Lion and Magic Boy

Jennifer’s post over at Pinwheels about the startling revelation in Vanity Fair that playwright Arthur Miller had a son with Down syndrome who was hidden away right after hs birth got me to thinking this week and inspired me to do a little writing on the topic over at Strollerderby. If you haven’t yet seen it yet, please go have a look. I already said it better there than I could repeat here, but it’s about compassion and judgment and whether or not we can truly walk in someone else’s shoes. Anyway, I learned a lot about myself simply in the process of writing that piece. I hope you enjoy it.

[tags]Arthur Miller, down syndrome, children with down syndrome[/tags]

Three. Days.

Three.

It has taken me that long to break through the impenetrable Wall of Wordpress. I now know WAY less about php and MySQL and .htaccess than ever I imagined I could not know about.

And the Wordpress support forums are…lengthy. And not always helpful.

Along the way a post was lost, a worthy sacrifice, I guess.

But I’m back.

Hi.

I am #2 in Yahoo Search when searching the phrase, “How to waste 20 minutes.”

I’m … honored.

And I’ve got to try harder to be #1.

However, I did run across this.

[tags] time wasting, Yahoo Search, How to waste 20 minutes[/tags]

So by now you all know I’ve been writing for Strollerderby over at Babble for awhile, it’s like no big deal at this point, right? Except I do write some amazing stuff there from time to time; you should check it out. Except today. Today’s kind of lame for me. And yesterday.

But now, with site expansion, a whole new crop of writers are appearing! Last week’s news was the last straw. I am totally in blogcrushland with the news that not only have I been sharing Strollerderby space with Metrodad and Suburban Bliss, and WouldaCouldaShoulda, voted by me as Blogger Who Is Most Likely Living My Life For Me Thank You, has been writing beginning this month for the new products blog Droolicious, but now! The fabulous Mrs. Kennedy is shedding sweet-tart witticisms on parenting at one of the new personal blogs at Babble, California Breedin’.

Whoa.

I am pretty sure that people reading Strollerderby look at the sidebar that lists all the bloggers and say, “Yep, yep, yep, I know that one and that one and that one and WAIT! Who the hell is this Karen Murphy??! What is she doing in here?”

Either that or they assume I’m just another not-quite-semi-famous blogger they’ve never heard of. Heh.

At any rate, I’m in extremely good company over there and I’m very pleased to be there with all the fabulous writers. In fact, I’m so pleased that I’m going to go next month and hang out with a lot of them in Chicago at BlogHer 2007!

Yeah, yeah, I realize I don’t do the group-thing well, especially women-in-groups. Bleh. But somehow I don’t think I can pass up the opportunity to meet so many wonderful women-who-write, women who are doing what I’m doing in some fashion, either many steps beyond me down the path or on a similar path or whatever. It’s not just the networking possibility. It’s more of wanting to hang out with People Who Get Me, and this whole Divulge Embarrassing Details About Your Life in Public thing isn’t something that everyone Gets. So there you go. Never mind that I haven’t actually met any of these people before. Never mind that when in groups I tend to blend in with the potted plants or completely sequester myself while hating the whole group-thing, feeling incredibly left out yet dismissive at the same time. Forget all that. I’m going and I’m going to have a wonderful time. So there.

And if I get to meet or even be in the same room with any of the aforementioned, or anybody in the list at right and a whole lot more, then my heart will explode with joy.

In case you still haven’t made it over to the Blogger’s Choice Awards page, I thought I’d include a link for voting rather than forcing you to hunt for me among all the other Hot Mommy Bloggers nominated there. Which there are many of. So I haven’t a chance in hell, but that shouldn’t keep you from voting for me! I am hot, after all. Hot, hot, hot. If only you knew. So vote for me, as it’s unlikely I’ll ever run for anything, ever, and then one day you can look back on your life and feel it’s complete, having cast this one random vote. For me. Which you totally want to do. Right now.

[tags] Hottest Mommy Blogger, Blogger’s Choice Awards [/tags]

Someone who obviously knows my many charms has nominated me for Hottest Mommy Blogger at the Blogger’s Choice Awards. Have you voted yet? Cast your vote today! (but be sure it’s for me)

[tags] Hottest Mommy Blogger, Blogger’s Choice Awards, not a chance in hell [/tags]

Before I forget: I submitted this post about Eric to the Carnival of Family Life, all the entries to which can be found over at Adventures in the 100 Acre Woods.

