This Just In: Yuppie Sex is "Madcap" and "Exhausting"

I was at a swim meet last night, an activity that provides much time for social interaction because you're there for 4 hours yet your kid is in the pool a total of 90 seconds. One of the ladies was talking about this book she'd heard about--a couple had done the unthinkable: had sex for 101 nights in a row then written a book about it. Can you imagine? The ladies at the swim meet sure couldn't--nobody could keep up that pace, they insisted, and even if you could why would you want to?

So I look it up this morning: the book is called Just Do It:How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) and everyone is going crazy about it--talking about how "gutsy" the "radical" this couple was to do it and write about it. The reviews are both hilarious and perplexing to me:

"101 straight days of sex between any two people is an impressive feat, but add the elements of encroaching middle age, fourteen years of togetherness, a couple of demanding jobs, and two small and willful children, and that feat becomes something extraordinary."—Lauren Dockett, co-author of Facing 30 and Sex Talk

"Many of us have thought of taking this journey, but only Doug and Annie have had the guts to do it and the grace to write about it.”—Mira Kirshenbaum, author of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay and When Good People Have Affairs

Since when is fucking that hard to do? Clearly someone needs to pay me to write a book dispelling the myth that sex is such a huge ordeal that it's just not possible to sustain having it on a regular basis if you're married and have kids. I know, I know--everyone will say "but you're a newlywed! It's not the same after you've been married for 10 years." To that I say bullshit. Fucking is fucking. I most definitely have the guts and grace to write about it--anyone want to pay me to do it?

Seriously. If being 40, having kids and a job and having frequent sex is book- worthy, then clearly I need to get on that bandwagon. (I'm sure my mom is reaching for the phone as she reads this, frantically dialing my number to tell me what a grave mistake it is for me to reveal the details of my personal life to the whole world.)

Suffice it to say that 101 times in 101 days is nothing; try at least at least 700 times in the past 2 years and no way will we be taking a month off anytime soon. Again with the newly wed comments, I'm sure--everyone will say just wait and you'll be in the once a month or less club soon enough. To that I say NEVER and find me a publisher willing to pay me to prove it.

The author and his wife--Annie and Douglas Brown--appeared on The Today Show proudly boasting about their "colorful romp" and "madcap adventures" (those phrases alone make this book a must-buy). They got the idea for the book when Doug heard about the concept of the "100 Days Club"--a club you belong to if you haven't had sex with your partner in 100 days. He told his wife about it and she had the "madcap" idea to reverse that and have sex for 100 straight days.

They did it then were so exhausted that they promptly took a month off. What I don't understand is why they are now being hailed as virtual marriage counselors. They are inviting people to write to them to find out "How to save your marriage with sex" and will be on The Today Show again on June 26 to share their new-found wisdom.

If gritting your teeth through 101 days of sex then swearing off each other out of sheer exhaustion is the way to save a marriage then I don't expect to see the national divorce rates fall anytime soon.

Countdown to 40

Just got back from birthday dinner with the moms in the burbs. It was my friend's 39th birthday today and, in case I haven't mentioned it enough times yet, my birthday tomorrow. Actually, 45 minutes from now to be exact.

Anyway--so we're all at this cute new Mexican restaurant (Tabasco in Olney, MD--you should try it!) and a woman who I hadn't seen since last summer is sitting next to me. The last time I'd been out with her and another friend about a year ago, she was basically a sobbing wreck, slurring on and on about how she wanted a divorce, hated her husband, etc, etc. We were at Clyde's and I swear she must have had 8 beers in an hour. Fast forward a year and here she is sitting at the table next to me tonight.

A bit of history: her husband is a military doctor and they've been in this area for 2 years. She has 3 kids, a nanny and spends her days playing tennis at the club. Actually, she had to fire the nanny when the girl went to Brazil and came back laden with bed bugs, which subsequently took 6 months and $5,000 to eradicate from the house. So make that 3 kids and still spends her days playing tennis at the club because they have childcare there.

When we last met she was just beside herself--granted, she was also drunk off her ass--but just going on and on about how she hated her life, her marriage, wanted out--the whole bit. So here she is tonight, fresh as a daisy and all smiles. Things are going great! They're moving back to their old house, 2 hours south of here. She's gushing about how they went through a real "bad patch" but that's just life and that's what you do if you have kids--you stick with it!

She gave quite a speech about the "stick with it" thing--no marriage is perfect, you have a history together, you have kids together, you just make it work. Yawn. Then she says to me "So what, do your kids see their dad on the weekends or something?"

Oh--wait--I forgot to mention--back there when I just said "they're" moving back to their old house? That would be she and the 3 kids are moving back there; the husband is staying here, renting a room in some old lady's house and going home on the weekends he isn't on call.

Let's see: parents divorced and live 5 minutes from each other and kids see both parents every day, or parents "happily" married, living 2 hours away from each other and kids lucky if they see their dad twice a month?

Anyway, I have to go be 30-something for another half hour.

Sick

Nothing like a ripping stomach bug to wreck your day. I woke up in the middle of the night and did something I haven't done in probably 13 years--puked. Now I'm home with that kind of flu where you're laying on the bathroom rug, whimpering. Just going downstairs almost killed me--I almost passed out. Then had to go to the car to get the Tylenol--that did me in and now I have no energy to even go lock the door behind my mother who generously came to bring me gingerale.

So here I am, stuck on the sofa with the laptop searing my thighs since I feel too crappy to either read, watch TV or sleep. Of course I can still blog, though; I'd probably have to be dead to be too sick to be on the computer.

