Hey, you're kinda cute online

Between the blog-cosmos and e-mail, you know what happens from time to time? You encounter kindred spirits, people who write things so clever or insightful that they seem to be channeling your own thoughts, if only you could write so eloquently. And thus ensues the delicious phenomenon of the intertubes-based intellectual crush.

Come on, 'fess up—you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? The intellectual crush may be someone you'd date in real life if you met them, or someone you wouldn't remotely be attracted to, or someone of a sex other than the one you're interested in (e.g., you're both straight people of the same sex, or you're a straight woman and he's a fabulous gay man).

If you like writing and you like reading, and you encounter the writing of someone brilliant and funny, oooh, that's juicy. I'll bet you can think of a couple people right now who fit your personal category of "brainy dreamboats who make you swoon in at least a hypothetical way." I don't know about you, but I'm apt to fall for people who have a ginormous vocabulary of $10 words and are adept at using these words correctly; wit is also essential. I can forgive the occasional typo, but I could never bring myself to have an online crush on anyone who doesn't write well.

The beauty of the internet crush is that on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog—or a man or a woman, or cute or plain, or sitting around in baggy pajamas. Rather, you can be judged on the merits of your mind. This opens the door to intellectual flirtations freed from the confines of reality. Some of you may remember having a straight girl's crush on another girl. (My most memorable one of these was around age 13, when an older girl who was a YWCA youth-group leader was just perfect—I craved her attention and, oh, how I wanted to be her.) I presume boys, as well as grown men and women, can get smitten with role models, too, aside from sexual orientation—I've witnessed a woman swooning over Tertia (and why not?) and a man swooning over Michael Bérubé (who wouldn't?).

And there are no geographic limitations—you can have internet crushes from thousands of miles away. You may have a particular interest in an abstruse topic that fascinates exactly nobody in your circle of friends and family—but online, you can mingle with a slew of like-minded people…some of whom may be eminently crushworthy because of their brainpower.

Most crushes are like chocolate sauce—your dinner is certainly complete without it, but it lends a sweet and intoxicating touch and enriches the experience in a most delicious manner. Sure, it'd be unhealthy to live on a diet of just chocolate sauce. But isn't it fun to cultivate a few intellect-based crushes, enjoy feeling smitten from time to time, and hone your flirting skills via e-mail and blog comments?

(Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.)

Exquisite Car

A week ago, Ben and I lunched on Giordano's Chicago-style stuffed pizza with a friend from out of town. It was such a treat to have another adult around on a weekday, providing cover for ordering a beer with lunch. Drinking alone with a kid just seems wrong, but it's so very civilized to have a drink at mealtime.

Ben, being six, is a teetotaler, so he drank ice water. When he'd finished his water, out of boredom or thirst, he walked over to the restaurant host to ask for more water, please. The host was so charmed, he gave Ben a gift: an Exquisite Car ("All Styles Are Wonderful!") emblazoned with the restaurant's logo. The car's a Smart car (neat!) that blasts loud music (grr!), and it came in a box rich in incomprehensibility (oh, sweet pleasure!). To wit:

"The both sides's car door can successively beat the on and off to shut"



Not clear enough? Maybe an illustration will help:



There are ample safety warnings in languages including broken German (wow! an umlaut on an E!) and Itkflian:



Not to mention a red warning box in English, with 10 lines of text packed within a 0.5x0.75-inch space:



In addition to a "Function Explain" diagram, there was also this clear illustration:



I have yet to witness this "bump up and go" business, and frankly, I'm disappointed. I was hoping to learn how to bump up and go.

Style counsel sought

You may have seen the Gap commercial featuring Audrey Hepburn, back from the grave to dance in skinny pants. While I can't abide the ad, I'm wondering about skinny jeans. Is there an age beyond which a woman must eschew the skinny-pants style? I have skinny legs, and wow, did I ever love wearing skinny jeans when I was about 15, but now I'm over 35. Is the cutoff for skinny jeans dictated by age or leg girth?

Survivor redux

A couple posts back, I observed that a comment by one of the white Survivor contestants provided a crisp example of white privilege. (If you're not sure what that term means, the 50 "daily effects of white privilege" listed by Peggy McIntosh here provide one overview—I freely admit that I haven't studied the issue of white privilege, on accounta having white privilege and therefore not needing to think about my own race much.)

Yesterday, I received a long e-mail from a random blog reader I'll call Defensive White Chick. DWC writes, I agree that ‘the white race’ has no heritage- -we have truly forgotten our specific and unique pasts and blended together in forgetfulness. I'm not sure where the agreeing comes in, because that's not what I was getting at. (Irony much?) You seem to have no problem lumping us into a category of blobby whiteness, where no other identification is pertinent to you. Now, now. I do see differences among various white people. But I also see differences among people of other ethnicities, which was kinda one of my main points.

My benighted correspondent also complained of the so-called double standard in which we won't see a movie called "Black Men Can't Jump": comments are made against us [meaning white folks] on a daily basis in our media and the everyday populace and NOBODY blinks an eye. DWC also insists that something she saw on the TV show Black/White is wrong—that black Americans no longer need fear any violence from "anglos" on a regular basis, that such a fear is a 1950s artifact. That reminds me of college, when some students of color tried to raise awareness of racism on campus. I had a friend, a white guy who grew up in Mankato, Minnesota, who insisted that there was no racism. Now, how would the average white person know what non-white people might be experiencing? I knew a black guy there (mind you, this was a small college in a small town in Minnesota) who once said, "I have to shower twice a day so people don't think black people stink." That wasn't a stereotype I'd ever heard, but you know what? That discussion of white privilege has the following at #33: " I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race." If you're white, then no, you don't think about such things. (Is there any white person who can dispute that point?) People who aren't white, hey, some do worry about that sort of thing.

My jaw dropped when I read DWC's final paragraph: Regardless of whether you like it or not, we are the standard. We conquered the Indians and founded this nation. Many of this countries holidays are reflective of anglo heritage. I know it is not politically correct, but you and anyone else who pisses and moans about the anglo race wouldn’t be here enjoying your current lifestyle without us and our influence. Oh no, you din't! Can you believe that? "Genocide made this country what it is today! You should be grateful for the atrocities of the past, for they have made us great!" (I paraphrase, of course.) I just don't even have a good response to this (aside from things like saying "It's country's, not countries, doof."). Anyone have a pithy response to suggest? Maybe something like [irony] "African-Americans wouldn't be here enjoying life it weren't for the institution of slavery!" or "Can we outlaw all the holidays of non-anglo origin? Because they're just wrong." [/irony] or "Omigod, you're making this up, aren't you? This is parody...isn't it?" (It isn't.)

The last paragraph ended on a lighter note: if you are 'white' then i am sorry that you dislike your own people. if you are not then i would ask that you look at your own racism objectively. Isn't that a wonderful concept? The self-loathing member of the dominant culture? It's a great twist on the usual application of the "self-loathing" tag to people outside the tradition of privilege. I think the next step is to expand it to men. Do you know any self-loathing affluent straight white Christian men who loathe their own affluent whiteness? (Mr. Tangerine suggests that we may find them if we check S&M dungeons...but let us not psychoanalyze the folks who are into that.)

Grateful journal

Oprah Winfrey recommends keeping a "grateful journal" in which you "list five things that happened this day that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is change your perspective of your day and your life. If you can learn to focus on what you have, you will always see that the universe is abundant; you will have more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never have enough."

I know it's early in the day, but life is good and I'm sure I can come up with five things I'm grateful for right now:

1. It is no longer "Talk Like a Pirate Day." I can't write in pirate-speak, so No Nym, I couldn't comment on any of your posts yesterday. I find "Talk Like a Pirate Day" to be most irksome. I do not, however, expend any energy deploring its glorification of those bad, bad piratical people, and find those who do complain about pirates to be just plain humorless.

2. I finally got the contract from my publisher (for a book about what else? crosswords), so I no longer feel like I'm in the limbo of uncertainty. Writing about something I enjoy turns out to be fun!

3. While my husband may pay no attention to laundry, he is a good man, a good husband, and a superb father. Plus he puts up with my snoring.

4. My son's having a good time in first grade, his best buddy from day camp is in his class, he's reading so fluidly now, and he does a much better job of listening to his mother than he used to. I've been productive during the hours he's in school, though today will entail more hair salon time (highlights and a much-overdue cut) and less writing time.

5. Pharmaceuticals and medical technology. Seriously. My kid and I wouldn't be here without 'em. While universal health care is sorely needed, health insurance companies drive everyone nuts, and there's plenty of over-/under-/mis-treatment in medicine, we do have a helluva bunch of resources on tap.

What are you grateful for? (And you'd better come up with five things. I know you can do it! If you're in a bind, there's always the weather, the new TV season, and the seasonal waning of heat and humidity.)

Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.

Raising money for breast cancer

We all know the statistics—breast cancer is all too common, and if nobody in your particular circle of friends and family has had to to battle with this disease, it's probably just a matter of time, really. Not to be alarmist, but breast cancer is hardly rare.

My family has been incredibly lucky in that there's been remarkably little cancer, and I'm grateful for that. But just recently, my mother's best friend—a woman I've known for 35 years—was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy last week, and will be doing chemo and radiation therapy to cut her odds of recurrence from 25% to 5%. She's trying to figure out which adjunctive therapy to do first, thinking about which side effects fit her schedule when. With luck, she won't have a terrible time with either, and the cancer cells will be whipped into submission for good. But I still worry.

This is the first year I'll be doing City of Hope's annual Walk for Hope with a specific breast cancer survivor in mind—I've walked each year for the past four or five years, but now that I have a more personal connection to this cancer, I want to raise more money than I have in the past. I've set a modest goal of raising $500 before October 8.

