Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Tonight marks the end of the year (and perhaps, where you are, it’s already the end of the year), and I haven’t really processed that.  I’d like to do a post for my own sake wrapping up all my thoughts from this year, but I’ve obviously run out of time.  So would it be strange if I put it off until I had more time?  Say, mid-January?

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My parents bought the Wolvog a guitar, which he loves hardcore, and I have been breaking in for him every night.  New strings only hold a tune for a little bit and then the guitar needs to be re-tuned.  So I’ve been tuning, playing, tuning, playing while things download on the computer (I’m excellent at multitasking).  And I have come to love his little half-guitar even though it looks ridiculous on me, and it is now completely broken in and wonderful.

So it was time to return to taking care of my own guitar.  A while back, I tried to have my guitar restrung at a local store because I’m too much of a pussy to do it myself (I knew anyone who plays guitar was probably thinking that in their head anyway), and the woman refused to help unless I would leave the guitar there.  Which I wouldn’t.

So on Wednesday night, I took it to a guitar store a few towns away where the most wholesome boy in the world restrung it for me.  You could seriously dip cookies in this boy — he was like a great big glass of wholesome milk.  He lovingly restrung the guitar for me with the same type of care new husbands use to caress their wife’s cheek on their wedding night.

And now, much to Josh’s chagrin, the breaking in process starts anew.  I hope he enjoys listening to out-of-tune G-chords!

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The Weekly What If: What if you could instantly know how to play any instrument in the world — and do it remarkably well.  Which instrument would you choose?

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And now, the blogs…

Adventures in Infertility-Land has a post about memories that are attached to clothing.  It is again the season where she lost her son, and the same clothes that she wore during that pregnancy have been taken out of storage.  She writes, “I have thought about throwing this stuff out, not wanting to literally wear the memories on my body, but I haven’t.”  It is an achingly beautiful post filled with more questions than answers.

Adventures of a Dam Engineer has a post about waiting, and I love how it begins: “Why I feel compelled to keep the ticker up is beyond me.  I suppose it’s my personality to always measure accomplishments or lack thereof.”  It is a small post, one that briefly touches on a few points, but in the relating of the day-to-day things still contains that silent partner; the waiting.  And you feel it between every letter on the post.

As Fast As My Baby Can has a sad story about a friend’s sister’s loss, pointing out how fragile the world is at its heart.  She points out that while this may be common knowledge, this experience drove home this point physically.  She explains, “When I got that call, I felt for a few moments in time, a rip through the gingerly held together fabric of my life, the fabric that keeps me sane and in reality and moving forward.”  You can practically hear her friend’s voice, frantic within the phone call.

Lastly, Here We Go Again has a post about the days after Christmas, ones that she has reclaimed for her own relaxation and enjoyment.  I thought it was brilliant, actually, knowing that you have this small sea of time after all the chaos of the holiday; taking that for yourself and holding it sacred.  I wonder if people went into their holiday next year focused not on the stress, but on their own small holiday after the holiday, if they would be able to hold the stress at bay.  It’s a sweet post about her Christmas holiday and the afterward.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy last day of 2010.  The most wholesome boy in the world restrung my guitar (and no, that’s not dirty, Calliope).  Answer the Weekly What If.  And the last four blog posts of 2010 to read.

On Saturday, the Creme de la Creme will go up, so happy reading!

On Tuesday, I was in the house writing when I heard strange music playing, and while it was faint, it sounded like it was coming from inside the house.  My immediate and completely logical assumption was that there was a deranged killer waiting for me in my basement, playing electronic music to lure me downstairs where he would hack me apart (I have a very very healthy imagination).

So I stood by the basement door, my ear pressed to it, about to call 9-1-1 to tell them about the killer playing electronic music in my basement when I realized that the basement wasn’t the source of the sound.  It sounded like it was coming from the living room.  And my next thought was, “great, so the killer is under the table and now I’m going to be hacked to bits.”

I bet you’re wondering how I could possibly be writing this, but I was actually wrong.  The twins had downloaded a musical screensaver to Josh’s computer, hence the creepy, quiet electronic music as fish swam past on the screen.

Terrifying.

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Merry almost Christmas!  I hope you have excellent plans for the weekend and much happiness over the holiday.  And if you’re not having a happy holiday and need to vent to someone, hey, this Jew will be around.  Saturday is sort of just Saturday in my world.  We’ll be volunteering.  And making marble runs.  And eating chili.  And trying to get in the last few moments of Christmas music from the radio (Josh doesn’t know about this last piece…shhh…)

Instead of the Weekly What If: Since Christmas is ending this weekend, and the Christmas music will go off the radio (sniff), please share your favourite Christmas song to make the ultimate play list.

