The Emperor's New Clothes

My blog is my little narcissistic home away from home. In my corporeal life, my friends and family tend to get annoyed if I spend too much time naval gazing, talking about myself, or whining about my real (or imagined) problems. In the blog world, people seem to enjoy reading about my foibles and frequently come back for more.

Of course, part of that return readership is no doubt related to the dialogue and rapport we establish on our blogs. But let's face it, part of the appeal of blog reading is the glimpse we get into someone else's life. That life may be one you envy, one you relate to, or one that makes you feel superior and relieved to be you. Sometimes it's all of those. Frequently it's all of those.

I know that I personally enjoy reading about politics, social issues, and things we can do to make a difference. But the blogs posts that haunt me are personal. They incorporate real experiences, real relationships, and real problems into hauntingly beautiful writing. It's like a never ending novel with my favorite characters. But I get to keep reading about Lizzie and Mr. Darcy's life after their marriage. I read about their restrained arguments, fertility problems, and intolerable in-laws.

Sometimes, I get to meet my favorite characters in person.

When I think about the things I leave off of my blog and cloak in "privacy," I frequently try to compare it to writing a novel. I ask myself "if I put this fight with my husband in a book with different names, would he be angry?" The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no. But a blog is different. There is no line stating "any resemblance to real people is entirely coincidental" to hide behind. We aren't characters in a novel. This is my life out there for all the world to Google, read, and judge.

So how do I maintain that thin, but important, veil of privacy around those I love?

I do have certain rules. I don't blog about my sex life or my personal relationship with my husband. This has left some readers with the impression that T is annoyingly perfect. Trust me when I say he is anything but perfect. He's a hell of a lot closer to it than I am, but no one is perfect. But our marriage and the trust we have to share our innermost feelings is far more important than a blog post. T's issues are not mine to share. They belong to him. My issues with T are not mine to share. They belong to us.

I also refrain from blogging about family problems. As with my relationship with my husband, trust is more important than airing my parents' dirty laundry. That's why I have a therapist!

I don't blog about work. I have no desire to be Dooced, destroy my relationships with opposing counsel and co-workers, or be disbarred.

Those are the easy rules.

The hardest rules are those with my children. That's a post for another day because I don't have 5 hours to share my thoughts (and guilt) about their privacy.

What about other people I interact with or people from my past? They fall into a gray area. I can't avoid blogging about any of my personal relationships or this would be a pretty boring blog. But I do have to think about how I would feel if that person found my blog. Or how I would feel if anyone from my past found my blog.

I've written about a painful relationship and break up I had in my early twenties and my still, somewhat, unresolved feelings about the whole matter. How would I feel if my ex-boyfriend read my post about him? How would he feel? I don't think I would be upset. In fact, I know I wouldn't. I would never post something about someone I know that I wouldn't tell them in person if they asked.

But the ex? I have a feeling he might be a bit upset about my revelations about his more recent past. I would apologize for hurting him, but I don't think I would remove the post. If he had confidentially shared the information about his past, I would never have written the post in the first place. But he didn't and ultimately the post is more about me than anyone else.

I was forced to think about my invisible cloak of privacy because two people I knew in high school are now occasionally reading my blog (Hi, K! Hi, B!) one of whom I suspect had a crush on me once upon a time.... (Or maybe I'm projecting.) Somehow it's easier to think of strangers reading my intimate thoughts about a deeply personal topic than it is to think of friends who knew me and my ex-boyfriend, who knew the people we were then.

Happily Ever After was one of the most personal posts I've ever written. It says a lot about me and who I am now. And so, ultimately, I guess I'm happy to have anyone who knew me then, know me now.

When you're looking at me on display in all my naked glory? Just try to ignore the stretch marks.

This post is for Julie's weekly Hump Day Hmmm.

Musical Memories

In memory, everything seems to happen to music.

- Tennessee Williams

My parents sent me to a preschool attached to a Lutheran church. We knew the teacher, although I can't recall her name now. She babysat me at times, drove me home from preschool on occasion and taught my Sunday school class. From what I recall, she was a nice, grandmotherly sort of person. (Although I now suspect she wasn't that much older than my parents. At the age of 4, everyone seems old.) For some reason, several of my most memorable, and undoubtedly character shaping, early childhood memories involved her.

Memory 1:

One day, my preschool teacher was bringing me home and we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things she needed. I, always the obedient child, followed her around the store and smiled shyly at all the people who told her how cute I was or tried to talk to me. I remember the muzak playing in the store, tinny and sweet. Very different from the music my father listened to.

