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Have you seen the Freedom to Marry ad on the right sidebar? My brilliant sister designed it. It makes me quite teary. That kid is just so cute. Your family totally deserves equality, little man!!

On that note, Freedom to Marry week is coming up, February 10 - 16. I'm planning to post daily — come hell or high water — about why marriage equality matters, even to the straighties, and I hope you'll join me.

Also, there's a poll on the right sidebar to vote on a name for our new dog. "Hank" is the front-runner, with write-in "Ike" showing a strong second.

So far so good

The new dog

So far he's unnamed. (The rescue group was calling him "Mork," but he doesn't seem to answer to it reliably, anyway.) I'm leaning toward "Hank."

You say it's your birthday?

It's my birthday, too, yeah!

Happy birthday to my favorite sister, the coolest girl I know, my best friend for life. I love you!

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree

Thea's daycare was discussing Martin Luther King Jr. last week. She said that MLK taught that it's okay to be different. I tried to explain, it's not just that it's okay to be different, it's that there is no difference, no "other" that you hold up in opposition to yourself and use to define yourself. We are all the same, every single one of us, and if some of us don't have justice, none of us has justice.

I think the subtleties were lost on her, and in the end I just agreed, yeah, it's okay and even great to be different. Close enough.

Happy MLK Day!


Jay Smooth at Ill Doctrine, via Feministing

Dee's babies

Blog friend Dee at On the Curb recently had her twins, two of the cutest little muffins ever. Her hilarious post about getting ready to birth the babies included a pregnancy shot that both was gorgeous and made me cringe a little. Women pregnant with twins are freaking super-heroes.

Anyway, it made me a little nostalgic (and grateful that those days are past for me). Here are the last pictures before Thea's December 2003 arrival. We were on our way to a fancy holiday party.



Todd thought I was brave to take the picture.



I think I looked very pretty!

Wow, check out the wallpaper. That used to be in our living room, before I painted over it. When we first brought Thea home, her eyes would cross while staring at it. I think she couldn't figure out where to focus.

We're interviewing for another dog

Like last time, the very instant things start to get easier in our lives, I have to go and muck it up with a new edition to the family. It was either get another dog or have a baby. We're opting for the dog.

My dearest friend Nylonthread, bless her, asked in her gentle and graceful way if perhaps this time we might consider getting a dog that doesn't jump up or slobber. We'll try!

As trying as Tina might be sometimes (like when we have friends over), she's also quite fabulous. The other night Thea was having a meltdown before bed. Basically she was overtired and cranky, and every little thing was setting her off. So I started petting the dog and saying soothingly, "Tina, you look so upset right now. Is it because you're tired? Or did you have a bad day? What's wrong with my puppy?" Thea calmed down and pet the dog with me, cooing "Don't be sad. You have such beautiful bright eyes. You'll feel better in the morning." End of drama.

And last night while Todd was at the grocery store, Tina went outside and started barking like mad at something across the street. I assumed it was someone walking another dog and went out to yell at her. That's when I saw two people standing across the street, just staring at our house. They gave me the heebie-jeebies, too. Good girl!

A chance to see an icon of free speech

We are so lucky. One of the NEA 4 and a favorite performance artist of mine, Tim Miller, will be performing at the Dance Place, and on my wedding anniversary, no less. Time to line up a babysitter!

For those of you who don't remember the '90s, Tim Miller, Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, and John Fleck were four artists whose funding by the NEA was revoked because of their "indecent" gay and sexually explicit subject matter. (Ironically, the work of Karen Finley — the lone straighty — was probably the most challenging and inflammatory.) This was an important part of our cultural history, a watershed event. It was part of a far-reaching, government-sanctioned suspicion toward and rejection of art and intellectualism, a muffling of free expression, that is still in effect.

You can find out more about Tim Miller on his blog. If you get a chance, totally check out his show. It's amazing.

Little drummer boy and little pantsless prince

Little princesses

The girl monsters

This monster is mine

Little monster

Update on Liam's sleep issues

You may recall, a couple of weeks ago we started trying to get Liam to sleep on his own, all night long: two ambitious and lofty goals. (I asked what you would do: go to a happy-hour with new colleagues or go home to start the new sleep plan. I ended up talking my coworkers into starting happy hour significantly earlier, had a great time, and was still able to be home in time for the kids' bedtime.)

Through promises of morning M&Ms and pep talks about "big boy sleep," our nights have gotten progressively better so that now Liam sleeps through the night about half the time, and on the nights that he does wake up, all it takes is a few reassuring pats on the back and he's back to sleep.

Last night was the absolute best night ever. Liam has always cried hysterically when it's Todd's night to get him to sleep. It's so dramatic, you'd think we were ripping him from his mother's arms to sell him to the circus or something. But last night after bath, he toddled of to his room cheerfully saying "Daddy's night!" and then slept the whole night before waking at 6:15 am and calling for Todd.

