Sassafrass

Three minutes (or a week) of real beauty

I love that this week is Fat Talk Free Week, an international campaign to bring activism and awareness to the damage the skinny ideal has on all of us, and particularly on women. I think it's more than good, it is critical, to set aside the fat-assery and self-deprication and be a part of a bigger cause to help girls and women live freer, richer, more authentic lives.

The interwoven issues of body image, eating disorders and the media representation of women have been at the center of academic, professional and personal lives for as long as I can remember. Still, I do not dare calculate the minutes, hours, painstaking time periods I've spent worrying about my size, stretch marks, and tiny details of my body. Nearly every woman I have ever roomed with had an active eating disorder. Almost every woman I have ever known has struggled with negative body image. Most of the parents I know worry about how they will raise their daughters and sons to be impervious -- or victorious -- in the ongoing challenges of being healthy and feeling good without anxiety, abuse, addiction, misperception, depression, and self-hatred. It's hard. What could we do if we harnessed all the energy that goes into pursuing unattainable and ridiculous ideals? I suppose that, with luck and commitment, this week we shall see.

I'm going to be a part of this campaign. And I am going to start by posting this video (via Guy Kawasaki -- thank you) of 500 years of portraits of women in less than three minutes. It is haunting and beautiful. It made me want to cry. And paint. And tell my grrrlfriends how beautiful they are. What I see here is mostly in the eyes, and I loved that. I loved focusing in right there.

In the interest of fueling creativity, passion, empowerment, a few minutes of some true beauty, please watch.

It's always good to know where you stand

Oh, Google searches. They're like that one grrrl in middle school you hung around with all the time even though she would call and bait you into talking shit about some other grrrl in your class while they were silently listening in on the line.

The one your mother didn't approve of, and you understood why but fought back anyway. The one who swore she wouldn't really kiss that boy with the feathered hair you liked so much during Seven Maybe Two Minutes In Heaven but then bragged to the whole class that she did anyway.

The one who taught you important things -- like which pages in Forever to flip to first and how to crimp your hair -- but then didn't invite you to her totally major end-of-year boy-grrrl pool party at the JCC.

Google is the new her. You love it, you feel you need it, you make it 16 friendship pins to put on it's Tretorn laces, and then it does incessant little things that make you think maybe, just maybe, you are being totally suckered.

Google doesn't steal the feathered-hair boy away from your clutches or announce to the 7th grade you got your period. Google just sends wackadoodle people to the front door of your blog by way of crazy searches. 

Searches that make you wonder where the hell you stand in the universe, or at the very least, the interwebs: "the dirt in corvallis"  (A far cry from my favorite and more popular searches for "britney's vajayjay" and "large black lady" -- I'm not kidding -- but somehow, this is a strangely compelling way to find me.)

Searches that make you feel like you are doing clock algebra when really it is just some PSAT prep question about trains that requires a simple formula but is dressed in a fucked up essay format: "dream" "mean"  (Huh? And how did something about a warrior's whiskey prayers arrive at the station before me?)

Searches that might make you hate your out of control body now but relish it years later: "just boobs" (75th? Really? Have you seen this rack? I mean...What's it take for a lady to move up in the ranks? And also to get away from the results above and below?)

Searches that make you wonder if you have actually died and gone to hell or if you are just eternally in grammar school: "lightning mcqueen underwear small for my age 14 years old" (I can't even bring myself to think too much about this one, let alone the fact that my blog comes up FOURTH for this search.)

Searches that, during the rare moment when the spotlight reflects perfectly off your braces and light up your upward-facing eyes, remind you that you are doing exactly what you set out to: "feminist thing" (Made better by the fact this one was by way of a Google Image Search -- because we all want to know what those "feminist things" really look like. Oh, who am I kidding? This search had me at "feminist".)

Oh, Google searches. I love you. I hate you. I want my bright yellow v-neck Shaker knit sweater back.

Linkety dinkety doo: Four for Friday

It's Friday, kittens. I am all out of waxing poetic, being so freaking hilarious, and pulling everything together in the last paragraph. While I get ready for a mamacentric weekend, I'd love it if you'd take a look at this picture from a gazillion years ago of Lil E making himself pretty with my mirror and comb. After you're done thinking, "Must. Kiss. Babayyyy. Bellayyyy.", then, please check these out:

• Please read this post by my blog husband dear friend Mike Adamick of the delicious Cry It Out, who reviews a book by my blog wife another dear friend, the hilarious and hot-hot redhead Rachael Brownell.

