungodly number of drink tickets left and I appear to be wearing a prairie skirt. I don't understand those last two things at all. 

When I wasn't working on that or in other sessions, I did get a chance to meet people. Sitting by the pool watching mom bloggers knock things over,

Lauren gets the quote of that year for saying "This is like their Burning Man."

I met  Genie, who would become my roommate for the next three BlogHers.

Here she is on the far right with her husband in a not-great but nonetheless the only photo I have of her from that conference and a couple of other girls we hung out with that weekend. Also there is a person in the background of this picture who should have looked right instead of running her mouth. Bygones.

I met other friends, some I'm still in touch with and others I am not. There were other people in that strange little complex who are central to my life now, but if we crossed paths at that gathering I have no memory of it.

After the conference my red hair and I spent a great day in San Francisco where I immediately fell in love with the city,

then I rented a car and drove to Santa Cruz.

I saw the California version of a beach for the first time. I took a train up through a redwood forest. I bought a suitcase at a Ross on the outskirts of town so I could lug all of my extra stuff home, and then I left.

It was a good trip, and I was really glad I went. I had no expectations and a mere hope of not embarrassing myself before I went. I came home with a head full of ideas and my pride intact, so that was good.

*************************************************

I have gone back to BlogHer every year since then. I've been to Chicago, to San Francisco and back to Chicago (my tie for favorite with this year.) I spoke on a panel in 2008 with Suebob and read at the first community keynote, an experience that brought so much good stuff my way that it was totally worth the raging nausea and anxiety of standing on a stage and reading a blog post about one of the most traumatic aspects of my life in front of hundreds of writers.

My blog stayed small but I didn't care. I went to regional gatherings in Boston and DC (where they also let me open my mouth again), and connected with a community here at home that although it focused mostly on mom bloggers was okay with me, because the people are nice and generous, and I've never been so hung up on who has kids and doesn't anyway.

That's my Shannon in Boston, 2008. She lives in Canada. I wish, as I say in the comments on this photo, that she lived up the street.

Some of my D.C. ladies, plus Kim visiting from Pittsburgh, Reach Out D.C., 2008.I didn't know these women when I took this picture. I talk to the three in the middle daily. I catch up with Joanne when I can. I've never seen Colleen again, but she's nice to me on Twitter.

The lines began to blur between blog and not-blog, online and real life, which makes sense when real live people are involved. My family came to understand that these were not lesbian creative writing gatherings, although it was still fine with me if that's what they thought. The older I get, the more it's fine to keep them guessing.

In the months between conferences I kept writing for BlogHer. Twitter happened. I picked up new writing jobs.

My life changed several times over. My heart healed over and broke again for other reasons.

My photos improved. My friendships with people I'd met through blogging and who I continued to connect with got deeper.

I came perilously close to a new decade. And then it was somehow 2010.

********************************************

I went to New York for BlogHer in August because there was just nowhere else I could be that week. It was a hard summer financially (haha, that is such an understatement. Haha. Har. STUPID! Almost entirely unbloggable!) but I scrounged the money to go and to stay in my own room, which was something I'd planned on since I learned that Genie and her new baby were going to stay outside of the hotel.

I had an absolutely wonderful time. It was just what I needed at just the right time. Saved my emotional ass, it did.

I spent the four days before the conference at Suzanne's place, rabbit-sitting. She was the first person I wrote with in travel on BlogHer.com back in 2005. I got to pretend I lived in a funky apartment on the Upper West Side. I walked until I wrecked my feet, ate Crumbs Squiggle cupcakes for breakfast when I felt like it, and saw Rock of Ages on Broadway, where I paid for a glass of wine and got a sippy cup to take to my seat.

That's Suzanne and me, on the Sunday after the conference. I am Sparklecorn hungover. She is just nice and funny and brilliant like usual.

True story? Suzanne is one of the most outstanding women you will ever meet. She is a powerhouse. She is but one example of the greatness this gig has brought into my life. And she lets me stay in her house, for free. She trusts me with her key and her stuff.

I got to go see American Idiot with Heather. Heather and I have some stuff in common that no one else can understand. Heather took over photo from me on BlogHer at a time when it needed to happen. Heather is fascinating and hilarious. Heather is gorgeous. Heather kicks my ass on Gchat. She said things to me at dinner after the show that I should have written down because I could probably stand to read it right now.

