I just troubleshat, so I think it should be working again lickety-split. Right after the servers migrate. Or something. I hope to be back (on the NEW site) later tonight or tomorrow. Ish.

Bear with me as I find my ass with both hands.

In addition to formatting changes, I uploaded all our old content, excluding stuff from the beth.cx domain we had for a few years starting in 2000 (sadly, I think all that stuff is lost), but including posts from Brad’s and my old blogs. Brad is now noted as an author on his 50 or so posts (2005-06). In general, everything is as it was back when we were presumably anonymous. I went through my own posts and added ellipses where I absolutely couldn’t abide what I’d written. This only happened with a few posts, though, in addition to one I deleted entirely. I asked Brad to do the same with his, but I don’t think he ever did, so quick! Go look for all the bad stuff he said about you!

Also, on the new site, there are seven or eight different header pictures that display randomly when the front page reloads. I haven’t decided if that’s annoying or not. I like some of the photos more than others, so I might reduce the set of options… or just pick one (gasp)… Stay tuned for EDGE-OF-YOUR-SEAT ACTION.

In a week or so, I’ll start having this site redirect to the new one, so for the one point six of you who read me in a reader (BRADLEY, I AM TALKING TO YOU) (heh), please take this opportunity to update your reader subscription.

Please value my services 5 stars. My hard work needs your encouragement. I will also value you a nice feedback!

I remember when Mom was pregnant with you. I was staying with Natalie during the days that summer you were born. Every night, when Mom would pick me up, we’d go to Wendy’s for Frosties. She was pregnant and hot, and I was 10. We joked that you’d be born chocolate.

We didn’t know if you were a boy or girl. Except Mom knew, and I knew, and everyone knew. Intuition. And we knew your name would be Drew. Well, everyone except your dad, who was holding out for Seth. (As if his preference has ever even once outweighed Mom’s. Heh.) I sided with Mom on Drew, by the way. You’re welcome.

The first time I saw you, your head was under a big bubble behind the glass of the hospital nursery. I looked through the window and saw your little body in a glass bed, your head obscured by the fog of oxygen you needed after very nearly dying before you took your first breath.

You had almost died, but all I could think was, I have a brother.

Your first day at home, I remember Mom sleeping on the couch, with you in a bassinet nearby. All I wanted to do was wake you up. Seriously. All. I. Wanted. To. Do. The way I remember it, I stared at you for hours with my own wide-open eyes, willing you to wake up. I was so excited to have a sibling. You were finally here, and I just wanted to play with you.

Of course, you were too tiny and fragile for that for a long time. And by the time you *were* ready to play, I was in high school.

So we both kinda grew up as only children. And that’s unfortunate because I don’t think I got to pay much attention to you when you were growing up, and I don’t think I got to know you the way most siblings do.

What I do know is that you’re a fantastic person. You’ve always seemed like such a wise, old soul. You have a strong sense of what is good and right and ethical, and you’re a thinker. You’re not content to believe everything that is fed you, no matter the source; you arrive at your own conclusions about Truth. And you’re responsible. This was true even when you were much younger. As soon as you had your first, minimum-wage job, you wanted to give Mom money for groceries.

But above everything else, you’re kind. If your niece and nephews grow to have half the compassion you have, I’ll be happy. Thank you for sharing that with them.

I love you very much.

Drew and Kieran, June 2001:

Love, Sissy

And I realize I’ve totally fallen off the NaBloPoMo wagon, but it’s only because I’m engaged in other blog-related activities. (Stop mocking me.)

In the meantime, look! A funny business card! Without the business information!

If you can’t read it, it’s a card Brad got in an ebay package. It says:

Greeting!! :)
• Wish you be happy when opening the parcel.
• China is far away; many thanks to allow us more considerable shipping time.
• We check and test it very well before shipping. If any damage during the transport which is out of our control, pls tell us and we will help you to solve it. Thanks.
• Please value our services 5 stars by Detailed Seller Ratings. Our hard work needs your encouragement. We will also value you a nice feedback!
• Do not hesitate to contact us if any question or problem, give us a chance to help you solve any problem! Thanks:)

Best wishes and have a nice day!

And so, I say to you, dear reader, please value my services 5 stars. My hard work needs your encouragement. I will also value you a nice feedback!

Heh.

I was too busy last night – sleeping, like that one other time when I, you know, slept – so I’m a little late with this.

Here they are, in all their glory. My favorite sparkly gems this week.