When we were standing in the check out aisle it happened. While my teacher chatted with the cashier, I looked at all the gum and candy. And I picked one up, turned it over in my hand, and put it in my pocket. Not to keep, just to have for a minute. It made sense in my 4 year old mind. As we left the store, the cashier smiled at me and told me to have a good day. I smiled shyly back and was led away by the hand, the candy in my pocket forgotten.

I climbed into the car and put my hand in my pocket. What was this? As I pulled out the candy with some surprise, my teacher noticed. She asked me where I'd gotten the candy. I didn't answer. She knew anyway. She asked me if I'd taken it from the store. I didn't answer. She knew anyway.

She brought me back to the store, made me give the candy back to the cashier who'd beamed at me earlier, and apologize. I did. Mortified and in tears.

In the car, I quietly sobbed on the way home, listening to a lecture about stealing. I'm sure it was nothing more than a quick and serious conversation about why we don't take things without paying for them, but in my 4 year old mind it was so much more than that.

Clearly, it made quite an impression.

When I got home, my teacher didn't tell my mother. Neither did I. I knew my mother would be disappointed in me. If my teacher had been, I knew my mother would be. Even as a toddler I was already desperate to please. When my mother asked me what was wrong, I don't remember what I said. Perhaps I said I didn't feel well. But I know I didn't tell her the truth. That would have been impossible.

Memory 2:

My teacher had come to pick me up for Sunday School. I'm not sure why my parents weren't coming. Perhaps my brother, an infant, was sick. It seemed to my young mind that my father was always gone. (He was in the Air Force.) I was wearing a nice dress and shoes, my hair in carefully blow dried waves. In my memory it was my yellow dress with the white patent leather shoes, but that could be just because I've seen pictures of myself wearing that dress at about the age of 4.

We were in the driveway but I wouldn't get in the car. I was screaming and kicking and crying. I remember that they tried to physically put me in the car but I braced myself on the outside of the car and refused.

You don't understand what an event this was for me. I was an unusually well behaved and compliant infant and toddler. I didn't do public tantrums like that. Perhaps that's why my mother gave in. Faced with such a strangely violent reaction from me, it probably seemed best that I stay home.

I don't remember ever attending Sunday School again.

I don't remember much from immediately after the event. All I know is that I think of my Sunday School tantrum whenever I hear the song, "Jesus loves me." Perhaps I learned it for the first time from my preschool teacher. Maybe I did attend Sunday School again after that day, but in my memory tantrum day ended my formal relationship with "church," leaving a faint imprint of cardboard doves, the smell of thick school paste, and the faded sounds of children's songs on my mind.

The pain and recrimination of disappointing people. The triumph at having my voice heard. Both of these memories are quite vivid.

What do I take from these memories now? I'll leave that to you to speculate. I'm sure that those of you who know me well, or even read my blog regularly, can guess.

I still can't stand Seventies muzak.

This was part of Julie's Hump Day Hmmm. Our task for the week was to write about key childhood memories and how and why we still carry them.

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If you want to know the MOMocrats thoughts on John Edwards' recent departure from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, head on over today or tomorrow. We're not going away. We're going to be reminding Senators Obama and Clinton about the promises they've made and, hopefully, asking some tough questions. They're going to need to earn our votes.

Christmas in Omaha

I've been strangely silent about what happened in an Omaha mall last week. Some of you know that I lived in Omaha for 10 years and that my parents still live there. It's where I met and married T. We moved from Omaha to D.C. for law school at GWU.

But what you don't know is that I worked at Westroads Mall during college. I'm intimately familiar with the mall. In fact, I remember when the Von Maur department store opened and how excited we all were. I would go sit in the atrium and listen to the piano player in the store, which, at the age of 20, I thought was the height of elegance. Yes, the atrium where people died.

You also don't know that my husband's family knew one of the victims. A man originally from their small corner of Southwest Nebraska, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time doing some Christmas shopping at the end of a business trip. His funeral was earlier this week.

Honestly, I've been struggling with what to say.

The fabulously honest DD wrote about the Omaha shootings earlier this week and she said many of the things I want to say. This kind of random violence can happen anywhere. The Omaha metropolitan area has more than 1 million people. There are drugs, and gangs, and poverty, and social problems that would curl your toes in Omaha. Just like there are in every city and town in America. Midwestern town does not equal problem free town. People of America, particularly those of you who are in the media, please stop acting so damn surprised.

There are many more things about the media coverage of the shooting in Omaha that anger me. Just as there are many things about sensationalist media coverage of any tragedy that anger me. But what has been unexpected to me is how frustrated I am at the attempt of every community, national and local, to "own" this tragedy.