I was about to check Craigslist for writing gigs--did you know that companies are now willing to pay freelancers to blog for them? I figure I'm doing it anyway; if someone wants to pay me I'd be all for it.

So I go to check out the "gigs" section, which is where people looking for freelancers go and notice there's a category for adult gigs. Naturally I'm curious about this section so I go check it out. It's pretty much what you'd expect--looking for nude models, nude cleaning ladies ($250 an hour! Too bad I'm not under 30), escort services--the adult services you'd figure are pretty standard. But there are a lot of random and entertaining ones too--excellent headlines like "In Search of Young Girls Interested in *Working*" (asterix their's). I guess they want to make it clear they're not looking for a typist or barrista or something. Then my favorite:

I just wanted to know if there were any gentleman out there that would like to have a dinner date with an attractive AA lady?

I am interested in having a Sushi dinner (at a place that has quality sushi) or just a trip to Panera....I'm just hungry and have a taste for one of those two things.

This is for dinner only and all that I ask is you provide a donation to have a dinner date this evening in the area (or very close to).

I would like 100 for the time spent and gas (NO FS just dinner)....If you are interested in a dinner date with classy ebony lady please drop me line

If this isn't an example of truth being more awesome than fiction, I don't know what is. First, there's the specificity: I'm definitely craving either sushi (and quality sushi, at that) or Panera. Nothing else will do. Then the "donation" for the dinner date--aren't those two things mutually exclusive? Either you're on a date, or he's giving a donation so you can take yourself to sushi or Panera. Then there's the contratictory "this is for dinner only" then "I would like 100 for the time spent." And the weirdest part--wtf is "FS"?

Basically, I'm hungry and want some stranger to not only pay for my dinner at my choice of restaurant, but pay also for my time and gas. And no FS, whatever that is. All I can do is give the girl props for trying, and tell her maybe she should aim higher than Panera if she's going to the effort to hitchike for perverts on the internet. I'm very tempted to email her just to ask if she had any takers, did they choose sushi or Panera, did the guy actually fork over the $100 time/gas surcharge and did he demand FS?

This board offered many head-scratchers, too: what is CFNM? Twink bottom? Ugh--and nasty dad looking for childcare. Come take care of my kid and be my whore for free, and I might let you live here. There's an opportunity worth considering.

Friday Night

Wouldn't you know it--I finally have time to write and my mind is blank. The air conditioner is broken so the heat is blocking my thought processes.

I just went to sign onto Facebook and, prepopulated in the email address field was my daughter's email address. I sign in and yes, there it is--she has a Facebook page. Thankfully nothing on it--yet--but a handful of friends.

Ok, kill me now--I just went to take a closer look and started checking out the friends of her friends and a) it is freaking me out that these girls (not Mimi, thankfully) describe themselves as "X high school '11." Um, they're in 6th grade--what's up with trying to pass as high school girls? And one of the girls has a photo of herself in a bikini--in the snow.

Cassie--you should be SOOO glad you don't have to deal with this yet!

Ok, well Patrick just got home and the AC is broken so I gotta go hang with the hubby.

This numb finger is killing me. Not literally--it doesn't hurt--but it's at best annoying and at worst basically crippling if all you do all day is type and use a mouse, then most of what you like to do for fun involves either typing or using a mouse. It's like being a big talker but having to sit around with a piece of tape over your mouth.

It was getting better for a few days--I thought it was almost gone since it was down to one tiny spot on the tip of my pinkie being slightly tingly, but now it's back to my entire pinkie being almost totally numb. Now that my one week of not having health insurance is over and I am once again covered, I think I'm going to have to cave and go to the doctor.

I hate having ailments that don't just go away either with the passing of time or with the help of a few pills. At least with an infection or something you can just call the doctor and he can phone in a prescription--no office visit necessary. But unfortunately it seems like stretching or not stretching or Advil or ice or heat or sleeping with an arm split on sleeping with a wrist splint are helping this nerve thing so maybe I better figure out which doctor to go to.

In the meantime, if you are suicidal because I haven't written anything entertaining lately, you can read my other, other blog where I wrote about something Patrick said that I thought was brilliant and hilarious. Nobody else seemed to think it was very hilarious, but what do they know.

Nothing's really up lately. My new job rocks. The weather is nice. The pool is open. My birthday is in 2 weeks and Patrick is taking me here. I am so excited--not only is it the fanciest place on the planet (next to my beloved Wynn) but they have shooting there. Being there will definitely take the pain of turning 40 away. Hopefully this f-ing hand is better by then; I have never shot a real gun before and don't want anything messing up my shooting ability.

Well, sadly, must go back to typing moratorium.

Readin'

Since I haven't been able to type or play computer games much I've had to resort to other recreational pursuits. I'm not much of a TV lover (although the new Denise Richardson show looks promising for trashy entertainment; that girl has a worse trash mouth than I do and it is NOT attractive) so I have mostly been reading. A lot.

I already wrote about Augusten's new book--naturally it rocked. Since then I have read the following:

Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher. It was good but depressing and freaky. If you want to feel normal, read this book. Just reading it is exhausting; I can't imagine having to live it. This book could serve as a FIO DSM: if you relate to this girl and/or have experienced what she has, you're crazy; if not, you're fine. Ok--sorry--I know "crazy" is not the PC term, but since I am supposedly crazy myself I'm allowed to call it that. And I'm telling you--I am 1000% less crazy than this poor woman.

Split by Suzanne Finnamore. I read this book because Augusten recommends it; I think she's a good friend of his. Lucky cow. Anyway, while I did like it and ultimately think she's a good writer, it took a long time to warm to her style. It could have something to do with the fact that I cannot relate to women who know their husbands are cheating yet choose to live in denial and want him anyway. Her story is that one day her husband just announces he's leaving and she is devastated and desperately wants him back, even when we learn, though a series of flashbacks spanning as far back as the beginning of their relationship, that he was a serial cheater.

