I’ve been thinking about changing my avatar.

(aside: an avatar is the tiny photo next to my comments, tweets and in most of my bios for my freelance work.)

My current avatar

I like it mostly because I’m wearing my pajamas in my headshot and that makes me laugh.

However, I’ve been told to change my bio picture because 1) it doesn’t look like me and 2) as one person put it bluntly, I’m prettier than my picture and I should show that off.

I think it was a compliment. I also think it looks like me so I’m not sure how much of a compliment.

The first time I tried to change my avatar, I took this picture.

I'm sure my kid feels loved. On days I don't need a new avatar.

(aside: I miss my short hair.)

For the most recent avatar change attempt, I took this picture.

Best date my husband has ever been on. Probably.

While I would like to look beautiful and be a good mom and wife, it’s clearly impossible. My only hope is to stay anonymous in my pajamas. Well-played neglected family. Well-played.

Write a quick comment

I’ve been a bit busy this week. And by “busy” I mean “the same as every week but I’d like to use it as an excuse for the following photograph.”

This is just one room of many that I've learned to ignore.

Of course, I can’t just blame my kids.

What? I couldn't find the remote.

I stopped taking photos at this point because I think your imagination will go easier on me.

When I’m not avoiding housework like the plague, I’m getting more popular by reading and writing elsewhere.

My Other Hangouts (don’t tell my blog):

• My Kids Want To Celebrate Memorial Day: On Richmondmom, I ask how to explain the “memorial” in Memorial Day to my kids and decide how to celebrate it with reverence and joy.
• Four Seasons For Charlotte: An Introspective Book Giveaway Because The Topic Is Childhood Cancer: On This Blogger Makes Fun of Stuff, I reviewed and am giving away an autograph copy of Rachel Reynold’s memoir of her family’s year coping with her preschool-age daughter’s brain cancer.

Favorite posts I didn’t read, I mean, write:

• YSaC, Vol. 1251: It’s a hatchet job.: From You Suck at Craigslist, an actual Craigslist ad titled: Stitches tonight — need a wound closed. Seriously. (funny and weird)
• Did GM Pop the Facebook Bubble?: From BlogHer, General Motors announces it’s pulling all $10 million in Facebook advertising because the company didn’t see an increase in sales. (interesting)
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study: From the CDC, an amazing study shows that children who suffer from chronic trauma and stress (abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction) die 20 years before their counterparts among other terrible consequences. The study holds for social and economic situations. (amazing)
• Crushing Stigmas, Smashing Stereotypes, Remembering with Courage: From Aaron Polson, a husband shares his wife’s experience with postpartum depression and psychosis and her subsequent suicide. (important and brave)

I don’t experience writer’s block often, but it’s almost always when I’m having too many feelings.

I’m not an emotional writer. I care about what I say and how I say it too much to spew only feelings on the page. I wear not-feeling like badge of honor. I am self-righteous in my choice because I am more comfortable controlling what is seen than seeing it.

I’d rather critically consider my feelings, and writing gives me every excuse to step away and appraise myself and others. Writing looks for purpose, and while meaning can give solace, sometimes life is irrational.

But rationalizing others to find the nugget of hope and good and explanation is what I do. It’s what makes me a great listener and talker. I have the desire to understanding a situation or process first and to feel it later when the person is long gone.

I am empathetic without overly inserting myself into the situation. A feeling-less compadre with which to handhold without any messy reciprocity.

I am affectionate and caring or quiet. I am a soft rock upon which my kids easily find footing. My children are shocked when I raise my voice because I so rarely do. Instead, I assess the situation and quiet my mouth while screaming in my head. I meet the need and escape into watching them or writing me until my feelings have stopped.

I am also the parent who is told that my kids need to see me get angry or sad.

I also the person who is told that I need to treat my feelings like kittens. I have to let them in. Acknowledge them. Love them. Not strangle them.

I laugh at the idea. I say: But I don’t do feelings until feelings do me in.

Sure, I’ll let my kittens in but not until after bedtime or tomorrow or maybe I’ll have time to cry this weekend or I can watch the sad movie and cry about those fictional characters instead. I’ll wait until I’m breaking under the strain. I’ll wait until I’m not sleep or eating or breathing.

I stick out my chin and exclaim: I’m less stoic than I used to be. I no longer think tears are a sign of weakness and yelling a sign of strength. 

Feelings are great for everyone else, I shout.

And anyway, I can finally say to a few people, Today, life is hard. I follow it up with 100 reasons why it isn’t hard. Or why it will be okay. Or why I deserve it.

Where is the line between self-pity and self-awareness? When is it okay to cry? To feel? To be less quiet? I don’t want to overstep my bounds. I don’t want the drama.

