Binkytowne

An Update of Sorts

                                       
I have 2 kids in school now. Real school. (That  tall one in the front- he looks like he could be one of mine, but he's not.)

I was worried about sending the 4 year old off to the big new school but he hasn't missed a beat. He loves his backpack, his new friends, his water bottle. He's so proud. He runs up the steps every morning and happily waves good bye. Yay for feeling like we made a right decision! Hoo-fing-ray!

                                    


We've lost some teeth

                                    

And we gained another poodle.

(We still have the first one. He's under-enthused about this whole thing).

                                   

Overall, things keep moving and that's good. Like so many bloggers I started blogging looking for kindship and information about how to face the challenges of raising babies. It's funny that I thought that was SO HARD. Now that they are kids? It's so much harder and so much harder to write about. But I'd like to start to try.

How is everyone?

 
 

 

 

OMG Y'all Don't Do That At BlogHer!

Ok, so I only made it to one BlogHer conference, and I am clearly not a subject matter expert on this, so feel free to disregard, also disregard all of these commas because Mayberry Mom is probably appalled at my lack of punctuation skills by now and these COMMAS, but as I keep reading tweets and posts about BlogHer kicking off I keep coming back to a couple of my experiences there. Ok, one in particular that I'm still kind of pissed off about.

I went to BlogHer 10, a.k.a., the year of the swag whores. At least that's what you would have thought by hearing some of the stories, which were in my humble opinion greatly over-exagerated. For the most part.

Shortly after I arrived in Chicago I realized I had some time on my hands before my scheduled visit to the Estee Lauder event on the Miracle Mile. I heard rumblings about a Social Luxe event at a nearby hotel and how it was supposed to be SUPER! FABULOUS! so I followed the sea of bloggers down the street, up some steps, into a hotel and down into the basement where the event was being held and where chaos was evident. There were not enough staff, long lines where no one really knew what they were in line for and the elusive swag bags. The deal was if you RSVP'd, you could have a gift bag,  but no one knew that, there were hundreds of women swarming around the basement and some bloggers took bags that probably shouldn't have. So after that, everywhere I went, all anyone would talk about were the bags. Bags, bags, swag, swag, blah, blah. What was in them, how many there were, what a tragedy it was that some people didn't get them. Were you there? Someone cut in front of someone in line. Can you believe it? Did you get a bag? Blah blah. 

As the Estee Lauder group gathered back at the BlogHer hotel lobby, I looked around and recognized a few faces, including one very well known parenting blogger. As we all made small talk in a group she announced to everyone that she was one of the hosts at Social Luxe, had anyone been there because OMG y'all, (that's a clue. She's southern) she received a swag bag that was worth FIVE! THOUSAND! DOLLARS! She told everyone what was in it, including from what I remember: A Flip Camera, expensive wine, shoes, make up and lots of other stuff. My first question was is all of that really worth five grand? My next question was why in the world is she telling us this?? It seemed to me, like it was probably not really true, it was adding fuel to the smoldering swag bag fire and just overall not cool. You don't need to tell a bunch of women holding a bag with mascara and a chocolate bar in it that you have a bag in your room worth 5K. So you if you get a bag worth FIVE!THOUSAND!DOLLARS! Don't tell everyone! Keep it to yourself. People will like you better. Also, they will not fantasize how good it would feel to to steal your room key and take your swag.  

 Cut to the Estee Lauder event: The same OMG y'all big time blogger is standing next to me. Intros are going on all around. I turn to her and offer my hand, I tell her who I am and I say to her "I know you! I read you all the time." and she looks at me, I can tell by the look on her face that she has no idea who she is and she says "I'm a big fan of yours too." LIAR! I know for a fact that she's never commented and she's likely never read my blog. I think about that every time I read her blog or her column. I've tried to let it go and consider that maybe she wasn't lying, exactly, perhaps she thought I was someone else? Had me confused with a different blog that is clearly better than mine? I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I am bitter and can't help it and every time I see her name I think LIAR! So, don't tell someone you are a fan unless you know who they are. People will like you better. Also, they will not think you are a liar-liar-pants-on-fire.

 

 

 

Road Trip Family Style

When I was in college, on a whim, on very little sleep and probably about two hours notice, a handful of friends and I piled into a too-small vehicle and hit the open road.

Read all about it over at my Binkytowne Review blog here.

