Three years ago today, Bea challenged me to make a film and I did.  It’s still going strong with over 20,000 views.  That’s a lot of assvice.

I didn’t know it was the third anniversary of the film until I got a note from YouTube about it.  Since making it, I have learned a lot more about film-making via Microsoft Paint including how to make the pictures less blurry.  I have toyed with the idea of redrawing the film with crisper pictures and adding an additional verse.  But what advice did Aunt Jane miss?  Feel free to leave your best assvice below and I will try to compile it into an anniversary verse if I can get Josh to lay it all out for me again (pretty please, Josh?).

A friend recently apologized on her blog to her readers about being a broken record.  She felt as if every post was the same, that she was just repeating the same sad thoughts over and over again.

I told her not to apologize.  The people who didn’t want to read it didn’t have to stick around, and beyond that, it was important for her to write it again even if she has written the same words forty-five times before.

Blogging is a lot like nose blowing–you do it to clear the stuff out of your body, sometimes to simply toss it away and sometimes to examine it (oh, come on, don’t throw up in your mouth–you know you’ve done this).  And no one would apologize for blowing their nose again when they just blew it five minutes earlier.  We recognize that our body is always producing more gunk that needs to be dealt with during a cold.  Why don’t we recognize that our minds are always producing more gunk that needs to be dealt with during an emotional crisis?  And that gunk may look exactly like the gunk we thought we just got rid of with the last blog post?

So thank you to everyone who reads this blog, for being my virtual Kleenex to which I can blow all this verbal snot out on.  That may not sound pretty–bodily fluids rarely are–but I can’t think of a softer, kinder landing space.  Thank you for all the times you’ve let me blow the same crap out fifteen times in a row and left unique comments on the same circling thoughts.

I hope I have been a free therapist for you as much as you have been a free therapist for me.

March 16th started like any other day: we overslept, we cursed a lot, I jumped into the shower and washed my face two times because I couldn’t remember if I had done it the first time two seconds earlier.  Oh, and Bronner returned.

Bronner is the ChickieNob’s imaginary friend, who first came to live in our house when the ChickieNob was three, remained a pretty constant companion through the rough transition to school, and disappeared in November or December of 2008.

Bronner has been our friend in times of high-stress.  For instance, when the ChickieNob was balking at potty training, Bronner was right there beside her, equally cranky at the idea of sitting on the toilet.  When the ChickieNob was having a shit time at school and came home crying daily, Bronner was there to occupy her thoughts as she quietly waited for pick-up time.  Bronner is sometimes a difficult additional child, what with the fact that I have to bathe her, feed her, and clothe her lest the ChickieNob screams that I don’t have enormous love for her.  But overall, Bronner is a good friend to have around–one that gives me a lot of time to get things done while the ChickieNob chuckles at Bronner’s silent jokes.

Imagine our surprise when in a time of low-stress, when things are trucking along nicely for the twins after the Great Binky Giving-Up of 2010, the ChickieNob woke up to solemnly tell us that Bronner made her eat monkey.  Eat monkey?  Bronner returns after a year-long absence only to force my daughter to consume treyf?

Later in the morning, the ChickieNob rethinks this and giggles to herself, “I made a mistake.  I misunderstood.  I did not eat monkey.  I only watched monkeys eat bananas.”

There was an audible sigh of relief that Bronner has not started dropping PCP in her sabbatical.  But there was a strange knot in my stomach all morning, especially as I informed her teacher of Bronner’s resurgence despite the fact that I made the ChickieNob promise to leave Bronner in the car so I could have a chat with her during school hours.

Was there stress that I didn’t know about?  Am I so overtired that I’m missing the fact that stress is sitting in our living room much in the same way I wash my face twice every morning because I’m too stupid to remember if I washed it the first time until I’m midway through the second washing?