• Peek inside Tim Gunn's beauty bag (yes, beauty bag) because I know you are as nosy as I am and because we all need a reminder to stock up on fizzy bath things.

• Give a little golf clap to BadKitty, who is taking preppy to the quirky grrrl place with these adorable green clogs. And, yes, honey, we are well aware of how certain shoes speak to your soul.

• Ummmm...yum. I'm happy that the delightful Melissa has found a full-time gig (and I'm still trying to convince her to make some custom lunches for me to stash in fridge, preferably with the raspberry butterrrrrr she created to top off oatmeal *shiver*). But this drink recipe has me trying to conjure up some kind of celebration for myself, too. Cheers!

When Monday finally fell

My Monday began at 1 a.m. I intended to be in bed much earlier. To have a long bath, maybe even really read the words in Real Simple magazine rather than just rub my fingers over the pretty, pretty pictures. Instead, I was making a ham sandwich on a mini bagel for Lil E's lunch, filling a snack bag with fishy crackers, trying desperately to think through the cloud of exhaustion rising up in my brain to come up with a poem and drawings to decorate the daily note I tuck in his "Attack of the Clones" lunchbox.

I couldn't do it. I was too tired and the note would have to wait until morning.

Ahhh, morning. Six short hours away. Five, by the time I straightened up, washed up, crawled into bed. It was not the restful sleep I needed, and it was my own fault for staying up to do more work and talking than I really needed to. Rather than dwell on what I could've/should've/blahblahblah, I put on a dress and red lipstick. My 4-inch heels didn't hide my tired eyes, but they helped me walk -- or run -- through my morning.

I sped through breakfast, coffee, traffic, preschool drop-off. From there, I headed downtown for a blogging event. I hunted for parking while on the phone with my mom, devising a list of party supplies for Lil E's birthday. I rushed into the event, drank more coffee, caught up with mama bloggers I haven't seen in a long time.

Although I had lovely mini-massage and a de-stressing cool stone eye treatment, I couldn't shake the tired-hyped feeling. I listened carefully during the presentation, asked questions, tried only to peek under the table a few times to survey the shoes of the women sitting around me. But my attempts to be quiet and still were disrupted when I knocked over my champagne glass, slashed my thumb, made everyone turn and look, and a few run for tissues, a bandage, a trash basket.

As the event wound down, my parting conversations took on a happy but high energy. I pulled myself away, rushed out the door, rounded the corner, and looked up to see the meter maid placing a ticket under the windshield wipers on my car. I was hurrying. I was too late.

The rest of the day had this pace. I felt pulled to get away from my laptop, turn off the noise, go for a long walk to stretch my legs and quiet my thoughts. But there was too much to do, and pretty soon, there was preschool pick-up and a trip to the park, dinner, laundry, a bath for the boy, and bedtime.

I only stopped when I had to.

Then, the stillness came as it often does, curled up with my boy in a single bed, with a book and kisses on damp hair, prayers of thanks for whatever kind of day it was, the same songs I sing every single night. Wrapped in each other, time unwinds, worries ease, everything seems to float out of the room. Nothing is left but the shallow breath of this child against my chest, the darkness, hours ahead to let everything else go.

There are some nights when I wish I had a partner to turn to, to ask to please go in and see why the kid is still not asleep. There are early morning hours when I have cursed the world that I am cleaning up wet sheets or tending to a sick child all alone. There are times when I wish there was someone listening adoringly on the other side of the wall while I am singing lullabies. 

Most nights, though -- this Monday night -- I wanted that bedtime all to myself. I wanted to soothe my son to sleep with the safe, happy routine that share nearly every night. I also wanted it to soothe me. Just for me. I wanted it to make the $50 parking ticket and big Band-Aid on my bloody thumb and blogging mania all disappear while we read about Henry and Ribsy, while I pulled him close to me, while I drifted off for a little while.

The work would wait another ten minutes. All of my choices aren't exactly right and I know I don't control very much anyway. No matter the mayhem, I can choose to end the first day of my work week in exactly the way I wanted to begin it. I can do that.

