Welcome to the fourth concert on the blog. Get your lighters ready because here we go…

[For those who are new: Concert on the Blog Series is a weekly post highlighting a musical, theater, film, or comedy performance. It’s also a chance for viewers to communicate with the artists via the comment section on the post. In other words, it’s free publicity for artists and it’s free enjoyment for viewers — a win-win for all participants. Please click here to find out how you can have your performance featured.]

Melissa the Emcee: Beyond his work with One Ring Zero, Michael Hearst also writes his own music — both quirky pieces for ice cream trucks or unusual animals as well as movie music.  It’s the sort of music you want to listen to early in the evening so you can go out to dinner after the concert and talk about it over tapas.

Yes, he has really written new music for ice cream trucks.

[audio:https://www.stirrup-queens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/01-Ice-Cream.mp3]

And then there is the ever fun “Meh.”

[audio:https://www.stirrup-queens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Meh.mp3]

And isn’t this the most delightfully creepy movie music?  This first one is from The Good Mother.

[audio:https://www.stirrup-queens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Waltz-For-A-Creepy-Hotel.mp3]

And this second, emotional piece is from House of Suh.

[audio:https://www.stirrup-queens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/8-Rob-Intro.mp3]

And enjoy these 6-word memoirs:

More about Michael Hearst: “Michael Hearst is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, writer, and producer. Michael’s solo works include the albums Songs For Ice Cream Trucks and the forthcoming Songs For Unusual Creatures, the website Songs For Newsworthy News, and the soundtracks for the movies The House Of Suh and The Good Mother. As a writer, Michael’s work has appeared in such journals as McSweeney’s, The Lifted Brow, and Post Road. He hosts a podcast series with Rick Moody called 18:59 and is a producer for the website Cassette From My Ex.  Hearst has appeared on such shows as NPR’s Fresh Air, A+E’s Breakfast With The Arts, and NBC’s The Today Show.”

For those in love with the music (and please let him know in the comment section below), you can find him in many places on the Web:

• Website: http://www.michaelhearst.com/
• Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Hearst/133007470050315
• Twitter: twitter.com/michaelhearst

Now go mill about the lawn (fine, the comment section), hanging out with your fellow concert goers and chat about what you just heard and saw.

We had one of those life-changing moments a few weeks ago, and I’m really at a loss as to how to write about it.  Because when I try to put it into words, it sounds… well… fairly small to be life-changing.  At first, I was going to give up trying to write about it because it didn’t feel like it was my story to tell.  But I’m also quite emotional about it.  So, there you go.  I’m back for a final try.  Forgive this post if it’s a bit sloppy and all-over-the-place.

By which I mean that you may want to stop reading if you’re not in a good place right now.  Children are mentioned below.  Specifically the Wolvog.

The Wolvog is… let’s just say, a challenge sometimes in a traditional classroom setting.  Like most boys, he isn’t fantastic at sitting on the carpet quietly during circle time.  He also has a lot of “good ideas” such as reprogramming the classroom computers and has a tantrum when he doesn’t get things right on the first try and pokes the child next to him a dozen times just.to.see.what.happens.

In other words, it’s not really a shock to me as a former teacher that he might be a challenging student.*

But he is also sweet beyond words and creative to boot.  And he’s tenacious and curious.  All good things that I hope balance out the times that he sobs because he didn’t get a turn to answer a question.

I hope.

A few weeks ago, his teacher — who generally responds with a good-natured sigh when she calls me over to speak about a behavioural incident — and I were chatting at school. (This woman was so made to be a kindergarten teacher.  I’ve been in the classroom on numerous occasions when a kid will ask a bizarre question and she doesn’t even blink.  She just smiles at the child and says, “that is so interesting.  You should ask your parents tonight because I’d love to hear their answer!”)

She jokingly asked if it would be appropriate to ask the Wolvog for help with figuring out her new cell phone, and I told her it was fine — I’ve had him teach me how to use things on plenty of occasions.  We talked about the Wolvog’s penchant for all things electronic, the way he navigates the computer world.

And she told me that she has never had a student with the Wolvog’s computer skills.  I know all parents think their children are brilliant — and they most likely are — but it is quite another thing for an outsider, a teacher, let’s say, to confirm what you’ve suspected all along.  Your children are extraordinary.

She had a connection via a friend to the Wolvog’s computer idol and she asked it would be meaningful to the Wolvog to receive an email from his idol.  I responded that it would most likely blow his little kindergarten mind because he has watched him countless times on YouTube to give speeches or do press for a new product release.  So she set it up and a few days later, an email arrived in my inbox from the man.

