Little guy: Mommy, what there in Iowa?
Me: Well, there are a lot of places to go tromping and hiking because there aren’t a lot of buildings. No skyscrapers, just houses and lots and lots of things growing.
L: I love Iowa. I want go there ALL the time.
Author Archives: Naptimewriting
Good guide
While we’re eye-high in corn this weekend, here is a wicked cool link for you. The people over at the good guide believe we should know more about what’s in our food, where it comes from, and how it was created. So they rate foods, products, and toys to let you know how they’re made and what each will do to your body. They say on their transparency manifesto:
“There are three simple things everyone should know about their food but don’t:
Where did it come from? How was it made? What’s in it?
In the United States, manufacturers of processed foods are still not required to label where a product came from, whether it contains genetically modified organisms, or was produced using synthetic hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides.”
Check it out. They’ll tell you which sanitizers are best for your body and the planet. They have a great list rating the personal and ecological impact of thousands of foods and products including cleaners, toys, food, and personal products. Play around on their site. It’s good, clean fun.
I don’t mean to judge, but…
I’m trying to plan our big family trip to Iowa this week (not a word; not a single word) and finding it a bit, um, challenging.
Between the town where we’re staying and the town where we need to be for Spouse’s cousin’s graduation, there is one park. Three hamlets, and one park. Now, I know that when the countryside is beautiful and people spend a lot of time outside, they don’t need designated parks and playgrounds and mini golf and whatnot. But I can’t bring a tricycle on the airplane (TSA regulations against liquids are loosening, but they’re cracking down on carried-on, three-wheeled vehicles because the pilots are totally done with little people ramming the cockpit doors after a long ride down the center aisle [oh, wait, that’s me], and I don’t want to pay $25 both ways to check it). I don’t see just wandering the street(s) of a small town working out for my particular three year old. Maybe yours would tolerate five days of aimless sightseeing in towns where the population is smaller than Spouse and my ages added together, but mine won’t.
Maybe I underestimate his attention span, or our collective interest in Iowan architecture, but still. He’s awake and in need of activity (else he is a self-starter on the whole ‘breaking stuff in wild bursts of unguided energy” front) approximately 12 hours a day (meals and calm time take up at least 3 of his waking hours, for a grand total of “go to freaking sleep!”).
I did find a state wildlife area reasonably close, though the only online information (which was damned hard to find) involves how to not get shot at in a wildlife area. Um, maybe we’ll stick to walking the street (that’s not a typo) in the three nearest towns…
thinking makes it so…
We spent last Friday picking strawberries with a great group of families, and one woman said, “On days like these I think my husband got the raw end of this deal.”
She was, of course, correct. There are some days when screaming and tantrums and hitting and illogic take place in the sun and fresh air, on which there are more cuddles than screams, more engaging interaction than battles. And then, yes, this job outshines others.
And there are days when fluorescent light and cubicles, steady pay and logical co-workers, and the chance to just think a thought through to completion and urinate when necessary, even when faced with terrible work conditions, lack of respect, a cruel boss, and crappy pay sound a whole lot better than this.
So I’ve been thinking of quitting. Or, rather, shifting careers. Before Peanut, when I worked in corporate America, I evaluated jobs with lists of pros and cons, and made decisions based on whether, in the balance a job offered more than it took from me.
So I took a deep breath and did the same evaluation about staying home to raise a child. Because it’s gotten challenging enough for me to spend more days in tears and screaming than not, and I am really, really talented at my previous, grownup jobs.
I think for my temperment, this job may not be a fit. I think I have too many conflicts with management, and I have too many skills that go unused in this role. But I also think that the boss needs me, the future of the company needs me, and the franchise will stand a better chance of making it in the long term if I keep my job.
So I’m starting each day with the attitude that I’m really lucky to be able to do this job. I may not be the best for the role, and this position may not be even close to what is best for me. I don’t even particularly like the job, though I love the company and believe in it. But the role will shift, the job will grow, and I will be able to say I made the right overall decision to stay instead of go, if only because in the balance, in the sun and fresh air of good days, this does beat shilling for multinational corporations, to whom I’m just a cog. Because to this tiny operation, I am the sun and the moon.
