Church Bells in Bristol

We have arrived. (Well, Monday, but our internet service has been down.) The flight, car rental, luggage lugging, etc. were all at times something I could have used another set of hands for, but I took pride in my hard work and Kate was a dream baby. She ended up charming half the passengers on the flight, and by the time we landed had learned to (finally) wave hello back at all her admirers. That baby is sometimes, okay often, too good to be true.

So here we are in Bristol. Funny that I can hear the house painter’s radio right now and there’s a John Mellencamp song on. I do declare I am the queen of Lovers of One’s Home Town. This lil’ New England town couldn’t be any more beautiful. And of course it’s packed with memories, and my nostalgia wells up along with my histamines as I saunter down the tree-canopied streets.

I’d promised Kate a morning walk downtown. Now that I stay with my Dad when I’m home downtown is in easy striking distance, and aside from the harbor, the ancient rippled sidewalks (nostalgia), the red, white, and blue lined streets (a Forta July tradition), and all the beautiful old homes I wish I’d bought when they were affordable, there’s also now a Dunkin’ Donuts downtown. So, we walk.

Lately when I’ve been walking around Oakland I’ve been thinking about what it’d be like if we lived in a small town. But that’s no surprise. I yearn to live in Bristol again every time I come home for the summer. You can set your fancy Swiss watch to it. And when I go home in the bleak winter months, I thank God for California.

Yesterday Kate had plenty of new things to admire on our walk. She was impressed with the myriad American flags out in front of nearly every home. Bristolians aren’t making any political support-our-boys or Bush-family-values commentaries by flying flags in front of their homes. These folks (okay, we) are just truly patriotic. It’s old school, and it charms the bejesus out of me. At any rate, there are some “wicked big” flags that people hang straight down sorta perpendicular to the sidewalks and as wide, so when you walk past them they skim your head and it’s like you’re passing through a gate of some sort. Why see the Cristo exhibit in Central Park when you can pass through the flags in Bristol? Kate loved it. (Good girl! Like what Mama likes!)

Kate and I lunched with Aunt Mary (87) and Mimi (92), and those sisters have it going on! Kate smiled and laughed and played the whole time and they adored her. And we came up with the term Great Godmother to refer to Kate’s relation to Mimi (who is my Godmother).

And if the whole scene–us eating chicken parm (read: pahhhm) at Leo’s sidewalk cafe and taking in a muggy Tuesday afternoon in Bristol–wasn’t enough to send me to heaven and back, noon struck and with it the church bells.

Give me a ding-dong every noon from the church bells and I’m thrilled, but this bell ringer was clearly an over-achiever. The first song–yes the first–was The Star Spangled Banner. Yes, some dude was in a belfry and busted out The Star Spangled Banner on church bells. And it was no Ronco Bell-amatic. This was clearly some guy reading some arcane type of sheet music in order to play this complex song in its entirety. Though everyone else was clearly unaware that you don’t get this kind of show in other towns at noon. I appeared to be the only one losing my mind and glaring at the diners who’d carried on with their conversations.

Next up for our listening pleasure was My Country Tis of Thee. At this point I’m practically letting down milk with joy. And when it got to tricky points in the songs (can you tell by my verbiage here how musically savvy I am?) I swear there must have been another person or two pulling ropes on other bells. At least I envisioned some team doing Quasimoto-style bell pulling.

The guy(s) finished off with a third song which Aunt Mary, Mimi and I couldn’t place. Perhaps it was an original score. Not my taste, but good for him for trying out something new.

So yes, this is just a wee bit of what small-town life has to offer. Just staggering. I’ve got to track down that bell-ringer’s manager and recommend the guy for a raise. Who am I kidding: “track down.” I’m sure my father knows the guy.

First Cross-Country Solo Flight

Tomorrow Kate and I fly to Boston alone. Mark comes on Friday, since someone in this family has to work.

Kate has already been on four round-trip flights, only one of which she and I took alone. It was a short flight to SoCal, and I figured I could withstand anything for an hour.

Generally Kate has done well on flights. She tends to lose it on landing and even though everyone says nurse the baby when you’re landing, they haven’t tried this with a baby who has no interest at that moment in eating and/or one who has already lost their shit and refuses the nipple you are woefully trying to shove in its mouth. Modesty, at that point, goes out the window–along with thoughts of ever leaving home again. But truthfully, for the majority of the flights she’s been great–with the exception of that one trip back from Boston, but that was so bad I think it’s damaging to my psyche to dredge it up from the deep place where I’ve repressed it.

