Who knew?

So, it turns out that buying a house involves a lot more than writing a check and moving. Yeah, can you believe it? It takes, like, work and thinking and time and stuff. And you know, sometimes there's only so much work and thinking I can take in one single week. By the time we get to the closing table, we'll be so confused, exhausted, and frazzled that we'd probably sign off on a $5,000 breathing fee without noticing, or caring. In fact, we'd probably find some way to justify it: "A breathing fee? Well, we DO like air, after all."

In addition to trading in unknown piles of money for pretty kitchen counter tops and a mud room the size of Texas, we've lost any spare time we may have thought we had at one time before two weeks ago. I have the best intentions of sitting down to write every evening, but after restoring the house to "show" condition, writhing in agony over financing decisions that just won't make themselves already, and researching time travel to determine how best to wake up after all the money has been spent and all the thinking has been done and all the heavy lifting is over, I'm barely capable of keeping my eyes open, let alone typing, let alone thinking a coherent and complete sentence.

Speaking of finishing a thought, those two paragraphs you just read have been sitting in draft form for THREE DAYS. I've added a paragraph here and there when I have ten unused minutes at work, but when I go back and re-read, I start dry-heaving in disgust and end up deleting whatever crap it was that I just added, saving the whole thing as draft, AGAIN, and going back to pretending there is no blog, there is no "sit down and write" goal, there is only work and keeping a house show-ready. As it turns out, those two things have quite effectively taken up my time, and by "taken up my time" I mean taken over my entire life. Kids? What kids? Are those the little beings whose encrusted dinner mess I'm frantically cleaning off the dining room table and floor every night? They must also be the ones whose sharp, tiny legos I step on right before I launch into my red-faced, foot-holding, profanity-screaming sessions. Yeah, I think I remember the good ol' days when I used to spend my time telling them to stop throwing things down the stairs as opposed to scrubbing baseboards and ceiling fans.

Maybe it's just the recent house buying excitement warping my perception of time, but I get the feeling I'm entering into a phase of life that will require one of two things: sleeplessness or no more writing. So far when given the choice of sleep vs. something else, something else has always been the loser. So, given the fact that it's taken me three days just to come up with a post that says, "buying a house takes time" and "I'm brain dead and uncreative," I'm thinking my goal of posting here at least once a week is becoming more and more unrealistic. Maybe I'm wrong, and I hope I am, because when I'm not writing here, I'm not writing at all, and I think for me that's a bad thing. I'd like to think work would start to calm down, or we'd find a comfortable groove for the next six weeks (before we move out of the show-ready house and into the house nobody else will set eyes on until we've got boxes unpacked, hopefully by next Christmas), but I'd also like to think I could go through life consuming potato flautas, nachos, and margaritas every night with no negative repercussions, so I'm not exactly getting my hopes up.

Mutiny

Tuesdays are piano lesson nights, and as much as I appreciate the hour of shooting the breeze with a few parents of Bryce's classmates, the return to the music teacher's house and the subsequent 10-15 minutes of hissing at Bryce to stop writhing on the floor while I try to listen to the piano teacher's varying methods of politely reminding us that the kids are supposed to practice, and hahaha, they're still pretty rowdy, these little quirky kids! really sucks every last drop of energy from my crazy little introverted self. By the time I get home with Bryce on Tuesday nights, he's asking for food and yawning, and I'm stumbling around trying to change out of my work clothes (no time before music class, yippeee!), finding him an appropriate snack (not a pop-tart), and trying to fight my guilt and make up for the evening I missed with Quinn (read: yanking his unnaturally strong pre-school arms from around my thigh every two minutes), all at the same time.

Usually by the time the kids are in bed, after Quinn has inevitably remembered that he Has To Tell Me Something, Uummm at least four times, my head is pounding and my eyes are glazed over, and even though I really want to do a better job of writing here on a regular basis, I just can't bring myself to do it. I mean, sometimes I even (pathetically) stare at the blank screen and try to force words to appear there through sheer willpower, but of course nothing ever shows up and I end up slamming the laptop closed in disgust with my stupid lack of magical powers.

Tonight, just before I shook my fist at the universe (with not much passion, given my near comatose state after the nighttime piano lesson energy-sucking session), John walked in with the wine and the Thai food (recent commitment to spend less money be damned!), looked at the (blank) screen and said, mischieviously, "did you see my pictures? Did you check the blog?"

I'll admit it, I was concerned. If you haven't all been transfixed and/or confused by the left column before now, then let your eyes wander over there and take a look-see. For months, he's threatened to post his urinal collection but I've managed to distract him with shiny things until now. He used my Tuesday night weakness against me. Traitor.

It's not about the drinking, Meredith.

Last week at the doctor, I answered all the normal questions about my health and bodily functions with all the same answers I have every year, because I'm a lucky, healthy person with very few physical ailments. When the nurse got to the family history and behavioral questions, Has anyone in your family ever had a stroke? Or heart disease? Or breast cancer? and all of my answers were basically "nope," she had her hand poised over the "NO" box, happily checking away, and when she got to Do you smoke? and I gave my trusty "nope" she kept her head down while she read the standard list of questions and practically checked "NO" before I even responded. And then she got to the final question, Do you drink?, and let's just say she should use a pencil when filling out that form, and maybe also ear plugs, because as she robotically checked "NO," I busted out a hearty, "UH, YEAH!! I HAVE TWO KIDS, REMEMBER?" I thought this was hilarious, but then immediately felt guilty because her quick sideways look at me and her lack of even the slightest grin clued me in to the fact that she didn't understand that I was joking -- joking about my hedonistic alcoholic lifestyle, and about the poor, neglected children amazingly still in my care after years of being parented by people who drink wine and margaritas IN THEIR PRESENCE. ALMOST DAILY. She didn't ask about cocaine, THANK GOODNESS. Imagine the glare I would have gotten over that one.

It hit me a little at the time, enough that I even mentioned it to John, but I forgot all about it until I saw this setup interview between Slanty McSlantsALot Meredith Vieira and Melissa Summers today.