If you can afford a few bucks* to support the cause and sponsor me in the Walk for Hope, please stop by my donation page and click the "Donate now!" button. It's a secure site, and the money will go directly from your credit card (issued by U.S. banks only, alas) to City of Hope. Thank you!

*If you're flat broke, or if you've already earmarked your charitable donations elsewhere, I understand. But keep a good thought for my mom's friend, will you?

Now on CBS Thursday: Survivor: White Privilege

You've probably heard about the latest edition of Survivor, with each of the four "tribes" being a different race. I found myself on the couch at 7:00 tonight, so I turned on Survivor—what good is deploring something when you haven't even seen it? Sometimes one must make sacrifices for the sake of intellectual honesty, after all. And my sacrifice was sitting through most of tonight's premiere episode.

What I saw was a picture-perfect depiction of white privilege in all its glory. First we saw the Latino team traveling from the boat to the island, and they talked about how they'd demonstrate that they can "work hard and play hard." Then the Asian team made the same trip to the beach, saying that the other tribes would scarcely suspect that these small Asian people would be competitive. Third out was the black team, and they also touched on the idea of showing that stereotypes weren't accurate.

Last was the white tribe, and apparently these folks were cast for their ability to effortlessly present white privilege. I hadn't noticed the other groups playing the color-blind card, but one of the white guys said it really didn't matter if everyone was white or "other ethnicities"—the game's all about individual personalities. Then a different white guy said, "It's going to be fascinating to see how it plays out, but I don't believe that just because these groups have cultural similarities, that that will make them more specifically cohesive."

"These groups"? "Them"? As if the average fivesome of young white Americans who wanna be on reality TV have no shared culture? And what exactly are the cultural commonalities between a Vietnam War refugee who currently runs a nail shop, New York–born Koreans with high-powered jobs, a Midwest-raised Filipina in real estate, and a West Coast hottie guy in the fashion industry? How about a Dominican wrestler/musician, a Peruvian-born businesswoman, a Mexican-born waiter, and two Santa Monica natives, one a male volleyball player and the other a female cop? They sound mighty homogeneous, don't they?

It's incredibly easy for white people to forget about race, as we apparently have none. It's those other people who have races; we white folks are the default. (Just like men needn't trouble themselves with gender issues much—they're the default. Women, however, can't easily ignore their sex.)

I don't know how much race will figure into the course of Survivor: Cook Islands and frankly, I'm not interested in watching the show. But that comment about "these groups" perfectly encapsulated the concept of white privilege for me.

Hip-IHOP

I love my local IHOP restaurant, I do. I swear that it's hipper than the average IHOP, but until today, I didn't have a clear explanation. Here's the deal: Not only does it draw a diverse clientele, but the wait staff tends to look hipper. To wit: The three waiters working the dinner shift tonight included a red-haired guy with a barbell traversing the cartilage of his upper ear (plus a little other hardware, I think), a blondish guy with hipster sideburns and two small hoop earrings, and a foxy, chatty Asian guy with spiky hair and a pierced tongue. The restaurant seems to do a good job with employee retention, because busboys get promoted to cook and waiters and waitresses tend to stick around. And I've had subpar flapjacks only once in the past seven years.

Plus, Feral Mom and one of her toddlers once attempted to destroy the women's room, and it survived unscathed. What more could you ask for in an IHOP?

September 11, five years later

I remember where I was, exactly five years ago (give or take a half hour). I was home with my 16-month-old son, who was only beginning to walk. I sat in front of the TV for hours that morning, stunned and crying. Ben was too young to have any idea what was going on. He wasn't walking yet, but he could stand up just fine. Indelibly, the sound of his rolling push toy, with its jangly, tinkly rendition of the alphabet song, is imprinted on my memories of September 11, because Ben was playing with it while the planes hit the Twin Towers, while the people evacuated, while the towers turned into rubble, while the terrible day unfolded. He didn't get to play with it much after that day, because the perky music sounded so mournful to me and I didn't want to hear it any more. At least the toy served its purpose in diverting Ben while his mother's mind was hundreds of miles away. That morning, I held Ben close and wondered what sort of world Ben would know—it was no longer the world I grew up in.

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I'm sorry for the thousands of people who perished on September 11, 2001, including the selfless rescue workers, and for the families and friends who miss them still. I'm sorry for the survivors who escaped with their lives, but experienced such terrible trauma that day. I'm sorry for the servicemen and women who lost their lives in the wars that followed, and for their families. I'm sorry for the many heroes who toiled at Ground Zero to gather human remains and clear the site, many of whom are now ill from the toxic exposures.

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This morning, Ben's school had a memorial service outside before classes started. More than a thousand students and hundreds of parents and staffers gathered. Flag at half mast, the Pledge of Allegiance, the standard patriotic songs (plus an odd "If you stand up for freedom, clap your hands" number), a tall, slender young woman with skin the color of espresso who wore a Statue of Liberty costume, a release of red, white, and blue balloons, and a moment of silence. If I had started to sing along, I would have ended up bawling, so instead I stood quietly and only sniffled. The children and parents there represent the beauty of America—the way this beacon of freedom, imperfect though it may be, draws people from across the globe who want to become Americans, who want their children to be American. People from different continents, cultures, countries. These people, like the immigrant ancestors of Americans born here, strengthen the nation and remind us that what we have is rare, and we shouldn't take it for granted.

The cynic in me can scoff at rosy discussions of freedom and point out the erosion of civil liberties, wars I don't agree with, the persistence of bias. But it is because of our communal commitment to freedom that the United States remains such a powerful magnet. It's imperfect, yes, but its problems are amenable to change through democratic processes. Even a terrorist attack on the nation's power centers didn't change that.

What do you know about menorrhagia?

A dear friend, P., is approaching menopause at 41 (even though she doesn't look a day over 25), and her last few periods have been bloody monsters—the one just past lasted two weeks (two weeks!) and was really heavy, to boot. Chunky clots (she said it looks like her body is disgorging an alien, bit by bloody bit). A tampon an hour. Blowouts requiring a trip home to change clothes. Painful cramping. And did I mention...two weeks! Bad, bad period, in other words. She clearly meets the criteria for menorrhagia, with the heaviness of the flow, how long it lasts, and how miserable it's making her.

Herewith, a few questions for anyone who has been through this herself, or knows someone who has:

1. What treatment(s) did you try? Did you get good results? (P. has had side effects from the pill, so she's looking for another option.)

2. What do you know about the NovaSure endometrial ablation technique? The website makes it sound like the biggest boon to bleeders. What's the down side (aside from having a thingamajig inserted into the uterus and cramping up afterwards, etc.)?

3. Got any coping strategies or pointers to offer?

When famous older women have babies

Do you remember a few years ago when there was a push to raise women's awareness of when fertility dwindles? I think it was an initiative from one of the reproductive endocrinologists' groups (maybe this one), frustrated by how many of their patients were heartbroken to discover, now that they were finally ready to start a family, that their eggs were pretty well cooked. Why have so many women been in the dark about this, thinking that age 40 was a fine time to embark on a first baby? I blame the media attention given to celebrity pregnancies, where it's seldom hinted that a woman in her 40s or 50s might have required assisted reproductive technology (ART).

Case in point: this week's news that actress Marcia Cross, age 44, is pregnant with her first child, quite soon after her wedding. Nowhere in the article does it mention fertility treatment. This gossip piece reports that she and her husband were seen leaving a fertility clinic, but Cross's publicist, of course, omitted any mention of ART.

It's possible Cross and her husband relied on IVF and perhaps donor eggs. But with all the media attention showered on famous 40-somethings who are pregnant—and the conspiracy of silence on ART—American women can easily get the message that fertility after 40 is quite unremarkable, just another natural, happy circumstance.

I recognize that everyone has a right to medical privacy, and that you don't necessarily want your child learning they came from donor gametes via a Google search. But time and time again, the media leaves out the details that remind people that the average woman is going to have infertility issues if she tries to get pregnant in her 40s.

Jane Seymour gave birth to twins at age 45; at that time, I don't recall seeing a mention of IVF, although she has acknowledged it since then. But might she have used donor eggs? Could be. Cheryl Tiegs claims to have used her own eggs—at age 52!—and a gestational surrogate. (I concede it's possible that Tiegs was the 1-in-500 case with viable eggs at that age...) Geena Davis was in her mid-40s, and I've never seen any acknowledgment of ART in her case.

Last year, I blogged about Joan Lunden, who used a gestational surrogate twice, starting at age 49, and now has two sets of young twins. (That's in addition to three grown children from a prior marriage.) The pregnancies used Lunden's husband's sperm, but the Good Housekeeping article I blogged about delicately avoided using the words "egg" and "donor" (though an infertility-savvy reader could pick up the implication of donor eggs).

I don't begrudge affluent, famous, biologically middle-aged women the joys of pregnancy. I just wish that they didn't perpetuate the stigma of donor eggs, donor embryos, and gestational surrogacy by omitting their personal details, while simultaneously propagating the false impression that it's easy to get pregnant at that age. And I wish the media would be far more responsible in their reporting of these late-in-life pregnancies.

Chapter 1

The birth story begins, as some do, with optimism. My mom got pregnant with my sister a month into marriage, and conceived me when my sister was 6 months old. Said sister got pregnant within about 4 months of going off the pill. With familial fertility like that, clearly I'd be knocked up in no time at all. Mr. Tangerine and I had been married for 6 years, I was getting laid off from my job and beginning a freelance career, and the timing was perfect for starting a family.

Except...month after month, ovulation predictor kit after ovulation predictor kit, the excellent timing and the de rigueur postcoital assal elevation proved pointless. We began to fret. Perhaps something was amiss in his bits, or in mine.

After about a year, we started conferring with doctors. Mr. Tangerine "collected a sample" at the andrology lab, and the results indicated that his spermatozoa were splendid.