I went downstairs and asked the Wolvog whom he’d most like to speak to via email and he brightly said, “President Obama!  Could you have him email me?”

I told him that I’d get on that, but for him to think about someone who truly embodies his interests.  I mean, President Obama is well and good (apologies, Mr. President, but we are talking about a kindergartener whose interests range from cars to computers; not the economy or military families), but wasn’t there someone else that he’d love to hear from?

The Wolvog thought for a moment and said, “well, I’d love to hear from St.eve Job.s.”**

I flipped around the blackberry and he squinted at the screen, and then his eyes got huge and he screamed, “how did you do that?”

I explained what his teacher had done, and he sat down to read his email.  Then he said, “it makes sense.  We’re both CEOs of computer companies.”

You see, the Wolvog has an imaginary computer company which rolls out new electronic products (and they’ve branched out recently into vehicles and bicycles comprised entirely out of light) on a fairly regular basis.  He runs his company with utmost seriousness, selling computers to all of his imaginary friends (with a fine business model — for people who can’t afford a computer he has a volunteer-to-own program).  So it made perfect sense to him that the CEO of a real computer company would want to chat with the kindergarten-aged CEO of an imaginary computer company.

I tried to explain to the Wolvog that this was quite special.  That his idol was a busy man.  That existing computer companies as opposed to imaginary ones take a lot of work to run.  And that he must need to shuffle through thousands of emails a day.  Therefore, taking the time to send one to a little boy was something that deserved a special thank you.

The Wolvog wrote him back the most chit-chatty email about his love of the iP.ad and I added a thank you below it.  I don’t think the Wolvog truly gets that other kids aren’t receiving emails like this, but I’m holding onto it for the future.  I hope having your idol tell you to keep dreaming is enough of a motivation whenever he gets discouraged by life.  I have premonitions of a day when he’ll feel beaten down and doubt himself, and I’ll pull it out again and say, “see, a bunch of adults all believed in you if you don’t have the energy at the moment to believe in yourself.”

His teacher asked the Wolvog to talk about the email with the class, and news spread through our tiny town.  People have been coming up to him to talk to him about it since and it’s interesting.  He’s the same boy that he was before this email was sent, but receiving it seems to have marked him.  He went from being the quirky kid with the imaginary computer company to being this tiny genius who dreamed up an imaginary computer company until he could make it real.  Everyone is exactly the same to him, but I’m also suddenly getting told several times a day, “I can’t wait to see what the Wolvog is doing when he’s in his twenties.”

Me too.

But here’s the thing — unless I botch up this mother-child relationship completely, I will get to have a front row seat to all of the ChickieNob and Wolvog’s accomplishments.  And that is somewhat mind-blowing.  That I got to be there from the very beginning, believing in him.  And very few people will be able to say that.  I count myself as so lucky to be in the ChickieNob and Wolvog’s lives.

It’s such a small thing.  An email.  Something we write daily without thinking anything of it.  And yet, it was life-changing for two reasons.  (1) It was the first time someone outside of our family looked at the Wolvog and saw his incredible potential… and celebrated it.  I mean, he is the pet of the employees at the local Ap.ple store, and plenty of people have remarked that he’s smart.  But this teacher is the first outsider who looked at him and said, “you know what, this kid had the potential to do something cool in life and I want to nurture that any way that I can.”

And (2) It is always an amazing experience to get to communicate with your idol.  I am well aware that his idol is just a regular man — a person just like you and me — but he has accomplished what the Wolvog hopes to one day accomplish.  And it can change your life — give you the necessary energy — to keep marching to the beat of your own drummer.

My mother always told me that I heard my figurative drummer so much louder than other people heard their drummers, but that I should march to that beat instead of ignoring it.  I hope that I always convey the same idea to the twins since they also seem to be people who hear their drummer much louder than the other kids around them.  And that can be hard.  But it can bring such huge rewards later in life.

And I’m just grateful that there are other adults out there that exist who want to celebrate the twins’ drum beats and encourage them along their respectively chosen paths.

If you could receive an email from anyone in the world, receive correspondence encouraging you to not give up on your dream, who would you want to receive an email from?

* Dear Wolvog of the future — I read this to you and you said I could post it.

** I placed the dots in there because I didn’t really want this Googlable, and I’d appreciate it that if you use the name in the comment, that you also add dots in.

In honour of NIAW, Resolve has asked us to Bust a Myth.  So I sat there, thinking through all of the misinformation I see floating through the media, all of the idiotic statements I’ve heard made to my face or behind my back.  We all collectively busted the myth of how one makes fertility drugs.

