The end is nigh.

By which I really don’t mean the end, but Josh has pointed out that it sort of becomes impossible to hide the blog from people we know once the book comes out. I mean, picture-on-the-book + name-on-the-book + topic of infertility + blog name on the book = everyone-knowing-about-my-21-day-cycles-that-my-doctor-claims-is-“normal.”

I have mixed feelings about this. I mean, on one hand, it will feel good to merge my whole life together. There are a lot of friends and family that I assume know nothing about this space. Of course, they might be reading along right now and not saying anything. But going under the assumption that they don’t know, it will make it easier to speak in front of them.

For instance, I often want to discuss something I read with Josh and I have to always be mindful when I’m speaking in front of someone else and using a name like “Ms. Prufrock” (since I have a policy of only using a person’s online name even if I know their real name so that I don’t accidentally forget one day and use the incorrect name in a post). And a name like Ms. Prufrock stands out a bit. Just a bit. For some reason, it appears strange to people if you’re not on a first name basis and refer to others in your age group by their title. And stranger still if said last name is part of a T.S. Eliot poem.

So it will make speaking easier and it will make remembering who knows and who doesn’t know easier. But, at the same time, it will be a little bit like swimming topless (as an American). I remember the first time I swam topless. It felt great and was completely freeing. And at the same time, I worried incessantly that a barracuda would bite off one of my breasts and I would have to explain from that point on to all future partners: “well, the reason my left breast is missing is that I had this brilliant idea to go swim topless in the Caribbean Sea. I encountered a barracuda and the rest is…well…mammary history.”

Not that I believe people will begin gnawing off my breasts (“Oh dear! How awful–did you hear what happened to that blogger? People in her face-to-face world discovered her blog and they ate. off. her. boobs. Ate them clean off. Why? I’m not sure”), but it’s the same mixture of bliss and fear. Do I care if family members scroll back through the archives and read about my cervical mucous? Not really. I mean, I’m assuming most of them will vomit into their Cheerios and then quickly delete the site from their bookmarks.

It just creates this strange state of people knowing and not really knowing at the same time. It creates an imbalance. It creates an awkward Pesach seder where everyone is possibly thinking about my ovaries.

So let me just state this here in case you’ve found my blog for the first time but you’ve known me since I was a nubile young thing with squash blossoms:

• I don’t write about anyone else unless I’ve gotten their permission or they are a public figure. I can think of only one post where I have done otherwise and the subject of that post told so many people on their end that I have to assume they are okay with me writing about them.
• If we are in a situation together and I want to blog about it, I will obscure enough details about your identity (change the name, not put in anything that would make it obvious to someone who knows both of us) so that no one knows that you were the one who thought it would be a “good idea” to make an illegal left right in front of the police officer (I finally worked that into the blog! I told you I would, you-who-will-not-be-named).
• Anything you tell me is private remains private no matter how much I want to write out my emotions about it.
• I expect you to let me know at some point (not as a formal announcement but mentioning something that lets me know you’re reading) that you’re reading this space. If not, it’s sort of creepy. Actually, it’s very creepy.
• For the love of Jesus Christ, if I didn’t tell you something directly but you read it here, it is not appropriate for you to refer to it in a discussion/argument. A blog post records one moment in time. You know the world is much larger and complex than that. For every blog post, there are 1000 additional blog posts that should have been written as a follow-up afterwards as feelings change. But they’re not written and it isn’t helpful to make assumptions.

So now that I’ve put that out there, we should all be able to move forward like adults, nu?

That last question was directed at all face-to-face people who are now finding the blog because people sent around the book site link.

But to all the normal blog readers I ask: do you have a divide between those who know about your blog and those who don’t and how deep is that divide? Is your partner in the know? Are a few close friends and family in the know? Do you not work to hide it so you have no clue who knows and who doesn’t know? Are you open with everyone and anyone? For me, it’s a strange mix of those I’ve told, those who have surprisingly found my blog and told me, and those that I have actively kept the blog hidden from and those who have never been told because it simply never came up and didn’t feel important to do so. Oh, and those who are reading and I have no clue that they know every emotional up and down from my year.

And that is all I meant by the end is nigh.

Normally I’m not a fan of the PR-you-might-be-interested-in-this approach, but damn, I was interested in this (Anna, are you in my head?). Daniel Nester wrote a post this week called “Nobody Loves My $20,000 Baby” that ties directly into the brouhaha surrounding Alex Kuczynski’s article. First and foremost, you should read his blog post because it speaks to the commenters who range from spewing bile to leaving “helpful advice” in regards to infertility. Actually, it speaks to commenters AND the people who say things to your face.