Or perhaps Bronner is back not because anything is wrong, but because everything is right and it’s nice to have old friends visit sometimes.  The Wolvog was also happy to hear that Bronner has returned and while he never had his own imaginary friend, informed us as he looked out the window that he is now seeing “crowds of people outside” who all want to be his friend and could we help him name them.  An imaginary friend caretaking neophyte.  By the time he had named the first one, Bronner had already gotten dressed, eaten Life cereal (and not monkey brains), and played with her own imaginary friend, Ursula (yes, our imaginary friends have their own imaginary friends for the times when we’re just too damned busy to play with them).

My mother picked them up after school and they bounced out of the classroom gleefully. “I have given 100 friends your address and they will all be at your house!” the Wolvog informed her.  I had already warned my mother of Bronner’s return so she took it in stride until they reached her house and the Wolvog looked around at the emptiness outside the car.  “I don’t know what they’re thinking, but my friends have all brought weapons.”

Wait, scratch that, we don’t have imaginary friends.  We have imaginary Orcs.

After calling me and attempting several times to relay this story (my mother was laughing so hard that on the first few tries, I kept hearing that the friends all brought tampons), she let them free-float through their play and finally asked the ChickieNob why Bronner returned.  “She comes when we’re lonely,” the ChickieNob stated, as if she had read this fact in a clever New Yorker article.

It sort of begs the question, how can twins be lonely?  Ones who share a room and go to school together and play endless rounds of Strawberry Shortcake at the Monster Truck Jam.  Ones who have several playdates a week, a wide circle of friends, and two activity classes?  Ones who move easily between togetherness and natural separation as they run with their individual friends.  Being lonely in a crowd of people is an adult concept.  Feeling isolated within a relationship isn’t something children can comprehend.  Loneliness exists for the preschool set, but the concept of loneliness when surrounded by people comes much later.  So how can a child who spends every waking moment interacting with a peer–either her twin brother or a friend–be lonely?

I’m really not sure if she knows what the word means or if she has been reading Josh’s clever New Yorkers.

We’re not sure how long Bronner is staying.  If she’ll still be here in an hour, tomorrow, next week.  If she’ll stay through Pesach and disappear back into the ether.  If the ChickieNob will forget about her or if she’ll be sad to see her go.  And if she does leave, will she return again, monkey meat in hand.

Took Chickenpig’s advice and started a new site for these: Mondegreens.  The email address for submissions is on the right sidebar under “about this site.”  Keep them coming and spread word.  Because “oh Sherry, CINNAMON GUM!”

By the way, I am turning some of these into t-shirts for a upcoming giveaway because they made me snort coffee.  Your slogan on the front; your blog url on the back.  More on that soon.

We were watching Paul Williams on the Muppet Show (he wrote “Rainbow Connection,” but he happened to be singing “Sad Song.”  The Wolvog was biting his nails, making the most annoying sound known to mankind to accompany Paul’s voice.  The ChickieNob asked what he was singing about and I told her, “he’s singing about hearing a special song that reminds him of someone he once loved.”

ChickieNob: What happened to her?

Me: Well, it’s really sad actually.  His girlfriend was biting her nails and she got an infection and she had to go to the hospital.  And I don’t think she ever came out.

Both children stared at me with their mouths opened while Paul Williams crooned on in the background to Ralph’s melodious piano.

ChickieNob: I don’t think that’s true.

Me: It probably isn’t.  But I’m trying to scare the crap out of your brother so he’ll stop biting his nails.

Thank you, Paul Williams, for inadvertently getting his fingers out of the Wolvog’s mouth for a few minutes.  If you want to support Paul, his daughter is doing the March of Dimes walk and he provides a link to her fundraising page at the bottom of his website.  She is aiming to raise $250.  If you haven’t given yet, the family of the writer of the “Rainbow Connection” seems like a worthy person to sponsor on the walk.

After all, you are probably smiling right now, thinking about the “Rainbow Connection” and some memory of hearing his songs.

I don’t know Paul Williams personally–I just noticed the March of Dimes link at the bottom of his site.  But damn, I love the quote on his front page: “Care deeply..give freely…think kindly…act gently and be at peace with the world.”