Here's what I want to say:

Dear Today Show,

You suck.

Love,
Kristen

But that really doesn't do this subject justice, although I'm not sure I ever even could. Furthermore, I normally don't get into subjects that 1.) originated from Blogland (because I don't consider myself part of the crowd, per se, etc. etc. blah blah you don't want to hear this) or 2.) are related to the blommy boars *shudder.* But in this case, I'm loosening my rule reins. How can I not? I know thousands of people will be talking about this and everyone will be so sick of hearing about it, but COME ON. Did you watch the video? The shots of the kids playing behind the large, looming glasses of wine? The clip of the woman saying she'd love to see a mom who doesn't drink while hanging out with her kids 15 hours a day so she could determine whether or not "she's a great mom" (I'm sure this is very indicative of the response you'd get from any parent who drinks...yeah)? The question, "would you let a group of babysitters drink while watching your kids?" and the unbelievably harsh, aggressive, and mostly STUPID follow-up, "well, you don't want THEM drinking, so what's the difference when YOU do it?"?

What is this crap? Is this honestly something we're concerned about? The "growing trend" of "moms who drink at playdates"? Who says it's a growing trend, anyway? It's not a growing trend. I'll tell you what's a growing trend: Playdates, and titling them as such. Socialization between adults who have children at any age has become completely warped. U.S. middle class adults are expected to center their entire lives around their kids. Parties and get-togethers have turned into Playdates and Little Gym classes: regular social outings specifically for and because of the kids - there is no other purpose (so if you meet a new friend who is there with his/her child, just accept the fact that this isn't about you, and focus on your kid, you narcissistic jerk). So extreme is this warped, Puritanical, surreal mentality that now if any adult socialization is ever combined with the Social Life By, For, and Of the Children, it is seen as taboo, selfish, irresponsible - so much so that there are articles written about it and morning show interviews with questions and scenarios and condescending facial expressions from famous TV personalities that reinforce, in case any of us had missed it, that our kids are not the number one priority, OUR IMAGE IS.

So, dads? You don't count. Only moms take care of kids. And they do so with no help from anyone, because moms are super duper amazing people whose abilities you could never master. That's why if you have a beer while watching a game in the same room with your kids, it's not really a big deal - because no one expects anything of you anyway! But moms who get together with some friends and drink a glass of wine while their kids play nearby should be labeled as irresponsible and selfish - not actually because they're drinking, even though that's what we'll make this pathetic argument all about, but because they're daring to have a social function - I'll go so far as to say even that they're daring to do anything at all during waking hours - that isn't 100% centered around the under 18 crowd. This is not part of the acceptable image for a U.S. middle class parent. U.S. middle class parents are all female (dads, see above). U.S. middle class parents are their children's business managers and administrative assistants, "on the job" if you will, where socializing with adults is slacking off and cheating, and drinking is just the straw that breaks the camel's back, that makes this entire argument somehow seem legitimate by playing on the lingering Puritan guilt complex around any pleasurable experience.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I'm leaving work to see the father of my children, the one who stays home and cares for them the majority of the time. And we're probably going to go somewhere that WE like for dinner, dragging along the kids who are undoubtedly dirty and cold and thankful to be allowed to whimper quietly in the booth next to the gruel we'll shove distractedly at them while we drink irresponsibly, right before we throw them in the back of the pickup and swerve home in time to pass out. Hopefully they'll figure out how to bathe themselves.

Strife, Interrupted

Lately every time I try to leave a comment on a blogspot blog, Blogger forces me to sign in again, and then brings me to my dashboard and FORCES me at gunpoint to post something here. So here I am. I was trying to leave a comment for GCQ, but now she may never know. (GCQ, love your tree. That's what I was going to say. Unfortunately Blogger is holding me hostage. Sorry.)

It's funny that this is happening, because lately it seems like everything I set out to do gets hijacked out of nowhere and against my will by some completely random activity. The other night I innocently went to hang up a new suit I bought for work, but that five-second act turned into a four-hour project. Why, instead of wrapping all of the presents piling up in our pathetic excuse for a "walk-in" closet, I thought a better way to free up some space in there would be to examine / try on / categorize / re-organize every piece of clothing I own. Strangely, there is still no space to "walk" in the closet (it might be all those unwrapped presents on the floor), but there is a lot more space for the dozens of empty hangers on the rack now. And that's great, because the crowded clothing rack was really taking a lot away from my kids' holiday season, but those still unwrapped gifts, the ones they keep eagerly looking for under the tree? Obviously a lower a priority than the closet organization.

I was telling John a story the other day about how a friend I hadn't seen in a few months had told me I looked great during a conversation about diet and exercise, and that I'd responded with some or other complaint about body fat storage and what I need to work on, and John said, "You don't know how to accept a compliment." He's right, but I think it's less about not accepting compliments and more about how I tend to focus on Fixing What's Wrong. I've said before that it's not that I don't see and appreciate the positive, and that's true. But I might not always communicate that I see it, because what I do communicate is whatever I'm trying to work out in my mind at that time - whether it's how I need to increase my protein and stop drinking margaritas if I ever expect to see the changes I want to see in my body, or how I need to do a better job of addressing the kids' behaviors and not letting them pull a big reaction out of me, or how our entire household needs more structure and less chaos and it must be on my shoulders to identify exactly what that will look like.

I got an e-mail yesterday from a very nice reader that made me realize - or remember, since I'm sure I already knew this - that none of you can read my mind. You don't know about the recurring good, sweet, hilarious things that go on around here unless I actually mention them, which, many times, I don't. This is completely consistent with who I am. I focus intently on whatever difficulties I'm trying to overcome. It's why I don't want to give Hannah a pat on the back just for getting out of bed in the morning. It's why I don't tend to say "good job" to someone unless what they've done seems above and beyond what I would consider to be every day general life expectations (whether my expectations match others' or not). It's why what I talk about tends to be either serious and difficult or sarcastic and self-deprecating. The positive is there, but it's on the back burner for me, it's something I don't have to focus on so intently, it's something I don't have to overcome - and therefore I tend not to communicate about it. What results is a perception that all of my experiences are negative or difficult or extreme, that my kids are disrespectful of me 100% of the time, that I teeter on the edge of a breakdown every waking moment.