Now in some ways, feeling personally touched by a horrible event half way across the country or half way around the world is wonderful. Americans follow the news anxiously if a child falls down a well or a country is overwhelmed by a tidal wave. This support can be wonderful for parents, communities, and countries. It can motivate politicians, presidents, and policy.

But this support has a dark side.

The night of the Omaha shooting, our local news channel ran a lead story about the shooting, followed by a segment on protecting yourself at the mall. I have no doubt that news stations across the country ran similar stories. Of course local stations and the broadcast networks are going to cover the shooting. Of course, they are going to address issues that come up peripherally. But they don't have to make it sensationalist. They don't have to put the fear of God in every viewer. They don't have to lead with "Can it happen here? We ask local experts." We shouldn't have to experience 5 straight hours of CNN coverage that makes us think, "Oh. My. God. I will never enter a mall again without an Uzi to protect myself and my children!"

I call this the Fox News Effect.

I know that media outlets are responding to interest in a tragedy when they run segments like this, but these stories do two things: (1) they make us more fearful than is necessary; and (2) they trivialize the tragedies themselves.

Can it happen to you? Or you, or you, or you? Yes, of course it can. Is it likely? Um, no. Instead of focusing on the fear, why can't we have a rational discussion about mental illness? Even better, why can't we talk about how yellow journalism can drive people to do things like this in an attempt to become "famous?"

This focus on fear also moves the focus of the story (and the support of the viewing public) from where it should be - support of the victims, their families, their communities, and the underlying social problems that cause this sort of violence - to us, the viewing public, and what we can do to protect ourselves.

I know that if we stopped watching and voiced our displeasure, news outlets would stop. They run these stories because we watch them. But these stories play into our personal fears. Fears newly awakened by watching frightened and crying customers shivering in the parking lot in the aftermath. We start to think about ourselves instead of others.

In some ways, I felt the same after 9/11. I lived in D.C. I worked at the Pentagon during law school. My friends and colleagues were in that building. So were some of T's. We, and pretty much everyone we knew, were touched by death and despair. We knew the families, the wives, husbands, and children left behind. We drove past the gaping hole in the side of that imposing building every day. We saw the smoke. We felt the impact. We lived with the aftermath. We picked up the pieces and struggled to get on the Metro every day without fear. We boarded planes and pretended to be nonchalant as we prepared for take off.

Meanwhile, every small town in America started fighting over Homeland Security funds and freaking out about guarding the local water supply for a town of 500.

I'm not entirely sure why this made me so angry. But whenever I heard stories about things like that I just wanted to scream. It made me feel as if what had happened to my world was not important. As if what had happened in New York and D.C. was not as important as some hypothetical attack on Kansas City.

This is not to say that the rest of the country had no right to be scared or that no support was rallied. I think we all know how wonderful it was to live in the United States in the wake of 9/11, despite the fear. Americans pulled together in a way we rarely do. I also don't think everyone should act as if another 9/11 scale attack couldn't happen again and do nothing. But for God's sake, when I hear someone from a tiny town in the Northwest talking about the possibility of a terrorist attack at their local Piggly Wiggly, I just want to shake them. I want to shake them until they see the world beyond their personal space.

I know that the people of Omaha will pick up the pieces and move on. But I also know that they'll remember the victims this Christmas while they're in church and while they're gathered with their families, despite the lingering stories.

I know that many people in Omaha will be thinking of those families that are now missing a loved one. They'll be pulling together in support, true support, of those families. That is a facet of the Midwest that I know will always be the same, no matter how many journalists descend on the area.

What also gives me comfort is the knowledge that, despite what happened, the next time I go into Von Maur, or any store in Westroads Mall, I'll be greeted again with a sunny smile and a warm welcome. Because that's just how the people of Omaha roll.

This is for Julie's Hump Day Hmmm for the week. She tasked us with writing about our unique pet peeves.

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I have a new review up of the Autolite Flareglo on my review blog. If you're safety conscious, you'll want this for your emergency car kit.

Soundtrack of My Life

Julie's Hump Day Hmmm topic for this week is music. Egads! This is really a hard one for me. I love music. In fact, I hear music in my head almost constantly. (Not in an "I really need some anti-psychotics" kind of way, I swear!) But music is part of my inner monologue. You know, the stuff I don't let people know about?

