“How many megapixels are in your eyes?” the Wolvog asked at breakfast.

“Millions,” I responded, forgetting that children don’t understand sarcasm regardless of the fact that I often sarcastically remind people that children don’t understand sarcasm.  “I’ve got millions of megapixels in my eyes.”

“Oh,” the ChickieNob said politely.  “I thought that maybe you had less megapixels because you wear glasses.”

“I have zero megapixels in my eyes,” I told them.

“So you’re blind?” the ChickieNob asked, confused.

“No, I’m not blind.  There are just no megapixels in a person’s eye.  Eyes aren’t cameras.”

“Eyes are like cameras,” the Wolvog informed me.  “So they must have megapixels. I have a 5 megapixel camera.  That’s not a lot.”

“No, it isn’t,” I agreed.  “But you’re also not getting a different camera if that’s where this conversation is heading.”

“I think kids have more megapixels in their eyes than adults,” the Wolvog decided.

“Hence how you can see the world in ways that I obviously can’t,” I answered.

#conversationswithchildrenwhogrewupwithtechnologythatadultsonly

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Happy birthday, Harry Potter.  I didn’t get you anything.  I mean, except my undying love.  But since love — you know — is the whole reason you’re here instead of Avada Kedavra’ed, hopefully you’ll see it as enough.

Yesterday though was Neville Longbottom’s birthday, and I’m guilty of not writing anything.  In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever sent him birthday wishes.  Isn’t that terrible?  He’s the more interesting character, and yet he completely gets side stepped when people talk about the series, mirroring the same sort of thing that happens in our day-to-day world.

Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom: equally untalented (come on, they were under a year of age), equally unremarkable.  Both had sets of parents who had been popular while in school and now had a strong circle of friends in adulthood, but again, equally unremarkable in the grand scheme of things.  We’re not comparing Prince George (is that what we’re calling Will and Kate’s baby?) to a random child born in London this month.  We’re talking about a level playing field.

And then Harry Potter is randomly chosen, and the rest is history.  Neville Longbottom, great in his own right, is overlooked in his literary life just as much as he is overlooked by the millions (billions?) of screaming fans of the Harry Potter books and movies.  And Harry Potter becomes not only the main character of the series but the Chosen One amid the average tween.

If they were bloggers, Harry Potter would be the one with the enormous traffic and Neville Longbottom would be the equally talented writer who pulls in a modest readership.  Harry would be the one courted by brands while Neville is fairly anonymous.  And it cuts both ways: Harry would have to deal with Gawker writing snarking articles about him while Neville can write pretty much whatever he wishes to write without worrying that he’s going to have posts written that mock him.  Still, it wouldn’t be clear why Harry gets all the readers and opportunities while Neville writes well and yet doesn’t walk the same path.

We see those imbalances in the offline world.  In the mostly equal co-workers where one rises to the next level while the other is ignored for promotions despite their work being similar.  Or the actress who makes the school play while the equally talented actress doesn’t.  The kid who gets invited to all the birthday parties while the equally nice kid doesn’t.  It’s JK Rowling’s book going viral when fantastically-written tales languish for no apparent reason on the bookshelf… or even worse… in someone’s drawer.  It’s not that JK Rowling’s book isn’t amazing — it is.  I love it.  But there are other books I equally love, that I think are equally well-written, and yet few other people will ever give them the time of day.

It’s Harry Potter’s birthday, and I’m sure he’s going to get one billion birthday messages today.  And he deserves them: it’s his birthday.  Even boys who have it all should get birthday wishes and accolades; it’s not as if any human hits a level of success or love where they are completely full of kind words and couldn’t use any more.  Humans need a steady stream of love; yes, even JK Rowling needs to still hear that her work is amazing.  And it is.

But I also need to right a wrong in missing Neville Longbottom’s birthday, year after year.  So happy birthday, Neville Longbottom.  Thank you for the enormous — often overlooked — role you played in the final battle, ridding Voldemort from this world.  Thank you for continuing to quietly live your life as the Herbology professor while Harry goes on to the glitzier world of Auror-dom.  People may miss seeing you or paying attention to you, and that would be a mistake.  Because you have so much to offer the world; you’re a great person in your own right, one who does the right thing, plays by the rules, and is always a strong supporter of others.  And it’s never clear why we should all focus on Harry and not on you.  This was a terrible oversight on my part, and I’m sorry that I’ve missed out on talking about your greatness all these years.  I am going to do a better job of appreciating you.