So tomorrow Kate and I are staring down the barrel of a six-hour flight. My sister Ellen has flown to Asia multiple times with a baby and toddler and made it look like a drive to the grocery store. Until today I’ve been trying to emulate her and have successfully embraced a devil-may-care attitude about the whole thing–even when friends have freaked out at hearing that Kate and I were leaving before Mark. I figured a successful flight with a baby is 90% attitude, right? If I’m stressed, Kate will somehow sense it and will abandon her plan to sleep the whole time in order to persistently wail, writhe, and scream. If I adopt Ellen’s laissez-faire aero-Mom appraoch, hell, I may even get a good nap or two in along the way.

But today’s packing process has served to deliver a dose of reality. It started with the back-pack I bought to transport the car seat. When I have it on, I just need a pair of hiking boots to make me look ready to mount Everest. So, how it’ll work is I’ll wear the thing on my back as I gingerly negotiate my way down the aisle (while clutching Kate and our awkward and sizeable carry-on). If there is no one seated by me, I remove the car seat from the case (while still holding Kate?!), and buckle it into the seat next to me. If the plane is full and/or I can’t convince the masochist next to me to move to another free seat, I will have to take the gargantuan pack back down the aisle to be checked with the luggage. Oh phew–now that I walk through that in my mind I realize that should be noooo problem at all.

But wait there’s more. Luggage, that is. There’s the stroller (also checked at the end of the gateway), the world’s most immense roller bag, and the earlier-mentioned 20-ton pink carry-on packed with toys (all new and all hopefully endlessly captivating), diapers, extra clothes, food, spoons, washcloths. (Oops. Just realized I forgot a bib…) Oh, and the fragile squirmy 18-pound human.

So then, I shall muster and renew my sense of confidence and ease about this voyage! Attitude, attitude, attitude! And hopefully the kindness of a couple strangers along the way. (Shelly says that’s been imperative in her solo travels with kids.) I’m sure it’ll all be easy-peasy, but if you happen to have a free moment tomorrow, it wouldn’t hurt if you could look skyward and send some good thoughts my way.

Puppy Love

When I was little, when my family got a new dog, I’d get all excited when I woke up in the morning and remembered that there was an adorable puppy that was mine to play with as soon as I ran down the stairs. It was like a Christmas-morning feeling that went on for days.

That’s how I feel about Kate, except I start getting excited about when I get to see her again after she’s been asleep for only a few hours.

Eventually my excitement about the family dogs waned. So far that hasn’t been the case with Kate, who turns 9 months old tomorrow.

I’m so happy my family got this baby! Hooray!

Dueling Grandmas

Today Kate and I took my mother-in-law, Peggy, to Chaparral House for our weekly visit with Rose.

I think I conduct my life at a far more hectic pace than Peggy (and most humans), so by the time we were supposed to hit the nursing home we’d already gone clothes shopping, had a dip and a picnic lunch at a nearby lake, and I’d gone grocery shopping. Kate had also managed to take two naps in her crib around these activities.

So, when it was time to head out to Chap House, I’d offered Peggy the option to pass and just chill out at home. I could easily be responsible for short-circuiting my introverted mother-in-law with excessive socializing and stimulation, and I’d hate to do that since I really like her. Besides, I regulalry challenge her introverted son in this manner and it seems just plain cruel to run the whole family ragged. Peggy had thankfully managed to squeeze in a micro-nap along the way and assured me she was interested in witnessing her baby granddaughter’s volunteer work first-hand.

It should be noted that Chaparral House has essentially become the Cult of Kate. It used to be just the oldsters who hopped out of their pants when she entered the building, but along the way she’s also captured the hearts of the nursing staff. A machine could start beeping urgently from a nearby room and the closest nurse won’t flinch as she holds Kate on her knee and does the “sooooo big” thing for the 36th time.

And it turns out that having a child who is a messiah makes me kinda proud. We walked into the nursing home and all manner of wheelchair-bound folk and nurses in those goofy smocks that have everything from teddy bears to Sponge Bob Squarepants printed on them are calling out, “Hi Kate!” It’s nice.