My dad is a huge music lover and he passed his music down to my brother and me when we were small. I remember my dad sitting my brother and me down when I was maybe 6 and my brother was 2 or 3. He had us listen to In-a-gadda-da-vida by Iron Butterfly, paying careful attention to the drum solo. Yeah, the song is 20 minutes long. Seriously. Now, I find it a little amusing to know that my dad thought it so important to play us a song where the name came about because the band was too drunk and/or high to actually get the words "in the garden of Eden" out coherently. But that's just the way my family rolls.

When I was 8 years old, I desperately wanted a Blondie album from Santa Clause. (Let's not talk about what a geek I was. I believed in Santa until I was 9, being the oldest child and all that.) I was a little upset that Santa brought me Puff the Magic Dragon and the Sesame Street Disco Fever album. (Both of which, in hindsight, were pretty damn cool for an 8 year old and I secretly listened to them for years.) But my dad knew I was upset, so he gave me my first cassette tape. It was AC/DC's Back in Black. My dad was the coolest dad evah. Seriously, half of the concerts I've ever been to were with my dad. He rocks.

Music is deeply personal to me, but I don't often share it. I'm a car listener. I can't work while listening to music and we don't even have a stereo system in our home. But in the car, I sing at the top of my lungs and dance around. My kids love it. My husband thinks it's hilarious, particularly since I can't carry a tune. But no one else really ever sees that part of me.

In the car though... well, I'm more me. I'm me and everyone I've ever been in the past. I hear a certain song on the radio and am instantly 7 years old, riding in the car with my dad with the stereo cranked. I'm 11 years old and playing softball in the backyard. I'm 14 and I've just had my first real kiss. I'm 20 and my heart has been stomped and mangled for the first time. I'm 22 and I've just married the love of my life. I'm 32 and I'm driving my newborn around to get him to sleep.

I pull my car to a stop, turn off the ignition and open the door. The music ends and I'm 35 again.

Music is still very important to me and H&H show every sign of following in Mommy's footsteps. Hell, Hollis already has his own ipod with a more extensive play list than I have in my Treo. The Backyardigans feature very prominently, but his favorites also include "One Little Slip" by the Bare Naked Ladies, "Kaboom" by Ursula 1000, "Fly Away" by Tim McGraw, and "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes.

I've never done any of the music memes that have floated around BlogLand for the simple reason that it would be insanely long. I listen to anything and everything, although I'm not all that fond of country music. But even then, I make exceptions for songs I really like. So, I've created a soundtrack for each of my decades on planet Earth. These aren't necessarily my favorites from each decade, nor are they necessarily from the decade where I've listed them. But these songs would all be on the soundtrack of my life if it became Lawyer Mama, The Movie. (And why does that last line make me think of Spaceballs, The Toilet Paper?)

To start it off, I have some background music for you and it's one of my all time favorites. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.



The Seventies:

• Styx: Come Sail Away and Paradise Theater
• Harry Chapin: Cat's in the Cradle
• The Doors: People Are Strange
• Don McLean: American Pie
• Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody
• Abba: Dancing Queen
• John Lennon: Imagine
• Carly Simon: You're So Vain
• Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit
• Van Morrison: Brown Eyed Girl
• Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb

Damn! There are a lot of songs about drugs in there. Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad that my 3 year old can sing the lyrics to Blister In The Sun.

The Eighties:

• Bryan Adams: Summer of '69
• John Cougar Mellencamp: Paper in Fire
  
• Violent Femmes: Blister in the Sun
• The Smiths: How Soon is Now, Stop Me, Frankly Mr. Shankly (OK, pretty much anything by The Smiths)
• Erasure: Who Needs Love Like That (I'd like to clarify - I started listening to Erasure in the 80's, long before they became a hit in the U.S. with Ship of Fools)
• Psychedlic Furs: Pretty in Pink
• Beastie Boys: Pretty much anything. (Yeah, I know.)
• The Clash: Should I Stay or Should I Go
• INXS: Mediate
• Peter Gabriel: In Your Eyes

I'm just going to stop now, because I could keep doing the 80's for a few hours.

