Just Kimly

so about that farewell tour...

2010-11-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

... we stayed.

The farewell tour

2010-07-01T21:21:00.005-04:00

So it's like this.

The career opportunity I've been wanting for a very long time, in the city where I grew up suddenly fell into my lap. It happened so quickly I'm still not sure it actually did happen. I'm astonished. And excited.

And leaving Pittsburgh.

I'm not a native of the Steel City, but my husband is, which is how I was lucky enough to come to live here. And while I've spent the better part of the last decade here, I don't know if I ever got to know Pittsburgh as well as I should have. There are a lot of things you're "supposed" to do when you get here that I just haven't done. Partly because I married someone who's been here and done that, but partly because I was always thinking of living in Pittsburgh as a temporary arrangement. I feel sort of bad about that now, because Pittsburgh has become very much a second home to me. I have nothing bad at all to say about the people of this city. They're super.

I don't start at the new job until August. So for the next month, I'm going to make a list of things in Pittsburgh I either haven't done, or things I want to do once more before the move, and try to do as many of them as I can, time and budget permitting.

First things first:

I've never been to Kennywood. (I KNOW!)
I've never eaten at Primanti's (I was a vegetarian until pretty recently).
I want to watch a last baseball game at PNC Park (I've at least done that). The only drawback there is it'll have to involve the Pirates.

I welcome suggestions of what other things I ought to experience before the move.

The day before vacation

2010-06-03T22:22:00.002-04:00

Getting ready for vacation is so stressful, mostly because my husband is so freaking calm to the point of comatose while I am a whirling dervish of stress and trying to be organized and not forget anything and also breathe ...

Stress is more stressful when no one shares it. Because then, you're not only stressed, you're borderline neurotic, too and DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN... oh, sorry.

Really what I need is a vacation.

Ah, irony. There you are again.

So, tomorrow we start the drive to the coast. Yes, drive. Don't get me started; he won't fly.

We'll see how it goes...

Vacation...

2010-06-02T22:25:00.002-04:00

We can barely afford it, but we're going to take a vacation this year, and go to Cape Cod.
I'll get to meet my new baby niece, not quite a month old. I'll also see my dad for the first time since our falling out (it's a long story. And boring.).
My younger child wants very much to see my dad. Me, not so much. It's just easier not to.
But, it may in all likelihood be the last time I see him. I wish I could muster up more interest in the situation based on that fact alone. Will I feel bad for the distance (both metaphorical and geographical) between us after he's gone?
Right now, I'd say no. After he's gone, I may feel differently.
Oh, but there will be beach time near a bona fide ocean on this vacation, to offset my 39-year-old angst.
So there's that.
We'll see how it goes.

Right now... it's June and I'm out of excuses

2010-06-01T22:52:00.004-04:00

I just love this photo. Memorial Day at Phipps Conservatory. Good lookin' guys, huh?

I'm going to steal Uncle Crappy's idea and try to blog every day for the month of June.
I think my previous goal of every day for a year? Too ambitious.

I just need to write more.

We'll see how it goes...

Hannah Louise

2010-05-10T20:56:00.002-04:00

My first niece, born on Mothers' Day.

I wish my mother could've met her. And my kids.

She would have been an awesome grandma.

(it's a cell phone photo, but she's still perfect)

Restart button

2010-05-09T15:21:00.001-04:00

First, it was just a few days, then it was a week then it turned into a month.

I thought I would blog every day for a year, my 39th year, in honor of my mother.

Yeah, I suck.

So, restarting on Mother’s Day (Mothers’ Day?). Sincerely going to make a second attempt.

It's just this sort of thing that makes me wish I went to law school

2010-03-02T20:29:00.006-05:00

It's not easy being a journalist; the job itself isn't super-hard if you have half a brain, but the reputation/public perception that we're all scandal-mongering, muck-racking dirtbags is hard to fight when you have people like Rick Sanchez representing the profession:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Uninformant

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

Honestly, we're not all that ridiculous. Some of us have pride. Scruples, even...

and I do mean idiot box...