The More You Know

I run 4-5 days a week and I take it very seriously but I WILL NOT run if I don't have my tunes (because I undoubtedly forgot to charge my iPhone.. again). I think running without distraction is pure torture and I don't understand how anyone can do it.

I would rather eat a peanut butter and jelly (strawberry) sandwich on white bread than almost anything else.

I can play the piano. Badly.

It took me a really long time to realize that Mos Def's name was not really Mos Def and that Mos Def is slang for most definitely. 

Up until that time (three weeks ago) I thought I was doing a pretty good job of being an almost 40-year-old hipster.

I have a terrible phobia about throwing up or being around someone who might throw up in a public place. It makes being the mother of two small children a very interesting world.

Just typing that last sentence was very difficult for me to do. (deep breaths)

In college I was an English major, tested out of the lower level english requirements and then got a D on my very first paper. I considered dropping out right then and there but didn't.

I'd love to quit my job and work in child protective services or social work but lack the constitution to handle it.

I wanted to name my first son Hugo but didn't. Now there is a boy across the street who is also in his kindergarten class who's name is Hugo. If I had named him Hugo, and we were neighbors and they were classmates that would be totally crazy.

What don't I know about you?

 

Testify

I've been running on average 3-4 miles, 3-4 times a week. Because of the mild winter I had chances to run outside all winter long. Not every day, but often enough that I never went cold and lost my groove. I run because I'm getting older and words like "fish oil" have started to creep into my vocabulary. I do it to fight the gloomy depression of winter and to keep all of the chocolate I can not stop eating from making a permanent home on my backside.

But I really do it because it makes me feel free. I don't own a jogging stroller and I don't run with a partner or a club, nor do I want to. It's just me and some music and if I'm lucky, thirty minutes of sunshine on my face. If I'm really lucky I get to feel it on my pasty white legs as well, but to hope for that this early in the spring just feels greedy.

After a restless night of fighting the baby to stay in his room and out of mine I found myself awake before dawn. It was still dark but I grabbed my clothes and off I went. The air was cool but the breeze was gentle and people I passed smiled at me or gave a knowing nod. I nodded back. Yeah. I feel you. This is hard and it's ungodly early but here you are and good for you and I hope you have a lovely day and your cholesterol comes back under 200 next time.

I have old favorites but I get bored so I switch songs in and out of my running play list. I like different styles and tempos to compliment the point of the run in which I hear them. My play list has Massive Attack, Destiny's Child, Coldplay and Ricky Martin, among other gems that I lovingly handpick. No matter what though, I have a "power song"  in the rotation that I've timed so that it comes on just as I've made it to the top of a long winding hill. The houses fall away and all I can see over my left shoulder is big, beautiful, blue Lake Michigan and the wind is always gusting there and I'm so ready to quit, but I hear him tell me.. You gonna touch the sky....

 
    You gon' touch the sky baby girl....

Testify

There was a Chicken Bone in my Lunch

One would think that reporting that one had spent hard earned dollars to purchase something that makes me feel depressed when I take it out the microwave and sit down to eat it would be enough.

I hate eating microwaved food. I refuse to eat anything that comes out of a microwave that has meat or a meat-like substance in it. The texture (gag) makes me want to (gag) nevermind what it makes me want to do - you could be eating lunch right now. (I hope, for your sake, it's not chicken.)

See I'm trying to up my whole grains and I've been told to add protein so I'm not chewing on my arm by mid-afternoon. I bought the fancy frozen business, the kind that rhyme with Mashi, with all kinds of good stuff and a little bit of chicken. I'm minding my own business, thinking, this is going quite well actually when CHUNK. My teeth hit bone. A mother clucking chicken bone. IN MY MOUTH. I was eating lunch at my desk and found myself frantically trying to quiet my gag reflex. I quickly instant messaged my husband, he would know what to do:

Me: I think I'm going to vomit at my desk. Just bit down on a chicken bone. 

Him: Think about ponies.

Green pastures. Sunny skies. Running. Running away fast. From the chicken bone. It was tough, but I made it to the other side and the crisis was averted. I moved my garbage bin back to it's rightful place and got back to work. So I ate depressing microwave food and bit down on some poor chicken's leg, maybe it was a wing, I don't know, and that should be enough to say it was a bad thing that had happened to me.

At work I refuse to take anyone seriously who walks around talking about how busy they are, because, really, if you are that busy, hanging around and complaining about it has probably added to your delay and you are not doing yourself or anyone else any favors with that kind of talk. Also because, hey, we are all busy. Put your big girl (or big boy, if the brief fits) pants on and deal.  

