Every night around 11 p.m., right as Josh is trying to watch the Daily Show, I ask him if he wants to talk about my feelings. The answer is usually no. I thought I’d set that in the title just in case your answer is also no–either because you’re also watching the Daily Show or because you simply don’t feel like hearing about my feelings.

My feelings. Does anyone else talk about their feelings as if they are tangible entities separate from your body?

This first feeling contains children. Feel free to skip this one if you’re not up to reading it. I was the room mother last week. As room mother, I got to go to school on Friday and read a book to the class and my child got to choose the songs we sang at circle time and sit at a special snack table. It’s sort of the preschool equivalent to winning an Oscar except that every child gets to have their week.

Everyone probably has a moment in their head that they keep returning to–an image of being in this moment–when they can’t conceive. A moment they are striving to reach. For some it might be a first Christmas or bringing the baby to a big family reunion or something of that ilk.

And my moment was being the room mum.

When I imagined myself as room mum, I was actually picturing my own mother as room mum for my brother’s class back when he was in preschool. We have a video from that day of my brother sitting next to my mother while she read the class a book about a little fish named Otto. So when I pictured myself, it was with an early 80s haircut and a slightly exasperated look as my spirited child inserted extra words between every line of the book.

The date snuck up on me and I was wholly unable to absorb the idea that I had finally reached my moment. Isn’t that bizarre? I entered the room and sat down in the circle with my Fancy Nancy book. I sang the same songs that I learned in preschool and then was led to the special snack table in the front of the room.

And then it hit me as I sat down. I was there–I was right there in the moment I had been thinking about since 2001. And it’s 2009. That is a very long time to wait for a particular moment. I hate to be all dramatic, but I really felt like an internal wound had healed. There, I did it, I got all swoony and dramatic. But that’s exactly how it felt.

Which leads us to feeling number two.

I got home and realized that it was time to throw out all of my teaching materials. I kept a few documents on disc and I packed up a box of writing books. But everything else went into the garbage. It took two trips to the dump to haul away a nine year teaching career. Middle school, high school, and college. I really can’t say why I thought it was time or why I think I won’t go back to teaching. At least not teaching the subjects I was teaching.

There was a lot of hurt in those boxes. It hurt to know they were downstairs and it hurt to open them and look at my career laid out on pieces of papers. On thousands of pieces of paper. I have no regrets about leaving teaching so I can’t fully explain it. I threw them out while Josh was out of the house. I felt like I needed to do it alone. I dumped the first box angrily. And then I sat with the second box opened for a while feeling this awful wave of regret. And then I simply closed the boxes and pushed them over to the garbage pile and saved only a single picture of myself at a random graduation, my acceptance letter for my last teaching position, and a song I wrote about my students on a school trip. The hardest thing to throw out was this hand-drawn window covering that was behind my desk for six years. It was interlocking shells. Everyone would come in my room and comment on it and when I left, a fellow teacher asked if I would leave it behind. I thought I wanted it so I packed it and it felt sad to throw it out.

I have a lot more thoughts about things we threw out from the storage room as well as an impromptu trip to Ikea. I think the whole purging and redecorating are baby steps towards something. The point is not entirely clear so I think I need to still sit with it for a few days.

Housekeeping:

If you signed up for the IComLeavWe list and you haven’t been moved up to the main post (and it has been over 24 hours), there is a good reason. You don’t have the current pink icon on your blog. There are about 11 people in that position right now. Why do you have to add the icon? Well, it’s two-fold. One, it gives more people a chance to find the list and join along. But the more important reason is that there is a long gap between sign-up and the start date for the commenting week. The icon on your blog serves as a visual reminder since I can’t send out an email to everyone as I do with the book club when the post date is approaching. Seeing it there better ensures that people who sign up also participate when the time comes to do the commenting. So make sure you put on the icon either before you leave your comment or immediately after. And if you just checked the list and realized you’re not on it, add the icon and let me know it’s up.

I am still working on the Creme de la Creme. I’m much slower getting blurbs up on the list that come in after the due date (this year, it was December 19th). Sorry.

Bloglines seems to not be updating or finding a feed for Lost and Found (it may also be the case for this blog too, though I’ve only heard about in regards to Lost and Found). I’m not sure why it’s not working and I haven’t gotten a clear answer on what is wrong with the RSS feed or why it suddenly stopped working. I don’t have a great solution beyond the email sign-up (it’s on the right sidebar). It will send you a link to the current post every afternoon. But other than that, I’m not sure how to fix it because I’ve tried everything they’ve suggested.