2010-03-01T20:51:00.002-05:00

One of the most endearing things about my husband (or most annoying, depending upon who has the remote), is his affinity for bad television. When I say the man will watch *anything* on television, I am not exaggerating even a little. As I type this, he is watching a show on public access television in which two African-American women are discussing... I have no idea what they're discussing. One's going to St. Louis, the other one wants to eat M &Ms. I have tuned out. My husband has not.
That is exactly the sort of thing he likes to watch. Public access is must-see TV. The guy who yells, "Read On!" to his companion, who reads passages from the Bible? Husband loves it. Oh and shopping channels? The more hideous the jewelry/outfit/artwork the better. Quacker Factory leisurewear? He'll watch it for hours.
Yet, if I try to sneak in an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I'll never hear the end of it. Not only does he watch awful television (his reasoning is someone has to watch it), he is very judgmental of the TV-watching habits of others.
Some nights, we just have to reach an agreement to put on hockey and be done with it. We can at least agree on that...

Don't move my STUFF!

2010-03-01T20:31:00.003-05:00

So the 5-year-old, he has a lot of STUFF. Toys, subcategories of toys, construction paper, crayons, pencils, stuffed animals, games, trucks, cars, books, flashlights... and I haven't even gotten to the Lego section yet.
In an effort to help him keep it more organized, I took one of my bookcases, emptied it of its stuff, put it in his room and put some of his stuff on it. Since he is a child who craves organization (and craves is the word I was going for), I figured a more-organized room was a very good thing.
Except of course, I did it wrong.
"This is just going to scare me later!" he told me, furious. "Why did you move it all around?"
See, things in your room look a lot different with the lights off than they do with the lights on. Especially when you are a 5-year-old with a vivid imagination. Anything out of place becomes a terrifying visage after Mom shuts off the lights and leaves the room. See: "Bedtime for Frances".
He took everything off the bookcase and reorganized it properly.
He must have done something right, because he slept like a log, not even a request for a drink of water. Maybe I'll have him tackle my closet next... but that's a whole other set of scaries, isn't it...

If Rory Gilmore were a boy

2010-02-27T21:46:00.005-05:00

Today I had lunch with my older son, who is a full-fledged adult and everything. Old enough to drink legally, even.
I'll wait while you try to figure out the math.
OK, time's up. Yes, I was extremely young when I had him, so young that it boggles my mind how little I knew about taking care of myself, much less being responsible for another human.

It was hard when he was little, because I had to sacrifice a lot of the teenage and twentysomething things many people in that age bracket take for granted. It was harder still when he hit adolescence, because I made some selfish decisions which had not-fantastic consequences for him.

But now that he's a little older, and has a capacity to understand that A) Mom was really young and inexperienced and didn't know what she was doing most of the time but B) usually had the best of intentions, our relationship has greatly improved. There is no one else I can talk to so candidly about many topics, and that includes my sisters and my husband. He is *so much* like me in so many ways, and so much better than me in a lot of other ways.

So we discussed Olympic hockey and why the modern American workplace is a ridiculous and unreasonable place, and ate Middle Eastern food. It was nice, and I wish we did it more often.

The now-defunct show "Gilmore Girls" was about a mom who got pregnant as a teenager (Lorelai) and her teenage daughter (Rory). It was one of my favorite shows ever, and while I was sad to see it canceled, it seemed like the right time for the characters, especially Rory, who had graduated college and was entering the workforce. That parent-child relationship of a mom who wants everything for her kid despite their less-than-auspicious beginnings, is a model for the kind of relationship I'd like to have with my older kid. They're not just parent-child, they're best friends.

Maybe we're not there yet, but I think we will be soon...

