Two Kinds of People

Pet People, and Proud of It

2009-11-10T21:38:00.009-06:00

"Animals are such agreeable friends –

they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms."

— George Eliot (novelist, 1818-1890)

There are two kinds of people in the world: pet people and not-so-much pet people.

True confession (the irony* will become apparent shortly): throughout my childhood and into early adulthood, my idea of owning a pet was to visit a zoo twice a year. I liked animals just fine. You know, over there. Or in nature. Or as pets in someone else's house.

Growing up, we had the requisite number of family pets. Our first was a parakeet named Trini (for Trini Lopez, who my parents saw in a show while visiting Las Vegas). We got our Trini as a consolation prize, because back then it was considered inappropriate to take children to Las Vegas (or, for that matter, even bring them back a souvenir from Las Vegas). Then there was a black guinea pig named Silky and, finally, an almost-cocker-spaniel named Mitzi. My brother loved that dog, but I was ambivalent at best and highly irritated during my angsty teenage years, when I only wore black and she only shed blond.

Perhaps the trouble started when I was the lucky kid in third grade who got to take the guppies home from school. (Warning: the following anecdote contains graphic references that may bother sensitive readers.) I kept the fishbowl on a little stand by my bedroom window and, sometime in late fall or early winter, the water in the bowl got too cold, formed a thin layer of ice and, tragically, killed the guppies. I sobbed to my mother, who told me to take them into the bathroom and that we would perform the traditional fish funeral after the ice thawed.

Imagine my joy when, about 20 minutes later, I went into the bathroom to see the little fishies swimming happily around their bowl. I ran down to tell my mom about the miracle, but by the time we made it back up to the bathroom, the fish (in the bowl that had been sitting on the radiator) had again, and permanently this time, met their match. I had first frozen and then boiled them to death, all in the same day — tragic for the fish and traumatic for me.

I lived a simple, pet-free life for many years after leaving home, so will someone please explain to me how I ended up as the owner of a dog (Hazel), a cat (Pirate), two hermit crabs (Maize and Blue) and … wait for it … a pet store? "*Ironic, isn't it?" says my oldest son. It's true; my husband and I are owners of The Animal Store in Lincolnwood, IL. I'm still not quite sure how it happened, and friends who know me well mock incessantly.

Still, pets are our family business, so I needed to step up. My role is limited to producing the store's blog, designing forms and signs, and other such writerly endeavors, while my husband, Kenn, does the actual hard work of owning a pet store (thank you, DH). People are often dismissive about owning a small business, but let me tell you, there is nothing small about it. The Animal Store has tens of thousands of SKUs (stock keeping units) and, think about it, a good portion of our inventory is alive. That means we don't close up shop for a weekend or a vacation. Those animals need to be fed and cared for every day.

Like a plumber with leaky pipes, I managed to keep my kids petless for a good long time. "Mama, can we have a bunny?" "Sure, honey, and you can play with it every time we visit Daddy at the store." Eventually, however, the kids wised up and started asking their Dad.

In the 17 years that we've owned The Animal Store, I've learned a lot about pets and their people. Pet owners are fervently devoted to their animals. Some pet people are partial to a particular species or breed – there are ferret fans, bearded dragon devotees, and African Grey aficionados. Others are equal opportunity animal lovers, often owning a few (or many) different kinds of pets at one time.

Kenn frequently takes some of his animals to visit nursing care facilities or group homes. Studies have shown that caring for pets and even just visiting with them can reduce stress, lower blood pressure and prolong life. They can even help pay your mortgage (well, at least in our case they do, so we are especially fond of pet-loving people).

I've even learned that aquariums can be an essential and beautiful part of your home decor, and are often an important element in the art of Feng Shui (placing an aquarium in the proper corner of your home can purportedly boost your prosperity). I know for a fact that putting a baby in front of an aquarium produces a bounty of peace — all four of my babies were mesmerized by our salt-water fish tank.

You will be happy to know that, thanks mostly to my husband and his knowledgeable staff, I have learned how to care properly for our pets at home (no more frozen/boiled guppies). I have come to appreciate the joys that pets can bring. And there is still nothing quite like a boy and his dog (bonus points if you can tell which is which in the picture at the top of this post).

Now for a little SSP (shameless self promotion). As a special thank you to all our customers, The Animal Store is hosting a blow-out sale this weekend — lots of fun for the entire family, including great raffles, tons of giveaways and free glitter tattoos (for people, not pets). Learn more here. If you're a pet person, you won't want to miss it; if you're a not-so-much pet person, come in and say hi to Kenn anyway, and get a free glitter tattoo. Not local? We can ship to you.

Tell us about your favorite pet or pet story by clicking here. And, in case you were wondering, my mom (a children's librarian) helped named The Animal Store after a wonderful poem by Rachel Fields:

The Animal Store

If I had a $100 to spend,

Or maybe a little more

I'd hurry as fast as my legs would go

Straight to the Animal Store.

I wouldn't say "How much for this or that?"

"What kind of dog is he?"

I'd buy as many as rolled an eye,

Or wagged a tail at me!

I'd take the hound with the drooping ears

That sits by himself alone;

Cockers and Cairns and wobbly pups

To be be my very own.

I might buy a parrot all red and green,

And the monkey I saw before,

If I had a hundred dollars to spend

Or maybe a little more.

More Than Meets the Eye

2009-11-03T15:59:00.010-06:00

"I was walking down the street wearing glasses

when the prescription ran out."

— Steven Wright

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who wear corrective lenses and those who don't.

If you don't need glasses, count your blessings … for now. Presbyopia catches up to everyone.

In our family of eight, five of us wear corrective lenses, which puts us right about in line with the national average (78% of American adults wear some kind of vision correction, but not all our family members are adults yet). This takes quite a financial toll, since we don't have any kind of vision insurance and the average cost for a pair of prescription lenses runs between $50 and $350 (depending on the prescription).

On our first tropical vacation together, my husband and I were astounded to discover that we needed an entire suitcase just for our eye wear: two sets of contact lenses (plus all the requisite paraphernalia), two pairs of prescription glasses, two pairs of sunglasses, two pairs of prescription sunglasses and, because we were going scuba diving, two diving masks fitted with corrective lenses. Thankfully, this was in the days before airlines charged by the bag (and when we could still afford to take tropical vacations).

I didn't get glasses until I turned 21 and I was sure I was going blind, since my prescription changed dramatically every three or four months for several years. It turns out my eyes were just going through delayed adolescence. Generally speaking, people either get glasses before or during puberty, or not until aging starts to wear away the elasticity of the eye, resulting in the aforementioned presbyopia and the need for reading glasses — usually around age 40.

I struggled with contacts for years, due in part to an astigmatism (an abnormally-shaped cornea) as well as exophthalmos (slightly bulging eyes often associated with Graves Disease, which sounds much worse than it is). Now, lucky me, in addition to the vision correction I need for my inherited myopia (nearsightedness — thanks mom), I also need reading glasses.

I used to think those half-glasses were kind of cool, and would pull my regular glasses down to the end of my nose to see how I'd look. Not bad, even now. The problem is that it's one more thing to schelp and track. If I wear my contacts, which gives me the best peripheral vision, then I need to carry the dumb reading glasses with me, and that's new, so I often forget them.

When I was a kid, my mom was so nearsighted that she couldn't even answer the phone without her glasses. "I can't hear you," she'd say, "let me put my glasses on." So, it was bit disconcerting a few years ago when she had lenses implanted after cataract surgery and started walking around without glasses for the first time in my life. I kept offering to find her glasses for her. But, alas, it didn't last. Her distance vision is fine, but she can't stand not being able to read, so she got bifocals that are clear on the top and reading strength on the bottom. I guess old habits are hard to break.

My oldest boy claims he will never wear contact lenses. The idea of sticking something in his eye all the time totally freaks him out. As preemie babies, my twins suffered retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a condition where the blood vessels of the eye develop abnormally and can, potentially, lead to blindness. Despite this ominous beginning, both cases of ROP resolved spontaneously. My son needs glasses as a result of his genetics (both his dad and I contributed to these bum genes), but my daughter won't need glasses until, well, she's my age now.

The first eyeglasses didn't make an appearance until the late 1200s in Italy. Even though corrective lenses are a mild pain and seriously expensive, I'm grateful to live in a day and age where people with less than 20/20 vision can live full, productive lives (as opposed to being eaten by predators that we can't see).

I admire people who embrace their imperfect vision as a chance to make a fashion statement. I have several friends who collect prescription glasses as wardrobe accessories, matching the frame to the outfit or the mood. Of course, that's another way vision problems betray you — in photos, where your frames will forever date you in time. Why is it that no matter how cool your frames are when you buy them, five or ten years later they look completely ridiculous in the family photo album?

Despite being temporarily unsettled by my recent need for reading glasses, I came to terms with my less than perfect vision years ago. So, why this treatise, you ask? I'll tell you. Today was chilly, so I was taking a hot bath, as I am wont to do on cold days. I was, of course, reading in tub, which is what you do when you take a hot bath on a cold day, when all of a sudden one of my contact lenses popped out from behind my reading glasses and plinked into the water. This is not a good thing. It's not easy to locate a contact lens in a tub full of water with only one good eye. Was it floating? Did it sink to the bottom? Was it stuck on me or the side of the tub or the soap?

I eventually found the damned thing and so I have some advice: if you are going to take a hot bath on a cold day and read your book with your contacts in and your reading glasses on, be sure to blink — often — so your eyes don't get too dry and your lens won't pop out.

Have you experienced an embarrassing lens loss, or have some other vision-related horror story to share? Just click here. Misery loves company.

By the way, don't take vision correction for granted. Donate your glasses with old prescriptions or dated frames, and share the gift of sight.

Finally, I'm pretty certain my latest Chicago Moms Blog post will stir up a little controversy with avid bike riders. Let me know what you think.

Photo credit: Rubber Duck in Glasses by SunShineLia-Stock via deviantart.com

Be you busy?

2009-10-14T19:35:00.010-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: busy people and crazy busy people.

I don't know about you, but I've been crazy busy lately, mostly for the good:

The Animal Store sale coming up on November 14 & 15
challenging and exciting client work
checking out colleges with my girl
preparing for my son's bar mitzvah
writing and submitting (the best work)
cleaning and organizing (the worst work)

Busy, busy, busy.

According to Henry David Thoreau, "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." Let's hope old Hank D. is right.