She describes finding a book of poetry--with a romantic inscription and "xoxo Me"--in their house and it's sure not hers. She finds a cocktail napkin with some romantic song lyrics written on it in her husband's handwriting, complete with some other woman's name written in the margins or something; not only does she find it but she finds it on the floor of the nursery when she is 8 months pregnant.

Then of course there's the blatantly obvious: he has left her for another woman who he moves in with and proceeds to have a baby with. Throughout the whole thing Finnamore just swoons about how much she loves him; she repeatedly sleeps with him and, right up till the very last paragraph, seems to revel in the fact that he still likes to be with her or spend time with her or sleep with her when the fancy strikes him. She lovingly describes how he will just show up unannounced and help himself to her food, her furniture--even her mail. The guy turns my stomach--he leaves her for this other woman, then is cheating on the other woman with her. All the while she's painting him in this romantic light; how what they had was so beautiful and special and he obviously can't live without her. Meanwhile, it's blaringly apparent that the guy is a sociopath who does what he wants, when he wants, with who he wants and doesn't give it a second thought. Scott Peterson was very charming and sincere, too--and look how that turned out.

I don't mean to cut on Augusten's friend, but I just don't understand how she can stand to look at this guy, much less continue to mourn losing him and want him back. The book is good, but I say that very reluctantly because the whole thing was almost ruined by her ridiculous longing for her dick of an ex-husband.

Ok, well my pinkie is totally numb now so that will have to suffice; I'll fill you in on the other books I've read when I regain the feeling in my finger.

Can't...Type...



Wow, I'm having blogging withdrawal, it's been so long since I've written in here. It's partly due to the fact that I have a new job where I have actual work to do--imagine that. And it's also by necessity since I'm valiantly trying to will my nerve-damaged hand to heal without having to seek medical help. I have pretty much figured out what's wrong: ulnar nerve entrapment. It's freaky because my hand is numb in the EXACT blue places on this picture, right down to the half index finger.

Guess I'll try sleeping with a huge towel wrapped around my elbow so I can't bend my arm. Not. Sadly I sleep on my side with my arm curled up in the exact "don't" way indicated on that page. I guess I could try some version of the towel thing, but it will necessitate me having to take a double-dose of Ambien to be able to sleep. (Just kidding, mom.)(My mom's suggested dose of every medication: cut the pill in half, or even in quarters. If you go by her rules you pretty much just have to think about the pill and that should be sufficient to relieve your symptoms.)

At any rate, since I have to spend my working life at the keyboard I need to spend all non-work time trying to keep my arm straight as a stick; e.g. not typing or using a mouse. Therefore blogging sadly has become as verboten as playing Luxor. I have determined that the way to avoid future game-related injuries is to buy a Wii--that way I can still waste countless hours playing video games but I won't be glued to a keyboard.

Actually, I'm sure that logic is flawed and I'd end up with some other Wii-related injury, which is just as well since I have about 100 other things I could spend the $500+ it would cost to buy the Wii, the controllers and all the other accessories necessary to have any fun with it.

Well, I'd love to stay and chat but it's time to go back to doing something that doesn't require use of my elbow or right hand.

Sigh. I hope this goes away soon.

Birthday Weekend

At this exact time 12 years ago I had just gone to McDonalds and eaten a double quarter pounder with cheese and a large fries, then walked for as long as a huge pregnant lady can walk after eating all that, then sat down to watch Victor/Victoria (it just happened to be on TV). At 10 pm I got up to go to the bathroom and--splash!--my water broke while I was on the toilet. Sorry for the sound effect but it was notably funny that it did literally sound like a water balloon had dropped into the bowl.

Anyway, here I am, 12 years later, sitting on a different sofa with a crick in my neck that I swear hurts more than labor did. (not to gloat but I actually never had any labor pains at all with Mimi--I'm not even kidding). Yesterday I took Mimi and her friend for a birthday weekend "away"--if you could being 30 minutes south of here at an Embassy Suites away. I had been dreading it--stuck with two 12 year-old girls for 24 hours--can you imagine? But I was actually pleasantly surprised--it wasn't half bad. Better yet, it was even--dare I say it?--fun.

You would think that two 12 year-old girls together would be double the surly-ness and, therefore, intolerable, but it was actually the opposite; they somehow cancelled each other's hormones out or something and were downright pleasant to be with. We went to see Baby Mama--I give it an 8, btw--went to the hotel pool, ate pizza and watched TV.

It was all good until bedtime. The friend had to leave at 9 so it was just me, Mimi and a king-sized bed. We hadn't had time to watch a movie with the friend so it was now time for the movie. There were at least 10 movies that were both suitable for a 12 year-old and fun for me to watch. But of course that would have been too easy--after much deliberation, Mimi chose the feature-length Hannah Montana concert.

I managed to read for a while with the help of earplugs, then actually fell asleep before the movie was even over. At 2 am I was woken up with an elbow jab to the eye, courtesy of Mimi who manages to take up the entire bed, no matter how big it is. So I went to sleep on the sofa and must have slept wrong because I woke up with a ripping crick in my neck.

The sad reality is that I've been totally spoiled as far as hotels go. There is a world of difference between the Frette-sheeted bed in a salon suite at the Wynn and the pullout couch bed at Embassy Suites.

But I digress...bottom line is that, come midnight, I am the mom of an official 12 year-old girl.

