Augusten Says You Must Go Buy This Book

If you read this blog you know two things about me:

1) I am obsessed with Augusten Burroughs--I love him, his writing, think he's redonk smart and funny and he just rocks. He is living proof of the "if you want something badly enough and believe it will happen theory." My favorite quote of his: "When I was 34, I decided to stop being an alcoholic and become a New York Times best-selling author."

And just like that, he did.

And,

2) I'm all about recommending--and even reviewing--books I have yet to read.

At any rate, I was reading his blog just now and he was raving about his good friend, Haven Kimmel (lucky girl!!) and praising her upcoming book, Iodine. He says she's hilarious and a brilliant writer, and naturally he's one to know. I we should all take his advice and read this book when it comes out, and in the meantime, read the other books she's written.

If you decide not to heed this advice, fear not: I will read them all and you know you'll be reading about it here. And I promise to actually read them.

The F Word

I'm laughing because I submitted an article to ezine and got the following email response:

Thank you for your submission to EzineArticles.com.

We would like to help you get this article approved but there is an issue which needs to be resolved first.

Your article is in violation of our Editorial Guidelines, Section 1.g.

We do not accept articles that contain excessive or unnecessary profanity. Please edit your article, removing all profanity, and resubmit for Editorial Review.

Yikes--I must have become so jaded about my language that I didn't even realize I had submitted an article containing "excessive profanity." I went to edit it and, after reading through it, couldn't find so much as one bad word. Thinking I was missing it, I read it again--and again. I did say "hell"--was that what they were talking about?

No, there it was--the last line where I said "...let the "f" word fly." I didn't say "fuck;" I said "the "f" word." Apparently "f" by itself is considered--by EZine's lofty editors--to be a bad word.

Fuck that shit.

Guess What?!











Ok, sike--April Fools! I don't want to give my mother (or Patrick!)heart failure.

I'm so busy laughing at my own cleverness that I'm just going to repurpose my post from my other blog today in case you actually want to read something.

Sexy Superlatives

So I'm eating lunch and reading Us magazine and, two pages after an article about Sarah Jessia Parker's reaction to being dubbed "Unsexiest Woman Alive" by Maxim magazine (totally unjustified--or at least I hope so, because more than a few people have told me I look like her) is a poll asking readers who they'd rather date, Domenico from That's Amore or this hot British bloke, Matt, the new Bachelor from Britain.

Is this a joke?

In case you have no idea what That's Amore is, I'm ashamed to say that I watched it (only once!) and honestly thought it was a parody of a show where girls vie for the attention of some hot guy. The dude the girls on That's Amore are fighting for is one Domenico Nesci, and he looks like a flabby version of that guy who sometimes plays a monkey on SNL.

Take a look for yourself:



You've got to be fucking kidding me. Where do I even start? Ok, well since we're talking about a guy who is presumably heterosexual, what's up with the Italian pride booty shorts? In case you're thinking maybe he's actually not hetero because of the shorts, think again: no gay guy would wear black socks with whatever you want to call that garment--bathing suit, shorts?

Apparently either I'm stupid or the women of America are wearing beer goggles because this guy has all kinds of fans. I guess the guy's allure is that he's supposedly a) good looking, b) exotic because he's Italian and c) presumably rich? Or did I just make up c) and that's not even a premise of the show?

Back to poor Sarah Jessica for a minute; here's what Maxim magazine said about her when they voted her "Unsexiest Woman Alive":

"How the hell did this Barbaro-faced broad manage to be the least sexy woman in a group of very unsexy women and still star on a show with 'sex' in the title? Pull your skirt down, Secretariat, we´d rather ride Chris Noth."

So let me get this straight: Sarah Jessica Parker=unsexy; Domenico Nesci=sexy?

WTF?

Do you think that if I spend enough time writing about blogger success stories the universe will just see fit to turn me into one?

Dooce® (are you impressed I know how to produce that little "R" in html?) is more fodder for my just do it even if you don't know why you're doing it and eventually it will pay off theory.

In case you are not already aware of what Dooce is, it's the blog of Heather Armstrong, notable apparently because writing it at work apparently caused her to lose her job and she managed to turn that frown upside down and transition from, in her words "making a lot of money as a web designer" to being able to support herself writing about the details of her daily life. Now her website--through advertising revenue as far as I can tell, plus I think some products--brings in enough money to support her family and enable her husband to be a stay-home dad.

Oh, and of course she got a book deal out of it, resulting in "Things I Learned About My Dad: Humorous and Heartfelt Essays, edited by the creator of www.dooce.com." That's a new level of FIO publishing/fame that I hadn't previously considered: Editor. As in, get other people to write it then get your name on the cover and most of the royalties. A+ Heather Armstrong--you go girl!

Check it Out

I haven't really been keeping up with the other blog I started a month or so ago--Mizz Information--but the other day I wrote something and figured I'd post it there instead of here. I had just figured out how to do trackbacks and tracked back to a post on Webinknow, David Meerman Scott's blog. It was the first time I used trackback--fyi, Blogger doesn't support trackbacks so I had to figure out another way to do it (hey, I can write about that in the other blog!).

Long story short is David Meerman Scott read my post and said it was an excellent post.

How psyched am I?

Put That Cash Away!

Last week I wrote about the Visa campaign suggesting that people who pay with cash or checks bring business to a screeching halt. My personal take on the spot is that the point isn't to promote use of the card in the check card sense, but in the credit card sense. Yes, it's called a Visa check card, but come on--everyone knows Visa is a credit card. Using the card as a check card is the same as using it as an ATM card--and incurring the same fees you're charged if you use your ATM card at a machine other than your bank's.

I think the commercial is absurd and advocates the "charge it!" mentality that's leading many Americans to the poorhouse. Incidentally, there was an article yesterday's Washington Post talking about this same mentality and the resulting consumer debt--$2.52 trillion!

Anyway, today in MarketingProfs Daily Fix, one of the many marketing newsletters I subscribe to, there was an article talking about that same Visa commercial. The author, Jeanne Bliss, had a very different take on it than I did--namely, that the ad is all about speed and efficiency with no mention of the fact that many people use it as a credit card, not a check card.

Happy Easter!

F*ing It Off, Huffington Post Style

Forget blogging your way into a job or a book deal--now you don't even have to be a blogger to gain respect and renown. The Huffington Post has a system that allows top commentors to become featured bloggers on the site.

Basically all you have to do is comment on someone ELSE'S blog, then you in turn will become a respected blogger, right up there with the likes of Barack Obama, Bill Maher and, well, Candy Spelling.

By the way, I love the term "opinion journalist", as used by Arianna Huffington in the above article about the commenter-to-blogger system. "Journalist" used to mean a skilled professional who went to school for a long time and worked his/her way up the intellectual publishing ladder; now you can become an "Opinion Journalist" by just writing whatever you want to about whatever you want-- no research, fact checking or advanced degree necessary.

And the beauty is that, if what I read more and more frequently (yet don't have to cite specifically where because I'm an opinion journalist) is true, 10 years from now traditional media will be extinct and f-it off journalism--I mean opinion journalism--will reign.

Letter-writing advice from an 11 year old

Last night I was at Rite Aid with Mimi, searching for my favorite Easter candy: Cadbury caramel eggs. You can only get them at Easter so you have to stockpile them so you can have enough to last until next year's Easter candy hits stores.

While I was searching in vain for the caramel eggs--NOT to be confused with the gross cream eggs--Mimi was talking about something which I admittedly wasn't listening very closely to. Then I heard her say "Shining pillar of urgency." What? What the hell is a shining pillar of urgency?

She backtracked and told me how a kid in her class (who, let's just say, is not a native English-speaker) was writing something explaining how to write an effective letter? I didn't really understand the point or what exactly the kid had been writing, but the upshot is that this kid's advice for writing an effective letter boiled down to this: if you use the word "administration" in a letter, it turns the letter into a "shining pillar of urgency."

I'm not sure what this kid was trying to say--who knows what "shining pillar of urgency" lost in the translation from Chinese to English--all I know is that I'm now obsessed with the phrase. The only thing that comes to mind when I think "shining pillar of urgency" is that it sounds sort of X-rated.

Speaking of X-rated, while I searched the cold medicine aisle for a cold pill small enough for Mimi to swallow, she had wandered to the "family planning" aisle. When I walked up to her she ticked off the names of various types of lube and vibrating condoms, and asked why they came in flavors. She then proceeded to pick up every bottle and ask me "what flavor is this?" "how about this one?" Who knows what the appropriate response to those questions is--I just went with "I don't know."