I decided to address something that hits closer to home; something that may rub people the wrong way at first, but a post that I hope people will read until the end.

The myth I’d like to bust is the gulf that exists between those on both sides of the infertility chasm.

I was originally going to blog about how infertility doesn’t really have an end point, and that is indeed part of this, but seeing the little punk teenage boy at American Idiot made me think of this idea in an entirely new direction.  We often talk about how once someone passes through treatments or adoption or surrogacy and is parenting, they can no longer truly comfort or understand people who are still standing on the other side of the divide.  That time and distance dull all ability to empathize properly.  That people forget and in that forgetting, they become careless, thoughtless.  They gleefully post pictures of their burgeoning stomach without any regard to how readers might feel.  They talk endlessly about parenting.  And for all intents and purposes, based on what they post on the screen, they’ve moved on.

Based on what they put on the screen.

I watched the teenage boy in front of me at the play emotionally fist pump the air with every “fuck” that is sounded in that play.  And it was true — I understood why he was doing it, why the play was emotional for him, what that moment meant to him.  But I didn’t feel those same things anymore, even though I knew I would have felt them if I were a teenager at the moment.  What I did feel as I watched him was a certain internal tenderness, as if his fist pump had punched against a spot inside of me that I had forgotten was bruised.  I certainly wasn’t aware of it when I was standing in line to get into the theater; I’m not often in touch with my inner teenager.

But seeing his emotions brought me back to a mental slideshow of my own teenage landscape.  That feeling like every moment was like walking across a minefield — what would I say that would suck up life for me later?  What would I not say that I would regret?  How was I being judged or misunderstood or slighted?  And it hurt to be there.  And my defense was to think about my adult life, a “wheeew, so glad I’m not there anymore” mentality.  If I had written a blog post in the moment, it probably would have gleefully pointed out exactly how glad I am that I’m an adult.  Once I realized I was mentally doing this, I thought about how hurtful it would have been if the teenager had been privy to my thoughts.

I think those who are parenting after infertility are in a unique place because they’ve been on both sides of the divide.  I think they can comfort in a way that those still in the trenches can’t always comfort because those on the other side of the divide no longer need to use their emotional rations on themselves.  And I think that when you see them behaving in a way that is insensitive — which I am sure I have done countless times on this blog, and I’m sorry — it is not because they’ve completely forgotten what infertility is like.  It’s because they remember precisely what infertility is like.  And it is like punching a bruised area to think about it.

Because for many people, infertility doesn’t have an expiration date.  It doesn’t have an end point.  It is so huge, so emotional, so life-changing that it becomes an event — a divide in a life and the way we count years — the moment before the diagnosis and the moment after.  BD and AD.  The moment before a loss and the moment after.  BL and AL.  Which is not to say that the emotional pain once you’ve moved from the epicenter of the experience is the same.  It is very different now — I can go through my entire day and barely think about infertility whereas it used to control every minute of every day.

And while I can’t enter that state of depression that I once lived inside, I can certainly see it in another person and remember how it felt even if I’m not feeling it in the moment.  Just in the same way that even though I am not currently eating a strawberry, I can remember how the seeds feel as they crunch under my teeth, the tartness of the fruit out of season, the smell when it’s moving from ripe to overtime.

The myth I want to bust is that the divide is so great that we can’t step back and forth over it for each other.  That once you reach parenthood, you need to leave the community which has been your support for many months or years.  I wish more people would stick around, jump into the advocacy work or give support.  It often turns out that when you’re going through treatments or the adoption process, you don’t have the energy to do anything more than get through your day.  The aftermath is the perfect time to turn around and use everything you learned along the way — to fight for insurance coverage for others, to offer comfort to those in the trenches, to bust all the myths that surround infertility.

And frankly, just because you’re parenting doesn’t mean that you don’t still want your feelings validated, your ideas confirmed, your triumphs celebrated.  Parenthood doesn’t erase — it’s a new creation that is built on a blank space on the heart, not a new creation rewriting everything that came before it.  Just as people should turn backwards and still comfort those in the trenches, I hope that those still fighting will reach out their figurative hands and touch those on the other side of the divide from time to time.

There are some who will not agree with me, who will say they never thought about infertility again once they were parenting or who can point at people who grew too insensitive for words.  But I’d like to believe that even if we don’t live each other’s lives, we don’t need to let that chasm divide us — we can give support, we can give empathy, we can simply say, “I heard you.  I listened.”