Go Augusten! A Wolf At The Table is a Bestseller!

I finished Augusten's new book, A Wolf At The Table, and it was fabulous. It's definitely different from his other books--for one thing, it's not light or funny or self-deprecating. It's just sad, but beautifully written. I won't say more than that because you have to read it yourself but I will say that I don't understand why people harp about whether or not his books are actually true or if he made stuff up or what. Who cares? A book is a book and he's an awesome writer and his stories are engaging whether or not they're true. I wish they weren't true--I wish he didn't have such a sad story to tell--but at least he's happy and successful now.

I hope he sells a million copies of this book so next time he does a book tour he gets to go to more stores than the one tiny one he'll be doing in DC on Tuesday, which I may well miss--much to my infinite sadness. I thought he'd be at Barnes and Noble or whatever out in the burbs, but apparently not. Actually, maybe he chooses the venues and didn't want a big store?

Anyway, to add insult to injury, when I tried to look at the website for the group that's sponsoring the signing he's doing in DC I couldn't view it because the place I work blocks gay and lesbian websites. I'm not talking porn; I'm talking the Human Rights Campaign Equality Forum website. How they don't get slapped with a discrimination lawsuit here for blatantly blocking anything having to do with gays is beyond me.

At any rate, go read it and tell me what you think. And keep your fingers crossed that I can get downtown by 6:30 pm on Tuesday to see him!

Happy Mother's Day

Mimi (who will be 12 a week from tomorrow) may be Wednesday Addams incarnate but the girl can write a fierce poem. Who needs Hallmark when you can come up with this?

You are so pretty
For all the other moms I take pity
You have the best style
Especially in your smile
You have (very) slightly jiggly buns
But you have hard rock guns
Your teeth are perfectly white
Your pretty face shines so bright

Happy Mother's Day!

UPDATE

My mom called to say that Mimi shouldn't be praised for writing a poem about my boobs. I thought everyone knew "guns" means arms. Think what's-her-name in Terminator. Except mine aren't that rock-hard. My arms, that is.

I'm Hot

Wow--today my blog is in the "What's Hot" section of myragan.com (the "All this twitter is making me crazy!" headline). If you're reading this post on a day other than today, it's probably no longer up there--alas, the fleeting nature of any spotlight.

Oh and, yes, I am that much of a loser that I have 3 blogs. That one on myragan.com was just an experiment to see how many people actually read it vs. how many people read Mizz Information. As of 1 pm today 149 people have read the myragan.com one. Average daily visits to Mizz Information? That would be zero.

Do the math on that.

Forget Blog to Book Deals--This Chick Says You Can Make $1M Blogging

Ok, forget the blog-to-book deal concept entirely; according to Jessica Santina at Yahoo! Education, one of the 10 hottest emerging careers is blogging. She claims that top bloggers can make 6-figures--or even millions!!

I guess the operative word here is "top;" presumably "top" doesn't apply to bloggers who write about stuff like how Mallory looks old or which movie rocked and which movie sucked. You never know, though...

Is Desperate Housewives That Desperate?

Ok, not to be catty, but we were watching Desperate Housewives last night and suddenly there's a new character on Wisteria Lane. Apparently Carlos and Gabby need money so badly they've resorted to renting out rooms in their house. They're interviewing this potential tenant and I keep looking at her thinking "Who IS that? She looks familiar."

The whole time I kept thinking she looked like a very weathered Mallory--you remember fresh-faced Mallory, right?



Doesn't this sort of look like her, except gaunt and, um, not attractive?


It is her.

Ok, actually she doesn't look that bad in this picture--on the show her character turns out to be a drug dealer and let's just say she looks like she's her own best customer. You'll have to watch it next week to see what mean.

If nothing else she just looked so un-hollywood. I'm so used to everyone looking like they get better and better as they get older--actresses, that is--what with fat injections and botox and eye lifts and who knows what else. Honestly--look at Courtney Cox or Katie Couric or Christy Brinkley--or almost any actress/model over the age of 40. Granted, everyone looks slightly like they've been replaced by an alien that looks ALMOST the same but something's not quite right--but they all look pretty glam.

Then look at Mallory (she's always Mallory to me, not Justine Bateman) on Desperate Housewives--you'll have to watch it next week because I can't find any links to photos bad enough to illustrate my point, and trust me, I do have a point. She just looks weird--I don't know if she attempted some kind of plastic surgery and it somehow didn't work out or what, but she looks sort of like a cross between a gaunt, stoned version of her former self and Michael Jackson. Seriously.

Forget Waiting for a Book Deal--You Can Create and Sell Your Own Book

My friend Renee is my guru of stuff like The Secret and The 4-Hour Work Week--basically all that power of positive thinking stuff that most people think is a crock but I personally buy into. She reads my blog and knows about my obsession with the book deal because she sent me this link.

Unless I'm reading it wrong it appears you can write a book and, for a cost of $3.66 per book with fewer than 108 pages (or $1.50 plus $.02 per book if it's more than 108 pages) print it and sell it on Amazon or wherever you want.

Um, how cool is that?

Now that we know there is the actual option of writing a book we all need to think of something to write and do it, if for no other reason than curiosity. If a random nobody writes a book and manages to market it successfully enough I suppose it would be possible to create your own million dollar book deal.

