No laughing matter

As you may have read elsewhere, today is Cure JM day here in blog-land, an effort to raise awareness of juvenile myositis, a potentially fatal and always devastating group of autoimmune diseases affecting children.

This event was pulled together by my fellow blogger and friend Kevin, aka Always Home and Uncool, whose 9-year-old daughter has been living with this disease since before she was diagnosed 7 years ago today, which is also his wife's birthday.

You can hear more about Kevin's ultimately uplifting story at his (normally hilarious) blog, Always Home and Uncool, and also at the group blog we write for, Hot Dads. In short, he and his wife have chosen to take their daughter's lifelong illness and turn it into a positive for other families suffering with it, families who might not be as lucky in obtaining the necessary medical care to make life as comfortable as possible for their children.

His wife got this news as a birthday present 7 years ago, and today, though she may be the chair of the Cure JM foundation, she's being ordered to take the day off while the rest of us take up the cause. Happy Birthday!

To make a tax-deductible donation toward JM research, go to Kevin's FirstGiving page, or to the Cure JM donations page. And again, to read more, go to Cure JM or Always Home and Uncool.

Confirmation of Blogger-Authors' greatness

As I promised a month ago, I'm here to offer my thoughts on (Dad Gone Mad) Danny Evans' first book, Rage Against the Meshugenah, and (Baby on Bored) Stefanie Wilder-Taylor's latest book, It’s Not Me, It’s You, after reading them both in the past few weeks.

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RAGE AGAINST THE MESHUGENAH: Why it Takes Balls to Go Nuts

I wholeheartedly agree with every other reader I've heard from that this book is a must-read for anyone who knows someone (especially a man, or a generally reserved woman) who might be depressed.

This includes, of course, pretty much everyone, and I can't decide who would get more out of it-- people who know they know someone who's depressed, or people who haven't yet put all the signs together.

The tone of the book is not all dark and depressing, which would kind of defeat the purpose, nor is it all wisecracking superficiality. It's the same blend of both aspects (and others) that you get in the most rewarding, memorable conversations you have with good friends.

I know I'm not saying anything everyone who's listening hasn't already heard before, but I felt compelled (as someone who has faced a lot of the same struggles as Danny) to build on my preview post to confirm that yes, you really, really should read this book, one way or another.

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IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman

As much as I enjoyed Stefanie's first two books, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay and Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, I appreciated those on a much more superficial level, as a parent laughing at how ridiculous children and their parents can be sometimes.

Stefanie's new book is different, in that it's a straightforward, self-assured comic memoir, which is a genre (led by David Sedaris) that I particularly enjoy.

To keep you invested in her biography without getting caught up in a weepy tell-all, Stefanie sprinkles in just the right amount of references to the deeper drama and conflicts in her life that led to the amusing and occasionally bizarre stories that are the star of this book.

The result is a fast-reading collection of essays that can be taken all together in order, or separately and at random, without missing information that would keep you from appreciating her humor or storytelling abilities. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes humorous memoirs or personal essays.

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In unrelated news (about which I'm sure you'll see, hear, and read a great many more stirring tributes and remembrances than I can muster), today is of course the 8th anniversary of the hijackings of 9/11/01, for which I'm almost totally sure you can hold these two folks entirely blameless. How's that for an endorsement??

Spreading the joy

Hey there, Friday readers! I feel like I should fill these posts with little Easter eggs of special meaning that all those losers out living life today would never see (because they’re too lame to understand they can look back out over this whole year-and-a-half of posts any time they want to), but I’m way too lazy and disorganized for that.

What’s more, I don’t even really have any UNspecial meaning for you, so for that and so much more I apologize in advance, and retroactively.

I just wanted to take a moment to recognize that two fellow bloggers out there have brand new works that just hit the shelves of your local bookstores, in one case his first book and in another her first book about herself. You should check them out. I know I can’t wait to.

Don’t have the spendin’ money to go buying books sight unseen? Hit the library first!