So, amidst my stream of intended horror stories, my attempts to mentally work through and thus solve every single large or small problem in my life and the life of my family, I'm interrupting myself to say something. It seems like a very basic experience to me (maybe even one most would consider "expected"), but it represents all of the good on the back burner: Every night after I pull into the driveway after work and struggle through the door with my handfuls of gym bag and purse and keys, those kids - the ones to whom I give hyperbolic nicknames like "demon" and "dark lord" when I'm in my "work it out mentally" phases - stop what they're doing, whatever it is, and run to me, smiling, calling my name, telling me they missed me and they need - NEED - a hug and a kiss. Last night after his bath, Quinn was watching a Christmas special on TV and I walked in prepared to argue with him about bedtime, but I said only, "Quinn, it's time to read a story and go to bed, buddy." He stood up in his chair to be eye-level with me, put his arms out for me to hold him, and said, "with YOU, mommy?" as if to say he was fine with bedtime, he was fine with anything, really, as long as I would hold him. As I carried him upstairs his head rested against my shoulder and his legs dangled around my waist; he sighed and closed his eyes and made the soft smack-smack-smack sleepy sound with his mouth, perfectly at peace, content, quiet, still. Trust me when I tell you that the miracle of that is not lost on me.

Cobwebs

Things are getting dusty in here, aren't they? The stagnation of late reflects the disarray in my own tired brain, and also acts as an html-coded representation of numerous little things like the stale snacks from our Thanksgiving trip sitting in a junk heap on top of our refrigerator after a month of not discarding them. What doesn't make sense, what the staleness and stagnation don't reflect is the amount of head-spinning activity our household has experienced lately. How can things be dusty and stagnating when I haven't stopped moving for the past two weeks? Error. Does not compute.

As a few of you have learned the hard way (sorry Mary and Suebob), we've reached a point where the chaos and commitments have swallowed us whole. We're the types of people who'd prefer to survive our kids' childhoods without actually being committed in the worst sense of the word, and so we're working on digging out of some holes. Fringelements was a hole we willingly dug and jumped into, and it was the most fun hole to create, but it's also the first one we're stepping out of - at least for now. We love the work and we plan on continuing some time next year (with some changes), but right now we have to focus on not going certifiably insane over the time commitments we keep biting off like too-huge chunks of dry brownie - tasty choking hazards.

As I've mentioned before, the people who pay me have become quite demanding of my time; posting and reading and general maintenance of this site have become very challenging. I'm pretty adamant about sleeping at night, and so I'll never really "catch up" with where I should be. The blogging community is very fast-paced and here and now, the participation in which sometimes starts to feel like a job in and of itself. I might be a spotty lurker for a while, commenting if I have the ability; I might be a spotty poster for a while, too, posting when I can, hopefully never less frequently than once a week. It's just that these brownie chunks have really sharp, dry, broken edges and I have to focus pretty intently on not choking right now. I'll have to worry about clearing away all these cobwebs a little later.

(Blog) Post Trauma

My brain is too overwhelmed from the six hours of driving and eight following hours of grocery shopping, unpacking, laundry, cooking, bathing the kids, and for some unknown reason cleaning out old toys from the kids' rooms because obviously that was something that had to be done today of all days--

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that there are still piles of clothes to be folded and a few bags to be unpacked, and I haven't even called any of my parents, who are probably starting to wonder if we finally snapped and drove the car over a bridge during the final leg of our journey today, but also probably think if they call and we HAVEN'T yet snapped, the phone ringing might actually push us over the edge.

Since I'm nowhere close to having time to put any genuine thought into this post but also can't let go of the fact that we WILL make it to the end of November, by God, because we've made it this far through a 12-hour trip in a car with two kids under age 5, insane work schedules, the beginning of our family birthday season and enough other schedule restraints that a daily post commitment through the month of November should have never even entered our minds, here are a few final pictures from our trip. Kentucky is beautiful, peaceful, unique.

Technical Difficulties

I've been trying for two hours to post what WOULD have been a hilarious commentary on the day we've had. Alas, the wireless network we managed to piggy back last night is no more. We tried using my dad's computer, but no go. We finally managed to use his DSL connection, and just as I uploaded the last of 12 - 15 pictures, I hit the wrong button, and Blogger lost my entire draft. I know about the "recover post" button, but did it work? No.

It's too bad, too. You were really up for a Thanksgiving treat. Now, it's too late, I'm about two seconds away from chucking my laptop out the window in frustration, and ER, one of the two television shows I actually watch, is on.

It's taking all of my will power even to post this piece of crap. Damn you, NaBloPoMo. You've taken all my already questionable standards and shot them to hell.

Oh, and uh...Happy Thanksgiving. Bear with us. Once I can upload more than two pictures AN HOUR, you're in for a treat.

I don't have a title, and I'm running out of time to post this on November 17.

John and I had a rough "every other day" posting agreement for the month of November, but here's the thing, people. John thinks he can accomplish super-human feats. He's working on a post that details the ridiculous amount of work he's taken on and committed to completing before we leave for a Thanksgiving trip next week, but in an ironic and horrifying twist of fate, he has so much of that very work piling up around him that he can't even finish the post about it. A few minutes ago I walked into his office (note to self: write a post about the state of John's office) and he was tapping furiously at the keyboard, remnants all around him of the past six weeks of photo edits, wedding album designs, scheduling and re-scheduling bridal sessions to accommodate busy lives and weather changes, and any number of other photographer activities which apparently make one's office look like a disaster zone. He looked up and asked me how to spell a word, and between the carnage of his office and the way his eyes were darting nervously around the room and his hands were slightly twitching, I suggested that MAYBE the blog agreement should be a lower priority than the work that people actually pay him for. And that also pays our mortgage. And will at least indirectly fund the trip next week. The trip you won't hear about until a.) John perfects his ability to stop time for the sole purpose of finishing his post or b.) enough days pass that we're actually posting from the road, the glorious road where there are no paper- and box- and equipment-strewn photography offices burying the resident photographer under their crushing, infinite demands.