For instance--I have been listening to the audiobook of The Secret (also kindly given to me by Renee--thanks if you're reading this!) and Jack Canfield, the guy who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, tells the story of how he decided he wanted to earn $100,000 in a year and dreamed up the idea for that book and went for it. Here's his bio now:

Jack Canfield, has worked his way from being a teacher to holding a Guinness world record for having seven books simultaneously on The New York Times® Best Sellers list. As a coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, he's sold more than 80 million books. Canfield has traveled to over 21 countries, delivering hundreds of keynote speeches, workshops and trainings each year. Canfield has appeared on numerous television shows. Today, he shares his success strategies with companies and associations worldwide

The only problem is that, if I apply Jack Canfield's theories to myself, I can already tell you that I would never succeed at building my own million-dollar empire because the only part of it I'd want is the million dollars.

I don't actually want to be an entrepreneur or build an empire. I don't want to travel or do any public speaking. I want the structure of going to an office every day and having someone else worry about the details. So if I apply the principles of The Secret to myself I've already shot any chances of being a passive millionaire--or any kind of millionaire--because I don't actually WANT to have that life and the universe only sends you what you want.

Oh well. The universe sent me a cool new job and the link to this self publishing thing so the message is that if I ever want to publish a book I can just do it myself. The universe also probably knows I have no initiative beyond writing this blog so won't be publishing a book anytime soon, unless it's a book of short short stories. Yes, that is an actual writing genre, by the way.

Obviously, the concept of short short stories was tailor-made for me; it may as well be called FIO fiction. Read these stories and tell me you don't think they're a stroke of FIO genius.

How Do You Say Eco-Friendly in French?

I got this from my one of my favorite new blogs, Stuff White People Like.

This is truly a case of fact being funnier than fiction. Check out Le Petite Paradise Preschool's website --if you didn't know better wouldn't you think it's a joke? I personally can't see how it's NOT a joke.

Check out the eco-friendly section and you'll see what I mean. Any sales pitch that has to use the qualifier "mostly" just can't be for real, can it?

If so then I am "mostly" eco-friendly myself. I "sometimes" take my empty soda cans to the kitchen at work to put them in the recycle bin. No matter that it's maybe 1 in 10 times; I am still committed to recycling, non? And I "mostly" recycle paper and cardboard--unless I'm too lazy to walk the few extra steps to the recycle bin and must put it in the trash instead. The floors at my house "might" be made of wood from genetically enginered trees, therefore having spared hundreds of real trees. Or possibly not.

Anyway, I'm sorry but I am not thoroughly convinced that it's not a joke--I mean, school anthem on the website?

Mizz Information

Nobody ever reads my other blog, Mizz Information, so I may as well re-purpose what I've written there lately and save myself the effort of writing anything here.

How's that for both self-serving and lazy?

Don't Say They Didn't Warn You

Last week I heard something on the radio about the FDA taking another look at the safety of Lasik. I never did catch the full story, but was sufficiently curious that I checked out the Washington Post's archive and found a few articles about it.

Apparently "in fury and despair," some angry Lasik patients went before federal health advisers to recommend that the government warn more clearly about the risks of the surgery.

I don't get it--anyone who does two seconds of research about Lasik knows about the possibility of halos and dry eyes. A few months ago I wrote about my Lasik experience and the resulting dry eyes and less-than-perfect vision. I mean, I guess I could hold the surgeon accountable for my complications--one of the main reasons I wanted Lasik in the first place was because my eyes were so dry contacts were a nightmare. Also, I had large pupils. He did know about these things and still did the surgery--but then again, I knew about these things and still elected to have the surgery.

How much of this is about the doctors wanting to make a profit and risking patients' eye health as a result and how much is it about people wanting perfect vision at any cost? How many patients, if told by a doctor that they weren't good candidates for the procedure would seek another opinion and, if that doctor told them it would be fine, would go ahead and have it? I'd be willing to bet at least half would go ahead despite the warnings.

I--and I'm sure I'm not the only one--just wanted what everyone who opts to get Lasik wants: to be able to see perfectly without glasses or contacts. Was I guaranteed a perfect, complication-free result? Absolutely not. Sure, chances were that I'd be fine like the majority of people who have it and wake up with 20/20 vision and never give it another thought--but did anyone promise me that? Not at all. Granted, while they don't gloss over the warnings per se, they do do the "don't worry--complications are very rare" thing.

I'll tell you one thing, though--they sure won't touch my eyes now. I've gone back a few times hoping they could "tweak" my vision--which I think is about 20/40 but they now claim I have a predisposition to complications and am no longer a candidate. If that's not a cover your ass, I don't know what is--but somehow they didn't realize I had this "predisposition" to complications before I had the surgery. I guess you can only be predisposed AFTER you've already had the complications.

At any rate, even with my dry eyes and halos and need for light prescription contacts or glasses, if I could go back in time I'd still have had the surgery. To me while yes, it's annoying that I don't have 20/20 vision with no dry eyes at all, it was crippling to have vision so bad I couldn't see my glasses on the table in front of me or read a shampoo bottle in the shower. Before I had Lasik, if I had been on a desert island and my glasses had broken I would have been totally SOL; now I'd be fine, and to me that's worth having to use eye drops and wear contacts or glasses if I want to see 20/20.

The Bottle Whisperer

Today's Washington Post features DC's "Breast Whisperer"--a $150 an hour lactation consultant who saves new moms from resorting to the unthinkable: bottle feeding. She is booked around the clock with $150 home visits and $85 an hour office appointments--all told she sees about 80 women a week, according to the article. Don't think she's in it for the money, though--the article points out that she magnanimously reserves two free visits a week for low-income families!

No, she's not in it for the money--the article says that her message is:

Breast-feeding may not always be easy, but it's the healthiest option for babies' development and immune systems, as well as for their mothers' stress levels and improved protection against some cancers.

