Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Josh sent me an article from the Forward titled IVF Babies Denied U.S. Citizenship.  It is specifically about Israeli-American women applying for dual citizenship for their Israeli-born children (in other words, the women are Americans living in Israel, their children are born in Israel, and they are trying to get them dual citizenship so it will be easier to travel in and out of the US to visit family), but I assume it’s a problem that is experienced by women living in other countries as well.  The article quotes the regulation:

The regulation states: “A child born outside the USA to an American cannot receive citizenship until a biological link with at least one parent is established.” Children who are legally adopted are specifically exempt from the rule, but IVF babies from donor eggs are not.

The article goes on to point out the bizarre inverse of this rule, stating that if this is true, it would be equally possible that two French citizens could fly to America, use an American woman’s gametes during a donor egg cycle in a US clinic, fly back to France, and apply for US citizenship for their child simply because the gametes are “American.”

The value is placed on the egg or sperm over the actual people raising the child.

The whole thing made my stomach twist.

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If you have a WordPress blog, you may have noticed that I’ve been using a different email with my comments.  About a week ago, I tried to leave a comment on someone’s blog and got a message that the email account was associated with a WordPress account and I needed to log-in in order to use it.  But I don’t have a WordPress account.  So I put down a different email address (which does get to me).  This has solved the problem in the sense that I can leave a comment, except I can’t leave one under my normal email address.  Has anyone found a solution to this yet?

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On the this-is-what-I-get-from-reading-blogs front: book suggestions.  Family Building with a Twist wrote this week about a book called MWF Seeking BFF which sounded good.  So I got it on Thursday and just started it.  Liking it very much so far.  I’m very much in a memoirs-by-women mood.  Like Isabel Gillies’ Happens Every Day or Claire Dederer’s Poser.  I’m also in a chicklet-set-in-America mood such as Emily Giffin, Candace Bushnell, Laura Weisberger.  Have anything else on the memoirs-by-women/chicklet-set-in-America front?

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Beginning” (Stinkbomb)
• “The Controversy of Breastfeeding” (ANDMom)
• “Explaining Evolution to First Graders” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you!
• “Half Truths Come in Pretty Packages” (Jack at Random)
• “Hey, Can I Be in Your Club…” (J.osh, Nake.d)
• “I’m Not Single” (MissConception)
• “Mental Infertility…” (The Smartness)
• “How Your Level of Emotional Infertility Affects Your Support Needs in the ALI Community” (The Smartness)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Kmina’s Blog has a post about the ways she has changed over the years.  Personally, I think her post would make a good meme (and make sure if you do that, that you link back to her).  Think of yourself ten years ago and now today: are you more patient?  Do you no longer crave chocolate?  Do you not finish books that aren’t holding your interest?  What have you learned; but more important, what has changed you?

The Infertility Voice has a post about D-day — Diagnosis Day — and the way this day has changed in her mind over the years.  Namely, how she feels on the anniversary.  It is about both forgetting about the wound itself as well as recognizing the scar and the story it tells.  She writes, “I’ve learned to live so much more fully in the moment that I spend less head space thinking about the past and how I’ve been wounded by infertility and more about how to move forward: to live with my infertility and not in spite of it.”

I love Something Out of Nothing’s post about affection and effusiveness.  It’s a glimpse into another person’s life.  I especially was struck by the beginning: “It doesn’t rain here often, but when it does, it always reminds me of the code my parents used, long before I was born, when my dad used to travel for work.  He would call my mom from the road, and at some point during the conversation, one of them would say, ‘It’s raining here,’ instead of ‘I love you’.” As well as the end (but you’ll have to click over and read the whole post to get that).

Lastly, the Adventures of MissOhkay has a post about her daughter’s birthplace, Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Did you know there are two countries we shorten to Congo?  I didn’t until I read this post.  I loved understanding how she came to choose the DR of the Congo for international adoption as well as more about her daughter’s place of origin.  This post is one in a series of posts about how her daughter came into her life.