And there definitely won't be any "demands" on our trip. And their names definitely aren't Bryce and Quinn, and they never yell or kick the backs of our seats in the car. So, yeah. The trip should feel like a real break.

Home on the Fringe: One Year in the Blogosphere

We started this blog one year ago today. We sat in one of the few wi-fi enhanced restaurant bars in this city, drank margaritas, ate nachos, and John convinced me to start typing. The name of the blog was decided by the time we were seated at our table, a result of our discussion in the car on the way there. I held the laptop in a beige canvas bag resting in my seatbelted lap, still skeptical about the whole "blog" idea, always skeptical, always coming up with objections: "well, we don't even know what we'd call it!" John, knowing me all too well, kept driving in a content, open silence. I kept talking. Kept objecting: "I mean, I don't want it to be something having to do with our geographical location, because, barf."

"Why? We might as well reference it sarcastically, like we do in real life. 'Home on the range' or something."

"I'd rather it accommodate the fact that we're a blended family...but then again, I don't necessarily want it to focus solely on the blended family aspect because there are other things that make up our freak-like identity, like Bryce's intensity, my feistiness, our age difference. We're just freaks. Freaks on the range. Home on the freaky range, midwestern misfits. Something about being on the fringe of society."

"Home on the Fringe!"

"No...."

"......" *driving, waiting*

"Hmm, Home on the Fringe. Actually, that does pretty much sum it up, doesn't it?"

******************************************

Like I'd guess most blogs do, this site has changed significantly over the past 12 months. John and I talked about doing a "best of" post to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Home on the Fringe, but as I perused the archives and tried to pick posts that I felt were most indicative of our year, all I found was - big, huge surprise coming here - a lot of chaos, some of it hilarious, some of it horrifying, some of it maddening, some of it expected. You could basically click any one of the archive links and find examples of what I'm talking about with very little effort. Also, this blog already tends to the navel-gazing side (I guess this makes us real bloggers. As my trainer would say, "hoo-ray, right?"), and linking to our own blogging selves, in a post about our own blogging selves, well... felt a little extreme. Those of you that have been reading since the beginning, or have taken the time (Why? Oh, why?!) to read all the old posts must believe us by now when we say with every day that goes by, we come closer to truly believing we're insane.

Having this blog as a legitimate writing outlet, particularly for me, since I'm the one who comes here the most and drones on and on, has severely lessened the chance of my being committed or arrested. That was something I wasn't expecting a year ago. I don't really know what our expectations were, but I know they didn't include free therapy or, more importantly (prepare for the sappiness), new friends. We didn't know when we started down this windy blogging path that there was such a community in existence; we pictured the blogosphere as much smaller and much more compartmentalized than what we ultimately found. In fact, I think if we had known how much of a community this experience would introduce to us, we probably would have run shrieking away from it, given so many of our past failed attempts at social life.

We've learned that here, in this community, we're no more on the fringe than any of the rest of you. In one year in the blogosphere, we've ("virtually") met and befriended more people than we have in seven years of "real life," including social functions resulting from nine jobs, three schools, four kids, 28 holidays, and a few ill-fated attempts at neighborhood parties. I can't decide if this is a sad statement about middle class U.S. society or just another blatant confirmation that we don't fit in there. For whatever reason, we've been welcomed here, and at times over the past year, times that many of you know have pushed us to our absolute emotional brink, that fact has existed in our minds as the only calming and reaffirming thought in our beaten down collective consciousness.

Banner Days

Last night I was chatting with my brother, and I asked if he'd seen our new banner. When his only reply was "yeah," I knew something was up. When he said, "can I be honest?" my heart broke into a million tiny shards and fell into my stomach. I took a big swig of wine and made a comment that would inflict guilt upon him but also force him to expound on what was so effing terrible about the new banner that John and I had created at the drop of a hat the other night ("sure, be honest, it'll be icing on the cake today!"). My brother and I are are those siblings that at first glance seem like polar opposites, but upon closer inspection actually think and act in extremely similar ways. This very fact, combined with my sellout, working-for-the-man lifestyle probably makes Jonathan want to vomit or drown himself. Or drown himself in his own vomit. But he knows it's true. I was the goody-goody nerd sibling; Jonathan was the popular, rebellious trend-setter. Therefore, in my mind, I benefit from this similarity, while it only brings him way, way down to a level of pop culture and suburbanism through which he never intended to wade. So, while I could not care less about the impression I leave on many and most other people, Jonathan's opinion is always of interest to me. "Well, the fire and the font reminded me of some sort of church youth group revival: Set your heart on fire. WITH JESUS!"

God, I love that guy. He is exactly right. Those of you who have attended said revivals will know immediately what we're talking about. John grew up in the Catholic church and was not privy to such experiences, so when I finished cleaning up the wine that shot out of my nose when I read Jonathan's comment and told John about it, he didn't see it. I, however, can not get it out of my mind. Every time I see that Home - Flame - on the Fringe up there, I chuckle and say several times, with passion, "set your heart on fire, with JESUS!"

He makes sacrilege FUN! I predict that one day he's going to write a book, and I intend to make it my life's mission to introduce his warped, jaded humor to the world. We need more lighthearted sacrilege, I always say. More importantly, I needed a genuine laugh, and thinking about that inconsequential banner through Jonathan's lens gave me just that.

