Thank you for donating your stories to the Exclusion Project.  Reading them has helped the ChickieNob so much, but it has also been a strange, emotional experience for me, and I’m trying to summarize my thoughts into a post.  It has jogged memories, it has led to interesting conversations and it has certainly made me wonder if things do actually get better.  And then the ChickieNob gets mixed up in all of it too, creating a strange emotional soup.

Give me a day to separate the floating vegetables from the alphabet noodles, or some sort of metaphor like that.

In the meantime, Josh and I created a Facebook page this week.  He actually had to make his own freakin’ Facebook app in order to have the page do what I wanted it to do.  I am so proud of him, and he was on a coding high from the whole experience.

You see, I was going to set up a page on Facebook for Life from Scratch, but then I realized that it would probably go the way of the Navigating the Land of If page which has been pretty much dead since it started.  Because there’s only so much you can say — the book is out.  Please buy my book.  I’m doing a reading here.  Please buy my book.  Here’s a review.  Will you read my motherfucking book already?

Except you don’t curse because that isn’t polite (see, Mum, I do listen).

So instead I decided to start a page that will house all current and future book information that can also be a clearing house for talking about things I’m reading (books by other people), and publishing advice, and publishing news I read.  It will sort of be a mishmash of everything:

• Book news
• Giveaways
• Reviews
• My thoughts on other people’s books
• Publishing information
• My fear of crickets
• How I love the state of Maryland hardcore
• My crush on various celebrities
• A recipe for ebelskivers
• And — of course — secret messages I find by circling every third letter in the Harry Potter books.

So if you are on Facebook and want to follow along, like the Melissa Ford, Author page.  Why Melissa Ford, Author — which sounds so pretentious I can hardly handle being near myself?  Because there is a Melissa Ford, Porn Star and strange-looking men often try to friend me on Facebook thinking I just might be said porn star.  And I just don’t want to disappoint anyone with talk about how to write an agent query letter who were coming over to check for nudie pics.

I am not getting rid of my other Facebook page, but I feel myself gravitating over to this new one.  So if you want to follow my witty bon-mots, you may want to come on over to the new space.  And who knows, Purim is coming up.  It’s a good space to do a mishloach manot giveaway…

Updated at the Bottom

It is a snowy ice day here.  No school, but no sledding unless we aim to be decapitated by the huge chunks of ice.  Isn’t that so sad?  To finally have a day home due to the weather, but not be able to go sledding because ice is over the snow?  It’s like water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.  Are we beginning to sound like sledding freaks?

But this post is about something else.

Last week, the ChickieNob was having a shit day.  Another child had made fun of the picture she was drawing of me wearing thick, navy blue glasses (note to self: those glasses rocked.  Go try to find plastic, navy blue, square-eye frames).  And still another told her that she did a crap job of cleaning up their desk.  And another told her that she was having a playdate with someone else and the ChickieNob wasn’t invited to join them.

We went up to her office, which is what we call the rocking chair in her room (I always offer: “my office or yours?” with my office being my bed and her office being the chair), and rocked and cried.  She was really just having a shit day and it was grey outside and she was having a pity party, listing out all of the tiny slights that she perceived; all aimed directly at her heart.

When I asked her if — perhaps — she was crossing the line from shit day into creating drama, she said, “you wouldn’t understand because you’ve never been excluded.”

WHOA!

Hold your horses, little Miss Six-Year-Old.

Everyone has been excluded; everyone has been snubbed at some point in their life from the Queen of England to Missy No-Mates (which is what I sometimes call myself when I’m feeling lonely; which is different from when I call myself Smelly Melly, which is just my every day name I call myself when I’m thinking).

She challenged me to name a time and I told her about a girl who told me that she wasn’t inviting me to her Bat Mitzvah, which I didn’t believe because who believes that sort of think when they’re taunting you with it?  But she didn’t invite me to her Bat Mitzvah.  She would talk about it all day at lunch, every day.  And I was the only one at the table who wasn’t going.  And the worst was that I asked if my invitation was lost in the mail, which just gave her another chance to tell me that I wasn’t invited.