The roundup to the Roundup: Article on donor egg babies and citizenship.  WordPress commenting problem.  Book suggestions?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 16th and March 23rd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

On Wednesday, I tweeted that I wished it were socially acceptable to sing aloud in the food store.  I had just found myself in the bean aisle, passionately crooning to the pintos about how “ever since [they] went away I’ve had this sentimental inclination not to change a single thing.”  The beans did not respond to my Paul McCartneyisms, but a fellow shopper looked at me in disgust.  What she doesn’t know is that I lack the reflexive impulse to stop myself from singing along when certain songs come on over the store’s loudspeaker.  These songs include (but are not limited to):

• “My Brave Face” by Paul McCartney
• “Let the River Run” by Carly Simon
• “America” by Neil Diamond

And G-d help us all if “We Are the World” starts playing.  I not only have to sing along, but I have to sing along mimicking everyone’s voice.  And it doesn’t end there.  When Cyndi Lauper comes on, I have to raise my right hand into the air, close my eyes, and do the open-handed fist pump-like movement she often brought to her performances.  And it’s like an illness — once I hear “We Are the World” in the store, I need to KEEP SINGING IT, DOING ALL THE VOICES, FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.  And maybe even a little bit of tomorrow.

The exact same thing happens in winter when I hear “Do They Know it’s Christmas Time at All.”  I curse group song projects.

But it gets worse.

There are certain songs that I can’t not sing and I can’t not cry while I sing.  Such as the Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” (Please, tell me how you stay dry-eyed thinking about Freud’s mentorship of Jung?)  The entire score of Les Miserables.  John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy.”  And if anything by Michael Jackson comes on, I have an overwhelming need to tell people around me how I used to have a Michael Jackson folder back when I was in school.  It was that fantastic picture of him in a pale yellow sweater vest, leaning on the wall.  And once I say that, I have to tell the person how I went to the Michael Jackson concert, and my mother let my sister and I make one white glove covered in glitter glue, and I felt like the coolest girl in the entire world that night (even after getting to the show and seeing every other girl in their single white glitter glue glove).

Musak is hard on me.

Do you sing along?  Are certain songs triggers and which ones set you off and make you start singing?

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I bought myself new business cards this week.  I’ve had the same ones since 2007, and I still have over 3/4ths of the box.  So I never bother getting new ones.  The information doesn’t change and the only place I really use them is at the yearly BlogHer conference and a few meetings throughout the year.  But I decided to splurge and get myself something that still is business casual but perhaps not as business so-casual-that-I’m-talking-to-you-in-flip-flops.  I mean, I am usually talking to the person in flip flops, but I’d like my card to not point out just how casual I am.  Especially when I’m speaking with people who have very serious business cards.

This is my old one:

This is my new one:

 What do you think?  I plan to still use the top one, but now I have a second option.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Coming Spring” (Bloodsigns)
• “My Secret Stash” (Lessons from an Infertile Social Worker)
• “CBub is Back” (My Lady of the Lantern)
• “The Nine Circles of Hell” (Mothernatureschmature)
• “Choose Happy” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Intentions” (Serenity Now)
• “Dipping My Toes In” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Why I Blog” (For We Are Bound by Symmetry)
• “What Nadav Taught Me: Live Life” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “The Fifth Belongs to Calvin” (These Fragments I Love)
• “Our Story: Part 8” (Infertilit-He)
• “One Blushing Shame, Another White Despair” (Glow in the Woods)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Glimpse Inside has a post about spirituality and what she believes, which is a gorgeous image within a sea of confusion.  While she doesn’t know why terrible things happen or where we go after we die, she has this strong vision of her friend meeting her daughter in the world beyond.  It’s just a gorgeous, simple, breathtaking post.

Hapa Hopes has a post about one of those dreams that you keep waking from and then falling back asleep to pick up again.  Not to diminish the feelings the dreamer gets from watching it in her head (some dreams just coat you with odd feelings for the rest of the day), but it was like a transcript from the best avant garde movie for the rest of us.  I think her interpretation sounds spot on.