Mine is either Josh Groban’s “O Holy Night” or the Kinsey Sicks dragapella version of “Jingle Bells, Don’t Ask Don’t Tells” (which they retired since they repealed DADT).

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Rather than ask people to make big resolutions that we never keep (come on, admit it), BlogHer is asking people to write small steps they’ve taken towards better health.  One small thing you’ve worked into your day that sets you on a different path.

I’m working on this project so I really want to encourage you to participate.  We think a lot about our bodies — maybe more than the average person.  Surely there is something you have done, some small step, to wrest back control of your body and overall health.

Click over to read how to participate — I’d love to see some ALI people represented in the project.

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And now, the blogs…

Trying to Conceive has a post utilizing one of my favourite songs: “Circle Game.”  It’s about using a song to plug back into how you felt as a child; singing the song with the idea that it was pretty and life continues on, but without the realization of how you’d feel when you’re dragging your feet to slow the circles down.

Blue.Bell.Beat has a post set in 2000.  It is about her first time being alone; on the other side of the world.  And meeting the woman who would kick her out of her funk and get on with seeing the world.  It’s a lovely post, and I feel like a good reminder about living is tucked away somewhere within the lines.

Lastly, Uncommon Nonsense has a post about the uncomfortable questions and comments that can arise when you’re visiting friends and family (you know, as you might be this weekend).  I absolutely love this phrase: “pre-wincing with pain” and wish her good thoughts for her upcoming visit.

The roundup to the Roundup: it turns out that it was a screensaver and not a killer in my house.  Merry Christmas if you celebrate it and answer the Instead of the Weekly What If.  Participate in BlogHer’s small steps project.  And great blog posts to read.

As we turn the corner into the last few days before Christmas, it feels like this hush has come over the blogosphere.  People are still posting somewhat — though that has slowed down — and commenting here and there, but it feels very quiet.

Barring duplicates, 271 posts should be on the Creme de la Creme when it goes up on January 1st.  Just to give you a sense of proportion; last year’s Creme had 288 posts total, and on the 15th, when the soft deadline fell, there were 187 posts.  So almost 100 posts more this time.  Gulp.

Yes, I am seriously worried that I won’t finish in time.

But I’m up for the challenge.

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While I am reading and writing about your posts, you could read my new book (hint, hint), Life from Scratch.  Lori from Write Mind Open Heart is throwing an online book tour for the book.  For those who have been missing the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, here is your chance to march again.  Everyone is welcome (and begged) to participate.  And it would make my weekend if you joined along.

If you would like to join along (and I really really hope you’ll join along.  How many times can I say that?), please visit Lori’s post to see how to sign up.  In brief, you sign up, read the book, send one question in February that  you’d propose to the group (Lori will collect these), and then she’ll send you the list of questions that you can choose from to answer in a blog post.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

So … this is my begging you to join along.

Pretty please?

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Three things that caught my attention this week:

1. I wrote a post about why I’ve written for BlogHer for the last four years over at The Field Trip.

That obviously caught my attention because I wrote it.

2. Anna Olswanger has started a new site called Yerusha for older, child-free Jews (in other words, Jewish men and women who are child-free not by choice).  It has forums and advice.  I know it only services a specific niche, but since there are people who read this blog who fit that specific niche, I thought I’d throw it out there.  I love how Julia Child is what kicked off the whole idea.

3. 16th and Q created a video for the It Gets Better Project.  And it’s clever because Chanukkah was about the ultimate bully (King Antiochus) telling people that they couldn’t be themselves, and the point of the chanukkiah is to shine light in the world so intolerance has no place to hide.  This video also passed the “Does it Make Melissa Cry” test, though I’d like it noted that I lasted almost 7/8ths of the way through the video before I started wailing.

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The Weekly What If: What if you could time travel and be physically present to witness one moment in history.  You’d be perfectly safe regardless of the situation, and you’d only be standing witness.  What moment would you choose?

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And now, the blogs…

Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a post about the emotional roller coaster of being pregnant again after a loss.  She writes of her first pregnancy: “When Blobby died I felt so much guilt for not having celebrated and accepted his life while he was alive. ”  And now, back in the same position again, she is struggling to apply the lessons she learned the first time around.  Because it is just so damn hard.  She finds the root of her fears, but it is the last few lines that are so lovely that you need to click over and read the whole post just for that ending.

