I was not planning to read the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson at all.  I mean, yes, perhaps, at some way distant future date if it became available on Overdrive, but certainly not now in the middle of all the hoopla about the book.

The twins and I were early to meet Josh for tapas so we ducked into the library to see if they had the soundtrack to Evita (all part of their much dreaded musical theater education — dreaded both by them as well as Josh, especially when I pop Chess into the CD player).  And there, positioned right by the door, staring at us as we entered from a display case was Steve Jobs’s piercing stare.

The Wolvog immediately let out a breath and quietly said, “Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve.”

Which sort of decided it then and there.

We are reading it together, by which I mean that I am reading it after he goes to bed at night and then telling him stories in the morning.  Relaying Jobs’s stench from his lack of bathing coupled with his fruitarian diet, and stories about the Woz (which often strike me as a better personality match for my son; they both have the same sweet temperament, wondrous view of the world, and a fondness for dogs), and all the kismet moments that shaped the computer industry.  Discussion about adoption plays heavily in the first 100 pages of the book due to both his own adoption as well as the daughter he had with Chrisann Brennan.

I thought I would place my thoughts here.  The Wolvog and I are reading it together, but if you want to hear the story, you can figuratively read it with me too.

Special

As we walked around the library holding the copy of the biography, people kept saying to us, “you are so lucky!  That just got put out ten minutes ago.”  It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  The librarian finally finished logging the new book into their system, she set it on the shelf, and I walked in at that moment.

I’ve never really had people comment on the luck of our library borrowing choices, but as I carried that book, I felt like I had a spotlight shining on me.  It actually made me feel fairly uncomfortable; maybe not the first time someone said it, but certainly by the third time.

So it was interesting that one of the first ideas covered in the book is the idea of being special.  The concept of specialness, and do people enjoy feeling as if they’re set apart; even when the apartness comes from something such as intelligence or luck.

While other people in the book hypothesized about how Steve Jobs’s birth and adoption shaped his personality, Steve Jobs himself dismissed their theories.  And frankly, I’m going to go with Steve Jobs — the adoptee — on this one and believe him (I know other people are second-guessing him, which seems sort of strange for one person to say that they understand more about the other person’s life than the person who lived it).  He didn’t feel the adoption itself shaped him at all, but rather being told by his parents that he was special, that he was chosen, that he was waited for and loved beyond belief — that is what he felt played a bigger role in how he saw his place in the world.

In the book, Isaacson writes,

Jobs dismissed this.  “There’s some notion that because I was abandoned, I worked very hard so I could do well and make my parents wish they had me back, or some such nonsense, but that’s ridiculous,” he insisted.  “Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent, but I have never felt abandoned.  I’ve always felt special.  My parents made me feel special” (page 5).

The book continues to talk for many many many more pages about how that concept of believing he was special affected how he interacted with others, how he believed in himself, and how he convinced others that the impossible was possible.

At the same time, I have read on plenty of donor-conceived and adoptee blogs (and I’m sure, in the future, IVF-conceived childrens’ blogs) that being told you are special can be damaging.  That it can make a person feel apart, and not in the good way that Jobs describes where he feels more loved, more cherished than other children.  Apartness can sometimes simply feel alienating.

I can sense from the twins that uniqueness has both a push-me-pull-you effect: they love being twins and different from all the singletons, but they don’t like being different from all the singletons.  They like to hear stories about their preterm birth and the NICU days, but they don’t want their friends to know about it or see pictures of them from that time period.  They don’t really know yet that children are conceived in other ways than in a fertility clinic (oh, this is the fantastic side effect of having non-sexually conceived children.  You can tell them how they were made without ever having to mention sex), but they have been told countless times how much they were wanted, how hard we wished for them, how long we waited for them, and how much they are loved.  There has not been a day of their life that has passed without the two of us uttering the words, “I love you” to them.  We tell them they are brilliant and funny — we tell them that they are great writers and artists and computer programmers.

Because all those things are true, and I don’t think there are real benefits from withholding effusiveness.  Which is not to say that there can’t be damage from that effusiveness, but I don’t think the opposite is true — I don’t think there are actual benefits from not complimenting your child.

Which is along way of asking how does one know which way it will go?  For Steve Jobs, he says that hearing all his life that he was special and wanted and chosen gave him the confidence to plow ahead, charting his own course rather than taking the familiar road of a standard engineering path.  I might not have my iPad if Clara and Paul Jobs hadn’t conveyed that idea to their son.  And at the same time, for so many children, they have the opposite reaction.  They talk about the burden of specialness.  The apartness that comes from feeling the weight of their parent’s love, especially when they were brought into a family after a long wait or in a unique manner.