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RAGE AGAINST THE MESHUGENAH: Why it Takes Balls to Go Nuts

As some of you may already know, Danny Evans, who writes at Dad Gone Mad, spent more than one agonizing year reliving his moments of deepest depression to provide us all with some insight into the generally taboo phenomenon of acknowledging depression as a man.

The very concept itself involves admitting having feelings and then exploring them, so we can all at least understand where the trouble might start. Besides all that, because it’s written by Danny, the book is guaranteed to be funny, too, even (or especially) when it might normally seem inappropriate to be so.

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IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, of Baby on Bored, already has two bestselling books out there, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay and Naptime Is the New Happy Hour (and I suggest you read both), but this time she's focusing more on her own life story than on her adjustment to parenthood.

This lady found time to write another book while parenting infant twins and a toddler, so you know she's got her act together, and based on how funny her previous books and blog are, I'm thinking this one will be even better.

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Look for some form of tiny review, at least, for these two books sometime in the next few weeks.

BlogHer notes from an outsider

Since I'm still seeing other people's BlogHer recaps popping up every day, I don't feel so bad about procrastinating this long. For those who don't care, this is one and done.

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It probably says a lot about me, especially during my current phase of life, that when a convention comes to town that has HER in the title, I just can't wait to hop on the train and head downtown.

But when you blog about your kids as much as I do, you tend to read and be read by bloggers who also write about their kids. The world being what it is, that means I hang with chicks most the time. Online, anyway.

But BlogHer coming here to Chicago meant that I had the rare opportunity to meet a lot of these people in person, which was at once exciting and terrifying. If I was the kind of person to throw myself into social situations with people I don't know very well, then I probably wouldn't sit by myself writing on the internet so much. I'd probably be running some company that made popular things for popular people. And I'd have a lot more money. And I'd sit on my ergonomic toilet seat staring at magazines with my own face (and abs) on the cover, wondering if I'd ever stop shitting solid gold bricks.*

But whether that's a more desirable life than mine or not is neither here nor there. The fact is, I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday a couple weeks ago showing up with my wife at the Chicago Sheraton without conference passes, and without knowing what venues would be available for us to meet people without accosting them at cabstands and bathroom sinks.

And you know what? It was awesome.

Except for that pesky day in the middle on which I actually wondered if I might die on the bathroom floor at a fancy hotel, just like a life-conquering celebrity but without the drugs or success.

So if you saw me on Friday and wondered why I looked so surly and distant (sorry Neil and Suzanne), it's only because I was intently trying not to vomit and/or internally debating the best position in which to lie in case I got a choice moments before death's icy finger tagged my soul out to send some fresh meat into the Diarrhea Olympics.

Before all that, though, I got to spend some quality time with Middle-Aged Woman (Unmitigated) and Muskrat, meet Black Hockey Jesus and Tanis (Redneck Mommy), and then wonder how the hell I was going to find anyone else in the mass of humanity who wasn't introduced to me by someone else. Heck, we spent well over an hour at the SociaLuxe party playing with customizable name bracelets without meeting a soul I knew. Sure, I saw Jenny the Bloggess and Kristen Chase (Motherhood Uncensored) but was too timid to interrupt their respective series of conversations with nothing but an awkward introduction, but that doesn't really count.

While waiting for the People's Party later that night, I recognized Miss Grace, who introduced me to Matthew from Child's Play x2 among others. Then once the party started I rejoined my wife, who'd spent an hour or two packing swag bags with Middle-Aged Woman, only to find out that she not only had met Jenny the Bloggess (and Nancy W. Kappes!), but she got a Bloggess sticker she was specifically forbidden to give me.** I figure since I was meeting Black Hockey Jesus at that time, it kind of evens out, cosmically.***

I somewhat redeemed myself later by saying hi to Momo Fali, Kristen, and Brittany (Barefoot Foodie), but overall I was so overwhelmed I missed far more opportunities than I seized, which was made especially tragic by Friday's aforementioned chaos. So much for getting my feet wet on Thursday and making the most out of Friday.