As I was trying to title this post, all I could think of were a couple of trite similes. Turns out that moldy oldy "busy as a bee" comes to us all the way from the late 14th century straight from Geoffrey Chaucer's pen in the Canterbury Tales:

"Ey! Goddes mercy!" sad our Hoste tho,

Now such a wyf I pray God keep me fro.

Lo, suche slieghtes and subtilitees

In wommen be; for ay as busy as bees

Be thay us seely men for to desceyve,

And from soth ever a lie thay weyve.

And by this Marchaundes tale it proveth wel."

Say what? OK, for those of you who need to brush up on your Middle English, here's a translation:

"Eh! By God's mercy! cried our host.

Said he:

Now such a wife I pray God keep from me!

Behold what tricks, and lo, what subtleties

In women are. For always busy as bees

Are they, us simple men thus to deceive,

And from the truth they turn aside and leave;

By this same merchant's tale it's prove, I feel …"

That Chaucer — always blaming the woman.

How about busy as a beaver, then? The origins of this idiom are a bit murkier, but dictionary.com dates it back to the late 1700s.

No offense to Chaucer, but busy bee has been done and done, and so for that matter, has busy beaver (not to be confused with plucky, Bucky Badger).

Apparently, both Newfoundlanders and the Irish say "busy as a nailer" — no one knows why. (OK, someone knows why, but the explanation I found — that "those to whom the proverb applied did not use a treadle in heading the nails" — was, well, yawn.)

In my search, however, I did unearth a couple of smile-inducing similes that I thought I'd share with you:

busy as a one-armed paper hanger
busy as popcorn on a skillet
busy as a cat burying shit
busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest
busy as a stumped-tailed cow in fly time
busy as a funeral home fan in July

Several great lyricists have also created stunning "busy" images, like Stan Getz in in It Might as Well Be Spring where he was as "busy as a spider spinning daydreams" ? Or how about when Henry Miller (not the Henry Miller) is called "just as busy as a fizzy sasparilla" in The Deadwood Stage.

And then there's, my current favorite — busy as a banjo player's digits.

Of course, being busy with work is completely different than busywork, but that's a whole other post.

How busy are you? Not too busy to leave a comment, I hope. Here, I'll make it easy for you. Just fill in the blank: "I'm as busy as _______" and leave it in a comment by clicking here. And if you're not too busy, check out my latest Chicago Moms Blog post on the Premature Peace Prize.

Photo credit: The CC Glow by andyket via a Creative Commons License.

Listen to the Rabbi

2009-09-28T20:46:00.013-05:00

Indira Gandhi said: "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to be in the first group; there was less competition there."

Great quote, right? In fact, two great quotes: me quoting Indira, and Indira quoting her grandfather — which proves once again that there is nothing new under the sun — which, by the way, comes from the Tanakh (also known as the Written Torah or, by Christians, as The Old Testament). The full quote is from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 1:9 — "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."

I hear the rumblings — "Why is she getting all religious on us?" I'll tell you. Today, at Yom Kippur services, our retiring rabbi, Peter Knobel, began his D'var Torah with: "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who wake up and say 'Good morning, God' and those who wake up and say 'Good God.'" It got a giggle from the congregation, but my family practically fell on the floor laughing. "Mom, you've got to put that in your blog," several children said. "Shhh," I said, "Listen to the rabbi," all the while trying to figure out a way to ~~steal~~ incorporate it in a post.

It is estimated that Kohelet, or Ecclesiastes, was written approximately 250 BCE, which means that even 2,000 years ago it was tough to come up with an original idea. This presents a huge hurdle for us as writers, who at best, can merely try to make everything old sound new again*. If we do it well, it's called originality; if we do it poorly, it's called plagiarism.

We all know that the first commandment of writing is "Thou Shalt Not Plagiarize". But writers are notorious copycats. Just peruse the lists of published works and count how many books about wizards have been released since the first Harry Potter debuted in 1997. Of course, accusations abound that Rowling stole her ideas from such diverse sources as Tolkein, Star Wars, an '80s B movie and a variety of unknowns. There are other writers, however, who haven't fared as well when their works have been held up to the derivative light (remember Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan?)

So does it matter from whence our ideas spring? When we reference biblical or well-known literary sources in our writing, this form of stealing is generously referred to as allusion, a highly prized aspect of literary fiction.

When, then, do allusions, quotes or paraphrases veer from the acceptable path of literary touchstones into the red zone of plagiarism. I like this guide from Purdue University, entitled: "Is It Plagiarism Yet?" This student resource advises that "the key to avoiding plagiarism is to give credit where it is due" and then cites a thorough list of sources that must be credited or documented. (In yet another aside, I discovered that the phrase "give credit to whom credit is due" was probably coined by Samuel Adams in 1777; it's worth noting that the Purdue piece does not give him credit.)

Although the Purdue piece gives some excellent advice for writing nonfiction, it doesn't touch on all the idiosyncrasies of creative writing. Pop culture references often offer a great shortcut for creating an image or setting a tone, but writers run the risk of copyright infringement, particularly when using song lyrics.

What's a writer to do? We are told in workshops to read, read and read some more; to analyze — even emulate — our favorite authors. As the humorist Josh Billings once said: "About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment."

In a sense, all artists must come to grips with the idea that creation is at heart re-creation. We take and we twist and we fold; we smelt and we hammer and we forge; we spindle and mutilate and commit acts of re-visioning until we have produced something that — if not entirely new — is entirely our own.

It's true that I've let many other writers do the work of this post, while I am taking the credit. I can justify that with just one more quotation:

"If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism;

if you steal from many, it's research."

— Wilson Mizner (1876 -1933)

I love a good quote. In some ways, all writers strive for immortality through their words, so maybe dropping an attributed quote here and there isn't such a bad thing. (Would you have thought about Wilson Mizner before you read this post?) Share your favorite quote by clicking here.

*To give credit where credit is due, the following clip is of the song "Everything Old is New Again" from the film 1979 film All That Jazz; music and lyrics by Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager.

Go Blue!

2009-09-16T01:37:00.018-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: Michigan Fans and everybody else.

We are an obnoxious bunch, no doubt about it. Even after our humbling season last year (ugh, 3-9) we have not learned humility. Even though we're not crazy about our new coach, Rich Rod is looking a quite a bit shinier since our glorious win over those overweening Irishmen (affectionately known in our family as "they who must not be named").

I'm not quite sure why I love Michigan football the way I do. Sure, I was raised on maize and blue, watching my father and our Buckeye next-door neighbor exchange insults and carry out ridiculous bets. But my brother and my dad are sports fanatics. They would watch competitive tiddly winks if ESPN broadcast it. None of that carried over into my adult life — only football, specifically college football, more specifically Big 10 college football — but those other teams really only count insofar as how the outcomes of their games affect Michigan's ranking.

I could say my passion stems from my college days in Ann Arbor, during the height of the Bo years (the winningest coach in Michigan history), when I cheered on Rick Leach, Anthony Carter, Butch Woolfolk and my favorite kicker, Ali Haji-Sheikh. But, truth be told, as much as I loved going to the games, I often sold my tickets for much-needed cash. I could always count on announcer Bob Ufer to make me feel like I was at the game, though thankfully, I did not miss Anthony Carter's amazing catch against Indiana in '79 — I was there for that one.

Part of the allure, of course, is Michigan Stadium. There is no place quite like the Big House to watch a football game. More than 100,000 people file peacefully in and out every home-game weekend, where there's not a bad seat in the house, and you sweat together in September and freeze together in November. I remember the first time my dad and I took my daughter to see a game when she was about 8 year's old. We tried to explain beforehand that more people would be in the stadium that day than the entire population of our hometown of Evanston, IL. When she saw the crowd, her jaw dropped; when she watched the wave circle the stands, she clapped in delight; and when the 150-member Michigan marching band took the field, she danced and shimmied right along with them. Michigan football games are just plain fun.

Though I believe children should be encouraged to think for themselves, since the minute they were born, I've worked hard to indoctrinate my kids into the cult of Michigan. Their father has had nothing to do with it (what can I say, he went to Northern Illinois). We have pictures of every one of my babies in onsies, sweatshirts, baseball caps and Ts all emblazoned with big block Ms. If it's possible to have two favorite colors, ours are maize and blue. I actually wrote a letter of protest to the Crayola company when they tried to eliminate maize as one of the colors in the big 64 box of crayons.

The Victors was the first song I learned to play on the piano, and the first song I taught my kids to sing. On my daughter's third day at kindergarten, she came bursting through the door after school saying: "Mama, Mama, guess what I learned to spell today: G-O B-L-U-E!" That's my girl.

So what is it about this team that makes us into such True Blue fans? How can we have a 3 and 8 record (as we did last year, in our worst season ever) and still show up for the Ohio State game hoping to win and knowing it will be a good year if we can only beat the Buckeye's during this last, best and always most important game? Why do we TiVo the games and cast the evil eye if someone threatens to be a spoiler before we can get home to watch the game ourselves.

It's a magnificent obsession, a heady curse that brings us Wolverines together on a dozen Saturdays each fall to experience once again the joy of victory and agony of defeat as only Michigan football can bring it. This year, we are trying to convince ourselves that this is still a transitional season, that it will take time for everyone to get used to the new coach and to build a new program. My brother claims he'll be happy with eight wins, a victory over one of our big rivals (Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State) and no more scandals. He's lying. Even though we beat the Irish, like the rest of us, he won't be happy unless we beat Ohio State to become the undefeated champions of the Big Ten.

This year, we start the season 2-0. We feel good. We've got force in our QB with Tate Forcier. We've got another great kicker with a kick-ass name — Zoltan Mesko! We've even got our gloat back. Go Blue!

Where are your loyalties? Do you have a favorite team you cheer for, win or lose? Or do you think spectator sports are a waste of time? Do you have some other inexplicable passion or loyalty? Click here to show us your colors (Buckeyes need not apply). And if you want to see a real True Blue fan in action, do not miss Bob Ufer in the clip below, who had "never been so happy in all his cotton-pickin' 59 years," even after broadcasting 327 ball games. Now that's a fan!

Variations on a Theme Song

2009-09-01T14:20:00.018-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have a theme song and those who don't.

The year my friend Linda and I lived together in college, on most weeknights she would walk through my bedroom door at about 11:25 singing "Da da da daa da, Da da dada da da." In case you don't immediately recognize that transliteration, it's Johnny Carson's theme song from The Tonight Show, which started after the 11 o'clock news. Since then, I've always wanted my own theme song (and backup singers, but that's another discussion).

