The Frantic "Wait! Don't Go! I Have Thoughts!" Friday Round-Up

I had a photo essay planned for today, but my memory card reader decided to eat all the photos. NOM. POOF. Gone. No photos and no photo essay.

So now I'm facing the White Space Of Creative Terror with less than 20 minutes before I have to go pick up Noah from school. What should I talk about? AHMAHGAD.

I could talk about our roof, which you may remember started leaking in the wake of Snoverkill 2010: The Reckoning: Inconvenience Unleashed: the insurance guy came by yesterday to assess the damage.

Good news! There's only $650 in damage.
Bad news! Your deductible is $1,000. So. Good luck with your repairs.

Good news! Your roof wasn't damaged by the snow or ice.
Bad news! Your roof IS damaged, thanks to a certain snow removal guy who decided to get up there with a GODDAMN HAMMER. So. Good luck with THAT.

The insurance guy was really nice, so I felt bad for being a little "goddamn...I'll...hammer...fucking...getonyourroof seehowyoulikeit" at the end of his visit. Then Noah asked him if he was the Cowardly Lion. That was probably a little more awkward.

I could talk about Ezra and all the funny stuff he does, classic mommyblog style, like "Oh! He goes to the front door and says 'BYE' when he wants to go somewhere! He loves school buses and paper towel tubes! When I ordered some Indian food the other night he ran to his high chair and shrieked like a deranged howler monkey because he somehow knew there was food in the bag and I don't know if that means he's smart or I eat too much Indian food."

We're also trying to work on that whole "hands are not for hitting" thing, which is going only sort of okay. We've at least redirected his pint-sized rage away from living things and aimed at inanimate objects. I remember Noah went through a similar phase, at around...18 months? I want to say, though it is entirely likely that I am making that up. (If only I had a blog to write these things down! Or at least the energy and patience to search through that blog's archives!) It's kind of strange that two children who are never hit or spend time around people who hit still manage to pick up smacking as a default reaction to injustice. Inherent violence and aggression in humankind? Eh. Whatever. I'll tell you this: watching a toddler bitchslap a wall that he's just bumped into is HILARIOUS.

(INTERLUDE OF OH SHIT, I HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO GET TO THE SCHOOL THAT'S 20 MINUTES AWAY OH FUCK)

I could talk about the drive home from preschool, when Noah heard Bob Dylan for the first time. I was digging around in our basement for something the other day -- a stapler, I think, the one I swiped from my old office -- and came across a box full of Dylan CDs. At one point I must have boxed them up separately to denote their very specialness to me, and then promptly forgot completely about them. I've been busy. Buying a lot of Glee MP3s. 

Anyway! I ripped a bunch of them and put them on the iPod, and today "Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts" came up, and Noah snapped to attention in the backseat and attempted to hum the harmonica and bounced his legs and just had this LOOK that he gets when he hears music that he really likes. 

I asked him what color the song was. "I don't know!" he exclaimed. "It doesn't have a color!"

I played a couple other Dylan songs and the verdict was the same: He didn't know what color they were. So...I have no idea what that means, from a music or synesthesia theory point of view, but there you go: Bob Dylan songs don't have colors, but Noah sure likes them anyway. 

(INTERLUDE OF SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION)

Big things a'going on at Mamapop this week: we launched SparkleMotion, a community blog/discussion/Tumblr/Twitter/repository of many awesome things...uh, THING. It's really fun. You can join and post whatever you want or check out the funny photos/videos/links that Mamapop writers and readers post, and my goodness, does that sentence have enough slashes? SparkleMotion: the original model/actress, bitches. 

Also at Mamapop Proper, we're hosting our annual Oscars open thread this Sunday. It is an EXCELLENT party, considering you don't have to leave your living room and can say all the bitchy things about peoples' clothing that earn you the stinkeye from your more enlightened significant other. It starts at 7 pm ET. 

Uh. I think that's all I have to talk about today. Hooray for posting at 4:50 pm on a Friday! Ten minutes until quittin' time. (Which around here actually means: 10 minutes until Sesame Street is over.)

It Is All Downhill From Here. And We're Probably About Halfway Down the Hill Already.

THE UPDATE YOU PROBABLY WEREN'T WAITING FOR: Noah's ear infection magically stopped bothering him as soon as the sun came up. Like a vampire. A vampire who craves xylitol gum instead of blood. That simile worked better in my head. Moving on. The doctor confirmed the infection but didn't think it warranted antibiotics, and sent us on our way with merely a prescription for some ear drops. The line at the pharmacy was too long and Noah was! too! hopped! up! onlifetheuniverseeverything! so I grabbed the over-the-counter version instead, which we haven't had to use ANYWAY, and probably won't have to until two months after they expire. Yesterday, Ezra got sick, really sick, all pathetic and snotty and puffy, with liquids oozing out of his eyes and nose. I had the distinct honor of wiping all those fluids off his face, overandoverandover, and my reward for this TOTALLY AWESOME TASK THAT I WAS ALREADY SO EXCITED ABOUT was for him to fight me tooth and nail every time. Sometimes he would sneeze on me.

IN OTHER NEWS: I've been nominated for a Bloggie. For the first time ever! This is the start of something big! Except...it's for the Lifetime Achievement one. The one that I am pretty sure is the Bloggie equivalent of a gentle little head pat and a "That'll do, blogger. That'll do. You've had a good run, now let everybody else take it from here." But I suppose if I win, officially achieving my entire life's work by age 32 could really take the pressure off the next few decades.

I doubt I will win, though, as the category is basically like, POSTSECRET vs. A BUNCH OF SITES WHO ARE NOT POSTSECRET. Still, though, my friend TJ sent me a cautionary email this morning with the subject line: NOW THAT YOU ARE WASHED UP, YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF. Apparently, because I am up for this Major Award, I should get my Twitter account verified:

Mark my words - mommy bloggers are the next Nigerian Uncle with millions of dollars.

Now that you've achieved an entire lifetime's worth of work before the age of 40, you are the perfect target for these shysters. Before you know it, someone will have created @amaiah and be soliciting @ replies that are totally MEANT FOR YOU.