Thank you for listening to my housekeeping items and my feelings. Perhaps I won’t need to bother Josh tonight.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I am completely stealing this from Julie from A Little Pregnant. She started (I think she started?) a new list called 15 Things about You (get it, instead of 25 Things about Me). Since it would be sort of impossible to click around and guess about blog readership, I’m using my Facebook group to compile my list of 15 things. If you want to join me on Facebook, make sure you include your blog name in your friend request since I won’t accept people I don’t know at all.

1. 5 of my Facebook friends have their name on my Ketubah (a Jewish marriage contract).

2. I always imagine one person on the list as a cigarette-smoking Barbie even though I now know what she looks like.

3. One friend lived in the same building in Sunderland, MA but we didn’t know each other back then.

4. I had a secret crush on one friend back when we were in school.

5. One friend is the greatest travel partner in the world. Er…I mean, after Josh.

6. One person on the list stole my ring when we were five years old.

7. I was with two people on the list the night A.W. lost her virginity in the next room.

8. When I was 8 years old, I ran through the wishing tree at camp (you were granted one wish by the wishing tree each summer). I wished that when I grew up, a certain boy at camp would kiss me. I took this photo after I told my friends about my wish. They all told me I was stupid and wasted my wish because that boy was never ever going to kiss me because he was so much older than we were.

I didn’t see him again for eight years and we didn’t keep in touch. One day, we ended up back in the same place at the same time and he kissed me while we were sitting on a rock in the river. He didn’t remember me, though I put together who he was about 3 minutes before he kissed me. I tell you this story now because he is a friend of mine on Facebook.

9. One person on the list made me a gorgeous ceramic pomegranate necklace.

10. One person on the list knows the nickname my husband had for me on his old blog.

11. 6 people on the list visited the twins when they were in the NICU. 5 of them are family.

12. 5 people on the list made me love Tina Turner.

13. One person on the list was on the cover of the Onion because I didn’t feel like having my picture taken that night and she was overseas and therefore couldn’t protest. The photo I chose of her was taken a few seconds after she fell through the cushions on our trick sofa. Our friend at the Onion needed a picture of an angry-looking girl.

14. One person on the list is the reason I went to BlogHer last summer.

15. One person on the list has a defunct blog that I miss greatly. Sometimes I click over even though I know she has stopped updating it. I hate it when blogs close.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

I didn’t think that I’d ever say this since the start of the relationship was so seeped in infatuation, but the addition of Facebook has been the straw that has broken the online camel’s back. There are now way too many spaces to communicate or read and in doing so, too many words slip through the cracks.

There’s email–I have three accounts–the normal one, one for family and a few friends, and one for volunteer work/listservs. There is Google Reader which can grow by 100 posts or more per day. If I take off a few days to do a big work project, I come back to several hundred unread posts. There have been times when I’ve had to declare bankruptcy and start from scratch. Oh and there are my own blogs–LFCA and here–that require upkeep. Not just posts, but updating the blogroll daily or pruning dead links.

There is Twitter–and I should warn that I rarely remember to look at the @replies so it is a terrible way to reach me–and now emails coming in through Facebook. I am a huge lover of Facebook, though I think I love it because I use it sparingly. I don’t see every status update. I tend to turn it on and off throughout the day so I catch whatever is on at the time and then I usually go around to a few profile pages to see what friends and family are up to over the course of the week. But please don’t count on me to have seen an update–I beg you to email it out if it’s important.

Oh, and then on top of this is the fact that I squeeze my computer usage into certain hours of the day. Too many places to check and too much information to read. I am going into overload.

Therefore, I am stating it here: the best way to reach me, communicate with me, get me to do something is to send it via email. Or, if you don’t need support from me but want it from the greater community, put in on the LFCA.

The item I love the post is the LFCA because even on days that I can’t get to Google Reader, I see a lot of stuff that is happening across the blogosphere as I put it together. Please send in your news–I’m sure I’m not the only one who uses it to play catch-up from time to time. Don’t wait for someone else to send it in; just fill out the form. Each day, there are a few cases where I’ll get the same news in triplicate. I just delete the two additional ones and post the news. Much better to receive it six times in one day than to not receive it at all. And if you want support, it’s there for the taking.

And, as a public service announcement, if you are reading it, please take the time to click through and leave a few comments. Choose a section that speaks to you in the moment and make a point to click on a few items and leave comments.

I think I balance email, blog reading, blog writing, and occasional Facebook/Twitter well. Trying to keep all open at once has been head-exploding. How do you balance your online time? Are there sites that have helped you organize the multitude of places where information is coming in?

Here is the master list for the seventeenth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. What is the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? It’s a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. We read both fiction and non-fiction.