Apparently, someone was reading my blog while I was gone

Because this was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got back from BlogHer. To the publisher or nice PR lady who sent these to me, I hear you, sister.

                                         

What is this thing you call blogging?

Yeah, there's been a lot going on with the Sassafam.  There was the visitation dance, passing Lil E back and forth between parents, over the holiday. Then my brother and his wife came into town. Then I got all hell-bent on a crazy little idea called "cleaning the house."  Plus, there's been all kinds of avoiding online grocery shopping (yet to happen) and debating whether spending $80 on sandals can be rationalized in a recession (apparently, yes). With all these high-priority happenings laced with much more that is mundane and time-wasting, you'd think I'd still be able to take 5 minutes to throw up a little two-fingered hello over the Sassafrass steering wheel. But, nooooo.

In fact, I wrote more when I was riddled with bronchitis. I've blogged through bouts of crabbiness, raging PMS, desperate shoe cravings and years' worth of sexual droughts. But throw a flag, some firecracker pops and a 57-item grocery list in front of me and I avoid blogging like I'm dodging the bouquet toss at a wedding.

Not to worry, though. The house is (relatively) clean, the overpriced (but well worth ignoring that price tag part) shoes have been shipped and my brother and sister-in-law are packing up to head home. That means I can no longer ignore the whimpers of the blank screen.

So I'm back, y'all. Thank Blog Llmighty, I'm back.

What do you suppose this means?

These four books arrived in the mail for me today. In one box. From one publisher. Unsolicited.

What do you think the universe is trying to tell me? What? WHAT?

This clearly means Jon Stewart's going to start commenting here very, very soon

If this kickass item on a blogger who is marrying a commenter doesn't open the gates for a surge of eligible male readers to flood the welcoming little blank box at the bottom of every post on this blog...well, then it might just be time to pack it in, friends.

I kid. But this post, including the bit about how other readers are reacting to the good cyber lurving, raises some great points. The first one is that we are living in a time when Match.com and other sites are one of the most realistic and viable ways for people to meet. The second point is that once you start dating someone, it's pretty likely they are going to end up being a reader whether they knew your words before they met you in person or not. And finally, get over it. Blog purism is so ridic.

Just as one of your soulmates could be loading a 10-pound bag of epsom salt into a cart one aisle over from your hairspray hunt in Target, maybe your own good lurver just stumbled into your blog and felt compelled to contribute something clever or brilliant or adorably emoticonly. Who knows, right?

My question is: Are you willing to meet someone in the space of a blog -- your own or someone else's -- or is that too close to home, too far off in the interspaces, or just off-limits?

[via Jezebel]

Writing about Florida. Finally.

It feels like a million years ago, but just a week ago, Lil E and I spent four glorious days in Florida. We were with my parents, who are snow-birding on Anna Maria Island for the third year, happy to talk on and on about miniscule dips in the temperature and which beaches have whiter sand, better shells and more spectacular sunsets.

Lil E was thrilled, leaping into the gulf and jumping waves until he was shivering so much he would break only to dig Bat Caves and moats until the goosebumps and shakes dissipated and he could get back in the water.

I read. I read! I've been so unable to focus on a novel in the brain clutter of the last two years of my life, this is only the second book I've made my way through completely. It felt like a luxury to laugh and lose myself and feel sad the story came to a close (thanks, Jeanne, for insisting I read this one).

As I sat in a chair next to my dad on the beach, watching my mom bury Lil E in the sand, soaking my glaring white skin with some deliciously warm sun, I realized how vitamin D deficient my life has been. Of course, after this winter (and last), the sunshine felt restorative. But it was the light and the heat that spreads slowly when you have no plan for the day, when you can stretch out your body across the bed or a blanket outside, when your only priority is to enjoy exactly where you and only see the people right in front of you.

For four days, that light and heat enveloped me and I appreciated every moment I felt it. And then we packed up our giant suitcase full of sandy clothes, the little Lightning McQueen rolling suitcase full of miniature pirate toys and Batmobiles and drawings of various Star Wars characters wielding light sabers, a carry-on bag full of snacks and one giant, unwieldy carseat. I hauled and lugged and heaved all of that, plus one exhausted 4-year old having a tough time transitioning back to our real life.

At one point, a woman leaned over to me and whispered above Lil E's whimpers, "Are you getting all that stuff yourself? Are you doing all that alone?"