Laugh at me if you want. If you must. But when @amaiah comes along and takes tens of people on an emotional rollercoaster of internet betrayal that stays with them all the way through their 30 minute lunch break, don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm glad I have younger friends who understand Twitter, although TJ has been blogging for just as long as I have. In fact, her old blog was one of the very first I ever left a comment on, and it was a comment about DEODORANT. TRUE STORY. I miss 2003 sometimes. It was a simple time, back then. But not as simple as 2002, when my blog was just a Word document on my Desktop. It was a really good blog. All the post titles were in Comic Sans and sometimes I would include Webdings, just for the hell of it.

Anyway. If you wanna vote for me, that would be kind of nice. If you don't wanna vote for me, that's fine too. And perhaps starting this entry with a graphic description of my baby's snot was not the best choice to sway the undecideds. And my last entry talked about poop! Oh, Christ, I really AM a washed-up mommyblog cliche. You should vote for the postcards. Sometimes they have naked people on them.

PS. PROJRUN!
PPS. FOURPOUNDS!
PPPS. DOGSHOW!

They Shoot Bloggers, Don't They?

I finally gave in, caved, cried uncle, cried helplessly into a wine glass, however you put it, and hired some childcare. Just part-time, a couple days and hours here and there. I was dreading it, and dragged my feet throughout the whole process to a ridiculous degree, to the point that Jason started calling applicants and having them show up at our house so I'd be forced to take it seriously and offer one of the nice ladies a damn job already. 

I had a mother's helper only once -- after about two months of screenings and interviews, she quit a month later. Oh! And when she told me that she would need to watch Dr. Phil every afternoon I thought this was a perfectly reasonable request, being wholly clueless about...well, LIFE, and in my mind I predicted the exact same thing would happen should I ever try again: I will get talked into paying someone to watch Dr. Phil.

Today, they spent all morning building fantastical Tinker Toy creations and are now at the playground. The laundry has -- get the fuck out -- been folded and dishes put away. I took a shower. Way to show me up, Poppins!

Now, of course, I'm sitting here with hours of uninterrupted work time stretched out in front of me and absolutely no idea what to do first. Mamapop? AlphaMom? Finally get around to writing something besides hurried stream-of-consciousness drivel over here? Book proposal? Book outline? A hearty laugh because I don't even have an IDEA for a book, much less the attention span to write one ooh I know I'll make more coffee look shiny coffeepot SQUIRREL.

What was I talking about? Oh, right. The enormous crazy PRESSURE that comes from being an overprivileged asshole. My first-world problems. Let me show you them. 

Whenever people ask me what I do, whenever I mention that I do work from home, my default I-don't-wanna-get-into-it answer is that I'm a "writer" and if asked, I usually say something vague about "online parenting columns." Which is true! And yet, a hedge-y stretch. I obviously don't blog anonymously, and always assume that everyone I know can and will read everything I write. So I'm not hiding the blog thing because I don't want people to find my online slam book. But at some point I got tired of the following responses:

1) What's a "blog?"

2) So do you like, just write about shit you do during the day?

3) Seriously, like, "I woke up and had coffee?"

4) And you make...(DOT DOT DOT INCREDULOUS PAUSE) money doing this?

5) How much?

6) Wait, is this a porn thing? You can tell me... (DOT DOT DOT OVERLY CREEPY FACIAL EXPRESSION)

So it was funny when Noah's speech therapist hesitantly brought up the fact that she'd found me on Babble. I saw the revelation coming before the words came out of her mouth, like yep, that thing, it is true. Am professional oversharer. One time I peed my pants at work! I got off a train in Newark! And I think Lavar Burton is a little scared of me now.

But! She was totally cool about it and thought it was funny and something more special-needs parents should do, and was all, dude, bitch AWAY about anybody here you want, WHATEVER. And then I threw myself at her ankles like, BEMYFRIEND and it got kind of awkward.

But! But! Not nearly as awkward as a conversation I had the very next day, back at Jason's company's holiday party thing, a conversation so mortifying I am just now getting around to writing about it, when I -- for once! one time! the one and only time ever! -- voluntarily outed myself as a blogger when asked what it was I did for a living. It was probably the fourth or fifth time I'd been asked, and -- embiggened by the Babble thing and the generally positive reactions I'd gotten that evening after I drilled through "writer" and "online parenting columns" and down to the details of "blawwwgging" -- I finally just shrugged my shoulders and informed a nice-enough looking young woman that I was a blogger. Hear me roar! Or...type. Or whatever it is we do. Rabblerouse. Technoratidiscohashtag.

Here's a rough overview on how the rest of the conversation went:

1) Oh, God, BLOGS. Really?

    1a) Yes. Really.

    1b) Aren't blogs kind of stupid?

    1c) ...

    1d) I...guess so?

2) Who has time for that? I mean, I guess if you stay home.

    2a) Well, I actually started it back when I worked full-time as an editor...

    2b) Oh, well, I guess if you have that kind of job...

3) I can't imagine putting stuff about our life on the Internet.

    3a) Yes, well, the Truman Show aspect isn't for everybody, but I try to tell stylized stories with a lot of humor and...

    3b) Can you imagine, honey? If I wrote about our life on the Internet? HA HA HAHA.

    3c) ("Honey," who may or may not actually work for my husband, begins to look vaguely panicked.)

4) You don't put your kids' photos on your blog, do you?

    4a) (abort abort! mayday mayday!)

    4b) Because my sister is really careful and won't put her children's photos anywhere online.

    4c) (do I know ANYBODY ELSE IN THIS GENERAL AREA? is that my PHONE RINGING? why are we SO FAR AWAY FROM THE BAR?)

    4d) You know, because of the child molesters. And pedophiles. Aren't you worried about that?

    4e) Jason magically sees someone else that "we absolutely have to talk to real quick, but we'll see you guys around okay bye now!"

5) Nice to meet you! What do you do?

    5a) I'm a writer.

    5b) I write some online parenting columns.

    5c) THE END.