Real costs of having a child
Several online calculators, such as the one at babycenter and reuters explain the cost of raising a child from birth to age 18. (You can adjust the results if you adopt a child later in its life, or get rid of the no good lout before it turns 18.) Never mind, for now, that the babycenter estimate for my location is almost double the national average. Or that we could buy a house with cash for what it costs to feed and clothe and attend to a small person (even if we don’t buy anything Disney, anything they ask for, or a wipe warmer.)
The calculations overlooked a few things, though, and I thought I’d help remind them of the necessary expenses of raising a child:
Booze: Includes the extra amount you’ll spend annually on alcoholic beverages purchased at grocery, convenience, and specialty stores; dining at restaurants and pubs, and bars due directly to the hell that is life spent in the same house with people under the age of 18.
Clothing: Includes the extra amount you’ll spend annually on clothes as you eat yourself out of size after size, hoping that the cookies and booze will make your children more tolerable.
Entertainment:Includes the cost of finding anything, anything at all that your children will watch so they don’t keep opening the shower door and screeching that they need you the one stinking day a week you really want to shave; and the cost of porn purchased, rented, or paid-per-view to make the embers of your marriage spark for a moment or two.
Medical: Includes the amount you’ll pay to ensure you never, ever, ever have more children.
Ah, now that’s some funny morning after blogging.
Check this out, mamas and papas.
BadMommyMoments hit the nail on the post-party head.
Unoriginal post number 613
Wouldn’t you know I thought this observation was somewhat original, and then I read at Salon.com tonight that Ayelet Waldman said it earlier, and more concisely.
“Another parent’s different approach raises the possibility that you’ve made a mistake with your child. We simply can’t tolerate that because we fear that any mistake, no matter how minor, could have devastating consequences. So we proclaim the superiority of our own choices. We’ve lost sight of the fact that people have preferences.”
In her lengthy article on everyone minding their own business, she notes that attachment parents, particularly the Berkeley, non-TV, organic, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, sling-wearing, word-for-word Searsing (guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, not guilty, not guilty; phew this isn’t me [of course it is]), tend to be the most sanctimonius and in-others’-faces of the “my way is best why are you ruininng your child” set. Honestly, I think that’s because the hardcore Sears group works harder than the rest to make things harder for themselves, and feels pretty damned insecure because nobody else is having such a tough time. But what do I know? I only fit, like, half her criteria for the most annoying parent on the planet.
In fact, Salon notes that I’m way behind the curve. I’ve been calling myself a bad parent for months on this blog, but apparently I was supposed to write a book about it. This awkward joint review of totally different books shows why I should have penned a memoir about how totally I’m failing at this impossible fucking job.
You know, I’ve been thinking of ditching the nighttime parenting, the bending over backwards not to do packaged food or television, the stay-at-home, offering options, respectful thing for the past week or so. It’s really just too much. So maybe I will ditch the surity that I’ve chosen the best path for us, get a T.V., get a babysitter, and have some goddamned Capt’n Crunch with my kid. Maybe I’ll like both of us better if I ease up a bit. [those who know me are laughhing right now. I havne’t been known to ease up a bit on anything in my control since my conception.] Because between “The Case Against Breastfeeding” and “Mind Your Own Kids,” I’m kind of feeling like, if they can justify letting their kids do some of that stuff, I can certainly make Pudding Day an everyday kind of thing.
Maybe.
And starting next week I’m Ferberizing my three year old. And circumcising him. With some fries from McDon*lds.
Dire consequences and desperate measures
A discussion last weekend at the playground with a creative, lovely, and wicked smart lady yielded the following observation: we’re all desperate to protect and justify our choices. After reading Peggy Orenstein’s Flux and The Atlantic Monthly’s article “The Case Against Breast-feeding,” the glaring truth to me is not that one side of each debate is right or that each side despises the other’s choices, but that we each have a lot at stake in making sure our decisions were at least good, if not the best.
Breast or bottle, nighttime parenting or cry-it-out, stay at home or work and daycare—we all have the same secret fears that the choice we are making is costing us more than it should. Hanna Rosin’s “The Case Against Breastfeeding” really isn’t a case against breastfeeding. It’s a case against the all-or-nothing mentality that has parents segregating into those who chose wisely and those who are ruining their children. And the root of our belief in our own choices and our disdain for any different points of view is the hope that we’re doing what’s best for our families. And if we’ve chosen incorrectly, we risk not only breaking our children, but also having lost all the effort we poured into our choice. Rosin is not arguing that women should not breastfeed. After nursing three children, she’s simply wondering why she felt that was the only choice, why the pedants on each side of the debate swear the others have lost their minds (or feminism or chance at a healthy child). Why the black-and-white thinking? Because we’ve all gone through a lot (a lot a lot a lot) of trouble to do what we’re doing, so it had better be right.