It’s not that infertility is unique–it is just strange the division that moves through the medical world: this condition is respected; this one is not. This disease is considered a disease; this one is considered a choice. Nester writes:

My wife and I have been called selfish and narcissistic by adoption activists. Religious zealots have condemned us as immoral manipulators of God’s will. And prudes just don’t want to discuss where babies come from. Every time I mention our struggle to conceive a child in an Upper East Side Petri dish, I wander into a minefield of awkwardness, discomfort, and rage. I’m made to feel I’ve provided way more information than is socially acceptable.

It is entirely acceptable to critique an argument, critique a piece of writing, critique the way something was said. But a person in and of themselves? Alex Kuczynski was equated with Hitler on a Gawker comment (forgive me if I like to keep my Hitler comparisons to those who have organized a genocide). She was called “bitch” more times than I can count. The advice given was laughable–do people honestly believe that with 11 IVFs under her belt, she didn’t have time to think through her decisions and weigh her options?

Nester asks, “what is the protocol for talking about the IVF process?” Literally, I’m asking this here. What is the protocol for answering questions and speaking about your life when the response is critiqued so harshly? The person’s intelligence and ability to make decisions called into question?

When I wrote about the surrogacy article on BlogHer today, I was speaking more to the fact that this is the reason a culture of secrecy still exists. Was it a great article–frankly, no. It had some wonderful moments that really resonated with me. I really ached for her as I read it. But it was in desperate need of an edit because too many statements could be read in too many different ways to make it helpful. Her point wasn’t clear; her reason for including parts of the story unclear.

But I think more telling were the comments that came after the article. The posts about the article.

A commenter over on my post made the point that newspapers used to edit the responses as well–if you wanted to publicly discuss a piece, you wrote a Letter to the Editor and a few of the coherent ones were published. With an online medium, anyone can leave their thoughts. And they do–whether they advance an argument or make a point at all. If people had critiqued the article (and the photographs do not count as the article because they are two separate entities), I would be fine with anything written. But to critique her is ludicrous. We don’t know her. We haven’t walked in her shoes. We haven’t made her decisions even if we’ve chosen a similar path.

I have been wondering all week what Alex Kuczynski has been feeling.

Since I cannot get that (unless, Alex, you want to weigh in here so I can stop worrying?), I would love to hear your thoughts on Nester’s article.

Sung to the tune of “Do You Hear What I Hear”–just because this Jew is still grooving on the Christmas tunes. You may need to sing some of the lines a little fast to make it fit.

Said the writer to the bloggers who helped her work on the book
Do you see what I see?
Just down this post a bit, blog readers,
Do you see what I see?
A cover, a cover, for the front of the book
It is worth a good long look
It is worth a good long look

Um…you’ll need to click on the image to enlarge it and take a closer look in order to fully appreciate the cover.

I have also set up a website specifically for the book–called The Land of If–where I can upload information and there is even a place to purchase it, hint hint. I’ll place a link to it in the header navigation bar.

On that hint, hint–um…you know…you could purchase the book ahead of time. I mean, if you were going to buy it anyway. I’m not sure how presales work at all, but wouldn’t it be cool if the book sold out before it even hit the shelves? It would probably make people realize that infertility is more wide-spread than they think (or that I have a small book run?).

So that’s the cover and that’s the book site. And now I can go back to dancing under the mistletoe and waiting for someone to kiss me.

Welcome to the fifteenth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is 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.

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: Harriet the Spy
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
Start Date: October 29
Post Dates: December 3
(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.)

About Harriet the Spy: A return to your childhood–Harriet records her thoughts on everything that crosses her path–from her classmates to musings about her parent’s marriage. Harriet was a blogger before blogging even existed.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (The blogs below are participating on this current book tour. Each day, you’ll be able to jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Harriet the Spy.)

Stirrup Queens (below this post–scroll down)
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever…
Clumsy Kisses
Our Own Creation
Aurelia Ann
The Road Less Travelled
Working on It
Journeywoman
Here We Go Again (seriously, the woman posted during labour)
The Fertile Infertile
Baby Smiling in Back Seat
All Things Deb
Baby, Borneo, or Bust

Even if haven’t read Harriet the Spy, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The current group chooses the next book. The 16th tour will be Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. From Bookmarks:

In Elizabeth McCracken’s heartrending memoir—a love letter to the child she lost and the devoted husband who suffered alongside her—McCracken displays her many talents. Her warmth, candor, crystalline prose, lovely imagery, and attention to detail bring her painful story to life. McCracken’s dark sense of humor ensnares unwitting readers, belying the sadness with which she writes, and she shows very little patience for self-pity and sentimentality. Critics praised her clear-eyed account in a genre replete with syrupy, self-aggrandizing books, though some expressed doubts that its subject matter would have wide appeal. “I’m not ready for my first child to fade into history,” explains McCracken. With this heartbreaking account of his life, there’s little chance of that.