The ChickieNob was delighted to hear this story and immediately forgot about her own friend conundrum in order to ask me to relive my worst moments from childhood.  I admitted that most of them had been forgotten — they had hurt terribly in the moment, and if I read about the incident in an old diary, I could remember it.  But off the top of my head, those moments  were gone.

Still, as a former teacher, I knew how much it meant to students to hear that they weren’t alone in the horror that is growing up.  I couldn’t tell them what any other student had said, but sometimes I told them that they weren’t the first person who had come to me crying that day with a friend problem.  And that piece of information was enough to get them over the hump that was their problem.  Sometimes, all that was really needed was to not feel alone.  To not feel like you’re the only one struggling.

In parading out my stories, the ChickieNob stopped crying and critiqued my life instead of her own and left the room 20 pounds lighter, without the burden of aloneness on her shoulders.

And it got me thinking; I think it could help all the girls out there to hear our stories.  Sort of in the same vein as the It Gets Better project, except in regards to feeling alone as a child.  To feel as if you are the only one struggling within friendships.  I’d like to collect these stories so the ChickieNob can read them whenever she comes home feeling like she is the only person on the planet who has ever been excluded.  And I’d like all the kids in your life — your children, your students, your nieces — to read these stories too and use them to know that friendships get better too.

Please use the comment section below to write about what it was like for you in the friend department when you were a child and write about a time you were excluded — from an event, by a person or whatever has stayed with you all these years — and if possible, talk about when and how social stuff got better.  Please don’t worry if your comment gets enormously long — use the space to say whatever you need to say, knowing that at least one six-year-old, home on a snow day, will be reading it and using your words to make herself feel better.  And she will be looking back over those words in the future whenever she is having a shit day.

I will kick it off up here with my story:

My best friend broke up with me after 8 intense years of friendship.  We were not only best friends in middle and high school — formative years that I could not have gotten though without her — but we went far away to college together.  If you had told my 18-year-old self that one day she wouldn’t be in my life, I would have told you that you were crazy.  But then one day, she closed the door on our friendship and wouldn’t give me a reason.  No huge fight where we could say why we weren’t friends.  People would ask me and I couldn’t answer them beyond, “I don’t know.” (Many of the details are contained in that linked-to post, and here is the aftermath).

For me, social things changed when I got to college.  There wasn’t a popular crowd anymore and an unpopular crowd per se — instead, people broke into small groups based on common interests.  And that’s where I started feeling more confident in myself and was able to be a better friend.  And in turn, I got better friends.

I told you mine, now you tell us yours.

Added — Note from the ChickieNob:

Thank you for all of these stories that you had when you were a kid.  Some of these stories are the same kinds that I had before!  I had some kids say that I’m not going to be your friend anymore or they wouldn’t let me sit with them.  After Mommy read me the stories, I felt better.  Some of them made me very sad.  Please keep sending more.  It makes me feel better to hear other people’s stories.

Do you have a crush on Natalie Portman?  Not yet?  Perhaps this will cement it for you…

When FOX News (you know that fair and balanced news site) asked Natalie Portman about her pregnancy (oh, wait, yeah, catch-up, Portman is pregnant), she said,

“I’m so excited. My dad is a fertility doctor, so I know this is a very lucky experience, and not something I can take for granted,” Portman told FOX411’s Pop Tarts while promoting her upcoming romantic comedy “No Strings Attached.” “I feel so, so lucky. I am trying to take it all in and enjoy everything. It makes me feel calmer about everything to be in such a lucky place in my personal life.”

I know — a celebrity that points out how it could be otherwise?  How she knows what is out there and is thankful that she dodged that bullet?

But beyond that, when they asked her a dumb-assy question about how life will change, she points out that she couldn’t possibly know that yet.