We made our way through the adoring masses towards Rose’s room. She was asleep in her wheelchair with her back to us. She has this kind of funny hipster haircut she must have gotten from Jackie, the nursing home’s very own stylist. It’s kind of blunt across the back, really short at the nape of her neck, and longer and choppy on the top and sides. It’s what you’d expect on a German designer, but it’s powder white and on the body of a slumped octogenarian.

I woke up Rose and the second she saw Kate she shook off sleep and was crying out, “Katie!” I introduced her to Peggy and from there it was essentially the typical flow in which Rose gushes over Kate’s physical attributes, utters no less than seven Yiddish terms of affection, and gives the requisite “evil eye” warning. Today she also delighted in Kate’s hand clapping, Cheerio-eating, and senseless babble. As often as she cooed over Kate’s beauty, she marvelled at her intelligence. “So smart, this one!” Rose isn’t just swayed by good looks. “It’s a smart one too,” she says solemnly.

Rose may be old and frail, but it’s hard to rival her fervid Kate-adoration. If anyone can keep pace though, it’s Peggy. It was like watching a tennis game where two players lobbed comments back and forth to keep pace with each other, yet they were on the same team. With Kate’s virtue-extolling sufficiently covered, there was little left for me to do other than get everyone cups of water.

Due to her uneven memory, a few times Rose asked Peggy if she was the grandmother. At one point when Peggy said yes, I found myself fretting the smallest bit. I’ve spent so long assuring Rose that she’s a grandmother to Kate, that I hoped bringing the real McCoy into our circle wouldn’t dismay her somewhat. She’s not one for sharing Kate.

But a few minutes later I realized I had no reason to worry. As Peggy helped Kate sip from her cup of water and Rose scolded her, “Don’t give her too much! It’s too cold! She could choke a bit on it!” I realized that Rose was secure in her grandmother-ness. To her Peggy was just another young woman like myself who needed reminding about the potential hazards to Kate that lurk all around us.

And thankfully there’s no limit on the number of grannies you can have–be they biological or adoptive. We could have worse problems than having to make room for all the women who love Kate.

Our Two Trick Pony

We’re back from a weekend in Tahoe where our friends Dennis and Marcelle renewed their wedding vows and had a blow-out party on a fabulous deck overlooking the lake. It was a fantastic party, chock-full of great friends who I’ve known since first touching down in SF some 14 years ago. Today my hangover has a hangover.

Much of Mark and my merrymaking was enabled by his mom and stepfather who came from Ohio to care for Kate and check out Tahoe’s summer offerings. I must say, the second best thing to adoring your child directly is watching her grandparents adore her. Gary decided that Kate should call him Papa–the name he used for his own grandfather. Very sweet.

On Friday, quite by accident, I was saying something about Kate’s new trick–clapping her hands–and as I said “clapping her hands” she did it. I did a double take, said it again, and she did it again. Amazing! It was our first two-way communication. There is someone in there, and apparently she is catching on to this whole language thing.

So there I am amazed and impressed and frankly feeling like I’d be content if this was her last great accomplishment, and when we returned from the wedding Peggy says to Kate, “How big is Kate? She’s soooo big!” and Kate holds both her arms up over her head.

The child is a genius.

I have now moved on to teaching her the next sensible stunt, the giving of “high five.” Await a report.

Old Friends, New Friends, Red Friends, Blue Friends

A couple July 4ths ago Mark and I were walking past my first grade teacher’s house, and one of her daughters (who was a friend of my sister’s back in the day), drunkenly spotted us from their front porch and dragged us to their backyard BBQ to be introduced to legions of similarly boozed-up folk. My former teacher, Mrs. Parella, was looking terribly old and frail. So after all the nice-to-meet-yous, I sat next to her and in a wave of nostalgia told her I remembered a song she’d taught me back in first grade. It goes, “Make new friends but keep the o-old, one is silver and the other gold.” After singing it to her she looked at me like I was mad and said, “I taught you no such song!” Well, I think the old gal is getting a bit soft in the memory department. Despite her haughty dismissal of my fond memory, I hold fast to the notion that I learned the ditty in her classroom.

At any rate, as it turns out Mark and I are taking resumes for new friends. Which isn’t to say that we’re tossing our current ones asunder. (See “one silver/other gold” lyrics above.) It’s just that A) many of our friends—especially those who Mark brought to our relationship—have left SF, 2) we moved to Oakland, and C) we’ve got the kid now. So, in light of geographical changes and new interests, we’ve got some openings.

