Posts from — December 2009

A few weeks ago, I was at a party and met a new woman.  I asked the usual “what do you do” question and she responded that she was a Wii Trainer.  Which required more questioning on my part since at that point, the only time I had stepped near a Wii was at BlogHer two years ago when I virtually boxed a bunch of women and hurt my wrist in the process.  Apparently, there are gyms where you go and stand in front of a television and play Wii games as exercise.

I went home to Josh and we laughed and laughed.

And then I borrowed Lindsay’s Wii and I became one of those people.

And then it didn’t seem funny at all.

Then it seemed like a brilliant idea to go downstairs to the basement and take a little bike ride around Wuhu Island.  And then take a 1.5 mile jog near the virtual water.  And maybe go flying for a little upper arm definition.

When I said months ago that I wanted to lose weight without doing any exercise, what I meant was that (1) I literally can’t squeeze going somewhere to exercise into my day and (2) I can’t find the money for a gym membership.  But the one-time cost of the Wii coupled with the fact that I can simply go downstairs, use the half-hour, and be done means that I can tuck it somewhere into the day.

The added benefit, which may reveal a loose grip on reality, is that I can totally lose myself in Wuhu Island.  I love it there.  I am so damn happy when I jump on my bike and start pedaling.  I love it when you hit the 9 minute mark on the free run and the path opens up so you’re overlooking this gorgeous expanse of the ocean.  I can get so engrossed looking at the scenery that I forget that I am in a slightly cold basement rather than a tropical island.  Oh–and I love the architecture in town.  It reminds me of Córdoba or Seville.  I almost expect to see orange tree groves when I get to that little fountain in the center.

Am I the only one this much in love with Wuhu Island?  It actually hurts my heart a little that it’s not a real place.  The only thing that I think could make the Wii better is if you could choose the location where you exercise.  I mean, I love the island, but if beaches are not your thing, you should have the option to go bicycle riding in the city.  Or go jogging in the mountains.  Maybe they make something like this and I just don’t know about this game yet.  But if they don’t, they should get on it.  I would totally buy a game where I could bicycle around various cities in the world.  Can you imagine getting to bike through a Vietnamese fish market or through Paris?  Past all the landmarks?  See, it wouldn’t feel like exercise because you’re so lost in what you’re seeing to pay attention to how long you’ve been biking.

The only other thing that sucks is that I’m using the machine so much that I’m unlocking all these extra levels to the games, but I’m going to have to give this Wii back to Lindsay soon and get my own.  Which means that I start from scratch.  Which is just incentive to drop out of life and bicycle around the island non-stop for 24-hours.

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The Weekly What If : If you had to do an exercise-based trip–one that could not involve simply walking around and going to museums and sites, but instead needs to be focused on a specific form of exercise–where would you want to go and what would you want to do?  It can be as specific as speed geo-caching on foot through London to as general as beach volley ball somewhere in Australia.

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I started a new section of the blogroll for password-protected and invite-only blogs so writers who wanted to get new readers would have that opportunity in the future.  We had something like that a while ago, but new people didn’t know they could add themselves to it and the page was hopelessly outdated.

So as I said in the LFCA, I am creating a new and more steamlined space for password-protected or invite-only blogs to be added to the blogroll so those blogs can pick up new future readers while still controlling who sees the content. If you would like to be added, please fill out the form and I will upload it to the new section which will replace the old link to the password-protected section of the blogroll. If you were listed on that old link and would still like your blog on the list, please fill out the form as well. The link to this form will always be accessible in the “old news” section of every LFCA post under “Quicklink Resources.”

Got that?  So if you have a password-protected blog or an invite-only blog and you want to be on it, fill out the form.  The old password-protected blog list has been erased in favour of this.

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Other business-y news: this month’s IComLeavWe list will close to new people on Monday (of course, the next one will open in January).  If you wanted to participate in IComLeavWe this month, sign up before Monday.  It obviously falls over Christmas so as always when holidays occur during IComLeav-Week, it’s just do your best.

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And now, the blogs…

Dead Baby Jokes has a great and sensible take on Stephanie Saul’s recent NYT article about surrogacy.  As she states, “Given my perspective, I tend to forget that surrogacy, and even things like donor eggs or IVF, are so far outside most people’s experience, that they must seem entirely theoretical, unreal, like fiction or, I suppose, science fiction.”  And it is so true–this voice of reason.