Well, it's official: Quinn doesn't hate me anymore. The past two mornings, I have woken to his panicked, sharp breaths over the monitor after loud thunder and bright lightening has shaken and flashed over the walls in his room. The first morning it happened, I braced myself for the inevitable call for John. But no. What I heard was, GaspGaspGasp. Pause. More thunder. "Mooommmy? Mommy!" I've never been so thrilled to walk up a flight of stairs at 5:00 in the morning from a dead sleep. I laid down with him on the couch in his room hoping he'd go back to sleep, but not minding so much the pudgy fingers running across my face and the fuzzy head buried in my neck every time he heard another roar of thunder outside. It's totally wrong for me to revel in my child's fear, but that fear of the storm brought with it an unspoken expectation that I could protect him from the scariest thing his mind could imagine when given the raw sensory ingredients provided by the thunder and lightening: burrowing into me gave him pause and enough security that he didn't need to cry out for anyone else. I'll take that. I won't get to keep it for long, so I'll take it.

Two Good Causes

I normally don't link to lots of other blogs in my posts, and haven't used this site as a forum for links to the latest news, celebrity gossip, or causes. But there are two "causes" that I'm going to mention today specifically because the more traffic these blogs get, the better the situations will be.

1.) People are talking about a seven-year-old girl named Nadine who has cancer and after having a tumor removed is now entering a round of chemo. A blogging friend of Nadine's, Homestead, has acquired a PO Box where she is hoping a lot of people will send cards (preferably involving Princesses, because that's what Nadine is into) to her and her family. The information is all here. As I said in a recent comment to someone about this, I hope this kid gets a zillion princess cards. Send her one if you can.

2.) Recently, Chag urged his readers to check out a blog called Pygmalion's Wife. His description of the level of concern he'd felt for this blogger compelled me to read her entire site in great detail. I have since added her link over there in the right column, hoping to send more traffic her way -- not because she is a great writer with a compelling story (which she is) -- but because she is a person who needs help, and the only real "help" I, as a stranger, can offer her is some attempt to help her increase her traffic to a level where she can make money off of her site and ultimately escape the very dangerous and abusive situation in which she currently finds herself and her three young children trapped. She has taken great pains (unfortunately that is a literal statement) to keep herself anonymous due to the volatile conditions she is currently enduring, so I don't want to write a lot of specific detail; just go there and read.

You just don't see the word "toot" in writing often enough.

The other day I got an e-mail from a friend at work. She had just finished a job interview and she said, "you know how I am; I'm no good at tooting my own horn. I did toot it on my thank you note, though." That's been running through my head for days -- "I did toot it." I think of it in that same tone of voice that valley girls use when they say "HATE-d it!": "TOOT-ed it!"

Why in the name of all things holy am I talking about this? See that red door with black hinges in the right column that says "fringelements" on it? This is me tooting my own horn. Well, tooting our horn, really. John and I have been creating blog banners. Before I started my new job, where I am apparently paid to sit and stare out my 38th story window without considering ways to break said window and hurl myself out of my boredom-inflicted misery, I was paid to create, among other less exciting things, document covers using photographs of typically very ugly and boring items. My challenge was to make the ugly, boring, and sometimes even disgusting things (wastewater treatment plants - need I say more?) look dynamic and flashy. I became quite proficient at manipulating images and splashing fonts and lines and dots and any randomness I could think of to take away from the god-awful images I had to work with. Before I was doing that job, nobody I worked with had ever considered trying to make the ugly pictures look NOT UGLY, and so they were thrilled with my work. Every day I would come home and say to John, "hell, imagine what kinds of things we could create with YOUR pictures, instead of this total crap I'm having to work with."

When we started this blog, I decided to do just that - I started playing around with some of John's images to create a banner for the top of our page. Since then, we've created banners for friends and family and a few fellow bloggers. John has a seemingly endless supply of cool pictures for us to choose from, and he's constantly coming home with more. So, if you want a banner for your site, check out the fringelements page for samples and more information. There will always be a button over there on the right. You know, because we like to have our horn tooted.

Fringenesis

In the beginning, Blogger created the Home on the Fringe template, and Kristen and John saw, and it was good. But soon Kristen, fickle blogger that she was, became restless and dissatisfied, and the only one available to endure her wrath was fellow blogger, John. And John saw, and it was bad. Sure, Kristen and John created a new banner, but it did not even link to the home page. And what was that miniscule text in the top left corner? The spoils of Kristen's fruitless attempt at hiding the forced Blog Title in the Blogger Template! She lamented - nay, bellowed, "How do I link the banner back home? How do I change the background color? I don't like the way this looks but I can't figure out how to change it! How? HOW? HOW?!" The angry blogger lashed out at the computer, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And then Blogger sent its only begotten Chag to save Home on the Fringe from the errors Kristen had caused with all of her amateur tinkering. Kristen said, "let there be a white background." and Chag made it so. John said, "Let there be a photo column." and Chag provided it, that sweet manna from Internet heaven.

And Kristen and John saw everything Chag had made, and behold, it was very good. And Kristen said, "We are not worthy of Chag's great template abundance. How can we repay him?" And John said, "by taking a vacation to visit him. He would LOVE that, I just know it."

Uninspired

The blank post page mocks me as I stare at the dust particles clouding the brightness of my screen, thinking to myself, why bother? Another post about the quirky freaks that make up this family? How much can people -- can I -- take? This isn't a real blog anyway, so where's the pressure? We have no regular installment posts, no unique series forcing a steady stream of creativity. We still use the basic, free blogger template with a simple banner across the top - no fancy graphics, no daily links or flickr photos blinking in the sidebars.

I wonder as I stew in my usual vat of worry, frustration, fatigue, and -- what else, what else? oh, who cares -- if my demotivated, numb attitude has something to do with the fact that, along with a delayed stress reaction to a seventh new job in seven years and the resulting lack of a comfortable daily routine, extremely conspicuous braces that still make me cringe at my own reflection even two months later, and the disturbing extra layers of fat my stress seems to have deposited suddenly around my middle, I'm sleep-deprived in a way that I haven't been since my children were infants. Sleep-deprived because my dog has joined the ranks of the die-hard Expert Sleep Deprivers Who Love To Deprive Us Of Sleep With The Sleep Deprivation (also known as the Ranks Of Bryce). I realize as this thought crosses my mind that if we were real bloggers, some measley sleep deprivation would mean nothing to us: HA! We laugh in the face of sleep deprivation! Sleep is a luxury we can't afford what with all the real blogging we have to do! Those weaklings who insist on sleep don't deserve to have blogs anyway! Wimps.