Many Many Moons has a post that includes Ally McBeal’s dancing baby … sort of.  She was attending a party at a restaurant and she had one of those evenings that was so ridiculous that she couldn’t actually get upset from it.  One after the other, people asked her if she was pregnant yet, that is, until she got to the final moment: “I was standing there barely recovered from the firing squad that had just accosted me, when in walks (and I’m not kidding when I say this) a string of 5 women marching military style as if reporting for duty.  They came to rest almost right in front of me, Ver.a Brad.ley bags in hand, and turn to face me almost in unison.”  Oooh, you’ll have to click over and read the end of the post to hear where they were from.

This is why I’m thrilled that Infertile Fantasies is back to posting on a public blog.  She has a wonderfully terrible post about worst case scenarios, nodding to the actualities of life (“‘Pre-eclampsia can be serious. Worst case scenario, you might even start having seizures and we’ll have to admit you.’ Uh, no… worst case scenario, you die and your baby dies, too.  But, see, it’s awkward to bring that sort of thing up.”) and mixing it with the absurd.  But it’s the stark truth in the fact that the birth is such a small part of the whole, as well as the fact that it’s just as easy to say “shut up now” as it is to say, “take deep cleansing breaths.”

The roundup to the Roundup: good lord there are a lot of Creme posts.  Please join along for the blog tour of Life from Scratch.  Three things that caught my attention this week.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.

Had a most annoying experience this week when I needed to get a new cell phone (I wrote about it over on BlogHer if you want to hear the whole sordid tale) — a cell phone which I love and have named Pippa.  At least, I think she’s a Pippa.  The name sort of came to me on Thursday and my first thought was, “oh, is that supposed to be the name of a character in a future book?” and then my second thought was, “no, that should be the name of my cell phone.”

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You know those places where you have 3000 things to say, but you don’t really know what to say about them?  I’m in one of those places.  I had this crazy week, but I don’t really need to talk about it.  I’m days away from having a new manuscript finished and edited.  And I’m absolutely mentally obsessed with it, thinking about little else.  But that’s not really interesting to talk about.  I walked into school one day and the Wolvog was crying and I couldn’t comfort him because it would have been inappropriate to jump in and give him a hug because it was during a lesson.  And seeing him cry without being able to bend down and hug him was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while.  But there’s not much more I can say about that.  I mean, it just is.  That moment just is and the new manuscript just is and my crazy week just isn’t that comment-worthy.

I have read a bunch of posts and comments lately around the Internet that have annoyed the crap out of me — none, thankfully in our community (just wanted to add that before y’all get all paranoid).  Most of them were of the my-way-is-the-only-right-way-to-do-something-and-everyone-who-doesn’t-do-it-my-way-is-WRONG ilk.  When I start thinking about how much I want to reach through the screen and throttle the writer, it makes me think that it’s time to step away from the Internet.  Or at least stick with the Creme de la Creme posts.  I have never gotten cranky reading those.

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Instead of the Weekly What If: what are you not talking about?  What subjects in your life are only worthy of a sentence and not much more?

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This is the last weekend before the December 15th deadline for the Creme de la Creme.  Just saying.

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And now, the blogs…

Exploring Chaos has a very raw post about what was said mid-cycle.  I can’t lie to you — it’s a hard post to read.  It’s a painful post to read.  But I’m glad she wrote it because as I read it, all I could think was that there was someone else right now who is going to read this post and feel less alone.

Flotsam has a post about the way the blogosphere has changed.  And even though the woman ends the post mid-thought; leaves us hanging until part two with literally the thought unfinished, I still found the post gripping.

A Little Pregnant has a post on TodayMoms responding to a psychologist’s comment about why people experiencing infertility should adopt which came from another TodayMoms article which already starts with an offensive title: “IVF vs Adoption: Which is Better?” (Did your head just explode as mine did?  Wait — did you want to crawl through the screen and throttle someone?  Step away from the computer!)  Back to Julie’s response: I thought it was level-headed and well-written, making the point that family building — like so many things in life — needs to be a personal decision and stating that one way of doing things as “best” often makes people want to kick you.  Hard.

Lastly, I end the Roundup with a post by Awful But Functioning saying goodbye to Elizabeth Edwards.  You will not be able to read this post without crying, especially when she admits: “A week or so after that post I went to my first candlelight ceremony at Children’s, and perhaps it was presumptuous of me, but on one of my scraps I wrote “Wade.” Elizabeth Edwards would never know, but I figured she took time to write my daughter’s name, the least I could do was the act of writing out her son’s.”  Seriously, read Tash’s whole post.

Goodbye Elizabeth.

[a moment of silence]

The roundup to the Roundup: I have a telephone named Pippa.  There are a lot of things in my week only worthy of a single sentence.  What in your week is only worthy of a single sentence?  Last weekend before the Creme de la Creme deadline.  And lots of great posts to read.

