In honour of the roadie and my crack-of-dawn flight on Thursday, I am sending out a round of invisible mimosas–on the house, of course. I know I traditionally post Barren Advice on Tuesdays and I’ll certainly be back next week with an answer or two, but right now, I just feel like I need a drink. And perhaps you need an imaginary drink too. So we can drink together.

Though, perhapsie (that’s one of my new favourite words: perhapsie) instead of a mimosa, I should have something with cranberry. Because…er…well, I probably don’t need to spell out what my medical woe of the week is right now. But let’s just say that Karen and Lindsay got a very uncomfortable and cranky Melissa at lunch.

Was that more information than you wanted to know?

Cranberry martinis or a mimosa–it’s your choice. But can we all just take a minute to sit down and catch each other up and…pretend to drink?

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 as someone who found this space through IComLeavWe…which, by the way, begins on the 21st!), 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 a cocktail and tell us what is up with your life. When I have to leave for BlogHer, I’ll just leave the bar open. I trust you guys to pour carefully and clean up when you’re done. And not throw up too much in the bathroom.

Here is the master list for the fourteen tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. What is the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? It’s a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. We read both fiction and non-fiction.

Anyone can jump aboard–it’s a book club where you can drop in and out as you wish and all in the community are welcome.

Book: Eat, Pray, Love
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Start Date: July 10
Question Due: August 13
Question List Sent Out: August 15
Post Dates: August 18 and 19
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours as well as information about future tours.)

About Eat, Pray, Love: Though it may seem like a stretch before you begin reading, this book about the author’s divorce and year of finding happiness actually has a lot of hidden lessons on coping with infertility and loss. An amazing read in 108 brief sections, Gilbert’s journey will take you to Italy, India, and Indonesia.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (The blogs below are participating on this current book tour. On August 18th, you’ll be able to jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Eat, Pray, Love. I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on August 13. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters
The Road Less Travelled
Weebles Wobblog
Everyday Stranger
Lupus Pie
Age 30 – A Year of Books
Beyond the PaleMother
Working on It
Coming2Terms
The Twinkies
Emily the Hopeless
My Whole is Greater Than the Sum of My Parts
All Things Deb
The Daily Doings of Mr. Silly and Little Miss Trouble
A View On My Life
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever…
Working on It
Life After Infertility and Loss
The Unfair Struggle
Waiting For My Babycakes
Three of a Kind Working on a Full House
The Fertile Infertile
Saucy Eggs
Maybe It’s All Good?
There’s Hope
Outlandish Notions
Our Family Beginnings
This is NOT What I Ordered!

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on August 13.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you’re interested in participating. I need your blog name, blog url, and email address.

(2) read Eat, Pray, Love by August 13 (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a “yes” or “no” answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on August 13 (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(4) on August 15, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry.

(5) on August 18, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a linked list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour–by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

Welcome back to Show and Tell. 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. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Tomorrow is a friend’s wedding shower and I made the cake, working with fondant for the very first time.

I still need to brush off the excess confectioners sugar. The bottom tier of the cake is a seven layer cake, glazed with raspberry and filled with a milk chocolate buttercream. The top tier is a deep chocolate and espresso cake with raspberry glaze.

Turns out I didn’t need Duff after all.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…
  I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

After writing that I “got” Twitter last week, I feel like the girl who got her period first and everyone is gathered around in the girls’ bathroom whispering their questions: does it hurt? Is it so gross? Do you just want to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie? Because isn’t Twitter just like your period?

Twitter only clicked with me once I started following people. If you keep your screen open to “home,” you will read a stream of thoughts. It’s microblogging and there are certainly responses (aka comments) both formally in hitting reply and informally in jumping off another person’s topic with your own thoughts. But it’s also like IM. A quick way to keep in touch and update through the day and place all of those ideas that float through your head but don’t warrant a blog post. It’s like dadaist blogging.

To be frank, when things are slow and I’m on top of things, Twitter is great. But when things are busy, Twitter is just one more distraction that I can’t keep up with and makes me feel anxious. So it is going to be my thing that falls by the wayside when I’m busy. I would rather give up Twitter than Google Reader, nu? I’ve listed my twitter link under my picture on the right sidebar.

I started to put all of this in the Roundup for tomorrow and then realized that it was growing out of control and that you would be slogging through a post that was as long as today’s post. So…

BlogHer is next week and I’m going with computer in tow. Having never been there, I’m not sure how it actually works, but I have big dreams of actually writing blog posts live from the discussions. I’ve been collecting thoughts to use during the panel on this post over at BlogHer, but if you don’t want to sign into their site AND you want to give your thoughts SO they can be included in a panel discussion on infertility blogging…well…leave them on this post and I’ll collect them for the trip. But it would be muchly goodly if you left those comments over there because…um…I have something I want you to leave here.

I know I’ll be able to check email and such, but I want to apologize in advance if it takes me forever to write back next week. I truly don’t know how anything is going to work so Lost & Found may be spotty and email returns may be spotty. Or, I may go insane with the posting because I’m holed up like a little nerd in the Internet cafe, trying to avoid being social until Lori drags me out by my hair.

May I admit something here without embarrassing myself too much? At our last TOOTPU (The Order of the Plastic Uterus) meeting, which contained more alcohol than food and Sunny assessing which type of bra would be better for my boobage (I know–she is tying Allison in giving me bra advice), I took a photograph of all of my girls towards the end of the meal. And I’ve placed the photo on my palm pilot so I can carry it with me wherever I go at the conference. It is like literally taking my girls with me in my pocket. And you guys–all of you–are my girls (and I guess Smarshy is my man-pie, but he doesn’t update regularly so…). They’re my local girls and you’re my global girls and I want to bring a piece of all of you to place on the panel table so I can feel like you’re there too.

If no one responds to this post, I will simply print out the blogroll and place my sheets of paper on the table like a little loser to look at while I speak and think about all of you in the computer. But, if you would be so kind to send us off with some good thoughts, please place them below in the comments and I will print out these nice words instead and place them on the table (and if there is no table in front of us, I will stuff the wad of papers in my sucky bra). You can leave things you want to make sure we convey or words of advice about public speaking or reminders to go to the bathroom before the panel begins. Or simply good wishes for a safe trip and a good panel and stories when we return. Your choice. But I would like to bring a thought from everyone to place on our panel table.

I don’t know how many others are going to BlogHer or live in the area and want to get together, but I’ll throw out a few times and see what works best for the majority (I guess respond in the comment section too so others can see what you’ve said and see who is going). Friday: 10:30–12:45 (grab coffee? lunch?) or something after 6 pm (dinner? dessert?). If it’s a lot of people, we may want to go simple. Saturday: 1:45–3, I was going to take off some time before the panel. We could also get together then if you’re going to the panel. Or at the closing reception (we’ll be there for a bit before we have to run and catch the plane). Or suggest another time?

And yes, I’ll be posting a picture of the panel table with your loving words spread out on it when I return.