The Nineties:

• Wil Smith: Wild, Wild West (C'mon, I went to B_______ West High School and graduated in 1990. It was obligatory.)
• Garth Brooks: Friend in Low Places
• Tori Amos: Crucify, Silent All These Years, Winter (OK. Anything by Tori Amos. Still love her.)
• Eric Clapton: Wonderful Tonight
• Tracy Byrd: Keeper of the Stars (My first dance with my husband as a married woman.)
• Dave Matthews Band: Crash
• Barenaked Ladies: The Old Apartment, Alcohol, Who Needs Sleep? (The law school years. Go figure.)
• Meredith Brooks: Bitch (My personal theme song.)
• R.E.M.: Losing My Religion
• Indigo Girls: Shame on You, Closer I am to Fine

The Next Eight Years:

• Black Eyed Peas: Pump It
• KT Tunstall: Suddenly I see
• Fiona Apple: Paper Bag
• Eminem: Yellow Brick Road, Lose Yourself
• Five For Fighting: 100 Years, The Riddle (Yes, I know these are schmaltzy but I'm all hormonal since giving birth.)
• Eric Clapton: Tears in Heaven (Now that I'm a mother I cannot listen to this song without crying.)
• Scissor Sisters: I Don't Feel Like Dancing
• Anna Nalick: Breathe
• Badly Drawn Boy: The Shining

This post has taken me down memory lane. I think I downloaded about 50 songs while I was writing it.

Now I'm off to go listen to my life.

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Welcome to Day 4 of my campaign to get Wil Wheaton to comment. Now, even Jenny said that I must be patient.

I can understand why you commented for Jenny, Wil. She's funny, she's smart, yadda yadda yadda. I've met Jenny, she's also HAWT! But me? I may not be hot, but I am persistent.

Next of Kin: Dona Nobis Pacem

Julie's Hump Day Hmmm for this week is participation in the Blog Blast for Peace. Until this evening, I honestly had no idea what I would write, aside from the obvious, "End the war in Iraq."

Then, I got some mail.

It was a postcard addressed to "All Family Members of Company G" from the Family Support Group in Medina, Ohio. This is my brother's National Guard Reserve Unit that's being mobilized soon. We had some good news recently. His unit won't be mobilized for training at Ft. Hood, Texas until after the first of the year. My brother had expected to be in Ft. Hood over Christmas, with a few days off for the actual holiday break. Everything has been pushed back a few months, but the end result is the same. They'll be in the Middle East next year.

The postcard itself was innocuous. It was about a holiday party for the reserve unit and their families. No, what stopped me in my tracks was what this post card meant. I've never received anything like this with regards to my brother before. But tonight, holding that piece of cardboard, my heart skipped a beat and my stomach did a slow flip. I came to a sickening realization.

I am my brother's next of kin.

If something happens to B., mine is the number they'll call. A car will pull up in front of my house, an officer in Army green will step out and walk up my driveway and ring my doorbell. My world is the one that will tip on its axis first.

I will have to call B's girlfriend, his aunts and uncles. His grandparents.

Our parents.

It's easy to talk about war and peace in the abstract. It's easy to debate whether military action is necessary, or "right," or just. It's easy to talk about troop movements and IED's and snipers. It's easy to declare that fighting terrorism, or championing democracy, or even stopping the war is the most important issue facing our generation.

It's much harder to talk about real solutions. It's much harder to look at the photos of soldiers killed in Iraq. It's much harder to think about their wives, husbands, parents, and children. It's much harder to look at your own family photos and picture someone missing.

I don't want one more doorbell rung, one more family crushed, one more photo framed in remembrance. Peace is really the only option. The bigger question is - how do we get there?


Cross posted, with changes, at MOMocrats.

The Ghost In My House

I love my house.

It's older and has a lot of quaint charm. By "quaint" I mean it has original plumbing that will need to be completely replaced in the next ten years. And by "charm" I mean the house consists of several additions, none of which really match the original Cape Cod style of the farm house. Our house also has some slightly creepy features like the "Window to Nowhere." But still, we love our house. It was built in the 1920's as, we believe, a second house on the original farm upon which our subdivision was built.

We have the largest remaining tract of land from the original farm, at 4 acres. The original farm house sits vacant next door to ours, it's beautiful Colonial bones waiting for a new family. Of course any home with that much history has, well, a lot of history. Unfortunately, we haven't discovered much about the original owners of our home or the land around it, although I hope to spend some time researching it when the boys are a little older. It seems a shame to not know the history of this house and the lives of the families that loved it. But with the history and character of our old home, we also got something unexpected.

We have a ghost.

Laugh if you will, but creepy things have been happening in this house since we moved in. First, it was just lights and ceiling fans turning on and off. For awhile we weren't really sure because, with the chaos of 2 small boys, 2 cats and 2 adults, who keeps track of whether or not you turned on the ceiling fan in the kids' room?

Then the cat started getting trapped in the boys' closet. (Although it was really only Hollis's closet at the time. Holden was still in utero.)

