Today I’m 30.

I’m giving myself a gift for my birthday.  I’m stepping away from my blog.  I’m not reading others’ blogs.  I’m taking a leave of absence from Twitter.

It shouldn’t be for very long.  I’m thinking about a month.

Being largely away from the internet this past week has confirmed my feelings that I need some time away from the computer.

This seems so counter-intuitive, but ever since I went to BlogHer, I’ve wanted to blog less, not more.  I had such an amazing time and met so many great people, but I feel like now that I know many of you in real life, you’ll understand that I need a break. 

I don’t know how to describe how I’ve been feeling lately about blogging.  Bored.  Stagnant.  Ambivalent.  I guess that’s sort of it.  I don’t see the point in continuing something that has become more of a chore than something fun.  I hope a break will fix this.

Lately, at work, at home, everywhere, my head is filled with noise.  I escape to the internet and I click, click, click, click into infinity, never spending much time in any one place.  This instant gratification is making my attention-span increasingly short.  That, coupled with the constant hum in my head makes it impossible for me to actually focus on anything any more.  I’m extremely frustrated that my mind wanders while trying to complete the simplest of tasks.  It also makes me feel not present in my every day life.  Like I’m just walking around like a zombie, unable to actually absorb what I’m reading or what people around me are saying.  This just makes me feel sad.

When I open up my Google Reader, I have no motivation to give you all the attention you deserve.  I just feel overwhelmed and anti-social.  Like I’ve been dragged to a party when I just want to stay home and hang in my pajamas with my family.  Because although I love the social aspect of this medium - love the people attending my “parties” everyday, I have been socializing too much.  I know there is space for all of this in my life, but I need for it to be a smaller space.  For it to be evened out with the other things that are begging for my attention.

I need to be by myself for awhile.  Take some time to breathe.  Some time to clear my head of the clutter.  Some time to chase my son around as he tries to run up the stairs or defy gravity.  Some time to talk to my daughter about the importance of fairies and super-heroes.  Some time to actually talk and laugh with my husband as we both step away from our beloved internet.  Some time to hang with IRL friends, knit, get lost in a book, and do some writing.  Some time to live in the moment and really enjoy what’s happening around me rather than thinking about what’s going on in this imaginary world I’ve built for myself.

Thank you for keeping me company in this crazy world - I care about many of you more than I thought possible.  And I know you’ll be here when I decide to come back.  If for some reason you want (need?) to contact me, my e-mail address is in my sidebar.

Hopefully, I’ll return having accomplished something concrete.  Feeling happy and at peace, having found some sort of balance between all the things I want and need to do.

This morning I’m leaving for the beach.  Me and the kids will be hanging with my Aunt Sandy and my grandparents while Jason is off on a solo-hike trying to find himself in the mountains (hopefully not practicing his mad karate skillz on bears).  We’ll be back on Friday.

More than likely I’ll be busy trying to recapture that sense of magic I felt last year.  I’ll be shoving the kids’ faces full of ice-cream hoping to plug their cry holes for a few merciful moments.  Trying to coordinate Arlo’s finicky nap schedule around our outings and digging tiny grains of sand out of their buttcracks.  Fun!  And hopefully, I’ll be digging holes to China and blackening marshmallows over the fire.  Cross your fingers that running after my son in strange surroundings won’t make me drink before noon.

See you on the flip-side, internet peeps.

Those of you who are new here may not know that we are a family of vegetarians.  Well, veggies who have fallen from grace as we started occasionally eating fish a few years ago.  I don’t mention it much because I don’t really want to get into it - I don’t care if other people eat meat and I’m not a preachy sort of person when it comes to how I live my life.  Anyway, this was a long-winded necessary preamble to the following story.

Jay and I have always said that we would raise the kids eating what we eat, but when they get older and are capable of making an informed decision about such things, they may choose to disagree and eat meat if they wish.  Anyway, I didn’t really think we’d have to discuss this so soon.  Of course, being the early-blooming rebel that she is, the other night Elliot says to us, “I don’t want to be a begetarian.”