So that was really fun, basically getting every well-trod criticism of the Internet Age thrown in your face during a five-minute conversation with someone you've just met, right when you absolutely cannot think of a single well-reasoned response because your shoes are too pinchy. Hi there! I write quality things on the Internet! You can tell by all the "uhhhhs" and "ummms" and deer-in-the-headlights stares I use when dealing with real live human beings.  I also live in a hobbit hole, my best friend is a webcam and I think breathing through one's nose is overrated.

Also, I paid someone to watch my children just so I could write the crowning achievement of modern literature that you have just wasted entire minutes of your life on. 

Aren't blogs kind of stupid?

Yes. Yes they are. Happy to help prove your point! I'll be here all week. All month, even. And longer, because like it or not, this is just what I do.

DM me if you want to buy the TV rights...

Oh my God!

You guys!

In between all the craziness of...uh...sleeping and eating and taking like, THREE WHOLE SHOWERS IN FIVE DAYS, I completely forgot to tell you about the most exciting thing to happen to me ever in my whole life:

 

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

PHHHHHHFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTBBBBBB!

...is pretty much what I said when I got the notification on my phone, right before involuntarily flinging the thing upward, like it was on fire (VOLCANO FIRE), where it collided with ceiling of my car, teaching us all an important lesson about Checking Twitter DMs While Driving, i.e. Don't Do It, It Could Be A Celebrity.

I drove home with this huge dorky grin on my face, composing hypothetical replies in my head that included the somewhat embarrassing factoid that I was a devoted Reading Rainbow watcher until the age of 12, maybe 13, SHUT UP YOU, and that I record the show for Noah whenever our PBS station decides to air it, and that a rerun this past summer was about composting and I sat there watching it BY MYSELF, with GREAT INTEREST, shouting to Jason in the next room about how we were TOTALLY gonna plant us some potato chunks in our backyard this year, because one potato turns into like, 45 potatoes according to Reading Rainbow, and think of how much money we'd save on potatoes? MILLIONS, probably. Also, yes. Reading was more of a strong point for me than math, as a child. Or ever.

Obviously, I planned on...editing all that down once I got home. Into one concise, non-crazy-fangirl reply, embodying both the reverence a Really Important Childhood Idol deserves with the grown-up understanding that we're all just regular people and stuff. 

Then I call Jason and screamed into his voice mail: I JUST GOT DM'D BY GEORDI LAFORGE. JEALOUS MUCH?

(For the record, he SO WAS.)

Then I loaded up TweetDeck to actually compose my masterful reply and found that I couldn't. Because LeVar Burton doesn't actually follow me, because I am endlessly baffled by the Direct Messaging Rules of Twitter, always asking people to DM me and then they're all: I can't, Dipshit.

So I thought...well, maybe he plans to follow me and just hasn't gotten around to it. I should wait a couple hours and see what happens. Play it cool. Yes. I am cooooool.

Of course, he didn't follow me, because...why would he? I am a terrible Twitterer. Tweeter? Twit? I would probably use it solely to keep the world abreast of my children's bowel movements, if I could. I mean, I'm aware that I could, I just often forget that Twitter even exists for days at a time, while everybody else seems so much more...into it and plugged into the whole concept and @ @ @ RT RT #hashtagcakes.

My point is, Twitter makes me feel patently uncool, and we all know that my fragile vagina flower ego simply cannot handle that. So, when faced with the LeVar Burton Direct Message Quandary of Doom, I opted to simply ignore Twitter for a few days until it came to its senses and LET ME SEND LEVAR BURTON A DIRECT MESSAGE, DAMMIT.

Then Jason asked me why I didn't like, just thank LeVar Burton for his message on Regular Twitter, talking to him like everybody else does. And I fretted about that, because you know, he sent the message awhile ago, so I felt WEIRD bringing it up, plus wouldn't that seem kind of obnoxious, like I was BRAGGING to everybody else that OH HAI, LeVar Burton sent me a DM and not you, let's all bask in how AWESOME I AM?

Jason: Seriously, do you not get how Twitter works AT ALL?

Amy: Not really.  But remember that time you asked me what the hell "RT" meant? I totally knew the answer to that one.

@LeVarBurton: *is just really wishing Amy had just sent the danged public tweet because OH YEAH, a whole blog entry about this is soooooo much less creepy*

Anyway. I'm writing this because today TweetDeck crashed and I opted to go crazy old school, using Twitter dot com...where I suddenly discovered that I do indeed have the option to reply to LeVar Burton's Direct Message, even though he doesn't follow me. And that I could have replied to him ALL THIS TIME. ALL ALONG, I had the power. And then I went back to TweetDeck to yell at it, maybe kick it a little bit...and discovered that I actually could reply there too, but I'd simply been looking for the wrong icon:

 

In my head, the lack of a little arrow box in the top left corner meant I couldn't reply. I checked the little gear wheel setting and all the little drop-down menus, but for some reason, THE BOX WITH THE ENVELOPE, THE ONE THAT SAYS "DIRECT MESSAGE LEVARBURTON" WHEN YOU PUT YOUR MOUSE OVER IT, never once came to my attention.

No. Seriously. This is the dumbest thing I have ever done. I admit that. Worse than getting off the train in Newark. Worse than the Not-Pregnant Mistaken-Identity Lady. It's failing at TWITTER. Topped off with a bonus of it involving a VERY MEANINGFUL CELEBRITY CHILDHOOD ICON.

But what could I possibly say at this point, because I would feel the need to explain WHY I hadn't replied earlier, which was so RUDE of me, because Oh Em Eff Gee, he's LeVar Burton and he took the time to cure me of a lifelong phobia and I couldn't even be bothered to come up with a single 140-character reply? Like, I don't know: "THANK YOU." That's only like, 34 characters, or something.

Clearly, my only real option was to turn to my blog and 1) tell you guys about what a freaking dumbass I am (again) (some more) (six bloggy years and counting!) and 2) go ahead and completely freak poor LeVar Burton out and get myself blocked on Twitter for the very first time.

So it is written, indeed.

Sick Day

I appear to have, as Sundry put it, a touch of the Hamthrax. Or some kind of flu. I went to bed with the beginnings of what I assumed was a cold and woke up in the grips of some horrible, lung-hacking, breath-sucking, stomach-purging, body-aching, I'm-hot-no-I'm-cold-so-cold-oh-my-God-get-these-covers-OFF-ME type of illness.