My turn. Blood work showed normal levels of all the pertinent hormones. Could there be a traffic jam in the fallopian tubes, perhaps? Time for the dye test, a.k.a. the HSG, a.k.a. the hysterosalpingogram. Saddle up in the stirrups, let the doctor thread a catheter tube through the cervix, and x-ray the fluid as it whooshes through the catheter and uterus and to the fallopian tubes. Piece of cake, right?

Wrong. Turns out my cervical canal fakes left and goes right (or vice versa), meaning health-care providers always have a dickens of a time getting through it. Except this was the first time anything larger than a sperm ever tried to traverse that route, so the unfortunate OB/GYN didn't know my cervix was tricksy. He put on his lead apron at the beginning, assuming he'd reach the x-raying stage quickly—but no. He was a sweaty, nervous wreck, working under that hot spotlight and feeling the flop sweat as my reproductive parts repelled his efforts. Eventually, the catheter went through, the X-ray movie was made, and my uterus and tubes were deemed normal.

But do you know what happens when somebody picks a fight with your cervix? Ow ow ow ow ow. There's nothing quite like traumatizing your cervix to produce a flow of scarlet blood. There was blood all over the back of my hospital gown...and I had to go down a ways and across the hall to get back to the locker with my clothes. Ladies, you haven't lived until you've strolled a hallway with a bloody hospital gown clinging wetly to your ass. (This experience with the HSG is exactly the reason I haven't opted for the Essure method of sterilization. You have to get an HSG 3 months after the Essure coils are inserted to make sure your fallopian tubes are blocked, and I...have issues with the HSG. I'll pass.)

Anyway, with no information other than that there was no apparent reason we hadn't gotten me pregnant yet, the Tangerines moved on to the reproductive endocrinologists. We did three or four cycles with Clomid and intrauterine insemination. It didn't result in a pregnancy, but there were plenty of good times along the way. For starters, Mr. Tangerine had to "collect a sample" each of those cycles, in the little room with the videos and the magazines. All the men in the waiting room had just masturbated, or were about to; some men were present only by proxy, inside plastic specimen cups. One time, a younger woman made small talk by saying that her husband got "excited" every time he saw the special plastic cup. Thanks for oversharing! Another entertaining aspect was the mood swings wrought by Clomid—PMS on steroids.

Disheartened after several failed cycles, we took some time off from appointments and medications and procedures. And we got pregnant right away, once we stopped thinking about it so much! No, that's a lie. But it's a funny one, isn't it? All of you who have ever run the infertility gamut know what I'm talking about. "Just relax." Ri-i-i-ight. I couldn't have been any more relaxed during the first 6 to 12 months of trying, honest.

Then we started over with a new reproductive endrocrinologist, an aggressive South African with a fantastic accent. At first I thought his suggestion of moving ahead to injectible drugs for a couple cycles, then on to IVF, was too aggressive. But the less aggressive approach didn't get me pregnant, now, did it? No, ma'am.

And so we embarked on a new phase. Buying $700 of hormonal drugs and needles at a specialty drugstore. And shots! Mr. Tangerine gave me shots in the belly every morning before he went to work. Oh, such fun it was. First cycle: failed. Second cycle: deferred an extra month because of leftover follicles from the first cycle; gotta love taking oral contraceptives when trying to conceive! The cycle-two insems were at the end of September in 1999. (So much for having a kid in the 1900s—I always thought it was cool that my great-grandmother had been born in the 1800s, and wanted my kid's future descendants to marvel at the idea of someone born in the 1900s!) Mr. Tangerine collected his sample at home. I tucked the sealed cup beside me while he drove me to the medical office building, and he went on to work and eschewed the whole being-there-for-the-conception-of-his-child business. That's so, like, medieval! Much more efficient this way, no? (Plus it allows the parent to point out the building to the child—"That's where you were conceived, my son"—with none of the awkwardness that comes with telling kids about sex.)

The second cycle seemed to fail, but I jumped the gun in peeing on the pregnancy test stick and got a too-early negative. The first sign I was pregnant was going out to lunch with two old friends on short notice—and totally spacing on the fact that I had a dentist appointment. Many people claim pregnancy induces forgetfulness, you know.

The follow-ups at the reproductive endocrinology clinic showed that, thankfully, just one embryo had taken up parasitic residence in my womb. This is no slam on people with multiples, but as future installments will show, a twin pregnancy would have been a bad, bad thing in my case. But I didn't know any of that yet. I was just delighted to be pregnant and proud of the little ultrasound pictures of my little bean of a 7-week embryo.

Next: Chapter 2, The First Trimester—in which I don't go to Hawaii.

Be my brain

Those of you who have been reading here for a while—do you recall if I ever posted my birth (from conception to NICU) story? I tried Googling the answer to that question, and it didn't dig up anything. If I did write up my story, I don't want to repeat myself, but if I didn't, I feel I ought to. Anyone know if I've posted that already?

Edited to add this: Okay, I've only written a little summary. I'll get moving on the full version one of these months. Basic outline:

Conception and Infertility: How I conceived a baby while my husband was away at work. I swear it's his!

Pregnancy: The First Trimester: Migraines and holiday hospitalization.

Pregnancy: The Next 1 1/3 Trimesters: Culminating in preeclampsia.

Party in Labor & Delivery: Rubber glove, ice cubes, groin. Need I elaborate?

Postpartum Woes, Chapter 1: The ICU Edition.

Postpartum Woes, Chapter 2: Spinal Headache Special Edition.

Postpartum Woes, Chapter 3: Lactation or Non?

Postpartum Woes, Chapter 4: The NICU Edition, including the baby shower.

The epic battle: sudoku vs. crosswords

(Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.; a few edits made here.)

When you see someone engrossed in a sudoku puzzle, I encourage you to look on them with pity. And when you witness someone solving a crossword, please smile, nod appreciatively, and flirt.

Sudoku puzzles serve their purpose, yes: they pass the time (I admit to doing them on occasion—haven't I said I am a procrastinator?). But don't kid yourself. You're not learning anything, and you're not making yourself any smarter by doing them. It's the same logical challenge every time. It's not as if you've learned something essential about the number 4 and can now unlock the mysteries of the universe.

Now, crossword puzzles are a different story. Every one is different, the good ones have some funny clues, you stretch your brain when you have to think flexibly to interpret tricky clues, and you learn an awful lot of trivia (which can expand your horizons a little—think of all the 70-year-old women who now know the names of a few rappers because they appeared in the New York Times crossword).

If you've grown fond of sudoku, is it because you "can't do crosswords"? Nonsense. You may think you can't do crosswords, but really, you can. Just start with the easy ones. There are plenty of books of NYT and other crosswords specifically labeled "easy" (or even "easy, breezy"), and the Monday NYT puzzle has become easier of late. Start with the easy ones (and go for the easiest clues first—generally fill-in-the-blank clues, or anything asking for a name you know), and check the solutions in the back of the book for any answers you don't know. Don't just fill them in—reread the clue and figure out how the answer goes with it. Over time, you'll learn the ropes and become more adept, and then you can move along to tougher puzzles.

If you thought crosswords were stodgy things for boring old folks, think again. Even the Onion (the Onion!) will start running a crossword in a few weeks. See? So not stodgy. This is not your grandmother's crossword puzzle any more. But sudoku? Stodgy by nature. You can tart it up with different twists, but it remains the same logical task for your brain, over and over. All the cool kids are moving to crosswords.

If you've ever wondered how crosswords are made, don't miss Patrick Creadon's entertaining crossword documentary, Wordplay; it's still playing in selected theaters, and the DVD is due out in early November. Be sure to save it in your Netflix queue, because it's a good movie, some of my crossword-geek friends star in it, and I cameo in it—watch for the curtsy by the woman in lime green. Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton are among the famous crossword fans featured in the movie, and they ain't stodgy. See the movie, catch crossword fever. (And don't hold your breath for a sudoku movie.)

There are some impassioned defenses of sudoku in the comments at Bitch Ph.D. I find them unpersuasive, of course. Not only do crosswords give me an ego boost because I'm good at them, they also landed me in a movie. Can't beat that.

Life chafes, bras shouldn't

(Cross-posted over yonder at Bitch Ph.D.; a few edits added here.)

It's been a long and irritating summer for me, with turning thirty-ten, assorted pain-in-the-ass ailments (figuratively speaking), still waiting for a book contract to be sent, and I-love-my-kid-but-four-weeks-between-the-end-of-day-camp-and-the-start-of-school-is-too-much (Chicago public school kids don't start till next Tuesday). And yesterday, my mom took Ben off my hands for a grammy-kid outing downtown—but this plastic shield thingy on the underside of the front of my car—turns out it's called an engine shield—cracked open and I drove on Lake Shore Drive with plastic scraping the roadway, and then when I got home, I was too ill-tempered to be productive (See? Procrastinators always have excuses.) and had to spend a half hour on the phone with the car insurance guy (if you or your partner has a US military connection and a hookup with USAA, omigod is their customer service fantastic. The guy asked before he put me on hold each time and always told me how long it would be. "Is it okay if I put you on hold for 30 seconds?" What a dreamboat! I wish USAA could provide my phone service, because my local phone service is a little iffy and their customer service avoidance techniques suck ass. Speaking of insurance companies, all you renters who are on a tight budget should really make sure you have renter's insurance, because the premiums are so much cheaper than what it would cost you to replace everything if you had a fire, water damage, or a break-in. Really.) And thanks to my high deductible, the $453 repair costs for the car (including a new spoiler thingy, the bottom part of the front bumper) will be out of pocket.

There have been bright spots in Irritating Summer, to be sure: I have a great husband, a sweet and funny almost-first-grader, a reasonably easy life, and I even got off my ass and started using that health club membership three months ago. (Although I haven't gone in over two weeks—see "assorted ailments," above.)