I got to hang out in New York. It's my happy place and I loved spending this time up there. It's never enough for me. I walked through street fairs and burned some remaining credit on a good seafood dinner. I window shopped and daydreamed. I got a precious evening with Elisa, at a vegan restaurant that could convert this carnivore. I enjoyed every last second.

Then I went home for a day (don't ask, I needed dresses, and thank God the Bolt Bus is $17) and caught the train back with some D.C. friends.

I had a kickass conference. On the very first day I met Debbie and Velma and Kelli, and remember thinking shortly after that that I could go the hell home that second and I'd already have scored.

I went on a Kodak bus and to a Nikon party. I had the most fun night of burritos and karaoke with my friends from MamaPop. I had dinner with my fellow editors from BlogHer, which is always fun. I had a photo in the Kirtsy exhibit that went with this great post by R.J. at Vampire Vocab. I had my picture taken with it like a big dork because it was the first time I'd had a photo displayed like that and it made me happy.

I spent time with Jen B., Jennie and Jonna, with Alexa and Alana and Heather. I met Genie's baby, Ian, finally, and Erin, who writes one of the very first blogs I ever read. I loved that.

I sang and danced a lot.

The first day, Friday, I stopped mid-day, and thought how amazing it was that I was in a space with 2,400 people and in every single room there was someone there who was happy to see me and who I was happy to see. I kept feeling like that, all weekend, so that by the time Sarah, Kim and I went to the Yankees game on Sunday night I was that familiar combination of exhausted yet deeply content that I am every single year when it's all over.

This conference is my favorite thing I do all year. It's been true when I've been inspired and productive and when I've been barely eking out words in this space and where I've been paid to do it. My writing has suffered in consistency and volume over the past couple of years, it's true. I wish I was more focused. I continue to struggle with where I should be in lots of ways versus where I am.

But it's just true that without BlogHer I would lack so much that matters to me. I don't know what I would have in its place but I can't help but think that it would be something so much less than what it's given me.

I have creative and professional mentors.

I have friends like Sue and Maria, who have sat up late and chatted me through crises from a continent away, and Karen and Karen who make me look at the best version of myself whether I feel like it or not.

I have a place that was willing to give me a place to share my voice and my point of view at a point in my life where I valued neither very much, or at the very least was struggling to find a place to put them.

I don't know why anyone else goes to BlogHer. I don't know what they expect from it or what they think it means for their lives online or off. I'm not a mom blogger, a coupon blogger, a marketer's dream or a person with a true agenda. I don't care about fistfuls of swag, except for my Mr. Potato Head which you'll pry out of my warm, live hands and those little slippers I got at Nikon were nice.

I go to see my friends and I go to reassure myself that no matter how small some people say it's become, that there is a group of people I came to know through their words and pictures who are still out there, no matter what they're working on now. I count myself lucky that there are people in this crowd who will get in my face in person like they can usually only do in e-mail and ask me why I'm not writing, why I'm not owning my power? (Hi, Denise. Hi, Rita. Hi, Julie.)

I can have a ridiculous sandwich episode with a friend who knows my soundtrack and my heart, who is my wide receiver, left tackle or quarterback depending on the day (I told you I was learning football) who I simply would not have were it not for this web site and this conference.

No, not THAT one.

This one. (This alone? Worth the price of every single admission. I love you the most.)

I am reminded very distinctly how I best like to see myself.

And I guess it's a place where it's okay that who that is is someone who closes the bar with a bunch of brilliant people, then sits in the sink and shoots self-indulgent semi-hoochie pictures in a mirror because the light is pretty.

And I don't really know what a gift horse is but I've never been one to look them in the mouth, so I'm not starting now.

I open my arms to these three days every year and get roses every time. I still have very few specific expectations and I pray not to embarrass myself, and it mostly works out. Sure, there are some bumps in the road, sessions that leave me cold and pr people who don't get it that I still wash my clothes even though I'm not a mom. I smack down my hindbrain when it worries a little bit that I'm not getting invited to this or that overrated party or that I'm not doing enough or that I'm doing too much. I don't get enough sleep and I miss things here and there that I really wanted to do.

But what I worry about the most is a sin of riches, really. I want to be in three sessions at once. I worry that I won't see all of the people who I have made connections with -- small and very big -- through the years. There are so many of us now and so many ways that I've been in touch with people on blogs, Twitter and in real life, that it's almost impossible to keep track. So there is a lot of frenzied hugging in hallways and plans to meet up and quick picture taking, but this year I felt like in spite of the chaos that it went as well as it possibly could in a city and a conference of this size.