It's awesome, let me tell you. I managed to drag my diseased ass out of bed and onto the landing where I begged Jason not to go to work and leeeeeeeave me with The Children, Oh God, Not The Children. Then I went back to bed and moaned piteously for awhile. I'm still doing that, actually. Here:

meeeeehhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhhh

I know! I write just like I whine. It's a gift!

ANYWAY, so I had Other Plans for today's post -- another chapter of the When You Marry book, some discussion on what educational toys can be manipulated into saying profanity, maybe microwaving some Halloween candy just for the hell of it -- but alas. It's going to be another redirect day.

• I kind of wish I'd chosen a more interesting topic at the Advice Smackdown today, like somebody's sex life problems or major parenting dramz, but no. At some point this week I decided to devote an entire column to laundry detergent. Hmm.
• You could, alternately, read about all the really, really stupid stuff you do when you're newly postpartum and sleep-deprived over at Bounce Back. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out a way to blame that time I got off the train at Newark instead of New York on my lousy children. I will keep trying, though.
• My second entry for the Slideshare MS Office Parenting Toolbox I Don't Remember The Official Name So I'm Including Them All is also up.
• Over at Mamapop, you know we're doing a little video roundtable thing? Where we all ramble about some pop culturery topic into our webcams and everybody else is so much funnier than me and I swear, I don't really wear as much eye makeup as it appears in these things. Past editions are here. I think the next one goes up on Monday. I hate my voice.
• Also, a Project Runway recap that I wrote (last night, so it's only half-infected with swine flu, though you might not want to touch the photos, which I added this morning) will go up at 2 pm ET. I would link to the specific entry here, but I cannot. Because you cannot link to the future. Yet. Oh, man. That's a good idea. I should totally write that down in my dream journal under Brilliant Ideas I Had Under The Influence Of Theraflu. 
• mmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaauuuuuuggggg, etc.

When You Viral

Wow. Okay. So.

The When You Marry book thing (album? commentary? no, I think "thing" was just about right.) took quite a tour around Teh Interweb last week -- first on Sociological Images, which Kelly tells me means that I am Officially Important to Sociology and Stuff, then to Jezebel (thanks for the link back to the original site OH WAIT NEVER MIND), and then a bunch of other blogs, culminating over the weekend with a front-page mention on Fark, the web's premiere depository of stupid, pointless, too-much-time-on-our-hands bullshit.

This mostly means that I am 1) kicking myself for the massive monetizing FAIL of dumping the scans into Typepad's ad-free photo album format, and 2) absolutely drowning in emails from people who want to tell me their theories about Brenda's boyfriend's name.

As was established pretty quickly in the comments on the first batch of scans, his name is likely Quin or Zion, as I clearly haven't written in proper cursive handwriting in full-on decades now. But I am not sure what I'm expected to do with this information -- find them on Facebook? Classmates.com? Travel to Edinboro, Pennsylvania and attempt to track down the D.C. Heath and Company publishing representative from the front inside flap and figure out what high school this book originated from? And then scan the attendance records to figure out if there was indeed a possibly interracial couple with a possible out-of-wedlock mixed-race baby who went on to live happily ever after In Spite Of Everything & Cultural Mores Of The Time & Also That Judge In Louisiana? Or at least whether they got an A in the class? I DON'T KNOW. But now I feel like I am letting the Internet down because I don't have a conclusion to the story. I should probably upload the last couple chapters, at least.

Anyway. Hello, 15 minutes of Internet fame! You are delicious, yet ultimately hollow, ranking a few notches below stealing chocolate Easter bunnies from my children. I have two of them, by the way, in case you're new to the blog. I don't think I mention them in the book scan commentary anywhere. Probably because there were no ads. I mean, Christ, what's the point then? You think I had kids to save my marriage, or something?

I spent the weekend visiting family, blissfully unaware that my site was threatening to buckle under the weight of all those extra eyeballs, celebrating the boys' birthdays with my parents (who are doing super-well, by the way, thank you to everyone who has asked) and siblings and nephews and approximately 4,504,092 SQUAWKY BEEPY BLINKY BOOPY BATTERY-OPERATED TOYS. 

Oh, and. Also. Listening to Ezra say his first words.

*pulls sweater neckhole over face, bites fabric from the inside, realizes too late that's it's fucking angora, desperately tries to remove coating of wool from tongue*

On Thursday, Jason managed to half-convince me that Ezra's wails of MAMAAAA, MAAMAAAAA! from his crib were actually deliberate, as opposed to just some horrible proof that the word "mama" just happened to originate from the horrible bleating sounds babies make when they cry. I remained skeptical, even after Ez threw in a finger-point. MAAAMAAAAAAAAAWAAAAHHHwhatever.

On Saturday, he said "outside." Multiple times, in front of multiple corroborating witnesses (but not nine different camera angles, because although we brought three cameras, we forgot at least one vital piece of each one, including batteries, memory cards, and chargers), while plastering himself against my parents' sliding glass door. OWS EYE! OWS EYE! Then he decided to lick the glass for awhile. HE IS CLEARLY A GENIUS.

He will also point to a mirror and identify himself as "Zah." 

MOMMYBLOGGER OUT. *drops mike*

Blogher, Part Three

DAY THREE, SATURDAY

Part One: They Vacuum Carpets, Don't They?

The baby's breakfast consisted of a couple handfuls of swag bag fruit puffs tossed on the floor of the hotel room.

Part Two: It Takes A Village

I once again attempted to attend an actual panel at the actual conference that I had paid actual money for -- this time with the Vaginally Challenged Men of Blogher.  When I walked in, Ezra was asleep, but oh, no, that did not last very long at all. Luckily, there were plenty of women around us willing to offer us various forms of baby-amusement: toys from their swag bags, handfuls of Quaker cereal, their noses.