But my brain is on hiatus right now. And it's guest-posting Wednesday! So I'll tack up a few unserious, unrelated small posts. First up, bras:

Thanks to working out at the aforementioned health club, my bra band size increased (muscles!) so I needed new bras. (I'll hold onto the wardrobe of Wacoals in the no-longer-right-size in case I reshape my bosom again.) I went to Bloomingdales, which just so happened to provide an excellent illustration of why Nordstrom's has a better reputation in lingerie sales. (The sad part is that the same shopping center also had a Nordy's, but it was a long walk to that end of the shopstravaganza, and one of my recent ailments involved my foot.) Anyway, while the customer service was dreadful, the Wacoal inventory was great. I found out the funky iBra doesn't fit me, but I bought this one in an adorable pink (why didn't I know that pink bras don't show through white shirts? I love pink!), and it's perfectly smooth under a tee (but I remember trying it on in my previous size, and it didn't work for me at all then); and I bought this more supportive one for less jiggly days.

The point? Dr. B, she knows bras. I know a lot of you won't pay more than $15 for a bra, but don't think your boobs are thanking you for that. You should at least try on some good bras (like Wacoal, which run roughly $38 to $62). And make sure you're wearing the right size: this site, this one, and this site recommended by a Bitch Ph.D. commenter are helpful. Many women actually need a smaller band size (use the loosest hook when the bra's new) and larger cup size (that Nordstrom's link has photos that illustrate when the cups are too big or too small for you).

For more wisdom from the Professor of Brassiere and Shoe Studies (she's tenured and holds an endowed chair in the department), check out the bra links in the Bitch Ph.D. sidebar.

Lazy list of search queries

Lately, my douchebag and what is a douchebag hits have gone way down. But not to worry—plenty of other oddball search queries have lured people to this very blog.

The #1 query is funky words, which I wrote about one time. I have no idea if those were the words these people are looking for, or if they were disappointed not to discover a whole 'nother category or funkalicious words here. Second is orange tangerine, naturally enough. Third, swim ware. Guess what? There probably aren't a ton of sites that spell it that way, but I'll bet the poor spellers don't stick around here when they see that I actually make fun of spellings like "swim ware." (It's like really wet software, no?) There's also swimwere sperm, swimming ware, and men wearing womans swimwere (a cross-dresser and a poor speller).

Next on the list are some product names: Hemorr-Ice, which may offer sweet, cold relief to those suffering from 'roids, and Space Food Sticks, which I loved in the '70s, but the replica being made today is nasty. Possibly it tastes identical to the snack I loved so much when I was a kid—who knows? But don't give in to the temptation. You'll be disappointed.

I don't know what the bum hole and snot sex folks thought they'd find here, but I suspect they moved along quickly, utterly let down by this blog. I have no idea what number five orange might mean. As for erectionphotos, that was mentioned by Esquire magazine many moons ago, and I mentioned it in a post, but didn't even link to the site, which is exactly what it sounds like. And still, Orange Tangerine comes up in search engines when people look for that. Go figure.

Queries like orange bras and tangerine tits seem to go together, no? I don't know about cheese bra, though. (I'd have to advise against using Swiss cheese.) And grilled velveeta—listen, don't burn your breasts with that, okay? And very ample breasts makes me wonder whether that summons up the same sites that a search for "ginormous boobies" would. Does the more sophisticated wording elevate the caliber of breasts depicted? The query sexy photos girls boobies that only grownups could see smacks of a curious 13-year-old boy.

Then there's how to be chic. Wouldn't you like to meet the person who aspires to be chic, and goes online to find out how to pull that off? Good luck to ya. Can't say I've got much advice for you here. Maybe check out the links for the woman farting in the car search? And of course, you can't go wrong with crossword puzzles. Très chic.

Even more alarming than that are queries like swallowed petrol (can't the British call Poison Control, too?), barbed wire toilet seat (ouch), sadnesses and horrifying poems (aww...), orange balls in ejaculation (!), lysol douche (No! Don't do it! This is so wrong!), mormon bdsm (hope you find what you're looking for, dear), how to put holes in jeans (No! Don't do it! This is so wrong!), masturbating with an orange (How?? Now I'm curious. How is this done?), women have penis's (That's so wrong! The plural is penises, no apostrophe.), wife never orgasm small penis (Dude, you got hands? A mouth? Sex toys? Use 'em.), what does my poo mean (can't be sure, but I suspect it has something to do with eating, digestion, and elimination), vomit boobs (sexy!), true confessions grandma sex, tripe green throwover (no idea what that means, but it can't be good), sticky balls disease (first step: try washing), people eat spiders in their sleep (ack!), orange up the butt (Don't do it! Oranges lack handy pull-strings for retrieval.), orange pieces in ejaculation (call your doctor, man), margarine eater contest (eww...), coffee tastes like someone threw up in it (make a new pot already), big assy sex (what?), and—most alarming of all—american girl doll matching outfits.

Then we have the confessions: i use public toilet and piss on the seat (knock it off!) i love menopausal butts (good for you!), i hump my cat (hey, pick on someone your own size! and species), and can count the number of guys i've slept with on one hand (me too!)

Most mysterious of all is orange road images erotic thumbs access free. What??

Apparently I'm not the only one who dreams of taking the elevator sideways. (I recommend it highly!)

A couple animal-related queries caught my eye: what does squirrel poo look like? Hey! I know that now. Sadly. When a squirrel is freaked out because it doesn't know how to get out of your house, the poop is dark brown to greenish, soft, roughly the size of a sunflower seed without its shell. Whether calm squirrels have different poop, I can't say. Then there's orang jeans. Did Clint Eastwood's orangutan costar in those old movies wear pants? I don't know what's going on with gorilla zoo la leche league.

I'm guessing that most regular readers originally came to Orange Tangerine via another blog, where they followed a link in a blogroll or comment. (That's how I found most of the blogs I read.) But if you actually came here because of a search query and decided to pop in from time to time, leave a comment and say hello. I'm curious to know whether any of those Google hits end up sticking.

My subconscious keeps ripping me off

The other day, I had a dream in which I was apparently still living in my parents' old house, and I had a man in my bed. All we did was cuddle and talk, but he scrupulously kept his fully-clothed bits away from my body. This morning, I awoke from a dream in which I was at the library with a different man, near closing time, in a dark section of the stacks, but we only got as far as some hugging. Then I woke up to pee, and when I fell back to sleep, I was plunged into a vivid thriller. The kind of thriller in which nothing makes sense, nobody will help me, and I'm fighting for my life against assorted baddies. That dream felt like it went on for hours. The library hugger? That felt like maybe 10, 15 minutes of real time. Listen, I don't even much like to watch or read thrillers, and my life certainly doesn't entail the sort of peril this dream featured. My life also doesn't include much in the way of cuddling with men other than my husband, but come on, now! Why can't I wake up from an abbreviated thriller of a dream, and drift back into hours of dreamland passion? It's just not fair.

Oy, is it Wednesday again?

(Guest post at Bitch Ph.D..)

This guest-blogging thing is killing me. No Nym makes it look easy, spending the rest of the week cooking up posts so he can spoil us on Tuesday. But dammit, I have two other blogs to maintain (my low-key original blog, which I encourage you to visit if you have anti-squirrel suggestions because one of those gnarly varmints chewed through my screen door to steal my wheat bread, and my crossword blog—yeah, that's right, I'm a crossword geek. Wanna make something of it?), and here it is, mid-morning on my assigned day, and I haven't got anything drafted.

So the natural topic is procrastination. I am a procrastinator. I always have been. Hell, a few years ago I came across one of my report cards from first grade, and the teacher said something about my not always finishing my assignments. I was certainly capable of doing so, but apparently I've just been a procrastinator since my early years. Here's a sample of what I've been procrastinating on lately:

• Editing manuscripts.

• Writing a book.

• Ordering a new toilet.

• Taking the car for an oil change.

• Paying some bills.

• Purging unloved clothes from my wardrobe and donating them to the Brown Elephant.

• Clearing up a crapload of clutter and papers.

• Reading a zillion books.

• Running errands.

• Sending thank-you notes.

• Sending out photos of my kid, family, and friends.

• Returning a Netflix movie.

• Doing laundry, sorting clean laundry, and the worst part—putting everything away.

• Cooking frozen vegetables before they shrivel up in the freezer.

• Writing up condo meeting minutes.

This is just a sampling of what's on my mental to-do list but sits undone. We've been in need of a new toilet for a year now, and all I have to do is go to a store (or just call them), ask them to order this or that model number, and hire a plumber to install it. A year! Objectively, my daily schedule is incredibly cushy and I have ample time to accomplish all these things and more, but I'm far too busy procrastinating to be productive.

It's confession time: What's are you procrastinating on, and why don't you just do it already? Do you have an explanation? Because I don't have a good way to rationalize my own procrastination, and I could use some excuses.

Why I am drinking a beer

If you don't care for profanity, please move on to another post. This one's going to be a doozy.

Ohmyfuckinggod, a goddamned squirrel chewed a motherfucking hole through my kitchen door's screen, a good four feet or more off the ground, and it came into my house, and it had no way to get back out that little hole because it's a stupid pea-brained little nasty rodent. (Or whatever order or family of mammal it may be. Frankly, at this point, a hearty city rat isn't looking bad by comparison.)

This squirrel—or perhaps one of its vile brethren—first attempted to break on through to the other side by shredding the screen in the bottom half of the kitchen door, where there were two panes of glass in its way. So it scampered higher up the screen and, working without a net, chewed its way into my house.

I learned of the invasion when Ben, self-starter that he is, heard a noise and went to investigate it. He trotted back to the living room and said, "Mom, I think there's a squirrel in our dining room. And I'm about to cry."