A few months ago Mark was in a funk about it. I think it was the Super Bowl, and there was no one around for him to watch with. As he sees it (and of course I’m over-simplifying it), he has his five good friends, damn it, and he doesn’t need other ones—he just needs them all to move back near us. Eternal optimist that I am, I see the sitch as an opportunity to get out there and flex my extroversion. But I’m also the one who likes looking for a job. I guess I’m always convinced there’s something (or in this case someone) great out there.

Though some friends are no longer in our backyard, they are within striking distance. On Friday we ventured to Sacramento for the night to stay with the beloved Mullin clan. I worked with Dave a few gigs ago, and he’s a super good egg. We shared an office, so he’s heard me make appointments for bikini waxes, flirt with Mark on the phone early in our relationship, and have any number of difficult, frustrating and/or weird conversations with clients, bosses, and subordinates. He was also the first to point out that I make a quiet humming sound when I’m typing and really focused. (It’s something Mark has also noticed, but it’s strangely inaudible to me. For all I know, I’m doing it right now.)

When the ship was sinking at our old agency and there was a scramble for volunteers to fill the lifeboats (with nice fat severance packages), Dave signed up. I was crushed when he left. He and Scott, the head of Creative, practically clicked their heels, linked arms, and skipped out of the office that day. It was no doubt my saddest work day. My two closest cronies and allies were giddily ditching a once-great workplace for greener pastures, leaving me to manage the team and to attempt (impossibly) to rectify rock-bottom morale. It sucked.

Dave’s next endeavor was as Mr. Mom. His wife was wrapping up her OB residency and they couldn’t bear putting their newborn in daycare. These days, residency is just a memory in one of Deanna’s scrapbooks. They’re now the owners of an immense fabulous house, take jealous-making annual vacations, and are living quite an appealing suburban dream.

When we’d seen them last I was pregnant, so this time we were able to swap tales of parenthood. We’ve had a lot of fun with Dave and Deanna in our kid-less days, but now that we’ve treaded some of the same path they’ve been on for eight years, it’s fun comparing notes. And those two are rock-star parents, so when they talk, I take notes. They should teach weekend seminars on how to raise sweet, polite kids.

And then there’s their dirty little secret—which actually isn’t a secret at all—which is that Dave’s a (gasp!) Republican. The horror! And yet we still like him! In fact, whenever we see them, I wonder why we don’t see them more.

Saturday night, Mark’s new work friend, Scott, and his wife, Courtney, came over for dinner. Mark likes Scott enough to willingly make back-to-back social plans on a weekend. This cuts into Mark’s time doing nothing, which he cherishes. So, a few hours after returning home from our night away in Sac (as I like to call it), Mark whipped up a delicious dinner and we were showing off Kate, opening more wine, discussing the merits of stinky cheese, and getting to know some new folk.

Scott and Courtney are life-long Texans who pulled up roots in Austin for Scott’s cool new job in SF. In the Lone Star State they had a fab house with a pool, more friends than you could shake a stick at (my Dad’s odd expression), great jobs, and family. Now they’re experiencing the foggy version of an SF summer, trying to find grocery stores that sell the kind of food they like, and carving their way into new social circles. Based on one evening of interaction I sure hope that they plan to stay a while in these parts. What a great couple! And not one of those “I like her so I’ll put up with him” duos. They both appear to rock. It was so easy to talk to them—they’re funny and smart and like stupid movies, and even claim to have a cute dog named Maggie (though that might put them over the edge for being *too* perfect).

As they were leaving they offered to reciprocate with dinner at their house some day, and Courtney and I determined we should get lunch at the Ferry Building on one of my Kate-less Thursdays. She’s going to take a crack at showing me the gastronomic virtues of oysters.

But what made me super happy about the whole evening was despite the mantle of people-aversion Mark likes to pretend that he’s cloaked in, he’s been doing a bang-up job of making new friends lately. He’s been responsible for getting us invited to a few lovely dinners that have caused us to say before turning off our night-stand lights, “That was really fun. Those guys seem cool. We should get together with them again.” Then we smooch and go to sleep.