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The Weekly What If: What if you had to pick one song from childhood and listen to it on continual play, 24-hours a day, for a full month in order to win $100,000 (I was going to give you a million, but that really isn’t that incredible a feat.  And $100,000 is still a lot for your trouble).  (1) would you take the challenge knowing that there was no way to stop in the middle–you would have to see it through until its end and (2) which song would you choose to hear on continual play for a full month?

Yes, I’d do it and I would listen to any of the following:

• Deep Blue Sea
• Brown Girl in the Ring (but only Dan Zanes singing it)
• Mingulay Boat Song
• Oh Mary Don’t You Weep
• Rainbow Connection

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I loved the mondegreens so much and have already planned to turn a few into t-shirt slogans, that I created a single post to collect them.  So as you remember them, leave them there and I’ll move them into the body of the post when I get a chance (the first one will always be the most recent one, so you won’t have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the new ones).

March’s IComLeavWe kicks off soon.  Commenting begins on Sunday, which is also the day that the list closes for March.  Last chance to be added.

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A blogger is coming to visit this weekend.  She hasn’t written about the trip on her blog and I have not mentioned it yet here.  Guess who it is!  There are only 100 million or so blogs out there.  I’ll give you a clue, she isn’t a spammer.  There, that just eliminated about a third of those sites immediately.

Okay, three more clues: (1) she asked me for real half-and-half instead of my fat-free dreck, (2) she is quaking a bit at the fact that she is staying in a house where the inhabitants consume so little alcohol, (3) she will probably kick our asses in Wii Yoga.  Guess who.

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And now, the blogs…

Adventures of a Dam Engineer has a post which is the best venting rant I’ve read in ages.  Yes, it’s personal to her life and her frustrations, but I think it’s cathartic for everyone who reads it.  It will get your own internal yell to the surface.  And I cracked up at the last thought.

Trying Not to Scream has musings on CD9 and why it is her own personal hell.  It contains a familiar feeling: “I’ve spent all day feeling anxious and stressed.  I’ve felt like I have something to say and don’t know what it is.”  It is about leaving all the hope and excitement of the beginning of the cycle behind and entering that zone of anxiety and quietness.

All Aboard the Pity Boat has a post about the tiny hurts of the week, interspersed with not only the hurt of the moment, but the larger hurt that looms behind the moments.  From the rude guys in the elevator to the not-yet-belly-rubbing-belly-rubber (“She sits down the hall from me and is definitely a belly-rubber. Not that I’ve seen her rub her belly yet but you know the type. She CANNOT stop talking about her pregnancy.”), she goes through the people who are like salt against her big, infertile, papercut wound.

Our Incredible Journey has a post on the 10th anniversary of her hysterectomy.  I loved it because while it definitely mourns one path, it celebrates what came next.  It is about the anger after the moment balanced with the healing that is taking place now.  And it’s just a gorgeous post.

Mommy-in-Waiting’s Blog has a post that meanders through sending good thoughts to friends to her own situation.  It contains this interesting idea: “Sometimes I really appreciate how lucky we are to not have to have timed sex, to have no pressure to have to DO IT!  I’m grateful for not wondering constantly if ‘just maybe’ this will be the month.  Lucky not to be spending money on ovulation tests, pregnancy tests only to get negative results.  But I read a blog today where she gave thanks for hope and it made me realize what I guess we are missing… HOPE.”  It’s a balance of finding your own grass pretty green, but still admiring the neighbour’s landscaping.

Lastly, Too Many Fish to Fry has a post about the feelings of infertility returning now that she is trying again.  After her miscarriage, all the feelings she suppressed from her first time doing treatments bubbled up to the surface again; the feelings about having a body that is letting her down.  It is a post that most of us have written in one form or another–that gratitude of finding like-minded people.

The roundup to the Roundup: If you were looking to donate to March of Dimes, the daughter of the man who wrote “Rainbow Connection” is walking.  Answer the Weekly What If.  Mondegreens and IComLeavWe.  Guess who is visiting me.  And lots of great blogs to read.