I convinced myself on Friday afternoon that despite some stomach pain, I felt okay enough to soldier through the evening as long as I didn't risk eating anything. I hadn't thrown up yet at that point and I figured I must be suffering no more than the effects of eating at IHOP at 2am the night before, instead of battling some kind of flesh-eating virus hell-bent on liquefying my insides, as my foe was later to be revealed.

My late arrival on the scene Friday is the root cause of numerous missed connections with awesome people like Maggie and Mike Adamick, and my lack of organization and outgoingness is the cause of my missing out on dozens more people I should have met somewhere, somehow in the crowds.

After being turned away from the MamaPop party by none other than Mrs. 4444 herself (just doing her duty as the lady with the checklist), I took that as a sign I should give up defiling the absolutely vacant bathrooms (but I bet the lines at the women's bathrooms were epic) of the Sheraton and call it a night at the relatively early hour of 10pm. That hour is for me, unfortunately for my overall health, much like 6:30 is for normal people.

Turns out, of course, we missed the best party of the conference, and a unicorn cake. A unicorn cake!

But the rest did me good (specifically the sporadic series of naps in a bath/shower and the patient nursing of my wife), as did the tentatively resumed ability to absorb small amounts of fluids for the first time in over 12 hours. Fluids make the hallucinations go away! Well, most fluids do, anyway.

So we showed up Saturday evening in time to meet longtime readers MamaNeena and Andrea (Sweet Life) and have a good talk (wishing we'd had more time to hang out that night and earlier in the weekend) before heading over to Quartino for dinner [picture] with Middle-Aged Woman, Vodka Mom, Sprite's Keeper, Stiletto Mom, DeeMarie, Shopgirl, Amo, and Jill-- we hadn't been here before but we definitely want to come back. J- because she wants more of what she ordered, and me because I'd like to go there when I can actually eat food.

We then headed to the bowling alley for BowlHer, which, due to the brain-squashing noise, was not good for meeting people you didn't already know. However, it was very good for getting stuff, since it was co-sponsored by several numerous companies. How can you go wrong with free cupcakes, wine, chocolate, and gift cards?

After deciding we'd had enough of the noise, we headed back to the Sheraton to check out the CheezeburgHer Party, which would have been 10x better if I was better able to eat by this point. We mostly just sat on a very comfortable couch in the presidential suite realizing how tired we were, but we were happy to get the chance to meet Elisa (Unlikely Housewife) after trying to coordinate a meetup all day. We then headed the 32 floors downstairs, where I met Backpacking Dad on my way to the bathroom.

I passed on sticking it out any longer in case tiredness made me relapse, and we reluctantly headed for home with about 30 pounds of swag (thanks largely to all those wine bottles people flying home had to give away). How strange we must have looked to non-blogging civilians on our ride home-- good thing we left the pink feather boa from BowlHer at the CheezeburgHer Party.

Still, with all the tote bags filled with food and pink or leopard print odds and ends, I might as well have been wearing my new blogging shirt and singing at the top of my lungs.

Anyway, if we met you there, we were glad to meet you, and if we didn't, we were sad we didn't. I don't think we'll make it out to New York next year, but that's not for lack of desire. Here's hoping against hope anyway that we'll see you all there!

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* Or maybe eggs, more likely, because I'm pretty sure people like that don't have to put up with inconveniences like sharp corners.

** And then she goes and taunts me by just leaving her leftover stickers in the bathroom for normal people to be confused by.

*** Except that I'm still pathetically devastated I never got to meet Jenny.

The return journey: Random riffs

Though I may have exhausted your patience with the three posts of observations on our
trip driving from Chicagoland to Northern Maine last month, here's just one post covering our trip home two weeks later.

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NEW JERSEY

• After an awkward, nearly wordless, moment, I found out the reason the gas station attendant in New Jersey took the pump from my hand and put it into the car for me was that it is illegal to pump your own gas in the state of New Jersey. (Oregon is the only other state with a similar law.)