Meeting Rose

Last week there was a volunteer meeting at Chaparral House, and a woman from hospice came to talk about death and grieving. I was looking forward to it. A few times on our Wednesday visits Kate and I had gone to Rose’s room and found the door ominously closed. I panicked on my walk to the nurses’ station with my heart rising up in my throat, but each time one of the nurses has bluntly told me something along the lines of, “Rose is in the activities room watching a movie.” Okay. Phew!

I’ve intentionally avoided asking anyone about the state of Rose’s health, even when she was briefly hospitalized a month ago. I don’t even know how old she is, but I assume somewhere in her eighties. For a while I told myself I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but I knew I really just wanted to be in denial about Rose’s age and frailty. So, I figured this meeting might push me towards a reality check, and help to gird me for what inevitably lies ahead.

The hospice woman, Karen, was amazing. Kind and articulate. I savored every word she said. She was the kind of person who you wish you could go up to after an inspiring lecture or concert and say something to them that would make them like you as much as you like them–make you stand out in the crowd amidst all their other admirers. You just wanted to be her friend.

So, cool Karen talked to us about the people who we visit at Chaparral House, and the fact that they’re at the end of their lives, what that means, how we can talk to them about that when/if appropriate, and how to handle those conversations in the moment and in our own heads. All really good practical stuff that got me a bit more geared up to some day deal with these things with Rose.

Then she opened the meeting up for more of a conversation, and asked us (about 10 volunteers and a few staffers) to share what experiences we’d had, if any, with grief. A few people spoke, then the woman to the left of me offered up her story. She said when she was 20 her 45-year-old mother died. As a result she and her sister had to care for their six younger siblings (including two–yes two–sets of twins). The woman said she was so overwhelmed by having to take on all that work that she never had time to mourn for her mother. Understandably, in the course of saying all this, she broke down.

Here she was crying for what seemed like one of the first times about her mother’s death over 30 years ago. And then she started talking about her work at Chaparral House—that she’s visiting with women who are around the age her mother would be now. It doesn’t take a shrink to see why she’s there and what she is doing. Her story was so tragic. I couldn’t imagine being in her shoes so I couldn’t quite empathize, but my God I felt for her. How great that she found Chaparral House, I thought.

And then I started to piece together my ‘grief experience’ in my mind, and considered whether I wanted to say anything aloud to the group. I also thought about how I’d explain what brought me to Chaparral House.

This is essentially what I said:

“My mother died a little over two years ago, and she said she never wanted my sisters or I to care for her if her illness got to a point where she was really incapacitated. And it ended up that her descent was really sudden and rapid. One day my sister Marie called to say I should probably fly home.

At one point during that first visit Rose muttered something that sounded like Polish to Kate. Yes, she said, she was born in Poland and left after the war. My mother was also Polish–well, born to Polish immigrants.”

So, it seemed somewhat fortuitous that Kate and I found Rose. She needs a grandchild. Kate needs a Polish bopchi. And so in that way that it’s easy to make a crack psychological diagnosis of the person sitting next you but seems impossible to diagnose yourself, it became more clear than ever to me in that meeting why Rose is so special to us. Because of my mother, it will be extra hard for me when Rose is gone.

I’ve lamented before that without my mother here I miss being able to call her to drone on about Kate’s many wonders—and to know that avid grandmother that she was, she’d share my enthusiasm for every small thing.

This past Wednesday I was holding Kate on my lap and Rose leaned in to look at her and said, “Ah, you see that? Her ears.They are so tiny and so perfect.” I shot back, “I know! Aren’t they?” And for the next five minutes we talked about Kate’s precious ears. It was great.

Out of Her Shell

In the past couple weeks Kate has experienced what can best be called a personality emergence. Our former baby, the one who’d cause Mark to sometimes say, “Would it kill her to smile a little more?,” has suddenly become a people person.

Kate and I were at Berkeley Bowl again last week (though thankfully she was spared a near concussion this time). She was practically jumping out of her pants to interact with people. She leaned out of the Ergo pack to smile and clap her hands at other shoppers. She craned her neck at children passing by in shopping carts, and went to great lengths babbling and flapping her arms to woo the strangers in line behind us.

She also practiced her newest move, in which she raises one arm out, and holds her hand open, palm to the sky, in a sort of papal-blessing type way. She just sort of aims this at people. I take it to be a gesture of good will.

This is the baby who weeks ago staunchly refused to eek out a tiny grin for old women who did cartwheels in the aisles to get some reaction from her. This is the former Winner of All Staring Contests, who could deflect smiles with a stern unblinking gaze, for what seemed like hours.