Can't wait for 6

2010-02-26T22:20:00.003-05:00

When my now-5-year-old was 3, he loved us and was a perfectly charming little person to be around; agreeable, pleasant, funny, innocent and cute, cute, cute.
Then he turned 4. Still cute, mind you, and still funny and innocent. And while there is something intensely comical about a 4-year-old stomping off in a huff, what does a 4-year-old have to stomp off about?
Our pediatrician assured us that 4 was just a difficult age, and he'd mellow out once he turned 5.
We believed him.
Still waiting for that mellow.
Maybe it's because he's a Taurus. Maybe it's because he's just smart and gets impatient with his dopey parents who need everything explained to them. Maybe we need to be more patient.
Or, maybe, our pediatrician is a liar, liar pants on fire and 5 is just as whiny and obstinate as 4.
I am *sure* when he turns 6, he'll stop howling with despair every night at bedtime, lose interest in driving Mommy bananas with an argument for even the smallest decision, and will accept "because I said so" as a viable reason to do something.
Definitely, right?

Not beating myself up. Nope. Not gonna do it.

2010-02-26T14:45:00.004-05:00

So less than three days in to my new project of blogging every day for a year, I dropped the ball. Why?
I forgot. Plain and simple.
BUT!
I did something else that was out of my comfort zone.
I went to a Tweetup.
To meet some of the very funny and interesting people I interact with on Twitter on a pretty much daily basis. Despite my brave and hopefully amusing front, I am a very shy and insecure person by nature. I'm tall, which has been kind of a social handicap (at least in my own mind) since about teenagehood. It is VERY HARD for me to meet new people, not because I don't have opportunities, but because I fret about it and build it up in my own mind, and psych myself out.
So I am very proud of myself for swallowing my fear and venturing out to Piper's Pub on the South Side. I admit I waited all day for the weather to change enough to cancel the event, letting me off the hook. But it didn't. So I didn't chicken out, and am very glad I did not.
I had already met Abby, the fabulous organizer of many Tweetups, and @shadow, a very nice and funny techie. But I was dying to meet UncleCrappy and @mrscrappy, because they're journalists like me! And also, very funny and nice.
I wish I had had more time to talk to @FunkyDung and @annthegeek, but, I at least introduced myself. Big step for Shy Me.
There were a few people I chickened out introducing myself to (still a tall, gawky teenager in my head), but I'll save 'em for the next Tweetup.
So there. I'm not going to beat myself up for forgetting to blog yesterday. I'll blog twice today as penance. In fact, I'll make that my rule. As long as on Feb. 23, 2011, I have 365 posts to show for myself, I'll consider this project a success.
Good?

very public transportation

2010-02-24T22:04:00.003-05:00

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I usually commute to work by bus. Given Pittsburgh's ridiculously labyrinthine transit system, I end up on two buses for a total travel time of about an hour for a trip that encompasses just under six miles.
What I like about riding the bus: I can snooze on the way to work, or check email, or goof off on Twitter, or do any number of other things I couldn't do while driving. Also, I don't have to drive in rush hour traffic.
The things I don't like about the bus don't have a lot to do with riding it. I hate the moment where I have to pay. I always fumble with my change if I don't have a pass that week, and I can feel the hatred of the passengers behind me. I hate waiting for the bus; it's that nervous tension kinda like when you try to get money from the ATM but you're not exactly sure how much is in the account... not sure the bus hasn't arrived yet, if it's late... just too many variables can go wrong before the bus actually shows.
But the worst part of traveling by bus is the instance of being just a shade late or slightly too far from the bus stop when the bus pulls up. And you have to run to catch it. You surrender all dignity at that point, and are at complete and total mercy of the bus driver. He or she can pretend not to see you, or can just keep driving and ignore your breathless humiliation.
Mostly, though, the bus isn't a terrible way to get around. If the seats were just a little more comfortable...

Peter Fonda, Dakota Fanning and Howard Jones...

2010-02-23T20:30:00.005-05:00

... were all born on February 23rd, too.

Today is also the anniversary of the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph

Most awesomely, on this date in 1896, the Tootsie Roll was invented.

Whereas yesterday, I was filled with profound insight and self-introspection, today when I sat down at the computer, all I have in my brain is Tootsie Rolls and Peter Fonda.