Some online research revealed that it has been this way since 1949, following the logic that the untrained public should not be allowed to handle such large quantities of flammable liquids. Now I'm sure repealing this ridiculousness is a union/jobs issue, and since it's New Jersey, probably also a mafia issue.

I'm not sure what Oregon's excuse is, though. Something granola or sandal related, perhaps?

• Exit 12 on I-80 offers to take you to "The Land of Make Believe". There are so many sarcastic remarks to make here, they're all jammed up in my brain trying to get out first. Do you smell smoke?

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PENNSYLVANIA

The coffee machine at one of the rest stops we visited along I-80 offered "whitener" for your coffee. Not cream, not milk, not "creamer"-- whitener. This is too ambiguous a substance to allow in any drink of mine, especially when that drink came out of a machine that was probably almost as shady-looking back when I was born.

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OHIO

On the way back, after numerous very happy trips across the Ohio Turnpike in my time, I finally found a chink in its armor-- the last rest stop on the Westbound side, at mile marker #49, Oak Openings. Upon walking in, I was confronted by the question of exactly which openings of the oak we would be lucky enough to stumble into.

As I strode warily across the taint, I guessed that those industrious Ohioans had started overhauling their rest stops at the west end moving east, then moved back from east to west before running out of money while tricking out the Blue Heron stop just before this one.

I guess this economy finally brought me something good, in that I was sent home far less tempted than usual to move to Ohio just to work as a migrant panhandler hobo-ing it up and down the Turnpike with the kids in tow. Think about it-- living rent-free, eating fine fast foods, and all the change my cargo pants could hold!

Now, I have to amend this dream to leave at least one of the kids at home, for their own safety and my sanity. But which one? ...Which one would bring me more sweet sympathy coins? Which one could better pick a pocket and outrun the fuzz when needed? Ahhh, choices.

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And this, mercifully, closes out the drawn-out series of posts about our trip, from which we returned over three weeks ago now.

Developments at our house, Vol. 14

Here are some of the latest developments around these parts:

1. According to a repeated bulletin my 2-year-old daughter M- broadcast through the car recently, if I liked it, then I should have put a ring on it. Oh-oh-ohhh, oh-oh-oh. Oh-oh-ohhh, oh-oh-oh.

I liked it better when she just sat back there spontaneously singing, "Far away, far away," over and over again.

2. I found a piece of note paper on the floor of the library with the word FART written on it in giant block letters, carefully filled in over the course of what must have been several very industrious minutes. I wonder what it means that I just might have found this more amusing than its presumably prepubescent author intended. You gotta admire dedication to a bit.

3. According to Google Analytics, Ft. Worth, Texas was the first city willing to send one of its favorite sons to my "robot ladies" post, after he accurately invoked the password, "i want to screw a robot".

4. When the lady at the library was checking out my (free!) movies the other day, she saw I was getting Hot Fuzz and enthusiastically told me that it was "a really funny movie". She then preceded to scan my other selection, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, and ominously passed on the chance to continue our conversation.

5. I'd like to note that this is yet another list post that does not have 5 or 10 items in it. That's progress, my friends.

Put on a happy face

Consider today's post a solicitation for moral support for my wife, who very early this morning marched slowly down the Death Row that is the 26 miles of highway between home and work, at a school in a neighborhood outside Chicago that is beyond underprivileged.

The air around the young teenagers of this town normally courses with a manic energy so desperate that it often devours even the kindliest hand seeking to calm it, which makes every day for my wife a wonderful new adventure.

She's uniquely suited to this job, though, so even on days when she comes home completely spent and incredibly frustrated, the latter is far more often caused by the incompetent administration above her than the special-needs students around her.

Given that this is always the case, you are undoubtedly wondering what brings it all up today. Well, next week is Spring Break at her school, which you may remember from your days as a student being a very happy time.

The reason you remember it being so happy is because you and your classmates had the strength in numbers to just check your brains at the door each morning and spend the rest of the day doing pretty much whatever irritating little time-wasting activity sprang to mind while the frantic teacher was amusingly attempting to capture your attention.

Now that my wife is that teacher, it is no longer funny.