And without knowing how it will go, how do we know how loudly to turn on the message?  Do we whisper it?  Say it in a normal tone of voice?  Scream it like Clara and Paul Jobs?  Not say it at all?  How do we know when we also hear that volume counts — that the amount we say things can shift a life in one direction or another?

One Friday night, we went to a new restaurant in town to pick up dinner to go.  When they first opened a few months ago, there was nothing vegetarian on the menu.  I am not exaggerating: there was no salad, no side dish, no appetizer — not one thing on the entire menu that was vegetarian.  I wrote the restaurant owner and received back a message saying that he just didn’t care whether or not vegetarians came and ate.  I’m assuming he changed his mind after four months of being in business because he added three vegetarian options to his menu this week: a salad, a soup, and an appetizer.  We went over to get dinner as a sign of support — a thank you for changing your menu and accommodating non-meat eaters.

Dinner to go was fine.  We both got the soup, which probably was good in the restaurant, but became gummy and clumpy on the transition from restaurant to home.  ChickieNob tasted it and loved it, so I told her I would take her to dinner there two days later on Sunday (though we wouldn’t do carryout again).

Sunday rolled around and we got ourselves together for dinner.  The Wolvog couldn’t eat anything on the menu — not the vegetarian options nor the meat options — which is usually the case when we eat out.  At most restaurants, we bring him his own dinner in a bag, explain why to the waitstaff, and order our meals while the Wolvog eats his sandwich.  We have never run into a problem — from small establishments to big chain restaurants.  So far, everyone has been accommodating and understanding.

Until Sunday night.

I made his sandwich and put it in the bag and returned for the second time in the same weekend to the same restaurant.  It was dinner time; two tables had patrons and the rest were empty.  We started to sit down, and I explained to the waiter that my daughter and I would be ordering full meals, but my son couldn’t because there was nothing on the menu he could eat.  The waiter shrugged his shoulders and told us that he couldn’t allow my son to eat his meal because it was against the restaurant policy.  I politely pointed out that it wasn’t a health code violation to bring in outside food in our state, and I wasn’t doing it to be rude — he literally couldn’t eat one thing on their menu but my daughter and I wanted to patron their restaurant.  The waiter shrugged again and told me that we could eat our meal now and the Wolvog could eat his meal out of the restaurant later on (you know, because small children are excellent at waiting an additional hour to eat).  The manager stood there too and agreed with the waiter.  When I told him that we wouldn’t be able to stay, we again got a shoulder shrug and a goodbye.

Restaurants are private businesses and should set their own boundaries.   This obviously isn’t the only place in town to eat, and we’ll be fine giving our money to other businesses instead of this restaurant.  The restaurant suffered more than we did — we went to a different place and got a fantastic meal that all of us could eat.  The restaurant clearly wasn’t busy and lost out on the money from having a table filled, even if only two out of the three people were ordering main dishes.  But still, the ChickieNob is upset that this restaurant is now an impossibility when her brother is in tow (and I don’t think I would patron it regardless due to the way they refused to accommodate) and we lost out on the convenience of having a restaurant to patron that’s nearby vs. driving several miles to get to a similar restaurant (one that serves the same type of food but has multiple vegetarian options and not only allows my son to bring his sandwich, but gives him a pair of chopsticks to pick it up with so he can feel like the rest of the family).

You can obviously sense my take on things, but what do you think?  It’s not really a case of right or wrong, but perhaps poor business practices vs. demanding customer.  What would you do in this situation?  And where is the line — when is it okay to make these types of special requests of a restaurant — if ever?  Is it only okay for allergens, or do swallowing issues, religious reasons, or trying to stick to a diet count?

More questions appear (from me and others) in the comment section below.

I love reading the wishes each year and adding my own, but it is always bittersweet as well.  To see so much yearning written out on the screen, and the reality of how much of life is really out of our control.  That all we can do sometimes is wish and wait to see what happens.

But how damn cool is it that it’s 11/11/11 today?

*******

EPT started following me on Twitter.  It was seriously like an addict getting followed by @Meth.  When I saw the name, I literally started twitching.  As a former peestick addict who can’t keep them in my house because I have no patience and go through them ridiculously, it gave me pause to see that pop up.

*******

I have serious Siri envy.  I didn’t really care about the app when the iPhone first came out beyond copying the woman’s voice to speak to the twins and annoy them (my Siri voice is very different from my GPS voice, and is frustratingly calm and robotic in the face of their tantrums: “Do you mean, ‘I’m not going to eat this.’  Here are a list of restaurants in your area.”)