Luck O' The Irish

How did I spend my first St. Patrick's day as a bonafide Mc? In the freakin' ER with what I assume was a ruptured ovarian cyst. I say "assume" because even though I spent over 5 hours there, all they did was take bloodwork--not so much as pass an ultrasound wand over my abdomen.

The best part was that my discharge instructions--given to me by the nurse because an actual doctor couldn't be bothered to come speak to me or examine me--say that if I experience sharp, shooting pain and shakiness to immediately go to the ER. Um, isn't that what I already did and they didn't do anything for it the first time?

So no green beer at the McGary house last night--although I don't drink beer anyway so I guess it wouldn't have mattered.

And can I just say that it boggles my mind to have a husband who leaves work to come to the ER just to sit with me for 5+ hours? Contrast this with my former life--for instance when I was in labor with Mimi. Let's just say that Patrick wouldn't have been sleeping in the recliner the whole time without so much as a "hey, how you doing over there giving birth to my child?"

Why Americans Are Fat And Broke

If martians landed today and wanted a 2-minute synopsis of American culture, all they'd have to do is watch this commercial:



and familiarize themselves with the concept of Taco Bell's "Fourth Meal"--"the meal that's served between dinner and breakfast."

To sum it up: Americans are greedy and fat....and apparently stupid because we aren't particularly alarmed about either of those facts.

According to this website, the average American household carries almost $8,500 in credit card debt. We need big houses, big cars, big everything--and have discovered that we can have these things even if we don't earn enough to pay for them. As long as we can have them we don't care what it costs--witness the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis and the fact that during the twelve month period ending June 2006, there were 1.5 million consumer bankruptcy filings.

Alarming, right? One would think so, but Visa knows better--they know that people are in debt specifically because they buy into the message that credit is good and cash is bad. You pay with a credit card and everything is a breeze--no thought to the bill that will arrive at the end of the month. As for the moron who insists on paying cash--he's holding up the line and keeping the next guy from his immediate gratification--what the hell is he thinking? He better get with the program.

And why stop at material goods when it comes to excess? We don't, which is why, according to the American National Center for Health statistics, about 63% of Americans are overweight and that number continues to rise every year. We constantly hear about the "Obesity epidemic" in the US and what we need to do to combat it--then we head over to Taco Bell for fourth meal. Same concept as the money thing--why stop at 3 meals when you can have a fourth?

Once you get to Taco Bell you get to merge the best of these two worlds: you get to pay for your $3 fourth meal with a credit card--no cash necessary!

That's what I call American ingenuity.

Want to Help a Girl Out?

I am still boss-less at work--actually, that's not really true--I do have an interim boss who is very cool and some projects I'm working on. However, contrary to the "team" environments I've always worked in (definitely not without their own pitfalls) this job is basically me and my two computers and not a lot else as far as interaction. Yes, weekly staff meetings or "team building" exercises are tedious but at the very least they make it feel like you're interacting with a group and getting some validation that your contribution matters. As hokey as the "team" concept is, when you're in a team-free job you kind of miss feeling like part of something. Or at least I do; I'm sure others would envy me sitting here in utter silence all day, every day with just my 24" Mac (and other, inferior, computer which does not bear mentioning) to keep me company.

Yes, I socialize a little but as far as feeling like I actually work for a company with any structure--forget it. Maybe it's my need for validation--in every other job I've ever had I got a ton of ego-stroking and acknowledgement for the fact that I am not a moron and actually want to do a good job. Not that people tell me I suck here or anything--it's just that I barely interact with anyone so no matter how much of a kiss-ass I could try to be, there is no ass to kiss. Bottom line is I either need to get over it and enjoy my government mentality do nothing and accept this paycheck just because you show up to work every day job, or decide that I can't roll like that and get another job.

I've decided, at least for now, that I'm a fool to consider leaving I Do Next To Nothing And Get Paid For It, Inc. so I use the time not occupied by actually interacting with coworkers to act as if I'm in a job that actually engages me. Which basically means reading dozens of newsletters, articles, blogs, etc every day to the extent that I'm well on my way to earning a bootleg degree in online communications and marketing. That and trying to publish articles in whatever format possible so I can amass a resume that resembles that of someone who actually knows what they're talking about and gets paid accordingly.

Anyway....LONG intro short--can you go to this website and give me a "thumbs up"? If I get a high enough ranking I might get to become a "Rafter." Still not exactly sure what that means, but it still seems like a worthy enough endeavor.

So help me put my viral marketing knowledge to work and tell all your friends to go vote for me to prove that word-of-mouth is actually a viable marketing tool!

Read This Blog Via Email

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Engrish of the Day

A combination of Engrish and the f word I've been abusing lately.

These Are My Kind of Rules

David Meerman Scott--a "Thought Leadership and Virtual Marketing Strategist"--has a great blog, even if you're not really interested in viral marketing and social media.

Go read this post then come back and resume reading here.

Hell yes this person is me! Minus, of course, the actual Marketing or PR background. But isn't what he's saying that it doesn't matter because in the age of social media the only thing that's required to succeed are an internet connection and a desire to learn?

The Rise of Collective Intelligence

Ok, at first glance this might seem like a very academic subject for me to be addressing after my two last posts centering around the "f" word, but actually it is just another take on the FIO philosophy (see my March 4 post and do the math to learn what FIO means).

My previous entries have talked about how FIO means, essentially, just doing something out of blind faith that you will succeed and waiting for success to come find you. The theory of collective intelligence seems to be the Mac Daddy of FIO-ism. Collective intelligence is the intersection of the FIO's out there, in some way devoting time, thought and/or energy to topics they are interested/talented in and companies then using their expertise to effortlessly profit.

This report gives some perfect examples of what I mean. Read the Lego example on page 18. Lego holds an annual contest to get ideas for new pieces. The winner receives not only the satisfaction of knowing that they--a total layperson far from being a trained Lego-maker--designed this great piece, but 5% of the sales of the piece as well. And the company, the article states, effortlessly enjoyed a 10% decrease in design and labor costs and a 10% increase in revenue. I'd say that's a win-win situation, wouldn't you?

An even better example is YouTube. Two 20-somethings basically set it up and let people populate it with their videos--then sell it to Google for $1.65 billion. Then, on the flip side, is my current FIO poster child--an amateur video producer makes a iPod fan video, uploads it to YouTube, where an Apple ad exec just HAPPENS to see it. The exec personally calls the dude who made it and asks if he'd like his video to be featured during the World Series. I mean, come on--how can you read that and deny that there is definite truth to FIO?

Funny Women

The other day I wrote about an article that proclaimed that women are not, as a rule, funny. When I wrote it I was at work and, apparently, brain dead because I wrote that I didn't really know any funny women. When I was driving home from work I was like wtf, of course I know funny women! My sister, my ex-best friend who never talked to me again once I was divorced (but who was, nonetheless, funny), and of course, my friend Temperance.

I totally don't mean this in a racist way but I realize it could be construed that way--so hopefully nobody will construe it that way. That said, I'm sorry but Temperance (who is black) is funny in a way that no white girl can touch. She is so smart and down to earth and just funny. She doesn't do like white girls--talk about people behind their backs but never have the courage to say how we feel right to their faces; if she has a problem with something or sees something a certain way she just tells it like it is to your face. In that same vein, she doesn't mince words or try to say things in a way that doesn't offend people like white girls who go to great lengths to have everyone like us and think only good things of us do.

For instance, I have never had a white friend answer, when asked "What are you doing this weekend?": "Hopefully, fucking," as Temperance once did.

But I digress....my apologies if you read that day's post and thought "What? She knows me and I'm funny!"

Blogs That Launch Careers
(Warning: if you are offended by the "f" word then you might want to stop right here)

If you read this blog you know that I'm all about the concept of passive success--in other, more blunt words, fuck it off style success. "Fuck it off" is a term coined by my friend Temperance, as in "Don't fuck it off"--interpreted by me as don't be lazy. Once I'd heard the term I realized that, in fact, fucking it off was not necessarily a bad thing--I like to think of it as more of a positive term meaning "efficient" or "effortless." Not stressing over something or making excuses but just doing it.

Patrick and I often talk about the books I could write about all aspects of fucking it off--the fuck it off diet (in which I would detail the easiest, most accessible low fat or low calorie foods, such as can be found at any fast food establishment), the fuck it off workout (in which I would lay out entire exercise plans that can be done while you're sitting either in the car or in your chair at work, or just during the course of any given day--no trips to the gym or sweat necessary), decorating (as my sister Cassie and I practiced to create her beautiful new dining room)--you name it and I'm sure I could spin the fuck it off adaptation of it. Aren't I, in fact, living proof that it works?