Well, for now at least, those days seem to be gone. Maybe this is my daughter after all!

Have You Hugged Your Brother-in-law Today?

Yesterday was my brother-in-law John’s birthday. Well, I have two brothers-in-law named John. The one who’s hitched to Mark’s sister Lori is the one who’s now 31. We decided to take on generational guardianship of the thirties, since at ages 31 and 39 we are bookends to the decade. I’m not exactly sure what our responsibilities will be in these self-assigned posts, but we determined they were no doubt quite weighty.

So while attempting to bathe Kate last night, I called John to say happy birthday. He and Lori had young Gavin asleep and were enjoying the end of their meal–upholding his lifelong tradition of having lasagna as his birthday dinner. They’d also dug into a bottle of outstanding Surh-Luchtel wine, as they are wont to do. Say what you will about Lori and John, but you won’t go thirsty at their house. Those two have taken the at-home happy hour to all new levels.

During some of those very happy hours we’ve gotten calls from them. “Heeeeey!,” John will say. And you just know he’s been dipping into some single malt or a bottle or two of his home brew, and has made the wife a Manhattan.

It’s excellent having a brother-in-law and sister-in-law who presumably like us enough to dial our number under the influence. In those calls Mark and John talk about some baseball event or other that has them all fired up, or we swap stories about the kids. Maybe Lori and I will deconstruct some not-terribly-dramatic-but-fun-to-talk-about family episode. It’s all good clean fun, and frankly leaves Mark and I wishing A) we were drunk too (just seems like it’d double–or quadruple?–the fun), and B) that we lived closer to those guys.

John is in the Coast Guard, and is reassigned every 2-3 years. So, with them moving all the time and us generally staying put, maybe we will live close-by at some point. I defer to the language of my people (Rhode Islanders) when I say if that were to ever happen it would be “wicked awesome.” I would love love love Kate and her future sib(s) to get to know Cousin Gavin and his future sib(s) in the way you only can when you grow up alongside someone and come to look out for them through life’s adventures and mishaps. With my cousin Nancy as living proof, the cuz bond can be as strong as the sibling one if nurtured appropriately.

But also, Mark and I would love to be able to sit in the same room with Lori and John for happy hours, instead of doing them over the phone and in different time zones.

Last night John and I chatted about nothing special. He’s someone who I can get a good smack-talk workout with. He’s funny and quick, and is as happy to make up shit on the fly and run with it in the course of a conversation as I am. And I guess one thing I’ve always been curious about and impressed by with John is his Coast Guard thing. Before his and Lori’s wedding, I don’t think I’d ever met a Coasty(?), and that’s too bad. What a group of good eggs those boys are! John’s little nephew was the ring bearer and was really into hanging out with the big-guys in the wedding party. Many twenty-somethings would be more interested in focusing their energies exclusively on hitting up the bridesmaids (and I’m sure there was plenty of that going on too), but these guys were genuinely patient and sweet with the kid. And you could tell he was so proud to be in an inner circle with them. Maybe it’s just John’s friends who are that cool, and I’m giving credit to the Coast Guard on the whole, but I’d like to think it’s a trait that goes beyond John’s posse. All this is to say it’s been great getting to know someone from a world I knew nothing about, and being so pleasantly surprised by what a cool world it is. [Insert Coast Guard high-five here.]

Mark has an orange Coast Guard t-shirt that he wears fairly often. I know he’s also thrilled with his sister’s hubby choice, and wears that shirt with a bit of pride. I assume so at least, since the shirt is kinda bright…

So, my hat off to you, John. Happy birthday, sir! I am happy to be part of the same family with you, and not just because I get to be part of the Christmas gift swap that you enjoyed lording over me, or because we’re the only ones who know the true pronunciation of the word aunt.

Harboring a New Addiction

Gentle Reader:
(I’ve always wanted to say that. And the singular form of “reader” is no oversight. Hi Dad!)

Perhaps you’ve been perplexed by my blogging hiatus. Wither that stream of drivel she’s been so diligently doling out? Why can’t I get the latest mundane fact about Little Miss Kate’s development? [She is clapping her hands incessantly. V. cute!] And, moreover, does this mean I’ll have to get some work done now?