• Aiming Low – Why Co-Sleeping Sucks
• The BHJ – On Tying – Do you ever have moments like this? It’s like you’ve achieved some kind of super consciousness but not the kind of super consciousness that knows everything. It’s more like a stunned stupid super consciousness that realizes you don’t know anything. You’re extremely present but you don’t know how you got there. I grew up in Michigan. Now I live in Albuquerque. How the fuck did I wind up in New Mexico?
• TheBloggess.com – It’s just coincidental that Victor got stabbed right after I wrote this. I didn’t even stab him. Some guy named Bill did. I’m the one who drove him to go get a tetanus shot. If anything, I’m a hero. – Dear Victor: I love you but I’m getting kind of weak from hunger and I know you said you didn’t poison anything but everytime I take a bite of something you leer and laugh suspiciously and I have to spit it out. I can only assume this is probably how Gandhi felt when he wasn’t allowed to eat. (Here’s a hint: He felt stabby.)
• Dooce – Disaster Preparedness – I think I’ve written about it here once, but when I was seven years old a tornado touched down just a few miles from our house in Memphis, and for the next two years of my life I slept in the bathtub with all of my stuffed animals. In fact, I’d come home from school and go straight to that bathtub, the safest place in the house, just in case a tornado suddenly dropped out of the sky. Because that totally could have happened at any moment. And when it did, WOULDN’T MY SKEPTICAL PARENTS BE EMBARRASSED, because there they are stuck underneath a shard of the roof while I’m all safe and cozy in the bathtub with my Care Bears.
• Her Bad Mother – Here Be Monsters – I went, and it was terrible, but also, it was good, because I went there, and although there was something that seemed very much like a dragon – a terrible, reeking, seething dragon – lurking there and although it opened its great jaws and I stared into its rank dark maw – too close, too close – and I trembled, for a moment or two, I knew, in the next moments, as I stood there, that it could not harm me and that it was just a monster whose only power was my fear.
• matt, liz and madeline – four minus two – and it kills me to watch our perfect thing smile, and have her kiss me on the cheek (only when prompted, of course, which i know would make you laugh), knowing that you never saw it, and will never… AND about an hour ago… – so i told her how i knew. and how that bottle of port sits on the wine shelf at home. and why it sits there. she cried.
• Miss Britt – Ugly. – I’m afraid to let myself think, even for a moment, that I might be pretty. I’m afraid that I’ll fall in love with the illusion, and someone will come along and remind me how stupid I was for ignoring my imperfections. Who do you think you are? I imagine them sneering at me, laughing at my misplaced vanity. It has to come from me. I know that. The affirmations of loved ones and strangers only serve to illustrate how untouchable my insecurities are to the outside world.
• Mommy Wants Vodka – Does This Mini-Van Make My Ass Look Big? – Every time I have to deal with something related to Ben’s schooling, I feel like at any moment, an unmarked Child-Napping van will pull up and a bunch of guys in polyester suits will spring out and drag me into the van. Then, the soccer moms will all emerge from their coordinated hiding places around the playground, wielding pitchforks and torches; their pony tails mussed and their jeans hiked up to their nipples. “FRAUD,” they’ll scream at me, gnashing their perfectly whitened teeth. “You’re no MOTHER! GET AWAY FROM OUR KIDS.”
• Motherhood in NYC – Oy – I slither home, make tea, have a cheese danish or two and fall into bed. Except now I feel feverish, so I call John to say what I’m certain is my last farewell and he says, “What’s that chewing sound?” and so I have to go through this whole Entenmann’s fiasco with him, utilizing what is no doubt my last bits of oxygen. And then I lay it on him. I think I have the swine flu and he says, “why, because you’re eating like a pig?” which is totally hurtful and not just to the pig.
• sarahviola.org – Preoccupied AND Today is his Birthday – I don’t ever talk about my brother, because I’m too afraid of what other people think. There’s so much judgment, and too many stereotypes, and I don’t think I can handle what people will say.
• Stuff White People Like – #128 Camping – Once in the camp area, white people will walk around for a while, set up a tent, have a horrible night of sleep, walk around some more. Then get in the car and go home. This, of course, is a best case scenario. Worst case scenarios include: getting lost, poisoned, killed by an animal, and encountering an RV. Of these outcomes, the latter is seen by white people as the worst since it involves an encounter with the wrong kind of white people.

You are three months old.

At three months: Your smile is electric; you light up the room. I never really thought about the meaning of that expression until just now, but it so fits. You coo and talk to Momma and Daddy, but Momma most of all. You save your biggest smiles and sweetest words for me, and I’m so lucky.

When you’re really happy, especially in the mornings, you squint your eyes as you’re talking, and sigh when you complete a thought. It’s adorable. If ever there were adorable.

You’re still nursing, but you’re not as interested. You’re still taking a pacifier, but you try to stuff your little closed fists in your mouth whenever you get the chance. We still swaddle you, but you kick your way out of the bottom almost immediately. You’re already growing up, and you’re only three months old.

You are beautiful, and I love you. I’m so glad you joined our family.

Happy three months, Archer Gene.

Go me, mofo!

I updated my About Me page today.