We have 2 cats. One is laid back and affectionate. The other - Pandora (or Pandy for short) - is a bit annoying. She randomly whines/meows at all times of the day or night. It's an ear piercing whine that can't be easily ignored or tuned out. About 2 months after we moved in, and about the time we were noticing the light and fan machinations, I came home from work early and Pandy was whining upstairs. She'd been trapped in the boys' closet for the day.

We don't really use the boys' closet. It's smallish and deep, built into some spare space in the dormer. It doesn't have a light so I don't like to put much in there because I can't see a darn thing. I keep the few hanging clothes the boys have in there and use the rest of the space for storing off season clothes and extra quilts and blankets.

The day Pandy got stuck in the closet for the first time, I wasn't sure if I'd opened the closet in the morning. There's a trash can in there, so I figured I just hadn't closed the door until it latched. Ditto with the door to the boys' room. At the time, I always closed the bedroom door because if I didn't, Hollis would run back in the room and slam the door behind him in the always fun game of "run away from Mommy." But still, I thought I might have left the door open.

Then it happened again. It still didn't bother me much. I suppose Mommy brain really could be striking on a regular basis. But then, I've been tempted to close Pandy in the closet in the past. I could certainly understand if "someone else" in the house couldn't resist the temptation.

About the time "someone" started working on our whining cat problem, the light and fan show became a little more obvious. I can't sleep without the fan on, so I always turn on the ceiling fan when we go to bed. I would wake up in the middle of the night or the morning and the fan would be off. The overhead light in our bedroom would switch on at 2 am, waking me from a sound sleep. T and I started to get a bit freaked out. But we figured maybe another "charming" feature of the house was a whacked out electrical system.

Then, one afternoon Hollis and I were playing in the living room while T vacuumed. (Yes, he vacuums. Hollis comes by his love for the vacuum honestly.) Our living room is situated between the entry way and our sunroom, an addition that was a side porch to the original house. An earlier owner added on a garage and enclosed the porch with a large square picture window on one side and glass doors leading to the pool patio on the other, leaving in the step down from the house to the former porch. The sunroom is perfect for plants and we keep them all safely tucked away in the sunroom, behind a sturdy, automatically closing baby gate that the kids still can't open to this day. When I walk into the house, I have a tendency to kick my shoes off and let them fall where they may in the sunroom on my way to the living room. Of course, we all trip over my shoes on a daily basis.

So T vacuumed his way through the living room and moved into the sunroom to vacuum the rugs. I got up to ask him something and noticed that he had carefully lined up my shoes on the step down into the sunroom, with the toes on the sunroom floor and the heels up on the step to the living room as if they were on display in a shoe store. I got T's attention and, after he shut off the vacuum, laughed at him for tidying my shoes. We all know that's simply a futile task!

T insisted that he hadn't moved my shoes and that when he'd come through the sunroom earlier, he'd tripped over them by the door. The door to the garage, across the room from the entry way to the living room where they were now.

We both stared at the shoes for a few minutes. They were artfully arranged with the toes pointed slightly outward and heels touching, as if the heels had just lightly clicked. Neither of us had moved the shoes. We knew Hollis and the cats hadn't done it. That left another possibility....

Now the possibility of a benign little ghostie playing with light switches and taunting the cat really hadn't bothered us up until that point. The shoe incident freaked us out because it happened right under our noses. Action was necessary. T was out of town for the next few days, so I sat quietly in our bedroom one night, right under the overhead light, and had a little chat with our "someone."

I started out telling our "someone" that I loved her house and that I hoped she'd been happy here. I asked her to refrain from scaring the kids and freaking the crap out of me. (T was on his own. He'd left me alone in the house with a ghost, damn him.) But then I kept talking. I told "someone" about how conflicted I was about moving away from D.C. in search of a more balanced work life. I told her how scared I to have another child so quickly. I shared that I was afraid I wouldn't love the new baby as much as Hollis or that Hollis would be neglected or scarred in some way. I talked about how much I loved my new role as a mother but how I missed the old me. The me that was so much more than just Hollis's mom.

The words just spilled out. When I finally started to wind down, I tossed Pandy a bone and asked our ghost to stop trapping her in the closet. I explained that Pandy was annoying and a little dim, but that we loved her nonetheless. I know my conversation wasn't really a conversation. I just needed to talk and feel as if someone was listening. (Kind of like this blog. Hmmm....)

I can't say whether I honestly believe we have a ghost. I just like the idea of her, so I still talk to her. She keeps turning our lights on in the middle of the night (in fact, T said it happened again last night while I was in Savannah), but Pandy hasn't been trapped in the closet lately and we still trip over my shoes on a daily basis. Whether she's real or just a product of my (over) active imagination, I don't really care. I love having a ghost.