I've been thinking a lot about theme songs lately, since I find myself unable to remember new information due to the huge portion of my brain that has dedicated itself to preserving every commercial jingle and theme song from my childhood and early adult years. Let's see if you suffer from the same affliction by playing a quick round of Match the Theme Song with the TV Show:

1. Suicide is Painless
2. Love is All Around
3. Making Our Dreams Come True
4. I'll Be There for You
5. Searchin' My Soul
6. Movin' on Up
7. Where Everybody Knows Your Name
8. Those Were the Days
9. The Final Frontier
10. Best Friend

A. Ally McBeal
B. Friends
C. Mad About You
D. The Courtship of Eddie's Father
E. Cheers
F. M*A*S*H
G. The Jeffersons
H. Laverne and Shirley
I. All in the Family
J. Mary Tyler Moore

Bonus question: hum the theme songs to both Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, and identify which is which.

Answers: 1-F, 2-J, 3-H, 4-B, 5-A, 6-G, 7-E, 8-I, 9-C, 10-D.

Give yourself two points for each match; add 5 more points for each one you can sing; bonus question: 15 points total. Score: less than 5 — you have led a sad, sheltered life (or are under 20 years old); 5-30 — you are reasonably well versed; 30-50 — you are a theme song aficionado; more than 50 — you have led a sad, sheltered life and need to get out more.

As you can see, I literally have theme songs on the brain, so I've decided I should get one for myself. Imagine my excitement when I found the "What's Your Theme Song Quiz" on blogthings.com. All I had to do was answer a few questions and, voilà, it would generate my ideal theme song. Here are my results:

Your Theme Song is Beautiful Day by U2

"Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away"

You see the beauty in life, especially in ordinary everyday moments.
And if you're feeling down, even that seems a little beautiful too.

Um, no. Thanks anyway. Nothing personal, Bono, but I'm more of a Van Morrison kind of girl. In fact, I've always secretly considered "Caravan" my de facto theme song. Upon further reflection, however, I realize that a theme song is different than a favorite song and more than just a jingle. By definition, it is a melody used to identify a performer, a play or movie. By implication, it is a powerful sensory indicator connecting a particular song to something tangible and specific. Finding the right one for me is going to take some serious effort.

I started by thinking of "name" songs (no, not The Name Game song — songs with my name in them). I don't answer to diminutives, so that automatically eliminates many promising possibilities, including Susie-Q, Runaround Sue, Boy Name Sue (um?), Wake Up, Little Suzie, and Satisfy Suzie. While some of these are great songs, they just won't do.

When we move onto "Susan" songs, we're much more limited:

The Buckingham's Susan: "Susan, looks like I'm loosin', I'm loosin' my mind, wastin' my time … Susan, do you have to be confusin' …" Sure, it's a catchy tune, but the rhymes are weak and juvenile; plus, I've never been crazy about that weird instrumental/traffic noise interlude.

Whitney Houston's My Name is Not Susan — but, of course, it is, so that won't work.

Al Jarreau's Susan's Song — Beautiful, angsty, but really all about Al, not Susan: "Susan, do you mind, sometimes I'm restless, rolling on the floor in pain and woe. After all the precious gifts you will gladly give to me, girl, I may blindly lock and bolt the door."

So, here am I, lamenting my lack of a theme song, when all of a sudden I get a Google Alert about "Two Kinds of People" and discover that my blog has it's very own theme song courtesy of Little Anthony and the Imperials. Little A et al never hit the charts with Two People in the World, and I'm not sure it's what I would have chosen, but how can you turn down a perfectly-good, ready-made theme song? I particularly like the a cappella version:

I guess I'll use Two People in the World as a leitmotif while the search for my personal theme song continues. Click here to tell us your theme song and why it works for you.

On a final note (with a bit of shameless self-promotion), I've been writing around on the Web recently, with a couple of guest posts on Wee Windy City, and two new posts on the Chicago Moms Blog, including one on our lackluster summer and one on the group's Birthday Topic Day. Stop by if you have a chance. I've revamped this blog's sidebar to include 2KoP on the Web for easy linking.

Grazie! תוֹדָה! Dziękuję! Merci!

2009-08-20T00:45:00.009-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who view their lives through the lens of gratitude and those who view it through a lens of snark.

Thanks to my mom, I learned early on to "please" and "thank you" with the best of them. I have taught these magic words to my children, too, and I believe they are some of the most charming incantations in the human spellbook. But, though I bandy the words about freely, I find myself dwelling deeply in the land of snark.

I'm not apologizing here (although I do that very well, too, and far too often). A little snark never hurt anyone. Snark is funny. It helps get me through my day. It takes a quick wit and a sharp tongue to pull off snark with aplomb, and I appreciate a talented practitioner. Many of my favorite writers — Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, professional snarkers all — have proven over and over again that the pen truly is mightier than the sword, and I wish I could thank them all personally.

So let me take just a moment to be a little snarky about gratitude. Ever since Oprah jumped on the gratitude bandwagon, it has become big business. If you search her Website, more than 200 results show up for gratitude. I'm not complaining. I'm grateful for Oprah. Her show has made me laugh and cry and think, no small feat for the small screen. But all this gratitude talk also makes me cringe just a little.

Some years ago, I was given a copy of the bestselling book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It was a lovely gesture, the perfect gift for an aspiring writer, for which I was very grateful. I've not read it. It stares at me reproachfully from the top shelf of my bedroom bookcase, it's sticky sweet pink cover making me feel like a middle-aged goth wannabe. Just thinking about it gives me a sudden urge to get a tattoo. I'm grateful for my profound aversion to pain, or I would be a painted lady by now.

The trouble with these prescriptions for injecting gratitude into our lives is that they tend to be full of cloying, treacly little algorithms for better living: Eat Pray Love; discover The Secret; Focus on the Good Stuff. It's hard to convey real gratitude without sounding mawkish (but when I discover the secret of how to do it and write my book about it, I will be eternally grateful to Oprah if she will interview me about it on her show).

"I feel a very unusual sensation —

if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude."

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

But this morning (or yesterday morning or whenever it was that I last awoke from sleeping, as I see it is now after 3:00 a.m.) I heard a litany of "I hates" reverberating in my brain and the oddest thought popped into my mind: What if I changed every "I hate" statement I hear in my head to an "I love" statement. I know, I gagged, too, but that hazy, waking, early morning brain is hard to control and, unbidden, it started to make the conversions. Don't panic, there was no epiphany. But it did make me smile to myself in a genuine, unsnarky way — especially when I heard "I love school-related paperwork" whispered in my inner ear — and it got me thinking, which always a dangerous thing.

I am grateful — you know, sometimes. (Watch out, here comes the cotton candy.) When I look at my children, I am (usually) awash in a gratitude so profound that it defies verbal expression, so I smother them in kisses and make them promise never to grow up. I'm grateful to live in this country (where, despite all its faults, it is still the best place to be) and in this century (when, despite all its faults, it is still the best place to be). I'm grateful for our myriad comforts and gifts (even though I would be plenty grateful to wake up debt free with a brand new kitchen).

I know I'm not grateful often enough. I don't need to read all those best sellers to understand that true gratitude, like exercise, takes practice and commitment before you can reap the benefits. I feel guilty enough without them harping at me.

My friend and fellow Chicago Moms Blogger, Kim Moldofsky, inspired this blog post (although, once she reads it, she may feel somewhat less than grateful). Kim has taken the 21-Day TinyPrints Gratitude Challenge and is writing about her feelings of gratitude for three straight weeks. I admire her commitment and effort at making gratitude a habit — as well as the speed, grace and frequency with which she posts.

I do have one funny little gratitude ritual. I keep a tzedakah box for collecting coins to give to charity in the cupboard above my washing machine. Whenever I find a penny or a dime or a quarter in the laundry, instead of pocketing it, I put it in the box and offer this little blessing: I'm grateful for the health and well being of my family. I try to say it without a trace of snark.

I'm always grateful for your comments — be they snarky or full of appreciation — just click here to share.

I'd like to express my gratitude for the fabulous photo that graces this post — Cafe Gratitude, San Francisco Mission District. My thanks to Shayan Sanyal who shared it through a Creative Commons license.

One Ephelis, Many Ephelides

2009-08-14T22:54:00.013-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have freckles and those who don't.

I started thinking about this today as I smoothed sunscreen across that cute little nose you see there. I swear, if the boy could have stood still for more than 15 seconds, I would have been able to see them pop out of his skin and settle on his cheek bones. But it was hot, and the pool's siren song was just too strong, so off he went before I could get an accurate count.

Simple freckles, officially known as ephelides (but only to dermatologists), are small individual spots on the skin produced by cells that happen to contain more melanin – or pigment – than other skin cells. They are found most often in fair-skinned, light-eyed individuals, and are more common before puberty.

My son seems pretty comfortable with his freckles. Like buds on the trees, they are one of the first signs of summer.

Most of the kids I knew growing up hated their freckles. The actress Julianne Moore joined the growing list of celebrity children's book authors and revealed her own discomfort with her freckly skin in the Freckleface Strawberry books: "Once upon a time there was a little girl who was just like everybody else … except for one thing. She had red hair. And something worse … freckles."

I'm not sure I like the idea of freckles being described as "worse" than anything, but I certainly knew kids who felt that way. One friend regularly rubbed lemon halves over her face in an effort to fade her freckles. Another, a red-head who was freckled from head to toe, took the opposite tack, obsessively sunning herself on the theory that if she produced enough freckles they would eventually merge together and finally produce the tan she so desperately wanted. It didn't work; she just burned between her freckles.

Not everyone feels that freckles are a cosmetic liability. In Judy Blume's classic children's tale, Freckle Juice, Andrew tries to make a potion to create freckles so his mom won't know when his neck is dirty. Today, you can learn to "Be beautiful. Be sexy. Be freckled." at Frecklestyle.com (I kid you not).

The world of skin has completely changed since my childhood. Back then, we courted the sun. Instead of hiding, we slathered on baby oil, hoping to attract those tanning rays. Coppertone, Sea & Ski and Hawaiian Tropic were suntan lotions, not sunscreen or sunblock. Tans were in. I always found it ironic that while white America was struggling with the idea of civil rights for African Americans, most of us paid cold, hard cash to get a deep, dark tan.