“I have no idea (if motherhood will influence the roles I choose.) I just have no idea what it is going to be like,” she said. “I’ll figure out the right choices when it happens.”

Boo-yeah, Fox News.  You’ve been Portmaned.

Let’s let that girl drink and fight and fuck all night.  Congratulations, Natalie.

This was a crap-assy week that started with Josh being assigned to a multi-month trial at jur.y d.uty (because this is soooooooooo our luck) and ended with our bouncey ball pit popping.  For those who have been to our house and know the said ball pit, they can attest that it is the heart of our playextravaganza.  I thought we’d grow old with that thing.  And I had just promised it to my BIL when the twins were done with it — their daughter loved this thing hardcore.  So I was in tears when it popped.  I know the tears were more for the frustration that was this week as well as the fact that I didn’t want this to be the way that era ended.  Josh and I stayed up last night trying to tape this thing back together.  And when I came down this morning, it was deflated again.

It was ridiculous, but the ball pit popping felt like the last straw.

Actually, the last straw was after we stopped working on it, Josh picked up the air pump and the sharp end of it swung up and hit me straight in the middle of my glasses lens.  It was plenty painful, but if I hadn’t been wearing my glasses, it could have been a trip to the emergency room.  That one was really the last straw.  I’m ready to end this week and start a new one.

Anyone else want to say “fuck all” to this week?

*******

Weekly What If: What if you could remove one date from the calendar?  Everyone would know that date once existed, but now it’s gone.  Would you remember someone by removing their birthday, making everyone mindful of their existence?  Would you get rid of  day that has bad memories attached?  What would you do?

*******

I am beyond excited about the Grateful Said (thank you texacali/mexicali girl!).  Pretty much as excited as I was for the Creme de la Creme.  It is very moving to see which words you left on a post meant so much to the other person that they highlighted them on the list.  Two weeks until the Grateful Said is live (February 1st), and then it will continue to be open for submissions through February.  We’ll have it go hand-in-hand with the Creme next year.

I know you’re probably struggling with this one because you have more than one comment that means the world to you.  But the point is not to drive yourself crazy, but instead to simply choose one and celebrate the almighty comment.  What else sends a message to the world that comments are important than celebrating them with their own list?  And this is a great way to publicly say thank you to the other person.

We all know that your other comments mean a lot to you too; that this was just one of many that touched you.  So take this weekend to scroll back and find one that you want to show to the world.

*******

And now, the blogs…

Searching for The Missing Piece has a post about being the last person to reach parenthood.  It piqued my interest because I currently have The Hunger Games as next up in my to-read list.  She writes, “Lately, I’ve been feeling like that victor.  The last one standing.  However, it’s not that everyone else has died, but has gone on to become parents.  They’ve gotten out of the games.  We’ve all endured the challenges that years of infertility brings. They may not include poisonous gas or bees that cause hallucinations, but the lasting scars can be just as deep.”  She worries about posting these thoughts, but I find them very honest and very thoughtful.  And helpful for others to hear.

Finding a New Normal has a post about finding an old slip of paper from a fortune cookie.  I won’t spoil the post by telling you what the fortune said (hint: click over and find out), but I hope that she frames it and places it in that not-yet baby’s room one day.

Lastly, I really like Infertility Unexplained’s thoughts on the latest rash of infertility news; from the twiblings to sex selection via IVF.  She writes, “But as I read Thernstrom’s story I realized that what she is doing is rewriting the fairy tale birth story that many women (and some men) invent before we start trying to conceive (or like, when we’re 8 and playing house and then again as young feminists reading Our Bodies, Ourselves), before we know anything about infertility–the fairytale we realize we must grieve when we can’t get pregnant on our own, and then grieve again when fertility treatments fail. She is rewriting this fairytale for her children, and herself, so that her children will understand and value their birth story.”  Go over to read her thoughts on both stories.