No shit! I went to investigate it myself, and the sight of an animal skittering around near the top of one's dining room window or curtains, making unearthly noises, is indeed alarming. I shrieked my way back to the living room. Tried calling Mr. Tangerine at work—no answer. Gah! Called my sister while changing clothes into more squirrel-resistant denim. Grabbed my keys and my kid, went out in the building hallway, knocked on the next door, and fortunately my neighbor was home. He offered to come in (to my horribly, embarrassingly cluttered end of the condo, but who cares about that when there is vermin that needs shooing?) and help. The squirrel hid out beneath a table full of computer equipment while I propped open the kitchen door. We cleared the way, and the bushy-tailed rat-beast raced out of the house.

A half hour later, I am finishing a beer. My heart rate may be drifting back down toward its baseline. And my eyes have largely stopped tearing up.

But holy shit! As soon as Mr. Tangerine gets home, we'll tackle the kitchen and dining room reconnaissance mission. Throw away any nibbled food, right the objects that the beast knocked over, check for chewed wires and furniture, wipe up the squirrel poo (for the curious: small turds that almost look like sunflower seeds without the shells, only darker brown to greenish, and mushy. Eww!), and sanitize all the surfaces, especially in the kitchen. My kitchen! Despoiled by the vile creature.

The initial findings are as follows: Chewed on my wheat bread (gnawing through the plastic bag), but had only a bite. (Now, was all the trauma worth it, you little bastard? I hope you learned your lesson.) Did not touch the Hawaiian bread or the pumpernickel bagels. Toppled a computer speaker. Knocked a travel mug onto the floor. I'm sure plenty of unhappy surprises await.

I'm not starting the cleanup process alone because I want some company in there. (Ben concurs with my current opinion of squirrels: He says he hates them, and they're cute only in pictures. Did you know those fuckers have been flossing their teeth on my car? Yes, the hard plastic parts where the windshield meets the wipers and the corner of the hood have been gnawed through, too. And they've chewed up the wooden porch railings belonging to my upstairs neighbors, as well as going through the screen into the third-floor unit a couple years ago. Fucking bastards. (The varmints, not the neighbors.)

But I am ready to move forward with other practical squirrel-related matters. Any suggestions? My sister recommended replacing the kitchen screens with dog-proof screens, but I'd need to make sure that squirrel teeth and claws can't break through the screens that resist dog and cat claws. And I wonder whether these are like the Sopranos of squirreldom. Do they just expect us to pay tribute in the form of a birdfeeder kept stocked with birdseed? I'd rather feed them out in the back yard than in my kitchen, but if you negotiate with squirrels, then the terrorists have won. Do you have any other ideas? I'm listening. Listening, and hoping to never hear the sound of a freaked-out squirrel tearing through my house and chittering like a demented alien.

I am feeling rather angsty and violated by all of motherfucking squirreldom. It may be time for another beer.

(If you're in the mood to read about other ways in which squirrels violate the compact we thought they had with humans, read Flea's write-up of Alex's birthday party two years ago—quite by coincidence, I discovered that the mom of the kid whose party Ben was invited to was actually a blogger I'd been reading for months. But the squirrels at that party, they were some psychotic bastards, no lie.)

The old battle-ax

Ben was watching a cartoon this morning, and one character said, "I've got my battle-ready armor on!"

Now, some evenings when I'm watching TV (last night, Mr. Tangerine and I watched the ridiculous White Noise and the entertaining Sideways) or otherwise hanging around at home, I may reach a point at which a bra suddenly becomes the most uncomfortable thing in the world. So I'll extricate the bra and toss it on the back of the couch. My lightest and laciest underwire remained there this morning.

Ben draped it across his bare chest and said, "Mom, look! I've got my battle-ready armor!" Ha.

So of course, I didn't want to waste a teaching moment, and immediately showed him the difference between the most and least armored brassiere styles.

No, I didn't. Just kidding.

But now, I feel ready for the day in a whole new way. I'm dressed and properly armored, ready for what battles may come. Charge!

Fear and Loathing of SUVs

How do I loathe SUVs? Let me count the ways.

They use a lot of gas, which (1) exhausts the world’s dwindling oil supplies faster and (2) pollutes the air, thereby (3) contributing to the acceleration of global warming.

When I’m waiting to turn left at an intersection, there’s often an SUV in the lane across from me. (4) I can’t see through the fucker to know if there’s traffic coming from behind it, so I’m stuck waiting until the SUV turns or the light changes.

When I’m on the highway, (5) I can’t see the road ahead of me if I’m following an SUV. I’ll speed and change lanes less carefully than I should just to get past an SUV so I can see the road ahead. It’s not safe to drive at highway speeds when you can’t see any potential hazards or slowdowns you’re approaching.

When I want to turn out of a parking lot in the city, (6) if there’s an SUV parked to the left of the driveway, I have no visibility and can’t see if it’s safe to pull out. I nearly got hit by a minivan when inching out from the McDonald’s lot last week because of a stinkin’ SUV parked there.

Not only are (7) SUVs taller than cars, they also (8) usually seem to have tinted windows. WTF? Why do they need tinted windows? If they’re not hiding the pope or Brangelina in there, I think they could make do with clear windows so other drivers’ ability to see hazards isn’t obliterated.

And when I go into a crowded parking garage, you know what fills up the row of "small car only" spots? That’s right: (9) An SUV will take up two small spots rather than driving up a few more levels to find a ful-sized parking space that’s open. Doesn’t that just smack of (10) yuppie entitlement, taking up two parking spaces because you choose to drive something that’s ridiculously oversized for a congested city?

Now, I’m a reasonable woman. If you live in the snowy mountains, you can make an argument for driving a rugged SUV rather than a car (though a sporty station wagon with good tires might serve your purposes). A Hummer, though? Nobody needs a Hummer. You’ve got a muddy dog? Then you can get a small SUV like the Honda Element, or the boxy little Scion xB, or a sporty wagon. You don’t need an Explorer or Navigator.

If you need to transport a lot of kids in the suburbs, a minivan makes a lot more sense than an SUV. They generally accommodate passengers better and get better gas mileage.

You need to move a lot of cargo? Guess what—you can often fit far more into a minivan than an SUV. The athletic folks I know who need to schlep lots of bulky gear drive minivans.

You say you feel safer up high in an SUV than in a regular car? Well, knock it off! You’re making it harder for all the people driving those regular cars to safely see where they’re going, and the sheer size of your SUV poses more risk to car passengers when the two vehicles collide.

I’m not done ranting yet. Have you seen the latest way McDonald’s has sold its hollow soul to the corporate crossover devil? The current Happy Meal promotion is Polly Pocket dolls for girls (heavy on the pink, of course*) and toy Hummers for boys. I can’t believe General Motors passed up the chance to make pink flowered Hummers for little girls, to double the number of children lobbying their parents to buy a cool Hummer (as my son’s been doing this past week). But then, if Hummers weren’t so blatantly manly-man, the guys wouldn’t be so keen on them, and they’d buy fewer of these giant metal penises on wheels, so GM can’t risk diluting the brand by pinkifying it for the girls who get Happy Meals. No, the girls will have to be content with their dolls.

Now, I’ve been fine with past Hot Wheels Happy Meal promotions. Cars are fun. We all like to play with toy cars, don’t we? Smasho-bango! Zoom-zoom! But McDonald’s and GM have crossed the line by foisting Hummers on little kids in a naked attempt to build brand loyalty early and enlist children into GM’s marketing army.

Looking on the bright side, the Happy Meal Hummers are all made of plastic, so if I should happen to crush one (of the three that have entered our house) by stepping on it like mighty Godzilla…

* My son often reports his favorite color to be purple (though he’s fickle sometimes). We have several pairs of these clothespin chopsticks (which are great for kids and other beginning chopstick wielders). I asked Ben which color he wanted today, and he opted for purple. I might do a whole post on boys, purple, and pink, in fact. Maybe next week…

Guest-posted at Bitch Ph.D..

On helmets, pit bulls, feet, and age

First: If you ride a motorcycle, please, please, please always wear a helmet. A friend of mine just lost her brother-in-law (whom I'd met and liked a lot) to a bike crash last weekend, and a couple summers ago, my sister-in-law lost a dear friend who was riding to Sturgis. It might be fun to ride without a helmet sometimes, but you never know when you'll hit a rock or a patch of oil, or when a car will come out of nowhere and collide with you. It is never fun to plan a young person's funeral or help someone cope with traumatic brain damage. Don't wear the helmet for yourself or for the law—wear it for the people who love you. They'll be heartbroken if you crash without a helmet.

Second: A lot of folks object strenuously when the subject of banning pit bulls is raised. If you're one of them, please read the Chicago Tribune series (free registration required) about a boy who was mauled by three neighborhood pit bulls he'd played with. The dogs in question were family pets, not fighting dogs, and yet they turned on their owner, innocent children, and the neighbors who came to their aid. The first part of the series is where the attack is detailed—it's gruesome, so don't read it if you're too squeamish. It's a tremendously moving and terrifying series of articles, and now that I've read it, I do support a ban on the breed.

Third: My feet hurt. Especially when I'm trying to sleep at night. (You'd think one V1codin would be enough, but no.) I know only one other person who's had sesamoiditis, and—what are the odds of this?—it's Mr. Tangerine. I feel terrible for having minimized his complaints in the past, because crikey! It really does hurt. And since he knows what it feels like, he's been incredibly helpful in fetching me ice packs, painkillers, and food and drink. He really is a sweetheart in so many ways. I do believe I'll keep him. (And no, he's not available on loan. Mine, mine! All mine!)

Fourth: Sesamoiditis is mucking up my birthday plans. Yes, today is my birthday, and one might say it's a milestone if one were not in a fair degree of denial. I may have just turned [that number], but dang it, I feel 80 instead! And that's not a good thing.