But after staring at a blinking cursor on and off for hours, I take other people’s advice anyway. I cry to myself. I cry to my husband. I cry around my kids.

I cry away my writer’s block.

I cry for 20 minutes and spend the rest of my day wondering if it is worth it.

I’ve never been good at the dailiness of life. The activities that everyone, everywhere, does everyday. Like sleeping. Or the slightly smaller demographic of people who enjoy eating lunch.

1. Putting gas in my car: Yes, I’m grateful to have a car but not so grateful that I don’t hope magic gas fairies come between the almost-on-empty-light turning on and my car sputtering to a stop. (Heh, magic gas fairies.)

2. Bathing in any form involving water: I’ve already gone over this but since pretty much everyone bathes, it had to be reiterated on the list. My guess is I was a cat in a former life. A stinky cat.

3. Dishes: Sure, no one LIKES doing dishes, but I find that there are dishes in my sink to be shocking and offensive. Doing dishes everyday seems a little excessive.

4. Wearing a bra: I know. I know. I should just move to a bra-less country and stop complaining about all my wealth and power and boobs.

5. Going to bed: Also covered in minute detail in this blog, but seriously, why can’t I even sleep every OTHER night? I have things to do that I need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for. Probably. I’m not really sure since I have no experience with it.

6. Going to the bathroom: I don’t mind once I’m there but having to get up from typing this very sentence is annoying and must be put off as long as… dammit, I’ll be right back…

7. Eating lunch: I like breakfast and dinner and breakfast for dinner, but I never know what to eat for lunch and whatever I chose isn’t very good. So I’ve decided to declare lunch the most boring and difficult meal of the day. I may be grateful that I can eat 3 meals a day, but I will never have anyone “over for lunch” unless they’re bringing food and it resembles dinner.

8. Washing my face: I’m still vaguely convinced face wash is a conspiracy to get me to purchase and use and purchase and use an unnecessary product. My zits disagree.

9. Walking up or down stairs: Even if it’s the same number of steps as walking from one room to another, the act of stairs is wrong. They are my kryptonite: Cant’s get it {pantpant} too far too tired {gaspgasp} I’m dying. Of stairs.

10. Small talk: I don’t want to ask how you are doing because I already know you are going to say: Fine. Unless we are really good friends, then you’re going to say: Awesome because you’re here and I don’t have to put up with anymore of this small talk crap. And we can move along to armageddon prep.

I could go on and on, but I’ve survived for the last 33.5 years so these things can’t be that important.

Photo credit: Mostly to Walt.

I have a cold and my insomnia is back so this post will probably be pointless, but I did want to give you an insomnia update.

Oh wait, I just did by writing “my insomnia is back,” and if I was a woman of few words instead of a blogger, I would stop typing. But I know that you want to know more because I’m psychic. Or just self-centered. TBD.

Remember back on March 20th when I asked you if I could die of morning? I said that I was committing to 30 days of waking up at 6 a.m. to force my sleep clock to readjust and my insomnia to get its butt kicked and perhaps most importantly, to be of better service to my family.

For the first 14 days, I did it no matter what. Kids up 13 times? Up at 6 a.m.. I don’t fall asleep until 3am? Up at 6 a.m.. Cats jump on my head at 5am? Up at 6 a.m.. I stuck to it because my word is my bond. Sir Alex carried on.

Those first few days, I was high from lack of sleep. The next few days I hated you. After that Scott would say everyday: It’s so NICE to have you up and awake in the morning. And I would smile and fall asleep. Okay I would smile, spend 16 hours doing stuff, then fall asleep. BUT I WAS FALLING ASLEEP AT 10 p.m.. It was amazing and exhausting and I couldn’t tell if I was happy or depressed or this was just what normal felt like.

Then my plan was attacked by life. First, my daughter went through a phase where she climbed into our bed every night.

I may be a sucker, but I'm the best kind of sucker.

I would have to shut off my alarm because I couldn’t create an exhausted disaster of a child each morning. N is my sleep-until-7-a.m. baby who  doesn’t nap anymore so she needs as much nighttime sleep as possible. For a few days, I woke up at 5:55 a.m., but my body began to catch on to the no-alarm and tried to sleep a little more each day.

I finally shift N to the guest room, then I got sick. I debated whether I should still get up at 6 a.m., but my doctor-self knew that rest would mean the difference between being sick for a week or for 3.

After that, we went away for Spring Break to become survivalists. I tried to get back on track in the middle of the woods, but I didn’t set my alarm everyday so I was doomed to failure. Insomnia is strong and vaguely appealing.