The Weekly What If: I’m having a crappy week, are you?  Answer the Weekly What If.  Have you submitted a comment for the Grateful Said yet?  And lots of great posts to read.

I’m notorious for being unable to control my verbal diarrhea when I see famous people.  One time, we were in Dupont and we were walking toward Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin on the sidewalk when they parted to allow us to pass between them and I pretty much crapped myself and then told every employee at Kramer’s about it for the next hour.

I was at the Helen Hayes Awards because Josh was nominated for one of his plays, and we were at this party when Judd Hirsch walked by.  And unable to control my own body, I pointed at him and screamed, “that’s Judd Hirsch!”

Which isn’t even the most embarrassing part.  I DID THE SAME THING YEARS LATER TO PAULA DEAN.  I was at BlogHer, sitting by a door, and she walked through it and I screamed, “you’re Paula Dean!”  It’s like famous people are the reflex hammer and my mouth is an enormous deep tendon jerking out words I don’t intend to have leave my mind.

But I’d like to report that I controlled my internal monologue, even though the urge was there to yell out their names, when I met the Sklar Brothers last weekend at the EntryPoint DC performance.

In my head: “YOU’RE RANDY AND JASON SKLAR!”

We went with two other couples and we were all fairly giddy with the idea of being out at night like grown-ups.  We had a great dinner at Commissary (where the Sklar Brothers stopped by our table to say hello pre-performance — so I actually almost crapped myself twice in one evening) and then saw the show (which was hysterical.  If they’re ever in your city, you should go out and see them) and then went out to coffee afterward.

Before the show, we stopped into a VIP pre-party for the performance even though I am not a VIP.  I am not even an IP.  I am merely a P.  But I was with Josh, and Josh is a VIP.  And I decided that I wanted a picture with them.

A long time ago, when Josh and I were at Disney World, we kept bumping into this ten-year-old girl throughout the day.  She would scream at her parents, “take my picture!” and then go and pose in front of the ride by placing her hands on her hips and doing a deep lunge.  And Josh commented that one day she’d look back on those pictures and regret that she went through an entire vacation and does not have a single photograph where she is standing in a normal position.

So at dinner before the performance, I announced that when we went to the VIP party, I was going to pose like that with the Sklar Brothers — my hands on my hips, my body in a deep lunge.  And we’d snap the photo, the boys smiling nervously because they couldn’t understand why someone would get into this pose.  And my plan was to laugh apologetically and say, “I really don’t know why I did that.  Could we retake the picture so I could be in a normal pose?”  And then, when we got ourselves in a normal position again, right before the camera would snap, I fall back into a deep lunge, my head cocked to the side defiantly, the palms of my hands covering their face.  And this would go on and on and on; and dozens of photos later (because in this plan, the Sklar Brothers were game for me to do this dozens of times), I would finally declare one of my deep lunges perfect.  And we’d all go on our merry way.

But as you can tell from the picture above, Josh explained that this wouldn’t be amusing — at least not to the other subjects in the picture nor to the people at the VIP party.  In fact, it just might mean that I don’t get invited back to another VIP party.  So I controlled my inner monologue AND I controlled my posing ideas.  I stood upright and bit my tongue and tried to appear like I get out of the house, when it is very very rare for me to get out of the house.  One of the terrible perks of working from home.

*******

As we drove home, I mused that I didn’t really know why people took pictures with famous people they didn’t know.  I mean, it would be one thing if we had emailed prior to that point and had some sort of connection.  But those comedians didn’t even know my name and won’t remember me thirty seconds after the photo was taken.  So why do we collect these pictures of ourselves with famous people?  To prove that we were there?  To prove that we closed the six degrees of separation between two people and physically stood in each other’s presence?

Or is it because we all have a bit of oral diarrhea and instead of shouting out the obvious, we click a picture instead.  Since, for some reason, that’s more socially acceptable than screaming, “you’re Randy and Jason Sklar!”

Come on, dish.  What famous people have you met?  And did you take a picture?