At any rate, I read an interesting blog about blogs that launch careers. While none of the success stories can really be seen as fuck it off success stories, they actually sort of can be if you substitute "write it and they will come" for "fuck it off." In this context I think the two terms are pretty much interchangeable, as in these people were blogging simply because they liked to write and--poof--instant success. Ok, maybe not really--but then again, maybe.

Advice from the Millennials

Lately I've been reading a great blog--Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist. She is off the hook successful--wrote a book, launched three start ups, is a columnist at Boston Globe, and her syndicated column runs in more than 200 publications worldwide. Just like me, right?

At any rate, she just launched a new site www.brazencareerist.com which features 50 Generation Y bloggers. Generation Y, by the way, is defined by Wikipedia as children born between 1980–1995. I, born in 1968, am obviously not a Gen Y-er; however, I find Trunk's blogs to be very relevant to my professional and personal experience. At a quick glance, the bloggers on her new site seem a lot younger than I am--but a lot more professionally accomplished--and all seem to have a lot of drive and entrepreneurial spirit, but on their own terms.

Again the operative term being "quick glance", I read the bios and blogs of a handful of her bloggers (50 at this time) and each of them seem like super go-getters--enthusiastic, smart and idealistic. Maybe "idealistic" isn't the right word because they all seem to be pretty successful in shaping things the way they want them to be as far as careers go. It's a little funny to me, though, in an admittedly superior way, to see 20-somethings--some not yet out of college or grad school--writing like they've been around the block 1,000 times and are back to report on the way things really are. But then again, who am I to say that--many of them HAVE, in their short time in the job market, accomplished a lot more than us rule-following Gen X-ers.

Case in point: last week's OnBalance guest blog. That blog alone pretty much defines the difference between Gen Y-ers and the 40+ set: namely, the bitter "don't bother dreaming about a job you'll love because it will never pay the bills" attitude. Reading that blog last week made me shudder--reading post after post about how you're doing your kid a disservice by so much as allowing them to major in anything other than business or pre-law because in the "real world" you can only cling to solvency by going into soul-sucking, 60 hour a week+ professions like law or accounting. Teacher--forget it--you'll never be able to pay the bills. Musician, artist--you name it--if a job involves any measure of enjoyment then forget it--you'll never be able to pay the mortgage and your life will end. Seriously--go read the comments and tell me that I'm misinterpreting this attitude.

At any rate, I'll be interested to see how much of these millennials' (another term for Generation Y-ers) advice is applicable to this baby buster (again, thanks Wikipedia for expanding my vocabulary).

Why Women Aren't Funny

Aren't you starting to hope I get a new boss soon so I won't keep posting stuff in here?

I am scratching my head over this one: an article in Vanity Fair claiming that only men are funny. Um, which men are they talking about? Surely only professional comedians and/or actors and not everyday men in ordinary life. With very few exceptions--Patrick being one--I have to say that off the top of my head I am pressed to think of so much as one real-life guy who's funny. I'm just talking about in my home in the burbs-- to work in the burbs-- and back to the burbs daily life. Maybe I'm just mentally flat lining from sitting here in silence all day but I can't for the life of me think of any particularly funny guys--let alone guy--in my 250+ person office. Yes, I know some funny guys--have known some hilarious ones--but have known equally many funny girls.

Actually, as I write that I have to say that maybe the article is right--because if I sit here now and try to think of how many super-funny girls I've ever known I can't say I can think of many. I'm still talking know as in encounter in daily life, not see on TV or read or whatever.

Wow--that's depressing--I never thought about it but maybe the author has a point. Now I get to sit here for the rest of my day and do like that character in Hannah and Her Sisters--the one who would sit inside her head when she was having sex, classifying everyone she knew as some type of animal....or something like that--and go through every person I know or have ever known and decide if they were funny or not funny. As if I needed yet another distraction.

Boss-Free

I'm enjoying my first (and probably last, now that I jinxed it by talking about it) day at work without a boss. My old boss left Friday and nobody has really mentioned who my new one will be so I'm just sort of laying low in hopes of them forgetting about me entirely.Except on payday, of course.

I feel sort of like George in that episode of Seinfeld where he goes to that empty office every day, takes his coat off, sits down at the desk and stays there until 5 pm, at which time he puts his coat on and leaves. Granted, I do have work to do right now and probably for the forseable future, but what would happen if I just didn't do it? Who would people complain to?

Anyway, I have been impressing myself with new html tricks such as making a button:



We are in the process of re-designing that page, which is why I get to spend my day learning nifty stuff like that.

Anyway, I am already the queen of muti-tasking, especially on the computer. At any given time I will have a million windows open--writing something, reading articles, blogs, seeing what the Today's Special Value is (until they blocked QVC at work, sadly), etc. Add to that the fact that I have two computers side by side here at work--a PC and a Mac with a 24" screen. My computer multi-tasking skills are crazy now--soon I'll be able to type with two hands at once, one on each keyboard.

At any rate, I hadn't checked Augusten's website in a while so I went to check it out and found out HE IS COMING TO DC ON MAY 20th!!!! Good thing it's not the 19th because that's Mimi's birthday and I'd have to be sent to the mother's hall of shame for missing her birthday. I strongly advise you to go to his website and read his Details columns (8th link down in the bottom right hand corner of the page). Hilarious!

Well, better get back to the boss-less job.

Forever Young and Beautiful....Or Else

I meant to write about this a long time ago but meaning to write something and finding the time to actually write it are, of course, not always compatible with each other.

Anyway, about a month ago my mom mentioned that her friend's friend had passed away and her obituary was in the Washington Post. This was a woman my mom had periodically mentioned for years--always in the context of how gorgeous she was.

So I check out her obituary and was half amused/half freaked out how the whole thing seemed to sum up her life's accomplishment as...being gorgeous. I mean, this is DC, a town where it's more about being smart or accomplished or successful than it is about how you look. I mean, of course you have to be thin and attractive and young-looking--but just to look the part of the yuppie you are. I could maybe see an obituary like this in LA or something, but I'd never seen the Washington Post run an obituary basically gushing on how beautiful a woman was. I wasn't aware that DC was the kind of city that had "it" girls. But what do I know--I live in Olney.

As off putting as an entire obituary centered primarily on how gorgeous and glamorous a regular person/non-celebrity was, one thing was even more freaky: she apparently had never revealed her age to anyone, including her husband.

Um, what? I sincerely hope the man was just playing dumb and honoring his wife's memory by not revealing that he'd known all along, but his quote sounded pretty convincing. Why would he lie about something like that? I had to smirk that despite the fact that the author gushed on and on about how wonderful and noble this woman was, he didn't hesitate to disrespect her life's goal of keeping her age a secret. If I'd gone to such great pains to hide my age my entire adult life I would hope that I could at least go down as having been "eternally young and dynamic."

At any rate, just a week or so before that I had read a blog about "botoxing your resume" that talked about how looking young and attractive are apparently vital to a professional woman's continued success in the work world. I mean, which is it--are we supposed to be teaching our daughters that looks don't matter and that what counts is what's "on the inside," or are we supposed to be telling them that actually, looks do matter and they better keep those fingers firmly plunged down their throats and start saving for the plastic surgery they'll need to augment their resumes? I can't keep up.

Apparently, what we're supposed to do is teach them that looks don't matter, grades and personality and sports skills do--while we navigate the dangers of looking our age and do what's necessary to stay young and beautiful at any cost. After all, according to Charla Krupp, author of How Not to Look Old “Looking hip is not just about vanity anymore, it’s critical to every woman’s personal and financial survival.”

Does this mean that I can write off my Botox as a business-related expense?

Spanish for Nannies

LMAO--this is hilarious.



And--sidebar (as my friend Temperance says): my ex mother-in-law did once actually check her housekeeper's bag to see if she was stealing. I'm not even kidding. Luckily her housekeeper was just black, not Spanish, so she could humiliate her in English.

New Blog

Last night Patrick mentioned that he needed to start learning how to increase traffic to his company's website. Search engine optimization is what it's called, I told him. How do I know this? Because half of what I do at work is either read marketing newsletters or research stuff related to websites--either creating them, using them or promoting them.