I think she's onto something--not with her opinion that breastfeeding is the end all, be all--but that women are willing to pay top dollar to have someone help them feed their babies. I will spare you my rant about why I'm sick to death of hearing how "breast is best" and how breastfed babies never get sick or have allergies and are all geniuses. Suffice it to say that back when I had Mimi I was just like the women in this article--brainwashed to think that not breastfeeding your baby was tantamount to feeding it Drano and any mom who wasn't willing to go to whatever length necessary to breastfeed for at least a year deserved to have her baby taken away from her.

I did everything in my attempt to keep breastfeeding through severe postpartum depression and nipples that were basically dangling by bloody threads as a result of Mimi's bad "latch": I forked out money to a lactation consultant who sent me home with a hospital grade breast pump (even though I was home full-time with my baby and had enough milk to feed 5 babies) and detailed instructions to do something to my nipples pretty much every waking hour of the day: soak them in soup bowls of warm water, blow dry them, put neosporin on them, put antifungal cream on them (just in case I had thrush, even though neither I nor Mimi had any symptoms of it), put hot compresses on them, put cold compresses on them--oh, and walk around without a shirt or bra on anytime I was home.

Thinking back to that time just makes me shudder--I was such a mess and drove myself absolutely crazy obsessively trying to ignore my bleeding, mangled nipples and do what good moms do: breastfeed my baby. When, after 6 weeks, the psychiatrist declared that I needed to either go on medication or be hospitalized, I dejectedly called the lactation consultant to get her guidance on how to wean the baby--because everyone knows you can't just quit cold-turkey. Like a salesperson trying to prevent a customer from walking away from a sale, she helpfully pointed out--and this is not a joke or an exaggeration; these were her EXACT words:

"Sometimes formula-fed babies sleep so deeply they never wake up."

But I digress...I forgot I said I'd spare you the rant. At any rate, I think I should go into business as a bottle-feeding consultant. That's a service that society is severely lacking; someone to tell you that the world won't end if you decide not to breastfeed your baby. I could offer anecdotes about all the breastfed babies who actually end up not actually having immune systems of steel--I mean, seriously--do you honestly think that every single one of the millions of kids who are deathly allergic to peanuts or milk or dust or who knows what was bottle fed? I could compile lists of geniuses throughout history who never tasted so much as a drop of breastmilk.

Seriously--for every woman out there desperate to spend any amount of money to have someone be her breastfeeding cheerleader, there is another who'd pay just as much to have someone reassure her she's not a monster or a bad mom for wanting to feed her baby formula. For $150 an hour, I could be that woman.

Tick Tock--and Augusten

I haven't been writing in here much because I'm distracted waiting to hear about something that I can't write about yet. And no, I'm not pregnant so don't go thinking it's that.

Oh, and sadly, it's not a 6-figure (or any figure) book deal either.

In an attempt to distract myself I checked Augusten's website to see when he's coming to DC and THANK GOD it's changed from May 19 to May 20. May 19 is Mimi's birthday and I don't think 12 year old girls react too well to their moms having to take a pass on birthday dinner to go to meet Augusten. Maybe I could have convinced her that she, too, wanted to go meet him; Matthew was listening to Magical Thinking with me in the car and was riveted to the story about Augusten being in a Tang commercial when he was a kid. It's a given that she'll be her snarky self anyway, so no matter what we do it will be met with attitude anyway. Remember Wednesday Adams? That stone faced look and constant world-weary attitude? Yeah, that's Mimi.

Anyway, it looks like he's coming May 20th instead so all is right in the world. Here is an article about him and his new book in the New York Times.

In the meantime, I just ordered 4 books he recommends highly in his blog:

A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel.

Split: A Memoir of Divorce by Suzanne Finnamore

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation by Elizabeth Berg

Is Twitter the Equivalent of Trash Art?

As you may have noticed on the sidebar on the right side of this page I am now "Tweeting" (or is it twittering?). I started doing it because every day I read several marketing newsletters and many blogs and social media is basically the only thing any of them talk about. For those of you who are not receiving marketing newsletters daily and don't know the first thing about marketing--or care to know it--Wikipedia defines it as:

...an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings.

In other words, Facebook, MySpace, blogging, etc, etc.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you--if you want to learn more about it you can read my other blog, Mizz Information, or google it and you too can become an "expert" (I have written 3 articles for EzineArticles and am now an "Expert").

At any rate, lately all I seemed to be reading about was Twitter. Don't ask me why but it's apparently considered to be a trend or asset in the business world, so in an effort to always keep my resume fresh, naturally I had to get with the times and start tweeting.

Two things about Twitter: first, I have no idea what the actual value of it is. I personally see it as sort of an art form reminiscent of a gumball machine that dispensed--for a quarter--pieces of trash in little plastic balls. In other words, I see Twitter as a completely FIO way of being some kind of modern day poet.

The thing is, like Christopher Goodwin's gumballs (see link above), ultimately people's tweets seem to me to be the literary version of small pieces of trash encapsulated in little plastic bubbles. Take a look at my "tweets" in the sidebar: you basically have I think 150 characters to make some kind of witty quip or otherwise somehow relevant observation. I like it because I personally am entertained by my own witty quips, but as far as the overall point or value of Twitter, I'm stumped.

It's funny to me the way people I see as being big guns in the business or marketing worlds seem to place a high level of importance on social media stuff I think of as relevant only to teenagers. Penelope Trunk, uber business woman and 6-figure blog to book deal getter, is doing it. Barak Obama is doing it (or at least someone posing as him is doing it). I won't waste anymore time looking up who else is doing it; I think it's safe to assume most writers or marketing people or just plain anyone trying to be down with the times is doing it.