I postponed (at least0 or gave up (at worst) two outstanding careers, one potential career, and a path toward a PhD to stay at home with my son because I thought, given my endless research that confirmed nothing except that I’d eventually have to make a choice, that staying home was most likely to give him what he needed to grow into a delightfully useful member of society. If I’m wrong, and I should have focused more of my daylight hours on myself and my career, then maybe I’ve wasted these years and he will blame his miseries and failures on me. Or, even worse, I will be an empty shell of a person, having subjugated my only self for a person who becomes a serial killer and about whom the history books will only write that I ruined his life and sense of what the world should be and that he stabbed his neighbors.
Conversely, the women I know who work outside the home, who decided that they needed to create a family in which each person’s work is vital, in which attentive, loving care can come from a paid helper as long as it’s consistent and supportive (they hope) made their decision to give their children what they needed to grow into a delightfully useful members of society. If they are wrong, and they should have focused more of their daylight hours on their children, then maybe they’ve missed the most important years, and their children will blame their miseries and failures on parents who worked their children into the margins of their lives. Or, even worse, these parents will be bitter, unfulfilled shells of people, having chosen empty pursuits and subjugated their children’s needs, resulting in a generation who become a serial killers and about whom the history books will only write that their mothers ruined their lives and sense of what the world should be. And that they stabbed their neighbors.
Wait a minute, that’s exactly the same outcome as the other moms! We’re all screwed!
Or we’ll all just fine.
But nobody is going around saying, “I hope I made the right decision so that my children don’t stab their neighbors.” (At least in my neighborhood. But I lead a sheltered life. Maybe your neighbors say it. Maybe about your kids. Wait, which choices did you make? Quick, tell me, so I can judge you.) Instead, we secretly hope that we made the right decision, missing a large chunk of our children’s or our adult selves, counting each mistake, tallying each proud and loving moment, and hoping it’s all enough.
Ah crap, I didn’t nurse long enough. My child will be obese, stupid, and chronically ill.
Ah, crap, I nursed at the exclusion of my own sanity. My every waking moment has been for someone who really didn’t get that much from it.
Ah, crap, I let my child cry it out and now she’ll have insomnia and a sense of abandonment as an adult.
Ah, crap, I lost years of sleep attending to my child at night and now they’ll get to college and cry for me in the dorm every night.
And so on, ad nauseum.
Because if we made the wrong decision, we’ve screwed not only ourselves, but our children, as well.
So we disdain the people who make decisions different than our own, and align ourselves with likeminded people because we need to know that others feel our pain and share our justifications; because, deep down, we suspect it might be okay no matter what we do. And all things being equal, we might like a do-over. Or a medal. Or both.
Crossroads
I’m at a defining moment in my parenting career. I’ve espoused ideals about raising the next generation to do better—be better—than previous generations. To raise a thoughtful, intelligent, wonderful creature. And if that really is my goal, I have to step up to the plate now. Because it’s go time.
But I’m not sure if I’m up for it. Picking our battles, and all. Limited resources and energy, and all.
I mean, if I’m the only one in the house who wants the seat down, and there are 812 battles a day as it is, do I really want to fight a three year old over leaving the seat up? To tell him, patiently, every day for the next 15 years that it needs to be down?
Spouse, who has always put it down, would prefer it up. Peanut uses the whole seated apparatus more than the rest of us each day, and is new to the gender politics of leaving it up. And is a pain in the ass to reason with. The twin male cats use biodegradable litter that gets scooped right into the toilet, which is easiest with the seat up. Four to one, my friends, are not odds before which I wither. Four to one, ladies and gents, is nothing for a spitfire like me. Four to one, dear readers, is the odds I am playing against my summoning the reserves to pick this battle.
Seriously, I should put up or shut up. I spend my whole life railing about men who left the seat up. Who raised these insensitive, lazy louts, I wailed?
Well, it seems, maybe, possibly, probably—Me.
Flux and another book on the choices of motherhood
I’m most of the way through Flux by Peggy Orenstein, and I have to say, I dig it. And not just because she reiterates in a sentence what I posted months ago: “Ambivalence may be the only sane response to motherhood at this juncture in history, to the schism it creates in women’s lives.” I’m not quite done reading Flux, but I’m struck by the sharp contrast it offers to another book I just read.
