I Am Not Alone

This story was respectfully stolen from Suzanne, my neighbor's sister. Suzanne is a writer, athlete and mom. As you can clearly see, I am not the only mom whose little voice is telling her all is not right with the world. Her son Henry is struggling in the 6th grade and below is an email Suznne sent to her sister Cynthia about Henry and correspondence with Henry's teacher.


Okay. 6th grade has been a rollercoaster of: honor roll / struggling to pass / honor roll / struggling … you get the picture. We just got a little “progress” report in the mail from Henry’s math teacher – “progress” being an interesting choice of words. In my fury and frustration (not at the teacher, but at Henry) – I write an email to the teacher asking for some specifics – what work is missing, etc … Basically, I asked her how he gets out of the hole he has dug for himself.

Below is the first paragraph of her response:

Suzanne - I share your frustration, and I am quite at a loss as to strategies for Henry. Just 2 weeks ago, he was given the entire class period to complete 2 Open Responses, but he stated he didn't have time to finish them. When I collected his work, I noticed he had spent the time drawing toilet plungers on his paper!

I almost spit coffee all over my computer. I love the appropriateness of it all … he’s in the shitter, school-wise … why not draw plungers to help himself get out of it? I have ZERO idea how I am going to talk to him about this, cause I cannot stop laughing!

Suzanne WebGirl, BikeClicks.com

LinkedIn Whore

This will be brief. I wrote the phrase "LinkedIn whore" down on a napkin about a month ago thinking it would make an hysterical blog. Now I've sort of forgotten where I was going with it. I joined LinkedIn about six months ago. For the most part it's harmless, although my brother just sent me another of his "google" is watching us news items. I know they're watching us. I just don't assume they care.

I recently got a LinkedIn invitation from someone sketchy from my past. I won't say much except that it made me nervous. I did decline an invitiation from someone recently. I met him at a trade show and gave him my card. He was really there to meet my father who is the CEO of the company attending the tradeshow. First he called my cell phone. Then he invited me to link. Then I declined. Haven't heard from him since.

I'm really a LinkedIn amateur. I rarely remember to ask people to link in. I sent out about 5 invitiations one weekend but they were almost all to women friends.

So the term LinkedIn whore is a reference to people who have like 500+ people in their network. For example, I met this guy a few years ago at this eurotrash party in the City. His name is Cass and he has or had this website called Cassworld. It's Cassworld and we're all just living in it. He's a LinkedIn whore. How can you possibly keep up with 500+ contacts?Who are these people? I'm one of his people and I'm dissing him right here on my blog.

It's crazy. Competing for how many linked ins you can get. That makes you a LinkedIn whore. You know who you are.

A Nice Blog About My Husband

My husband just finished catching up on my blog. I gave him a guilt trip for not reading it lately. When he finished, he put down his iPhone and said, "You're quite a good writer aren't you? Boy your husband must be a real jerk."

With that in mind, I thought I'd try writing something nice about my husband because I rarely, if ever, do. First let me explain that I am obviously no walk in the park to deal with myself. My husband and I were talking the other day and he told me about a conversation with an old friend of mine. The friend, not knowing my husband had designs on me, said to him, "It's going to take a strong man to be with her."

I recognize this fact but I just feel so superior to my husband most of the time that I pretend it's not true. I can rattle off a list of his faults in 10 seconds. The thing is he really doesn't talk about my faults. He doesn't bring them up or develop grocery lists of them, at least not very often.

I do think my jabs at my husband are pretty funny. I have funny nicknames for him like "Kicking and Screaming", a reference to the Will Ferrell movie and that cockamamie track suit Ferrell wears when he becomes the coach of his son's soccer team. My husband has kicking and screaming track pants like Will Ferrell's. They aren't blue with tiger stripes but they are dacron Adidas with snaps down the legs. Now it's baseball season, so my husband broke out his adult baseball pants. And he has matching baseball socks and a baseball jersey.

Other funny names I call my husband: "The Great Santini," "Mr. Don't Touch My Stuff" and "Good Morning Sunshine." "Good Morning Sunshine" is the oldest one. When we were friends a long time ago, I picked up on my husband's innate optimism and decided I should squash it. I told him I thought he woke up every morning, took a good look at himself in the mirror and then said "Good Morning Sunshine." To himself. Get it?

What are some of my husband's good qualities? Well he cries in romantic movies and I love that. He is almost always optimistic, despite my best efforts. He's good in bed as they say. (My family members just left this blog) He's very talented. He's a designer and creative director. He spends a lot of time with our son, something that is unusual here in the Northeast where many fathers commute to the City or travel frequently to keep up with the Joneses.

The quality I most admire in my husband is that he loves me more than anyone else. (See there's that narcissism rearing its ugly head.) I never see him looking at other women. He is content with me. Of course I find this quality confounding and try as hard as I can to drive him away. But he sticks around. I guess that optimism is real.

We're in a pretty good groove right now. We're getting along, not really fighting. I don't want to jinx it though. I'm superstitious. Another fabulous quality of mine.

I love my husband. I love that I can say whatever I want to him and he seems okay with it. Or if he isn't, he lets me know in a way that doesn't squash that openness in me. I have lived in a home with so many secrets that it's nice to have most things out in the open. It's a relief. I love my husband and he loves me. As Carly Simon sings, "That's the way I've always heard it should be."

NB I decided to add photographic evidence of my husband's Kicking and Screaming outfit after he told a large group of parents from my son's baseball team that I'd thrown myself at Steven Seagal's PA to get a job on his latest movie. Also that movie ultimately was called Pistol Whipped, not Marker, the working title.