Anyway, this is stupid long, but this year required it and this post is really for me and my friends to whom it is a five-year love letter. So I'll just end with this.

When I first pitched BlogHer in 2006, I hadn't been blogging very long, and I knew no one in the larger blogging world personally. I responded to a call for writers on Lisa Stone's Surfette site, convinced I'd hear nothing, which proves that sometimes when I'm wrong it's the best possible thing. Lisa shocked me by writing me back almost immediately to tell me that she'd love for me to be a part of this.

She has since developed great taste in bag hats.

Lisa -- and by association Elisa and Jory too -- helped me to change my life. She opened the door for all of these other people -- the ones who I have named and the countless ones I haven't -- to grace me with their presence as well. I just had to ask, and that simple act helped me to resurrect the writer I had always been. It gave me the confidence to go back to grad school and get a degree in journalism that I'd abandoned 20 years ago, an experience that took me to Vietnam to write a story and landed me in a stadium in Denver when a certain man who I strongly believe is changing the world in spite of great difficulty accepted the Democratic nomination for president.

It gave me the confidence to believe that I could do things that I had started to think I wasn't capable of doing.

It gave me friends who are my family and a much clearer view of who I am and what I want to do.

So.

I'll be in San Diego next year, because that's just where I'll need to be. And if you go, I really hope that you'll have a wonderful time too.

Reubens of Unusual Size

Sarah and I were hungry after the Yankees game on the Sunday night after BlogHer, screwing around in Midtown looking for someplace that was open late.

I located a few late night possibilities on Yelp, including the Carnegie Deli. We decided to go there because it was really close, supposedly an institution that I had never visited before, and hey, a deli, why not?

As soon as we sat down there were half-done pickles, which always pleases me. But when the waiter told me that the only Reuben option was $24.95, I was less pleased. I don't know what I was expecting, a Reuben Happy Meal or what, but it seemed crazy even in this neighborhood where dollar bills seem to magically fall out of your pockets into the steam grates.

So I told him I'd take the Woody Allen, a corned beef and pastrami combo that was so very much more reasonable at, oh, 18 bucks or so.

In hindsight, the menu alone caused me to lose all sense of perspective. We also missed the part that said you could share for $3.00. We are very capable of sharing food. This was an unfortunate oversight, brought on no doubt by four days of limited sleep, not so much solid food and not a little bit of wine.

Sarah ordered a roast beef sandwich. I asked him for a Coke and prayed it wasn't ten dollars. Minutes later, this arrives on the table:

I can't even explain to you what happened in my brain when this pile of meat appeared. The pictures do not show how large this thing was. I didn't know whether to name it, apologize to it or get it its own table.

Sarah looked at the sandwich and at me and I looked at her and then the sandwich and I really wish I had video of the way we looked at each other over the plates that were somehow, ridiculously, on our table.

"Dude," she said, when she had words. "Your sandwich is STUPID."

And that is when I lost my mind. I started laughing, and she started laughing. We laughed so hard and so uncontrollably that I think it warranted a clinical diagnosis. We could not stop, for minutes, until we were crying. I am not a person who normally laughs until I cry, but I was weeping. And every time I stopped, we'd look at each other, or we would look at this,

(Pickle for perspective)

(The little pieces of bread make it look like PeeWee Herman with that bellboy hat on, or a giant wearing a beret.) 

And it would start all over again.

I looked around suspiciously at other diners. There were empty plates and beer bottles, people chatting like they weren't in a wackjob land of gargantuan food. The ladies next to me had had entrees that didn't look extraordinarily large, although they probably cost $37. Probably payday.

"No one else is acting like this is weird at all. Look at them," she said. "We sound high The last time I laughed like this for this long I was in my college cafeteria at 7 a.m. and I hadn't slept in a long time."

"I feel high," I said. And I did. It was an almost out-of-body Willy Wonka kind of deal.

Lick the walls! They taste like corned beef and dusty picture frames! I swear, you'll love it! Everything's just really BIG here.

And for the most recent time, I wondered where the hidden cameras were.

The Carnegie Deli's walls are covered with 8x10 autographed photos of a variety of famous visitors who may or may not order the Woody Allen or even eat anything at all. I actually think they are all lying if they say they do. We had several photographs on the wall right next to us. Because I was concerned that the tears in Sarah's eyes were actually those of distress and not hysterical laughter, I decided to focus on what we could control.