The author was recently interviewed by Tash at Glow in the Woods.

The Details: Tour #16 will start December 4. Participants will read An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. On or before January 14th, everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to me. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you by January 16th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on January 20th. I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #16, leave a comment below or send me an email. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. The participants on the Elizabeth McCracken book tour will choose the book for tour # 17. Happy reading.

Oh for the love of sweet Jesus, it was good to sit with Harriet again for a while. Returning to this book was like Harriet receiving the letter from Ole Golly–the right words at the right time. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until we were sitting on the sofa together, going through her spy route, and I remembered how much I loved Harriet as a child. It’s funny because as a child, I definitely related to Harriet and as an adult, I felt more aligned with the author, Louise Fitzhugh. Though, at the end of the day, they are most likely one and the same.

There is a terrible ache that comes from knowing an author is gone and with her goes her creation. I wonder how Harriet would have grown with technology–if she would have been a blogger later in life. I wonder where Fitzhugh would have gone with her writing. She has always been someone–for me–as interesting as Harriet. Familiar and unique at the same time.

This book always makes me want to cry a bit.

Ole Golly tells Harriet, “Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.” Are we always truthful with ourselves? Should we be? Is it ok to sometimes lie to others and why shouldn’t we lie to ourselves? These two sentences have a tremendous impact on Harriet. How do you feel about them as an adult? If you can remember, how would you have felt hearing them as a child Harriet’s age?

It’s hard to be truthful with yourself because I think truth changes as emotions are dissected and new information is gained. The truth literally can change from moment to moment, therefore, it’s hard to pinpoint the lies we tell ourselves. I am speaking more about the important truths vs. the truths and lies that don’t really matter overall.

At the same time, having people be truthful with me is of utmost importance. Lies are just something I don’t do–I have no patience with lies.

But this is where I separate the lies into two categories–the ones that affect me and the ones that don’t. Someone can lie to me–tell me that they think I’m a great writer when they actually think I’m dreck just to save my feelings–and when I weigh it out, it doesn’t really matter what they tell me. I’m not going to change my world based on their words. There are bloggers who go under a fake name who then tell me their real name and it doesn’t affect my level of trust. In the end, knowing the “correct” name is meaningless.

But the lies that then lead to decisions–if, for instance, the ChickieNob one day lied about her whereabouts and I made future decisions based on the fact that I thought she was responsible–those are the ones that make me lose all trust for the person. So, yes, I think we always need to be true when our words may lead to someone making choices based on what they believe to be true.

After her visit to Dr. Wagner, Harriet’s mother takes away her new notebook immediately, and Harriet is described as feeling empty on the ride back home. Many people, especially bloggers, seem to use writing as an outlet. What would you do if someone took this outlet away from you during a time of difficulty? How would you cope if you had no notebook?

A very dear friend of mine wrote me recently and said that she was going to cut back on blogging. It wasn’t what she necessarily wanted to do, but what she thought she should do for a number of reasons. And I have to admit that my first thought upon reading it was, “but she is taking away her outlet at a time when she needs it the most.”

It is interesting how this thing I never knew I needed has now become indispensable. It’s not that I need to read and write every day, but I need to know that the space exists. I literally think of my blog as this physical space, this squashy, cushiony, 70s basement-like space with beanbag chairs on the figurative floor. It is a hang-out, a place I can mentally jump to when I am embroiled in a conversation I do not want to be having. It is uncomplicated. It is within my control. If I want the sidebar to be blue, I keep it blue. If I want it green, with one click it is suddenly green. It is like Harriet’s bedroom–organized just the way I like it.

There are times when I need to step away from the space for a bit, but it is always my choice; my need. I’m not sure how I would feel if it was someone else’s choice–if Josh, for instance, asked me to stop writing. I think I would feel a true anguish–like an astronaut untethered and floating through space whispering the words, “what have I done?” Dramatic, of course, but that is how grounded I feel by this community.

When you read it, do you read it as an adult reading a child’s book or do you forget that you’re grown-up and think of it in the part of your mind that is still 12?

It’s a strange place where I have the emotions of a 12-year-old and the rationality of an adult. I was literally transported back to how I felt as a child–and how I felt reading the book the first time. But at the same time, I was also dealing with nostalgia–remembering where I was the first time I read the lines. Therefore, I was fully cognizant of the fact that I was reading it at a different age, and still felt the same level of sadness over navigating those childhood friendships. I would not want to be a kid again.

Jump along to other blogs discussing Harriet the Spy by scrolling up to the post above this one. Join along for our next book: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken.