Frequently Asked Questions About This Weblog
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My Attempt to Make it Look Like I Have More than Three Readers Who Did Not Watch Me Grow Up


You sound just like every other self-obsessed, egocentric mom out there who thinks her blog will some day score her a big book deal, don't you think? Why, thank you. That's entirely what I was going for. I'm reminded of the words of my step-son, who, when his father asked, "Do you know what a blog is?", rolled his eyes at the backasswardness of his old man born and reared in the previous century and said, "Yes... it's an online journal." And that's just what this is. My online journal. To keep my thoughts and my experiences for my posterity. It's all about me. The only reason I even bother to do it on line is because I am somehow patently unable to continue writing when it's in a notebook that no one will open for half a lifetime. I've been more successful at keeping this blog going than the several dozen other journals and scrapbooks I've started since I was a kid. The bonus is that I don't have to use The Phone to keep friends and relatives up on my life. When someone says, "Hey, I didn't know you had a kid, why didn't you tell me?" I simply blink and say, "Read the blog." But if you're someone out there who wants to pay me actual dollars to write about this crap so I can quit my job and lie around the house all day, living in a manner I'd like to become accustomed to... hey, I'm all ears.

What's up with that step-son anyway? Why don't you ever talk about him? My step-son quite possibly is one of the greatest kids ever. But a) he's a teenager and I'm sensitive to the fact that he might not want to someday see cutesy stories about himself on the Interweb, however anonymous they are; b) he lives with his mother most of the time, so I have less day to day stuff to write about, and; c) I am concerned that maybe his mother possibly would like to not see cutesy stories about him on the Interweb either. Basically, I'm protecting his privacy in case he one day would like to disavow any knowledge of my existence.

Does this mean you'd stop writing about your daughter if she felt uncomfortable with what you were posting - even if it were anonymous? Absolutely.

How about your husband? He doesn't rank the same sensitivity. Especially since one of his favorite hobbies is telling other people how "scary" I am.

I'm offended by [insert blog post here] that you wrote and I want to tell you how wrong you are. Have I not made it abundantly clear that this is all about me? Look, there's a lot of content on the web, so if you don't like what I'm writing, you can feel free to hop on over to the NRA website or on-line porn or something that more suits your sensibilities. But... because I am accommodating like that, I have installed a polling system on my website so you can click to announce your displeasure at any given time. See that little red box in the uppermost top right hand corner of this window? Yeah, the one with the X in it. That's it. If something I write here offends you and you want to let me know, click that.

Why is the font so big? You could fit more stuff on a page if you made the font smaller. Perhaps, but I would also not be able to read it while leaning back in my chair with my feet up while looking like I'm doing something else at work. And since we've established that this is all about me....

Is everything you write true? Yes. Absolutely. Except for when it's embellished truth. Or when it's just plain fabrication. In fact, how do you even know I'm answering this question truthfully? Honestly, this is my life as I see it. So no apologies when my perspective doesn't match yours. That having been said, however, I do try very hard - especially in quoting things people say to me - to directly quote them. So if you're reading this and you think something I write about seems like something you said and I'm making you sound like a dumass, that's probably how you sounded to me when you said it.

Can't you think of anything else to write about other than your kids and husband? Sure. My job, my boss, my extended family, my paycheck... But I'd kind of like to hold onto all of those things and I'm fully aware that my husband and kids are the only ones with the sense of humor to not Dooce me. Also, they are powerless to do so, so that's a plus.

Just what is it that you do? My job requires that I be equal parts therapist, computer programmer, writer, planner, executive assistant, network administrator, editor, musician, graphic designer, middle-manager, marketer, bookkeeper, mechanic, and shoulder to cry on. As passionate as I am about my career, however, my job often bears little resemblance to the career for which I was trained. It's also fairly specialized, so I won't go into any more detail than that, because someone once warned, "be ye not so stupid", and I be not.

Why don't you put up a belly pic every morning and evening? First, I am assuming that the writer of this question implied a "while you are pregnant" at the end. If the "while you are pregnant" was not implied, then, well, this is simply not that kind of site. If it is implied, I'm pleased as punch you want to look at my knocked-uppedness and watch it grow. But I can assure you, it's not a pretty picture. I do not get "cute pregnant" like all those little skinny girls who end up looking like an olive on a toothpick in their eighth month. My body... expands. And it's unpleasant. I'm actually considering telling people that I'm sitting shiva and covering all the mirrors in the house until about nine months (or maybe more accurately, two years) after I give birth, when I can again see my reflection without wondering, "hey, who's that fat lady?" If you want to see cute pregnant bellies, there are plenty of photos of Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, and Brittney Spears out there... and given Hollywood's obsession with sex, I'm willing to bet there will be more to come.

Why don't you think pregnancy is the most fun you've ever had!? Five words: pain, vomiting, pain, fear... and pain. Actually the vomiting has passed me over with this go around. But I've also had an extra dose of the pain. All other things being equal, I'd take the vomiting. I dislike the shopping for maternity clothes quite a bit too.

What's with the Alice in Wonderland thing? I honestly can't explain that adequately. It started when I moved all the way across the country to take a job that turned out to be one of the worst mistakes I've ever made in my life. I remember telling my family that I felt like I was Alice and I'd stepped through the Looking Glass into this world that didn't run the way I was used to. I started using characters in the book to identify my co-workers... my boss was the Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat was someone who was there the first day I worked but that I didn't see again for weeks, etc. It just kind of stuck with me. I love Lewis Carroll's writing. He was one of the first uber-popular children's writers in the US (take that, JK Rowling) - so there's a ton of cool artwork, history, and a variety of book editions and treatments of the story to examine.

Why do you use code names? To keep Chris Hansen from showing up in my living room to film another installment of To Catch a Predator.

Why do you use code names for you and your family, but not your friends? Good point. Most of my friends show up on the blog under the moniker "a friend/coworker/acquaintance/person I know/family member said the other day....". This way, I look like I have just one friend. Which is not at all true... I have two friends - and sometimes use those terms interchangeably for the same person. But it is true that I have been known to use real names for some people. In those cases, those other people have set the precedent by either a) outing themselves on their own blog or website or b) outing themselves on their own in my comments section first. So I know that they do not share my paranoia about putting a name on the Interweb for all to see. In addition, the "real" names tend to be common ones (unlike some of my family's names) and a Google search result of 158,000 hits is almost as good as anonymity. If a friend has a codename on his/her own weblog, I'll gleefully use that instead because I think they're more fun anyway.

That KingofHearts, he sounds like a real tool. What's up with him? Actually, that wasn't a real question. But that made KoH stand up and take notice, didn't it honey? Gotcha.

Tell me the story of how you and the KingofHearts got married. He wore me down. End of story.

Is your husband as big of a geek as he sounds? You decide. In my house there is a box of Dungeons and Dragons paraphernalia. It does not belong to me.

Why does your site look weird in insert name of browser that is not Firefox here? I'm not much of a web designer - I totally stole this template (and this FAQ) from Zoot. I look at my site in Firefox and occasionally IE7 and I barely bother to make sure it works there. That much obsession I cannot allow into my life because soon, I'd be touching doorknobs and turning keys eleven times before opening the doors and walking through, only to wonder if I really turned that key the ninth time, or if it didn't really count because I maybe didn't turn it all the way to where it stopped on the left and then having to turn the car around a drive the three miles back home to make sure it was done right or I'd bring some horrible calamity raining down upon all the people I loved.

Why did my comment not show up after I submitted it? There are several possibilities for that: 1) your comment was spam and even though I know it's an uphill battle, I like to do my part to keep the Interweb as ad-free as possible so it was not approved. 2) your comment was completely unrelated to the post and you were just looking for a forum to spout your opinion/product/website and Alice don't play that way. 3) your comment was assy and I hate wars started in comment sections by people who are just looking to get a rise out of others, so it was not approved. 4) you can't figure out how to work the Leave a Comment feature and you need a little more practice with the Interweb.

Why do all my comments have to be approved? See the question above - and then let me tell you a little something about myself: I'm lazy, lazy, lazy. And there's an extra step to deleting comments in having to look back at your web page all the time. Once I post something, I tend to not go back and look at it again until the next time I post something and comment moderation comes with a handy email that comes straight to your inbox.

I comment on your site all the time, why don't you comment on mine? I know it's difficult to believe, based on the number of lanes I can take up writing about nothing on the Information Superhighway, but I am actually a person of few words. I read lots of blogs, but I will only go to the trouble to comment if there's something I really feel the need to say (or more likely, something to say that I think is really funny). I hate it when someone raises his hand in church to say exactly what the last guy just said, just using different names in what turns out to be pretty much the same story. So if I see that someone else has commented with basically what I was thinking, I don't bother - there's enough redundancy on the Interweb as it is. Plus I am L-A-Z-Y.

 Why didn't you comment about my comment? Gimme an L. Gimme an A, Gimme a Z....

What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? African or European?

I've heard that Mormons are a cult, is that true? The Merriam-Webster online dictionary lists five different meanings of the word "cult": 1. Formal religious veneration, 2. A system of religious beliefs and ritual; also: its body of adherents; 3. A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also: its body of adherents; 4. A system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator; 5. Great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book). I think that on at least four of those five counts, Mormons qualify. But so do Catholics, Baptists, Hindus, Pentecostals, Methodists, Jews, Muslims, Charles Manson's Family, and the Heaven's Gate people. So I'm not really sure you can use that word to any distinction. (Even daring to answer a question like this makes me glad I have the comment moderation on. Welcome, Google searchers of the Internet, please see the answer to question five.)

Where do you find the time to write all this stuff? I've got a lot of things in my life that require procrastination. You gotta fill up that time with something.

Where do you find all of those crazy pictures you use? A lot of people don't know that in addition to being a pretty excellent doctor, Google can also find an image on the web for just about any search terms you care to query. I do, however, make attempts (however minimal) to avoid using copyrighted and/or personal graphics and photos. Sometimes that's difficult to determine on the web though

Is it really true that nobody guesses Pluto first? This is a veiled reference to a Pictionary game eight years ago that no one has yet forgotten. To answer the question, no, it is not true. But it really is true that geeky, astronomer types think so. Of course, they also used to think Pluto was a planet, so, what can you really trust them with?

Did you really have enough questions to warrant an FAQ page? Yeah... you got me. Just looking for topic material.