In Search of Motherhood explains how she feels when her nurse tells her surrogate not to pee on a stick prior to the beta.  She writes, “Did it occur to the nurse coordinator that I don’t want to find out from her on the phone — her with her always cheerful voice, which if we don’t end up with a pregnancy is going to cut like a scalpel?”  It’s a powerful post.

The Elusive Second Line has a post about her fluctuating weight.  Let’s just say that I could relate a lot right now, but it’s also just a raw, deeply-honest post about another aspect of infertility that the general world probably doesn’t think about when they hear about the two week wait.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a really interesting post about her opposite of the hero — the villain.  She looks at the way villains are made vs. born.  I love this post because it makes you think.  I personally shifted the opposite of the hero to be the anti-hero and wrote: “the opposite of the shiny, happy hero is the anti-hero as imagined by someone like Knut Hamsun. Like the narrator in Hunger — who is a product of his starvation. Who is a reflection of Hamsun himself after he returned from his failed trip to America to obtain a job.  Maybe the opposite of a hero is a human.”  It’s always a good post when I get to talk Hamsun.  So go read her post in full for a good brain-stretch.

Lastly, Danana Has a Baby has a post about the people who live across the street from her who are childless.  She realizes that she doesn’t know their backstory; what has brought them to this place.  I love the ending on it: “I’d like to ask them what their story is. And I probably will. Both because I am curious, and because, especially after paying attention to what childfree bloggers have said over the last week, I want to acknowledge them, their presence in this neighborhood and in this world.”  It’s about noticing the world around you and acknowledging everything you take in.

The roundup to the Roundup: Do you sing in the grocery store (and which songs get you singing).  I got new business cards.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 9th and March 16th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

So.

I am rarely at a loss for what to say, but I can’t really sum up my thoughts on this week into words.  Maybe it would work better as an interpretive dance performed by someone like, let’s say, Mikhail Baryshnikov at the beginning of White Nights.  Maybe a Rachmaninoff piece with its lilting measures dipping into discordant harsh passages.  I’m not sure; I just know that these thoughts don’t work with words.

Those two posts were mine, as is this one.  My thoughts, my feelings, my observations.  As in, this is my blog, my place to write things on the Internet.  It has community components such as the blogroll, but these center post boxes are for me to write my thoughts.  The Roundup, for instance, is my own personal opinion (well, with your opinion in the center of it).  My thoughts on PAIL are my own personal opinion.  You may agree or disagree, but the point I am making is that I am grateful to all who listened, who respected me as an individual and let me have my say.  Feelings are always subjective, and in my opinion, always valid.  So thank you for supporting me in reading the things I needed to say.

And to that end, I apologize that if in writing about my hurt feelings I ended up hurting your feelings.

That said, I’m not sorry for the act of expressing my feelings.  Yes, they caused an explosion and other people’s hurt feelings, but the alternative is that everyone else gets to feel good and I have to suppress my thoughts.  That doesn’t seem like a very helpful solution — at least not from my end.  I am a human being, just like you.  I am in this community, obviously reading blogs — how else would I be able to construct the Roundup — and just as you would, I react, I have emotions, I get hurt.

A lot was released in the comment section of the posts this week, and I personally think we need to clean up the mess.  Other people disagree.  But for those who find it helpful to discuss things, I want to have a discussion.  Not talking about it does not make these underlying problems go away.  But here’s the thing: it struck me on Thursday morning that I do not want to lead this discussion.  I want to participate, but I don’t want to lead it and the reason is a very personal one not related to this incident.  I considered asking three different people to host the discussion, three people who would do a great job presenting questions, listening to answers.  But I didn’t ask them because I didn’t want them to feel any pressure to say yes.

And then I realized that there were many many more people popping into my head, people who could host.  The vast reality is that the best hosts are ones who have an interest in the topic and a desire to move things forward.  Rather than ask people directly, putting them on the spot, I am going to ask people generally if they would be willing to host a discussion.  What I would love to have happen is for bloggers from various areas of the ALI community to be hosts since I think each will bring a unique viewpoint.  People who are childfree, people who are parenting, people who are waiting to build their family through adoption, GLBT bloggers, those who haven’t started treatments yet, etc.  The more areas we have represented, the better.  Of course, it also doesn’t matter if we have multiple representatives from the same area.  As we saw this week, even people in the same situation have vastly different viewpoints.