It’s a common topic in the ALI blogosphere, but IF in Big Sky Country briefly addresses the blogging after pregnancy topic really well.  She writes: ” I hope that the new direction of my blog will continue to show the perspective of a pregnant infertile.”  I recently read a post admonishing bloggers for not shutting down their blogs once they become pregnant or start parenting, and while it’s a valid way to blog, I tend to subscribe to the idea that your writing space grows with you instead of confines you.  Closing your blog is a sensitivity to one type of reader (those who don’t wish to read about children or pregnancy) in exchange for an insensitivity to another (those who don’t want to keep updating their Reader and chasing someone down around the Internet).  And honestly, the answer is to simply not read rather than to ask someone to change their space.

Good Egg Hunting has a post about surviving the holidays.  It kicks off with an email newsletter she receives of coping strategies, but the meat of the post are two extra pieces of advice that got her through last Christmas.  Perhaps they will help you too.

Just Wishing and Hoping has a post about a thought she had as a child.  I am finding that describing this brief post is not doing it justice, so instead, I encourage you to click over and read it in full.  Perhaps because I didn’t know what to expect when I clicked over to read it this week, the words were a little punch to the gut.  I immediately had an emotional response.

Lastly, Beyond the Palemother has a post that made me smile.  She writes: “And now I’m all … I have to ~tell~ someone. You know how that goes. You find something that lights up a dark, dusty part of your brain with a glimmer of recognition … a part that Everyday has little use for … and you want to tug excitedly on the sleeve of the person next to you and say, while fanning yourself, Oooo … Read this!”  And being very familiar with that sensation, and loving that it’s Anne Sexton that kicks off that feeling, and the fact that she then ties the whole thing into the reason why we blog…well, I just loved this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Losing myself in Wuhu Island.  Answer the Weekly What If.  A new password-protected blog list.  IComLeavWe starting soon.  And lots of good posts to read.

Show and Tell is below this post, but I thought I would trot out a sample from my new joke book tonight:

Get it?

Get it?

I wasn’t going to comment on Stephanie Saul’s latest article about surrogacy because honestly, what more is there to say?  The author’s obvious contempt for the assisted reproduction is abundantly clear in not only the fact that she seems to have now made a career with her scintillating exposés–trotting to the ends of the earth to ignore the thousands of families utilizing fertility treatments to build their families in order to capture the one outlier situation–but also in her word choice.  Her latest piece opens with this ditty:

“Unable to have a baby of her own, Amy Kehoe became her own general contractor to manufacture one.”

Saul comes up with such gasp-worthy observations as “Surrogacy is largely without regulation, with no authority deciding who may obtain babies through surrogacy or who may serve as a surrogate, according to interviews and court records.”

Wait.  Are you going to tell me that as Keanu Reeves so eloquently said in Parenthood that they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father?  You mean the government isn’t stepping in and telling people whether or not they’re allowed to become a parent or assist someone else in becoming a parent?

Or do you only want those regulations in place for people unable to have children without assistance–you know, same-sex couples, single parents by choice, and infertile men and women?  As long as you can procreate behind closed doors, the government should just stay out until you’ve proven yourself to be an unfit parent–am I understanding correctly, Ms. Saul?

She states that the lax atmosphere makes it possible for people to “order up a baby” as if we all have $100,000+ lying around to create a child as well as the desire to utilize someone else’s gametes or womb.  I’m assuming that she isn’t counting the fact that most heterosexual couples who decide to procreate attempt to order up a baby by deciding who will be their mate and therefore which genes will be passed along.  I’m also assuming that she has forgotten by the second page the fact that she mentioned that only 750 children are born via surrogacy each year and most cases are not like the three freak situations she dug up for the article.  I can see how large an issue this might become, Ms. Saul.  You know…750 children out of several million.  It certainly warrants this alarmist coverage.

Is the Kehoe’s story a sad situation?  Of course.  And Kym states the surrogacy side much better than I can.  But what I see from this situation as well as Stephanie Saul’s coverage is simply the author’s gleeful hatred of assisted conception as well as the overwhelming bias we have in this country against mental illness.  As the article states, this all came about because “Mrs. Kehoe was being treated for mental illness.”