The twins and I started reading Harry Potter together.  And before you start screaming, “but six is too yoooooooooooooooooooooung” (because this has been screamed at me about 12 times in the past few days), I agree with you if my kids hadn’t been already exposed to the Disney World of Parental Death.

I just don’t see the first book of Harry Potter as appreciably different from letting them see Finding Nemo, and since most of the fear-inducing moments are tucked into the end chapters, we also have the option of ending early.  For instance, the twins have now seen the ballet Romeo and Juliet 300 times, and they still don’t know that the kids are going to kick it at the end.  When they want to peek into just what goes down in the mausoleum, I’ll continue letting the tape run.  Until then, in our world, Juliet is very much alive and dancing.

Watching them process Harry Potter has made me wonder if the book is a drug.  I know that it’s my go-to stress read, but it’s also interesting to watch this look of bliss cross over their faces as I read it aloud, as if they’ve taken a particularly nice drag off of a joint.  And maybe it’s seeing that bliss and not fear that tells me that they’re ready for this book.

I have started to keep a running list of their questions and commentary, since I know they’ll want it when they’re 87-years-old and I allow them to read Book 7 (I’m fine with book 1 right now, but we’re not touching book 4 and on until they’re past elementary school but which I mean, entering the nursing home years which is about the same time that I’ll finally allow them to date).

The ChickieNob has already wondered if perhaps Voldemort mistakenly gripped the wrong end of his wand when he tried to curse Harry, shooting the curse on himself.  When I informed her that it was actually love protecting Harry, she smiled politely and said, “I think we should wait and see if I’m right about Voldemort just holding the wand wrong.”

The Wolvog, meanwhile, always the good Jew, wanted to know what sort of bacon Harry was frying up for Dudley’s breakfast.  Was it veggie bacon, or was it that other kind?  You know, just in case Harry popped out of the pages and invited him into the book for a nice brekkie.

But the most pressing question: why doesn’t JK Rowling describe what the inside of brick looks like when they’re going onto Platform 9 3/4?  Doesn’t she understand that the world (or, at least the ChickieNob) has been waiting forever to know what brick looks like on the inside and here was a missed opportunity to inform us?

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One of the drawbacks to doing the Creme de la Creme is that my mind is always off to somewhere else in the year, and I miss everything happening in the blogosphere now.

Therefore, I apologize if something huge happens and I read the post two weeks later or miss it entirely.  Take pity on me and if something huge is happening, email me.

That said, it really rocks to know as you sit down to read that everything you’re going to read is going to be amazing.  I mean, if I’m in my Google Reader, some things grab me, some things don’t.  But in the Creme de la Creme spreadsheet?  Everything is thought-provoking or emotional.

Oh, and this message also serves as your reminder to take some time this weekend to pick your post and submit it.  December 15th is the last day to submit where you get the guarantee that you’ll be up on January 1st (everything submitted after December 15th will go up, but it will take time).

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The Weekly What If: What if you had to be married to someone famous (living or currently-dead-but-not-dead-for-the-sake-of-this-question) and easily recognizable, who would you want it to be?  Consider the attention that person would get from fans that you’d have to contend with, how their fame would impact your life, etc.

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And now, the blogs…

Built in Birth Control has a post titled “You May Not Understand” about the nurse turning off the monitor when the staff knew that she was going to lose Ayla and Juliet.  She painfully writes, “i felt my girls kick and bubble and turn. how could i tell them it was their last day, their last hurrah? why did i have to let them go so easily? you would think the one thing in the world you would be able to, absolutely need to do is fight for your childrens’ lives, right? i should have been able to motherfucking fight.”  A deeply emotional and beautiful post.

Another sad one — Magnolia Queen has a post about her unfulfilled due date which fell this week.  She muses on the idea of whether someone is a mother if her child “never made it into their arms.”  It is about asking for someone to be counted, to have their existence recognized and honoured.

A Second Line started peeing on sticks one day after transfer.  She admits: “I just seem to be going through the motions like a robot, and don’t feel in control of my own actions.”  But really, you’re going to have to click over to see what the parrot did to the stick (and I like her mindset of letting her impulses guide her for the time being).

Lastly, I end with a bit of happiness from The Journey to Baby G.  She describes infertility swallowing all of her other thoughts as “our trouble TTC situation had begun to eclipse all other parts of my life in recent months until it seemed to swallow everything else up and was the only thing left, standing at attention in the middle of the room, our unborn children occupying all of my thoughts and dreams, just begging to be conceived.”  Where she finds joy is unexpected, but it’s also the fact that she can recognize that unexpected joy and what it means to how much she has held on to who she is in this process.

The roundup to the Roundup: We’re reading Harry Potter.  I’m waist-deep in the Creme de la Creme.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.