I nodded. I almost said, "Of course!" but I recognized the look of surprise and pity on her face from days I had a partner on the highs and lows and hauling of these kinds of trips.

"Wow," she said. And I hesitate to write the next part. "You're amazing. You're my hero."

I smiled and said thank you. I am no hero. I was calm when my boy was crying, I got the carseat installed and uninstalled in record speed and I was surprised at how much suitcase weight I could actually lift. But I was no hero.

I was just a mom with flip flops in her purse, sand in her hair and a sunburn on her shoulders. Just a mom who took her first real, relaxing vacation in almost two years, and her first alone with her boy. Just a mom who was going home to a messy apartment, at least six loads of laundry, and too many emails. I was just a mom and still, I was proud. That I unplugged for four days. That I took the time. That I never doubted whether I (or we) could do it. That coming home felt just as good as leaving. That I had just enough of that light and heat left to plan another vacation for not too far in the future.

3 little things I'm thinking about so therefore, should automatically be important to you

It's been a while since I've binge blogged. Maybe that's because I've been out at some swank new places (well, new to me) that make me feel like I am 22 or never went into the motherhood underground or like getting up to work and write and make soy butter and jelly sandwiches the next day is not on the agenda. It's not that I'm neglecting my career or my life or my child (he's always away with his dad when I venture out). It's just that I'm neglecting my blog.

The good thing is, I've hired some very talented people to keep this grrrl operation running smoothly and so I can occasionally read something or do something or think something without feeling compelled to memorize it after a martini or two until I can type it on to my screen.

Oh, who am I kidding? I put up some shoe porn and F-bombs and you all start drooling and don't even notice I haven't been around in days.

Regardless, I'm here now. And even though I may have had a martini or two in the time since I last blogged, I do actually remember all those bloggable things that swam over and over and over in my head, around the Tanqueray and stuffed olives.

Here are 3 things that will get this baby cranking again:

Linkety Dinkety Doo: Points to consider while I'm in line at the polls

I am taking Lil E with me to our new voting place today. They won't recognize us there, as they always did in gym of the Catholic school across from our old apartment. But that's OK. Lil E's convinced he's voting too, so I will bring him a special Sharpie and homemade ballot of his own to keep him occupied and happy and well-prepared for (oh my) the 2022 elections.

While we step out to step in line, won't you catch up on some of my favorite reading of the week? I promise to swipe a few stale donuts and weak coffee so we can sit and chat when I get back.


Oh, Stefania, thank you. You said a whole world, a big hope, in only a few paragraphs. Plus, you made me cry during an election that has mostly made me rant.

Oh, Tracy, I know. I turned down lots of offers to flaunt my boobs during the 18 months (yes, EIGHTEEN) I breastfed too. OK, so none of them was a major box office production (some grrrls are meant for much lower budgets, I guess), but still, I hear you (ummm) knocking.

Oh, David, I get it. Trying to be grounded, especially for yourself and by yourself, is a long, exhausting and invigorating journey. Here's to walking our talk.

Oh, Rachel, you ask the best questions. This one is about how we tangle emotions up in our bedsheets and if intimacy is possible without sex. Oh la la. What to say about that? Ideally, yes but realistically, no?

We're with you on this: Write to Marry Day

The world I want my son to live in is a place where he can marry anyone he loves that much.

At one point, he was smitten with the lovely Claire who held his hand down the aisle as the flower girl to his ring bearer. Yesterday, he told me no matter how much the cute, curly-haired redhead with the infectious smile hugs him,  he is definitely done with girls and most likely will marry a boy so they can play bad guys and Batman and chase away the girls all day.  He's four. Next week, he will want to marry the dog from Martha Speaks. Regardless...and really, it is all regardless...I love the definitiveness in his voice. That gives me hope.

Whoever he grows up to be, whatever life he grows into, I want the choice of who stands beside him in front of a justice of the peace and God and his friends and our families to be his choice. And because I am getting divorced and he now has two homes and a preschooler's sensibility of what and who the ideal partner is, and because we go to a great church and quietly but still call ourselves Christian, I pray for this for him.

And for all of us.

Today, I am writing for Write to Marry Day, in support of every single person who once was a hopeful child and still carries that hope of marrying their same-sex partner.