Twitter is, for me, at the same time entertaining and boring. Yes, it's kind of fun to write any random thought in 150 words or less and release it into the universe, and to read other people's random thoughts. Then again, are other people's random thoughts really that interesting? Or are mine, for that matter? It's one thing if you're 16 and trying to stay in constant contact with your "peeps" and the minutiae of your life is all you talk about anyway, but do adults really have anything interesting to tweet about?

Raise Your Hand If You Did NOT Have Postpartum Depression

While looking up something else (I can't even remember what) I came across this breaking news:

Gwyneth Paltrow Suffered From Post-Partum Depression

And this is breaking news....why? Most women can tell horror stories of their post-partum depression: my personal favorite is when my best friend from college hallucinated a chicken walking across her living room.

Most are not that entertaining, though--most women's experiences range from not being able to get out of bed to not being able to sleep at all, from worrying obsessively about their babies getting hurt to worrying obsessively about hurting their own babies, and then everything in between.

However, I have not yet heard anyone describe their expericence quite like Gwyneth did:

"I didn’t know I had it until after it was over."

My heart goes out to her.

Back In The Game

Yesterday's pain crisis--horrible burning shoulder/back pain due to excessive computer gaming--has mostly been averted thanks to ibuprofen, heat and valium.

I can't help but think of the term "mother's little helper" when I think of valium--isn't that what they used to call it back in the 50s or 60s or whenever they came out with it? Back in the days before Prozac and before it was ok for housewives to admit they were miserable and bored and lonely at home. I personally don’t think it’s all that great—it just sort of spaces me out, which is not something I need pharmaceutical help with since I am in tune with my surroundings about 25% of the time anyway. The 50s housewives can keep their valium because I don't think it's anything to write home about.

The heatwrap, on the other hand…that thing is pure genius. It’s essentially a giant, hot maxi-pad that you stick on your back, where it magically stays hot for 12 hours. I have no idea how it works but I LOVE it and would definitely take one over valium any day. I have it on today, however, and am slightly worried that people will think I actually do have a maxi-pad stuck on my back because it is clearly visible through my shirt and the adhesive "wing" is clearly visible on the back of my neck.

At any rate, the good news is that no permanent harm was caused by Luxor--which is slightly unfortunate because I'm already craving it like a 50s housewife craved valium.

Luxor

Patrick was away last weekend so I spent an embarrassing amount of time playing Big Kahuna Reef's replacement, Luxor (Google "Luxor game" too see what I'm talking about). I had big plans--go see Meet the Browns (see yesterday's post), shop, go to the gym, etc. I am also reading a really good book, Next by Michael Crichton, and was definitely going to finish it.

Saturday I had the kids but while we were home I spent pretty much every free minute not reading but playing Luxor. Sunday I was on my own from 1-6 pm--perfect time to go see a movie, right? Pedicure, shopping, whatever. Suddenly, though, I was bone tired so lay down on the sofa and watched Arlington Road (again, see yesterday's post). But that only lasted for 2 hours and, if my memory serves me correctly, I think I spent from 3-6 playing Luxor.

Yesterday I started having a burning, wrenching pain in the middle of my back, right next to my right scapula. I thought it was either from excessive sofa time or lifting weights.

This morning I asked my friend/coworker who is a massage therapist in training, to diagnose the pain--did she think it's a pulled muscle? I jokingly mentioned maybe it was a result of my Luxor binge.

Turns out that, yes, she thinks it's a pinched a nerve in my scapula. The cause? Luxor.

I might be the only almost 40-year old woman to ever sustain a video game related injury--how pathetic is that?

**** Update****

My back/shoulder/arm now hurts so bad it's crazy...I'm swearing off computer games forever. Unfortunately I still have to spend most of my waking hours sitting at a computer using a mouse anyway.

Nothin' Goin' On But the Rent

Crickets are chirping in my head--nothing new over here.

I haven't talked about movies much lately--I guess that's a testament to the quality of the movies we've seen lately. One of my favorite things to do in this life is go to the movies. Not watch movies--I usually can't sit through a movie at home (although I did just watch Arlington Road yesterday and it was AWESOME--a definite at least 9.5). But physically go to the movies. The only problem is when there is a run of bad movies, like there has been lately, it's hard to find anything worth seeing. I still badger Patrick to go every week, but it's been slim pickings lately.

Let's see how far back I can remember:

1) The Ruins--we saw this last week and Patrick rated it second worst movie he's ever seen, with Bug being the standard by which he judges all bad movies. I personally liked Bug but did have to agree with him that The Ruins pretty much sucked. At first it seemed like it was going to be a twist on Hostel--which I personally gave high marks--but then it turned out not to be a twist on anything. Having any type of twist would have made it at least marginally entertaining--in reality it pretty much wasn't. I think I have to give it maybe a 4--it was scary so that was fun but that's about it.

2) 21--this movie rocked. We saw it the week before we went to Vegas but sadly it didn't help us win any money. Kevin Spacey was really good in it, and overall it was just good--even Patrick liked it, which is high praise for a movie. Unlike my opinion, which is probably useless to most people because I'm like Mikey--I pretty much like anything. But 21, even by standards more rigorous than mine, is a good movie--I'd give it an 8.

3) The Bank Job--this movie was pretty good at the time but, now that it's been a few weeks, I can barely remember it so it couldn't have been that good. It was kind of confusing and not that realistic, but better than most other movies out lately. Patrick liked it and I probably gave it a 7.