Here's a bit of tanning trivia for you: while it's an urban legend that Jodie Foster posed for the little girl on the Coppertone bottle, she did make a commercial for the company in 1965 when she was just three years old (see it here on her Facebook fan page.)

In those unenlightened times, groups of teenage girls at pools and beaches everywhere would set kitchen timers so they knew when to turn and rotate their bodies to promote an even tan. My mom even had a friend who would sit in the yard with a bifold, foil-covered screen propped under her chin to intensify and focus those ultraviolet rays directly onto her face.

Somehow we used to believe that you wouldn't start to tan until you had your first sunburn of the season, complete with the stinging red burn, followed by the prickling mini-blisters and, finally, the peculiarly delicious sensation of peeling tissue paper thin layers of sloughing skin from your body. I've only had a few sunburns in my life, but I will never forget the hours I spent on the peeling process.

Now, of course, we know better. Summer, like everything else, is one big risk factor. We can't even take a walk without worrying about skin cancer. I buy vats of the thick, generic sunscreen for our bodies, as well as the expensive oil-free stuff to coddle the vulnerable skin on my adolescents' faces. It costs a small fortune to keep us protected.

My own freckles aren't nearly as cute as those the sun sprinkles across my son's face each summer. Mostly on my arms and shoulders, my freckles are more irregular in size and color, evidence of the risky, irresponsible behavior of my youth. I'm glad I know how to educate myself and protect my family, but I miss the days when we didn't obsess about every little thing. We may have reduced our risk of melanoma, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's at the expense of increased stress-related illness. Like Roseanne Rosannadanna said: "It's always something."

Who's your favorite freckle face. Pippi Longstocking? Ron Weasley? Howdy Doody? Click here to tell me.

Wee Windy City Guest Post

2009-07-29T19:42:00.020-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have done guest posts on other blogs and those who have not. Check out my first guest post on Wee Windy City, part of Chicago Now.

The Wee Windy City blog was started by a fellow author from the Chicago Moms Blog, Caitlin Giles. In addition to being a brave mother of three raising her children in the city, Caitlin is a wonderful writer (check out her blog, A Hen and ~~Two~~ Three Chicks). In fact, hers was the first "mommy blog" ever recommended to me.

In addition to her blog writing, Caitlin is a frequent contributor to Chicago Parent Magazine and other publications, such as Mindful Metropolis. Her goal at Wee Windy City is to help other families find "the best family friendly activities and destinations in and around Chicago."

As I prepared my guest post, I marveled at how the Internet has changed parenting. Even when my twins were young (not that long ago), parenting small children could be a very isolating experience. One of the best things that ever happened to me as a parent was when my neighbor dragged me to a Mothers of Multiples (MOMs) meeting— a support group for mothers raising twins, triplets or higher order multiples. My preemie babies were still in the hospital, being cared for by many dedicated professionals, but not by their mother. The women in my MOMs group made me feel like a real mom for the first time.

If I were starting that journey today, I could connect with others moms just like me on the Web in a thousand different ways. Just on Facebook alone, there are 117 groups for parents of preemies, dozens and dozens for parents of twins, and 79 groups relating to high risk pregnancies. That doesn't begin to touch the number of articles, Websites and blogs on these and similar issues. I could even start a blog or Twitter about the experience, keeping friends and family up to date without having to rely on the phone tree we used 17 years ago.

As a consumer, I'm fascinated (my husband says addicted) to the ways the Web is unfolding before me. As a writer, I know I must become evermore Internet savvy to remain viable, but I'm torn. On the one hand, people argue that posting and distributing your work for free undermines the value, the skill, the experience and the craft that a professional writer brings to his or her writing. The online version of the American Heritage Dictionary defines "professional" as:

"engaging in a given activity as a
source of livelihood or as a career:
a professional writer."

So, as a writer, if you are giving away your work for free, are you in fact a professional?

On the other hand, many others argue that to become a published author, you must build your writer's platform, and that some of the key components of this platform are: starting a blog, creating a Website, blogging or writing for established Websites, and actively participating in online communities and forums. Almost all of this means writing for free.

What's a writer to do? Or a photographer? Or a musician? In fact, what is any artist whose work can be distributed over the Internet (and potentially plagiarized or pirated) to do?

Here's what I know: I don't know. And I know something else: nobody else knows either. Conventional writing — be it for newspapers, magazines, books, or any other traditional format — is in complete flux (which is to say, leaking money faster than a rotten dinghy leaks water).

And in just the short time (18 months or so) that I've been writing seriously on the Web, things have changed and grown, expanded and contracted, and changed and grown again right before my eyes.

Writing on the Internet reminds me of a condition suffered by my twins as a result of their premature birth. Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP, sometimes called retrolental fibroplasia), is a potentially blinding eye disorder found most often in preemies weighing less than 3 pounds. In these very small babies, the blood vessels of the eye can stop developing normally, so the retina sends out growth signals, sometimes causing the development of new, abnormal vessels, which can lead to bleeding, scarring and, potentially, retinal detachment resulting in severe vision impairment or even blindness.

There are treatments for ROP, such as laser surgery or cryotherapy, but the curious thing about ROP is that it can resolve on its own, often with as good or better results than with intervention. Our twins were lucky. Although their ROP progressed to grade 3+, both cases resolved without treatment.

To me, writing on the Internet is growing in that same frenzied, haphazard, potentially risky way as do blood vessels in ROP, and I believe there will be victims who don't have successful outcomes. But the curious thing about the Web is that I'm not sure we will get any better results if we intervene than if we just wait and let technology take its course.

For now, you can continue to read me, for free, here at Two Kinds of People and on the Chicago Moms Blog, as well as on a few (strategically chosen) guest posts. If you like what you read and want to pay me cash money for all this talented word smithing, email me here. For the rest of you, you can pay me back by leaving a comment. A little Digg or a Stumble wouldn't hurt, either.

Facing Up to Facebook

2009-07-19T00:16:00.011-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who use online social networking tools and those who don't. Yet.

Social networking is exactly what it sounds like: communicating among a group of people with common interests — and it is not new. Plato's Academy, way back BCE, was a social network. The writers, editors, actors and agents who frequented the Algonquin Roundtable after WWI practically defined social networking. Heck, talking over the back fence with your neighbor an act of social networking.

So, what's all the fuss? Do we really need Twitter? Has LinkedIn changed the way we link up? Are people really being served by listserves?

Just as it has altered everything else it has touched, the Internet has changed the very nature of social networking — allowing people from all over the world to make instant connections. Sometimes these connections are nameless or pseudonymous, many times they are faceless. Some "require" you to post your real name and picture, but who's really checking the millions of users involved in these lawless social networks, often referred to as the wild west of the 21st century.

A few weeks ago, I ran across SheWrites, a brand spankin' new Web-based community of (primarily) women writers. I was attracted to the idea of a place online that was all about writing all the time. Since the site went live sometime mid-June, it has grown to more than 2,500 members. But Facebook boasts 100,000 times that amount, claiming to have 250 million members.

When I mentioned SheWrites in my last post, I heard from my friend Marcy, who said: "Why are you not on Facebook, woman? I just posted a link to your blog, you silly gal."

Why wasn't I on Facebook? Here was someone else promoting my blog on the world's largest social networking site, so why wasn't I? I guess it seemed a little crass — all those horror stories of people posting pictures of themselves in compromising positions and then losing their jobs over it. I guess it seemed a little scary — 250 million people! I guess it seemed like a black hole ready to suck even more of my time and creative writing juices (read this hysterical review).

But, as of July 14, Facebook can now boast 250,000,001, because I finally caved and joined. Facebook is the crack cocaine of social networking. Highly addictive, it sucks you in with the ability to make more friends in 10 minutes than you have in your entire life. With its online food fights and rounds of simulated drinks, if you're not careful, you could find yourself suffering one wicked virtual hangover.

On the other hand, you can talk to people you never see or hear from except around the holidays. You can reconnect, promote your business and (one day) your book, and even learn a thing or two. You aren't promising your life away by posting a few lines here and there. When you're done, you're done. You don't have to comment. You don't have to post your status. You don't have to check your wall. (Well, maybe you don't have to check your wall … hang on, I'll be right back.)

The cure for boredom is curiosity.

There is no cure for curiosity.

— Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)

Ok, I'm back. With the passing of Walter Cronkite, I have been thinking a lot about the new media. Is this instant communication anything more than curiosity run amok — our escalating narcissism and voyeurism spun into the ultimate exercise in navel gazing? Is unedited, unvetted, user-generated content the literature of our time? Is this how our words will be judged?

In a well-crafted post, Merlin Mann argues that we need to do better: "What worries me are the consequences of a diet comprised mostly of fake-connectedness, make believe insight, and unedited first drafts of everything. I think it's making us small … All I know right now is that I want to do all of it better."

Here's to doing better. I hope you'll keep me on my toes here at Two Kinds of People. Use your right to comment and call me on typos, spurious arguments and run-on sentences. All you have to do is click here.

Photo credit: Circle of friends by Frederic Poirot

Doing Work You Love

2009-07-09T21:05:00.010-05:00

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."

— Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love the work they do and those who work to make a living.

In today's economy, it seems greedy and idealistic to talk about finding work you love when so many people are not able to find work at all. This recession has given me a whole new perspective on the importance of work — not just as a source of funding for our leisure activities, but as the basis of self-worth and the true strength behind a healthy family.

In case I haven't made it clear, the work I love is writing. I love everything about writing — reading about it, doing it, talking about it, working at it, teaching it. I'm energized by the burst of creativity that springs from a new idea or connection. Discovering new words makes me unreasonably happy (especially if I can remember them). Editing and rewriting are not burdensome chores, but a joyful honing and polishing of rough beginnings.

I used to divide writing into that which I did for work and that which I did for fun. As a professional writer since college, for more than 20 years I've done all kinds of business writing. That was work. Then, several years ago I found myself thinking about a children's story. That was fun. When I started listening to the stories within me, it opened the floodgates to a reservoir of creativity that I didn't even know existed. It has completely changed the way I feel about all my writing.

Now, each new assignment is divine challenge, a chance to practice my craft, to apply a new technique, to draw from my own deep well of inspiration to make the writing at hand the best it can be. My head spins with ideas — snippets of dialogue, themes for an essay, visions of characters. A writer friend and I recently discussed our dismay at the discovery that not everyone walks around with stories and characters buzzing in his or her ears, clamoring to be realized on the page.