We may not be one, big, happy family — I’m not going to blow kumbaya-smoke up your ass — but we are a community who has a lot of energy, a lot of empathy, and the choice to use it inwardly and outwardly to create change as well as give support.

Seriously, this was the excuse the bomber used?

A man who admitted a plot to blow up New York City subway stations with bombs planted in backpacks told his uncle that chemicals and other apparent bomb-making elements were “to manufacture a fertility medicine,” according to court papers.

You may be wondering what substances could possibly be used to create both bombs and random fake fertility drugs.  Apparently the answer is “gallon-sized bottles of toilet bowl cleaner” and nail polish.  You know, standard follicle-stimulating substances.

And he had to pick fertility drugs?  He couldn’t have been working on a cure for cancer?

So there was actually a reason to why I wanted to pull back from writing for a bit and just read through my Google Reader.  On Monday, I start a new position at BlogHer.  I am the section editor for the newly launched Blogging & Social Media section of the site.

So what does that mean?  It means that I am curating, syndicating, and assigning out any posts having to do with blogging, commenting, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  It also means that several times a week, I am highlighting a blogger or pointing you towards amusing tweets or celebrating someone else’s blog project.

In other words, I am essentially hired to read blogs.  And then to help cull out the amazing posts, spaces, tweets that I think other people should make sure they don’t miss.  My entire job is about directing people towards good posts and bloggers to read on the Internet.  Can you imagine a better job?

So, I wanted to just spend the week leading up to the kick off reading.  I’ve gotten behind in blog reading; it’s easy to do.  But now I’m back.

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Cherry blossoms are the pigeons of the tree world.  If you live in the DC area, they are everywhere.  Tourists think they look pretty — and they sort of do — but the trees make the tourists stop and gawk on the sidewalk in the same way that the pigeons do.  The tiny petals blow into our house every time we open the door, which means that I need to vacuum three or four times a day.  People track them through the house on the bottoms of their shoes which makes me curse them.  I recently started calling the petals “rats with wings” as we do the pigeons which Josh said was confusing since the petals were neither an animal nor had wings.  But still — for something that lasts for a very short period of time (cherry blossom time is maybe three weeks long), they are a huge pain in my ass.

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I would just like to write a tiny ode to technology.  I have no fashion sense, therefore, I need to ask people fashion advice before I leave the house so I don’t embarrass myself.  One day only Josh was around, which was no help at all.  So I went on Skype and called Calliope.  And I could stand in my living room and try on stuff and show it to her — all over the Internet!  How crazy is that?  And then walk out of the house with confidence?

I love video calls.

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Remember how I’m offering one NaBloPoMo prompt in the Roundup to entice you to one day commit to doing NaBloPoMo?  It’s a chance to test in a comment if you have the brain power to do a full month of NaBloPoMo.

So try your hand at a single prompt each week and if you can think of an answer, perhaps consider doing the entire month at some point.

ComOnNaPro (Comment on NaBloPoMo Prompt): If you could have a tree in your yard that would sprout anything, what type of tree would you have?

You can either answer this in a comment, or if you’re moved to do so, answer it in a post on your blog and then come back here and let me know the permalink to the post.

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And now, the blogs…

A Half Baked Life has a post about what fuels a blog.  She explains: “I think that our stories–regardless of what those stories are about, whether it’s food, or running, or pets, or children, or infertility, or meditation, or Capitol Hill–are advocacy, for a way of life, for an approach to the world.”  It’s really a fascinating post on redefining advocacy — broadening the definition.  And it may just make you a better blogger to read it, especially if you’ve been wondering about your blog’s direction. (And there’s a recipe to boot.)

Four of a Kind has a moving post about taking the statistical bullet and pairs it with a story about her father that will make you rethink the whole start of the post where she explains that she is that someone in the sentence, “it has to happen to someone.”  It is about re-examining suffering from two different angles.

Lastly, I’m a Smart One explains why it took her so long to return to blogging.  She writes, “The logic of mind reasoned rightfully that I had no cause to feel guilt. The affective capriciousness of heart told me that not only should I feel guilt, but that I also deserved guilt. The opposing sides canceled each other out at best and crusted into a stiff stalemate at worst.”  It is about not fighting the silence, but instead embracing that period of time and how she came through it to the other side.

The roundup to the Roundup: Starting a new job at BlogHer on Monday.  Not loving the cherry blossoms.  All hail Skype and giving fashion advice from afar.  Answer the ComOnNaPro.  And lots of great blogs to read.

That ComOnNaPro one more time: If you could have a tree in your yard that would sprout anything, what type of tree would you have?