Anyway, I told him I'd look through my email inbox because I know I've gotten lots of articles about SEO. This morning I started thinking about it and realized how much information I've come across during the past year as I've basically had to teach myself all things web-related. One thing I'm particularly big on is researching a topic that I think is important to our website or business, with the intention of passing on the information and having someone realize I'm not just pulling stuff out of my a$$ and that I actually come up with some good ideas that make good business sense. Naturally, though, almost all of my research/ideas fall on deaf ears because the reality of the business world--or at least mine--seems to be that unless you're in a position of authority, no matter how good your ideas are, you can pretty much forget about implementing them.

At any rate, it dawned on me that it's a shame most of the information I come across goes no further than being filed away as mental notes about how something could or should be done. Much of my time seems to be spent obtaining a bunch of information about a given topic--why not write my own articles about it? While blogging about my feelings about this or that is fun, it's not exactly profitable; commercial writing, however, is a different story.

I then set up a new blog--Mizz Information (was supposed to have been Miss Information, but that was already taken...you can read about why over there)--where I'll be writing about stuff related to marketing, web stuff, and other business-related topics.

Wanna Play? Not!

I’ve written before about the readers/commenters on The Washington Post’s On Balance blog and how nasty they are. Yesterday's post—written by the resident stay-home dad guest blogger-- was about the value of mom or dad only playgroups. While nobody flogged the author about how stupid or small-minded he was--he was actually referring to ANOTHER article about the same topic and the nasty comments were directed at that person--I marveled once again at how self-righteous and same-minded the posters there are.

Day in and day out, regardless of the topic, the regular posters pounce on whatever idea the author touches on, ripping the author for his or her opinions on the matter at hand or writing style or whatever it is they can find to take issue with. It's like (or not "like"--they actually do) they sit at their computers, fingers drumming impatiently, until the day's post goes up at approximately 7 am and immediately commence the rip-fest with the ever-triumphant "First!" post. Bonus points if they can find something to make a personal dig at Leslie about--the names of her kids, the misuse of a word, a way in which someone perceives that she's contradicted herself, her looks--anything. Ditto any other author--the topic is stupid, the person can't write, Leslie is stupid for featuring this or that particular guest blogger, etc, etc.

Anyway, the thing that most cracks me up about the regular posters is what back-patters they all are--to hear them tell it their lives are all perfect: their marriages, their parenting styles, their kids, their jobs, their beliefs...they all act like they've got the whole thing figured out and anyone who thinks or does anything differently is a moron. One of my greatest satisfactions in life is knowing from personal experience that most people have whole Oprah-esque facets of their lives that nobody would ever guess just looking at them--and I'm sure the OnBalance regulars are no exception. I'm sure that more than a few honestly think their lives are perfect when, in fact, their husbands are cheating on them or they personally have some fatal flaw or whatever. I have no basis for saying this other than that it seems to me that almost everywhere I look this is the case--everyone seems to have some dirty secret--so the chances that the OnBalance crowd are among this flawed population are pretty strong.

Yesterday's post was particularly amusing because everyone was, as usual, so adamant that there could never be any impropriety between moms and dads in a playgroup scenario. Everyone, most of them assert, knows that there's absolutely nothing wrong with stay-home dads fraternizing with stay-home moms. Every interaction would naturally be totally above-board, totally innocent, totally child-centric, totally intellectual--because everyone in the world is as intellectual and politically-correct as they are, right? Why, the mere thought that maybe moms and dads playing unsupervised might not be the best idea in the world is blasphemous and discriminatory! Every one of them seems to know for a fact that all adults have perfect boundaries and that if a dad were to invite a mom over for a little backyard swim of a playdate of COURSE it would only be about the kids and they wouldn't even notice each other in their wet swimsuits....

Either these people don't know what they're talking about or I live in a different universe entirely, because my reaction to the question "Are mom/dad playdates a good idea?" is a resounding "no!" Go watch the movie Little Children and tell me what you think. Or Google "married dating", for example: you get 1,420,000 hits. Over 500,000 for "swinging parents." And that's just two totally off-the-cuff search tries. Or, better yet, go initiate a playdate with an opposite-sex parent and see what the reactions of your spouse and his/hers are.

Bottom line is that truth is stranger than fiction and you see a lot when you live in the burbs long enough. Maybe those OnBalance posters' problem is that they have always been at the office all day and never have gotten to experience the wacky world of life in the burbs during school hours.

Virtual Genius or Exploitation?

Maybe the fates are trying to speak to me--just as I was lamenting about the fact that I haven't written any posts or anything else lately because I've been busy at my actual job, my friend emails me this article.

Apparently two recent books tout the idea of outsourcing both business and personal tasks to "virtual assistants" in India. As is often the case with my posts, I am recommending these books based only on their descriptions--I have yet to read them-- so for all I know my interpretation of their content may be totally off base. The books are The 4-Hour Work-Week:Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere , and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

From the two seconds I had to devote to thinking/writing about this topic right now it seems that the premise of these two books is the concept that outsourcing tasks both great and small to India is the path to success here in the good ol' USA. The beauty of this, apparently, is that you can pay these "virtual assistants" $5 to $10 to do as much of your job as possible, while you continue to keep the job that pays you way more than $5 to $10 an hour.

I am about as far from intellectual and/or PC as you can get--I barely read the paper or watch the news, I love Walmart and fast food, and I'm sure that the corn conspiracy laid out in The Omnivore's Dilema (again, as I gather from hearing other peoples' accounts of ) are sheer propaganda. Yet even I can't help but wonder about the ethics of the concepts laid out in these two books.

If it's wrong to outsource manufacturing clothes and products to low-paid workers in other countries is it really ok to outsource tasks like researching an article or ordering flowers for your wife? Or is $5 to $10 an hour a respectable wage in India and it's therefore not exploitation to farm out any possible task to these "virtual assistants" there? And even if it is a decent wage, is it wrong in the way using illegal immigrants here rather than giving those jobs to hard-working Americans is wrong? Or is that not even wrong, and if Americans are too lazy or too greedy to do work that others will gladly do for far less money, that's their problem, not society's?

At any rate, if you read this blog you already know that the concept of being paid as much as possible for doing as little as possible is near and dear to me, so I will definitely check these books out. I can't imagine what I personally would outsource but the concept is intriguing.

Spell Check, Where Are You?

Why has the spell-check feature of Blogger just disappeared? Or is it just not working for me? This is a serious problem for me because, sadly, this English major relies HEAVILY on spell-check.

Best Valentine's Day Movie Ever




Have you ever seen the Family Circus Valentine's Day special? It is the BEST holiday cartoon ever, beating out every Christmas, Halloween, Easter or any other holiday special. Except possibly The Tiny Tree...but that's another post for another time.

I love the description of the Family Circus movie on toonarific.com:

The excitement of Valentine's Day reaches a fever pitch as the kids Billy, Dolly, Jeffy and PJ all try to outdo each other's Valentine's Day card to their parents. In the end, everyone learns the meaning of true love.

"Fever pitch" indeed! Granted I haven't seen this movie in, oh, say 20+ years, but to this day I remember every detail. Ok, maybe not every detail, but the overall warm-fuzzy feel. Not to ruin it for you, but the kids are busy making Valentines for the parents--I forget who's making what and/or if the three older kids are in cahoots making one together, but someone is crafting this huge heart with a wood frame, covered in red paper, etc. Then the adorable round-headed PJ (the baby) makes some little scribble and the other kids make fun of him for it. I think the "fever pitch" this review refers to is when Barfy (love that dog name!) does a the slow-mo "NOOOO Barfy!!!" run into the huge paper valentine and crashes through it, wrecking it.

Then the parents coo over PJ's scribble and the mom, in her ever valium-calm voice, moralizes that it doesn't matter what the actual Valentine looks like, it's the thought that counts.

Anyway, I guess it's too little, too late now but I'm going to spend from now until next Valentine's Day trying to find this movie on DVD.

Yay and wah

The good news is that Patrick is home. Yay!

The bad news is that the furnace is broken, so it's 50 degrees in the house.

I could make an inappropriate comment but I won't.

A few words from Matthew

I was sitting here at the computer playing--shocker--Big Kahuna Reef 2--and Matthew came into the room. I said I'd be done in one second, I just had to write something in my blog. This is what he told me to write:

My son is better than my daughter

Then, watching me write it he said he wanted to write something himself and made me leave the room. This is what he wrote, in all its 72pt "Chiller" splendor:

My mom is a great mom ; and she makes horrible decisions on where we go out to dinner. Example: tonight I almost puked on the table.
Gross.

Just got back from Chicago--it was like -23 degrees there today so I made it out in the nick of time. I love my sister Cassie but I don't know how she can deal with living there!