The first time he squawked an emphatic "EEEEEEEHHHHHHHHAAAAA," it was funny, and all the faces that spun around to stare at us were sympathetic and amused. By the third or fourth time, not so much, and when I caught a definite glare of "ENTITLED MOMMYBLOGGER" from a few rows up, we got up and left. Which was a shame, because it was a good panel, except that apparently NO ONE on that panel was sleeping with ANYONE in the audience, except for like, THEIR WIFE, or whatever. Booooring!

Part Three: Amy Storch, Star Of Such Films As "The Internet" and "Getting Too Big For Her Old Navy Britches"

At lunch, my tablemates and I were approached by a marketing type offering entry into a contest for a new MacBook. As my current MacBook is in need of a new motherfuckingboard (I believe that's the technical term for it, I am pretty sure), I enthusiastically agreed. As she explained the rules, she stopped and mentioned that I looked VERY FAMILIAR and asked my name.

ME: (all smuggish asshole-like) Amy. Amalah.

HER: And your blog name?

ME: (less smuggish asshole-like) Amalah. Dot Com.

HER: (pause)

AMY: (holds up business card, points) Eh?

HER: No.

It turns out that she thought I looked like some local newsperson's daughter, or something. I get that a lot, I told her.

(Actually, despite the fact that I get a good 25 PR pitches A DAY over email, not one single PR or marketing person at the conference had ever heard of me or my blog. Which means there are either 1) waaaaaay too many PR and marketing types out there targeting bloggers, or 2) the ones who send me pitches are not really reading my blog like they claim to. Whichever could it be!!)

Part Four: Stop! Paneltime.

Things I did not bring to our panel on Pop Culture & Gossip & Feminism & What We All Think About Gwyneth Paltrow & Jon & Kate:

1) My notes

2) Something in lieu of notes to serve as a Fidgeting Prop that would keep me from doing weird twisty things with my hands the whole time, as can be seen here.

Ezra tried to participate in the proceedings, first by shrieking, as if to bring to mind the level of discourse in the comments section at Perez Hilton, then by attempting to climb up a microphone stand like a stripper pole, as meta-commentary on the sexualization of young celebs these days, and finally, in a brilliant bit of performance art about the plight of the drunken young starlet, by passing out cold on the stage:

Photo shamelessly swiped from Poobou.

Photos I actually got permission to use, by Suzanne at Twentyfouratheart

As for all the other photos floating around from this panel, and hell, the whole conference, I would just like to ask my chin, which since getting pregnant decided to melt downwards and eat my neck in every photo: WTF, chin?

("In every photo." Ha! Because it can't be that I actually LOOK LIKE THAT, with the double saggy chin. No, there must be something wrong with your camera. You should get a new one. I hear Nikon does good work.)

Part Five: Quality Assurance Standards Are Slipping

The baby's dinner consisted of a lamb lollipop and five mini Beef Wellington hors d'ourves at the official conference cocktail party.

Incompetent mothering? MOI?

(Photo stolen from AngellaD. My word, I am a TERRIBLE example for the children.)

The Beef Wellingtons left a ton of greasy pastry crumbs all over my dress -- my last clean dress, my last clean ANYTHING, really -- but the highlight of my babywearing weekend was looking down at some point and seeing my baby gnawing on a giant hunk of meat. Meat that I did not give him. So I immediately became suspicious of my fellow party-goers, asking them, "Who the hell gave my baby meat? Did someone seriously come up and hand him MEAT?"

That's when I realized that it had fallen out of the last Beef Wellington he'd eaten about 20 minutes before and he'd been saving it in the sling for later. Also that it was probably a good thing that I was leaving him with a babysitter again that night.

Part Six: In Which I Eat A Lot Of Cheeseburgers

And steal MORE PHOTOS from poor Angella (pictured here with me and everybody's favorite person, Isabel from AlphaMom). This is absolutely no way to repay her for stopping me from heading outside the hotel at 1:30 in the morning in search of an ATM so I could pay my sitter after the party.

I kept saying, "There's one in the hotel, right?" And everybody else kept saying, "No, actually, I don't think there is." And then I'd say, "Y'all are drunk. I'm sure there's an ATM in the hotel. Or close by. Probably not more than a couple blocks. I'll go look!"

Angella lent me the money for the babysitter. (AND my chin is behaving in every photo of me in her Flickr stream. Clearly her camera is working just fine. GAH.)

Man, who knew the apple juice from McDonald's could interfere with your thought processes and judgment like that?

I went back to my room, and not to be outdone by CERTAIN ROOMMATES who decided to stay out partying until FIVE IN THE MORNING, MISS CHICKY, I opted to pack instead of sleeping. And dance around the room listening ABBA on my iPod. Because...yeah.

Part Seven: The End

The next morning Ezra woke up with a cold, a slimy disgusting cold that he smeared all over every surface of our room and the back of my shirt while in the Ergo. It was time to go home.

There are so many more people that I should mention, link to, rave about. So, so many. I will say this, though -- I sense some people left Blogher disillusioned, irritated, and concerned about the future of our little corner of the blogosphere. That "community" word, again, imperiled.

I didn't. I left invigorated. Inspired. Pledging to do better and be better. To not show up next year and admit to someone that I've read them for YEARS, despite never commenting or linking to them. (Just like I did last year!) To make sure that if you're in my Google Reader, YOU KNOW IT, either by my comments or your URL on my much-neglected and terribly-out-of-date links page. To not talk to you, but with you. Because you -- collective you, general-sense you -- are all incredible. And you've helped make my life incredible, PR pitches and trips and swaaaaaaaaaaag aside. Jesus Christ, that baby you met this weekend? I get to stay home with him every day, all the time, and write stuff on the Internet because of you.

Thank you. So much. I'm sorry if I don't say that enough, in words or deeds.

Ezra fell asleep in my arms as our plane took off, and didn't wake up until after we landed.

We both had a great time, honest.

Blogher, Part Two

DAY TWO, FRIDAY

Part One: I've Made A Huge Mistake Of Bluthian Proportions

The next morning Jodi texted me and offered to sneak the baby and I into the Club Level for the free breakfast. I wrote back that I wasn't showered yet, but then decided that I didn't really care, and went up anyway, only to immediately bump into a crew of immaculately coiffed and professionally dressed women from MomCentral. Stacy DeBroff fed Ezra a banana while I blearily caffeinated myself and by my third sip my brain suddenly turned on and I realized that I was out in public -- at a professional blogging conference, where people take pictures and blog and stuff --  in pajama bottoms and no makeup and gross oily hair.