That's how I feel about misfortune. Everyone has it rough. Maybe not today, but perhaps last year was a challenge and if that's not so, you can bet you are on the list for 2011. I never want to write with the intention of complaining about my life, my circumstances, my bad days, just for the sake of doing so. There's enough of that around, no one needs to find it here.

My challenge is to write around that. My 14 year career where I work could potentially be one business meeting in New York away from over. Or not. My finances are tapped, a big bonus that should have materialized didn't. Lots of people are walking this tightrope beside me, their shoes dangle on the wire as as they shift the weight of worry to try to balance it with looking on the bright side while updating their LinkedIn profile. My story is not new or original, but it's hard to carry this worry. Every day.   

There was a time when finding a chicken bone in my lunch would have been the worst thing that had happened to me in a long time. 

It's Cold

They walk with heavy steps, one foot in front of the other. Left then right. Left. Right. Always in step. No one leads, no one follows.

They walk with their arms behind their backs. One mittened hand wrapped around the other wrist.They don't smile. Wrinkled faces brace the cold wind. You can't see them. They are hidden behind fur-trimmed hoods and thick, heavy parkas. They wear boots with zippers in the front. If you try to make eye contact, they avoid your gaze and look right through you. Just another snowflake in a cold gray winter day. The Russians. They walk the streets, seven days a week and they never, ever speak.

I picture Josephine Lubisnki, thirty? Forty years ago? Her hair is in tightly curled rows from her beauty parlor appointment and tucked safely beneath a scarf tied smartly at the chin. Her coat is quilted, her limbs solid. Her gait, slow. Her eyeglasses are silver and curled up a little at the edges like cat's eyes. She's off to Mitchell Street or headed to Southgate. She stands at the bus stop and doesn't notice the cold. Not anymore. It's always been this cold, so you put on another sweater.

I try to pretend it's not freezing and that I am tough enough to brave the winter. I leave my gloves in the house on purpose because I don't want to wear them and curse loudly when my hands hit the sting of the icy steering wheel.

Josephine rolls her eyes at me, mumbles something in Polish under her breath and shoves her gloves into her pocket just to prove how tough she is.

When will I get used to this?

Magic Red Syrup Do Your Thing

When I was pregnant in 2008 I had the flu. I think wrote about it here. I'm too sick and tired to dig through archives to find it, but I remember I wrote about how I watched people on television and woefully thought to myself how badly I wanted to be them, because they did not have the flu. I went to the OB's office and cried and pleaded for some cough syrup stronger than the over the counter mix so I could please get some rest. (I was denied) I was coughing so much and my abdomen muscles were already so strained that I was afraid I would herniate myself. THAT, my friends, was the flu. Not only did I have it and survive, but I did so without a single perscprition drug. Pregnant too! Whoo am I tough.

So as news/hysteria/hype circled about H1N1 I balked. No vaccinations for us. Why? It's the flu. I have HAD the flu. I kept going back to 2008. THAT was rough. It couldn't possibly be as bad as that.

I'm writing this waiting for the cough medicine to slowly calm my lungs. My husband got it and now he has bronchitis. My youngest had it. I couldn't put him down for two days. My oldest boy has it now. His fever has lasted for five days, longer than any fever he's ever had, longer than I thought one could have a fever.

On day two or three of the illness I thought I am fit, healthy, I'll be over this soon. I haven't been to work in over a week. I can function but I'm not well. I can't wait for this to be over.

I couldn't have gotten a vaccine even if I had wanted one. They haven't been available. If I could have had one I probably wouldn't have. 

Knowing what I know now, I absolutely would. My concerns over a new vaccine are not worth two weeks of my whole family being this sick.  There's nothing left for me to do except pour two teaspoons of nasty medicine down my throat each night and hope I wake up feeling even a teensy bit better than I do right now.

Pablove.org

While on vacation this past summer, we spent many lazy mornings and some evenings as well sprawled across couches in the house we rented watching the Tour de France. At the same time I was marvelling at the strength and spirit of the riders, Lance and the rest of them, I was following Lance elsewhere as well.