"Hey," I said, because I am observant. "We have company. Look, you get to eat with Ryan Seacrest."

That cheered her up.

What did not cheer her up? Or me either for that matter? The fact that these insane piles of meat are held together by (in her case) a brick of cheese and those teensy beensy pieces of bread -- no vegetables, no condiments, nothing. The waiter walked by and Sarah said, "Excuse me? Could I get some...mayonnaise?"

And swear to God dude looked at us like we'd asked for fish tacos in a deli.

You know? Mayonnaise? That spoonful of saturated fat that helps one choke down a side of beef? DUDE.

Ahem. Back to the wall gallery. We had calmed down some. Sarah was pissed off at the wasteful nature of this establishment, what with the pound -- probably more, come to think of it -- of corned beef and pastrami on my plate that was so overwhelming to me (and, quite frankly, dry, minus the six bucks worth of sauerkraut, dressing and cheese that I totally would have sprung for if I had a time machine. I didn't bother to ask for mustard.) She was scowling, occasionally gnawing on her meat, and worst of all, neither of us had a beer to soften the blow. I looked to my right, at this guy.

I thought I knew who he was, but I couldn't remember his name, just that he wanted me to "Save room for the awegfaergvaergaerawgr," to which I say, "Right on."

"Who is that?" I wondered aloud.

And in a version of her voice that I wish I could share with you in an audio file, she said, and you are in no way going to think this is as funny as I do,

"Ooooooaaaaatttttteeeesssss."

As in "John." As in "Hall and."

Yeah, no. I decided to eat with this other guy anyway.

Done. Done. Absolutely done and done and done. Please keep in mind that Sarah makes me laugh harder than just about anyone I know on a regular basis so this was like that experience, except dosed and off the rails.

I started laughing again and did not stop completely until we left the building. Every time I thought this would stop being funny, something insane would happen. For instance, the jolly ladies next to me were not finished when their plates were cleared, oh no. Minutes later, pieces of pie or cheesecake arrived in front of them that were approximately a foot tall, like this:

(I found this on the Internet. It is ostensibly from the Carnegie Deli, and because it looks like the food of Gulliver on the island or an insane person in Wonderland, I can only surmise that it is, in fact, from their dessert case. If I had seen it in person, I would have laughed longer, because, pecan roll on cheesecake? Right.)

I mean, hey, eat what you want, but where do you PUT IT? I was still flailing intermittently at my meat with a fork and getting nowhere. It was like I ate it with my eyes.

Also, Ooooooaaaaatttttteeeesssss was still with me. One or the other or both of us would say it about every thirty seconds, because it turns out that once you start that shit up it's difficult to stop.

It's really, really difficult to stop, or maybe just if you are us.

I do know that there is some kind of joke inherent in leaving a place like this and being hungry and slightly nauseous because I just really couldn't eat what was put in front of me, because just how oh how do you even take that seriously? I couldn't, and when the guy asked me if I wanted it boxed to go I was very fortunate that I did not hurl on the table.

I'm sure that there are people who go there and enjoy it. I think I would have if I'd stuck with maybe six more pickles and a Coke and that's all, a blintz maybe, and giggled at the photos. I'm sure there are people who would call me an idiot -- didn't you KNOW? It's the Carnegie DELI, it's KNOWN for its enormous sandwiches, you imbecile.

But I didn't, or if I'd been told -- if it was the question to a Jeopardy answer or a passage in a travel article -- I forgot. I can only hold so many references in my head at once, or for a lifetime, you guys.

But I can tell you two things. One is that if you're going to have any kind of friend at all with whom you voluntarily spend a significant amount of time it should be the kind who can laugh with you until you cry, damn whomever's around. Because as ridiculous as this may have been and as much as that pile of meat could've fed several hungry people, I know that when I look back on my life I will remember this in technicolor, and it will never not make me smile.

And the other is that I have the tragicomic kind of life where when I opened the refrigerator at my parents' house the next day when I came home, this is what I saw.

And I made myself a Reuben of totally usual size, and it was really good.

(Frying pan and stove for totally normal perspective.)

And I texted Sarah and lost my shit laughing again, and the circle was unbroken.

The end.

Except, you know. Ooooooaaaaatttttteeeesssss.