So happy birthday, Neville, too.

There’s a section of town just outside the city limits that makes my skin crawl.  I’m not going to name it since, knowing my luck, you probably live there.  But suffice to say, it is crowded with expensive stores, contains limited parking so everyone in a car is on edge, and the sidewalks are usually clogged like plaque-filled arteries.  It is an unenjoyable experience to meet anyone there.

Of course, last week, the movie we wanted to see was only being shown there.  So we drove down to the town, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to park, and I hopped out of the car to get us tickets while Josh spent another 10 minutes trying to feed the newfangled meter.

I stepped up to the window at the movie theater and asked for two adult tickets.  They asked me where I wanted to sit in the theater and brought up a computer screen showing that pretty much EVERY SINGLE SEAT was open because even though it was only three minutes before the movie was set to begin, it was the middle of the week and fairly quiet.

I know that assigned seats in movie theaters abroad are the norm, and I have to be frank: I think it’s a terrible idea.  We’re not talking about a stage theater experience where different seats have different visibility.  We’re talking about a small room that usually has gum stuck to the bottom of the chair.  What if I get to my chosen seat and the floor is sticky from a spilled soda?  Or I’m sitting next to someone annoyingly texting through the movie?  In all other theaters, you look at the screen, judge the distance back you wish to be based on the type of movie, and — as a short person — glance at where other people are sitting and seat myself accordingly in a space where I can see.  And you move if your chosen seat suddenly annoys you.

I was cheerfully informed that if I wanted to change seats once in the theater, I could get an employee to move my seat before the show begins.

If it had been the weekend and the theater was semi-full, I could understand sticking to their plan, especially if you’d like to see before you buy tickets that there will be two seats together.  But did I mention the theater was empty?  This was just one more reason to hate this section of the city.

I bought the tickets because I knew Josh would want to stay. (I would have immediately walked out on the idea of the movie.)  But I told him that it would be the last time I’d ever step foot in that theater.  The movie itself was nice writing and nice acting with a weak plot and weak characters.  I’m not going to name it because, knowing my luck, you probably wrote it.  But suffice to say, it was so not worth the annoyance of assigned seats.  As we left the theater, I reminded Josh to take a good look around because I would never see that concession stand or ticket booth as long as I lived.

I mean, unless they change their assigned seat policy.

Can I take a break in the story to ask your opinion on this?  What do you think about assigned seats in movie theaters?  I’m not talking enormous, old movie theaters.  I’m talking about normal 15-row movie theaters.  And please add if you live in a place where this is the norm.

Feel free to try to convince me of the beauty of assigned movie theater seats since I clearly don’t see it.

Afterward, we went to get sushi, and through the large plate glass windows of the restaurant, we could see people entering and exiting Max Brenner’s chocolate bar across the street.  We were debating whether or not it was finally open for business or whether the people we had seen in the building were doing construction (at 10 pm?).  After dinner, we slipped across the street to check it out, and realized that they must be still building it hence why paper was still covering the glass.

“Let’s try to peek in through that slit in the paper,” I said, and brought my head down to the crack.

At that moment, the door opened, and a man tried to walk out, straight into me.  We started laughing, admitting that we’re pretty excited to have Max Brenner chocolates in the city; excited enough to creepily try to peek into a construction site.  The man invited us inside to see the progress.  It’s gorgeous.  The bar itself looks like squares of chocolate, and across the wall in a 70’s inspired font are the words: Chocolate is Good For You.  I commented that I couldn’t wait for the store to open because I promised the ChickieNob a special mother-daughter trip for dessert.

And the man told me he could make my night.  He went into the kitchen and brought us two containers of chocolate to take home to the twins.

Blew my mind.

We walked back to the car, sniffing the wrapped chocolates.  You could practically attain orgasm just by nasally experiencing the chocolate.  You can imagine what happens when you actually put it in your mouth.

I like cheap chocolate as much as the next person.  I’m a huge fan of Hershey kisses and M&Ms.  But there is nothing like really good, very creative Israeli chocolate.

That man’s generosity redeemed an otherwise irredeemable town.  Rather than writing off part of the map, I’ve decided to only condemn the movie theater.  And yes, like everyone else, I will go through the frustration of parking to visit four square blocks I like to call the Devil’s Armpit in order to get my hands on more Max Brenner’s chocolate.

Doing it for a chocolate bar make sense, unlike assigned seats in a movie theater.