And my nipples were showing through my nursing tank. I ate a croissant and fled.

Part Two: All Better

Down at the actual conference, I learned that with Ezra in the Ergo's back-carry position, my hands were truly free to carry both a cup of coffee AND a complimentary bloody mary.

I started meeting people and recognizing people and being recognized by other people, reuniting with Linda, fangirling at Alexa, awkwardly screaming after Kate seconds after she'd stepped on an escalator, like NOOOO COME BACK I LOVE YOU. I met...a lot of people, and I hadn't even retrieved my conference badge yet. (They didn't have it under my real name, the name I registered with, but just my blog name, meaning all weekend people squinted at my badge and said "Ahhhhmala? Who the hell?)

I want to thank everybody who listened to my plea last week and came up and introduced themselves. It was beyond lovely meeting each and every one of you, and I'm glad you got to meet his Mighty Ezness in person. (He seems quite bored of me, now that we're home. He's all, "Where all my aunties at?") I know that feeling -- that panicked deer-in-the-headlights feeling -- of stepping off the elevator and walking into a crowded lobby and suddenly realizing that you know NO ONE THERE and you've left your conference agenda upstairs so you can't even PRETEND to study it while trying to figure out what to do next and the seconds are ticking by and you have NO ONE TO TALK TO AND WILL PROBABLY DIE ALONE MOMENTARILY.

You guys are all awesome, so I didn't die after all. Hooray!

(Photo by Carla Duharte Razura)

(Arm and half a head by Lori of Spinning Yellow)

(Nail biting due to overwhelming anxiety, deflated muffin gut courtesy of THAT KID RIGHT THERE.)

Part Three: In Which I Attempt To Learn Stuff

I made it through oh, about 15 minutes of the Transformational Blogging panel before Ezra decided noisily to work out that banana from breakfast. Good job, son.

Part Four: OMFG I LOST MY iPHONE AGAIN

It fell out of my pocket at lunch and was hidden under somebody's purse. I proceeded to panic for...oh, a good amount of time because I DIDN'T WANT TO TELL THE INTERNET I LOST MY iPHONE AGAIN, and pretty much everybody at the table remembered the time I dropped it in the toilet, which is still one of my top trafficked posts thanks to all the other people out there who turn to Google after dropping their own iPhones in their own toilets.

Part Five: "I Just Think You Need To Keep Things In Perspective"

Ezra and I retreated to the Lactation Lounge (yes, seriously) at some point in the afternoon for some downtime -- I realized I'd left my wipes container in there from the morning's diaper change and was kind of surprised it was still there, what with everybody kind of losing their minds over OMFG A FREE HUGGIES TRAVEL WIPES CONTAINER MINE MINE MINE. I nursed the baby and hummed to him and cuddled, feeling very calm and motherly and proud of what an amazingly good little trooper he'd been all day. He smiled at everybody (except for Mir, who made him cry) (but only one time, and they later bonded), took naps right in the carrier, and patiently indulged the approximately 6,429 people grabbing at his toes. (NOTE: I may have encouraged this. In fact, I believe I told at least one woman to "git in there an' git you sum.") After a rocky start, we were getting this thing down, we were both having fun, and I was cheesily treasuring this trip -- the most uninterrupted one-on-one time I'd had with my second child since our hospital stay.

Two women came in right as we were getting ready to leave. One was there with a four-and-a-half-week old. The other was there with a two-week-old.

I'd entered the room with a BABY and left with a goddamn freaking Godzilla child strapped to my back.

Part Six: Sponsorville

I've read quite a bit about the sponsored bloggers and whether people found them rude or amateurish or whatever. I only met two, and in case they're reading those posts as well and feeling embarrassed or worried that they came off that way: No, you did not. I'm not sure either of them actually knew who I was so they may never read this, but I met a lovely woman who was sponsored by Born Free and who let me get ugly and baby-elbowing over bottles and sippy cups and listening to my long and involved story about how I clogged the hotel room toilet with a gDiaper insert, and another (and I don't remember her name, I'm sorry!!) who simply admired Ezra for a bit before presenting him with an Eric Carle lizard from Kohl's.

I haven't been able to afford Blogher some years either -- this is actually the first time I went on my own dime, having been lucky enough to have employers who sent me in the past, and I've skipped the other years when that didn't happen -- so I totally understand desperately wanting to go but wanting to offset the cost. And I also understand that some sponsored bloggers did not necessarily do this in the most professional manner, or even realize that it was indeed, a professional arrangement and not a lottery ticket. Hell, there's a right and a wrong way to go about everything. As Kristen said, quite aptly: Not all bloggers are like that. Mommy or sponsored or otherwise.

(Also, I stupidly only packed one bottle for Ez and so I was REALLY REALLY GRATEFUL for the free bottle. Yay!)

Part Seven: Sparklecorn 2009

I...

Uh...

Dudes...

That was a ridiculous amount of fun, no?

(Unicorn cake by the CakeGirls. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't red velvet cake, but it was still a really nice piece of ass.)

I have no bragging rights to that party -- Tracey and Catherine planned it all, down to every last geektastic poster on the wall and the stand-up Edward (who vanished mysteriously at some point in the evening...I really earnestly hope someone out there tried to get him through an airport security line). My contribution was writing an entry once upon a time about talking deodorants, and one of those deodorant companies turned out to have an incredibly good sense of humor and agreed to help sponsor our party. The sole swag (besides, uh, booze) was a tube of Dove Clinical Strength, and for the record I did not get one. And I am pissed, because that's what I actually use and last time I went to Target I got so distracted by the new "deodorants as elaborate showpieces" trend in packaging that I FORGOT TO ACTUALLY BUY SOMETHING I WOULD USE.

(If you haven't seen the professional photos of the party, click here. I think I am dancing in that one photo, or possibly threatening to punch someone for not keepin' her hands offa mah damn man.)