To understand what I want, think of it like the salons of the 17th century.  Each blog is a house with a host.  The host pulls out questions they think could start a helpful conversation (feel free to peruse the comment section in order to see what people have been asking or proposing).  They write a post introducing themselves briefly (making a promise to listen with an open mind) and pose their questions.  People are then invited to give their thoughts in the comment section.  Towards the end of the week, each host would take a look at what was said in their comment section and summarize it into a paragraph or two.  All these paragraphs would be pulled together to create one summary of the various conversations — a summary that would hopefully be helpful to read.  It’s a way of processing an event that I’ve used with my students in the face-to-face world that translates easily into being utilized in the online world.  Let’s call it a Healing Salon.

If you’d like to host one of these salons, I need to know by Sunday at 4 pm EST.  Your post, if you are hosting, should go up any time between now and Sunday at 4 pm EST.  The conversation may naturally start then beforehand with your own blog readers, but I will post in the LFCA Sunday night all the participating posts.  People will then be able to go from blog to blog, adding their thoughts and reading other people’s thoughts.  If they don’t want to read other people’s comments at the moment, they can also skip that and just leave their own words because they will be able to read a brief summary from each blog afterward.  So, just to summarize, people who want to host should email me the url of the blog post and have it up by 4 pm EST on Sunday.  They’re also making a commitment to summarize what was said in the comment section as the response to their discussion question by Sunday 4 pm EST of the following week (the 18th).  I’ll help direct people to where the discussions are taking place.  People who do not wish to participate at all will not need to click over from the LFCA.  It’s there for the people who need it and can be ignored by the people who find it unhelpful.

If no one steps forward to host, I’m going to assume that everyone feels at peace and doesn’t need to discuss this more, and we can move on to discussing other important things such as Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights.

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There is one thing I think that needs to be covered in the discussions that maybe won’t come up because the host will need to have been blogging a long time in order to see this.  So I’ll throw it out here, and people should definitely run with it if it resonates with them.

This inability to post about pregnancy or parenting is a newish phenomenon.  Six years ago, it literally would never have passed through my head not to blog about the twins, though I knew that if I was going to blog about them, I needed to do it sensitively.  My first post to go “viral” was actually a parenting after infertility post called “Sniff” back in July of 2006.  It was my blog, and I wrote what was on my mind at the moment, and the twins have always been a big part of that.

When I think of other older blogs, everyone I know moved from treatment/adoption into parenting without huge fanfare (or, in some cases, bloggers I read didn’t move into parenting at all, but that is another topic that should be in the discussion as you can see someone asked already on the last post).  They either kept writing, talking about their children or their experience parenting as well as other things, or they stopped writing entirely because they didn’t have the time or the inclination.  Some people noted “children mentioned” at the top of a post if children were mentioned (as you can see in the explanation at the top of that post titled Sniff).  Others simply launched into the post with the understanding that if they had kids, they might write about their kids.

Then there was a period of time when it was in vogue for people to drop what they thought of as their infertility blog and start a new parenting blog.  Same person, same readership, different url and blog name.  It was understood that everyone who followed you over was committed to reading your story.  Almost everyone followed you over to the new place.  Not everyone did this, but it was a common enough option that I can look at my personal blogroll — my Google Reader account — and remember people’s old blog names from pre-kids.

And now there is today when people write that they can’t say what they want to say.  How were we able to do it for years and years, and now we can’t?  Or is it just a portion of people feel they can’t, and we’re attributing it to everyone?  Are people being asked not to write about parenting, or is that just their perception?  What has changed to bring us to this point?  Readership, of course, usually changes with parenthood.  This is partially not because of the event itself or the topic but because less time to blog usually equals fewer connection.  If you post less frequently, people visit your blog less.  If you have less time to comment on people’s blogs, people comment less on yours.  Few keep up the same blog pace they had pre-kids while in their child’s babyhood.