I told her then she would have to eat meat.  The thought of this makes me laugh considering this is a kid who won’t even eat half the stuff she’s allowed to eat.  Pickiest eater ever.

Then Elliot says, “I need to learn how to eat meat.  I want to eat meat like humans do.”

So, if anyone ever wondered if my family is really aliens masqerading as people, I think you have your answer.

I’m aware that BlogHer has been over for a week now.  I’ve been meaning to write this post for the past several days, but have been too busy.  I’m sure the blogosphere is getting tired of all the BlogHer chat, but I really feel like there are some things that I’d like to talk about and then return to my posts where I obsess about my angelic children (ha!)

Like I said in my previous post about the conference, I had FUN.  It’s always been difficult for me to make female friends and it was an amazing experience to meet women who I consider REAL friends.  Oddly enough, it seems as though admitting you had fun is offensive to some haters who have nothing better to do but get their hate-on for people who chose to enjoy themselves.  Yes “chose”.  I’m a strong believer that you alone are responsible for your own happiness and if you choose to be miserable, that’s no one’s fault but your own.  (I’m of course not talking about clinical depression, but again, you can choose to get some help for that, too).

I’m annoyed that during the past week when a blogger has hinted she had a few awkward moments or felt snubbed by another blogger, the commenters engaged in a feeding frenzy.  Screaming out, “Oh my god!  I knew it!  That’s why I’ll never go because everyone will be bitches and it will be all cliquey and high school.”

I’m not sure how some people ever have their ridiculously high expectations met.  For me, I just wanted to hook up with some of my online friends and possibly make a few new ones.  Sure, I’ll admit all 1000 of us weren’t sitting around singing kumbaya and trading underpants.  I’ll admit I was surprised that some of the people I thought I knew turned out to be different than I expected.  But why is that their fault?  Why should they be punished for my skewed perceptions of them?  That is so unfair.

Like many others in an unfamiliar and overwhelming situation, I stuck close to my comfort zone.  Even though I met many other bloggers I connected with, I think I spent more time with women I already “knew.”  It was difficult to spend as much time as I wanted with everyone I talked to.  And I’m just a speck of dust in the blogosphere.  I can’t imagine how awkward it must be for those women that we’ve celebrified for some ridiculous reason.

I don’t really get the whole “celebrity” thing.  I don’t get it in general, and I really don’t get it when it comes to the blogosphere.  I don’t read books just because the author’s popular.  I don’t watch a movie for the “famous” people that are in it.  And I certainly don’t read a blog because the person is some sort of internet celebrity.  I read or watch what I like.

Just because a woman has a lot of readers, is she automatically a bitch?  Should we automatically assume she is less than human?  That’s just sad.  I talked to a bunch of the “A-listers” and they really were just normal people who wanted to hang out with their friends, like the rest of us.  But because they’re “popular” women started getting nasty and calling them a clique.  These “less-popular” bloggers who the “A-listers” don’t know, all of a sudden expected the popular girls to jump up and down and welcome them into their circle of friends.  I find that strange.  First of all, what’s wrong with some people that they can’t feel validated without hanging with the cool kids?  Especially when the whole notion of “cool” and “popular” is just a perception.  Some women let their own insecurities fuel their twisted views of people and I think they need to start taking responsibility for that.

Some women went so far as to start an anonymous hate blog after the conference.  I thought it was pretty ironic that women who felt snubbed, were now being far meaner than their targets were initially.  And doing it without having the ovaries to put their names on the posts.

And I know that some women honestly felt disapointed when someone they thought was a friend was rude to them.  But was it intentional?  If you honestly felt hurt by someone, could you e-mail her and give her a chance to explain her side of things?  And if that person is honestly just a bitch (because of course, they exist too), do you not have many other potential friends worthier of your affection?