We had a great time reaping the benefits of Patrick's executiveness--when I checked in I realized we had a whole extra room hooked to our suite so Cassie and her family came Saturday and stayed the day/night. We got to hang out and have fun while Patrick worked non-stop from 6 am till 11 pm Friday and Saturday...and tonight, tomorrow, and Tuesday.

Let me just say this before moving on: it is true that Frette linens--I believe they are one of Oprah's favorite things--are quite possibly worth the like $100 per towel price. They had Frette linens in our suite--as well as L'Occitane bath products--and I am addicted to the sheets and the towels.

Ok, anyway, we had a great time and I'm back but poor Patrick is still working 'round the clock. Granted, his "work" for tonight involves going out to some ritzy steakhouse for dinner then to yet another hospitality suite gathering. But when you have to be on at 6 am and stay on until 11 pm every day for a week it is exhausting even if a lot of what you're doing is shmoozing.

Speaking of work--and I didn't even plan this nifty transition--I was going through some old emails and reading about this French woman who wrote a book on why people shouldn't have kids. Unfortunately it's not available in English translation yet, but once it is I will surely be reading it and you'll surely be hearing about it. In the meantime, though, we can all read her other book which is available in the US and in English: Bonjour Laziness-Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay.

Or, if your laziness extends out of the workplace and into your personal life in the form of not reading books, you can just read this interview with her to get the gist. Actually, you probably have to read that interview and the blurb on the page about the book to get the whole idea of what the book is presumably about. Namely, one of the universal truth's I've discovered thus far in life--that the people who do the least work and/or are the most incompetent get rewarded while the smartest, most motivated people get more work and less pay when they have to take up the slack the incompetent ones create.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see what she says and if it matches my observations.

I was doing really well with posting for a few days there, wasn't I? I have actually been busy doing real work at work lately and haven't had a chance to write in here--can you believe that?

Poor Patrick is en route to Chicago for his big annual meeting. He was supposed to be on a 10:40 am flight, which got cancelled, then a 1:20 pm, which finally took off at about 2:15 and was supposed to land at 3:10. I just checked Southwest and it now is scheduled to arrive at 4:10 pm. I don't know which is my worse nightmare--being stuck on the runway for hours or being stuck in the air, circling the airport because the plane can't land. How he does it without Xanax I do not know--just thinking about it is enough to make me have to take some.

I'm supposed to go to join him/visit Cassie on Friday and am praying the weather improves because, as much as I love Cassie and Patrick--and especially as much as I want to see my old friends from my old job--I don't think I could deal with the all-day ordeal of flight delays and stress.

Anyway, better get back to work--big boss is coming.

So you think you can dance....but can you do it Fridays at 11 am?

Mimi just came in and excitedly announced that there's a new hip hop class for adults at the Olney dance studio, being taught by some guy who was a finalist on "So You Think You Can Dance?"

Um, hells YEAH I think I could dance if this dude could teach me. All excited I clicked on the link with the details, scrolled down the list of his accomplishments including "Danced with Beyonce at the VMAs" and "National Pepsi Commercial with Mariah Carey" and am ready to pick up the phone and sign up when I notice the time the class will be held: Fridays at 11 am.

Are you kidding me? Which adult in Olney, MD is going to take a hip hop dance class at 11 am on a Friday? That would be me--except for I happen to be at WORK at 11 am on Fridays.

Wah! There goes my fallback career of 40 year old, white hip-hop star (that's in case the book I have yet to write doesn't end up being a best seller.)

My dad is going to be Steve Jobs' new best friend

Wow--my dad made Google's top news page today with the results of his study about iPods and pacemakers.

How psyched is Apple going to be? Too bad my dad works for FDA so even if they did want to express their gratitude for the upcoming glut of sales to pacemaker-wearers he couldn't accept.

Does FDA permit family members to accept if he can't? Sadly, something tells me no.

Oh well--anyway, my dad now offically outranks me as most famous Bassen. Or does Oprah trump Apple?

Don't even try to sell Matthew any of that fake ass

This is a video of Matthew when he was 2 and a half, being asked what his favorite animal a the zoo is. My dad was kind enough to transfer it from video--and apparently in the nick of time. The tape broke as he was working with it--no doubt from having been watched and rewound and watched again probably hundreds of times.

Time Toilet

Last Thursday I borrowed a 7 day book from the library: Critical by Robin Cook. I had every intention of finishing it, what with it being a quick read, but sadly spent basically all my free time this past week and weekend playing Big Kahuna Reef 2.

When Patrick first introduced me to the world of BKR I just stared at the screen not even understanding how to play or how it could be fun at all. Long story short--that was like a year and a half ago and I became fully obsessed with it, then somehow broke my addiction for a good six or more months. Lately I started up again and wish I hadn't; it truly is like computer crack. "I'll just play one quick game before I (fill in blank with any activity from recreational to mandatory)." One game turns into two, etc, etc until I am forced to stop because I have to leave the house to do something. If I don't have anywhere to be I can easily waste probably 2 hours or even more.

Anyway, now I'm jonesing because I just used my few free minutes before I have to take the kids to Hebrew school to write this instead of playing my "one quick game." So I have to go play it right now...and I dare you to try it, but don't hold me responsible when you too become obsessed with it.


p.s. I don't know why the spell check in Blogger isn't working lately, so pardon any spelling mistakes....I'm missing valuable BKR2 minutes right now and can't waste time cutting and pasting into Word to check spelling.

Having older sick kids is a lot less stressful than having young sick kids. Mimi called me at work this morning with her best sick voice on (she was at Eric's) telling me her stomach hurt so I said she could stay home and I'd come get her from his house at noon. I picked her up, we went to Safeway for popsicles and Gatorade (her choices) and no sooner did we get in the door to the house then the nurse from Matthew's school called saying that HE had a stomach ache. So off in the rain we went to pick him up too. Now they're both home--and magically recovered, at least for the moment. Matthew laid on the sofa for 30 minutes or so then came into the kitchen asking for Honey Nut Cheerios--"A LOT of Cheerios." Then there came Mimi wanting perogies (sp?).

Now I'm "working" from home and trying not to drink Diet Pepsi--I'm trying to detox from it and artificial sweetners in general. It's not going so well--I swear there is the liquid equivalent of nicotine in Diet Pepsi because I crave it like crazy. They need to invent the soda patch or gum or something. Or, since it's not like it affects the lungs or throat like smoke does, I guess drinking it is probably just about the same thing as wearing it or chewing it. And helpful suggestions like just drink water flavored with a little lemon or--even grosser--drink soda with real sugar are the equivalent of telling a smoker to hold a golf pencil and pretend it's a cigarette or something. In other words, useless, but thanks just the same.

Speaking of hopeless cases of addiction, Patrick and I were watching Intervention last week and it featured this woman who was addicted to so many prescription drugs I don't even remember what they were. Pain pills but also something like 20 muscle relaxers a day plus other stuff. I guess she had either arthritis or maybe Lyme disease but they weren't sure; from what Patrick and I could tell the main physical ailment she had was trying to function as an upright human being on 40 kinds of sedatives at once. Not to make fun of someone's serious plight or anything (but you know I will) it was actually funny as hell. She would do stuff like just fall asleep while she was eating, basically folding in half at the waist so her face ended up in her plate or, my favorite, try to talk and just totally botch it. She was talking about going to Taco.....Taco....Taco.....girl just could NOT remember the second word of my favorite restaurant, Taco Bell! Anyway, not to be mean but sorry, it was very entertaining.

You know a night didn't go by without us watching a movie--this time it was Superbad. Yes, we also saw it in the theater so we knew how bad it was--according to everyone but us, that is. Us and all the teenage boys of the world probably. I'm sorry but it is HILARIOUS if you're not above lots of crude sexual humor and swearing. How can you not laugh at lines like, in response to "if you scratch our backs we'll scratch yours," "Um, the thing about my back is...it's located on my cock." Sue us or call us morons, or both, but we laughed hysterically through the whole thing--twice now, and would probably laugh just as hard no matter how many times we watch it.

Smart Sacks

I just got an email from Matthew's elementary school with a reminder about "Family Swim Night" and noticed that the cost is either $5 or one food item per person. Food for the swim night, I thought, puzzled? I read further and saw that the food will be donated to the "Smart Sacks" program run by a local food bank. Smart Sacks is a program that gives a backpack full of kid-friendly food to elementary school children at risk of hunger so they have food to eat on the weekend when there is no school breakfast or lunch.