Anyone can jump aboard–it’s a book club where you can drop in and out as you wish and all in the community are welcome.

Book: Never Let Me Go
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Start Date: January 21
Question Due: March 4
Question List Sent Out: March 6
Post Date: March 9
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours as well as information about future tours.)
Something New: the participants on this tour will choose the next book and will vote on it right before Thanksgiving.

About Never Let Me Go: It is impossible to describe the book without ruining the surprise and hopefully, you will not Google it or look up information before starting to read it because it is best if you go in knowing nothing, but in case you need a reason to read it, it has won a lot of awards and pretty much rocked my world.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (The blogs below are participating on this current book tour. On March 9, you’ll be able to jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Never Let Me Go. I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on March 4. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever…
The Road Less Travelled
An Unwanted Path
Baby Smiling in Back Seat
The Fertile Infertile
Mommy In Waiting
Aurelia Ann
Destined to be an Old Woman with No Regrets
Dittmer Digest
So It Goes

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on March 4.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you’re interested in participating. I need your blog name, blog url, and email address.

(2) read Never Let Me Go by March 4 (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a “yes” or “no” answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on March 4 (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(4) on March 6, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry.

(5) on March 9, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a linked list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour–by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

The February List is now closed. Check back in a few days to sign up for March’s IComLeavWe Week.