In the first chapters of I Was a Really Good Mom before I Had Kids I empathized, felt validated, and could chew on other moms’ struggles as I read. Then came the final chapter. I’m willing to put a small amount of money on my theory that some editor, probably a man, told the authors that they couldn’t just write a book of commiseration for moms, of how tough it can feel sometimes; and that this probably-man told them that they needed to solve the perceived problem, not just relate it. “Give those moms some perspective. Fix what looks like ambivalence,” because heavens knows we can’t be ambivalent about parenting in this culture. And that imaginary editor in my totally unsupported theory ruined their otherwise fine book because the final chapter, in its insistence that a new outlook will make all the pain and self-effacing bullshit of parenting go away erodes the rest of the book’s power. Some advertising guru undoubtedly said, “you can’t sell the headache and you can’t sell the aspirin. You have to sell the great things people can do after they take the aspirin.” Well, the book only worked for me when it described the headache, thank you very much. So go ahead and read it, but stop before the final chapter.
Both IWARGMBIHK (before it’s given a shiny new pair of rose-colored glasses) and Flux (when it gets to the motherhood choices section) articulate what my friends and I have all been saying, “A day doesn’t seem that long when you are working,” says a stay at home father in Flux. “But, boy it’s a long time when it’s just you and this kid that doesn’t speak, and she is always wanting your attention. And when she’s asleep, then there are all these things that have to be done before she wakes up. There’s absolutely nothing I have ever experienced that was always bearing down like that. Nothing even close.” I’ve said before that 114 hour weeks at McKinsey paled in comparison to the energy and stamina needed to stay at home full time, without help, with a young child.
In Flux, Orenstein, allows women to wedge uncomfortably in the cracks between rock and hard place without trying to fix them. Where women find they genuinely can’t have it all, and have to decide between power and childrearing, have to sacrifice something, either kid or self, to exist in our society, Orenstein lets them twist and narrates their ambivalence. Like IWaRGMbIHK, Flux focuses on educated, middle class women, and their problems are small when compared with the realities of moms working three jobs or facing life in which they are virtually powerless—abused and silenced because of their chromosomes. But no matter how high up Maslow’s Pyramid you rise, the problems still feel big. Existential crises are important, even if they aren’t on par with dissentary sans clean water.
Orenstein lays bare, if not raw, the choices career women, single mothers by choice, and women who sacrifice career for children make, and does not shy away from showing that choices in adolescence and young adulthood tend to push women into lower paying, less demanding careers and lead everyone involved to assume that caretaking is a role for the XXs. She puts a voice to the mental vascillations between career and home:
“Now is the time your career will take off…but don’t forget to find a husband. Hurry, have a child, the clock is ticking—but what do you mean, you’re going to become a single mom or need more time at home? Don’t lose yourself in your children or you’ll never find a way back—but if you work too much you’ll ruin them. If you have a daughter what will she say about your trade-offs? Remember how you felt about your mom? What’s wrong with you anyway? Weren’t you supposed to be able to do anything?” (97).
She also notes that stay at home dads, too, say things like we here at this blog have: “Staying at home with [an infant] was really tedious….I was surprised by the constantness of it, the lack of breaks that we so much take for granted in life. By midafternoon my entire mental focus would be on how long until [his wife] would get home.” Women in Orenstein’s text who express this quickly dismiss their own feelings, waving off the frustration with “I’m just feeling sorry for myself.” But the stay at home dad acknowledges his frustrations are why he asked his wife to stay at home so he could return to work.
I like Orenstein’s insistence that we should demand more of men than simply that they father better than their fathers did; that we demand all parents think like mothers and at least discuss, if not share, the sacrifices equally. Many a squabble in the Naptime household stems from the “why am I the only one who thinks of this” disparity that Orenstein notes in all relationships.
She does gloss over other important sacrifices women make for either career or family. She articulates a difference between being a mother and being a Mother. But she doesn’t explore, really, the shades of grey that color each definition. Overall, though, she makes a compelling case that no matter what you choose, it will feel pretty ugly at times, for huge, painful, sacrificial compromise is the only constant in all her case studies. And her questions about whether it all can’t work out for the best in the end, quite frankly, make it clear she doesn’t have children. Because even sociologists who watch and watch and watch still don’t maintain the never-wavering focus of 24 hour motherhood. We’ll see what she writes if she does have a baby. Until then, she has a pretty good book in Flux.