Not Ready to Make Nice

This started as a message for one person but it occurs to me that there are things that may be useful for other people too. But honestly I'll only hide the body for her. Maybe you, but probably just for her. 

It is an interesting thing, this owning of our power, a phrase that I think is important as much as it makes me a little sick. It ebbs and flows depending on the weather and the circumstance. People talk about it a lot of times like it's easy, like we just need to read the right book or say it out loud three times or click our heels so we're magically at home in ourselves, everyday dragons stabbed in the neck. 

But that's wrong, because a lot of times it's just really fucking hard. 

Like yesterday, I went to pick up my car from this horrible triple-parked garage in downtown D.C., having just left a conference that pissed me off because it wasn't anything that I found useful and it cost me a day and a hundred bucks. I was hot and afternoon-drowsy and generally out of sorts so when the woman in charge of the car-retrieval process spoke too fast while looking away from me and basically blew off my questions about how to get MY VEHICLE out of the basement of this hellhole, I lost it a little. 

"YOU'RE NOT BEING VERY HELPFULLLLLLLLLLLLLL," I yelled, and it bounced off the walls, immediately aware that I'd hit a new low of yelling at a stranger in a parking garage and that she had 16 of my dollars for my trouble. And she didn't say anything, just waved her hands towards a wall where the elevator was, but I was already walking.  

It was this kind of trigger moment. (Go ahead. Read it. I'll wait. Just make sure you come back.) 

**Whistles poorly because palate is broken.** **Kicks rocks.**

Oh hi! Funny, right? 

Anyway, they don't tell you when your parents sign you up for this 80-or-so-year summer camp that someday you'll be flipping out at a stranger in a parking garage who shamed you because you dared to ask for your car back. And this didn't really happen because you're a raging bitch but because you're not a fan of garages in general because of all of those times your mother told you not to go into them alone and you're really just nervous that you won't be able to find your car and you're completely floored and sad that the only person there to help you is functioning in the opposite of that capacity. 

They don't tell you about the glamour of this touring stage production. They don't explain faulty logic and human crazy. They don't always explain nonviolent communication. 

Giving credit where due, I did learn from them that it was nice to tip the guy downstairs who smiled and showed up with my keys and restored my faith in humanity and some balance to my little world. 

Anyway. This circles away from me, thankfully, to the fact that I cannot always be with you and you cannot always hear me preach about stuff like this. But as long as I keep forking over 15 bucks a month to TypePad I guess you can click here and remember that while I don't condone constant yelling in public, that I do fully support the following: 

You too are not only allowed but encouraged to be as powerful as you are capable of being on any given day and as angry as you need to be when it's necessary. 

Even when other people don't like it.  Especially then, yes. (A smart person once said that if you're not pissing some people off some of the time that you're not working hard enough.) 

Nobody -- not one single person -- fundamentally owns your time or your words or your goals or your opinions or anything else for that matter. 

Also, no one can tell you who you are, because they don't know, unless they're telling you that you're awesome. 

And I can promise you that in the middle of the crazy that at least one person will be available to listen to you with minimal interruption, and would, under the right circumstances, help you hide the body. Probably more people would be, too, but at least one.

Because it's really important that you know your worth every day, no matter what anyone says or doesn't say. That's the most important thing, because everything else happens because of that and it's good when the things that happen are good. 

And sometimes? All you need to bond for life is oddly similar values, a mutual disinterest in what other people are doing and an occasional forgiveness of different musical choices. That's a perk, I guess. 

 

I think so. 

Real Rock Science

I am not a rock scientist. Not only am I not a rock scientist, but if there is an opposite of one, I am it.

I failed geology twice in college because (and I am not proud of this but these are the events as they unfolded) I sat in the student union and watched General Hospital and smoked cigarettes when I was supposed to go to class, and then when it came time on an exam to identify the difference between sedimentary rock and those, um, other kinds, I didn't know. So I played the alphabet soup of multiple choice exams that did not have the rock gods working in my favor. Twice.

I even went on the extra credit field trip to Great Falls. Sad. And all kidding aside, this geological failure is one of the many reasons I encourage my female students in particular who show talent and interest in math and science. Those grades are much less painful to discuss 20 years later, and even though my strengths and interests have always been way more skewed towards writing and humanities, it would have been nice to feel a bit more competent in the other stuff. 

Also, igneous! Igneous is another kind of rock. Some of it is still lodged in my brain somewhere.