Hmm, yes. Yes. This might be a viable explanation. The jingling, jingling, jingling of the dog's collar right next to my head at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 a.m. My concession to stumble out of bed and let him into the back yard to dart around aimlessly sniffing, searching always for the perfect place to deposit an apparently stubborn undigested collection of band-aid wrappers, paper towels, and used kleenex. I think back to my half-asleep anger bubbling slowly to the surface as I stand for the third time in a night, arms crossed, face stern, eyes squinting into the pitch black cold space of my back yard as I wait for this stupid, stupid animal to get back inside. Anger because if I close the door and leave him out there, he will wake us within 20 minutes with the force of his 70-pound body slamming against the sliding glass door in protest of the injustice of being abandoned in his own huge back yard, the one he woke me up three times to get into, woke me with his creepy unwavering dog stare into my sleeping face and his jingling, jingling, jingling collar and his pantpantpantpanting warm dog breath: let me out. let me out. let me out. I think to myself in awe that I spent more time dealing with this high-maintenance epileptic dog in the middle of the night than I did dealing with my own issue-ridden flesh and blood, who was also waking us with random, unexplainable demands throughout the night: his room lamp had been turned off and therefore when he stirred at 1:15 a.m., his bedroom, the one he SLEEPS IN, was dimmer than his standards require - his standards being that any room he enters maintain the BRIGHTNESS OF SUN-SHINY DAYLIGHT 24 hours a day.

And then I think, oh look. Another post about the freaks that make up this household.

If you meme yourself, does that make it a mememe?

I am constantly asking Kristen about the dreaded Meme. How is it pronounced? What does the word mean? Is it a verb or a noun? Whenever I bring it up she does her famous one eye roll, sighs as if to say "Not again" and demands to know what the hell my infatuation with a meme is? Since I can't get any answers from her, I went searching and found this on Wikipedia.

....one can roughly define 'meme' as any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods. Different definitions of meme generally agree, very roughly, that a meme consists of some sort of a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution....(bold added for emphasis)

This leads me to conclude that no matter how much we hope we are not tagged with yet another freaking meme, how we hope to avoid them at all costs, they are not going away. And not only are they here to stay, but as a direct result of memes we are in the midst of a cultural evolution. Oh, and meme rhymes wih gene, and actually is a derivative study based on genetics.

Cool.

This is completely unrelated but it sure made my morning. I love stories like this.

10 Weird Things, Part II

Chag tagged me for a meme where you're supposed to write 10 weird / random things about yourself and 10 weird / random things about your kid, but I've already done the 10 things about myself (which you can see here, because I'm sure you're dying to), so in keeping with Chag's format idea, I'll list five examples of weirdness for each kid.

Bryce
1.) The kid refused to eat any solid food until he was 15 months old. He gagged like we were shoving golf balls down his throat if we tried to sneak half of a mushy diced peach into his usually smooth Stage 3 baby food. He is now four years old, and still has, um, issues.

2.) He's psychic, but so far only when it's related to presents he'll receive in the future. Example: the day before his SECOND birthday, we asked him if we knew what the next day was. He replied, "fire truck!!" We exchanged a confused and slightly terrified glance and then said, "no, Bryce, what is tomorrow, it's a special day" to which he responded, "building blocks!!" He was getting two gifts from us: a fire truck and some building blocks, which we had chosen at random and had not been talking about; it wasn't like he'd been obsessed with asking for a fire truck or building blocks. He's had similar premonitions before other events. I suppose it's possible he was sneaking out of his crib and snooping through our closet while we slept soundly, but it seemed odd at the time.

3.) Along with his frighteningly advanced vocabulary, he had an early and freakish sense of direction. He could point out the building John worked in from any spot in the city, and even if he couldn't see it, he would point in the RIGHT DIRECTION. We tested him. He never failed.

4.) He was VERY serious as an infant and early toddler, but you'd never know it now, when he spends all of his time coming up with new and improved laugh tracks for his intelligent jokes - jokes like, "Have you ever seen an elephant with a diaper on its back?! Ahahahahaha!!! That is FUNNY!"

5.) He role plays ALL. THE. TIME. It never ends. The characters change, but they range from a cat to a dinosaur to inanimate objects or disastrous events like avalanches or fires. He's intense, that one.


Quinn
1.) He's always seemed younger than he really is, or younger than we think he should seem. He was late on all of the physical milestones like rolling over, sitting up, talking, crawling, and walking. But he smiled and was flexible and happy, content to be carried around on countless errands at a very early age (like by the time we brought him home from the hospital).

2.) Because of his late bloomer status, we got a little concerned by his 18-month checkup, and our pediatrician wanted to be on the safe side, so we scheduled an appointment with the state program that monitors children with developmental delays, and gets help for them if it's determined that they need it. It took two months to schedule the appointment, and by the time the three different speech, physical, and occupational therapists came to our house with their huge tupperware boxes full of puzzles and books and tests, Quinn had started talking up a storm and had mastered stairs, walking backwards, completing shape puzzles, identifying animal sounds...you know, all the things the nice, busy therapists were there to test him on in order to find out where he was behind. And what were the results? He wasn't behind, oh no. In fact, his scores came out slightly ahead in the areas of gross motor skills and speech articulation...the two areas we had been most concerned about. Those therapists probably thought we were really pushy parents, wondering why our 18-month-old wasn't in the olympics and composing symphonies yet. I swear, he was remarkably behind when we initially set up that appointment. Even our pediatrician thought so!

3.) He shrieks like he's being tortured when he gets his hair cut. He says it hurts. They don't even use the clippers on him so they can avoid touching his head - they use scissors. On his HAIR. At the very TIPS of his hair. He screams, he cries, huge crocodile tears streaming down his face. "It hurts!!" Yeah, bud - it hurts. It hurts BOTH of us, believe me.