When the boys are older, I'm sure they will too. How many of you can honestly say that you believe your kids when they insist they don't know who ate the last of the Oreos or broke the screen door? I guess in the Lawyer Mama household we'll never really know....

You may be wondering why I keep referring to our ghost as "her" and "she." Isn't it obvious? I haven't met many men, living or dead, who would pick up a pair of shoes.

This is part of Julie's Hump Day Hmmm for the week. Our topic was, of course, Halloween. Cross posted on DC Metro Moms Blog.

Some Questions for Virginia Drivers

For Julie's Hump Day Hmmm this week, she asked that we write about something that's bothering us in a humorous way. Gah! The pressure to be funny on demand is too great! I do have something that's been bothering me. I can't promise funny, but I can promise sarcasm....

I have some questions and comments for Virginia drivers:

1. If there's construction ahead and a lane ending, let me in. If you don't, I'll be forced to drive to the front of the line and bulldoze my way in. I'll win. My SUV is bigger than yours.



2. What the hell is up with the confederate flag you're hanging in your back window? The war is over. We lost. Get over it. And stop perpetuating hate and discrimination with that disgusting symbol. It means hate NOT heritage!



3. What's up with the gun rack? I rarely see actual guns in them, which, let's face it, is probably a good thing, but are you trying to convince me that you actually hunt? If you don't, lose the gun rack. It is not a cute accessory.



4. Ditto with those annoying play boy bunny mud flaps. It's not going to help you pick up women.



5. Truck balls. Explain yourself. It's bad enough that you've purchased that truck with jacked up wheels to attempt to overcome your inadequacies. Do you have to hang plastic nuts from the rear too?



6. Why are you riding my bumper? Does it take too much effort for you to change lanes? Do you really think you're following at a safe distance? I hope you have insurance, because if the kids aren't in the car I might hit my brakes and sue you for whiplash.



7. HOV Lane means High Occupancy Vehicle lane. It does not mean that you, the solo driver, can use that lane to pass or to cruise when traffic is backed up. All those people you're cruising by will bludgeon you to death with your truck balls if given the chance.
   


8. Turn your stereo down. I don't want to listen to your booming music, particularly if it's 2am and I can hear it from my house. I'm going to sound like my mother for a moment but, you're going to be deaf if you don't knock it off.



9. Put your kids in a car seat! If I see them bouncing all over the back of the car I will call the police and I will pull up next to you at the intersection and yell at you. And yes, it is my business!

I think I'm done for now.

{/rant}

My Family Values

“Values are not just words, values are what we live by. They're about the causes that we champion and the people we fight for.” --John Kerry

Julie's Hump Day Hmm this week is about values. I had planned a post about religion because I have yet to discuss religion on my blog. There's a good reason for that. I'm very conflicted and I'm frequently hesitant to discuss the one area of my life where I have absolutely no confidence.

I can't do it. I absolutely cannot hit publish on that post. So instead, I'd like to share some things I would like to give to my boys:

love
kindness
responsibility
empathy

a love of books
social justice
equality
wonder

a love of music
spontaneity
reserve
swimming

a love of art
trust
openness
an inquisitive mind

a love of nature
originality
thoughtfulness
the ability to lose gracefully

a love of mankind
caution
optimism
a healthy dose of skepticism

a love of laughter
sarcasm
hand farts
silliness

a love of competition
ambition
dedication
the ability to win gracefully

a love of animals and small children
tears
joy
loss and learning

The sun, the moon, and the stars. I don't ask for much, do I?

These are my family values.

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

I have a new review of Nina Garcia's book The Little Black Book of Style up on my review blog, along with pictures of my shamefully decadent shoe collection and my favorite pair of sexy shoes. Go read it!

Private School Angst

I'm a product of public schools.

Now, depending on what you think about my writing you're either thinking, "Well, that certainly explains a lot," or, "Go, Steph!" But my point is, I've always been a firm supporter of public education. If kids with advantages at home are all sent to private schools, where does that leave the public schools? We all know the answer to that. It can leave the public schools with dummed-down academic programs, uninvolved parents, and funding problems.

Of course it was much easier for me to stand on my soapbox and preach The Gospel Of Public School before I actually became a parent.

Before we moved to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, we lived in the City of Falls Church, just outside of D.C. For those of you who have no friggin' clue what this means, we were a short walk from some of the finest public schools in the country. The population of the City of Falls Church is extremely well educated, high income, diverse, and involved. The CoFC also has its own small public school system, separate and apart from the ginormous Fairfax County Public Schools. (Even though the CoFC is technically in Fairfax County.) This means smaller class sizes, a more flexible and varied curriculum, less bureaucracy, and much more parental involvement. In other words, Falls Church is pretty much a parent's public school wet dream.