The two halves of me — the professional craftsperson and the creative artisan — are beginning to integrate into a productive whole. My husband wishes this merger would result in a little better return on our investment, but that's coming. I feel it. Or maybe it's just the caffeine.

If there is one rule of writing, it's that thou shalt not plagiarize, but you know what they say about rules. I have broken this commandment by stealing both the title and idea for this post from a new friend, Carolyn Brandt Broughton, who has started an entire blog called Doing Work You Love. For years, Carolyn has interviewed practitioners of all manner of work, the only connection among them being that they love what they do. It's an inspired idea and an inspiring series that she plans to share with us through her blog.

Carolyn and I connected through Off Campus Writers' Workshop, a group of Chicago-area writers who meet weekly during the school year to learn all about writing. Joining a community of people who share your passion is a great way to find inspiration. In real life, I have Off Campus and my critique group. Online, I've been lucky to join the Silicon Valley Moms Group, which operates 11 regional blogs featuring the words, wisdom and experiences of more than 350 writers. I have found gracious professionals in the notoriously stingy world of publishing — people like Lisa Romeo, Nathan Bransford and J.A. Konrath — who freely and willing share their hard-won wisdom with other writers.

Just today, I joined an exciting new online community called She Writes. It's literally emerging before my eyes, garnering 145 new members since I joined earlier today. It's a fascinating social networking experiment and I've already discovered some generous, dedicated writers.

While doing work you love for a wage-earning living may be a luxury, you can still do work you love even if it isn't your job. This is a lesson I'm trying to teach my oldest boy, who will turn 18 in November. I truly believe if he could find his passion, he would be set and happy for life. Which leads me to my second plagiarism infraction of the day, stealing this cool video from Laura Didyk's blog, outloud. I found Laura over at She Writes, and we both found inspiration in The Beckoning of Lovely video. I hope you do, too.

What lovely have you beckoned into your life? What is the thing you most love to do and do you do it? Click here to let us in on your work loves (or hates).

"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition."

— Indira Gandhi (1917-1984)

Nature Bats Last

2009-06-30T22:40:00.019-05:00

"But make no mistake: the weeds will win; nature bats last."
— Robert Michael Pyle
writer, naturalist, lepidopterist

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love to garden and those who don't.

Let's be clear: I'm no garden ho'. I wish I loved gardening, I really do. I truly appreciate a beautiful garden, and I love the idea of gardening. But actual gardening — not so much. My perennials perennially perish, my vegetable garden is fruitless, and my annuals barely take root.

My mom had a magnificent garden at her last house in Michigan, complete with herbs, flowering trees, bordering perennials, and even a koi pond (thanks to my husband) teeming with colorful fish and water plants. She assured me that gardening when you have young children is too much to ask of anyone, but that once my children were grown and gone, I, too, would love to garden. That was right before she and my dad moved to Florida — primarily to get away from any form of garden or lawn care.

I've been doing a lot of walking in my neighborhood this spring and summer (trying to convince myself that exercise, like gardening, is good for me — but that's another post). What passes for spring in Chicago came late this year, but by now the gardens have been painted into the landscape. While bulbs and lilacs may have faded, roses are gushing and peonies are panting to break loose from their confining rings.

Even the annuals are filling in nicely — in other people's gardens, thank you very much. My daughter and I planted a flat and a half of begonia's around the base of our "small" tree, and they still look puny and separated, not the lush pink area rug of blossoms I had envisioned.

Last summer, I ventured one cherry tomato plant in a pot. It cost me $2.48 and yielded about nine edible fruits, which would probably have run me about $2.48 at Dominick's, so it was basically a wash. This year, we tried two tomato plants (one has since passed away); herbs, including basil, rosemary and lemon balm (all doing quite nicely in their containers); and, at my daughter's insistence, a bell pepper plant. I have no idea how to grow peppers. Do I need to pinch? Prune? Deadhead? Oh, well, we bought the $1.98 version, so we won't be out that much when it bites the dust.

I kind of like the "container garden" thing. They're easy to plant, require little maintenance and look lovely on the porch steps. It almost appears as if a real gardener lives in our house — until you see my neighbor's garden, two doors north.

Can you say obsessive-compulsive? The guy (and his gardener) are always tinkering (or is it puttering when you are in the garden?) — planting something new here, moving this plant over there. Sure it's beautiful, but who has that kind of time and energy? Self-employed people with no kids, who have enough money to hire a gardener, that's who.

I would garden if you could do it only three times a year:

that first perfect day in March, when you are so happy to be outside after the long winter that you kill yourself doing yard work and can't move for the next week;
one planting session sometime after Mother's day, when you are finally sure the last frost has passed, and you feel supremely satisfied about getting everything in the ground that you were tempted into buying at the local garden center;
a single 1-to-2-hour weeding session in mid-to-late July, after you have sufficiently recovered from the May planting session, but while it still seems worthwhile to spend time on plants that are just going to die in the fall anyway.

I know to many of you this kind of thinking verges on sacrilege. I know I'm supposed to care about the inextricable relationship between humans and plants. I know this because I read Michael Pollan's fabulous treatise, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World. I know I'm supposed to want to grow and eat my own vegetables, because Barbara Kingsolver made me feel guilty about it in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

But here's the thing — I'm allergic to insect bites. I've tried to find passion in the rich, brown soil of the garden, but all I've found is dirt under my fingernails. I've searched for satisfaction in a good day's worth of gardening, but all I have discovered are sore knees and screeching lower back pain.

Isn't it enough that I can appreciate the beauty and bounty that a well-tended garden yields — preferably through my picture window, or in a vase on my coffee table, or overflowing from the rich, brown depths of my wooden salad bowl?

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

— Charles Baudelaire, French Poet (1821-1867)

What's your gardening story — death or glory? Click here to tell us about it. And if you find your vegetable garden overfloweth, we will gratefully accept any and all surpluses.

See my latest Chicago Moms Blog post on the recent spate of celebrity deaths by clicking here.

Photos: Tulips in Chicago and Pot Garden in Florida; 2kop.

Constructive Criticism

2009-06-19T01:09:00.010-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can accept constructive criticism and those who ~~throw a screaming tantrum at the slightest suggestion~~ can't.

For some time now, my brother has been concerned that the brilliant content of Two Kinds of People has been obscured by the faded newsprint background (see photo). I believe his exact words were: "I can't read the damn thing."

read•a•bil•i•ty (noun) — accessibility of text: a measure of the ease with which a passage or text may be read.

Now, being the flexible, mature, stable adult that I am, I have completely ignored his comments in the months since the blog's redesign. Recently, however, he has become more persuasive ("I mean it. I can't read it at all."), so I have modified the design just a bit to accommodate his failing vision. (I'll let you in on a little family secret: he used to be younger than I am, but now he is older.)

As always, I'm interested in ~~most~~ all of your comments and feedback. Please vote in the poll below or leave a comment by clicking here.

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like.

Design is how it works."

— Steve Jobs

Most of Us Have Gears We Never Use*

2009-06-15T23:45:00.012-05:00

*"Life is like a 10-speed bicycle.
Most of us have gears we never use."
— Charles M. Schulz

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who know how to ride a bike and those who don't.

I learned to ride my mom's bike when I was four. This is the single athletic feat of my life that I can claim as purely my own. I wanted it bad, so I taught myself. Standing on the pedals because I couldn't reach the seat, I pedaled and fell until I didn't fall anymore.

Riding a bike meant freedom. It also meant not having to walk every where. I come from the same genetic stock as Lech Walesa who once said: "I'm lazy. But it's the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn't like walking or carrying things." (Hey, don't knock his philosophy of life; after all, he did win the Nobel Peace Prize.)

Lately, I'm a little freaked out by the wild packs of bikers that seem to be taking over the streets in their obscenely tight padded shorts and moisture-wicking jerseys. These Lance Armstrong wannabees are in a fight-to-the-death struggle with the internal-combustion engine. I was taught that cyclists are have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists when on public thoroughfares, but these road warriors are heedless of the rules. They know that when push comes to shove, the motorist will be blamed for any accident, so between March and November I live in fear that one of these ~~whack-jobs~~ avid cyclists is going to jut in front of my car and be squashed like a bug.

Given the tension between bikers and drivers, it's no surprise that the history of the bicycle roughly parallels the development of the automobile. This may also explain why my love affair with the bike came to an abrupt halt on my sixteenth birthday, when I got my driver's license. (Now would be a good time to refer back to the Walesa quote.) Even so, I have never truly lost the joy of biking, although helmets have put a real damper on that whole wind in your hair thing.

Several years ago, my mother-in-law gave me her old bicycle, a comfort bike that lives up to its name, complete with a bell and the modern equivalent of a basket. Through no fault of her own, my bike and I have a fickle relationship. Sometimes she and I go steady, and other times I'll take her on a date and not call again until the next summer.

Part of the problem is my kids. Only half of them know how to ride, so when it comes to getting the family from Point A to Point B, we've mostly relied on the minivan.

At six, my daughter decided to learn to ride her bike, and after hours of tears and yelling, succeeded in forcing her body to master the machine — in one day. Her twin brother is still a non rider at 17. My middle boy is a cautious, by-the-book kind of guy who approached learning to ride a bike like a military general plans and executes a week-long siege. He strapped on all his safety gear every day, practiced for a reasonable length of time, then put the bike away, only to make a fresh start each morning until he had won the war.

My youngest, the "me too" of our family, really wanted to follow in By-the-book's footsteps, but wasn't quite ready. He gave up out of frustration or humiliation or both and hasn't wanted to try again for three summers. Yesterday he announced he was ready, so tonight after dinner, we gave it a shot. He has matured both physically and mentally over these three years, and after just a half hour or so of trying, he is so close he can practically taste it. He started getting skittish, though, so rather than risk another (perceived) failure, I told him he was doing great and that we would try again tomorrow. He was simultaneously a little proud of himself and relieved to pause his efforts. As he closed the shed, his parting shot echoed Mark Twain, who said:

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live."

This summer, we (and by we, I mean me) are trying to be a little leaner and greener. We are trying to fool our bodies into fitness by doing "fun" physical activities without referring to them as exercise. The old minivan is less than 25 miles away from hitting the 100K-mile mark. The mom is less than 18 months away from hitting the big 5-0. We all have to make some sacrifices to keep things running. I'm hoping we'll find a few answers in our two wheelers.