4.) He has never liked anything sweet. As a baby, he wouldn't eat any of the jarred fruit - we tried it all - applesauce, applesauce with bananas, peaches, pears, even the chicken with apples. He gagged the same way Bryce did when we offered chunky food. Quinn was fine with texture, but absolutely refused anything sweet. He still eats no fruit (no exaggeration - he has never had an apple, banana, orange, strawberry, mango, kiwi...okay, you get it) and doesn't even like pudding, ice cream, cookies, or cake. He snacks on goldfish and popcorn and drinks only milk or water. Luckily he is a fan of several vegetables, so he's not completely malnourished yet.

5.) He's completely dependent on his pacifier when he sleeps. Bryce never took a pacifier, so this was a whole new experience for us. And, seeing as how he turns 3 next month, I'm thinking maybe we let this go on for too long. We've chosen the "denial" path here because we've already lost most of our hearing between these two, and I'm not sure going completely deaf from the screams of objection and protest is really the most beneficial thing for me at this stage in my life.

The answer is d.

Tonight I was hunched over my laptop when John walked into the bedroom, an intently focused, serious look on my squinting face, my hand poised over the mouse buttons and the pg dn key as my eyes darted back and forth across the screen. Was I...

a.) Catching up on all the work I have to finish at my current job before starting my new one next week?

b.) Reading an electronic version of a literary classic and thus expanding my mind?

c.) Updating myself on current world events?

d.) Being blogged*?

I am and always have been a "high achieving" individual. I wouldn't have identified myself as such in my childhood or early adulthood. But the more experiences I have, the more I am able to admit this about myself, and appreciate the good and bad qualities and results of this fact. When I set out to do something, I accomplish it with a flourish. I graduated from a prestigious university in three years (and I wasn't one of those who took a bunch of college credits with her from high school classes, either), simply because I figured out that I could, and then decided to do it. I married someone 17 years my senior and took on his kids, who were essentially abandoned by their mother and have multiple resulting major emotional problems, and while I don't take full credit for the survival and strength of our relationship, I recognize that I am an integral part of that success (at least half, right??). I knew the company I wanted to work for after I graduated from college and moved back here, and persisted until they hired me, then lived through the emotional beating that is a layoff after three years of employment there. I gave birth to fire and a gibbon swallower and have lived to tell the tales. I persisted for three and a half years to get back to the company that laid me off, and succeeded against all odds (they'll never get rid of me now, bwahahahaha). I baffled doctors by gaining 65 pounds during pregnancy, then lost it all by quite literally working my ass off. I am woman, hear me roar! I accomplish anything I set my mind to!

But here's the thing. I think my undoing is going to be blogging. OH MY GOD, people. How do you do it? How do you so faithfully find the time to comment on all these clever sites, hundreds and thousands and millions of them, and still write coherently on your own sites? I am going to hire an assistant because I clearly can't manage to live my life responsibly AND simultaneously meet all of my blogging requirements. Those of you who blog regularly while working a full time job outside the house, and those of you who have, say, SEVEN homeschooled kids, or who have time to read AND blog (and blog about reading and other intelligent things) and always take the time to include graphics or music on every post...I just want to know this: do you not like sleep? Because I'm thinking maybe that's my problem. I am a big lazy sleep-lover.

A few nights ago, John walked in on me in a harried, hunched-over-the-laptop position similar to what I described earlier, and he said, "what's wrong?!" My exasperated, fist-shaking reply was, "I can't keep up with all these blogs!" He started laughing, and he told me the image in his mind was of me in a big open field with a tiny tennis-racket sized defense instrument, swinging my arms like I'm swatting at flies while dodging huge, bouncing globs (coincidence that "glob" is merely an anagram of "blog"? I think not.) of amorphous material. When he told me this, I pictured myself in a lightning storm with the small tennis racket, and the globs were about the size of houses. This is just the first thought that popped into my head, so clearly my subconscious view of this situation is a tiny bit fraught with angst at this point.

On the days I manage to write something of my own, I don't seem to have any leftover time to comment on other blogs. On the days I comment and read the growing list of blogs I want to keep up with, I am rudely reminded that there are only 24 hours in a day, and I'm lazy enough that I really want at least 7 of them for sleep, which means no time for post-writing. Because the remaining 17 hours are taken up with commenting, eating, and, what else? - oh yeah, living the life I'm trying to write about. But I'm determined not to be blogged* to death, even if that means I end up on the fringe of the blogging community the way we are on the fringe of American Suburbia. I wish I could pay the bills and raise my kids and still tap away on my laptop 8-9 hours a day just maintaining my blogging requirements. Some people are talented enough to have accomplished this. However, until that unlikely day comes for me, go ahead and take this down for the record: I can't keep up. I've tried and failed, and so now I'm just going to do my best to write and comment when I can and not because I picture a glob-blog gun held to my head. So...I guess what I'm saying is, bear with me while I teach myself to under-achieve. It's for my health; that and all the alcohol are for my long-term health.

*This will be my new method of discussing any activity relating to posting on my own or someone else's blog (no matter how much I may enjoy and respect said blog). While it is very close to the accepted phrase "blogging," I want to emphasize that in MY experience, there are aspects to blogging that begin to feel more, oh, let's see... inflicted than a basic old gerund can really properly connote. "Blogging" sounds so pleasant and controlled, like "going shopping" or "picking out a new book." But with MY method, you can "be blogged" the way you can "be tarred and feathered", you know? It's grossly overexaggerated and unnecessary, but kind of fun for observers in a sick, twisted way, too.

meme

Remove the top blog from the following list and bump everyone up one place.
Then add your blog to the bottom.
Childsplayx2
The Weirdgirl
It's Not All Mary Poppins
Grumppopotamus
Home on the Fringe

Select five people to play (sorry to those of you who kind of hate these new versions of a chain letter)...
Allison
Laura
Lucinda
Anne
Chris

What were you doing ten years ago?
Trying to keep from freezing to death or dying of depression in the sunless, gray universe that is a Chicago winter. I was starting the second half of my first year in college, taking classes that ranged from Astrophysics (lowest grade I ever got in a class, all those damned formulas killed me!) to French (never got to go to France, though...crap!) to Calculus (those science and math TAs really got sick of me, let me tell you.) to Humanities (hello, Plato, meet Flaubert). My school was known for having the highest suicide rate among students, and also for being #300 on the list of the top 300 party schools. You decide if there's a connection between those two facts.