After the Mamapop writers arrived but before we started letting people in, I had to take a moment and sit down on the dance floor to compose myself -- my laughing at the cake, the Edward, the posters soon turned to gaspy crying, because it was like the prom planning committee had been taken over by the nerds, by my people, by my friends, read my diary to plan my dream prom, and everybody got crowned prom queen just for showing up.

I kicked off my shoes and danced like a drunken moron to every song, I hugged everybody I could get my arms on and I wondered why I never did stuff like this anymore.

 

I woke up the next morning and was like, "Oh, right."

(Oh my God. Will I ever shut the fuck up about this? One more day to recap, I swear. Trust me, nothing else has happened since I got home, except that Ezra has suddenly become Mr. Professional Cruiser and is spending horrifying amounts of time upright on two legs and RUN IT'S GODZILLA BABY NOOO.)

Blogher, Part One

(Wow. So I originally planned to write about the entire conference in one post. HOURS AGO, I planned that. HOURS, I have been writing this and it really gets away from me at the end and I think I use the word "community" in a totally unironic sense and basically I'm going to publish this and write more tomorrow, because now I have to go punch myself in the neck.)

DAY ONE, THURSDAY

Part One: Not Off To A Real Brain-Trust-Like Start

I woke up at...oh, 4 A.M. in a dread pirate panic over things I had forgotten to pack. I should point out that I was still at home. And had many, many hours left before my flight to pack these things. No matter, I clearly needed to get out of bed and pack them RIGHT THAT SECOND, or ALL WOULD BE LOST. If a blogger goes to Blogher without her business cards, is she really at there? Does she cease to exist? These are the deep thoughts I had at 4:30 A.M. when I found out that not one, but BOTH of my babysitting leads had fallen through, and that I didn't have a confirmed sitter for the Mamapop party after all.

Some people might think: I know! I shall contact a reputable sitting service in the Chicago area! I shall use my SitterCity account! I shall ask the hotel concierge for recommendations!

I thought of none of those things. I contacted Twitter instead.

I...yeah. I know. I KNOW. Very very bad and irresponsible and boneheaded parenting, finding babysitters on Twitter. Except when you find a babysitter like Annabelle. Who was just SO lovely and sweet and Ezra and I both adored her. (I did like, you know, meet with her ahead of time to get a read on the whole "are you going to steal my baby and/or all the hotel room furniture" thing. She passed! I have terrific instincts.)

Anyway, my Twitter babysitter was totally better than your babysitter. I also remembered to pack my business cards.

Part Two: I'm Sick Of These Motherfucking Babies On This Motherfucking Plane

After reading all of your comments and suggestions for airplane-related entertainment for Ezra, I packed a small treasure trove of crappy cheap toys (and toy-like substances) that he'd never seen before. He ended up playing with 1) the laminated emergency procedures pamphlet, 2) plastic cups from the beverage cart, and 3) Jodi.

Jodi warned me that she was a nervous flyer, so our agreement was that in exchange for the baby-wrangling help, I'd do my best to distract her from the fact that we were in a rickety tin can 37,000,000 miles off the ground.

Problem solved!

Part Three: I Went To Blogher & All I Got Was Your Elbow In My Face

After getting to Chicago and to the hotel and into my hotel room and meeting my lovely roommate and eating a burger topped with cheddar cheese AND bacon cheddar cheese sauce and watching my baby sneeze hamburger meat directly into my lovely roommate's face, I was already Hearing Things About Swag. My Twitter stream was full of swag bag descriptions and people were whispering stories about other people getting gross and ugly and grabby and ditching parties as soon they got a bag and pwning wristband systems in order to steal more swag. I mentioned that last year I brought home 1) a tire pressure gauge, 2) a bottle opener keychain and 3) a magic 8 ball. I was informed that this year was PROBABLY going to be a little different.

I stuck Ezra in a sling and decided to check out the People's Party. It was loud. And crowded. Insanely crowded. By the time I filed into the room and realized OH MY GOD, the room was easily three times too small for the number of people crushing through the door, I was kind of stuck. I spent a few bewildered moments shouting at people I knew before I realized what a huge mistake it was, bringing Ezra in there, and that I absolutely had to leave. This realization was cemented when someone abruptly pushed past me towards the swag bags, I saw Ezra's head kind of...jerk to the side, and when I looked down at him his eyes were wide with surprise...and fear...AND PAIN. He dissolved into a wail.

People, someone goddamn elbowed my baby in the face. While rushing for SWAG. At a party sponsored by freaking PBS Sprout.

At the time, I 100% totally and completely blamed myself. I was horrified that I'd unwittingly brought my baby to a party where he wasn't SAFE. I mean, Twitter babysitters aside (which...you know I'm taking a little creative license with that, as I absolutely would never leave him with someone who I didn't believe was responsible and trustworthy), I take my care of my little people very seriously. I felt stupid for even thinking that this was a good idea. And I left, taking my own swag bag only after Jenny insisted I take one. ("But I'm not staying! Is that okay?") I Twittered about being stuck alone in the hotel room feeling sorry for myself, too embarassed to admit that my baby got hurt because I wanted to wear a pretty dress and get a drink ticket.

Part Four: We Used To Blog Uphill In The Snow, Both Ways, Hand-Coding CSS Until Our Fingers Bled, And We Liked It

I still blame myself, in part. The room was crowded and hard to navigate and while Ezra wasn't the only child there, I was asking too much of him, after a long day of travel and super-short naps and a heapload of sensory overload. And really, he's FINE. He's not bruised, he didn't get a black eye, maybe the mystery elbower had to pee, or something. Once we got back to the hotel room he was all smiles.

But as the weekend progressed and the swag thing turned into a Swag Thing (to the point that I commented how nice it was, since I didn't miss Noah as much I thought I would, what with being surrounded by toddlers), the Elbow Incident became oddly emblematic of the whole attitude. People completely disregarding other people's personal space and hard work (seriously, planning those parties takes EFFORT, you guys) and just goddamn common decency. Would let your kid show up at a birthday party, grab a handful of cake and a goodie bag and leave? Would you let him cheat at the games at Chuck E. Cheese, just so he could get more crappy prize tickets? Would you sit by and let her bitch on Christmas about not getting the gift she REALLY wanted, or whine that the gifts she got didn't cost enough?