I am not trying to get married and I am not voting on this issue. I am not a Californian. What I am is proud to join hundreds of other bloggers who believe in marriage equality and stand against California's Proposition 8. I'm with you, my friends.

Lil E and his band of merry betrothals and I are with you.

If you're not hearing what I have say, trust BadKitty. No really, she meows it soooo much better than I ever could.

This is not a shoe blog: Guess the blogger by her shoes (part 2)

Congratulations, Jennifer! You win a copy of Project Everlasting and dominion over the easiest contest with the most obvious clues and best odds of all time. No, really, it is an accomplishment. Seriously, you rock. You got the answer right and you won the drawing.

If you haven't already, check out Jennifer's blog, My Beautiful Baby, where she writes honestly about her own divorce and funny anecdotes about said beautiful baby. That hair, those eyes. Sigh. 

Today's isn't going to be so easy. That is, mama's getting stricter with the clues. Or rather, no blatant clues from the sucker lady operating Sassafrass from behind the big pink velvet curtain. The prize is another sweet summer read, Notting Hell by Rachel Johnson.

I had a fabulous time doing the honors of being the author's very first blogger interview and then meeting her a few days later. The book is an easy read that's perfect for the beach or while the kids tear up the lawn while you pray a small bit of tan seeps through your SPF 75.

Now on to the shoes:

Ummm...people? This is not the way to take care of yourself. Or your friends. Or your rodent problem.

I have done some pretty silly things in response to mice sightings -- panic attacks, road trips, even the peppermint oil on cotton ball thing. But kittens, at least I've never used a gun. I'm just saying.

Guess what? Grrrl power isn't hurting our boys. So what is?

Let us go back to the days of combat boots and a newly-pierced belly, of protests and grassroots activism and smoking clove cigarettes while producing a 'zine that spilled out all the secrets and desires and soul-borne poetry that wrapped around a thesis and papers and so much reading and highlighting and scribbling notes in the margins that the text itself became illegible. Yes, those were (as you know by now all too well) the grad school days.

Perhaps these days have been on my mind because I've been speaking to Lulu a lot about what she's been talking about in her off-hours. Regardless, I was reminded this morning over coffee and reading the news on my laptop how many times I (and we in our dusty little office in the corner of the Language Arts building where we could reasonably be ignored of our blaring Ani DiFranco and laughing over the frustration of committee meetings with the president of the college or dean of whatever) entertained this question:

"Women Studies?! Well, where's the Men's Studies?"

To which, we (in our infinite wisdom and indelible snark before snark was even in our collective lexicon...oh the olden days) delighted in replying:

"Oh, that's the rest of the college."

Yes yes yes, you've heard it (and probably here) a thousand times. It is just so freaking true. And I was puzzled every single time I  fired off that reply how the addition of one area of study could threaten so many people. No one was arguing when agriculture or Russian history or entomology were adopted into other departments. Was I so wrapped up in my Sharpies and posterboards that I didn't hear western civ people or anthropologists or pursuers of paleophytology studies all defensive and worried about the students waving around dried cicada shells and combine parts?

I brushed it off to being Oregon -- home to the crunchiest and most conservative people I've ever met, all in one big, beautiful, tofu-and-jello-mold potluck of a state.

The crazy thing is, that theme, that question, that strange and competitive and threatened defensiveness has also made its home at my table right here in Chicago. The topic is back to boys and girls but the conversation is around parenting and our kids and who will get or be or inherit what.

My friend Charlene and I had our own conversation about this yesterday. It was a quiet IM talk about how frustrating it is to hear people stereotype boys and their abilities or inadequacies as verbal, sensitive, intuitive people in their early years. As mothers of boys, our sensitivity is heightened. We don't want our kids pigeon-holed.

We talked about how many times, at the sandbox or some kiddie party, other parents have spouted off about how boys don't have the verbal skills/emotional intelligence/relationships/sensitivity/whatever that girls have. Could there be big, sweeping truth to those statements? Sure. Sometimes. But not every time.

And even if it is, we agreed we don't want our boys to hear that, to fulfill that pigeon-holed prophecy of who they are or should be or could be.

It makes me anxious because it always feels like to me that there are only so many words to be doled out among preschoolers, so many kids who walk early or sleep through the night first, only a few open slots for nurturing children in the playgroup. That is, of course, not the reality, but the air is thick with that competitive spirit. Or at least with the need to snatch it up for your own kid to have or live up to in this time of their life.