And her best quotes:
“There is a chasm between the abstract idea of having kids and the three-dimensional reality of what it means to mother.”
Updates
Hey, now that Peanut is three and I’m becoming human again and reading again and plotting my return to academia again and writing hardcore again, I’m going to do a better job of updating my “reading” page. Please do, as always, send suggestions. My “to read” pile is always hovering at around 20 books, but now that NK has me hooked on the slate.com podcasts, that number is escalating.
If you come across something awesome and want to suggest it, please do.
Do your bleeding heart a favor
Do not start searching online for rescue dogs. And especially don’t start looking to rescue a dog of one breed, then see a picture of a wounded dog and start contemplating a cross-country trip to rescue it. And especially don’t click on the links to dogs with special needs and decide to adopt every single deaf dog in the country.
Especially the ones whose “parents split up and they didn’t want him any more.” Are you kidding? I’m sorry, what? You split up and sent your dog to the shelter? There’s a special place in hell for a–holes like you. Dog can’t get adopted out of the shelter even though he knows ASL, because he needs to be the only dog at home (gets spooked when big dogs sneak up on him). Oh my god, it’s my kid! *He* also knows ASL and wants to be the only kid at home because he’s spooked when big dogs sneak up on him. I am seriously considering taking a trip to Ohio and bringing home the last thing we need right now just because there’s a lonely soul out there who deserves love.
Someone please adopt these dogs before I wind up with all of them…
Robert Thurman on Buddhism and women
Today was the second interview I’ve heard with Robert Thurman (Jon Carroll interviewed him at Herbst Feb 9, 2009 and though I could have planned to go I didn’t know until today that it happened, so I heard the podcast instead) and I was once again captivated by his voice, manner, and intelligence. First lecture was on Tibet and the geopolitical implications of Chinese rule there. Made me think of the globe, of capitalism masquerading as communism, and of debauched ethnic greed in whole new ways. This more recent City Arts and Lectures podcast included bits I found fascinating, especially about Buddhism and messianic heroes.
One was that Buddhism qualifies as a messianic religion because it has room for the self-sacrifice of making others’ suffering less by taking on the suffering oneself. That, by definition, is messianic. So, he announced, is the work, worldwide, of women who suffer the slings and arrows of society and their own families to bring peace to their homes. He argued that the planet and the countries within it will only get healthy when women take over, since they know how to take everyone’s strengths and apply them for the greater good, and are, unfortunately, willing to suffer themselves to make others’ lives better. His argument was not essentialist, nor was it entirely womanist. But he made it very clear that we don’t appreciate what women do, everyday, in every country, to ensure a liveable life for their families.
check out some of his other podcasts here
and the lecture itself here
You’re kind of cute, you know?
Woke up with a new pimple on my nose and Peanut grabbed my face:
P: Mommy. What is that on your nose?
M: Is it a sore?
P: Yes! A new one. Kind of red and kind of white.
M: Oh.
P: Mommy, do you need one Band-Aid or one hug?
M: Hmmm. A hug sounds very nice.
P: [hugs me] There you go, Mommy.
I think that’s the first time in my life I was hugged specifically because I had a zit.
Damn, they sure do pay well when they pay, don’t they. That erased pretty much every pimple in high school, right there.
The neverending meme
Okay, faemom, you asked for it. I’m already thinking I shouldn’t have copied and pasted. ‘Cuz this is, like, an hour of uninteresting schlock about my least favorite person…but I can’t turn down a quiz, homework, or opportunity to practice my Oprah interview, so here goes:
What’s your current obsession?
Figuring out my life. I’ve done some stuff and I want to do some other stuff. But not all the goals will be met just with the work I can do in a 24 hour day, and I’m a bit baffled as to which to tackle next. So I obsess over choosing and balancing and Lincoln Logging my life, even though it’s all just pretend because the little hostage taker is ruling the roost for now. Because after all these years, I still foolishly think I can plan stuff and have it go off as scheduled.
What’s you favorite color and why?
Don’t have one. Colors found in nature amaze me. Colors created by humans amaze me. Shades white, black, and grey fascinate me. And I’m a ‘it depends’ kind of person. The best color for a clear sky is not the best color for a rainy sky is not the best color for the living room is not the best color for frosting. Mmmmmm frosting.