What were you doing one year ago?

• Starting my new diet and exercise routine that ultimately resulted in a loss of 25 pounds, woohoo!
• Coming out of a major home improvement stint which included outside paint, new wood flooring in two large rooms, new carpet upstairs and in the master bedroom, new dining room furniture and paint, new entertainment center for the living room. Yes, we did too much at once. WAY, WAY too much.
• One year into being back at work after staying home for a year and a half with the kids. I was, and still am, questioning myself on my decision to go back. I can never be pleased, apparently, since I questioned myself the whole time I was at home, too.

Five snacks you enjoy.
See if you notice a theme...

1. Bananas with peanut butter.
2. Graham crackers with peanut butter.
3. Pretzels with peanut butter.
4. Apples with peanut butter.
5. Chocolate.

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics.
Okay, this one has made me realize how long its been since I've listened to anything but music my kids like. Observe:

1. I'm On My Way by the Proclaimers (on the Shrek soundtrack, naturally).
2. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (sung at gunpoint to Quinn every night before he will sleep).
3. Learning to Fly by Tom Petty (aka "the birdy song" - yes, it's another one of my kids' demands - better than Barney songs, I guess).
4. Uh, I guess I listen to too much NPR these days in my precious time alone in the car, because I can't even think of any other songs. Crap.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
I'm sure everyone has the same top two or three...

1. Pay off the house (actually, tear down my current house and build a new one in the same glorious location - you know what they say about real estate).
2. Pay off other debt and establish savings accounts and IRAs for all the family members.
3. Travel.
4. Consider a move to Canada (I'd consider it while basking in the glory of my new house in my enviable location).
5. Go back to school (be a professional student? maybe).

Five bad habits.
1. Being easily frustrated.
2. Worrying about things before they happen.
3. Over-analyzing.
4. Stress eating.
5. Becoming too involved, too soon in new things - relationships, jobs, diets, activities. I always burn myself out and get, uh... see #1.

Five things you like doing.
1. Going out to dinner and a movie.
2. Browsing at bookstores (I rarely get to do this anymore, though).
3. Getting a massage.
4. Watching Bryce or Quinn in their classrooms when they don't know I'm there.
5. Realizing my kids really are trying, like when I walk into the room and Bryce says, "Mom, I need to THANK YOU for all of those presents," even though we didn't get him the train set he wanted (actually, this one might need to go on a "things that make you feel guilty and also like a crappy parent" list).

Five things you would never wear or buy again.
1. Maternity underwear.
2. Any type of hat (sorry, people. I'm just not a hat person - you either ARE or you AREN'T, and I just can't pull it off without looking like an idiot).
3. Reebok high-tops (the white ones with the shiny silver Reebok logo - I've owned at least two pairs of those in my life, ugh).
4. Cowboy boots (see #2).
5. Flip flops. (I like them but they hurt my feet. I think having something between my toes feels a little bit like torture.)

Five favorite toys.
1. Bottle opener.
2. Netflix.
3. My new digital camera.
4. Laptop.
5. I can't think of another one...this meme is killing me. Oh look! I'm all done! Okay, I thought of one...the DVD player in our Honda.

10 Things Most People Don't Know About Me

Allison suggested this, so here we go:

1. I grew up in this college dormitory because my parents were "resident heads" there while my dad worked on his Ph.D. I returned to the same university for college and lived on the same floor of the same dorm as I had during childhood. It was weird. Everyone thought so.

2. My grandparents owned and operated a funeral home in a small town in West Texas. We had to go visit it every time we saw them. We liked going there. (Allison, I knew you'd appreciate that.)

3. During the first snow of my first winter in college in Chicago, I participated in a spontaneous activity wherein three friends and I etched the word "spam" in the snow on every windshield in the dormitory parking lot. (This was when the word "spam" still referred only to the canned meat product.) We thought this was the most hilarious thing in the world.

4. I really can't stand it when people don't use adverbs correctly (for instance, when someone says, "I'm doing good" or "I'm going slow," etc.). It drives me nuts, and I can only resist correcting people about 10% of the time. But I'm nice about it, at least.

5. I once wrote a paper comparing the movie Pulp Fiction with the Police song "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. And it actually made good sense.

6. When I was seven years old, my brother and I had two pet gerbils. We had been taught to pick them up by their tails. One day my parents were on the phone long distance with family, and we decided we wanted to play with the gerbils (the urge must have been so strong that we simply could not wait for the parents to get off the phone and help us). I picked one of them up and TORE THE TAIL COMPLETELY OFF. Blood was everywhere. I thought I'd killed it. Apparently no one ever specified to me that you're supposed to pick them up by the BASE of their tails, not the tip. DOH! The tail grew back eventually. I never got over it, as you can see.

7. As soon as I come home from work or an event, I pretty much change straight into my pajamas for the night. Lazy bones, that's me.

8. A professor (one of the famous ones at my school) once wrote that reading my paper "was like hacking one's way through a jungle." I still got an A- in his class, and he was one of my favorite professors. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

9. I've never seen any of the Rocky movies, Sixteen Candles, or Pretty in Pink. I have, however, seen The Breakfast Club. I never saw BladeRunner until it was a requirement for an Art History class. Yes, that's right. Art History.

10. On a weekend camping trip with my girl scout troop when I was nine, someone's napkin caught on fire while the troop leader was grilling something. Everybody freaked out, but I saved the day with my nerdy level-headedness (or complete lack of respect for the dangers of fire), and stomped it out with my tennis shoe.