As I read this wonderful and affirming article about all that feminism has brought for girls and women and how that has not, studies are showing, detracting or subtracting anything from boys, I felt like my worlds of empowering women and raising a boy were coming together.

I am all about working for a world of equity, for lifting up girls in the areas where they have been ignored and neglected. I am a feminist and always have been and always will be, long before the combat boot grad school days and long after my son is out in the world on his own. But I also don't think we have to scramble for space as we dissect and redivide what is doled out to the genders.

We are still incredibly male-centered in many aspects of our culture and collective conversation. We have an opportunity to change that (with Women Studies among many other radical and liberal activisms) as we sit around the sandbox, comparing notes and creating space for our kids to be who our kids are. That, to me, means not assigning what is male or female or inside the little box someone else decided long ago they need to be in because of the way they were born. I'm also not going to teach my boy that by being pro-grrrl power, there is somehow less for him or that he isn't as this or as that because he's a boy or who he inherently is.

My boy happens to be verbal and sensitive and nurturing. He also loves cars and trucks and dinosaurs and t-ball. He often wears my necklaces and he inevitably has a scrape on his knee and bruise on his shin. Where he falls among the girl and boy characteristics, I could care less.

That conversation is for the rest of the preschool. 

Or college. Or other part of the park. Over here, we're listening to Ani DiFranco, talking about stegosaurus scales and making some sweet protest signs with our friends.

Why I keep coming back

You know how in 12-step programs, everyone claps at the end of meetings and says, "Keep coming back, man!" Well, maybe you don't know but you've heard. From a friend. Or a roommate or whatever.

The point is that you may struggle but when in doubt, just keep coming back to meetings, one at a time. I've heard before (from a friend or roommate or whatever) that coming back in those iffy moments is what holds a recovery together.

Before I get any deeper into this metaphor which cannot be a sane or valid metaphor to make, let me get to my point (oh my God, if I was in a 12-step meeting, I've just realized I'd be the rambly grrrl who everyone claps for and says "Keep coming back, sister!" before she is actually done talking...sigh).

The reason I am coming back (to the old blog -- see? bad metaphor) is this here best bloggy thing ever.

Oh. Hell. Naw.

Or rather:  Oh. Hello Kittification. Naw.

Not only does this blog banner alone make me laugh, the whole post had me rolling. Oh, and considering how I might look with some sarcastic Hello Kitty arm-piece when I'm blogging at 92.

How can you not come back to post when you read something like, "...common decency is suspended and the sacrilege event of mixing Hello Kitty with other pop culture icons –which should not happen in the worst of nightmares — is common place" ?

Who would I tell? My preschooler (who thinks anything with the words poop and face in the same sentence are pure hilarity)? My parents (who also as retired folk think many things about poop are far too funny)? I get enough courtesy laughs in my offline life, my friends. I had to come back just to get a real, virtual chuckle along with me. It wasn't even a choice anymore. I had to post to share this with you, oh internets. To share my blogcovery with you.

Consider me standing and clapping my friends. Standing and clapping.

Linkety Dinkety Doo: Oh, dang

Oh, Madge. False alarm. It's all good. You can still come to my finalizing fete.

Oh, Dooce. I knew you were listening in between doggie pics and antique pilfering. I just had a feeling you've been reading my little itty bitty baby blog. And I suspected we had similar tastes in crap TV.

Oh, honey. O, honey. It's just fine with me if you have a little air of superiority about your gold stars.  As long as the gold stars keep on coming (yes, those gold stars), who really cares how they (ahem) fall into your lap?

Oh, hell naw. See? I told you living with retired folk can be crazy. Thank the goddesses of small domesticated creatures my parents didn't read this article when poor little Corky kicked it last summer. Seriously, people. There's animal-loving and then there's that point when you may need to stop thinking about heirloom preservation fur crafts and start considering adding a few more hours to your Home Depot greeter schedule. (Thanks for building the dog hair awareness, Jenn.)

Ohhhhh, you're supposed to update these things?