When did you learn to ride a bike? Did it come naturally, or only after a struggle? Click here to tell me your story or to speak your peace about the Critical Mass movement.

Sensory Perceptions

2009-06-04T20:26:00.015-05:00

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on the broken glass."

— Anton Chekov, 1860-1904

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are visual thinkers and those who are not.

As writers, we are taught to use all our senses to describe the worlds we create. Show, don't tell. Readers want to see, hear, smell, taste and touch everything our characters experience, but how do we convey those rich sensory details with mere words?

In early critiques of the manuscript for my children's novel, readers commented that they liked my main character, but couldn't see him. I knew everything about this third grader — his thoughts, feelings, friends, passions, parents, siblings, and even his pet — but I had no idea what he looked like.

In my mind, he was an average-sized third grade boy with a pixellated face, like the blurred mugs of the world's dumbest criminals in those reality cop shows. But my readers would fill in the visage that I couldn't envision, right? Wrong. "What does he look like?" one young reader asked. Good question.

We live in a visual world and the human eye is an astounding organ, processing up to 36,000 bits of information per hour and nearly 24 million images in a normal lifetime. We see as many 10 million colors and can distinguish 500 different shades of gray. (On the other hand, the octopus does not have a blind spot, so maybe we should leave parallel parking to the cephalopods.)

But among humans, some of us are more visually oriented than others. I've started carrying my camera around to train my eye to capture visual details and then translate them to the written page. To keep from becoming distracted, I've focused mainly on color and have been pleased enough with my amateur efforts to have a little flickr set on the subject. Just when I was feeling good about these optical exercises, I clicked on a link to my friend Matt Dinnerstein's magnificent professional photos and was vividly reminded that my visual skills are rudimentary at best.

Time for a new exercise. I stand in awe of visual artists, and thought maybe I could ~~steal~~ borrow some of their work to help me "see" my character. One of the instructors at Off Campus Writers Workshop advised us to "create a visual map — a poster with images of our characters and settings," so I took to perusing magazines. I tried, I really did, to find a photograph that would bring my character to life, but instead of pictures, I found myself cutting out descriptive words in interesting fonts.

That's when I realized that I'm not a visual thinker. I rely on a sixth sense — my sense of language — to interpret my world. It all comes down to the meaning, rhythm, subtext, context and order of the words — and there is nothing "mere" about them.

The roughly quarter million distinct words of the English language can be combined and recombined to create meaning, nuance, irony, description, poetry, humor, tragedy, drama, fantasy, romance … in other words, all the sights, sounds, scents, tastes and feelings our physical, emotional and imaginary worlds can generate.

I recently sat down and removed the mask that was hiding my main character so I could take a good, long look at him. Turns out he's a real person after all, and it only took a couple dozen words to paint his picture:

wavy, chocolate brown hair
freckles sprinkled across a perfectly ordinary nose
long, thin fingers
hooded blue eyes
a shy, wide, close-lipped smile
and a mouthful of shiny new adult teeth, still a little too big for his face

Well, can you see him? Click here to let me know what's missing, or to discuss which sense you count on most navigate your world.

_________

Ed. Note: 6/5/09 8:18 p.m. — I just found these great tidbits in some correspondence between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor, Max Perkins, on an early draft of The Great Gatsby. Perkins wrote:

"Among a set of characters marvelously palpable and vital — I would know Tom Buchanan if I met him on the street and would avoid him — Gatsby is somewhat vague. The reader's eyes can never quite focus upon him, his outlines are dim."

After first claiming the vagueness was intentional, Fitzgerald responded:

"I myself didn't know what Gatsby looked like or was engaged in and you felt it."

It's nice to know that my initial vagueness about my main character puts me in good company. Read more about this fascinating relationship between author and editor here.

Photo credit: The Five Senses by Rob Nunn aka scalespeeder.

Prom Season: Is it 2009 or 1909?

2009-05-29T13:43:00.004-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe that in 2009 it's OK to have racially segregated proms and those who don't.

I was shocked to read a recent NY Times story about a high school in Montgomery County Georgia that held separate proms for its white and African American students. I was at least as shocked that this story was a magazine section photo essay, rather than a hard-hitting expose´ or editorial. Perhaps the fact that we're not shocked is the most shocking aspect of this story. You can read my take on it in my new post on the Chicago Moms Blog.

Photo credit: Mirror Ball Amsterdam by yozza/Ewan Topping

Confused by the Muse

2009-05-11T19:27:00.018-05:00

Muse (myooz) — n.
GR. MYTH. any of the nine goddesses who preside over literature and the arts and sciences.
the spirit that is thought to inspire a poet or other artist; the source of genius or inspiration.
RARE a poet.
a musing; deep meditation.
muse (myooz) — v.
to think deeply and at length; meditate.
to think or say meditatively.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have a muse and those who are still searching for one.

I'm a writer, right? An artist. So I'm supposed to have a muse, right? So, where is she — or he — or it? Where's my muse?

In my search, I looked back to high school humanities class and the nine classical Greek Muses of Hesiod's poem Thoegony. You know, those chicks with funny names, who are dressed for a toga party:

Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry — cool name, but not my muse.
Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry — somehow, Calliope sounds more lyrical to me, but maybe something gets lost in translation.
Erato, the Muse of erotic poetry — um, yeah, not my genre.
Urania, the Muse of astronomy — with Chicago's light pollution, I can barely see the stars.
Clio, the Muse of history — who needs all those dates?
Terpsichore, the Muse of dance — too hard to pronounce; besides I'm a klutz.
Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred song — I'm pretty sure she's busy inspiring our angel-voiced (sadly, outgoing) cantor Erin Frankel.
Mepomene, the Muse of tragedy — life's tough enough without her.
Thalia, the Muse of comedy — now that's a muse I could use.

Even before the big nine came along, a guy named Pausanias talked about three other muses:

Melete — the muse of practice;
Mneme — the muse of memory; and
Aeode – the muse of song.

While practice, memory and song seem more directly related to the kind of writing I do, these ladies still leave me cold. Maybe if they were half-naked Greek gods instead of goddess, I'd find them more attractive, but I doubt it. They would still be nothing but a bunch of marble stiffs.

So, what is it that inspires me? I could say my kids, which is sometimes true; but more often than not, it's the words themselves that get me going. I love to play with words. Just thinking about Muses led me to amused and bemused and museology, which I was disappointed to discover is not, in fact, the study of Muses, but rather the science or profession of museum organization and management. You have to admit, museology a pretty succulent word for such a dusty (albeit noble) profession.

I've been reading Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story by Barbara Abercrombie, who tackles the Muse on the first page of chapter 1: "Make up a new voice that will inspire you, a voice that will say whatever you need to hear and will drown out all the other, negative voices, both real and imaginary." That's when I realized I already have a Muse: Me. Well, the voice in my head, anyway, who sounds like me, only idealized in every way.

The Me in my head is fabulously beautiful (thin, of course) and smarter than smart, with an IQ hovering around 200. This Me speaks seven languages in addition to English, meets the world's most interesting and famous people (but graciously treats them like regular folk), and can sing and play a variety of instruments by ear. Did I mention ice skating (Olympic level) and dancing (practically professional)? More than smart, though, this Me is quick and witty, a brilliant conversationalist who always says just the right thing at just the right time. She's also charmingly, disarmingly modest — the kind of person you want to hate, but can't because she's just so darn nice.

It was about this time in my musings about Muses that I realized I have more in common with my literary hero, F. Scott Fitzgerald, than I ever imagined. Good old Scott once said: "Writers aren't exactly people … they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person."

And there you have it. A Muse is really nothing more than schizophrenia put to good use.

Click here to let us know how the muse inspires you. If you are a clinical psychiatric professional, don't worry, I'm mostly harmless. If you want proof, you can check out my much more grounded post on the Chicago Moms Blog called Set Summer Free.

Photo credit: The Muse by Evil Patrick Shannon

Real Good Grammar

2009-04-22T00:02:00.017-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who get the heebie-jeebies when they see this cover of The Elements of Style, and those who get warm fuzzies.

It's probably no surprise that the classic Strunk and White grammar reference is a favorite among my ever-growing collection of books on writing, grammar and publishing. My brother claims that while he recognizes when something is grammatically incorrect, I can tell you why. If that's true, it's due in large part to my reliance on The Elements of Style.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of E.B. White's reexamination of Professor William Strunk Jr.'s "little" book, originally self-published in 1918. In the 1971 third edition, White wrote in his introduction: "Today, fifty-two years later, its vigor is unimpaired, and for sheer pith I think it probably sets a record that is not likely to be broken. Even after I got through tampering with it, it was still a tiny thing, a barely tarnished gem."

My copy of that "tiny thing" is 92 pages, including the index, and cost $2.95 when I bought it in 1979. A brand-new, hard-cover 50th anniversary edition is $13.27 on Amazon.com and runs a whopping 128 pages. That pith, along with a dose of humor, is what makes this grammar book, of all things, still newsworthy after 90 years.

I admit that I'm a grammatical fuddy-duddy. E-text makes me crazy. I loathe the misspellings, lack of punctuation, and incomplete sentences that are acceptable — even expected — in e-mail and texting. I cringe as I see already-mediocre vocabularies being whittled down to a pitiful collection of abbreviations and emoticons ;-). Stop telling me that you are FOTFL and let me hear the joke. I'll decide for myself whether it's funny or not.

By Strunk & White's standards, my writing falls far short of ideal: "Do not inject opinion" (pg. 80), they warn. This blog, indeed blogging in general, would be damed for "affecting a breezy manner" (pg. 73):

The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.

But despite the harsh criticism that I imagine I hear directed at me from beyond the grave, I still treasure the advice and simplicity of The Elements of Style. Times change, language grows, and grammar evolves, but evolution does not mean obsolescence. Grammar is the framework upon which we build our stories, the bones that define the features of our characters, and the shiny mirror that allows us to reflect our meaning and our society with clarity and precision. Keeping a few good guides on your desk or bookmarking them online just makes good writing sense.

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy. — Dorothy Parker

If you hate the book because you think it has weakened our study of grammar by reducing it to a mere 100 or so pages, you might enjoy Geoffrey Pullum's "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice." If you hate it because you think grammar is stupid and unnecessary (or are just a word nerd, like me), check out Marc Acito's commentary on NPR's All Things Considered called "Who Needs a Manual to Write Real Good."

For those who have not run screaming into the night, you may be interested to know that the revisions to MLA (Modern Language Association) Style also go into effect this month.

