Elsewhere...
"Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff.... Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like, jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is, 'You like stuff.' Which is just not a good insult at all, like, 'You are just too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.'"
Hooray for nerds! And thank you, Kate, for sharing that quote!
And now: hey, look at me, writing things. As of this coming week and for every week after that I'll be posting every weekday at Redbook, so be sure to, you know, go there. But also come here, because if you don't I just don't know what I'll do. This week marks an awfully big milestone for Finslippy. What is that milestone? You'll have to come back to find out.
1. More about giving my kid the flu. You'd think I was the first person to ever get another person ill.
"He kept running into our room to see if we were ready to come out and play with him. "I will play anything as long as I don't have to touch your stuff," I croaked. 'No touching.'"
2. About spanking. I kind of can't believe we're still debating the pros and cons of hitting another human being, but there it is.
"So what is spanking teaching your children? We're supposed to model for them how to behave maturely and responsibly, even when we're upset or angry — especially then. Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I doubt your child will be happy or productive in life if he's bending people over his knee every time he has an argument with them. (Depending on his profession, of course.)"
3. You down with OPK? In which I admit to not being across-the-board enamored of other people's kids. I'm surprised I haven't received any hate mail on this one, but I'm not giving up yet! (Note the search-engine-optimized title on the header: "Mom Blogger Who Hates Other People's Kids." I never said "hate"! No hate, Redbook! None!)
"I used to find babies adorable across the board, and now when I see them all I can think is, thank God I don't have one of those. Because instead of its cute pudgy cheeks or shock of hair poking out from its cap, all I can see is all-night crying and ceaseless diaper-changing."
And as if that wasn't enough, I also did a Momversation video (remember those?), below. All I can see when I look at myself in this is how sick I was. This was taped last Thursday, when my fever had just started to climb up, and I look like I'm tearing up with emotion--which would have been appropriate, given the subject--but in fact I'm just glassy-eyed. This one's about death! Death and pets! Two things that should not go well together, but apparently do, all the time.
Alice
1. Our response to the Tiger Mom brouhaha: "Why Borderline Hysteric Southern Mothers Are Superior," written by the late Edwina Williams, mother of Tennessee Williams.
"Successfully mothering a tortured playwright is work—constant, numbing, endless, drunken work. You must systematically tear down your child’s self-regard while at the same time dismantling your own sanity, while maintaining a veneer of respectability for the neighborfolk who might come sniffing around. All to fill your child with precious subject-material that will one day fuel his muse!"
2. Nine Months in Captivity: a Fetal Memoir by T.B.A. Williamson, formerly incarnated as Brigadier General Josiah “Bucky” Warshaw, U.S.M.C. Just what it sounds like.
"I realized this morning that my teeth are gone! Those bastards must have knocked me out and filed them down to the roots. Still, I’ve regained feeling in my fingers and toes, which is a relief, although my body seems to be covered in a fine, downy hair. God knows what they’ve been feeding me through this blasted tube in my belly."Whew!
Reader Comments (9)
I'm so glad you liked the quote! The video it comes from is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMweXVWB918 and there's a kinetic typography video of just the quote (made by Vondell Swain) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFp7oLIGm-g John and Hank and Nerdfighteria are very high up on my list of best things in the world, and I'm glad to share.
Henry's remark, when he was 3, reminds me of all the research I've done on death, dying, reincarnation etc. Up until the age of 5, and some say 7, children remember things from past lives, the other side, whatever you want to call it, and can be interpreted as the "truth." Those imaginary friends they have may not be so imaginary after all, but recall from a distant time. That comment about Heaven? Doesn't it just sound right?
Wonderful quote!
Love the nerd quote.
It reminds me of the time I was at a temp job and there was this kind of gorky lawyer guy looking out the window of our skyscraper delighting in a nest of baby birds on the 45th floor ledge. He was talking at length about how unusual it was to get such a view of a nest like that and telling everyone all about the feeding patterns of raptors, their flight paths, etc. As he went on and on everyone in the room was rolling their eyes behind his back as if to say, "Check the bird nerd" and sort of laughing at him and his nutty enthusiasm. I went home and wrote in large letters in my journal that night, "TRY TO ALWAYS BE THE BIRD GUY".
Great quotes...your blog is very fun to read!
Margaret: I love that!
Margaret, I love that too!
Your Redbook post about spanking was really interesting. I don't have children and don't ever plan to, so I don't know how I'd actually handle disciplining a child. What I do know is that I was rarely spanked or otherwise hit as a child because I was so terrified of my mother. You stated in the article, "If I were the child in a pro-spanking household, I would simply start lying like crazy. My focus would be on getting the hitting to stop — not on improving my behavior." This is exactly how I reacted to my mother's temper; I became a world-class liar. Not exactly what my parents were going for, I have to assume.
I also sat up and noticed that quote on your previous post, and after some internet research (aka Google - I know, such mad skillz!) I ended up over at Youtube watching a slew of Nerdfighter videos with my teenage sons. He's our new obsession. Of course, it took me a bit to clue in he was THAT John Green, because I've just recently read Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines. It's a small, coincidental world sometime.
But my absolute favorite quote of his? On one of his vlogs he answers questions posted by younger viewers about romance, and someone asked, "Is it true that boys don't like girls who are smarter than them?" this was his response:
"The Venn diagram of 'boys who don't like smart girls' and 'boys you don't want to date'..... is a circle."
Awesome. I've been quoting it all week.