All right then, on to other things.

Here’s an example of my expert parenting acumen:

Lately there’s been a tornado of Legos that has taken over our house. Nathaniel assures me that “everybody” else has Legos, specifically Star Wars Legos. Not wishing that his tender psyche be bruised by his Lego-lack, and since it’s been, what, more than 60 days since Christmas, I saw fit to spend some hard-earned dollars at the Lego website.

Those little plastic suckers are expensive!

So now we have (as I informed the children) enough Legos For a Lifetime: a set of at least 700 in a large plastic bucket (have I ever mentioned how much I abhore plastic?), plus a special limited-edition (I am such a sucker) Star Wars spaceship thing, complete with a Princess Leia (among other figures, or “mini-figs” according to eBay, not that I would know) and her detachable cinnamon-bun hair (which has since been rescued from the floor of the school bus; you don’t want to know the details).

And Nathaniel and Serena disappear every afternoon into one of their rooms to manipulate these little plastic things.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Legos (when did they get so small??). I had Legos as a kid, played with them about 4 times a year, and couldn’t wait until Jess got old enough for them so I could play some more,

…..BUT…..

1. They’re plastic. Have I mentioned my aversion to plastic?
2. They’re so damn small!!
3. Chokable. Not that Eric puts things in his mouth (except food; he’s rather partial to that).
4. But still! So small! And vacuumable!
5. And, the Obsession Thing.

Yes, my older son is slightly OCD.

(I think he might have got it from me, not that I have, you know, rituals or anything, but I have been known to like things a certain way.)

So he left the Star Wars spaceship out on the coffee table the other day, well within Eric’s reach. (Did I mention that this thing has like 4,103 pieces and took him three hours to put together?)

Naturally, Eric thought it would be fun to play with it. He didn’t hurt it. Much. But in Nathaniel’s haste to get it away from Eric and safely back upstairs, it got dropped.

That wasn’t good for it, apparently.

It’s now in, shall we say, several pieces. More pieces than it was in before. Pieces that are not easily identified as being from one part or another.

Nathaniel was, shall we say, disappointed about this.

Rather.

So my parenting response? “If you’re going to be so upset about it, maybe we should put it away for awhile.”

Good, eh?

[Yes, he got the hug too. A big one.]

[tags] carnivals, Legos, frustration, millions of tiny pieces, parenting acumen[/tags]

I remember the day I first ran across the word “meme”, as related to blogging. “Oh how charming, I thought. Look how they’re all interacting! First one person does it, then they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on!”

Ha.

[I just spent 12 minutes looking up the source of that obnoxious tagline. Do you remember it? If you heard it once, I swear you would be unable to forget it. Need the name? It's bothering you now, isn't it? It, it's on the tip of your tongue, isn't it? It's going to drive you crazy now, isn't it?]

Now you know how I feel about memes. This one won’t leave me alone.

And Sween of Space Monkey Pants has tagged me with this neural monstrosity, charging me with thinking up six things about myself odd or interesting enough to post here for you, never mind that I already did this once. Go ahead. See what I wrote the other time. Make sure I don’t repeat myself here.

[Was it Breck?]

1. I can hold a pencil between my upper lip and my nose, like a long yellow mustache. I can wiggle the pencil back and forth, too, and not drop it. I used to call a meeting of my employees and greet them that way when they’d arrive in my office. I have no idea what they thought about it, as, oddly, it was never mentioned.

[Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific?]

2. Sadly, I am unable either to burp on command (let alone the alphabet) or make rude noises using my hand underneath my arm (sorry, can’t say the word “armpit” ewwww I shudder even typing it) despite years of attempting it (I had an older brother). Although I haven’t practiced either one lately, I am pretty sure I still can’t. Wait a sec. Nope. Can’t.

[Clairol Herbal Essence?]

3. Although I went to Paris three times, my strongest memory of the City of Light seems to be the uneven cobblestones that I had to wrestle Nathaniel’s stroller over, around, and among (while also dodging the effluvium of a large number of little yapping dogs carried in large handbags that proliferate the city) in order to navigate the streets while walking…somewhere. It was somewhere French, I’m pretty sure. Was it pretty? I have no idea. I see gray stones dotted with dog poop.

[Prell?]