I'm sorry but reading it just brought tears to my eyes. It has honestly never occurred to me that the kids who get subsidized meals at school may actually not have food at home. It breaks my heart to realize that yes, there are actually kids out there who have no food at home, and makes me feel like a moron for living such a sheltered life that it has never ocurred to me.

I know for a fact that it would NEVER occur to my kids; never for one minute of their lives have they had to worry about food other than to complain about what they don't like or to argue about what restaurant they want to go to.

Tonight we'll be talking about it--that's for sure. And we'll also be donating to the Manna Food Bank. If any of you are so inclined you can also donate online.

New Stewart Lewis Book

Hey--if you followed my advice and read Rockstarlet, Augusten Burroughs' assistant Stewart Lewis' first book (apologies, Stewart, for being forever referred to by me as Augusten's assistant...) you will be excited to know that he's written another book, Relative Stranger, to be released this summer.

Also, you can now download a chapter from Augusten's upcoming book, A Wolf At The Table, on his website.

Write it and they will read?

So I'm reading Web Content Report right now and in the "What's Working" section, where they feature random sites, blogs, trends, etc, they mention "The Non-Blogger's Blogger," someone called Mimi Smartypants. They say she decided to keep an online journal of "every silly little thought to enter her entirely too witty 30-year old brain..." which ultimately got published in book form.

Isn't writing every silly little thought to enter one's mind the definition of blogging? What makes her a "non-bloggers blogger"? Apparently what makes her one is the fact that, either by her own initiative or just by chance--it doesn't specify which--her journal entries were eventually published. Web Content Report goes on to say "Yes, everyone has a blog now...(but) everything this young woman writes down is colored with humor and shaded with charisma." Um, isn't that true of almost every blog worth reading? What makes her so special her blog is--to steal a phrase from Seinfeld--"book-worthy"?

I guess this is hardly a new trend and surely this isn't the only blog-to-book success story but I guess it's the first I've heard of it. My question is how do you luck into the ultimate fuck it off way of getting a book deal? I guess using phrases like "fuck it off" probably don't enhance the odds that some philanthropic publisher will decide your online ramblings are something that would be gobbled up by the masses in print form.

Or who knows--maybe they would be intrigued by the fuck it off philosophy--after all, isn't it just another way of following "The Secret"? God knows that philosophy was apparently book-worthy, not to mention DVD-worthy and product-worthy to the tune of millions. But then again, what better proof is there that The Secret--or, better stated, my beloved Augusten Burroughs' "Magical Thinking"--works? Write it and they will read it...and pay tons for the privilege.

Anyway, since it is highly unlikely HarperCollins will happen to stumble upon my blog and decide I'm the next Bridget Jones I guess I better return to the writing I'm getting paid to do--which, at this particular moment is writing a "news item" about the availability and purpose of the online financial reporting capabilities. Then another news item about the inclement weather policy and yet another detailing the ins and outs of reporting partial day leave. Maybe those gems will be book-worthy.

Sadly the black vs white dance off didn't happen because Matthew refuses to go into Blockbuster. He has an irrational fear of seeing "Chuckie"--that goofy red-haired doll in Child's Play. Crazy. Anyway, I think I'll have to order the movies from Netflix because the chances of getting him inside Blockbuster are slim to none. All thanks to Mimi once--like 4 years ago--helpfully pointing out the cover of that particular DVD which features, even on the spine, Chuckie's face.

Mimi herself used to have a mortal fear of Chuckie, too, but I think she's over it now. Her current fears/obsessions are staph infections and, she announced today, brown recluse spider bites. Go figure. Oh, and thanks YouTube for providing fodder for her irrational fears.

Lately I've come to the conclusion that Mimi is actually Wednesday Adams' doppelganger--at least in terms of personality. While other girls are happily playing Club Penguin or some virtual pony game, Mimi is inexplicably googling stuff like "staff infections" and "brown recluse bites." Warm and fuzzy she is not, but she is oddly entertaining.

Speaking of entertaining, Patrick and I went to see Untraceable today and it ROCKED. I swear it was as good as The Silence of the Lambs. I gave it a straight up 10, but Patrick gave it only a 7--one point off because of a scene portraying something disgustingly cruel to animals (it was gross and sad) and the other two points off for Diane Lane's character doing something stupid at the end. I wasn't really expecting much because Yahoo gave it a C- but I definitely give it an A.

I thought it was very well done and very suspenseful. It does make you think about the whole social media fixation and how small it makes the world seem--or at least it makes me think about it. I won't give away the whole plot, but part of it is that a killer runs streaming video of his victim's deaths and the pace of the torture is dependent on the number of visitors to the site. Just like reality, it goes viral and the number of hits skyrocket--as does the speed with which the victims die.

Anyway, first Mimi, then Patrick and now Matthew are all over me like flies on $hit so I better go put them to bed (except for Patrick).

Ain't nothing going on but the rent here these days. I hate winter. Cassie just called and left me a message (I swear I will call you back today!) telling me how crazy cold it is in Chicago--I'm going to visit her in two weeks. You know that's some sisterly love because I hate being cold more than almost anything in the world. Maybe more than anything--the other things being traffic, crowds and REALLY hot, humid weather. She said I better plan on bringing layers and layers and layers and a face mask. Great. But I'm still looking forward to going, mostly to see her but also because I get to be executive wife and stay in the suite that Patrick gets because he's BMOC now. Sadly I think he's getting the suite without a jacuzzi. Oh well, a free hotel suite is a free hotel suite I guess.

Speaking of free hotel suites, because The Wynn screwed up so many things when we stayed there for our wedding in August the GM has graciously given us two free nights in a Salon Suite . The room in that picture is the room we got married in, actually--in front of that little white half-moon table behind the sofa on the left. The suite has that huge room, a dining table, a wet bar, a powder room, a bedroom and the biggest, fanciest bathroom you've ever seen. Oh--and a massage room. It usually costs $750 a night but we get to stay there for two nights for free because of my flair for complaining.

Why I'm not getting paid to be a professional complainer I don't know because as non-confrontational as I am in regular life, for whatever reason I am very aggressive--er, I mean, assertive--when it comes to service related issues. I've gotten discounts, room upgrades, free food, free champagne, free flowers--once even a box of Godiva chocolates delivered by courier from Lord & Taylor when some sales clerk looked at me wrong back when I was in my postpartum crazy period. I can't for the life of me remember what I had complained about but I honestly think I remember it being because the sales person got my name wrong or some other retrospectively innocuous thing. I do, however, remember the couriered Godiva.

Before this Wynn suite score, which I think trumps anything up to this point, my finest moment was when I got me and Cassie free massages at the Canyon Ranch spa in the Venetian in Las Vegas. All because I complained that I could hear a toilet flush during my massage--that and some construction noise. I'm telling you, ask and you shall receive should always be your motto when you are wronged in any way by a service provider of any sort.

Anyway, in the meantime until we start suite-hopping, we'll probably be either sitting around the house or going to movies. I think we're going to see No Country for Old Men tonight. I have suggested that we also have a black vs. white dance movie dance-off this weekend: Step Up versus Stomp the Yard. Which one do you think will win?

Ambien

I was totally shocked to hear about Heath Ledger's death yesterday. I can't believe he was only 28; somehow he seemed older than that.

I'm curious to hear what the results of the autopsy are; supposedly it will be about 10 days before they're released. The only thing they seem to be reporting is that he had a bottle of sleeping pills near his bed but it doesn't appear to be a suicide. That strikes me as a little alarming, given that almost every woman I know has problems sleeping and takes some form of “sleep aid”.

I'd be willing to bet that the medication they're talking about with regard to Heath is Ambien. Assuming that’s the case, I'm having a hard time believing that it's possible to "accidentally" take a lethal overdose of Ambien. I have a friend whose boyfriend once took 12--along with a ton of alcohol--but thanks to 911 he survived. Unfortunately, a week or so later he tried harder and succeeded, but it apparently took MANY pills and much alcohol. Maybe I have too much faith in drugs being safe but I can't imagine Ambien is that strong that you could die from taking 3 or 4, and I can't imagine anyone would "accidentally" take more than that. I could see thinking maybe 2 would be safe but would never dream of taking more than that. Ok, actually, I could dream of it if it could make you stay asleep for more than 3 hours but wouldn't be willing to test it.