On this upcoming year's to-do list, in no particular order:

-Visit my sister in California (she has lived there more than 10 years and I've never visited once, for various reasons: small children being born, finances, etc. )

- Get out of print journalism. The future is bleak and the pay is lousy. Trying to make the transition now by beefing up my mad online journalism skillz. It's hard for an old dog like me to learn new tricks after 12+ years.

-Spend more time at the ocean. Not on the ocean, like in a boat or something, just in a place where I can see it.

-Get healthier. Just, yeah.

-Be more patient. I would say that might be my biggest character flaw; I am impatient with people and get easily frustrated.

I know this post was full of randomness, but I'm new to the "blog-every-day" mindset. I have to save some of the brilliance if I'm going to do this daily for a year straight ...

One down, 365 to go

2010-02-22T20:34:00.001-05:00

Turning 39 is not nearly as big a deal as turning 40. I get that.

However, I have an especially unhappy association with the age 40: it's how old my mother was when she died of a brain tumor.

As a nurse, she almost certainly knew how bleak her prognosis was when she got it. I have, somewhere, a photo of her blowing out candles on her 40th and final birthday cake, her chemo-ravaged head covered by a scarf. She must have known at the time that it would be her final birthday. Mother of three small children. What must have been going through her mind at the time that photo was taken? I can't even begin to imagine, and believe me, I've tried.

So I plan to celebrate my 40th birthday as a great occasion when (and if) it arrives. But I have a year to go first: I'm going to be 39 tomorrow. I decided I would treat this 40th year as a great gift; savor every day of it. I don't think I can quite bring myself to treat it as if it were my last year, but I wonder if my mother would have lived her 40th year differently if she had the knowledge she wouldn't see 41, and hadn't been so sick those last few months.

My plan is to post something here every day for an entire year. Not every post will be so fraught with personal reflection, or so serious, hopefully. What I'm hoping for is to gain a better appreciation of a mother I didn't get to know that well, and honor her memory by more fully living and exploring each day left on my own calendar.

Wicked good bloggers.

2009-12-16T21:17:00.000-05:00

The problem with being a print reporter is you are literally confined by and to the page. The news hole, as it is so unceremoniously called, is how much space you have to write around ads. Fewer ads, smaller news hole. Larger ads, smaller news hole (paradoxically).

I have come to accept this in 15 years of journalism, however, when a recent story I wrote on philanthropy and bloggers was trimmed, it bugged me more than usual, because some bloggers worthy of attention and kudos didn't make the final edit.

BurghBaby raised $3,000 for toys for underprivileged kids with her Christmas Crazy. She just asked, and her readers obliged. Ginny Montanez, at That'sChurch raised more than $10,000 for a game room at Children's Hospital. Because she wanted to. ThePgha gathered 500 pounds of food for a Pittsburgh food pantry. Because she decided if Twestival could use Twitter for a common charitable goal, she could too.

I'm just in awe of these people, and anyone who thinks social media is made up of a bunch of narcissists is so wrong, I don't know where to start.

Letting go of date night

2009-11-08T21:43:00.000-05:00

I am sure I'm not the only working mother who's aware of the constant drumbeat of criticism disguised as advice for working parents that appears in such august publications as the New York Times. (In fact, the NYT is responsible for a good chunk of the "out-of touch-with-reality-Upper-East-Side" style of journalism I'm talking about). The stories range from women who "opt out" of careers in favor of staying home with children to a recent gem about how yelling at your kids scars them for life.

The general message of these stories to working parents is: You're doing it wrong. And as a working parent, I'm always annoyed with myself after reading the latest installment of Guilt Trip, but I read these articles every time.

The latest Must for Every Marriage proclamation is the idea of Date Night. You have to find time for each other! Get a sitter and go out etc etc. If you don't, you're not valuing your marriage and you may as well just get divorced now.