So when I went down to visit with the Goon Squad and to say hello to their parents in passing and eat their food recently on the first weekend of this season's nice weather, I was a bit concerned when Claudia presented a rock experiment to me and told me that I was going to be her assistant.

I don't recall being asked, is what I'm saying, although telling her I wasn't into rocks just wasn't going to get me out of this enterprise, even if I am totally comfortable telling a five-year-old that my skills are lacking in certain areas. And what I mean by this is that I feel very sorry for anyone who doesn't want to do what Claudia wants them to do, ever, because, well, sorry suckers.

She had procured several rocks from the yard and wanted to put them in a container, with water. The container had to be clear, duh, so she and all other interested parties could see inside. That was pretty much it. She had a few ideas, and - most impressive to me, the typically planless sort who seems to enjoy flailing around from one activity to the other - a clear process in mind that she needed to go through to accomplish it.

This process, of course, required a little help from her mother. She requested a specific size of plastic container, with a lid, and plastic wrap. When Sarah went inside to see what she could find, Claudia leaned over to me conspiratorially and said, "You know, I'm a little worried that she won't have the right supplies." 

Ha. Hahaha. Ha. I didn't get to laugh then, but ha. Hahaha.

Anyway, Mom came through with the stuff and then there was much careful selection of rocks and another trip inside for tongs with which to manipulate the rocks, a task that fell to me because I may not be a rock scientist but I do have larger opposable thumbs and the ability to operate a simple tool so go me! I think she may have even told me that I was doing a good job at one point, a good tactic for motivating the support staff.

And then there was stacking of rocks and finally, oh finally, pouring of water inside to see what the rocks would do.

Turns out what rocks do in this situation is pretty much just sit there, because rocks are heavy and this container was fairly small and there wasn't really enough water to make them float even for a second and it's not like they're going to anyway and oh, there will be time for specific discussions of real geology and physics and chemistry and all of that other stuff that makes my head hurt with people who actually know what they're talking about. (And it's totally fine if you think I'm an idiot now. I started this off basically laying that down, but I'm feeling more stupid as I type so it's totally fine if you do too.)

When it was all over and the lid was on we did end up with a rather fine looking pile of rocks, I'd say. We moved some stuff around and turned it into a pointy, triangular sort of thing. A mini-rock mountain, maybe. And that was good.

There's no gigantic lesson here but what there is in these interactions with children that contrary to belief not all people like me who aren't parents avoid (and actually need to live a full and happy life) is the beauty of a simple act of doing something just because you think it's interesting, of learning how to form an idea that grows out of simple curiosity and with the (really minimal) help of one, maybe two other people around you, to put it into action.

Even if neither of us could explain what was going on in terms that would help us pass an exam, I knew when I was sitting there that I was learning something that had nothing to do with rocks. Maybe it wasn't so much learning as it was remembering what I often forget in a life crowded with overcomplications and repercussions and things done because they have to be and not because they spark any curiosity at all or because they're at all interesting: sometimes it's the most excellent thing to do things to see how they turn out and then you can sit back and say, "I did that" and you move on.

Hypothesis unclear? Results uncertain? That's life. It helps to know how to work with some ambiguity, with whatever supplies you (or your mom, yeah) happen to have on hand.

And if you really have your heart and your mind in the right place, you reach in through murky water to save some of the best rocks from your experiment and put them under the table in your brother's pile because he's having a really bad day.

Because you are a good, wise, compassionate girl, already. Because it amazes me that you already have so much of what you need to live a great and successful life. Because in a way you have learned by strong example and through gifts of nature too, you have the ability to make other people better - in this case a grown-up friend who failed geology once upon a time. 

This post is for my friend Susan, who writes at WhyMommy, and who is back in fighting mode with a bunch of us putting our thoughts and words and love behind her. Thanks to Jean at Stimeyland for arranging the Team WhyMommy Virtual Science Fair. And as usual, to Sarah for letting me borrow one of her children for the occasion.

 

Dressing Room Texts and What Really Matters

Cross-posted at BlogHer. I'm fond of this one so I'll put it here too. It's a good thing I have people around who give me stuff to write about. May you have similarly inspiring friends. 

There is so much I wanted to tell you, my friend, when you texted me from the dressing room.

Everything I wanted to say was way more than my phone could hold, it turns out, and more than I could at the time because I happened to be in a meeting that was way less important than you are.