I do find it interesting that, as I said above, almost every woman I know has admitted to having sleep problems and, in almost every case, taking something to alleviate the problem. Apparently millions of people take Tylenol PM every single night, or the Tylenol-free version of it, which I guess amounts to, what, Benadryl? I always laugh when my British friend refers to them as her "tablets"--don't ask me why. It's a little scary to hear these women talk about the lengths they have to go to just to get a good night's sleep--usually the formula includes varying proportions of red wine and Tylenol PM, sometimes with some melatonin thrown in there to make it more holistic.

I personally am an ardent believer in Ambien but try to only use it if absolutely necessary. My dr. has lately become a little skittish about prescribing it because apparently people are doing all kinds of crazy stuff on it—eating through the entire refrigerator without knowing it and even driving places. I personally think it’s safe as long as you take it and go directly to sleep. If you take it and continue to go about your business waiting for it to kick in—well, that’s where you might run into trouble. I have never done anything like go anywhere or eat through house and home, but I have written stuff I have no recollection of writing, including, once, an entire short story. It definitely can enhance your writing skills, or at least it can mine. If you try it, though, make sure you’re not connected to the internet because you may end up sending emails you have no recollection of sending. Ditto for talking; apparently I’ve had 45 minute conversations with Patrick that I don’t remember the next day.

Anyway, sad about Heath.

I'm home sick today and somehow between yesterday and today I've gotten used to being home. Granted, I feel like crap so that could account for the fact that I'm fine just sitting here in silence doing nothing. Or actually, trying to write something for work that I've been procrastinating for seriously going on 6 full months now. Who would think writing an employee newsletter could be this excruciating? The delay hasn't been entirely my fault, as my boss has told me to put the newsletter aside like 10 times when other projects came in, but still...you'd think I could have worked it into my schedule somehow. I guess if I actually gave a shit it might not be such a chore; somehow writing about the picnic that took place in September just isn't keeping my interest--so I'm sure it probably won't attract anyone elses' interest when and if I ever finish the thing and put it out.

By the way, in case any of you have a particular hatred of Manhattan, you might want to head to the movies. There are now two movies out that feature the total annihilation of the island of Manhattan: I Am Legend and Cloverfield. We saw I Am Legend a month or so ago and it was awesome, although depressing. If you are freaked out by zombies and/or can't deal with sad dog stories you definitely need to skip it; it has plenty of both. Will Smith rocked as always and overall I think we gave it an 8.

Cloverfield--I'm still not sure what I thought of it. As I told Patrick when we left the theater, I give the movie about a 7 but the fun of watching it about a 9. Sitting here now, 4 days later, I realize that it gets about a 0 as far as takeaway value; its entire appeal is the actual experience of watching it. If nothing else it makes you feel old.

Holiday

I can't imagine what I'd do all day if I didn't work. Just this one day is boring and that's with the kids. Then again, maybe that's why the day sucked ;) Just kidding.

But seriously---I used to be home all day, every day and can't remember what I did to pass the time. Actually, now that I think of it, I pretty much felt this way every day back then--but it never occurred to me that maybe I should have gone back to work. Oh well, live and learn....and it's not like work doesn't suck in its own way much of the time too.

The main saving grace about work--aside from the paycheck, of course--is that at least there's stuff going on to make the time pass more quickly than it does if your days are limited to gym trips, Target runs and....actually, that pretty much summed up time when I was home with my kids. Unless you count the part I'm not mentioning, that is, but that's another story for another time and place. At least for me that's how it felt--no offense to women who are home and love it. I wouldn't mind having an hour or two to spend at the gym every day like I used to way back in the day, but not if it meant going back to that way of life.

I'm currently trying to decide which is the lesser of two evils: a job that's busy, challenging and therefore sometimes stressful or a job that's so S-L-O-W and non-taxing that it's ostensibly stress-free. My current job is the latter--occasionally I have something interesting going on but for the most part I'm in kind of a too many cooks in the kitchen situation; e.g. I was hired to do a job (writing) but it turns out that they really didn't need--or want--someone else to share the writing assignments so I've been pretty much left out in the cold with regard to the job I was hired to do. Maybe I shouldn't complain...but of course if you know me you know I do--incessantly.

Every place I've ever worked before I was seen as this essential person, totally competent, everyone praising me and telling me how smart and great I was. I never worked in a company as large as the one I work for now, which, I'm coming to realize, makes a big difference in terms of individual attention and recognition. Now I get some occasional scrap of praise, but for the most part as long as I show up to work every day nobody really cares if I do anything at all--and when I do actually do stuff, most often it goes unnoticed. I admit that lately I've been testing it more and more, trying to see exactly how little work I can do and still get by without reprimand. So far it's turning out that it actually possible to put forth about 5% effort without any ill effects. Translation: my productivity has basically come to a screeching halt and nobody has noticed or commented. Lately I liken my job to Homer Simpsons'--show up to work, sit in a chair all day, go home, then repeat again the next day. Minus the doughnuts, though.

Meanwhile, there's Patrick with a huge job with tons of responsibility and I sort of envy him....I think. There I am at my desk all day, listening to the lightbulbs hum, blogging or what have you while Patrick is negotiating multi-million dollar contracts, putting out constant fires and spending about half his work life in meetings. Yes, he's stressed...but he also makes more than twice as much as I make and very, very rarely has to work evenings or weekends. He does have to put up with a million problems, which I definitely don't envy, and also has to supervise people, which is something I never want to have to worry about.

Anyway, long story short...I don't know if I should just be grateful to have the quintessential government job or if the fact that my job has become numbingly boring means I could do with a little more work even if it meant more stress.

If you already saw this in my sister Cassie's blog no need to read it here, but if you didn't, you need to!

The 25 Most Baffling Toys From Around the World

Make sure to click "next" at the bottom of the first page.

Check your credit report regularly

Patrick and I are refinancing our house. Last week we met with the mortgage guy, who, as part of the application process, printed out a copy of our combined credit report. Lucky for us he did, because otherwise we probably never would have known to scan the entire 15 page document to find one tiny section titled "Inquiry Information." He pointed it out, asking if either of us had applied for a Capitol One credit card on December 26, because Capitol One had inquired with each of the three credit bureaus that day.

He was able to discern that the inquiry had been on my behalf--he could tell because of the initials "CU" after the inquiry; apparently that means "co" something with regard to the loan we're taking. If you ever look at a joint credit report apparently "BU" indicates the primary borrower and "CU" indicates the co-borrower. Just a little identity theft sleuthing tip from me to you.

Anyway, our lender recommended that I call Capitol One to see what the inquiry had been about. Naturally I figured it was nothing, although I knew for sure that I had spent December 26 preping for my colonoscopy the following day and definitely was not trying to open credit card accounts. After a few days of "reminders" from Patrick, I called Capitol One tonight and learned that yes, someone had tried to secure a credit card using my social security number. F*cker.

Patrick will probably have a coronary because his mortal fear is identity theft. He shreds anything with his name and address on it and won't even print our address on our checks. Luckily he's at baseball practice now so he won't have to learn about my brush with identity theft until tomorrow....or sometime.

The good news is that now that I know about that inquiry nobody can mess with my credit. When something like this happens you contact any of the credit bureaus (I called Equifax) and they add a fraud alert notice to your credit report and also notify the other two credit bureaus to do the same. This means that for 90 days nobody can make a move on my credit without me being alerted, and also that I can request an additional free credit report from each credit bureau (everyone is entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three credit bureaus.)

If you have a police report proving you are a victim of identity theft you can have the credit bureau put an extended fraud alert on your credit history--that one lasts for 7 years. The good thing about that one is, in addition to the fact that nobody can mess with your credit for 7 years, you get an additional 2 free credit reports and your name is removed from prescreened offers of credit or insurance for 5 years. I guess you need to get something out of the deal for having to wade through all this b.s. because someone thought it would be fun and profitable to secure credit in your name.

Anyway, I need to go research how to file the police report, etc...in case you want to do some reading of your own you too can check out the FTC's website about identity theft.

If eye talk freaks you out then skip this post

(and mom, you definitely need to skip it!)

Last Friday I went to get fitted for contacts and spent a dreamy 30 or more minutes roaming the aisles of the grocery store, amazed I could, at long last, clearly see all the way across the store without glasses. I have spent the last 4 years battling glasses--stubbornly thinking that if I didn't give in and put them on for stuff like grocery shopping or movie-watching my eyes would eventually adjust and I'd be able to see perfectly. I can see fine close up and even not so close, but for distances like across a room or a store or whatever I could see but just not clearly enough to make out signs or faces without squinting. I think my vision is about 20/40, which is definitely a functional level of sight, especially when it's bright out or a space is well-lit, but in twilight or darkness, distance vision isn't a picnic.