So it will probably shock no one who has read any other travel-without-my-family post (eg. the last six years of BlogHer) that I cried before it was time to leave.  I cried while leaving.  I cried on the plane (sorry about that, Mr. Businessman).  I cried when I got to my hotel.  I cried when I talked to Josh on the phone.  And then I cried a little more at night for good measure.  I woke up early the next morning to look at pictures of the kids for a half hour.  I am really terrible at leaving home at all, but I am so godawful-that-it-shouldn’t-be-allowed when it comes to leaving home without my family.  Freak show.

It will probably also not really surprise anyone that by the time the last day rolled around, I was crying at the thought of leaving everyone there.  I had gotten to hang out with these people whom I usually only get to speak to over the Internet.  And I met so many more new people, many of whom wormed their way under my skin with their stories.  It was very difficult to get in the airport shuttle and leave knowing that for many of them, it will be another year (if at all) until I see them again.

But you can’t be in two places at once.

Beyond the people — since, for me, BlogHer is always mostly about the people — I attended some of the best. panels. ever.  Literally — two of them were life changing.  One of them was the most brilliantly succinct presentation on turning blog posts into published articles by Rita Arens.  It was just a lot of good all-around writing advice.  The other was a presentation on disaster-proofing your blog by Skye Kilaen.  It really doesn’t matter if you learn how to do SEO or get sponsors if YOU LOSE YOUR DAMN BLOG.  It always shocks me how much time people spend pumping up their site and how little time they spend protecting it.  She gave the BEST presentation on quick things you can be doing to disaster-proof your blog, and that includes stopping scrapers.

[On a side note, if you want to read my Pathfinder presentations on publishing a book, you can read them here and here.]

So the community-led panels were great.  VOTY was obviously emotional.  Probably my favourite (if I could only make you read one) was “A Dislocation of Mind” by No Points for Style.  Read it, but know that hearing it read was even MORE powerful.  If that’s possible.

*******

Look, I’m just going to admit this here: I thought more people would be playing Candy Crush at BlogHer ’13.  I thought we’d all sit at the tables, playing Candy Crush while we listened.  There was a study once out of Sweden that found students who occupied their hands with knitting during class retained more than those who took notes.  So I sort of thought we’d go all Swedish and occupy our hands by playing Candy Crush while we listened, somehow memorizing everything that was said during the panels.

But no one played Candy Crush.

Isn’t that bizarre?

We all talk about playing Candy Crush, and yet no one was playing Candy Crush.  Except… I mean… me.  But only when I got to a room early and I was waiting for a panel to begin.  Or a round at night to relax (it’s like Jack Daniels… it takes the edge off).  I thought we’d all wink at each other, and yet I was only winking at myself.  Which looked a little pervy, since in order to look at myself, I had to look down.  Which meant I was winking at my own breasts.

*******

We got those new Jockey sizing cups in our conference bag.  After I held them against my breasts, I asked Josh what he thought I should do with them.

“Toss them… right?”

No, Joshua, you use them as a newfangled candy dish.

*******

I saw a mother and daughter together in the elevators.  The daughter was on her cell phone, ignoring her mother.  Her mother was watching her child tap things on the screen. (Was it Candy Crush?)  I thought to myself, one day, I am going to be at the conference with the ChickieNob.  We will eat M&Ms out of our bra sizing cup candy dishes together and share a tissue box at VOTY and take selfies of ourselves.  And if she ignored me like that, I would keep jumping in front of her and doing jazz hands.  That mother should have presented her daughter (and the rest of the elevator) with jazz hands.

*******

I have never packed anything special to wear at BlogHer (and it shows) with the exception of the time when I was part of VOTY and I wore garters and thigh-high black stockings with knee-high boots as part of my story about following Josh into the donation room at the fertility clinic.  But other than the bottom half of that get-up, I’ve never put a lot of thought into packing for BlogHer.  I tend to go for t-shirts and jeans.  Comfortable things.

This year, I felt very self-conscious of how I looked.  I sort of wish I had packed something nicer than a Batman t-shirt.

*******

So I took Ativan to get on the airplane.  I considered NOT taking it this time, but then knew that if we hit turbulence, bad things would go down for the people around me (arm biting, head banging, turning into a zombie ON THE PLANE and there wouldn’t be a Brad Pitt on board to stop me from zombie-izing everyone else).  Sure enough, we hit turbulence.  I thought I looked fairly calm.

When we landed, I turned to the man next to me and said, “I took Ativan before this flight, so when we hit that turbulence, I was totally calm on the outside, but I was screaming on the inside.” [I should add that I also like to overshare with strangers when I’m on Ativan.]