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: Current IComLeavWe List (this link was removed on the 21st of the month). I will move the information from the form into the post (usually within 24 hours).
• 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…). 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.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch out 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 (infertility, twins, books)
2. Baby Smiling In Back Seat (infertility, philosophy, pottery)
3. The Fertile Infertile (secondary infertility, parenting, crafts)
4. Musings of a Fat Chick (SMC, life, fertility treatments)
5. Portraits In Sepia (endometriosis, adoption, life)
6. Trying for a Baby (ttc, endometriosis, feelings)
7. Life and Times of Kimbosue (pregnancy, IUI, randomness)
8. LaRay’s Crazy World (parenting, life, weight loss)
9. There’s a Baby at the End of This, Right? (azoospermia, donor gametes, waiting)
10. Sticky Feet (secondary infertility, baking, giveaways)
11. A View On My Life (infertility, weight, randomness)
12. Birds and Squirrels (infertility, pcos, low morphology)
13. Adventures in Parenting (kids, parenting, marriage)
14. Rose’s Daughter (TTC#1 after miscarriage, new job,life)
15. To Baby and Beyond (infertility, miscarriage, PCOS)
16. Broken Bits (IVF/ICSI, PCOS, craziness)
17. Hello Jello (college, family, animals)
18. Bottoms Off and On the Table (IVF, ranting, sarcasm)
19. The Steadfast Warrior (TTC, miscarriage, life)
20. Faith, Hope & Poop? (parenting, books, life)
21. Not The Path I Chose (secondary IF, life, weight loss)
22. In Due Time (infertility, PCOS, life)
23. Trying to Make 3 (m/c, TTC, marriage)
24. Sell Crazy Someplace Else (male-factor, weight loss, life)
25. Bloggin…InStyle! (adoption, life, scrapbooking)
26. Life and Love in the Petri Dish (IVF#4, RPL, couples’ perspective)
27. Lifeslurper (infertility, IVF, ttc over 40)
28. The Not So Secret Life Of Us (infertility, RPL, emigration)
29. The Olsons (infertility, miscarriage, teaching)
30. MoJo Working (formerly NotSoFertile Myrtle) (infertility, marriage, faith)
31. Awake in the World (infertility, grief, body acceptance)
32. Mom to Twins Plus One (infertility, twins, crafts)
33. Maybe its Just Me… (marriage, PCOS, random)
34. Are We There Yet (ttc, MFI, healthy living)
35. No Yolk (SMC, TTC/IVF, loss)
36. Elana’s Musings (infertility/pregnancy, twins, randomness)
37. Being Infertile (infertility, living, cooking)
38. Heeeeere Storkey, Storkey! (twins, ttc, life)
39. All Grown Up (IVF #3, adoption, random)
40. A Fifth Season (infant loss, bereavement, reason/religion)
41. I Just Want to be a Mom (IUI #4, daily life w/a hubby and dog)
42. Eye Heart Internet (IUI, endmetriosis, expat)
43. Mommy In Waiting (infertility, adoption, faith)
44. Restoreth My Soul (PCOS, faith, TTC)
45. Unquestionable Love (injectables, acupuncture, weight/running)
46. Square One (PCOS, secondary IF, getting ready TTC#2)
47. Bella And Her Fella (DE/IVF, POF, thyroid cancer)
48. Making Me Mom (male factor, luteal phase defect, faith)
49. In Vitro Veritas (IVF, endo, stupid life)
50. Life In A Holding Pattern (miscarriage, pregnancy, our dog)
51. Child Bearing Hips (unexplained IF, IVF, parenting)
52. A Woman My Age (infertility, adoption, life)
53. My Pathway to Motherhood (SMC, TTC, life)
54. Mrs Spock (parenting, health care, infertility)
55. On The Road to Baby (infertility, PCOS, waiting to adopt)
56. Learning To Accept My Infertility (infertility, IVF, acceptance)
57. Bugaboo Envy (ivf, life in general, musings)
58. Thinking Positively (secondary infertility, endometriosis, adoption)
59. Production, Not Reproduction (open transracial adoption)
60. Project Kjetil (subfertility, ttc, two-mom parenting)
61. In Pursuit of Parenthood (infertility, faith, waiting)
62. Wheresmy2lines (depression, multiple IVF’s, varicocele)
63. May the Road Rise (IVF, unexplained infertility, family)
64. Overeducated Mommy (stillbirth, grief, life)
65. In Search of Biscuit 2.0 (secondary if, parenting, daily life)
66. The Long Journey (secondary infertility, weight loss and life)
67. That’s My Answer (fun, questions, life)
68. My Hope My Faith My Love (secondary infertility, pregnancy, toddlers)
69. Inconceivable?! (MFI, NOA, IVF and life)
70. Offmymind.but from my heart (adoption, parenting, ttc)
71. Life Induces Thoughts, Mostly Random (life, grief, random)
72. Be Still and Know (adoption, faith, endometriosis)
73. Schroedinger’s Zygote (general IF)
74. ISO the Golden Egg (SMC, donor FET, 2WW!)
75. What IF (male factor, endo, MESA/IVF/ICSI)
76. Along Life’s Little Journey (life, ivf, family)
77. Infertility Rocks! (infertility, IF treatment, humor)
78. Infertile Myrtle (infertility, endometriosis, suppression)
79. Here Is To Another Day (unexplained IF, books, random thoughts)
80. Equal Opportunity Hater (IVF, endometriosis, random sarcasm)
81. Building Heavenly Bridges (grieving, stillbirth, writing)
82. The Bear and The Comedian (parenting after loss, angel sisters, humor)
83. The Life of Liv (infertility, IUI, life)
84. BagMomma (secondary IF, donor egg, parenting)
85. Were You Looking for Me? (infertility, IVF, family)
86. Do Without Doing (waiting, IVF, work)
87. Trying For Two (PCOS, secondary IF, TTC#2)
88. A New Wheeler for the World? (PCOS, IUI, infertility)
89. Where is That Special Water (finally pregnant, fear, random)
90. Getting There (infertility, life, future)
91. …Might Just Be Enough (pregnancy, life, marriage)
92. Mom + Mom + Lilian = House of Pink (motherhood, depression, weight loss)
93. The Real Bean (child loss, IVF, daily sketches)
94. What Wuz I Saying? (kids, adoption, life)
95. Mustard Seed Baby (endo, faith, ivf)
96. Loving Thee… And More (co-parenting, children, randomness)
97. Hobbit-ish Thoughts and Ramblings (miscarraiges, life, cooking)
98. Baby Making Journey (azoospermia, waiting, infertility)
99. Isn’t TTC Supposed To Be Fun? (ttc, loss, infertility)
100. Strong Blonde (IVF/ICSI #2, PCOS)
101. Twice the Fun (but Half the Sleep) (twins, premature, infertility)
102. Oh Hey (news, celebrities, shopping)
103. My Adventures In Reality (secondary IF, military, homeschooling)
104. The Maniacal Mommy (infertility, pregnancy, musings)
105. Conceive This! (MFI, IVF/ICSI, sarcasm)
106. TandCookies (PCOS, marriage, teaching)
107. Seriously?!?! (pregnancy, daily life, sarcasm)
108. Life in the White House (donor sperm, random, pregnancy)
109. Finding Her Way: The Story of a Princess (marriage, insanity, ttc)
110. Communique (infertility, life, family)
111. Can You Imagine (miscarriage, TTC, life)
112. Little Bluebirds Fly (late loss, infertility, HELLP/pre-e)
113. Two Shorten the Road (preemie, infertility, life)
114. From Such Great Heights (pregnancy after long ttc, life decisions, family)
115. Yes, We’re One of Those Couples (azoospermia, ivf, uncertainty)
     

Q: What if I miss a day?
A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

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 pink, the next month it will be purple, 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).

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.