For awhile, I bent over backwards to try to arrange dates with my husband. Eleven years in, I figured the 5-year-old could be left with the grandparents for an evening now and again. It proved a mostly frustrating ordeal; they were never quite the idealized romantic evenings I envisioned, since we were looking at the clock constantly, and trying to cram a week's worth (or longer) of conversations we never got around to into a three-hour span. And we usually ended up talking about the kid at least half the time anyway.

I was SO GLAD, then, to read this author's excellent piece in the Boston Globe on how hard it is for him and his wife to arrange a date night. I realized that we're already altering date night to fit our schedules: when my husband had an unexpected day off from work recently he scheduled the whole day around meeting me for lunch.

We had such a nice time, much nicer, even, than the few date nights we'd managed to cobble together. I didn't realize how much I missed just enjoying his company over a meal someone else had prepared (and would clean up) without having to make sure all water glasses were centrally situated on the table to avoid spills.

So I'm officially ending my efforts to arrange date "nights." I think we'll figure it out-- after all, as the Globe writer puts it, that's what vacation days are for.

Feel scared, feel embarrassed, but feel your boobies

2009-10-27T21:35:00.000-04:00

So I wasn't sure whether or not it was a lump.

It's just hard to tell. But it was bothering me and not going away. I went to the midwives, who take the best care of even non-pregnant women such as myself.

"It's movable," she said, after examining the -- lump? Cyst? Other random thing? -- in Lefty (Yes, they have names.) Movable lumps are apparently better than non-movable ones, that is, not usually indicative of cancer.

"But let's get it checked out just in case," she said. Wrote me a script for the Breast Care Center. Which is housed in the Cancer Center, I learned when I made my appointment. Not exactly a confidence-booster, that. It really made me screech to a halt and realize:

"This lump could be breast cancer."

I waited a very long week and a half, then went in for both a mammogram and an ultrasound today. I had forced myself not to think about it until I was in the waiting room and then I saw a very ill-looking woman with thinning hair sitting across from me, and felt a small wave of panic.

It really could be cancer. I started thinking about my husband, my kids, my sisters and tried to focus on the TV, which was blaring what I thought was Young and the Restless but turned out to be As the World Turns. Someone was waking up from a coma. Good. Distracting.

Then the nurse called me in. First up: Mammogram. It's unpleasant. Like an apple press, only with your boobs shoved in there and smushed. From every conceivable direction. I started to cry not because it hurt but because there was no going back now; I couldn't put off and ignore it anymore because now machines and tests and other people were involved.

Then, not knowing the results of the mammogram, I was ushered into another waiting area. This is the part of the story that gets a little surreal.

The TV in this waiting area had on the awful afternoon installment of the Today Show, with Kathie Lee Gifford. I joined it just in time for their segment on Life After Breast Cancer: How to wear a bra after a mastectomy. Exercises for after a mastectomy. Nutrition to prevent breast cancer. Oh, did we mention October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Oh and also, one in 9 women will get breast cancer.

After about a thousand years, or so it seemed, they brought me in for the ultrasound. The tech spread the gel on me and moved the wand around. For about a year. Then:

"I don't see anything."

Whatever was bothering me is apparently a normal part of my left breast, and isn't showing up as anything bad on either the mammogram or the ultrasound.

The whole day was pretty scary. And it's embarrassing to be topless for that long in front of total strangers, even if they are nurses. But now, I know. I was braced for the worst, and still sort of can't believe I got a clean bill of health.

I know I'm lucky. I know there are a lot of women who won't get this kind of good news after their mammograms. I wish I had some sage advice or thoughtful perspective to offer. Just feel your boobies. Get a mammogram. Rule it out so you don't have to think about it. Or, catch it early. Anything. Just don't ignore it.

The "Why" of your blog

2009-10-20T21:56:00.001-04:00

I went to PodCamp Pittsburgh two weekends ago, and sat in on an excellent session by Michelle, the talented writer behind The BurghBaby, an excellent blog. I was excited to meet her and even more impressed after she was done speaking.

The essence of blogging, she says, is to know the "why" of your blog.

That seems so simple, but it had eluded me to that point. It's important to know why you're blogging, otherwise you'll be all over the place and unfocused and what's the point of that?