Of course after we had our first child, T and I, in our infinite wisdom, decided to move several hours away from D.C. in a search for more balanced family lives. We were also looking for a less, um..., cloying neighborhood. We found the perfect house on a 4 acre lot and lots of privacy. We love it.

But we don't live in a very good school district.

Our elementary school is not great. While the high school has a relatively good reputation, it is huge. While this may mean more access to AP and IB classes and interesting extracurricular activities, it can mean less individual contact with the faculty, and less opportunity for my involvement in choosing their educational paths.

A large public school would also mean there will be less opportunity for my kids to be deeply involved in school sports, something that I think is important for every child regardless of ability level. Judging by the athletic talent of T and I, neither of our kids is destined to become the next Peyton Manning, but I'd still like them to be involved in their school sports teams if they're so inclined.

So now T and I find ourselves facing a decision we swore we'd never have to make. Are we going to send our kids to private schools?

I can't say that we have the answer to this question yet. I still strongly support public schools. I still also believe that troubled schools need the involvement of more parents who actually give a damn. And frankly, the private schools in our area are not very diverse and diversity, in race, income, and culture, is important to me. I do not want my children to grow up with a sense of entitlement. I want them to grow up with a sense of responsibility to the community and their fellow man.

That is not to say that all of these things can't be found in private schools, but am I a hypocrite if I teach these things at home and then pack my kids off to an expensive school to play with other kids who have money?

I want my children to have the best opportunities, but that doesn't just mean the best opportunities that money can buy. I'm just not sure yet which route will offer the "best" for my children.

How did you decide between public and private schools or how will you decide? Is cost the only issue?

This post is part of Julie's Hump Day Hmm round table. Our topic for this week was school. This post is also cross posted at DC Metro Moms.

Race and the Blogosphere

This post is part of Julie Pippert's Hump Day Hmm and BlogRhet's "Let's Talk About Race, Baby" week long initiative.

There have been some fascinating debates going on in the Blogosphere about race as it relates to blogging over the last few weeks. In fact, Julie's Hump Day Hmmm to all of us this week is to discuss whether race matters on the Internet, or whether it should matter.

I have many thoughts on this subject and no time to write them all down. However, Julie asked us to put our comments from her post into a post of our own if the topic as a whole was overwhelming.

A little background first: If asked a few months ago if race mattered on the Internet, I would have said yes and no. Sometimes people write from a racial and cultural perspective that I find interesting. Although my blog roll over there is pretty white bread, I do enjoy variety and I have over 200 blogs in my Bloglines. Some are parents, some are not. Some are white, some are not. But overall I would have argued that the Internet is a place that is colorblind.

Aside from the economical aspect of Internet access (that's a post for another time), if you don't want your race known on the Internet, it won't be. If we're honest, I think that on the Internet, even if your race is advertised and discussed, there aren't the same stumbling blocks or awkwardness to a discussion that there might be face to face.

Julie, in her post, discussed why race sometimes should matter, in medical diagnosis and on the Internet. She points out that our genetic background may be the key to an ailment that our skin color does not reveal. Then Julie wonderfully describes why our race and cultural backgrounds may be and sometimes should be important. I agree with her point that different cultures and different perspectives, whether seen through the veil of color or not, can be an amazing addition to our online conversations. How boring this blogging world would be if we all agreed about everything and we all had the same background.

Part of my comment to Julie on this post was:

Sometimes I think its easy for those of us who are white (or at least appear to be) to say that race doesn't or shouldn't matter. But you point out quite aptly, that sometimes it should. I tend to think that we should embrace our similarities and our differences because *that* is what will make this world interesting, whether in the "real" world or the blogosphere.

Her Bad Mother raised some interesting questions in her comment to the discussion:

Do bloggers have an obligation to write their racial/ethnic/cultural (not to mention sexual, etc.) identities into their texts? Do *readers* have an obligation to seek that information out? How do we navigate this issue in a community that allows - even encourages - certain degrees of invisibility?

I can't pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I don't want to have all of the answers. I just want to participate in the discussion.

So tell me what you think, in the comments or on your blog. Does race matter in the Blogosphere? Add your voice to the discussion.

I apologize for writing a half-assed post and not including all of the necessary linky love, but I have a lot going on right now. If you read Julie's post, I promise you'll find all the background you need on this weighty topic.