If you want to host a salon but didn’t know how to kick off a conversation, there you go.  It’s the only question I had in mind to ask if I published my discussion post that may not come up on another person’s blog just because you might not know this if you haven’t been reading/writing blogs for several years.

Older bloggers — feel free to disagree with me.  That is my perception of the last six years, not absolute fact.

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A few people have written this week about Cyclesista being down.  Bea is looking into it — it’s most likely a hosting issue or a domain name renewal problem.  But no worries: it will be back up soon.

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And now the blogs… (what, you forgot at this point that this is actually a Roundup?  I read blogs before Monday and after Wednesday, but I’m way behind so forgive me if I missed some really good ones this week.  Counting on you to supply them).

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” (Movie)
• “March 2” (Between the Paper Sheets)
• “Narrowing Down the Longing” (First Time Twins)
• “I Came Out on my Public Blog” (Living Our Life in Cycles)
• “Who’s Your Daddy” (Bloggers for Hope)
• “Be Very, Very Nice” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Reminder” (Anabegins)
• “A Fold in the Universe” (Bloodsigns)
• “My Secret Stash” (Just Waiting for My Turn)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Long Way Around has a post about what we’re owed by the universe after a loss.  The purchases we make to fill a void (I have to admit that I insanely once bought three hats after a failed cycle), that extra Frappuccino since truly, are we going to focus on denying ourselves small things like that when our heart is breaking?  It’s about giving yourself a hug, fulfilling a want because you can’t fulfill a need.  I loved this post.

An Engineer Becomes a Mom has a post about when shortsightedness leads to a person feeling excluded.  An announcement for a new parents meetup makes the assumption that all parents will have given birth to their children and will have breastfed them.  As a parent after adoption, she explains how she felt knowing she was certainly welcome to attend, but her situation wasn’t even considered by the planners.  It’s one of those must-read posts to help you see the world in a different way.

Something Remarkable has a post that made me smile about what a friend did for her.  A frustrating moment with her son’s napping schedule brings her to call her friend who pulls out something she has held onto for over a year.  I just loved the moment.

Writing for Life has an incredibly moving (and frankly beautiful) post about the loss of her son, Samuel.  His funeral is today, and I can’t think of a better tribute to him than this post which is filled with love.

Lastly, Search for the Missing Piece has a post about the fog lifting after her D&C.  It’s about the thoughts that consume her when she is at her rawest place; not everyday, but when the realizations strike.  I think I was struck by the post because it is both a small slice of someone’s life and the larger scope of infertility wrapped in one.

The roundup to the Roundup: An apology, a thank you, and explanation.  A request for people to host a discussion.  A unique discussion point for that conversation.  Cyclesista.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 2nd and March 9th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I read about this movement to create tiny honour-system libraries on people’s front lawns.  Nothing more to say about it except that I am seriously considering creating one.

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Babble rounded up a list of the top 50 ugliest names according to Twitter.  By which I mean, the people who utilize Twitter.  I clicked over to see if my name was on the list, and then immediately asked myself why the hell I would care.  Why would it even be interesting as to what you think is an ugly name (that would be the collective, disembodied “you”)?  Even if you thought that my name was the ugliest name in the world, there isn’t anything I’m going to do about it.  If the twins names had been on the list, they still would have been their names.  And if the name we’ve already chosen for a third child was on the list, I would have still used it.

The opinions of people I know carry some weight, but that disembodied “you” of the Internet?  That you’s opinion doesn’t mean a lot to me.

But still, I saw a few friend’s names on that list, and part of me felt like I should write them a note today.  Let them know I do like their name.

Rather than tell you the names I don’t like — because how shitty would you feel if I said your name — I’m going to tell you the names I do like that we can never use.  This is actually a helpful practice because you may hear a name that you (1) didn’t know prior to this point or (2) hadn’t considered.

I like talking about things I like.

So names I like the sound of: Prudence, Jesse, Ramona, Tabitha, Jakob, and Henry (Josh nixed this one by saying in the most incredulous voice, “Henry Ford?  Henry Ford, Melissa?”).

What names do you like the sound of, even if you’d never use them?