“Uh… you were also screaming on the outside,” the man commented.

“No, I was screaming to myself.  On the inside.  It was all in here.”

“No,” the man countered, “I was sitting next to you, and you were also quietly screaming on the outside.  It wasn’t that loud.  But it would definitely count as screaming.”

Who knew?

*******

Sheryl Sandburg asked us in her keynote: “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?”  And then she encouraged us to do that thing.

Mine was going to be “fly without Ativan.”  But I rethought that when I discovered that I scream even WITH Ativan.

So I’ve changed it to something better.

*******

When I got to the airport, there was a man crouching on the floor outside security.  He was hugging his child and crying as he pressed her head to his shoulder.  I tried not to stare.  I got into line with the rest of the people, inching toward the metal detectors.

When I got to the front, a twelve-year-old girl parted from her mother and grandmother who had walked her as far as they could take her.  When their fingers slipped away from each other’s hands, the girl burst into tears, her face contorted while the grandmother told the mother that the girl would be okay.  The girl nodded at those words while she cried hard, sobbing while she put her items in the handy plastic bins.

I’m not the only one who has trouble with goodbyes.  It’s nice to sometimes be surrounded by your own.  Hence why I go to BlogHer each year.

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form after adding the icon below: The August list is closed.  The September list opens on 8/27.
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. Waiting for Baby (pregnancy, PCOS, thyroid)
3. Dangled Carat (love, relationships, marriage)
4. Just Another Infertility Blog (ivf, infertility and life)
5. Baby On Mind (embryo adoption, infertility, FET)
6. Breathe Gently (new-mum, IVF, PCOS)
7. My Lady of the Lantern (parenting post baby loss, maybe TTC )
8. Mommy-At-Last (ivf toddler twins)
9. One Step at a Time (baby after infertility)
10. Stupid Broken Eggs (marriage, infertility, faith)
11. Team Harries Beats Infertility (faith, natural, azoospermia)
12. Life of an Army Wife (army, infertility, crafting)
13. Ready For My Bundle (new mom after ivf, family, smc)
14. Hobbit-ish Thoughts & Ramblings (parenting after IF/RPL, weight loss, diabetes)
15. The Question Now Becomes… (sperm donor conception, twins)
16. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (parenting post ART, infertility, navigating life)
17. The 2 Week Wait (infertility ttc motherhood)
18. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, family)
19. The Destiny Manifest (stillbirth loss, family, life)
20. My journey through infertility, pregnancy & loss (infertility, loss, pregnancy)
21. Two Adults, One Child (secondary infertility, parenting, running)
22. InfertilityLand is NOT Like Disneyland (loss, FET, life)
23. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, adoptive parenting)
24. My Name Isn’t Mommy (personal growth, motherhood, children)
25. The Noona Musings (IVF, university, shenanigans)
26. Learning To Let Go (ttc #2 failure; ivf#6 miracle; lasting infertility impact)
27. Our Journey to Cameroon (wycliffe, faith, pregnant after loss)
28. Dogs Aren’t Kids (infertility, mfi, rants)
29. Sweet Dreams are Made of This (adoption, everyday life)
30. Res Cogitatae (toddler, trying again, PhD)
31. The Lewis Note (pregnancy loss, infertility, adoption)
32. Gypsy Mamas Journey (IUI with donor sperm, infertility, life)
33. Comatised (love, life, family)
34. Recurrent Loss and Moving Forward (surrogacy, recurrent loss)
35. Circle Surrogacy Blog (surrogacy, surrogate, egg donors)
36. Our New Normal with Z (adoption after pregnancy loss)
37. Living Our Miracle (embryo adoption, premature ovarian failure, motherhood)
38. By Lisa, With Love (fertility, food, 40+)
39. No Good Eggs (donor egg, IVF, FET)
40. Premature Ovarian Failure… no… Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (pof, poi, infertility)
41. How I Spend My Dash (twins, parenting, life)
42. Sensitive Ginger (newbie to infertility, alternative medicine)
43. In Quest of a Binky Moongee (TTC, IVF, faith)
44. Stepping Stones (infertile step-parenting, ttc)
45. Baby Makin’ (pcos, TTC baby #1)
46. Penguins of mine (infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth)
47. Not pregnant and PISSED! (infertility TTC life)
48. The August list is closed.  The September list opens on 8/27.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is purple, the next month it will be red, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.