4) Horton Hears a Who--yes, I see an assload of movies--the fact that I can think of 4 right off the top of my head proves that. I saw this movie with the kids and, even though I wanted to see it and love the original movie, I fell asleep for most of it. Unfortunately, I woke up at the end and for some reason squirted a tear when the tiny kid says "Yop" and suddenly everyone can hear that's there's life in Whoville after all. Mimi was sitting next to me and apparently saw my eyes misting up because she said "You've GOT to be kidding me--you're crying for THIS?" That's Mimi for you. I have to give this movie low marks because it was worse than the original and having Carol Burnett be the voice of the kangaroo just ruined it for me somehow. I give it, sadly, maybe a 2--which is unheard of for me.

5) Yes, I can keep going all day but I'll stop at 5. I forgot that I just saw Superhero Movie with the kids on Saturday. When you see as many movies as I do they all sort of blur together, but I do remember that it was pretty funny--I think I'd give it at least a 7.5.

Ok--I'll spare you--suffice it to say that if it's been in a theater and is rated R Patrick and I have probably seen it, and if it's rated PG there's a chance I've seen it with the kids. The main movie I want to see is Meet The Browns but so far I haven't been able to convince Patrick to go. Maybe Wednesday.

Crazy Successful or Just Crazy?

Lately I've been reading/listening to a lot of books about forgetting the rules and just making things to happen. Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, Timothy Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek, Steve Chandler's 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself and various other motivational speakers/authors. The common theme among them: throw convention out the window, rules don't matter, you are the master of your own destiny, etc. I guess it equates to what is known as the "entrepreneurial spirit."

I listen to/read this stuff and get really hyped up--"Yeah! I'm just going to make things happen for myself! F the rules--I'll write my own rules!" I can see why these people get paid a ton of money to speak or write books--because the fact that I and millions of other people are listening to/reading them is living proof that, yes, it is possible to write your own rules and design your life to your exact specifications.

(Patrick--who may as well be named Eyore for these purposes--totally disagrees with my enthusiasm, by the way. He says they’re all full of shit and anyone who tried to do what they say would immediately be fired and their lives forever ruined.)

One thing that occurred to me one day, though, while double-dosing on Timothy Ferriss in the car and Penelope Trunk on the computer--both of them have similarly extreme stories: Trunk with her start-ups, firings, bankruptcy, and now fame and, apparently, fortune and Ferriss with his quitting Princeton, losing jobs, starting companies and working 24/7, etc.

Then cut to me, sitting at my quarterly appointment with the psychopharmacologist, listening to him tick off his standard list of questions: Have you been more active than usual? Reduced need for sleep? Risk-taking behavior? Delusions of grandeur? If I were to answer yes to any or, god forbid, all of these questions, I'd be walking out of there with a prescription for Lithium to quell what would diagnostically qualify as a manic episode. I never did anything close to any of this stuff they've done yet I am supposedly bipolar II and on medication for life.

So here’s my question: don’t you essentially have to be bipolar to be a successful entrepreneur? Don’t all these people get to the top by working 24/7 (reduced need for sleep), doing what other people would never dream of doing like quitting jobs to start a business (risk-taking behavior), and of course thinking that the reason they can do this stuff and succeed is because they’re echelons above the common person (delusions of grandeur)? What would happen if they were to wind up in the shrink’s office and handed a sheaf of prescriptions—would they still be on top of the world, writing best-selling books and making millions with their speaking engagements? Or would the meds pop their manic balloons and send them back to regular desk jobs?

White People--Christian Lander's Got Your Number

Yesterday I mentioned Christian Lander's blog, Stuff White People Like, but said I hadn't really read it yet. I subsequently went and read it and have to say that it may well eclipse my former favorite website of all time, The Best Page In the Universe.

It is hilarious and so, so true. This post about how white people like free healthcare is one of my favorites.

Other stuff white people like: having gay friends, recycling, multilingual children, coffee, expensive sandwiches and microbreweries, to name just a few.

I must not be all white because the only thing on this short list (here's the full list) that I like is having gay friends--I am the anti-recycler, don't drink beer and, if I had a personal motto, it may well be "Welcome to America. Now speak English."

Blog-to Book-Deal #92

Ok, not really--I'm not sure if the actual number of blog-to-book deals to date is 92; I just stole "92" from the title of this article that appeared in the March 30, 2008 New York Times.

Christian Lander, an Internet copy writer, has a blog called Stuff White People Like. I would have given the guy a book deal for the title alone. I have to go read it but at a super quick glance (who, me--offer an opinion based upon a mere glance?) it looks hilarious. Hilarious, apparently, to the tune of $300,000, according to the NYT article.

Look at it this way--turn on your TV on any given evening and chances are you will find a reality show of some sort. Dating shows, beauty contests, a million different takes on the theme of survival, people battling it out to lose weight, people crammed in a house trying to annoy the shit out of each other, etc. You name it and there's a reality show about it. The whole premise is that people are entertaining enough just by themselves; no need for writers to sweat it out trying to write scripts or come up with ideas.

Isn't the same thing true of blogs? I'm certainly no literary agent yet I spend an inordinate amount of time reading various blogs. If I were in a position to make money by translating interesting ones into book deals I'd be set for life. Sit back and surf the infinite number of unsolicited book pitches--what could be easier? It's like being a modeling agent sitting at a pool filled with hot young girls--just sit there with a cocktail and take your pick of the ones who would make you the most money.

At any rate, is this not yet more evidence that FIO is the way the world operates now?

As is this, for that matter--my new FIO poster child, Penelope Trunk, blogging about how writing without typos is totally outdated. I say poster child because she embodies the spirit of FIO--that is, fuck rules--make your own, then laugh all the way to the bank.

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

Lucky you--now you can get this blog delivered to your inbox. Just enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page to subscribe.

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?