Mosey along over there for a look-see.

Although she is literally six feet away from me during business hours on any given weekday, our office is comprised of 12 cubes (all occupied) in a giant room, so it’s not like we (she) can talk openly about peeing on our (her) pant legs in the office bathroom (true story). As a result, we routinely use iChat to discuss the ridiculous goings-on in the office, and this is primarily how I have come to know her.

For fun/torture, I decided to record for her the most absurd happenings of the last week. For you, and in honor of the NaBloPoMo that won’t die, I present a couple of snippets from the you-don’t-have-to-know-these-people-for-these-things-to-be-funny category.

Thursday, August 6, 2009. [Colleague L] wears a very unfortunate button-up shirt with cap sleeves that cut off her circulation. At lunch, I notice that a middle button has come undone, so a diamond of flesh six inches in diameter is showing. I’m not sure anyone else notices because the shirt is sort of flesh-colored. I don’t want to embarrass her (or me), so I say nothing. I’m a horrible person.

Friday, August 7, 2009. At the staff meeting, we are introduced to all the new people that have come on board over the summer. Of the five who introduce themselves, four say they are parents of “little hurricanes.” (I vomit a little.) The one who does not use this analogy is, I’m 99% sure, gay and childless. Still, [Colleague M] prods him for something “personal” in front of the group. Everyone smiles; I am very uncomfortable. He makes a joke about having a twin.

Later, at the [other] staff meeting, [Boss D] says that [Boss P] wants us all to start using a “standard” out of office auto-reply. [Boss D] says that this is in response to YOUR current auto-reply, and then she reads it. [Colleague S] laughs, but it is really not that funny. [Boss D] stares at me the whole time. I think she’s giving me the stink-eye because she’s worried I’ll tell you about this. (I just did.)

God bless iChat.

(Clears throat.)

So I saw this article.

Alumna Sues College Because She Hasn’t Found a Job

Seriously?

This is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, believe me, I *get* feeling duped by The Man about the promise of a degree or training or whatever contributing to gainful employment. But COME. ON.

You’re suing for the ENTIRE COST of your tuition (plus more for “stress”) because you haven’t found a job THREE MONTHS after you graduated. Puh-lease. Three months. There are thousands of people — families, with children — who have been laid off or otherwise unemployed and looking for jobs for a year or more. Three months? Really?

And $72,000? Because an undergraduate degree in business administration hasn’t scored you whatever job you think you deserve? (I’m assuming you’re not considering taking a job at, say, Home Depot or Target or something, in the meantime.) Seventy-two thousand dollars? With three zeroes?

“As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe’s career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims…

‘They’re supposed to say, ‘I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right — can you interview this person?’ They’re not doing that,’ she said.

Thompson said she has fulfilled her end of the job-search bargain, peppering companies listed on Monroe’s e-recruiting site with cover letters, résumés and phone calls. But no more than two employers have responded to her outreach, and those leads have borne no fruit.

And wait. You have a 2.7? A two? Point seven? As in? A “C+” average? A Ceeeeeeeeeeeee? And you think a company is gonna wanna snatch you up if the career-services person sells you as having an “all right” GPA and “good attendance”? Seriously?

Did you ever consider that you might be a douchebag? And maybe your douchebaggery is the reason no one’s interested in hiring you?

Or that, by SUING YOUR COLLEGE FOR NOT FINDING YOU A JOB, something you were never promised, you sound like the complete and total whinyass bitch that you must be, and no one will ever hire you now? Because? You’re that girl.

“She suggested that Monroe’s Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. ‘They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement, she said.’”

Wow. You? Are a fucking genius. And you’ve ALMOST mastered the English language.

The article also mentions that you haven’t hired an attorney because you “can’t afford one.” Don’t despair. I’m sure someone will take you pro bono. Because, you know, you’ve got a rock-solid case. And you must be a joy to work with.

(Stepping off soap box.)

“to my lovey: today is our seventh wedding anniversary. i do not know how we have done it, what with all the destitution and the moving and the school and the living with our moms and the demonbaby and the happy baby and the near-death experiences and the kidney stones and the destitution and the weight fluctuations and the destitution.

but of course we have done it.

you are my one. you are where someone loves me best of all. i can’t imagine a different life, or a better one, than the one we’ve shared for the last 8.5 years. it has been chaotic, and it has been fantastic. you are the best partner to me, and you are the best father. thank you for our insane children.

i love you so much. i think you’d agree that our relationship has only gotten better, and our marriage stronger, over the past seven years. i look forward to much more with you next to me.”

I feel almost embarrassed by such a public display of affection, but there it is.

So, today, all of that. Plus four years, two kids, a new job, a move to a different city, four significant deaths, two kidney stones, multiple episodes of vomiting, two trips to Vermont, and lots and lots of life.