She spent this weekend dreading going back to school like I have never seen before, after her students, who are as a rule very kind and extremely loyal 80% of the time, spent last week acting out for her an unbelievably detailed preview of what they have planned for this week.

The only reason she isn't spending Day 1 (at least) huddled under a blanket coughing and wheezing away the best Fake Germs she can manage is because her lousy, ungrateful hip ate up all her sick days months ago.

Furthermore, her cold-hearted bastard of a husband, seen here hiding for his own safety behind a mysterious blue tube, expressed a curious aversion to unpaid work days.

So what I need from you, especially if you are a teacher, is some reasons why she should keep showing up to work each day this week, and, if possible, some really good reasons why she shouldn't kill me or make me suffer even a little bit for making her do so.

Keep in mind when suggesting things* that I've already: 1) made her two fun lunches to choose from today; 2) found her some magazines she likes at the library; and 3) told her she could nap guilt-free even longer than usual when she gets home.

Actually, I didn't tell her that last one until now. But my promises of a lazy, super-fun Spring Break have done nothing to shake her steadfast dread or insistence that this will be a week from somewhere below Hell, and that nothing else matters, so I've got to keep raising the stakes.

Or maybe I should quit before she holds out for too much more. I have a feeling it's going to be a long week for all of us.

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* Since I'm clearly a saint, feel free to suggest that she work off her stress and anger each day after work by polishing my sneakers (I insist it must be possible!), cooking dinner, or writing blog posts.

Classic quotes, Vol. 10

Here is the latest batch of quotes from from my wife J-, 2-year-old daughter M-, and 4-year-old son D-:

M- (after sneezing): Bazoontight!

D- (when asked his favorite sport): Ummm... running around in circles.

M- (beaming, after being told she's a big girl): And you're a big daddy!

J-'s physical therapist (while J- was on her stomach doing "gluteal clenches"): Very good! You're doing much better with those-- you look like you're getting a really good squeeze there!

M- (after glimpsing a single raisin I earlier submerged in her cereal, with a tone, pitch, and volume not unlike a new Publishers Clearinghouse winner): Ooh-a-raaaisinnn!!!*

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* I can't publish a quote like this without acknowledging the existence of the greatest source of raisin-related child enthusiasm, Steve at The Sneeze's gifts of raisins to his son on Christmas for the past three years.

In a tough world, you get first shot at your kids

Do either of these exchanges from this morning make me a bad parent? I'm often struck by that thought after I let loose some of my initial reactions to things.

D- (walking into the room first thing this morning): Hi Daddy, can you make me something to eat?
Me (coughing like I just pried open a dusty old crypt): Whoa, we need to brush your teeth!

This was my gut reaction-- I couldn't acquire enough untainted oxygen to come up with a "Hey, let's go get cleaned up for the day first!" or something else innocuous.
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M- (after reaching up, opening a kitchen drawer, inserting her finger, and deliberately closing the drawer): Oww! Fin-gerrrr!!*
Me: Yes, 'Ow, finger!' indeed. We've been down this road before, many times. (I find it amusing to speak this way to a 17-month-old, on occasion.)

Disclaimer: She closed the drawer pretty slowly, and she seemed to be expressing less pain than disappointment (bafflingly so) with the result of her experiment. She got over it in a second.
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On a similar note, I haven't yet gotten around to writing a manifesto of my parenting philosophies, but this morning I found out I don't have to. The folks at The Art of Manliness (a great site, by the by) have done it for me:

Quit Coddling Your Kids

The only tweaks I can think of offhand after reading this a couple hours ago are that, as seized upon by some people in the comments, they don't mention much if anything about being appropriately supportive of your kids or consistently telling them that you love them. I think they just forgot that since the focus is more on people who insulate their children from everything negative whenever possible, especially by blindly supporting every choice and action, whether selfish, hateful, or otherwise ill advised.

One of the comments mentions world-proofing your child instead of child-proofing his or her world. That just sums it all up perfectly-- it needs to become a new proverb.