Analysis of the Joe Francis mystique

Over at Bitch Ph.D., a commenter alerted us to LA Times reporter Claire Hoffman's remarkable profile of "Girls Gone Wild" honcho Joe Francis. He's truly repellent, possibly sociopathic, and definitely making a fortune off sexism and porn.

I wasn't quite sure how to write about the many issues raised by the article, by the "Girls Gone Wild" phenomenon, by the success of a creep like Joe Francis. Fortunately, ding found a couple approaches, here and (with a tie-in to military crimes) here. And, following ding's links, there's also Pandagon and Feministe for more on the topic.

Not guilty as charged

Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.

I almost feel guilty about faking the date and time stamp on this post. I was enlisted into the Bitch Army for a Wednesday gig, but I'm kinda busy this Wednesday, so I'm horning in on No Nym's Tuesday. The topic at hand is guilt, and I excel at rationalization, so...no guilt.

My son, Ben, recently asked me why I take trips away from home without him and my husband. I’ve had five such trips in his six years, ranging from a three-day weekend to a week’s vacation. Every last one of them was completely optional and recreational, so it’s not as if I were traveling for business (I’m a stay-at-home mom and freelance editor) or for family obligations. Faced with a questioning child, I suspect that many women would instinctively feel that much-ballyhooed female/maternal guilt about taking time for themselves.

But that guilt thing is not my cup o’ tea. My friend DoctorMama recently blogged about feeling guilty, and the comments thread indicates that she’s far from alone. There was just one commenter who spoke my language: “I don’t think I ever feel too guilty about things I have or have not done. I'm pretty good at justifying my reasoning. I just look at everything as one step at a time and that there's no point in getting worked up over things you can't change.” Turns out that particular commenter is a man. Of course! What woman would think that way? Oh, right—me.

Now, I drafted this post before discovering that he wasn’t a she, which leads me in an entirely different direction. It doesn’t seem to me that men struggle as much with this ilk of guilt—what say you, gentlemen? Do the tropes of Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt weigh equally on men and women, or are women particularly susceptible to berating themselves? Is it just that women are more comfortable openly expressing their regrets, while men subsume their guilty feelings? Or is the patriarchy to blame for encouraging women to blame themselves for this, that, and the other thing? (Discuss.)

In addition to having traveled like a (modestly) footloose single woman, I also exhibit a stark degree of parental slackitude on evenings and weekends when my husband is home from work. A full day (or five of them) in close proximity to a small child, while rewarding, can grow wearying.

But I don’t feel guilty about taking these vacations and daily breathers. By getting to wallow in “me time,” I recharge my drained batteries and lessen the amount of time I sit around feeling put upon by childrearing/household/freelance responsibilities. Goodness, I’d have plenty to feel guilty about if I never got a break—feeling oppressed by a pretty decent life that just didn’t happen to spoil me rotten? I might feel guilty about that. But I feel much more content knowing that I can get a breather when I need one, that my own interests and interior life are deemed important by my spouse.

I can also rationalize the “me time” thus: My husband’s a fabulous dad who finds 24-hours-a-day one-on-one time with the kid to be much less draining than I do, as he doesn’t have to do it all the time and he’s innately far more patient than I. Ben really does seem to depend on his mom and dad equally—when he’s injured or scared, he evinces no preference for one parent over the other. What better grounding can you give a child than a close relationship with two loving adults? Plus, one of those loving adults would tend to be crankier if she didn’t get to nourish her inner self along the way. (As you see, I am adept at piling justifications upon rationalizations as needed.)

So maybe I’m just a selfish bitch who doesn’t have enough heart to dedicate her all to her child and spouse. But in a person who is essentially good and decent (i.e., this doesn’t apply to that scumbag Joe Francis), I think guilt is nothing but a tremendous energy suck. I encourage you all to take a couple of the things you feel guilty about and rationalize away the guilt. Go ahead—we’ll wait. Did you do it? Do you feel the burden lightening? I hope you do.

He knows not what he says

Ben and I lunched at IHOP today, and much hilarity ensued. When my Diet Coke and his ice water were delivered to the table, the boy said, "Let's have a drinking contest!" I demurred, given that (a) my glass was larger than his, so it wouldn't be a fair match-up, (b) I wanted to sip my beverage during my meal, (c) chugging 16 ounces of pop would surely lead to monstrous eructation, and (d) what the hell? This isn't college. (I confess we did compete later on, when his water glass and his milk glass were equally full and I wanted to motivate him to finish his milk. Worked like a charm. This kid likes to compete. He always wants to win the getting-dressed contest, which is not a fair fight because he doesn't wear a bra and never has to slow down to apply a pantyliner.)

Ben also prodded my funny bone in the relish with which he approached a link of breakfast sausage. "Yummm! Sausage is tasty!" He pleaded for more sausage, so we got a side order and he devoured those links, too. Then he came around to my side of the booth and stood beside me to share his sausage fantasies: "You know what I want? A giant sausage that lays on the floor [gesturing down the aisle to indicate, say, a three-foot-wide, twenty-foot-long pork sausage]. And everyone would eat it. No! I'll eat it all myself!"

I swear he's not learning this stuff from us, and has no clue why his desire for a "man-sized" cucumber or a "giant sausage" rouse such amusement among adults.

Oh! He was asking about my C-section before bed tonight. I explained the anesthetic set-up, and also disclosed that most babies aren't born via C-section. I swear he's a scientific genius—he instinctively grasped the process of childbirth and likened it to pooping, which pretty much entails the same physical mechanisms, no?

Updates on the last two posts

1. This afternoon, Ben bounced his head off my abdomen. "It's bouncier!" he said. Yes, that's right—the muscles beneath the flab have more spring to them than the previous flab beneath the flab offered. Folks, you can't argue with results like that.

2. The Big Gay Weekend wrapped up in fine style at Northalsted Market Days, the annual street fair. We walked down the center of the street, surrounded by booths selling beer and frozen bellinis, funnel cakes and lemonade, BBQ and Asian food, or dispensing information about the gay Mormon community or LGBT health centers, or selling merchandise (we bought a miniature Gay Games basketball and a tie-dye tee for Ben), or running promotional contests. And it occurred to me, seeing the carnival food, that Ben's been to more city street fairs than plain ol' summer carnivals. (Works for me!) Some folks were sporting nipple-ring stickers—a sticker that looked like a hairy nipple with a ring in it. (It just doesn't look quite right on a woman, the hairy chest.) Got a couple free pens and, courtesy of the local bathhouse, a packet with a condom and lube. Ben, of course, remains utterly oblivious to the nonstandardness of attire like mesh undies worn out of doors, or military drag (fishnet stockings, a camouflage miniskirt, etc.). On the way home, I stopped at the bookstore and bought Out magazine's August issue, which features what is possibly the gayest crossword ever (really, how much competition does Wordplay's Trip Payne have in the category of gay-themed crosswords?). I bet the puzzle's orders of magnitude easier than his NYT crossword today.

3. Before the bookstore, I stopped at the Gap and tried on some bras in the size that the tape measure says I have shriveled to. That tape measure is bullshit! My cups runneth over in the four sizes I tried, so perhaps I've merely dropped a single cup size. (I feel better.)

Unintended consequences

So, I've been going to the health club for over two months, after years of lassitude. I'm not doing as much cardio as I should because I have precious little self-discipline, and getting enough cardio exercise would entail going to the gym in between sessions with my trainer.

The trainer, however, puts me through my paces with all the weight machines and assorted crunches and small free weights. The results are great. I've got some muscle tone for pretty much the first time in my life, I'm feeling stronger and more energetic, and I no longer make those horrible groaning sounds when I get up from sitting on the floor. I've lost some excess flab, which is good because I need to take better care of my health. (I've got enough health conditions going on without jacking up my risk of heart disease with belly flab.)

But! The all-important "but." While fat is being replaced with muscle, it turns out that some body parts merely lose fat without then bulking up with toned muscles. To wit, my boobs are shrinking. I took some measurements this morning, and it appears that while my band size is the same or bigger (hello, chest and back muscles!), the cup size has plummeted by two to three letters. I haven't totally flattened out or anything, but sheesh! Three cup sizes? I wasn't expecting that.

My Big Gay Week

(The title's a minor homage to the South Park character Big Gay Al.)

Does it count as a blogger meet-up if it's a meeting between a blogger and a non-blogging commenter? I say yes. Hence, I can say I had another blogger meet-up this weekend, with a guy named Dave, who's become a friend since he started loitering at my crossword blog. Dave and his husband, Gary, were in town visiting their friend, Ed (hello, Ed! thanks for reading!), so Mr. Tangerine, Ben, and I met them for dinner at Café 28, a local Cuban-Mexican restaurant with a particularly attractive corps of waiters. Great restaurant, good food, but their air conditioning wasn't quite working. At least it was in keeping with the tropical vibe—a 90° restaurant serving, say, Swedish cuisine would just be wrong.

After dinner, Mr. Tangerine and Ben left to get ice cream on the way home (Ben can only sit still and behave nicely for so long), and the fellas and I had dessert there. (Ample discussion of the size of the balls...of sorbet.) Then it was time to go out for drinks.

Mind you, Mr. Tangerine and I have been living within a few blocks of the zone called Boystown, part of Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, since 1990. We rarely miss the Pride Parade each June (Ben has seen the Pride Parade more times than he's seen a standard suburban throw-lots-of-cheap-candy parade, which is great because he doesn't demand to rot his teeth at a parade), we've shopped at plenty of gay-owned businesses, we donate our cast-off possessions to the Brown Elephant (a resale shop that supports a GLBT health center), love the Northalsted Market Days street fair that's coming up this weekend—plenty of gayness around, have a good girlfriend whose partner is a woman. And yet! I had never set foot inside a gay bar until this past Saturday.