I wanted to tell you that bridesmaid dresses are instruments of torture in a rainbow of colors and that their sizes are lies. I'd add that spaghetti straps are pointless and possibly even worse than strapless in some cases, and I'd like to have a word with whoever decided these are strong design choices for most of us, anyway. Really, I mean this especially on marathon days of dancing and drinking and endless photos, climbing into and out of limos we almost never ride in otherwise and standing in awkward positions defying physics to help our best friends go to the ladies room in complicated formal wear.

I would like to tell you that I consider wearing one of these get-ups and also telling someone that she doesn't have to and can stand up for you on one of the most important days of your life in a garment of her choosing to be equal and opposite acts of love.

And I want you to know that I know that no amount of telling you this may matter when the 14 won't zip, when you think like you do and like I do, too. Positive reinforcement and empathy do little to contend with a roll of fat at the waist or one that pokes out from where sleeves would normally be. And yes, the numbers suck, these inflated sizes ingrained in our mind as assessments of self-worth rather than seemingly random measurements made by some pre-fab mass-producers. It was not a banner day for me when -- at my most solid 14 at all other stores in the universe -- I had to pay 20 extra dollars for an 18 dress in bridesmaid land.

Most of these dresses aren't really made for you.

They surely aren't made for me.

I don't know who they are made for -- in terms of personal style and cost alone -- but in size, too.

And even though I know it may not have mattered at the moment you texted, it's just true that where you see flaws, I only see one of the best people I know. Someone who would tell me the same things, someone for whom I want self-forgiveness almost as much as I want it for myself. The parts of your sum are what they are, and you will rip them to shreds as many of us have learned to do -- but I won't, because I can't, and because I won't. That's not why I'm here. It's my job as your friend to do the opposite of that, and it turns out that that job is really easy.

It's not like I can lie, though. Back fat is real. Rolls are real, sure. I look at my arms sideways in sleeveless things and you'd think I'd committed a felony, the trash I talk about myself in my head. We are the sizes we are for whatever confluence of genetics and lifestyle we represent. Sometimes it's upsetting if it doesn't match up with our expectations or the woman standing next to us or the pretty dress we really hoped would fit (especially if there is a bridal store saleswoman or a friend-of-a-friend or an in-law outside the door asking, maddeningly, "How does it look?") but instead, unfortunately, does not. And there are worse problems, yes. I'm under no illusion that this is a life-or-death situation, the ticking up of a size or three in ridiculous formal wear anything less than a first-world problem, but the self-loathing it can cause is insidious and saying that it shouldn't exist doesn't make it any less real. When it relates to the body we carry with us every day, it's really damaging, and I don't want that for you. I don't want it for me. I don't want it for any well-meaning woman trying nothing more than to do the right things.

I especially don't want it because it circles back to the beauty and the curse in the design that you can technically do what you want to in response. Control is implied. Diet. Eat with abandon. Exercise. Drink. End up where a lot of us do who have been on this train for many years and find no sense of balance or moderation between deprivation and overindulgence, self-righteousness and self-hatred. But at some point you have to decide -- for the hundredth or maybe even the final time -- what you can take in order to look like you think you may want to look.

How much it's worth to fit into this or that dress.

And I'll support you in that, too, as long as you aren't hurting yourself, because I can't support that at all. Not when what I really hope, what I really want is at some point for you to stop kicking your own ass, because I know how much it hurts, what a misuse of energy it is.

And this is why we need each other, why we need friends, because left to our own devices we face a lifetime of being alone in small, harshly-lit rooms with too many hangers and three-way mirrors and also our most raging insecurities and self-hatred. In the dressing room, we feel it more than we feel it in most places. We should never have to be in places like that alone. We should always have someone there, just outside, anyway, who loves us, who will tell us the truth, who knows that spaghetti straps can be really, really wrong and that strapless -- on many of us -- makes no sense.

That is why the next time -- any time -- you are in there, more than anything it's important that you know that you can call me or text me and tell me it sucks all over again, if you're having that kind of experience. And I won't think you're crazy or neurotic (well, maybe a little, but who can help it?) or vain, because I know you're (mostly) not, and I understand. Because I've been in there, too.

Really all that's important I tell you in the end is the usual: I love you, you're great and real, true things should matter most. And in this case, size isn't one of those things even when it sucks when clothes don't fit. And regardless of numbers, when the time comes to put whatever on that you choose or is chosen for you, you will be beautiful. Because you always are, no matter what anyone thinks. Especially you.