So, now I’m rambling.  I guess I just want to say to those of you who are thinking about going to BlogHer next year, but have been scared out of the idea by people focusing on the negatives rather than the positives, you should GO.  Go and choose to have fun.  If you’re nervous, try to meet up with someone you know.  Share a room with her.  Use the strength of your comfort zone to take some risks and meet some awesome new people.  Don’t believe the cliquey, catty bullshit the haters have fed you.

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-Other people may have been more eloquent in their response to this than me.  If you’re interested, go visit Her Bad Mother, Casey, Karen Sugarpants, Mrs. Flinger, or Suebob.

-If you haven’t already, you should read these two posts that made me (and pretty much everyone else present) cry at the community keynote.

-And, if you want to see some pics of me at the conference (always with the same exact smile for some reason), I have favorited a bunch on Flickr as I was too lazy to take my own pictures.  I’m also going to update my Linky Love page to include all the great people I met.

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

Peace out, bitches.

On Thursday, I was anxious that my flight to San Francisco would leave early (just for shits and giggles) so I got to the airport 3 hours early.

While waiting in line, I ran into a co-worker. He was also going to San Francisco. I told him that I was just going to “hang out with friends.” I had told a few people in the office that I was attending a writing conference in order to avoid explaining to them what a blog was (or for a few of them, what the internet was). I’d rather my co-workers not read this blog.  I’ve never discussed work in this space, but I still don’t want to explain to a co-worker why my boobs talk to each other or why I occasionally call my kids assholes. I just don’t think they’d get it, you know?

Anyhow, onward with the story. Stuck in line for what seemed like hours (thanks, queue-jumping businessmen!) Did you know that if you’re wearing a suit it exempts you from having manners? Keep that in mind the next time you’re in public – it’s ever so handy.

After I got my boarding pass, it was off to customs. I was terrified my mouth would have a mind of its own and tell horrible lies like I was smuggling mad-cow-infested beef in the pockets of my packed pants. Or I had a shotgun shoved into the high altitude regions of my lady bits.  Miraculously, I managed to get to security without saying anything stupid.

As my bag traveled down the security belt, it stopped.  A snarky security witch flashed me the hairy eyeball. “Hmm. We’ll have to look at this again,” she said. I panicked. Right in front of the sign that says something like, “Do not joke about terrorism or we have the right to blow your brains out” (or something like that) a woman I’ve never met before said loudly to me, “Oh my god! You WOULDN’T do THAT, would you?” I asked her if she was trying to get me kicked off the plane. She put her arm over my shoulder, giggled, and called me “hon”. At that point I really wished I was packing heat.

I told the security guard that she was probably just noticing my knitting needles.  She looked at me with disgust.  “Oh.  There’s more than knitting needles in here.”  What the fuck?  Just tell me!  Did a baby crawl into my bag and you think I’m selling it across the border?  Do my prescription meds make you suspect I’m aspiring to be the new drug czar of Union Square?

My bag was searched by a kinder guard who could tell I was close to shatting my drawers.  He asked if I worked “in chemistry” and did a chemical test on my bag.  Seriously, what the hell is in there?  Pleased that my bag wasn’t an innovative chemical bomb, he opened it up for inspection and took out my knitting.  Then he grabbed the kit that I keep all my tools in and it finally dawned on me.

Scissors.  Fuck.  I am brilliant.

The plane was an obnoxious, graceless tin can hurtling through the sky.  I held my breath during take-off and landing and cursed its loud engine that kept me from fully enjoying my Ricky Gervais podcasts.

I got off the plane and headed to the meeting spot where I was to rendezvous with a fellow blogger.  I waited for several minutes and thought I’d call her on her cell.  Since I’m a dinosaur, I don’t own a cell phone (I know, pick your jaw up off the floor now, please).  I went to get change for the payphone.  In the few minutes that I was gone, she came and didn’t see me.