Dave, Gary, Ed, and I cabbed it to Sidetrack, which is basically six bars in one. Like a miniature gay-bar version of Epcot Center. We opted for the nonsmoking room (in a city where bars are not yet required to be nonsmoking, this is a terrific asset), but first toured the regular smoky bar downstairs and the upstairs and rooftop areas, each with its own place to order drinks. (Look how adorable it is!) The TV screens were playing assorted '80s videos, which is an unimpeachable choice. Ed told us that the bar was voted the best gay bar in the country, so I popped my gay-bar cherry at the pinnacle. (Ed, by the way, is a hottie. He's in his 40s but could pass for late 20s. And he's single! I don't understand how this can be. He looks a leetle bit like Henry Rollins, only blonder, not so bull-necked, and not tattooed.)

I was far from the only woman at the bar, and not every man there was hot, but the view was lovely indeed. It's not as if I want to sleep with them, but who doesn't appreciate nice aesthetics? I'm married, not blind, after all.

I hibernated in the air conditioning on Sunday and did some writing. The Big Gay Week resumed on Monday—a lunch date with a man who tracked me down via e-mail after the crossword tournament because we're both in Chicago. He works in the neighborhood, and we'd hoped to eat at La Creperie, where I love the chicken curry crepes and, of course, the dessert crepes—but alas, they're one of the few places in the area that are actually closed on Mondays. (Great place to eat before or after catching a movie across the street at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema.) So instead we went to a Thai place, Joy's Noodles, which has decent food and a couple strikingly androgynous servers. (And the air conditioning was working there, fortunately–it was about 100° outside.) Best line from our conversation: "Growing up Jewish in Texas was great training for being gay—you're surrounded by people who are wrong when you're right."

This weekend's weather should be more like standard August weather, so I'm hoping to round out the Big Gay Week with a visit to Northalsted Market Days, where you're shoulder to shoulder with the sweaty shirtless masses, towered over by drag queens in heels, and able to buy hot, greasy food and cold beer. What could be finer?

I'm so disappointed

The phone rang a few minutes ago, and the caller ID indicated a Florida number. Thought it might be a relative's cell phone or something, so I picked up:

Orange: Hello?
Florida: Buenas noches.
Orange: [excitedly] Could you hold on a second please? [covers phone, approaches husband] Hey, they said "Buenas noches." I think you should take this call!
Mr. Tangerine: Buenas noches!
Florida: [click]

Aw, drat. Finally, an anonymous Spanish-language survey person was speaking directly to Mr. Tangerine's heart, but she wouldn't speak to his head. That could've been fun, though.

Sounds good to me

I like JP's keyboard idea.

Food post for a muggy day

My kid, he's not one of those picky eaters. Sure, Ben likes chips, sweets, fast-food burgers and fries, and that sort of junk food, but he's willing to venture beyond. We were shopping at Trader Joe's this afternoon, where he loves to visit the sample counter. Today's offering was grilled ciabatta topped with brie, prosciutto, baby arugula, and thinly sliced cantaloupe. He liked the sample so much, he wanted another—but other customers were snapping them up as fast as the guy could make them. He really, really wanted to have more, so he selected a wedge of brie from the refrigerated case and then, when prompted, a package of prosciutto. I picked out a cantaloupe (though watermelon is the only kind of melon I like), and figured multigrain bread and baby spinach would suffice for the other bits. Had to grill up an open-faced brie, prosciutto, spinach, and melon sandwich as soon as we got home. "Mom, you have to cut off the crust," nagged the picky kid within Ben. (He plucked the crust off the bread himself.)

I hope Mr. Tangerine likes this recipe, too (he shares my distaste for cantaloupe), because I sure won't eat it. Prosciutto = red meat + salt (no can do). Brie = salt and mildly assy taste (thanks to my friend Kristin for the handy cheese adjective "assy"—she calls it that even though she likes the assy cheeses, but I do not care for assy flavors and aromas). Bread and spinach, well, I can put them to better uses than to layer them with those other ingredients.

Speaking of salt, I've had to watch my sodium intake of late. Do you know how much salt is in nearly everything sold in packages in the grocery store? Not just chips, cheese, lunchmeat, mac and cheese, bacon, and the like, either. Cold cereal! Eight bowls of Cheerios with milk gives you all the salt you should have for the entire day (of course, the average American probably eats two or three times as much salt as doctors recommend). So if you're hardcore about watching salt intake and you're not inclined to eat, say, well-marbled steaks cooked in unsalted butter, you end up with lots of produce (fruit, salad with little or no dressing), chicken or fish with salt-free seasonings (if you feel like cooking, because anything you buy prepared at the store or a restaurant is probably salted), unsalted nuts (yum), a little health-food-brand granola, and not a ton else. It's definitely a challenge to adhere to a very-reduced-salt diet.

But! There is a "but." It's a great way to lose weight. I didn't aim to give up fat (unsalted nuts, low-salt peanut butter, ice cream, and peanut M&Ms are rich in fat but low in sodium). I didn't give up carbs (fruit, bread, sugar wafer cookies, yum!). You could drive yourself to the brink of insanity reading nutrition labels in the effort to avoid sodium, but I've found myself about 5 pounds lighter in two weeks of watching my salt but not starving myself in the slightest.

Maybe I should write a diet book: Orange's Desalinization Plan: Guaranteed Weight Loss. Ah, forget it. People are too hooked on salty food to follow my plan.

Oh, spare me!

You know those companies that bowdlerize DVDs, stripping out all the non-G-rated language and sex to make movies more palatable to those viewers whose constitutions are so delicate that they can't confront such things? (And nor can they just live without the movies—hypocrites!) Wasn't there just a court ruling that those "editing" companies are illegally violating the filmmakers' copyright?

I bring this up because we got a phone call at home this evening. Caller ID said "toll-free call," which is rarely anyone I need to speak to. But I wasn't busy at the moment, so I picked up the call. "Cammy from the Dove Foundation" was calling for Mr. Tangerine, whose first name is sort of gender-neutral. I tried to screen her out, but she persisted: "Are they home?" (Have you ever heard someone asking for an individual as "they"? It's new to me.) I said, "They? Who is this 'they' you're looking for?" "Well, may I speak to the lady of the house?" Okay, she had me dead to rights. I'm not technically all that ladylike, I suppose, but I am wearing a skirt.

So Cammy launches into her spiel, trying to drum up fellow travelers for the cause. The Dove Foundation is all about cleaning up that filth that Hollywood puts out so that there's more "family-friendly" entertainment. (Hell, aren't there enough books to pass the time between G-rated movies? Did I miss the part in the Constitution guaranteeing everyone the right to movies and TV that are sanitized for their protection?) Anyway, I couldn't help but laugh as I informed Cammy that she really had the wrong issue for me and no, I wasn't fixated on cleaning up entertainment.

Undeterred, Cammy continued with her blah-blah-blah, so I interrupted (she didn't pause) and hung up. Turns out Mr. Tangerine (the famous "they") had picked up another extension and heard the whole conversation. He thought Cammy must've been a recording because she completely talked over his interjections of "Buenas noches!" (That's his standard line to use when Spanish-speaking survey people call here, as they are wont to do.)

If you're like me—a snarky liberal with a potty-mouth—check out the Dove site and mock it yourself. They deserve your abuse because they have neglected to review Wordplay. Come on, Dove! Tell us if the crossword documentary is family-friendly or not.

Where did the hobbits go?

You know how real estate developers tend to name new subdivisions after the nature that was wiped out in order to build on the site? The Oaks, with new saplings only; Fox Hollow, with no more foxes; Deer Crossing without deer. Well, now there's a subdivision called The Shire, and I can't help but wonder where the hobbits and elves are buried.

Oh, wait. We know where they're buried—in the adjacent landfill, an EPA Superfund site. You'll note the developer's site mentions only the wooded environs, and not the landfill. But it would fit right in! "Kids, don't ride your bikes past Lorien Court. Don't go to Mount Doom—I don't care if your friends are going there, I don't care if the fate of the earth depends on it, just don't go near Mount Doom." The neighborhood kids will be split into two school districts, so they won't all ride the schoolbus in the same direction. I just don't see how that's going to bind the residents of Middle Earth toward a common purpose—but I don't know which school district is the orc one.

News bits

I just read in the NYT that the death toll among the U.S. military serving in Iraq was outstripped by the number of Iraqi civilians killed—in a single month. The civilian casualty count in June was 3,149, up sharply from the casualty count in January (1,778). Terry Gross talked to NYT journalist Dexter Filkins on her public radio show, "Fresh Air," yesterday—he talked about the reasons the Shiite Iraqis, who have more power there than other sects do (the Sunnis were in charge under Saddam Hussein), are fighting the American occupation that keeps them in power. It's all convoluted, and sadly, thousands of civilians are paying a heavy price.

Israel vs. Hezbollah? Man, I don't want to get into that. More bloody war, more bombs.

Also from the NYT, in an article about sexy tableaux enlivening new condo ads in New York, a real estate developer named Highlyann Krasnow was quoted. Hey, that's a line from Wordplay! (Will Shortz greets NPR Sunday-morning host Liane Hansen with "Hi, Liane.") Hi, Leigh Anne! Li, Lee Anne! Hi, Leann Rimes! Just call me Highlyamused.

Moving to the food section, Austrian white wines, hooray! I like a good grüner veltliner or riesling. As Terry Theise (avid booster of those sweet Austrian wines) says, “A dash of salt in your soup isn’t to make it taste salty; it is to awaken flavor, to make it taste more like itself. A similar dash of sweetness in a wine both enhances flavor, extends fruit, provides another voice to the dialogue of nuances, reduces alcohol and in many cases makes for a more elegant finish.” Yes, indeed! (Of course, Theise also says, "These wines don’t so much meet you halfway as show you a third place that’s neither You nor Them, but somewhere you meet in truth only by dissolving your respective walls." Uh, yeah.)