It has been a long and winding week. I am happy to have a lot of work that makes me happy. And I had a settlement meeting that means my divorce is actually moving forward. Then there is the exhausting daily blessing of bedtime and stories and Candyland and wiping a runny nose and doing half-ballet/half-stumble moves to navigate over plastic cars and tools and bracelets I thought had disappeared completely as I step out of the shower. Don't forget the phone calls that never get returned and the emails I keep reading and marking as unread so I remember to respond to them and then keep not responding to anyway. Add the thousands of Post-It to-do lists and the packed-full and scratched out and doodled on calendar. Oh, and the facial. Remember how I promised myself a facial months ago?

I know, I know. Get over myself. We're all here on this crowded, mildewy-smelling, over-scheduled boat. All I'm saying is, here are a few things that made me stop worrying about all the rocking back and forth and just enjoy the loveliness on the horizon and all around me, if only for a moment (or post) or two.

This made me teary. And it made me so grateful I know so many women who are so gifted and brilliant and amazing and inspiring.

This made me laugh out loud. And wonder what ever happened to my Miss Piggy lunchbox.

This made me grab my credit card.  At a bridal shower where we made our own custom 1154 Lill bags (shut up if you think you had to be a Trixie in 2001 to have one of these...they are still as killer as ever, baby), I was so entranced by the fabrics I almost couldn't (gasp) design my own bag. Alas, it was these three sumptuous don't-even-think-of-putting-your-preschooler-soy-butter-hands -on-this-masterpiece fabrics that won my heart on a sweet little reversible bag that I swear I will love always. Or at least until my next purse party. The pics don't do the swatches justice...just gorg.

This keeps me up at night. I kid you not. Sure, this show is on MTV and is like watching the goofy guys in the back of your Human Sexuality class in college doodle on the pictures in the textbook. But just like back then, I cannot help myself. I dare you to watch and a) not laugh out loud, b) not wish for a large black man sidekick who calls you "son" and 3) wonder if it would be weird for you to wear one of the Big Black over-sized tees and caps to playgroup. Watch. You'll see.

File this under: Why do I care about this crap?

Superbowl, schmuperbowl. Who played? Who even sang at half-time? Do they even do that in a post-JJ/NI* world anymore? Really, who cares? We have some critical issues that need our attention (or at least mine), kittens.

Like the Chupacabra, the Holy Grail, Stone Henge and how in the world itty bitty capers can pack such a culinary punch, my fascination with these things is oft-pondered (what else are you supposed to do while you're painting your nails and IMing during conference calls?), over-analyzed (no really, my therapist thinks it is fine for me to fork over $125 an hour to discuss the Curse of the Celebrity Spears) and over-shared (mostly during painfully long road trips that require several hours, multiple Big Gulps and more turns through an old Us Weekly and the one unscratched kiddie song CD than any adult needs ever).

Join me, won't you in enabling the concentration on complete and useless crap:

I admit, I didn't just look at Jenna Bush's bridal gown options, I studied them. Sad sad sad. Totally #9, right?

I confess, I'm curious how many crazy folk sent Brit Us Weekly subscription extensions while she's a-wasting time in the get-happy house for the next two weeks.

Honestly, if I can pull myself out of the creepy hypnotic chasm that is Tori Spelling's cleavage, I am slightly mesmerized by her ever-changing belly.

Come clean, you want to know how this wondrous disaster deflated too.

*Janet Jackson/Nip Incident, if you're nasty.

UPDATE: WhyMommy's feeling free!

You know the universe is right when things are good on Toddler Planet. WhyMommy, who underwent a double mastectomy as one of the final stops on her journey through inflammatory breast cancer, soared through the surgery and is healing well.

As women and mothers, and for good, for bad, for harassing, for nurturing, for passionate, for problematic, for boosted, for deflated, for all of the things our breasts are or have been, sitting there at the front and center of us, many of us cannot imagine not having them there at all. WhyMommy and several other women I admire have written and spoken so honestly about   releasing their breasts to surgery once there is cancer or the possibility of cancer.

It reminds me of a college roommate who used to designate time in the evening to take off her bra under her t-shirt and just let go. This might seem like no biggie to those grrrls with itty-bitties, but to those of us who are busty (as my mom says), it is. My roommate referred to this time as "free-boobin' it." And now that I've read the back and forth WhyMommy had at being boobless and the relief and seeming peace at seeing the scars begin to heal already, "free boobing" sounds like just the right term for the situation.

I appreciate that so much, and I am celebrating all that is ahead for WhyMommy and other survivors.  Here's to you, boobs or not, feeling free.