How’m I doing? Three left, damn! [mutters something]

4. The skin gets dry on the bottoms of my feet and I like to pick at it. In the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I picked at my foot so badly that it became infected and before long I developed blood poisoning (diagnosed by the telltale red line moving up my leg, which I remember being told at the time would cause my death if it reached my heart. You can believe I paid attention then) and spent a few weeks on antibiotics and crutches right smack in the middle of summer when everyone else was doing things like swimming.

[Suave? You can't remember it, can you?]

5. Speaking of crutches, I was back on them only a few months later when I did something to my foot again. What was that? It wasn’t broken, because that happened four years later. Hmm. Anyway, it was winter (which in northern California doesn’t mean that much) and the Winter Olympics were on, so I spread the story that I broke my foot skiing in the Olympics. And there were people who believed this.

[Can't think of any more shampoos from the time period in question. Except The One that's driving you crazy, of course.]

6. The modeling career I alluded to in this post never really got off the ground. I was told I wasn’t tall enough (by an inch) to be a runway model in New York, and I didn’t think I was attractive enough to go into print, and at not-quite 5′8″ and 110 lbs. I didn’t think I was thin enough for either. Plus I felt that the classes I was taking were sort of a ripoff, designed to take the money of the families of hopeful girls. So all I really did was participate in a couple of shows held at malls and wear clothes by some new store called The Gap.

There, Sween! Ya happy now??! Slavedriver.

[You do remember this now, don't you? With wheat germ oil and honey (are those actually good for hair? No one knows). Here you go, so you can sleep tonight: Faberge Organics. "And they'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on......"]

So far, I like.

Yes! It took out that stupid default category, which I sometimes forgot to delete from my posts. Yes!

And? A cleaner editor.

But….? What happened to Strikeout? And clicking on Code in the editor does not get me anything resembling HTML at all. Hmm.  AND!  Nothing for image insertion???

More to come…..

Although I was tagged days ago by Isabella of change therapy with this very fun and thought-provoking meme called 6 Words, I have to address First Things First. And I’m gathering ideas. Really. (Hey, is that what they call procrastination? Because I’m really really good at it.)

Well. The Thing Which I Thought Would Never Happen has happened.

Yep, that’s right. My mom has read my blog.

I am reminded here of the approaching ridiculousness of one day (years and years away. really.) when my mother is like in her 90’s and I’m in my, what? 60’s? and I’m still addressing her as “my mom”. Isn’t that a little weird? Can really really old people still be called “mom”? Think about it.

So now when I say “my mom has been reading my blog”, it sounds a lot like “Dude! OMG! My mom’s been reading my diary!” as if I’m still that prepubescent 11-year old who received her first kiss on a skating rink and then went right home to tell her diary all about it. It brings on feelings of exposure. Cringing, cold fear. And then:

I said “fuck”. In print. And my mom has read this. “Fuck”, and “ass” (at least not in the same sentence. That would really be bad), and probably “shit”. I am so fucked.

And all that other stuff I wrote. Oh.My.Godiftherewasagodwhichthereisn’tI’mprettysure.

We actually talked about it.

And I did not implode.

I mentioned something-or-other that is going on in my life, and My Mom said, “Oh yeah, I read about that.”

Utter. Silence.

I am frantically cataloging, but cannot come up with anywhere I have written anything about that thing except here. On the blog. Which has the word “fuck” in it. More than once.

“On your blog,” she mentions helpfully.

Instantly I assume that faux-casual stance that Steve Martin is so famous for, leaning metaphorically against a doorjamb.

“Blog?” I say, trying to keep my voice from squeaking. “You read my….blog?”

I am not breathing at this point.

“Yes, “she says, “It was great. I love what you write about the children.”

Long, slow exhale.

Actually, I exaggerate. Somewhat. My Mom is cool. I mentioned something about the words, the language (without actually saying “fuck”, which I am pretty sure I have never uttered within, say, 20 feet of My Mom), and we both laughed that casual laugh, the one when you’re 9 you are convinced that people at swanky cocktail parties laugh.

So it’s cool.

And it explains that psycho nutjob from San Francisco who read 79 pages of my blog one day last week, for like 127 minutes. I figured someone had fallen asleep while on my page somehow. Nope, that nutjob was My Mom!

Hi, Mom!

[tags]moms,psycho nutjob,blog, blogging,being outed, fuck[/tags]