What are you wearing today?
Clothes. Whatever was nearest the bed when I got up. Probably mostly what was already on when I got up. No jewelry or shoes.
Why is today special?
I’m still breathing and so are the people in my life.
What would you like to learn to do?
Control my temper. Speak Spanish and French, read Latin. Quilt. Live in the moment. Suffer fools gladly. Get my kid to listen the first time I ask nicely. Work my SLR. Code html. Juggle (literally, not metaphorically). Find some balance in life. Let things go. See other things through to the end. Cross stuff off my list instead of just adding to the list. Find my list. Design fonts. Fly an airplane. Overcome fear of heights (probably that one first, before the planes.) Nap. Paint (art not walls). Sculpt. Throw pottery.
What’s for dinner today?
Cheese.
What’s the last thing you bought?
A book.
What are you listening to right now?
Snoring cat, increasingly forceful rain tapping the roof and window, occasional car going past the house, and the whipping frenzy of two pinwheels “planted” (by one adorable small person) in the windowbox outside the kitchen. Refrigerator. But overwhelmingly: quiet. Kid asleep, Spouse out with friends. Mmmmm, aloneness.
What’s your most challenging goal right now?
Get through the day without judging my every thought and choice. Also a PhD and a finished novel. But mostly the inner critic thing.
What do you think about the person who tagged you?
I think it’s grand that she didn’t tag but instead offered the option of joining. Very civilized of her, as is her wont.
If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
New York City. Don’t get there as much as I would like, can’t afford it when I do, and could rent that sucker for a mint.
Favorite vacation spot?
Toss up…Kauai on the south shore near Poipu or the French side of the France/Spain border in the Pyranees.
What would you like to have in your hands right now?
A copy of my novel with the “Winner of the Nobel Prize for Fiction” emblazoned cover.
What would you like to get rid of?
The list is long, but since each niggling thing on that list makes me who I am, I’m going to say—nothing. Wishing to get rid of things is just regret repackaged. Do or do not. There is no try.
If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Bed.
What super power would you like to possess?
Ability to be loving, patient, thoughtful, productive, creative, fun, and brilliant on just three hours of sleep a night.
What’s your favorite piece of clothing in your own closet?
The sweater Spouse just presented me before my trip to Seattle/sanity, saying that he thought it might be cold and I ought to have a new sweater.
What’s your dream job?
Editor at my own publishing house where we produce all manner of linguistic, grammatical, fictional, and non-fictional texts by genius writers. Free to those who cannot pay and ragingly expensive to those who can. I spend my days reading drafts, discussing the language with brilliant colleagues, and ensuring social justice throughout the world.
If you had $150 now what would you spend it on?
Savings account. Because that’s the way I roll.
What do you find annoying?
You name it. I’m not a tolerant person. Want a short list? Car alarms, leaf blowers, gas lawn mowers, voters who toe the party line without thinking, obscene wealth, narrow American worldview, grammatical errors, whining, country music, racism, sexism, reader response, unnecessary apostrophes, most of my college students, moms who say they just love parenting even though they have fulltime jobs and a nanny.
Describe your personal style.
Fashion style? Self-effacing, untidy, Pretty in Pink meets Katherine Hepburn meets poor college student meets mousy Berkeley soccer mom.
Communication style? Stream of consciousness and confrontational.
Management style? I’ll get you the tools you need to do your best job and any help you need, then I’ll stand back and you’d damned well better deliver.
What fashion show would you want tickets to?
Can’t think of a bigger waste of time.
Who’s closet would you want to raid?
Annette Benning.
What are you most proud of?
Tough call…wrote and performed stand-up comedy; got my Master’s degree; did more than a dozen triathlons while afraid of open water swims; stayed in a distant place after a nasty breakup just to prove I could make myself proud of something concrete rather than tuck tail and run home; left a pretty awesome job because I could do better; called and apologized six years later because it was the right thing to do.
Probably the comedy. Got paid in money and applause, and the latter lasted a lot longer.
The bloggers I’d like to know about are:
Any and all who have something interesting to say, even if they avoid this meme like the plague.
(The original meme included rules, which I deleted because I resent rules. Also because one of the rules was that I should change one question. So instead I changed the rules. You may now do whatever you like with this meme. )
NaptimeWriting 