Simply put, I want to write about things that interest and/or bother me. Whether anyone wants to read that, I have no idea.

I'm hoping the list of things that bother me isn't longer than the list of things that interest me. Because bitching all the time isn't really interesting either, even if it's done in a clever way.

So I'll probably be writing a lot about being a working mother. I am one, and there is no end to the things within that spectrum that both interest me and bother me. Mommy blogging isn't for everyone, but I think that's where I'm headed anyway, so why fight it?

There. Glad I got that off my chest. And special thanks to Michelle for helping point me in the right direction.

if there's anything cuter than feetie pajamas...

2009-10-13T19:52:00.001-04:00

... it's feetie pajamas with dinosaurs on them

reaching new heights...

2009-10-12T21:05:00.000-04:00

I have noticed that my kid is getting tall enough to reach things he couldn't reach a month ago, which has forced me to reorganize some countertops, but has also confirmed: he's going to take after me and be tall.
But, he's a boy.
I'll just say it without a qualifier: it's easier for boys who are tall than for girls. Yes! I know. Gender bias. And I'm not saying it's smooth sailing for guys who have to duck through doorways and can't fit behind steering wheels. Ask my new PodCamp buddy over at The Size of Life.
Being tall is not easy; clothes, cars, airplane and bus seats, bicycles, ceilings, doorways, full-length (ha!) mirrors, beds, and showerhead heights are all challenges at one point or another... see, these are all the things you people under 5' 11" don't think about.
But speaking from personal experience, I think it's a whole lot tougher for girls than guys. I've been six feet tall since like, age 16, and let me tell you how popular I wasn't in high school. I was taller than all the boys, and some of the teachers. I was all knees and elbows and incredibly awkward, or so I thought. Nothing fit right.
Of course, there may have been other factors working against me in the popularity hell of high school, but I was convinced it was my height. The nasty kids who make fun of everyone in high school took the obvious easy target, and I was ripe for the pickin'.
So I slouched to look shorter. And wore shoes that were too small but weren't available in my (giant) size. I even shaved a few inches off when people asked how tall I was.
I wasn't fooling anyone and was just building resentment over something that ultimately, I couldn't control. There are upsides, after all: you can always reach that top shelf, you never get lost in a crowd because you can usually see over them, and it's a really easy conversation starter. PLUS, the taller candidate apparently has won 10 of the last 12 presidential elections.
So yeah, it kinda sucks being tall, and it looks like my little guy is about to join the club. But at least he'll have me to instruct him on the necessities of the aisle seat. Really. It's a must.

His mother must be proud...

2009-10-03T16:35:00.000-04:00

My 5-year-old loves hockey. More specifically, he loves the Pittsburgh Penguins. And to narrow it down even further: He loves No. 87, Sidney Crosby.

We watched the Penguins' home opener last night, and saw the Stanley Cup ("Mom, look how shiny it is!") get hit with the spotlight at Mellon Arena, and the championship banner raised at center ice. We clapped and he was as excited as if I had given him ice cream for dinner (ONE TIME when he was sick, ok?)

During the ceremony the camera caught Crosby looking up at the banner as it ascended into the rafters. He looked so young, but at the same time, respectful; he knows what a huge, big, giant deal it is to win Lord Stanley's Cup.

It got me thinking how glad I was that my little guy had picked someone who, for all intents and purposes, seems like a great role model. I'm not usually one to pick sports figures as role models (because most of them suck at it), but then remembered this video of a 14-year-old Crosby. He talks with absolute glee about how he can't imagine how great it would be "getting paid to do something you love to do." (3:11 in the video).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neO44K7Awg0

It doesn't seem to me that Crosby has changed all that much since then. A reporter asked him during the last playoff season how he felt about the fans in Philadelphia yelling "Crosby Sucks" whenever he took the ice. "I don't love it," he admitted, ruefully. That's about as strong a criticism I've ever heard him give of another team or another player.