Treated, as in, she was addressing the health condition.  As in, she was being a responsible parent by treating her disease.  As in, she was mindful of the situation and being proactive.  For eight years.  You know, all things that should be applauded as well as non-eyebrow raising.  In this country, bodily illness trumps mental illness with the empathy card.  We have such contempt for people who were not born with perfect mental health.

And that’s what I find disgusting, Ms. Saul.  The fact that treating mental illness is what kicked off this situation.  Not surrogacy itself.

But I don’t have a joke for that.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

We have an egg-free child coming over for dinner tonight.  Along with Tom Waits cookies (which are always egg-free), I tried fiddling with a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe.  The results are pretty rockin’.  Recipe is here.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

As we lead up to Christmas, this Jew thought it might be a good idea to throw open the doors of the Lushary and reconnect before we go off to our respective celebrations (if you’re…er…celebrating and not doing volunteer work and then going to the movies like me).

So take a moment before you start getting even farther into Christmas preparations, Christmas avoidance, or non-celebration of the holiday to catch everyone up on what is happening since the last Virtual Lushary OR where you are mentally as you head into the holiday.

As always, it has been about a month since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I’ll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. The good, the bad, the ugly. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person’s blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while (or if this is your first open bar), sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don’t have a blog–gasp!–you can always leave an email address if you’re looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you’re a regular at the bar, I’ll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I’m glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation back on this current post.

So have an imaginary cocktail and tell us what is up with your life.

Sometimes (meaning: I have dealt with this, though it certainly isn’t the feeling of all people that I encounter) people speak about meeting a partner or a friend via the Internet with contempt or embarrassment that I don’t really understand.  Contempt by people who judge those relationships and embarrassment by people in them. Sometimes people refer to the offline world as “real life” as if the friendships that are made via blogging are somehow unreal in comparison.  Perhaps I’m just anti-ranking in general, but I don’t think there is a superior way to bring love into your life.

Hi, my name is Melissa, and I met my friends over the Internet.  And I’m proud to shout that to the world.

However you meet your partner or friends is unimportant if you have a partner or friends because honestly, think about just how much needs to line up to bring you to the people in your life.  If I hadn’t annoyed Josh enough times beginning at 11 p.m., he wouldn’t have suggested that I start a blog.  And if I hadn’t started a blog, I wouldn’t have searched out other DC blogs and so on and so on until I ended up in a living room today, surrounded by the most amazing, nurturing, funny, warm women you’ve ever met.

I am really fucking lucky.

Because I also know that there are too many people without friends.  Or who have friends, but they don’t click on all levels.  And what everyone needs is a group of women like this.  Women that you can cry in front of and laugh with and never need to explain yourself.

Meghan and Leah with their ruby sippers.  These two are so funny–they always crack me up.

Me and Sunny.  My shirt is drenched with club soda from a bottle that exploded.  But I needed my picture with Sunny because I was really proud of my bra and wanted her approval.

Bean, who is my friend, but is also my cousin.  See, the Internet not only brings you friends, but it can bring you long-lost family.

Meghan laughing–I just liked this picture.

Leah teaching Paz and Cali how to make a ruby sipper.

Meghan, Lindsay, and Paz.

Paz chilling on the floor.  Isn’t she so pretty and stylish?

Cali listening to Paz.  I am so excited that she’s up here now.

I met Lindsay over the Internet, via our blogs–and I cannot imagine what my life would be like without her.  For one, my Chanukkah table would have been a lot smaller.  And I wouldn’t have my venting space, my park partner, or my computer fixer.  I wouldn’t have the privilege of getting to see V grow or have someone to pass off baked goods upon.  Thank you, Internets, for aligning just right.

A lot of TOOTPU was missing today, but from left to right: (top) Paz, Sunny, Jendeis, Meghan, Lindsay, Leah (bottom) Me, Cali, Lucy, and Bean.

Leah’s daughter took me to meet Elfie.

Cali, Meghan, Bean, and Paz.

The ever-lovely Jendeis, Cali, and Meghan.

These are in addition to the ones I uploaded in real time over at the on the road blog.

I love hearing stories of people who met over the Internet–of egg donors meeting up with recipients, of two friends who meet via blogs and go on holiday with each other, of a marriage resulting from a meeting via Match.com.

Tell me a story about someone you met online; about how the Internet has changed your life–even if they are someone you are deeply connected to even if you haven’t met face-to-face yet.