And then, right before bed one night, I saw the commercial on television.  That night, I dreamed that I had an iPhone with Siri.  I was actually having a nightmare, but in my dream, I kept calming myself by speaking to Siri and listening to her response.  I rationally knew that it was just a computer program, but I kept saying in the dream that it made me feel less alone.  I woke up from the dream and told Josh that I now had Siri envy, knowing full well that we wouldn’t be getting an iPhone and having no other way to utilize Siri (and yes, I’ve already tried similar apps, but they don’t speak back to you in that soothing voice).

Oooh, I don’t know what to do with my Siri envy.  Those who have it, is it just as amazing as I think it is?

*******

On the topic of something I love: Pacific’s Vegetarian Pho Soup Base.  I am literally in love to the point where (and I’m embarrassed to admit this) I hid the remains of dinner deep in the refrigerator so Josh wouldn’t find it and take it to work.

First and foremost, it is difficult to find vegetarian pho at all.  I make a similar soup base, but it takes me hours to make enough for about 2 meals.  I haven’t made it in awhile because it’s so much work.  So it’s hard to make at home and it’s difficult to find out at a restaurant.

The soup base let me make dinner in about ten minutes.  I steamed some broccoli and carrots, fried some shallots, chopped some cilantro and green onions, and made the rice noodles. (I totally forgot the tofu until we sat down to eat.)  Heated up the soup in the pot I used to fry the shallots and poured over each bowl.  Oh my G-d — it was so damn good.

I was going to write about it on our local listserv, and then greed got the best of me.  I am waiting to put up the note until I have gone to the store and horded 5 cartons.

Greatest invention since Siri.

*******

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:

• “Motherhood in the Time of Separation” (Slowmamma)
• “Blogotopia” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “Is My Introvert Showing” (The Misadventures of Missohkay)
• “Out of Proportion Sad” (Write Mind Open Heart)
• “Trick or Treat” (Lesbian Dad)
• “A Birthday Story” (Baby, Interrupted)
• “Love Your Body Day” (This is More Personal)
• “Spoken Word Blog Roundup” (Four of a Kind)
• “Worst Parents Ever” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Keiko!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life of an Army Wife has a post about the different ways she and her husband are processing grief.  This point spoke volumes for me: “Communication at times is lacking in relationships.  Its a necessary thing if one wants to receive what they most desire.  Mind reading is not an option.  In the last few months I’ve had more sit down, evening discussions with my husband than most couples have in a year’s time.”  It’s a gorgeous post, and I send a lot of good thoughts for that road to acceptance.

The Lotus Flower writes about needing a date with her husband after the loss of their child.  Since the loss, they’ve spent time with each other, but always with others around.  It is time for them to do something alone.  I love this thought: “we need to start guarding our time. We have a lot of friends and a lot of family. That’s a lot of support – which is great. But it’s also a lot of phone calls and offers to visit. And because I was raised as a good southern girl, I feel a lot of pressure to return phone calls, and it’s VERY difficult for me to refuse an offer to visit.”  It’s a good reminder that sometimes the best support is giving people the space they need to grieve.

Uppercase Woman has a fantastic post about her body.  About how we treat our bodies and how we think about our bodies.  I love, love, love the ending: “This is what I have, now. Peace with the external world while my internal world still struggles. Perhaps, at last, in my fifties I’ll have peace inside too. Only a few years until I find out.”  Go over and read the whole thing.

Lastly, MissConception has a raw post called “Guilty as Charged” about what she is feeling after her loss.  She takes the blame for the loss of her twins even though she intellectually knows her body was outside her control.  She asks the heartbreaking question: “How could I possibly try again, knowing that another child could die as a result of my need to be a mother?”  Please surround her right now with love.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy 11/11/11.  I can’t believe EPT would do this to me.  I have a scorching case of Siri envy.  I fell in love with Pacific’s vegetarian pho.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 4th and November 11th) 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.

It’s sort of fitting that the one time in our lifetime that the number 11 repeats in the date three times, it is also the third time I’ve asked people to make a wish.  And in honour of this third time, I am actually doling out THREE wishes.  Be careful.  Some people’s wishes end up coming true.

Here’s how this works:

(1) Make three wishes in the comment section (and don’t believe that stuff about how if say it aloud it won’t come true.  That is precisely when the parts that are within another human being’s control can come true).

(2) Then leave a comment on the blog of the commenter directly before you (so it’s a chain.  #2 comments on #1, #3 comments on #2, etc. If the commenter above you didn’t leave an address, just go one above that.  The point is to find new blogs/leave a comment–not stress).

The first person who comments on this post gets a free ride and does not need to leave any comments.  The last person who comments on this post gets … screwed.