I'm currently reading Michael Specter's fantastic New Yorker article on the Gates Foundation and the fight against malaria. It was published in the October 24, 2005, issue (hey, it's all I can do to stay current on Entertainment Weekly's fluff)—and looky here, you can read the article yourself at the writer's website. Distressingly, the world's failure of imagination and failure to care enough about African lives has allowed malaria to kill about 1 million children a year, and malaria affects a half billion people in all. Fortunately, the interventions that will prevent malaria infections—which are particularly deadly in young children, who haven't yet developed an immunity to the Plasmodium falciparum parasite—are relatively inexpensive, and the Gates Foundation can buy and deliver an awful lot of $4 mosquito nets. Say what you will about how Bill Gates earned his wealth and how Microsoft has used robber baron tactics—the Gates Foundation is putting more money toward fighting malaria and other tropical diseases than any country, and they're able take action without first having to build a political consensus to do so. It's a hell of a philanthropic venture, and it's great that Warren Buffett is adding some of his spare billions to the cause, too.

Maybe you don't all share my interest in infectious-disease epidemiology topics, but I encourage you to read Specter's article. You think Darfur hasn't gotten enough attention in the media? Well, malaria's much deadlier, year after year after year, and we don't hear a whole lot about it here. (And this time, you're lucky—you can read about a dire set of circumstances that compel action, and then sit back and do nothing because the Gates Foundation is corraling its resources to wipe out malaria.)

Ooh, lucky girl!

News item: Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock to wed July 29.

Quick link

Dooce conveys the importance of spelling.

True story

A few days ago at the grocery store, I saw a bin of baby cucumbers. They're so wee! Six inches long, tops, and about an inch wide. Knowing how much Ben likes cucumbers, I asked him, "Hey, do you want a baby cucumber?"

"No. I want a man-sized one," he chirped.

Can you top that vegetable story?

A lingering question

I just reread Russell Shorto's New York Times Magazine article from May 7, "Contra-Contraception." (It reviews the current anti-contraception movement afoot in anti-abortion circles.)

Shorto quotes Kimberly Zenarolla, the director of strategic development for the National Pro-Life Action Center, who converted to Catholicism a couple years ago:

"I tell people I became Catholic because of the church's teaching on contraception. We are opposed to sex before marriage and contraception within marriage. We believe that the sexual act is meant to be a complete giving of self. Of course its purpose is procreation, but the church also affirms the unitive aspect: it brings a couple together. By using contraception, they are not allowing the fullness of their expression of love. To frustrate the procreative potential ends up harming the relationship."

Catholic doctrine is opposed to birth control and opposed to sterilization. In my particular case, I'm married and of childbearing age, but a pregnancy would wreak havoc on my health (and any fetus would face high odds against being born healthy). My question is this: If I were Catholic, what would the Church want me to do? Here's a multiple choice quiz the Pope can use to advise me:

A. Go ahead and use that birth control, sister—your life and well-being are worth preserving.
B. I can't get on board with birth control, but you/your husband should undergo tubal ligation/vasectomy. I'm not crazy about sterilization, but this is a tough spot to be in.
C. Don't use birth control, but don't risk pregnancy either—enjoy a celibate marriage! If celibacy is good enough for My Eminence, it should be good enough for you.
D. Don't use birth control, but carry on with the conjugal relations. If God wants you to get pregnant, then it'll also be God's will that you should suffer the ill health effects. But hey, you never know—miracles can happen. You could always find yourself suddenly cured of your ailment. Or you could die—and get to heaven ahead of schedule! It's win-win, baby.
E. Other (please describe).

Seriously, I don't know if the official Church doctrine would be option D. Would it?

Tough act to follow

That last post elicited some lively comments, with numerous revelations about individual anatomical variants (in sum: full buttcheeks, a possibly protuberant clitoris, and flat, wide boobs), and a general consensus that underwear manufacturers are on crack because nobody's crotch lines up with the cotton crotch panel. (The appear to be laboring under the misconception that the cotton panel's job is to catch butt drippings rather than standard vaginal discharge. Who will alert them to the error of their ways? And does anyone own cute underwear that actually has the liner in the right place? Pony up some brand names if you've got 'em, girls.)

Tragically, the idea I had this evening for a follow-up post was to pool you about whether you own an iron and whether you actually use it. (I own one—the only person who ever uses it is a friend who's an occasional houseguest. Things that need to be ironed will either be sent to the cleaners to extricated from the dryer before too many wrinkles have set in.)

I suppose I could be ein bißchen (a little bit) brain-fried because I spent a few hours editing an arcane medical review article. You'd think a topic like stem cells would be straightforward and interesting, but it turns out there's a lot of crazy, nigh-incomprehensible technical detail involved. The highlights so far come from the list of references: (1) There is a an author of a medical journal article named E. Lagasse (Bam!). (2) The German word for "head" is Kopf, and Dickkopf is a medical term (full disclosure: in German, that means "thick or big head," or "stubborn"). (3) Somewhere, there is a medical researcher named Dr. Clopper (somehow the old Saturday morning TV theme song about Dr. Shrinker is lodged in my head because of this).

It's gonna be hot hot hot in Chicago for the next week. The Gay Games are in town, and I feel for the poor saps who will be doing the triathlon Sunday morning. (More fortunate are the ice skaters and other indoor athletes.) If you happen to live in the Chicago area and you're looking for a non-sports air-conditioned activity to occupy one evening this week (or a Sunday afternoon), consider the energetic and entertaining AMEBA Acrobatic and Aerial Dance show. It's a great show for kids and adults alike, and the dances include trapezes, bungee cords, elegance, agility, and humor. Seriously—it's a completely unpretentious modern dance show that makes the audience laugh at times.

In sum: Underwear, I don't iron, I haven't forgotten all the German I once learned, weather, sports, culture. Also? This post should get nominated for a Blogpocalypse Award for Crappiest Post.

More cottony goodness than ever!

See the fine print from my underwear? It reads "Crotch liner, 150% cotton."

Speaking of cotton panels that go above and beyond the call of duty, what about those cotton panels that fall short? Ladies, tell me if you're always mystified that the cotton panel stops an inch shy of where it ought to be. If you haven't observed this, then it would appear that my sister and I are anatomical mutants whose crotches are positioned too far forward and should be moved to the aft. Which one's in the wrong place—the underwear's crotch or mine?

(Pardon the over-sharing—but you know you love it.)

Technical help

Hey, you know how sometimes a long Typepad or LiveJournal post will have a "cut" or jump-cut thingamabob, so the blog page displays a short post and the reader has to click a "continue reading" link to see the complete post? Do any of you know how to code a Blogger/blogspot post to do that trick?

Recent observations

If you were a man with gynecomastia (say, a C cup) and smooth, almost hairless limbs, I'm not so sure that a long ponytail would be your best option for a hairstyle. Were it not for the five-o'clock shadow on the ponytailed man at the airport today, I would have been convinced I was looking at a woman.

Parts of Minneapolis have a heavy concentration of hippies. Not to mention large numbers of white people, particularly those of the blond-haired persuasion. I felt like I had time-traveled to 1973 in some sort of crazy Aryan sci-fi hippie world.

When your child exuberantly cheers, "Yay! I get to spend the weekend with Daddy!" before you leave for a few days, it doesn't mean he won't start missing you the following day.

Having a kid who's not afraid of needles is a good thing. Ben's cellulitis resolved rapidly with a single antibiotic shot last Friday. Why take oral antibiotics for 10 days when a single shot can be so effective? And why doesn't the pediatrician lay out the options up front? She was just going to prescribe a course of oral antibiotics until I asked about a shot. My brave high-pain-tolerance boy opted to watch the needle go in—can you imagine??

Why is there a Fox News Channel store at the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport? Seriously. You can buy magazines and snacks there—it appears to be a standard airport concourse shop, only emblazoned with the Fox logo. (Ick.)

Five things

1. I'm going to Minneapolis for the weekend, sans husband and child! A dear friend lives there, and she has already acquired some tempting-sounding Italian white wines to swig.

2. You know what gets me about thong underwear (which I still am not convinced aren't icky, even though a friend swears they feel fine)? It's the fact that so many women who wear thongs are now walking around with their pants or shorts wedged deeply in their buttcracks. That. Is. Just. Wrong. If you wear actual underwear, you can wear your jeans, shorts, pantaloons, or other trousers for days on end before they need a washing. With a thong? No way. I thought one of the functions of pants was to hide your buttcrack, not to call attention to it while simultaneously chafing it.

3. My boy has got himself an infection in his arm. I'm hoping the antibiotic shot this evening knocks out the bacteria, because (a) I want him to get better quickly and without incident, (b) I'd feel guilty leaving town when he's ailing, and (c) if the shot doesn't do the trick, he could need IV antibiotics, in which case I'd be spending the weekend at the hospital rather than in Minneapolis.

4. The crossword fever, it's rampaging faster than avian flu through a flock o' ducks. If you've got the fever and you find yourself doing the New York Times puzzle, but you need a little help, you can often find (or ask for) a little help at my other blog, Diary of a Crossword Fiend. If your local paper is not the NYT but runs the NYT crossword in syndication, the daily puzzle is probably printed on a six-week delay, so the Fiendish archives might come in handy.

5. Confession time: I am no longer an assiduous blog reader. I have fallen behind and don't make it to all of y'all's blogs as often as I'd like to. It would appear that I have reached the saturation point and can absorb no more blogs. But I do stop in at your sites when I can—honest. Give me a smack upside the head if I need one, will you?