I don't know Jeff Castelaz. I met him once, in a dark club one winter night years and years ago. He was the manager for a band I went to see in a dark club somewhere. His brother introduced me. A few months ago I learned that Jeff's six year old son was battling cancer. I found Jeff's blog. I've linked to it before. Jeff wrote about how Lance (Armstrong) called him up one day to offer support and guidance and vsited the hospital to see Pablo and other children. He talked about how Lance's foundation inspired him to start one in honor of Pablo for Pediatric Cancer research. All of this was turning around in my mind while I watched Lance's wheels circle along the pavement. Cancer. Loss. Survial. Fighting. Love. Loss. Love. Around and around.

I follow Pablo's story. I could say followed, in past tense, because Pablo is no longer with us, but the extroardinary thing is that he is. The spirit of this little boy is remarkable and I really do think it's still here, somewhere. I am choosing to believe that these beautiful children, the Pablos and the Madelines of this world had a light too bright to be contained. That something good can come from something, so, very, inexplicably bad.

September is Children's Cancer Awareness month, as if any parent needs a month to be aware of such a thing. When I first read about Pablo's passing I wished there was something I could do. Today I received word of this.

Please watch, give if you can and share with someone important to you.

BlogHer 09 Part II Resolutions.

Funny. If you asked me today to give you my impressions of BlogHer09, my answer would be completely different than the one I provided in Monday's recap (Part I). All of those things still ring true, but I find that with more time to simply absorb and process everything I read and saw and heard, my perspective is changing. 

As this was my first time experiencing anything on this level, I find that I've had to work through all of all the surface stuff; the swag, the business cards, the sort of shock of having brilliant women who I've been reading every day for years standing right in front of me, to strike gold. I'm writing this so I can refer back here in a years time to see whether or not I am, as they say, "there yet". "There", is  surprising looking very much like the place I can see clearly in the rear view mirror. 

Blogging and Writing:I had no idea how powerful the Keynote would be (and I even missed the first 15 minutes). Hearing the authors deliver the words, well, it just made me want to be a better writer. I've been battling Blog Burnout and this event really initiated some soul searching on what I could and need to do to improve my writing. I really think that despite my good intentions, I've spent a lot of the last year phoning it in. Phoning a lot of things in, trying to do too much. I read blogs and write my own blog, the same way I do everything. Quickly.  Because I have to. There isn't enough time so I squeeze in every drop that I can muster of everything. 

I must slow down to seperate writing from blogging so that this blog returns to what I originally wanted it to be: A place to write. Not a place where I have to hurry up and post something because it's five days and the BlogHer Ad Network is going to be pissed at me if I don't update soon. I want to be a blogger who writes really well, most of the time, even if that means not as often.    

Community: I'm guilty. I rarely comment on blogs that I read. I want to, but I'm always, always rushed. After meeting so many funny, cool, witty, smart, honest bloggers, I don't want the conversations to be over. Since leaving the conference I've left more and received more comments than I have in a long time. I know this is partially a post-BlogHer bump, but I know what this means. It means shutting down twitter sometimes (*gulp*) and doing more than dash down my feed reader in six minute increments. I want to stay connected with other bloggers.

My Thing: Over the past year I've read so much about "brands". My blog is not my business, so I didn't think this pertained to me. Uh oh, yeah. I changed my mind when I found myself bobbing in a sea of 1500 other bloggers. I asked myself- who am I in this space? What is my identity? What's my thing? I don't have a thing. I want to figure out what my thing is.

Getting over it: Rita wrote in her BlogHer09 recap: "Not once did I feel I wasn't interesting enough, pretty enough, smart enough or funny enough. Not once did I feel that way about anyone else, either. I must be evolving or maturing or maybe just drinking less."I don't normally get hung up on these types of things but I found myself sizing up the blogger group more than I would have liked to. On more than one occasion I thought well, fuck it, I may as well just hang it up. I won't ever be as talented as so-and-so or get as much traffic as so-and-so and I don't have time to think up these fabulous ideas like so-and-so do. Then I took a deep breath. This is not a competition. This is my space. Do I enjoy doing this? Yes. Have there been positive changes in my life because of it? Yes, yes, yes. I want to not measure success by comparing it to that of others.

Whether or not I attend BlogHer 2010, I am grateful that I live a charmed enough life to even have stumbled upon her. These are my BlogHer resolutions for Amy @ binkytowne, the blogger, who I discovered is as real a person as she is and she is and she is. 

(Wait! I'm not done yet. BlogHer 09 Part III, the final installment is still to come. With pictures! Of cleavage!)