Happy anniversary, Mssrs. Strunk and White, and thanks. If you have a grammar horror story or favorite writing reference to share, please click here.

Finally, in honor of National Poetry Month, here's Carl Sandburg on grammar:

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

Life's Not a Paragraph

2009-04-13T11:00:00.020-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have already experienced profound loss and those who will.

I've been lucky so far in this life. My losses have been quiet goodbyes, gentle by most standards, the soft leavings of old age, cushioned by the generations between them and me. Secondhand losses.

After my grandfather died, and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, I asked her if she was afraid of death. "Oh, honey," she said. "At my age, death is almost a friend. It's a story I read about every day in the paper."

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it is a thief, robbing us of our dearest treasures.

Earlier this month, I wrote about my greatest fear — a recurring nightmare I have that one of my children has died. I knew even as I wrote it that I was trampling on someone else's grief. Tragically, unbelievably, one of my fellow bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group is living this nightmare right now, having lost her baby just two days after I posted my nightmares.

Madeline Alice Spohr

(November 11, 2007 - April 7, 2009)

I've never met Maddie's family, but so much of her story is familiar — difficult conception and pregnancy, traumatic, premature birth, eating issues, growing issues — but more importantly:

joy,

fun,

giggles,

first teeth,

first baths,

FIRSTS.

Her story may not be a long one, but it is a story worth knowing.

This loss, like so many others, was not a quiet one. When a child dies, we roar with the pain, the grief, the missed opportunities of a story barely started.

A writing friend, Cindy Fey, wrote beautifully about the sudden loss of her dear friend, a peer, a cohort, a man who was walking this life at the same time as her husband when his footsteps suddenly stopped. His premature death left a novella, not a full novel perhaps, but a story worth knowing.

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it is the harshest of spotlights, the cruelest of mirrors, shining stark light on our own mortality, leaving us gasping and keening.

Another dear friend has experienced more deaths in her family than anyone I know, whittling her immediate family down to a precious few, leaving her clear-eyed and unsentimental. Her losses are a series of short-stories and tall tales, an epic saga — a story worth knowing.

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it's a relentless clock, ticking off the lives of those we know and love as surely as it counts off the seconds of our individual lives — a never-ending death knell.

I know I am lucky — death has brushed by so closely that the hairs on the back of my neck still rise and tremble at the memory. In grateful acknowledgement of those near misses, in tribute to Maddie and Eric and Jill's family, and in celebration of April as National Poetry Month, let's remember that no life is just a paragraph, but a full story worth telling:

since feeling is first
by ee cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all the flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

Please click here to share a thought, a poem or a comment.

No Foolin'

2009-04-01T14:44:00.016-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can tell a joke and those who can't.

Sadly, I'm one of the latter. I have only one joke (nope, I'm not going to tell it here; it's a little inappropriate). The gift I bring to comedy is that I'm a great audience, an easy laugh. I'm not, however, indiscriminate. I admit I never got Howard Stern or the Three Stooges (I think it must be a guy thing).

When I was growing up, I loved listening to my parents' comedy records (I know, I'm old). The first one I ever heard was From the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Who will ever forget this Chicago native's one-sided phone conversations? (You forgot? No worries: click here then click on the "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue" or "Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball".)

I was too young at the time to get much of the humor by Mike Nichols and Elaine May on Improvisations to Music, although it became one of my favorite albums in college (when I finally got the references), and I still have it in my collection today (don't tell my parents). Here's their riff on the phone company:

Lily Tomlin's This is a Recording , on the other hand, was easily accessible to my young ears, and Ernestine had me howling from the very first "One ringy-dingy …" (Hmm, I'll have to ponder the cultural significance of why so many of our greatest comedians have turned to the telephone for inspiration.)

When I was a kid, my parents would send us to bed and then often sit in the living room to listen to the Hi-Fi. I have vivid memories of my brother and I tiptoeing out of bed and sitting at the top of the stairs so we could hear, too. It was torture trying not to laugh at Bill Cosby's To Russell My Brother, Whom I Slept With. We'd do almost anything to avoid cracking up and being banished back to bed. We knew as soon as one giggle escaped, we were doomed, so we'd bite our tongues and pinch each other and clap both hands over our mouths. It never worked.

Except once. It was 1972 and a friend of my dad's brought over George Carlin's Class Clown. Somehow we managed to get through "Bi-Labial Fricative", "The Confessional" and "Heavy Mysteries" without getting caught, probably because the adults had fallen into hysterics. When George got to the "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", we knew we had to be really quiet or we'd be in big, bad, ugly trouble. This was definitely stuff we were not supposed to hear. On the other hand, it was valuable information and, consequently, worth the risk.

There was something delicious about sneaking all this comedy. It's just not the same flipping through channel after channel of cable standup, although I'm the first to admit I would never have gotten through eight years of George Bush or the most recent election season without Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.

Today, of course, we celebrate April Fool's Day with jokes and pranks aplenty. I was surprised to learn that the holiday has been around for hundreds of years, but I'm going to need a couple hundred more before I can pull off any kind of noteworthy prank. I miss the days when my kids were young and dumb and I could crack them up with a plastic fly frozen into an ice cube. What can I say, my kids inherited my "great audience" gene.

I hope you had a few giggles today. If you're still feeling puckish, check out The Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time. I'm particularly fond of #7, where it was reported that the state of Alabama voted to change the value of Pi from 3.14159… to the "Biblical Value" of 3.0.

Click here to share your greatest practical joke, either given or received. You can even make it up; I'm easily fooled.

Crushed by Paperwork

2009-03-25T14:17:00.012-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who face paperwork with calm equanimity and those who fold under the pressure.

For a discussion on how parenting is impacted by paperwork and how it brought me to my knees, check out my latest post on the Chicago Moms Blog. Feel free to share your own paperwork peccadillos by clicking here .

Premio Dardos!

2009-03-21T16:23:00.017-05:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Italy and those who don't.

I admit it, I'm an Italophile. It's probably because my first foray oversees was to Italy, and it probably didn't hurt that it was on my honeymoon. Since that very first trip, my best dreams revolve around spending six months a year living and writing in Italy, preferably at the Hotel San Pietro in Positano.

Since I am (at least) several best sellers away from realizing this dream, imagine my delight when the talented and bellissimo Cindy Fey from Well All Fall Down bestowed upon Two Kinds of People the prestigious Premio Dardos Award. Molto grazie, Cindy.

You say you have never heard of this incredible honor? Let me explain. "Premio Dardos" means "prize darts" in Italian. The award is granted in "recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. The award was created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers and showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

Acceptance carries these stipulations:

Step 1: Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person who has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.

Step 2: Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

Step 3: Answer the following questions on your own blog, replacing one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and adding one more question of your own.

1) What are you wearing right now? Clothes. And really grungy slippers.

2) What is your biggest fear? As posted on the Chicago Moms Blog, suffice it to say that it involves death.

3) Do you nap a lot? "A lot" implies both time and opportunity, both sorely lacking in my life at the moment. I will admit that my endodontist claimed I was the only patient he ever had who fell asleep during a root canal. Time — about 2 hours. Opportunity — sitting in a reclining chair with no kids in sight while being administered good drugs. Sounded like nap time to me.

4) Who is the last person you hugged? My girl, who just wandered over for a random kiss and hug.

5) What websites do you visit when you go online? The aforementioned We All Fall Down, Chicago Moms Blog and its sister sites, The Animal Store, various writing sites and blogs.

6) What was the last item you bought? Girly martinis yesterday evening at The Globe (well martinis, $5 on Fridays) — one for my friend's birthday, which happened to be yesterday, and one for my half-birthday, which also happened to be yesterday.

7) What are you reading? Anne Fadiman's essay collection entitled At Large and at Small. I love the way she ties the most arcane details into a beautiful whole, and her command of the English language frequently makes me feel like a lazy writer. Click here for an excerpt, and check out her earlier collection, Ex Libris, which I thought was even better.

8) If you could go to the Oscars, who would you want to sit next to? Oh, the pressure of what to wear is already making me a nervous wreck. I think Robert Downey, Jr. for fun, or Robert Redford because, well, he's Robert Redford.

9) Has a celebrity's hair cut every influenced your own hairstyle? If I were to go to the Oscars (see question 8), I'd go for the Rita Hayworth do shown here.

10) What is the one skill you wish you had, but don't? Being able to play the piano brilliantly by ear.

11) What is the last movie you watched? I think it was Slum Dog Millionaire, but we may have rented something since then. Clearly, it wasn't very memorable.

12) What is the luckiest thing that every happened to you? My preemie twins survived and thrived.

13) If you had a whole day to yourself — no work, commitments or interruptions —what you would do? Sleep in, meet a friend for brunch, write, have good Chinese complete with Mai Tais with a friend, see a funny movie, stay up late writing.

14) Is there a major goal that you haven't yet achieved? It was humbling and a little daunting to trace back through the winners of the Premio Dardos Award to discover that most of us have the same goal: to get our book(s) published.

15) What is the thing you wish you could forget? My first phone number, which I haven't had since I was eight years old. It's clogging up needed brain cells. I could also stand to lose a few jingles and television theme songs.

16) What is something that those in blogland might not know about you? I'm a rabid University of Michigan football fan and still in mourning over our dismal 2008 season.

17) What states and countries have you visited as an adult? Alphabetically:

States: Alabama, California, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Countries: British Virgin Islands, Canada, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, USA

18) What do you do to relieve stress? Take a bath; drive and play my music really loud.

19) If you could change one physical trait about you what would it be? I would be tall and thin.

20) In what room in history would you have liked to be a fly on the wall? Let's see, perhaps watching Lincoln rehearse the Gettysburg Address.

21) What is your favorite hotel? As I already mentioned, my favorite is the Hotel San Pietro in Positano, Italy, but I'd love to hear other favorites, so this is my new question.

I hereby bestow the Premio Dardos upon:

Shari at Artichokes and Aristotle

Angela at Domestic Blitz

Peter at Detectives Beyond Borders

Merlot Mom

Kim at Hormone-colored Days

Congratulations to you all.

Please share your thoughts and comments by clicking here.

Fun With Google

2009-03-06T12:54:00.030-06:00

There are two kinds of people in the world. Or are there?

Some time ago, a fellow writer from Off Campus Writers' Workshop, Ruth Spiro, told us about a handy little tool called Google Alerts. (BTW, congrats to Ruth on the publication of her fabulous picture book, Lester Fizz, Bubble-Gum Artist.)