God. I feel old and finger-waggy, but get a fucking grip, people.

And yet.

I've gone on some nice trips, I've gotten some really nice gifts from companies, I've gotten laughably bad product pitches that I would never in a million years want or use or "review." I've alternated between being delighted by the attention and annoyed by the way it's changed our community, I've struggled to keep that balance between wanting my blog to be "successful" and wanting my blog to be...you know, MY STUPID LITTLE BLOG.

And yet, even I need the occasional dose of perspective.

When I started writing online, signing up for a brand-new service called "Typepad," nobody really liked the word "blog." The people I read wrote journals or diaries. There was a still a wide gap between the two groups, a definite sense of old guard vs. new upstarts. Moveable Type was taking over the old hand-coded clunky sites, your free blogging platforms were Diaryland or livejournal or Blogger and when Diary-X went down, people lost everything because the entire service existed on one dude's hard drive that he'd forgotten to back up. Oh, man. There were A-listers and people who wanted to be the A-listers and people who spent most of their time complaining about the A-listers. People fretted over whether the new generation of "bloggers" were ruining the community, now that it was so easy to start a site. If you had your own site the hosting could cost you a fortune, since there was no Flickr or Vimeo, but there was still endless debate over whether an Amazon Wish List or PayPal Donate button made you a tacky sellout. Are bloggers even writers? Are all web writers bloggers? No! Yes! Sometimes!

When Google text ads started showing up on PERSONAL WEBSITES, the wank level went through the roof.

In summary: six short years on the Web and I'm a freaking dinosaur, apparently, but I guess my point is that there has always been something threatening the community. We have been on the brink of sellout-y destruction for as long as I've been doing this, and I'm pretty sure me and my weirdly-named blog and TWOP-aping writing style were once considered harbingers of literary doom and made fun of on some old-skool message board. Now we all just get to overreact on Twitter.

In other words, it's all going to be okay, as long as we at least stop elbowing each other in the face.

(I promise this entry is the only one where I'll get preachy and philosophical about Blogher. I had a fantastic time and did a shitload of stupid things that did not involve people beating up babies for free pens.)

Obligatory Pre-Blogher Freak-Out Post

How is it July? Like, the end-ish of July? What happened to June? And May? And that little squishy baby I had? Did this giant one here eat him, just like he ate the dog kibble last night? Repeatedly? Because my babyproofing knowledge is limited to saying "NO!" and then moving him across the room? Which is surprisingly ineffective?

Anyway, I'm bringing this baby to Blogher. No need to vacuum, Sheraton, he'll take care of it.

Yes, you can hold him. My arms and neck and back would very much like you to hold him.

I will NOT, however, be bringing that drum. Fuck that drum. Vamanos, bebe! Cállate, tambor!

Or that refrigerator, even though...oh, I love our new refrigerator. I do not love that we had to buy it, but now that it is here and I open the door and I can like, find stuff I need RIGHT THERE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYEBALLS, I am very happy about the new refrigerator. I'm sure I'll eventually be less happy with it, once it gets more full of food and crowded, but right now it's gloriously organized and spacious, mostly because I enjoy opening it and eating everything.

Luckily I still have plenty of time to lose 10 pounds or so before Blogher, right? RIGHT?

Mmmmmmm glorious fingerprint-y magic food box...

(No, still haven't painted the stupid kitchen. There's a reason. Can't tell you why yet. WINK! NUDGE!)

(Hi, I'm deviously transparent!)

Anyway, I'm doing that thing that I do every year, which is to wait until the very last minute to even think about packing for Blogher, and immediately going from, "whatever, just wear what you're COMFORTABLE in, people, it's not LIKE THAT, no one CARES" to "oh my God I hate everything I own hate hate hate!" And I guess I need to pack some onesies or something? Diapers? They sell Cheerios* in Chicago, right?

So. Listen. If you see me at Blogher, and you would like to say hi or something, please say hi, oh dear God. Please don't feel like you need to apologize for wanting to say hi or assure me that you are not a stalker. You read my weblog! That I write! And publish voluntarily, with the hope that people will read said weblog! I promise you that I am not in any way creeped out by the idea that you read my weblog and recognize me or something.

If I read YOUR weblog, well...be prepared for some agressively inappropriate hugging and reckless disregard for your personal space. I am sorry.

This is what I look like these days. No makeup, ponytail, eyebags and lopsided boobs. Boobs you may very well see more than you'd like of, since Ezra has a habit of yanking my shirt down when he's in the sling without me noticing. I'm not sure that cashier at Petsmart has ever recovered. But I believe it's important for teenagers to learn that p0rn movie scenarios never really translate into real-life all that well. I mean, the guy who delivered my fridge didn't use a single sexy double entendre either.

If you ask me to pose for a group picture, this is how I will ruin it:

This is how I look in every candid picture ever:

And if you still aren't entirely sure who I am, here's a surefire identification technique:

I'm speaking for the first time ever this year, another thing on the long list of Things I Am Woefully Unprepared For, along with Tracey and Catherine. We're discussing "Women Writing In The Age Of Britney: Pop Culture & Gossip & Feministy Stuff, Oh My."

I talk with my hands. I should tell you that now.

Okay, so now I need to take a break from packing (HINT: I HAVE NOT PACKED ANYTHING) and go to the store in search of 1) bras, lest we repeat the Petsmart thing, 2) adorable shoes that cost less than $10, 3) lip gloss.

*This is what my baby** ate for breakfast, by the way: a not-insignificant amount of breastmilk, followed with an 8 oz. formula chaser, three grown-up handfuls of cereal, an entire blueberry waffle, one banana, half of a peach and three strawberries.

**This is what my other baby*** ate for breakfast, just like he has eaten for breakfast since the BEGINNING OF TIME: a bowl of dry Cheerios, a milk/yogurt/strawberry/peach smoothie, possibly some residue from the bit of banana that he demanded Ezra give him but then refused to actually eat.

***I eat coffee for breakfast.