As I was about to call her, I heard my name paged throughout the SFO Airport.  Telling me to go to a place that I had no idea how to get to.  I called Jennifer and asked if she was paging me.  She was.  Although neither of us had any idea where we were actually standing in the airport.

Eventually we found each other and got lost several times.  Sadly, we are far too much alike and were hopeless when it came to finding anything.  During our adventures I found out that she too was an unintentional terrorist-in-training.

After we hopped on the BART (the subway), we prematurely celebrated our victory.  We were finally two blocks from the hotel.  Then we managed to get lost again.  We feared walking in circles for hours on end, always just slightly missing our destination.  Luckily, a friendly crack addict took pity upon us and pointed us in the right direction.

And that was the beginning of my San Francisco adventure.

So, last year during BlogHer, a certain other blogger and I had newborns.  We sulked and whined about everyone blabbing on and on about the conference.  I swore if I got the chance to go that I wouldn’t rub it in any non-attendees faces.

I totally lied.

I apologize to those of you who didn’t get to go (especially those of you who I REALLY wish were there - Heather, Mrs. Chicken, Sarah, Rima, Amanda, Lotus, Amy, and Kelly), but you are bound to see endless BlogHer recap posts.  Because it was fucking awesome.  That’s why.

Today I’d like to share with you Lessons Learned at BlogHer ‘08:

1)  Don’t be a dumbass - check and recheck your luggage lest customs think you’re a terrorist.  More details on this one next post.  Suffice it to say I’m happy I made it on the plane for my first (yes, I’m that lame) trip to America.

2)  San Francisco is amazing.  Insanely cold, but amazing.

3)  Heather Spohr is the free-drink master (and crazy funny - the two may be related…)  Don’t worry, Heather.  Your top-secret methods are safe with me.  And?  Her husband is super cool.

4) Casey gets pouty if you refuse to shake your groove thing with her.

5)  Shockingly, I had a fabulous time NOT dancing and it saved everyone from gouging their eyes out.  It’s win/win.

6)  Loralee is even funnier and sweeter in person than on her blog.  Seriously.  Awesome.

7)  Ali is so tiny and cute I wanted to put her in my pocket and bring her home.

8)  I had the best roommates ever.  It really was like I knew Jennifer and Megan for years.  They are as fabulous as their blogs would have you believe.

9)  I’m sure Stefanie Wilder-Taylor is hilarious even while sober.  Of course, I have no evidence to back this up.  Hanging out with her was one of the highlights of the conference.

10)  I didn’t have nearly enough time to hang out with so many of the people I loved meeting - I’m looking at you Slouching Mom, Maggie, Zellmer, Dawn, Nanette, Jenny, Janet and etcetera into infinity.

11)  Even though you spend hours accosting random women with babies, you may never find one of your favorite girls.  So, so sad.  You may however, meet a really sweet blogger and her baby who has the same name as your son.

12)  Despite crippling anxiety, your wallet and passport really won’t sprout wings and render you stranded in another country.

13)  What happens in San Francisco, stays in San Francisco.  My god, for a gossip whore like me, 1000 bloggers together for three days sure makes for some good, but sadly unpostable fodder.  I guess you all are going to just have to come next year to witness it for yourself.

14)  After days of being “on” and partying and reveling in childless freedom, I surprised myself by really missing my kids.  What can I say, they’re my peeps.

15)  I have the sweetest husband ever.  Even though I’m not as amazed as most people that an adult male can actually clothe and feed children and even take them grocery shopping and to the library and on other outings all by his little self, I was super impressed that he did all that and I came home to a clean house.  And when I walked in the door, I found this:

It’s good to be home.

Is there anything you want to know about BlogHer?  Or would you rather I shut up about it all together?  Let me know and I’ll write more posts about it - including many, many more linkys of all the awesome people I met.