And after the win last night, there was a really nice, typically Crosby moment. A reporter noted that both Crosby's grandmothers were in attendance and got to watch him score a goal (ha ha, bite it, Rangers). "Do they still give you a dollar for every goal you score?" the reporter asked in an on-ice interview. Crosby smiled, "no, they stopped doing that a long time ago."

How do you not love this guy (be quiet Flyers fans, nobody cares what you think).

So as the Penguins start their final season at Mellon Arena, Dominic and I will be watching (sometimes covering his eyes when the boys get wound up, as it were) a player who loves the game so much it's contagious, even to a small fry as little as 5.

must have been the anti-pancake protesters

2009-09-25T23:09:00.000-04:00

One, I am so glad the G-20 is over, because even though it was fun to be in the field reporting again, it was exhausting to be in the field reporting again.

Also, I cannot remember how to spell protester to save my life.

Which brings me to my next point: Protesters.

I think probably the moron(s) who smashed this window Thursday in the midst of a G-20 protest that got out of hand were probably drunken Pitt students, rather than political protesters. I'm not sure which one is worse: The drunken idiot who mindlessly wrecks things, or the political protester who deliberately wrecks things. Either way, stuff gets wrecked.

Pamela's is a neighborhood staple, has fed Pittsburghers for decades and deserves better treatment than this, be it from protesters or idiot drunks.

I'm all for protest and freedom of expression and questioning authority. But when innocent bystanders get caught up in what just boils down to vandalism, what statement have you really made?

Really, he's only 5.

2009-09-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

"Mom, this haircut makes me look like Barack Obama." (he's as caucasian as me, btw)

"I don't think I need to go to kindergarten, I think I know everything they're going to tell me."

Him: "I don't want to eat anything that has a skin." Me: "What about bananas?" Him: "Bananas don't have a skin, they have a peel."

"My grandparents are more fun than my regular parents."

You kids get off my lawn

2009-09-17T20:51:00.000-04:00

I commute by public transportation which, despite the length of time it takes to get from the East End of the city to the South Side, I sort of love. It gives me down time which I normally get very little of, what with the job and husband and kids and parents.
However.
Part of my commute takes me through Oakland, where 99 percent of the colleges in this city are. I have come to the realization that there is no creature on Earth more irritating than a college girl on a cell phone. And being trapped on a bus with them: brain-numbing. No, seriously. Everything? Is a question? Because they all do that uptalking thing? Then amplify that with the appropriate level of cell yell. Even with the loudest Soul Coughing song on my iPod I cannot drown out the inane conversations. Mostly having to do with how hammered they got at that party? With the guy? At that place? OH MY GOD BE QUIET.
I think I may start talking to myself just so none of them sit near me EVER AGAIN.

Tweeter, meet NY Times ...

2009-09-15T16:34:00.000-04:00

So I had a weird, surreal day, covering the AFL CIO convention at (fittingly enough) the Convention Center. Pretty much any chance I have to see President Obama, I'll take. I admit it. Love him or hate him, he's fascinating and an exciting public speaker.

I am happy to report no one shouted "You lie," at the president today, in fact one lady yelled "I LOVE YOU BARACK." Awesomely, he replied, "I love you too, sister." That's what union people call each other, brother and sister. It was a huge hit with the union crowd.

And, it was also the first time I've ever been close enough to Arlen Specter to touch him (no, I did not). He's just as crusty in person, but seemed smaller, somehow.

ANYhoodle, the surreal part of the day was the conversation I semi-participated in with a New York Times reporter and a Pittsburgh twitterer. One of the oldest of the old media and the most embryonic new media conversing. It was... nice. The NY Times reporter was pretty decent to the twitter guy, which I sort of didn't expect. And, he didn't make any disparaging comments after the twitter guy left (which I thought he might), and actually did look up his site.

It was also the first time I've ever said to someone upon meeting them, "Hey, I follow you on Twitter!" Pretty sure it won't be the last time.

I dunno, the whole thing left me feeling better about the state of media in general; maybe we can all learn to get along...