It would be nice within your comment to refer to their wish (if it ties in to the post you read and comment on) and if you can grant any part of it, to do so.  If you can’t, because their wish is outside of human control, don’t feel badly.  But if you have the power to grant a wish, why not do it?

In years past, people have seen each other’s wishes and realized that they have the power to fulfill it.  And did so.  Which is pretty damn cool.

So you know those classic 1980’s horror movies where the teenagers are all going about life, holding their keggers at someone’s house while their parents are away from home, and suddenly the prom queen is stabbed to death by some unseen assailant?  And then the kids are all taking a hike through the woods because all kids like to take hikes through the woods, and one of them is garrotted?  And then the teens are all having a meeting to talk about this invisible psycho who is killing all the kids in this town and DURING THE MEETING, one of the kids is suddenly covered in knife slashes and everyone is sprayed with blood?

You totally get how three kids could be taken by the Jason-Freddie-Krueger-Michael-Myers-mashup, I mean, these things happen.  But it’s when the kids creep into the deserted, burned out house at the edge of town where the monster once lived that you finally scream at the movie screen, “you are so fucking stupid!”

That’s pretty much how I sum up my reaction to Mississippi’s Initiative 26 which goes to vote tomorrow morning.

It’s a horror movie starring your uterus.

A Life Begins at the Moment of Fertilization Amendment will appear on the November 8, 2011 general election ballot in the state of Mississippi as an indirect initiated constitutional amendment. State election officials have numbered the proposal as Initiative 26. The measure proposes adding language to the Mississippi Constitution that declares that life begins at “the moment of fertilization.”

Well that’s okay you say, because you believe that life begins at conception.  But there is a huge gap between believing something and creating laws that govern other people.  There are plenty of things I believe with all my heart, but very few of which I need you to believe too in order to have my own personal happiness.  When we take our beliefs and force others to comply with them, what we end up with is not only fascism, but laws that have the ability to stab you in the ass when you least expect it.

We’ve seen backdoor abortion bills try to pass in the past.  What are backdoor abortion bills?  They are laws that effective outlaw abortion by going through the backdoor of lawmaking since they can no longer go through the front door and contradict laws on the books.  By going through the backdoor, they create laws that cover things other than abortion that can effectively be used to apply to abortion in the future.  It’s like a Jedi mind trick: “these are not the abortion laws you’re looking for.”

We saw it back in 2008 in Georgia.  And we saw it in 2010 in Oklahoma.  And now we’re seeing it at 2011 in Mississippi — and these personhood (or personhood-type) bills are starting to feel like the legal version of the Jason-Freddie-Krueger-Michael-Myers-mashup: jumping out to slash our reproductive rights.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: reproductive rights are reproductive rights, and if you want the freedom to choose whether or not you have access to fertility treatments, you need to support other reproductive rights.  Legal wranglings are not a pu-pu platter where you can say hands-off my embryos and making decisions for me about their creation and storage but then leave women who want to choose whether or not they carry a child back on the plate.  Either your government’s hands are in your uterus or they’re not.  And frankly, the only hands I want near my uterus are the ones attached to my RE who is making decisions in regards to my reproductive (and emotional) health by tailoring those decisions to my own unique situation.  The only people I want making decisions that affect my body are my doctor and myself — and my body extends to people I create with my body.

And yes, as Ezra Klein of The Washington Post points out, this has everything to do with fertility treatments:

The Mississippi ballot has incredibly important legal implications: no state has ever given an embryo constitutional rights and, legally, it’s not quite clear what happens when you do. There is a lot of speculation that it could outlaw infertility treatments and birth control, while almost certainly banning abortion. If passed, the Mississippi law would near certainly bait a legal challenge that could wind its way up to the Supreme Court.

I want a woman to have a right to choose because I believe women are smart enough to choose when they want to have children and when they don’t.  I don’t believe that the government needs to tell me when to have a baby or when not to have a baby.  I really believe that you, and you, and even you, are intelligent enough to know whether utilizing an abortion is the right choice for you.  And I don’t want laws that are going to make accessing fertility treatments harder for infertile men and women.

Anti-abortion activists haven’t been able to get in through the political front door.  So they have gone after instead what they can influence through the back door.  And to that I say hands-off my fucking embryos and uterus.

Oh, and don’t answer the phone since the call is coming from inside the house.

Other people are writing about MS-26 (and if you did too, please let me know in the comment section below and I’ll move you onto the list):

• Magpie Musing
• Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed
• The Dragondreamer’s Lair
• A Steel Magnolia
• Health Breaks Loose
• Parents Against MS 26
• Fertility Lab Insider
• Don’t Take the Repeats
• The Hardest Quest
• Family Building with a Twist
• Brett Cottrell

Photo Credit: Double Feature Podcast