Category: My Life

Hello there, Texas

I'm speaking at The Mom 2.0 Summit

I’m headed to Houston this weekend to moderate a panel at Mom 2.0.

Is it possible I’ll still be on pain meds from my mouth surgery? It’s possible. What’s certain is that I’ll be talking around a couple of retainers. So we’ll see how that goes.

The panel is about whether product placement is evil. What’s the subtle difference between paying your rent and whoring yourself? Is it cool to wear a bikini while you’re holding up the Coke can?

There’s still time to sign up to attend the conference, so hopefully I’ll see you there. I’ll be signing copies of my book before the panel. Also, Laura promised to teach me how to spit while I’m in Texas, so the Flickr stream should be worthwhile.

If I miss you this time, future plans include SxSW in Austin and Blogher in Chicago, though I’m not sure I’ll be speaking at either. Hopefully I’ll see you around.

Momversation: Breasts

http://blip.tv/play/gew+6epGkOIX

First circumcision, now breast feeding. Hoo-eee! This Momversation gig has been interesting, because it’s all stuff I generally wouldn’t think to discuss online. I just added a comment over there about how I don’t really know anyone who chose to just go straight to the bottle. If you did or plan to, I’m interested to hear your reasoning.

In other news, that screencap of Rebecca is golden.

Update: Two commenters at the Momversation site made great points:

1. Ces lasalle pointed out that you can make formula, which blew my mind. I’d never heard of that before. She says:

“I pumped for six weeks and supplemented with a homemade formula, a concoction my mother helped me make based on a book by Adele Davis. It had goat’s milk, yeast, plain yogurt, lecithin, cod liver oil and a high quality infant vitamin in it. He loved it,thrived on it and still drinks it 5.5 years later instead of regular milk.”

2. Patty has the perfect response to people who ask why you’re not breastfeeding:

“When people ask (and boy howdy they did!) why I wasn’t nursing I just said “medical reasons” and let them wonder.”

Genius.

Hey, Chopper!

Rich people in the United States all have the same teeth. It kind of creeps me out. It’s like a plastic surgeon deciding that everyone needs a particular type of nose for optimal breathing, and then we fit our adolescents with nose shapers to re-orient nose growth.

Anyway, emergency oral surgery has been punted because the periodontist discovered that I need some serious antibiotic action before they can get to work. Which means the above thought is not courtesy of Vicodin.

Later man, I’m eating a celery stick. This is hard exercise.

Optimizing: The Ow Edition

Uh. Put a hold on that whole exercise thing. My tooth just exploded because I have been pretending I don’t need oral surgery. Turns out the only thing less pleasant than oral surgery is emergency oral surgery. Maybe that’s why they don’t have emergency-oral-surgery mixers, or emergency-oral-surgery ice cream socials. Simple logic, people.

Also, my comments no longer work. I think it’s database corruption or something, but I’m having trouble getting definitive answers, and I have no idea how to fix this kind of thing. The silence is somewhat deafening on this end.

Guys? GUYS?

Aw. I miss you.

WWGD?

So, I bought a video by Gwyneth Paltrow’s trainer, Tracy Anderson. I did this as part of my efforts to optimize, but also because I am over thirty. When you turn thirty, the mind-police arrive, flash this thing in your eyes, and suddenly you feel compelled to do anything Gwyneth Paltrow recommends.

(Related aside: I cannot stop talking about the things I saw on Oprah. As I will myself to shut up, I can hear my mouth charging ahead with enthralling anecdotes about the Olsen twins’ business philosophies (shut up!), extending your passion to the world (shut! up!), and S-shaped bowel movements (ohmydeargod, shut up!). It’s gotten so bad that I decided I had to stop mentioning Oprah’s name in conversation. So now I say, “I saw this thing on… TV about how your poop is supposed to be S-shaped?” And all the women around me nod knowingly.)

Anyway, I got the post-partum workout video even though I have a two year old, because the stuff I want to change about my body is mostly related to pregnancy. Also, I am weak as a hairless kitten. I have trouble summoning the muscle power to type this, and I try to reserve what little strength I have for lifting forkfuls of cheesy pasta to my lips. Taxing, that.

So I decided to start off slowly and build my workout confidence! I watched the video on fast forward, and Tracy barely seemed to move. Nearly all the exercises are on the mat, and supine is my preferred exercise position. Let’s do this thing!

I unrolled my mat, grabbed my weights, turned the video on, and ten minutes later I felt a grave uncertainty settle in. Holy mother of Mallowmar, people. I couldn’t safely complete the first section, let alone the whole video. Fifteen minutes in I was doing that crazed heyena whimper-laugh, closely followed by the rabbit death keen.

I had resolved to try it for seven straight days, but by the second day I couldn’t rise from a reclined position. I also couldn’t hold my head upright, and my tongue felt all achy. I stopped after the second workout in self defense, but a strange thing happened, dear reader. As my stomach fibers began to recongeal, I could see a difference! After two workouts! Bryan concurs that I am not hallucinating.

And so I’ve decided, again, to go at it for a week. Let’s see how this turns out. Please wave if you see me crawling on the sidewalk.

First Job: Whistleblower in Hotpants

My first real job was as a file clerk for the school district office, where my friend was stealing time. I’m the kind of person who feels a German level of discomfort about littering, so you can imagine me as a righteous, dismayed fifteen year old.

The clerks eventually told management about our suspicions. Did they not find it odd that she would sit in back with us for fifteen minutes, but mark six hours on her time sheet? They watched her for a week, pulled her aside to chat with her, and then never mentioned it again.

She continued to steal, in a slightly less dramatic fashion, and a few weeks later I was reprimanded for wearing cut-off shorts to the office.



Plinky

Have you heard about Plinky yet? It launched yesterday, and you might want to go grab your preferred user name before it’s gone.

Plinky gives you a new question to answer every day, and lets you friend people and compare answers with them, sort of like you can on Facebook or Twitter. You can favorite other people’s answers, and publish your own answers to your blog (or your Twitter feed), and so forth. If you’re already blogging, it’s a nice way to supplement and to help your readership grow. If you’re not, it’s a less work-intensive way to connect with friends. I’m an advisor to the company, and I’m excited about it, so I’ll be posting my answers to Plinky prompts here in the next few weeks. Go have a look, and let me know what you think.

Optimizing

In an effort to eliminate my mystery hives, which are apparently not allergic reactions, I am off to have a very nice acupuncturist stick needles in me. These are tiny needles. Hair thin needles, I am told. Needles so small they hardly even qualify as needles, you see. So why call them needles then? Why not call them something less panic-inducing? Stupids.

Fun Fact! Tongue goo is a part of the diagnosis process in Chinese medicine. Therefore, I was not supposed to brush my tongue this morning, which is counter-intuitive when you wake up and it tastes like something died in your mouth.

The end.