Random blathering about blog-related matters commences now:

- As you may have noticed, I’ve been absent this week.  Nothing huge, just life getting in the way of me spending some quality time with the computer.  My Google Reader was getting too overwhelming so I marked all as read.  If one of you wrote a kick-ass post this past week, could you please leave me a link in the comments so I won’t feel out of the loop?

- Am I the only one who’s sort of freaking out about attending BlogHer?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited, but also nervous.  Yes, I have two of the bestest roommates ever (seriously, I can’t believe I’ll be staying with these girls!)  I also got a haircut (sorry, too lazy to upload a pic).  I figured my awesome hair might distract people from looking at my ever-expanding gut.  Oh, speaking of my gut, thank you all so much for your supportive words on my last post.  I just don’t say it enough - I love you people.

- Where was I?  Oh, yes.  BlogHer.  First, I have smallish anxiety about flying.  “Smallish” meaning I will have to be completely inebriated on the flight so as not to think about my impending death for the three hours it will take me to get to San Francisco.  And then, there’s the talking to people thing.  Also, frightening.  Word to the wise - I tend to inappropriately giggle a lot when I’m nervous.  If you’re talking to someone who you think is a drunken school-girl, you’re probably talking to me.

Ooh, but look at my business card.  It’s cute, right?

The real version has my actual last name. Still somewhat queasy about posting that here so I took it out for this post. Anyway, the husband kindly designed the card TWICE as the first one was eaten by the ill-fated laptop.

To re-cap:

- Most craptastic post in recent memory.  Will write something real soon.

- You have homework.  Please, please, if you wrote something fantastic that I missed this week, tell me about it in the comments.  Also, do tell if you’re going to BlogHer and we can arrange to mutually stalk, I mean, visit, each other once I’ve stopped hyperventalating after my flight and the whole social anxiety thing has worn off.  If it wears off.

Sorry, my pretties.  It’s a long one…

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but during my entire childhood I was The Fat Girl.  There are various anecdotes I could tell you about how this affected me.  The weeping and total embarrassment in gym class.  Social isolation.  Briefly hanging with the mean crowd only to be picked on by their jerk boyfriends and rapidly ousted from their clique.  Intercepting notes written by a girl I thought was my friend, only to read words like “fat cow” referring to me.  Experiencing some intense Schadenfreude when that same girl gained a huge amount of weight in high school.  That’s karma, baby.

You don’t really need all the details, do you?  I’m sure you’ve heard, or lived through some version of these stories before.  Anyway, in high school I went to Weight Watchers and became Thinner Girl (I will never truly be Thin Girl, thanks to my big-boned build, but at this point I’m regretting not enjoying the smallish body I had back then).

Like most people prone to being overweight, I slowly gained it back over a few years.  Then I became two things: a vegetarian and a runner.  The veg thing wasn’t as big a deal as you might think – it wasn’t a weight-related decision, but a health one.  I was frequently ill with reflux so bad I had to go to emergency for Demerol and that still didn’t take away the excruciating pain.  Meat appears to fight with my digestive system.  I did start occasionally eating fish again, and I continued to eat a fairly healthy diet before my pregnancy with Arlo.

Becoming a runner was bizarre.  I assumed runners were masochists, so I was shocked when I actually enjoyed it.  It was useful in keeping the love handles at bay, and it made my head feel better.  If you run, you know what I mean.  I started taking a Learn to Run clinic where you gently work your way up to running 20 minutes straight.  When the man who owns the Running Room gave a talk at one of our clinics, I wanted to cry.  He began his journey as a runner in the dark because he feared someone seeing his then-overweight- self running.  I knew exactly what he meant.

I ran for a few years, mostly for fun, and completed a 10K.  I was in decent shape.  Then something happened – my body became a baby incubator.  With Elliot, I ate healthy and gained only 27 pounds.  Two months post-partum, I was walking daily and could fit into my old clothes.  I didn’t want to bother with running as I knew I’d soon be pregnant again and couldn’t bear finally getting my ideal body only to see it drowned in future baby-sprouting fat.  Still, I was relatively healthy and happy with myself.