I feel a little guilty, because I think what has helped is me being overworked and not available lately. Todd gets the kids ready for school, picks them up from daycare at the end of the day, figures out dinner, and gives them bath, all by himself. On the weekends, I hole up in the home office (as best I can, anyway, in a room with the downstairs bathroom and no doors) or Todd takes the kids out, or I abandon the family for the DC office. He's really been doing the lion's share of the childcare lately, and maybe it's helped Liam get a little less attached to his unavailable mom.

On being and nothingness

Regarding my last post: What I was trying to say, probably ineloquently because I've been way over-worked and thus brain-dead lately, is that the act of writing, of documenting and thinking about things in a linear fashion, makes us aware of ourselves, makes us self-conscious, in a way that is not the same as the way we are, say, vegging in front of the TV or going to the grocery store or otherwise going about the daily business of life.

So it's not that the blog-you is a lie or something you've constructed (although it most likely isn't the full-story you, either, unless your self-disclosure is complete and factual and without editorializing). More that you are more coherent to yourself when you narrate your own story back to yourself.

Does that make sense? Eh, whatever. I'll be glad when the writers' strike is over and I can go back to filling my evenings with TV.

I am an artifice? No, wait, I am a pyrotechnist

Something I read in Todd Colby's blog a few days ago has really stuck with me. I think it's applicable to almost everyone who blogs:

As soon as you start writing, even if it is under your real name, you start to function as somebody slightly different, as a "writer". You establish from yourself to yourself continuities and a level of coherence which is not quite the same as your real life.... All this ends up constituting a kind of neo-identity which is not identical to your identity as a citizen or your social identity. Besides you know this very well, since you want to protect your private life.

(Michel Foucault. 'Je suis un artificier'. In Roger-Pol Droit (ed.), Michel Foucault, entretiens. Paris: Odile Jacob, p. 106. Interview conducted in 1975. This passage trans. Clare O'Farrell.)

I don't consider myself a writer at all (unlike Todd Colby, who is quite a frabulous writer; check it his blog!), but keeping a blog does indeed establish a continuity and level of coherence to my mundane existence. I wonder what the social landscape would look like if women in the 1950s and '60s would have been able to keep blogs. Would they still have felt isolated and resentful?

2007 recap meme

All the cool kids are doing this meme, and since I have exactly 10 minutes before I fall into a deep but fitful sleep, I thought I'd participate, too.

1. Where did you begin 2007?
With friends over at my place for our yearly grape cram/jumping-off-furniture fest.

2. Did you have to go to the hospital?
Numerous times, for family and friends. 2007 can kiss my ass.

3. Did you have any encounters with the police?
Does calling the cops on our neighbors for late-night parties count?

4. Where did you go on vacation?
Thea and I spent a weekend at the beach in Rehoboth, DE, around Labor Day.

5. What did you purchase that was over $500?
Um, wow. I can't think of a thing. Did I mention 2007 pretty much bit?

6. Did you know anybody who got married?
Nope.

7. What sporting events did you attend?
None. I do actually regret not catching a few WNBA games.

8. What concerts/shows did you go to?
B-52's and Tori Amos. I resolve to see more live music in 2008.

9. Where do you live now?
College Park, MD. We're in our fourth year at our current house. (I could copy almost all of Nylonthread's answers without much change.)

10. Describe your birthday:
Swilling tequila with some of my favorite people after getting fake tans.

11. What’s the one thing you thought you would never do, but did in 2007?
Get a fancy corporate job. I thought I'd be non-profit for life.

12. What’s something you learned about yourself?
I am surprisingly resilient.

13. Any new additions to your family?
Our pup, Tina.

14. What was your best month?
I think it would have to be November. Most of the health scares were behind us, and I got a new job that I'm digging.

15. What music will you remember 2007 by?
Todd and Bob's Christmas album.

16. Made new friends?
In addition to some lovely bloggy friends, my favorite new friend of 2007 was Tara. I would love to see more of her, but I think I'm already coming off a little stalker-y.

17. Favorite night out?
My birthday. And Nylonthread's birthday, too. Oh, and the B-52's and Tori Amos concerts (even though I almost fell asleep).

18. Any regrets?
That I didn't get out with my husband alone more often. Or at all, really.

19. What do you want to change in 2008?
More Todd time!

[skipping some because this is taking longer than I thought it would ... ]

26. Do you have a New Year’s resolution?
I don't really do resolutions, but I am trying to limit my consumption of high fructose corn syrup, plastic, and anything from China.

28. Be honest - did you watch American Idol?
OMG, why, is it on now?!! I effing love AI.

30. Will you be happy to see 2007 go?
My mantra for the last year: 2007, kiss my ass.