So now I can see more clearly than I've been able to see for 4 years...ever since I got lasik.

Don't get me wrong--even though I had complications with lasik (DLK and epithelial ingrowth) I think I would do it again. Before lasik I couldn't see my glasses on the nightstand by the bed, couldn't read a book without glasses or contacts--basically couldn't see much at all. It was a horrible feeling, knowing that if I were somewhere and my contact fell out or my glasses broke I'd be up a creek. At least now I could definitely function perfectly well without glasses or contacts if I had to.

But it is still disappointing to have gone through the whole ordeal only to, in the end, be back in contacts. It's not like I went to some low-budget place or anything, either--I went to one of the top eye doctors in the DC area, Neil Martin. Of course I knew there were risks but you never think they'll happen to you, right?

The procedure itself wasn't bad at all, thanks, in part, to good ol' valium. I sat up afterwards and it was a miracle--I could see the clock across the room. I thought I was fine and thought the white fog that covered my field of vision was just part of the normal healing process. The next day at my follow up appointment I learned that it wasn't in fact normal; I had DLK (see above). I had to use special eye drops every 2 hours around the clock for a week--that, in addition to the saline drops I had to use almost constantly because my eyes were dry as prunes.

I went back a week later and the DLK was still there--so I had to use even more drops and go on oral steroids. A few days later the fog seemed to lift some but was replaced with the tiniest hint of a weird sensation. Turns out that sensation was cells growing under the flap--epithelial ingrowth.

I had to have my flaps re-lifted and scraped to remove the cells (see link to epithelial ingrowth page above). It was the most disgusting feeling in the world--imagine the dentist scraping the plaque off your teeth, then apply that same sensation to your eyes. More rounds of drops, etc...finally my eyes were fine and I could see almost perfectly.

Post-lasik vision is a little weird even without complications--something about the contrast of stuff is kind of off so it's harder to see in low light, or to distinguish different shades of green, say, when you're gardening or shades of gray when it's dim and rainy out. I do see the halos around lights, but I think I always must have because it doesn't bother me. The worst part of the lasik aftermath saga was the dry eyes; to this day they're still very dry. They were dry to begin with, which predisposes you to complications from lasik, but Dr. Martin thought I'd be fine. Lately the dryness had gotten much better, but for most of the past 4 years my eyes were dry, dry, dry. I did everything from daily hot compresses, oral antibiotics (to treat blepharitis, which who knows if I even had but they threw every possible fix at me), and all manner of drops and ointments to punctal plugs (tiny plugs they put in your tear ducts to preserve whatever tears you have). I have learned that the remedies for severe dry eyes are not that effective, which doesn't bode well for people with serious, chronic dry eyes. I am lucky that mine pretty much resolved on their own, even though it took over 3 years.

to the tune of needing to use eye drops with mineral oil in them and/or gross Vaseline-like stuff in them at night

Even after all that I hoped that they could do one last "enhancement" to bring my vision to 20/20 but--shocker--they said I wasn't a good candidate for another lasik procedure. I could have gone on to have PRK but that sounded too gross and painful for even me.

So here I am, back to contacts--but glad to have 20/20 non-glasses vision at long last.

Potty Inspiration

Check out the creative and musical talents of my sister, Cassie!



Of course I can't resist includingthis informative Japanese potty song.

As if we weren't all sick enough of the soccer saga, guess what the subject of my latest On Balance guest blog was? I swear I wrote it back in November and am not still obsessing on it! Who knew that me droning on about one soccer game would turn into this much hubbub?

As usual I was half horrified and half amused at the hostility of some of the commenters. Actually now it's more like 10% horrified and 90% amused because it's funny to me to see how irate some people get over the musings of a slacker--um, I mean soccer--mom. Every day these same people are on that On Balance comment forum, poised like piranha, ready to devour whatever morsel of thought happens to be featured in that day's post and spew back a tirade of how stupid the author or topic is.

I have to wonder what it would be like if everyone had their photo next to their "screen name," or even if they had to use their real names; would they still be as aggressive as they are in their safe anonymity? I picture some of those people like Oz, hiding behind their lawyer desks or whatever, and imagine how they'd look if they were suddenly visible.

Food Love

In case you need three more examples of how redonk all things Asian are:

What's the bad karma quotient on this?

I saw this headline: "Mom Lies for Hannah Tix" on MSN when I opened my browser just now. A few months ago I toyed with the idea of taking Mimi to the Miley Sirus (or is it Hannah Montana?) concert but was saved by the fact that it sold out in like 20 seconds. I personally breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn't have to face many of my most dreaded things at once: huge pressing crowds, millions of screaming little girls, loud teenage girl music, standing for an entire concert, and hellish concert parking lot traffic.

Apparently this mom didn't share my same relief at not being able to get tickets because she was willing to do whatever it took to get them for her daughter--even when it took making up a story about how the girl's dad died in Iraq.

Words fail me. Except to say I think this woman is a disgusting pig.

Ok, I HATE Augusten's mother--it appears that she has disowned him, judging by the links page on her website. There's the link to her other son's book right a the top...but no mention of her other son. Nice.

I guess she couldn't take that he has become what she herself always thought she'd be: a famous writer.

Shocker that he had such a screwed up childhood.

Augusten's new book is coming soon!

In the meantime I guess I will have to relent and buy his brother's book because I never see it at the library.

Ok, hold up--I was just googling "Augusten Burroughs' brother" to put the link to his book in here and, via another site, found Augusten's MOTHER'S blog. Crazy. Now I have to go read everything on it.

By the way, who cares whether or not every word in Running With Scissors was totally fabricated by Augusten? A book is a book.

We saw Juno last night and I had mixed feelings about it. At first I was thinking I love this movie! Then the girl's personality started to annoy me--it seemed so forced and just too much. Yes, she was cute and unique and cool...but after a while it just felt like the whole movie was screaming "LOOK HOW EDGY THIS MOVIE AND THESE CHARACTERS ARE! LOOK HOW HIP AND QUIRKY AND WITTY AND SARCASTIC AND SMART AND SUBVERSIVE THIS GIRL IS! LISTEN TO HOW COOL THIS MUSIC IS! CHECK OUT THIS RAD CINEMATOGRAPHY AND THESE CARTOON-ISH EFFECTS!" It just got to be system overload for me after a while. Ok, ok already--I get it--the film is offbeat and artsy.

The feel of the whole thing became very Napolean Dynamite on speed after a point-- that point probably being when the Napolean Dynamite clone made his appearance in Science class.

Then there was the spooky aspect of the Mallory's brother/horse-faced Jennifer Garner couple. WTF was up with Jennifer Garner's character? Fist of all, she looked nothing like she used to--how did she go from kicking ass in Alias to looking like a Talbot's-clad spinster in a few years? Ok, yes, maybe it was just her character but it freaked me out and distracted me.

As much as I disliked her character, the husband creeped me out the most. How did that "young at heart" (said with a smirk) guy end up in a McMansion in the burbs with dry old Jennifer Garner in the first place? Had he started off as a yuppie but, upon meeting Juno, suddenly morphed back to his rock n' roll former self?

That big brother/pedophile dynamic was very disturbing to me. The first time Juno showed up at their house unannounced and started hanging around with him, swapping guitar stories and cd mixes, it made me uncomfortable. Then when she showed up the second time and they started slow dancing it became downright stomach-turning.

At any rate, I have to say that by the end of the movie I liked it a lot less than I did when it started.

It's a little late to be sharing this holiday drink recipe but you can always file it away for next Christmas:

Candy Cane Martini

Mix the vodka and Peppermint Schnapps with ice in a shaker, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Pour it back into the shaker and dip the rim into a plate of crushed candy canes to create a minty rim. Next, pour the mixture back into the glass for a classy Christmas cocktail. If you have those mini candy canes, you can hook one over the rim instead.

If you like chocolate you could use the recipe for chocolate martinis (readily available via Google) and dip the rim into the crushed candy canes.

Or, if you're feeling, um, sluggish, you could try the drink I invented; I like to call it the Loose Goose:

Diet Pepsi (or Coke, if that's how you roll)
Gray Goose Le Citron vodka (or another brand, but then you can't technically call it "Goose")
Miralax

Stir and enjoy. If you suffer from "chronic ideopathic constipation" like I apparently do, according to the colonoscopy I had last week, you can augment the drink with a few fiber pills. Of course, if you do suffer from it, this drink will do nothing, but maybe it will have a cumulative effect if you have one every evening. Or that's what I tell myself.