Fear not, G. Reader. I am back after having been drawn in by a force so mighty I’ve had no power to fend it off. I’ve been wooed by it’s charms and have now quite willfully, quite passionately, succumbed to it. It’s called Linked In. Yes, the online networking site has taken over my formerly “normal” healthy life.

How did this start, you ask. Innocently, I assure you. Last week Kate and I had lunch with the enchanting and always-amusing (okay, and well-dressed too) Andrew. In our hour together he managed to give me a run-down of no less that eight of our co-workers from The Former Agency. I was enthralled by stories of their shiny new professional exploits, and amazed that Andrew had the run-down on so many of them. There’s no doubt that Andrew can work a room, but he revealed to me that his tapped-in savoir-fair is due in large part to his love affair with Linked In.

So, I went home and decided to drink the Kool-Aid. Throngs of people have been extolling its virtues, but for some reason–even though many of them are folks whom I respect immensely (those who I don’t respect shall never know who they are!)–I was resistant to buying in

Ah, I say *buy* but there is actually nothing to *buy* with Linked In. Sure you can get some fancy extra bells and whistles for a fee, but in it’s most basic form, Linked In is free and a v. cool concept.

Essentially how it works is that you can email all the fabulous (and boorish) people you know from work or life and ask them to link to you via this website. As you comb through your mind, you think, “Wow. I know a lot of cool, smart people!” So there’s a fun element of popularity narcissism that goes along with it. Even if you grow lazy and don’t stay in touch with all the contacts who are linked to you, if they update their profiles when they change jobs, you’ll still be able to find them some day. And (if they so choose) you can see a list of all you contacts’ contacts, and so on, and so on. This is fun if you’re one of those people (like me) who likes reading the resumes of people you don’t know, even when you aren’t looking to hire someone.

Oddly, I’m not even looking for work right now. And maybe that’s part of the drive behind this for me. When I do think of the work-world (and it’s surprisingly not often) I admit to feeling a bit out of the game. So something like Linked In makes me feel more engaged. And when I rise like Phoenix from the ashes in search of my next plumb gig, I’ll be in a blaze of networking glory. It’d suck having to call someone who I considered a friend and be like, “You know, Kristen? Kristen McClusky? Brown hair, sarcastic, we shared an office for 3 years…”

The other thing is, with Linked In more is better. The more contacts you have linked to you, when you some day want to apply for a job at say, The Gap, you can easily find that one of your esteemed contacts used to work there and may have some advice for you, or someone for you to talk to there. And if you don’t have a direct contact who fits the bill, heck, one of their contacts–or their contacts’ contacts–might.

It’s a small world after all. It’s a small, small world. (Join in!)

So the more is good thing is just what I need to show that I can do a good job. My enneagram sign is The Achiever, and from everything from doing laundry to presenting to clients to signing my name on a credit card receipt, I want to do a good job, damn it. (At times, a very frustrating personality driver.) Therefore, I crawled into bed the other night at 12:30AM (this translates to 5AM for people without babies) causing Mark to ask what the hell I’d been up so late doing. “Linked In,” I whispered hoarsely. “I’m obsessed.”

So now, a few days later, I have not written in my blog. I’d love to say that I also haven’t showered or eaten or whatever, but we all know that’s not true. I *have* collected 63 contacts and have 58 outstanding invitations! I *have* compulsively checked email to see if the people who I invited to link to me have done so. And I’ve tracked down a hilarious old Kenyon friend, several other less side-splitting but still wonderful college folk, and many former co-workers who I’ve spent more time toiling away in an office with than I’ve probably spent with my husband altogether in the course of our relationship. I haven’t produced a child with these people, but I have produced myriad pitches, proposals, spreadsheets, PPT decks, you name it—many of which were nearly as painful to birth as Kate was, and took three times as long.

Finally, I have a confession to make. Sadly I have also, in essence, handed the crack pipe of Linked In over to my dear friend Julie. Since receiving my invitation to become one of my contacts, she has engaged in a fervid and relentless campaign to amass contacts. Before my email, she was a stranger to Linked In, so I have no one by myself (and my selfish desire to get at her contacts) to blame. Her husband emailed me today asking what it was I’d introduced her to, lamenting. “We haven’t seen her for days.”

Poor thing. Perhaps we can find some form of Linked In methadone and Julie and I go into treatment together. I’m sure between us, with all our contacts, there’s got to be someone who can get us into a really good program.