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There was a winner for the mishloach manot giveaway.  Random number generator spat out #162: Kristin!  So sugary love is on its way to you.

And thank you to everyone who participated and spread love across the Internet this week in the form of comments.  So much more fun than your usual giveaway.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Adoptees Place in Both Families” (Insert Bad Movie Title Here)
• “Flattened” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “How to Help a Friend” (Eggs in a Row)
• “Left Behind” (Where Love and Chaos Reigns)
• “There Goes My Baby” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Meaning” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “More on the Adoption Tax Credit” (From IF to When)
• “To Be Alive” (She Laughs at the Days)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Miss Conception has a post about marking her twins’ birthday.  She sets up candles and flowers that they can look at in remembrance, she makes gifts in their name to several organizations dealing with infertility and loss.  She writes, “I haven’t done much crying today yet, but I’m sure there are a few tears yet to come. I feel so much love in my heart for those little spirits. I have been smiling as I think of them and have given myself permission to open their nursery door and go inside. Maybe I’ll sit in the glider-chair with their bears before bed and talk to them for a few minutes.”  It is a post not about loss but about being in love.

The Elusive Second Line has a post about a recurring dream she has about the same little boy.  He changes in age, his features transform, but he is always her little boy.  For a while, the dreams stopped and she missed him, but then suddenly they came back.  These dreams which bring her such happiness when they occur are also the thing that is stopping her from being able to move forward with adoption, planting a “what if” in her brain: “Maybe this is why I’ve never completely embraced the idea of adoption. I want to embrace it. I want to go into it head first and never look back. It seems like it would take away a lot of stress from my life because in the end (even though it is not an easy path) there is a baby in my arms. With the current situation I can’t necessarily say the same. But if we do adopt we will adopt trans-racial. That is something I want to do. But then…it won’t be him.”

Fearlessly Infertile has a very honest post about contemplating stopping family building.  When weighed against all they are giving up in order to become parents as well as the peace they’ve felt during this time period where little is happening in terms of forward motion, she has realized that the desire to become parents has become a want more than a need.  I just love the openness of this post, especially her final thought: “Brandon and I have no doubt in our hearts that we would make good parents. We would love our child unconditionally. But sometimes because we question the process (especially the cost of the process) we feel like we don’t deserve that opportunity.”

Lastly, Three is a Magic Number has a post about compassion fatigue.  She defines it: “It’s a common phenomenon amongst those whose professions surround trauma, like social workers and first responders and the like. You can’t deal with that kind of shit without getting some of it on you. That’s called secondary trauma. You might assume that secondary means that this brand of trauma is of  a lesser degree, but that’s not what it means. It’s  just as disintegrating and damaging and demoralizing. It just didn’t happen directly to you.”  This post is brilliant because she deconstructs the difference between therapist and blog reader, namely, the walls we build vs. the walls we deliberately dissolve.  I really feel this is one of those posts that everyone needs to drop what they’re doing and run over to read.  Immediately.

The roundup to the Roundup: Tiny libraries are so cool.  What are your favourite names?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between February 24th and March 2nd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Another new food store opened in our tiny town.  This is the fifth supermarket within a mile of one another.  Some are literally next door to one another — enormous brick food-filled monstrosities sitting side by side.  Four of these stores sell the exact same things.  The same Jif, the same butter lettuce, the same Fage yogurt.  Every once in a while, you’ll find an item that is only carried in one store or another, but for the most part, they are interchangeable.  The fifth store overlaps with the other four, but it also carries many specialty items.  The aisles are arranged according to food allergies and special diets, which saves a lot of time since you know any item you find in your aisle likely fits into your diet.  You can go shop in the vegan section and skip the rest of the store.  Or shop in the egg-allergy section and never come face-to-face with a cookie you can’t have.  Clever idea.

But really, there is no reason for our tiny town to have five food stores.