During my pregnancy with Arlo, a switch flipped in my head.  I didn’t enjoy healthy food anymore and I drank too little water.  Thanks to being ill for the first trimester, I gained only 24 pounds.  I was so small for the first 6 months people asked me if the baby was okay.  All this, while I convinced myself that it was okay to eat junk.  Sure, I didn’t stuff my face, but I was not eating nearly as well as I had the first time around.

After Arlo popped out, I kept making excuses.  I was too tired to exercise or eat well.  I’d just had a baby; my belly would pop back in soon.  I continued to eat as though I was pregnant because I was “burning calories” while breastfeeding.  I let myself have occasional “treats” thinking I deserved them.  Then these treats became a daily thing and before I knew it, Fat was seeping into all the cozy pockets of stretched skin sported by poor Belly.

I was in serious denial, people.  I assumed that my body had a memory.  The memory of who she was when I was courting her, prior to her commitment to carrying my kids.  Surely, she would remember all of the running and healthy eating I’d done years ago?  I’d convinced myself that I could eat what I wanted and sit on my ass and she’d return to her fit self.  I was genuinely puzzled when I noticed my clothes getting tighter.  But it snuck up on me.  It’s hard to know that you’re gaining a few pounds here and there when you refuse to step on a scale.

Grasping for a rational explanation, I wondered if I’d shrunk old clothes in the dryer.  If the clothing industry had once again screwed me over and changed their sizing standards.  For a few torturous weeks, I worried I was several months pregnant and had been drinking the whole time, unwittingly damaging my poor fetus.  So when I found out I was without child, I was elated.  And then, sad because it meant that I was just getting fatter.

Still, I shunned the scale.  I hadn’t seen one since my pregnancy.  This weekend, I guessed my weight and decided to check.  It’s just a number right?  Turns out, it’s a very large number.  The number that was staring back at me when I was nine months pregnant.  Commence moping and self-loathing.

How have I let it get this far?  How did I not notice that my stomach, when I’m not sucking it in, which I ALWAYS am, is back to its 5-or-6-month pregnantly protruding self?

I want to be clear about something - I have nothing against overweight people.  I was (am) a fat girl.  I know it’s what’s inside that counts, blah, blah, blah.  I see people daily who are bigger than me and accept that’s who they are.  And some of them pull it off so well and look so gorgeous that I wonder why I can’t be one of those adorable, confident Big Girls.  But Fat Girl is no longer really me.  I don’t feel good as that girl.  I feel sad and disappointed in myself.  I feel silly that I’ve made so many poor choices in the past year that have allowed me to get here.

This ends now.  I refuse to play the role of lazy mother/victim any longer.  Commence Operation: Fat Girl Smack-Down.

Thinner Girl will escape Fat Girl’s body, despite being eaten by said Fat Girl months ago, along with everything else in sight.  Thinner Girl will scream at Fat Girl that Vegetable is a better friend than Cheesecake.  And Brain will also feel happier with her soulmate Running after she ditches her loser boyfriend Sitting On Ass.

Please don’t pity Fat Girl.  Or say things like, “She’s not a fat girl!”  Fat Girl appreciates your kindness and it’s true that she could be much larger than she currently is.  That is why Thinner Girl must take her down now, before she becomes overwhelmed by Fat Girl’s girth.  Fat Girl would also like to remind you that she is solely responsible for her triumphant return and feels empowered knowing that she can choose to change anything she wants – including relinquishing power over Body to her sworn enemy, Thinner Girl.

Once Thinner Girl has been liberated, I’ll have her say hi.  Her escape will take awhile as her demise did not happen overnight – Fat Girl is a methodical, persistent cow.  I doubt Thinner Girl will pose in a bikini, like these fabulous girls, but you never know how brave and proud she might be.