The Google Alerts utility allows you to enter a search term, then crawls the Web and sends you e-mail alerts anytime your topic or phrase shows up online. Ruth shared an anecdote about how she set up a Google Alert for her own name, and found out that a magazine had published a story she had submitted (more than a year before) without notifying her or providing appropriate remuneration. Ruth sent a charming letter to the publication, thanking them for publishing her story and including an invoice. They paid her! You can see, in an environment where writer's are being pilfered and plagiarized without being paid, setting up a Google Alert for your name and your work is a practical and vital tool.

Ruth also suggested that Google Alerts are a good way to help protect our children and their online reputations. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter represent just a few of the more well-known ways of social networking that are spreading online like herpes during spring break. Many people, especially young people, don't understand how important it is to protect their online identities, yet stories abound of lost opportunities due to an ill-considered blog post, an incriminating photo, or even a brief Facebook comment. Just today, there was a tragic story about a teenage girl who committed suicide because, after breaking up with her boyfriend, he sent a nude photo of her out over text messages, which resulted in crushing harassment. This lovely pastime has now been dubbed "sexting". As my Dad says, we've come too far.

Not wanting my children to suffer these terrible consequences, I immediately set up Google Alerts for each of their names. (No, it's not spying, it's parenting. There's a difference. Hey, did I just hear you mumble "Patriot Act" under your breath. Clearly, you don't have teenagers.)

I started getting Google Alerts based on these search phrases and discovered that four of our six children have nominal twins. Our last name is not that unusual, but the spelling is relatively uncommon, so I was surprised at this duplication. Turns out our oldest boy at home (who really is a twin) has a name-twin in NY who is a fashion photographer. I actually had a brief, cool email correspondence with this talented young man. Our second youngest is related by name only to a jazz pianist. Our eldest, who works at Microsoft in Seattle, shares his name with a budget coordinator in Canada; and one of our girls has a name-twin in high school in Auburn, Washington.

This gave me a story idea and led me to Google all of our family names. (No, it was not wasting time, it was research. Don't you people know anything about writing?) All this information led me to start thinking about identity and individuality and a few other "i" words. When we are expecting a baby, most of us spend hours, days, weeks poring over baby name books, looking for just the right one that will reflect the person we hope he or she will become. You have to take so many things into consideration:

initials (while Pamela Madeline Smythe may strike a chord in your head, you must not saddle your daughter with the initials PMS).
sibling names (once you've gone down the biblical road with a name like Abraham, you can't really name his little sister Tiffany).
dangerous nickname possibilities. (Here, I must tell you a little story about my closest cousin. She and I grew up together as the only girls on that side of the family, daughters of two sisters who were very close. She gave her first daughter the beautiful name Alexandra and told me in all seriousness that they would call her Lexie, but spell it with an "-ie" so she would never be called "Sexy Lexy". It still makes me laugh.)

In the end, our children are who they are. They either love their names, or they hate them, and there's not a lot you can do about it.

Fiction writers, however, get to relive the joy and angst of naming people every time we create a new character. My daughter, who is doing a creative writing independent study, raises a lot of eyebrows as she peruses her baby name books in the high school cafeteria. Her teacher/mentor has been needling her for some new character names, and she came up with this gem: Iambic Pentameter, III. I wish I had thought of it.

In addition to name-twins, there is the common myth that we all have a physical lookalike somewhere in the world. My creative writer girl recently ran across the following video featuring a British musician named Geraldine Quinn. My girl said: "This is what I'm going to look like in 10 years. This woman looks just like me. Smiles like me too."

While there are some striking similarities, with no offense to Ms. Quinn, my girl is much more beautiful. (This is a completely unbiased opinion.) In an interesting twist, when we did a Google image search for Geraldine Quinn, we found that her younger pictures look significantly less like the current version of our girl. Those who know MPB will be amused to see this video of her future self (although she assures me that she will never become this intoxicated). Those who don't will just enjoy the fabulous rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah by Tim Minchin with Geraldine.

Let me know if you've had any good Google giggles or revelations by clicking here. And if you have a little more time, click here to read my new post on the Chicago Moms Blog about Obama's gift giving snafu.

Watch This Space

2009-02-23T23:21:00.028-06:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who blog and those who don't.

It's been about a year since my inaugural post here on Two Kinds of People. I claimed then that my primary reason for starting a blog was to get help naming our new puppy, Hazel. Truth be told, I started blogging to learn, well, how to blog.

I've been a writer my entire adult life, and while I firmly believe that good writing will always be good writing, how and where we read and write is changing by the minute, shifting ever more quickly from the page to the screen. A recent study of online behavior found that consumers now spend more than twice as much time online as they do watching television, and eight times as much as they spend reading newspapers and magazines.

The way we communicate and our definition of community is transforming daily. We Twitter and Tweet and meet and greet in ways that weren't even dreamt of ten years ago. I haven't bought into it all (yet), but I love the instant gratification of blogging. There's no waiting for acceptance or rejection. It happens now. And if I were a control freak (which of course I'm not) I might be all aquiver over so much power — my words, my graphics, my layout, mine, mine, mine. (I am not a control freak. Stop saying that.)

The feedback is the best part. In case you didn't know, bloggers live for comments. (Leave a comment, dammit!) It's a conversation with friends and strangers from around the world. That little widget on my sidebar called Feedjit let's me see how and when readers arrive at my site. Someone recently visited from Cairo (Egypt, not Illinois). How cool is that? Another reader landed on my poetry post by doing a google search for the Coleridge quote I used.

I've met really interesting people — other bloggers, of course, but published writers, other moms, entrepreneurs and techies, as well. The women writing with me on the Chicago Moms Blog and the rest of The Silicon Valley Moms Group, have become a family of sisters, mentors and friends. The connections I've made have been fascinating, even though I've only met one person from the blogging world face-to-face. And I've even won some cool free stuff along the way.

It turns out the internet works like my brain (a scary concept, I know). It can take you in a straight line if you're in a hurry, or you can meander along interesting paths if you are ~~easily distracted~~ a creative thinker.

My goal when I started was to learn, and I've learned a lot, including:

a little html
how to transform a PowerPoint into a video
how to embed video and add third party code
a bunch of tricks for uploading and exporting and importing and digitizing
how to let go of a piece writing and not edit it to death

It seems like I learn something new every day, and that's exciting. With all this emphasis on the new, I thought after a year it was time to shake things, so I dropped the old standard blogger template and learned how to do a little online design. What do you think? I even learned how to create and embed a poll to see how you really feel about this new look.

Recent estimates set the number of blogs in the hundreds of millions. Thank you for taking the time to read mine. I'm having a blast. Keep reading and leave a comment (please) by clicking here. Then jump on over to the Chicago Moms Blog to see my latest post entitled Kids are Gross.

Oh Curses, Foiled Again*

2009-02-02T16:56:00.013-06:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who cuss and those who don't.

I would like to say that I am too genteel, too refined, too composed to use foul language. I'm not. I would like to say that my vocabulary is too rich, too deep, too sophisticated to reach lazily for those seven words George Carlin joked could not be said on television. It's not. I would at least like to say that, as a parent, I censor myself in front of my children. I don't (at least not as much as I used to or as often as I should).

I certainly can't blame my parents. My mother, a very bright woman with a master's degree, no less, managed to make it all the way into her thirties before she figured out that F – – – did not mean fart. I'm sorry, Mom, but this can still send me into fits of laughter. Readers, next time you feel blue, just play this little substitution game:

"Fart you, you mother-farter!"

"I really farted up at work today."

"I don't give a flying fart."

See, don't you feel better? But I digress.

I am a woman of words and, like the late, great Mr. Carlin, I believe all words have meaning and validity and importance. I recognize that Lenny Bruce went to jail for the right to use "dirty" words in his routine. David Mamet has raised the use of the profanity to literary art, winning a Pulitzer Prize for his play Glengarry Glen Ross and dropping the F-bomb 128 times in the film version.

Choosing the right words is a delightful challenge for me and, when I find just the right one, it gives me profound pleasure. Sometimes, a particular four-letter word, or string of them, is the right choice. I'm not afraid of the deadly seven, or any other words for that matter. I'm just bored.

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." — Mark Twain

My grandmother used to say things like "Well, he certainly uses some colorful language." The trouble is, these words, particularly the F-word, have become so ubiquitous, so banal that they aren't colorful at all — they're beige.

The word "cuss", of course, is a bastardization of the word "curse", which literally means to wish harm upon or invoke evil upon someone or something. There was a time when we didn't rely on only seven little words to insult or damn someone. English has a rich history of cursing as an art form. You just can't beat some of the slings and arrows launched by Shakespeare's pen. How's this for calling someone a pig:

"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog." — Richard III

For Shakespeare, someone was never simply fat:

"She is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her." — The Comedy of Errors

One of the only true "swears" in our house is "stupid". Shakespeare had better version of that one, as well:

"He has not so much brain as ear-wax." — Troilus and Cressida

Though the Bard's insults were brilliant and funny, he is not alone in his verbal prowess. Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker and H.L. Mencken are just a few who could hurl a high-brow insult at the drop of a hat. Even some of our most esteemed statesmen knew how to wield a wicked barb:

"He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of vices I admire." — Winston Churchill

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." — Abraham Lincoln

At home, the language of 21st Century little boy insults is dragging me down. I'd like to inject a little of this literary fencing into our lives and, in an initial effort to upgrade our arguments, I propose the following:

"Shut up, you stupid butt-head" — shall henceforth be transformed to — "Silence, you ignorant hindquarters of a domesticated ungulate!"

"Get your paws of my freakin' stuff" — shall forevermore be — "Remove your rotted, germ-infested metacarpals ere I sever them below the humerus."

I think it can be done, and the benefits will be threefold:

It will vastly improve all our vocabularies.
We will have to stop and think before we speak, perhaps allowing enough cooling off time that the need for the insult will evaporate.
Both the insulter and insultee will probably crack up, thereby ending the argument. It's hard to stay mad when you're laughing.

Best of all, I will no longer be bored.

Have a favorite form of profanity or a particularly witty insult you would like share? Just click here.

I also have to admit to having dropped my fair share of F-bombs during last week's Mop Wars. You can read all about them in my latest post on the Chicago Moms Blog by clicking here.

*With thanks to that articulate arch villain, Snidely Whiplash.

Stumble It!