We got home, and I never set my alarm again. Plus, Scott started reading the Game of Thrones series (am I supposed to out you?) and was up until all hours. At first I resisted and went to bed, but soon, I reveled in it. I had a late night buddy! My husband has always been early to bed, early to rise, which has been a bone of contention in our marriage: whose circadian rhythm is better and who should change. (Okay the fights aren’t EXACTLY like that but they pretty much boil down to those 2 questions.) I was so happy to have him on MY schedule. Of course, once he finished the first 4 books, he was snoring by 10:30 p.m. and I had completely screwed up my sleep schedule.

Now, I’m back to just laying and staring and thinking for hours and trying desperately to make up for it in the morning hours. Except the insomnia is made even worse with the knowledge that I can set my alarm for 6 a.m. and begin the miserable process all over again to start falling asleep at a decent hour.

See you at midnight. And at 6 a.m. again. Soon. One day. After this cold ends. Probably.

For those of you who missed it on my Facebook page:

Happy Mother’s Day, my friends.

Psst.. don’t use this as an opportunity to knock attachment parenting or the real May 21, 2012 Time Magazine cover. My cover is a joke, and if you can’t stop taking yourself seriously for 5 minutes after seeing me pregnant with 1 of my 4 cats in a sling, you need to close your computer and get a hug. I’m a doctor so I know these things.

I caught someone taking my photo with their iPhone, and I thought: THAT’S MY JOB, BUTTHEAD.

So I took his picture, too.

Don't mess with a blogger.

Let me know if you see my photo or car around the Internet. I’m not sure what I was doing, but I’m sure it was interesting.

When I’m not taking people’s pictures out of paranoia, I’m becoming more popular by reading and writing elsewhere.

My Other Hangouts (don’t tell my blog):

• 6 AM Had Better Come With Unicorns And Rainbows: My friend, Abby, and I teamed up to make a tag on my attempt to kick insomnia’s butt into mugs, t-shirts and bumper stickers for those of us with jobs, kids and other reason to set our alarms for 6 a.m.. We also made 5 a.m. versions. I’m so sorry.
• Did Anyone Use This Cork Board Before Selling It To Me? Probably Not.: On This Blogger Makes Fun of Stuff, I reviewed cork board tile I bought from Target to get organized. The got a big Makes Fun Denied, but I saved at least 2 people from buying them so I felt better.
• Take Heart, A New Generation Of Voters Is Coming: On Facebook, I made this lovely photo after the sharing and support on my gay marriage piece.

Favorite posts I didn’t read, I mean, write:

• Parenthood 2.0: From Grasping for Objectivity, “I’m… running Girl Child 5.0 and was previously running Boy Child 0.11 without incident, but upgrading to 1.0 seems to be causing some conflicts.” (funny and clever)
• 6 Famous Characters You Didn’t Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs: From Cracked, who knew X-Men and the Lion King were ripoffs? (nerdy)
• The Price of the Baby Bump: From The Nation, are celebrities getting pregnant to stay relevant? And does the baby bumps hide the reality pregnancy and childbirth make most American women more financially vulnerable. (interesting)
• No way to No Mothers Day.: From MommyNaniBooboo, this is exactly why I’m not participating in the No Mothers Day campaign. A worthy cause but taking my day away isn’t going to do anything except make me sad. (high-five)

I felt sad for North Carolina as I learned of the passing of Amendment 1, which adds a ban to same-sex unions into the state constitution, even though it was already banned through North Carolina law.

One of the gravest dangers in a democracy is the tyranny of the majority. Merely because there are more of one group of people than another, does not mean that group is always right or just. How many people would vote to increase the speed limit just to get to work faster if they weren’t educated on the danger? This is why we have fetters in place such as anti-discrimination laws, court systems and a constitution.

Most people didn’t bother to vote anyway: out of the 6.3 million registered voted in North Carolina, only 2.1 million people voted. (source) I don’t know how state and local politics could do a better job reaching out to citizens and encouraging them to participate since our state and local officials affect our lives more often than federal mandates. And if we were more active in local politics, we wouldn’t need as many federal laws because I can’t believe that a well-educated populace would vote for hate.

Even putting aside people’s reasoning for being against gay marriage why didn’t more wonder why the constitution needed to be altered for the first time in 40+ years and the first time on marriage in 100+ years (the last time being an 1875 amendment to ban interracial marriage)? Is gay marriage a fundamental crisis which destroys the governmental ideals of the state of North Carolina? No, it is at most a religious crisis with no place in government. An issue that should be worked out in our hearts, prayers and pulpits.

The vast majority of people, who voted for Amendment 1, cited God’s law and the Bible as their reasoning, which to me, is another example of uneducated decision-making. Sexual identity wasn’t even considered until the 1800s so the Bible couldn’t have much to say on the subject that hasn’t been twisted to meet people’s intolerant needs.

The Bible does mention marriage quite a bit though:

I've had this infograph for so long that I don't remember who made it. If it was you, let me know so I can give you credit.