I’ve been working on a post of a serious nature, but I’m just not in the mood right now to make it right.  Maybe I’ll bless you with some pearls of wisdom next week.  Ha!  In case you’re wondering, this post is brought to you by my fantastic new computer.  She has a 20 inch screen and is a real looker.  It will be nearly impossible to shove her into the oven or give her motherboard a drink, so I think she may be rooming with us for awhile.

Now, onto the business at hand.  What do I do when I have nothing to say?  I exploit my children for gain because that’s what Mommy Bloggers do.  Some seriously funny shit comes out of the daughter’s mouth and I feel I’d be remiss in not sharing.  Without further ado, I give you some quotables from the past few weeks:

1) Elliot: How old am I again?
Me: Three and a half.
Elliot:  But I’m a big kid. I wanna be five.
Me: That’s not possible.  You are three.
Elliot:  Actually, I decided.  I’m five.  That’s it.

2)Elliot: I don’t like watching the news.
Me: Why?
Elliot: Because there’s no princesses or bears and stuff.

3) Jason has a charming ability to joke with Elliot relentlessly until she cries.  After one such episode, Elliot finally seemed to figure out her dad and said the following: Oh, daddy.  You’re just joking.
Jason: Nope.  We don’t joke in this family.
Elliot, now in tears slams her fist down onto the coffee table like she’s delivering a guilty verdict: WE JOKE IN THIS FAMILY!

4) After watching Arlo in the bath. Elliot: I see Arlo’s boobs.
Me: Honey, boys don’t have boobs.
Elliot: Yes, they do.
Elliot, clearly not tired of the hilarity that comes with saying words like “boob” says to her fully-clothed father: I can see your boobs, dad.
Jason: Oh, ya?  I see your penis.

Listening to this all day makes me wonder why I bother to pay for cable.

RIP Sweet Laptop:  December 26, 2007 - June 29, 2008

I apologize from the bottom of my tech-geek heart for how you were treated.  You were truly too good for us.  First, your thoughtless owner burns you alive.  Miraculously, with only a few surface scrapes, you pull through.  You allow us to back up all of our photographs - for that I will be eternally grateful.  But we continued to take you for granted.  We assumed all was well, when we should have been drinking up every sweet moment of screen time.  Caressing your keyboard.  Staring in awe at your shiny screen.

But the wee girl decided to finish the job that her mama started.  Maybe she thought you were thirsty?  That’s what I told myself when her clumsy elbow propelled an entire glass of water into your keyboard on Saturday.  I reacted quickly.  Gently drying you with a hair dryer.  Crossing my fingers.  It appeared you escaped death once again.

We enjoyed your company all day Sunday.  Until, inexplicably you lost the will to live.  Who wouldn’t after everything you’ve been through?

Jason and I have decided that in order to ensure that no more of your kind are unnecessarily harmed, we will (of course, NEVER EVER store a computer in the oven again and) we’ll buy a new desktop instead of a laptop.  Sure, they are your older, less-hip cousin, but honestly, if a child decided to bash or pour mystery liquid into his keyboard, I’d only be out $40, instead of $800.  I’m so grateful that I have a learning account at work that will reimburse me for Desktop’s purchase, or I would be even more pissed.

Once the children are older and I can risk having the occasional nice thing that won’t be ultimately destroyed by their hands, I know I’ll learn to love a Laptop again.  Right now, the wound is too fresh.  I’m too focused on what I’ve lost.

I’m so sorry my little Pavilion friend.  You were a fighter.  And you will be missed.

Love,

andi

*I don’t blame Elliot - it was an accident.  It was only a matter of time before I did the same thing.

** On a totally unrelated note, but you may have been wondering - Arlo is feeling much better.  At first I feared he might be turning into a bit of, well, an a-hole, quite frankly.  Turns out an ear infection was making him cranky.  Will the fun never end?