The new store opened with a lot of fanfare.  Coupons, balloons, banners.  When I pulled into my usual food store this morning, the parking lot was empty, and it wasn’t until I got out of my car that I realized why — everyone was at the new food store.  My parking lot was empty, but the lot next door was packed with cars.  It was a very Sneetch-y moment, where it felt like all the cars in the other parking lot were having a wiener roast and we weren’t because there were no stars upon thars.  Except, you know, I could have gone over to the other store and joined in the festivities.  But I didn’t.  Because it’s just a food store with the exact same products as the store with the empty lot.

I am absolutely a creature of habit.  I eat the same meals over and over again.  If I like a brand, I will buy it regardless of the price.  I frequent the same places even if they’re not convenient.  I am not a fan of trying something new if the present option works even somewhat.  Apparently, I am the only person who behaves this way in my town because I pretty much had the entire food store to myself.

When I went to check out, I realized that I had lost the coupon I had been carrying through the store.  I almost never use coupons, so I was pissed off that I had made a huge effort to remember this slip of paper and had somehow lost it between the front door and the cash register.  But this is the advantage to being a creature of habit — the cashier shrugged her shoulders and said, “Mel, I trust you.  I’m taking the money off without the coupon.”  Because she knows I’m an enormous flake.  Because she knows I rarely use coupons therefore would pay attention to the fact I had one this closely.  Because she knows I’m honest.

That’s the advantage to shopping in the same place several times a week for many years.  I know all the employees and they know me.  So, yes, I could have gone to the new store and gotten 20% off my grocery bill, but the people there don’t know that I like all my vegetables in the same bag.  They don’t ask me how yoga is going.  They don’t trust me when I tell them that I had a coupon and lost it.

By the way, I found the coupon the moment I got home inside one of my shopping bags, stuck to a can of crushed tomatoes.

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I finished my limerick for Lori’s Limerick Chick contest.  I feel like this may be my year to win (yes, she does have prizes).  This is because I have cleverly lined up six votes for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.  How did I do that, you ask?  By placing six bloggers in my limerick instead of the minimal one.  These people have to vote for me — because a vote for me is a vote for themselves.  Yes, I really did put this much thought into it.

When a blogger barrels for votes like a powerful twister
She links to many of her ALI sisters
Project Progeny to Jen to Bio
Queenie and Eden and Keiko
A cheap act (you said it, mister)

Vote for me, vote for me!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Truth about IVF” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Do My Complications Mean I Had No Business Getting Pregnant?” (Adventures of Endo and Pregnancy in the Arctic)
• “Let’s Talk about Sex — and Infertility” (Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed)
• “On Choosing Love Again” (By the Brooke)
• “Scabbing Over” (MissConception)
• “Unrequited Blog Love” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Bad Parenting II” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Birch and Maple has post about the end of her FET, how she thought she’d feel vs. what is going through her mind.  It is the continuous readjustment to a new reality — one where the future looks wholly different from how she imagined it to be.  When she mourns the end of the cycle, it isn’t just about the FET.  It’s about the magical thinking, the sibling for her child, the vision she had of her future or her child’s future after she is gone.  It’s a brief, heartbreaking post.

Family Building with a Twist has a post on a day in the life of a work-outside-the-home mum.  It’s an exhausting schedule when she’s feeling well; too much when she’s sick too.  She writes, “Birth and death and sickness and health and change and carpet beetles cycle around and around. Lately I feel like I’m constantly moving and running and getting nowhere, especially during times like this. Exhausted, I wonder why I bother. I gave up ambitions of setting the world on fire years ago; I’m just a rat in a cage.”  Go read the whole post.

Lastly, Stumbling Gracefully has a thought-provoking post about grief appropriation.  Actually, I think it’s a really important read, especially in a community such as ours where we care deeply about one another.  At most, we are a blogger or two removed from everyone else in the ALI blogosphere.  And we mourn each other’s losses.  She writes: “I understood his concern; he has seen me react poorly to the sad stories of many a blogger I hardly knew, he’s watched me internalize their tragedy and grief, twisting it into fear of the uncertainty of my own life.”  She asks hard questions about the grief we feel over other people’s losses.

The roundup to the Roundup: There’s a benefit to being terrible with change.  Vote for my limerick!  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between February 17th and February 24th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.