If a Christian cannot pick and chose in the Bible, then Christians, especially those who supported or voted for Amendment 1, need to stop picking and choosing.

Stop saying that slavery is wrong:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Ephesian 6:5-6

Stop ignoring the passages on subjugating women and start believing in abuse:

If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. Deuteronomy 22:20-21

But we don’t. We set those aside. We explain them away. But we can’t do that for homosexuality because… well, why? Why can’t Romans 1:26-27 be against lust, not homosexuality with commitment and accountability?

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:26-27

What does that passage have to do with marriage? Little or nothing to me, a Christian with a strong faith and a supporter of gay rights.

I feel heartbroken for the people of North Carolina. For those who are gay and lesbian, and for those who carry such intolerance in their hearts that they needed to twice put this so-called “sin” on the ballot and vote for it.

I think my 3-year-old daughter said it best when she reached up to our rainbow flag as I said, You love purple, and she responded: I love all the colors, Mama.

Me too, baby. Me, too.

3:30pm update: President Obama backs gay marriage. He’s the first sitting president to do so.

I decided to do paper invites for my daughter’s birthday party because finding people’s mailing address was easier than accosting them for emails. Plus, 1 person always claims the evite went into spam, and I WILL THWART HER EXCUSES FOR NOT RSVP-ING.

The invites took me 13 hours to make because the beautiful graphic ones I painstakingly designed without the help of Photoshop were either the wrong size or the wrong shape for EVERY PLACE THAT PRINTS THINGS.

I finally found a cute pre-made princess design with purple (N’s favorite color) and ordered invitations. I picked them up the next day only to realize the RSVP phone number was WRONG even though Scott and I both proofed the invitation twice each. I’m not sure which would be more annoying: the person who got multiple calls for his nonexistent princess party or that my friend of the spam-emails could claim she RSVP’d when I know she did NOT.

And then I ran into an address problem. Our school directory insisted that N’s friend lived 3-4 hours away in another state and commuted 5 days a week to go to our school. The family seems pretty NOT CRAZY so I decided to hand-deliver their invite at school and offhandedly ask about Maryland just in case.

My plan was foolproof except I didn’t know what type of car the mom drove, and I didn’t want to give her the invite in the lobby because the party was so small and people have FEELINGS. I kept hoping we would pull into the parking lot to pick up our kids at the same time. And then, one day, I see a car that is driven by a possible suspect.

I jump out of my car with joy, but the driver stays in. I can’t stand in the middle of the parking lot waiting to see if this possible-party-list-person is the actual-party-list-person when I’m really supposed to be going into school with all the other parents and getting my kids so I begin to walk very slowly towards the school door and also her car door. As I walk past the car, I crane my neck like I’m feigning whiplash, but I can’t get the right angle to see inside the car.  And I can’t just knock on the window because 1) I will scare the crap out of the driver and 2) what if it’s not the right mom and I have to explain why I’m taking the party invite OUT OF SOME MOM’S HAND.

I decide to go into the lobby and just watch out the door like James Bond. I realize that from the lobby I have a better line of sight into the car and I become more and more convinced that it’s the right mom. I get so psyched up that I dash out the door to keep her from coming inside without the invite. Except the minute I open the door all my confidence fades and I hurry back inside sure I was about to invite the kid who pulls my daughter’s pigtail out (it was just once but STILL).

Meanwhile, I look so suspicious sprinting in and out of the school that the head of the school runs over to me: What’s happening in the parking lot? Is everything okay? Does someone need help?

Just me. I need help in NOT CREATING DRAMA EVERYWHERE I GO.

I don’t even know how to explain my creepy slow-walk-run-in-run-out-run-in-all-while-hiding-an-envelope behavior so I think: Maybe I should just invite her?

WHAT? My brain is trying to ruin my daughter’s party and then I see the car door open and the right mom steps out. I push past the head of the school and throw open the glass doors while shoving a white sweaty envelope in this unsuspecting mom’s hands and telling her: YOU’RE INVITED BUT DON’T TELL ANYONE.

I’m amazed she came to the party, too.

I’ve noticed a lot of people are doing it wrong. By “it” I mean “everything,” but I’m just going to start with email and Facebook.

It's like spam has just given up. And that's a bit sad.

Gosh, with less than 700,000 likes, it's no wonder Jesus took out an ad.

If I get VapoRub for Mother's Day, I'll be pissed.

Well, now that I’ve assured that Vick’s VapoRub or Jesus never advertise on Late Enough, my work here seems to be done.

PS. I demanded Scott chase down an SUV with an ironic license plate, which is what inspired this blog, but I can’t post the picture even though these people are DEFINITELY DOING IT WRONG because I live in Richmond so either one of my family members works with them or one of my friends is besties with them. If only the car had cut me off, I could post the picture with a clear and vengeful conscience.