While I listen to the middle school principal rant about the evils of technology year after year, I actively encourage my children to embrace technology and blogging. For children, blogging starts out as an online diary. It is a place where they can record their feelings at that moment in time. If they ever posted anything threatening to themselves or others, we would immediately intervene and get professional help. We wouldn’t just tell them to delete it and deny their feelings. That scenario hasn’t come up yet, but my children do sometimes make posts with words I don’t like them using. I allow it. Sometimes they whine and complain. I allow it. I don’t have to agree with them. They are allowed to have their own emotions, ideas and opinions. I think it’s much better that they be allowed to sort it all out in a blog post than forced to be keep everything unexpressed. I don’t want my children to go through life with a big blank smile on their faces, saying “everything is fine” when life is all about highs and lows. It is the lows that make the highs that much sweeter. As adults, we learn to filter who we share details of life with, but even as adults, we recognize the big, fat liars who are more superficial than a department store mannequin. Teenagers have enough problems without adults denying their feelings. If one of my children says they had a really cruddy day, they need a hug. They don’t need me telling them that their day doesn’t matter or that they are wrong. Their blog is their therapy couch. It’s where they get to let it all out. Validation is much more important than keeping up appearances.

fra·ter·ni·ty (fr-tûrn-t)
n. pl. fra·ter·ni·ties
1. A body of people associated for a common purpose or interest, such as a guild.
2. A group of people joined by similar backgrounds, occupations, interests, or tastes.
3. A chiefly social organization of men students at a college or university, usually designated by Greek letters.
4. The quality or condition of being brothers; brotherliness.

We are at the end of an emotionally tumultuous week. Every time I got in over my head, Twitter came to my rescue. Monday was my birthday. The day would have been indistinguishable from any other day if not for the kind words from the people on Twitter. Thank you. Mid-week, a Twitter offered some new-to-you clothes to Doug. It was an unexpected but much appreciated gift. Thank you. With Tommy’s graduation just a day away, Doug asked for help in renting a camera to use at graduation. A Twitter offered us the loan of a very fancy camera for the evening. It was so nice to have a camera in my hands again that I think I took a million pictures. Thank you. Yesterday, we found out just a few hours before graduation that we had six computers with no operating system. A desperate Twitter for help brought a knight to our rescue. He spent hours getting the computers ready for the graduates to use at the after graduation party. If not for him, it would have taken hours of the party time to make the machines usable. Thank you. After midnight last night, we found ourselves in need of keys to use one of the games. A Twitter resulted in several keys. Thank you. I have used many different examples to try and describe Twitter to non-users. Today, I have a new way to describe Twitter. Twitter is a community of real people who work together for a common good. Twitter is a fraternity. A fraternity for which I am very thankful. When I say I love Twitter, I am really saying that I love the people who are Twitter. Thank you Twitter.

There are people I consider my friend because of blogging. It is what brought us together, but it isn’t what tears us apart. We are not friends because we agree on everything. We are friends partially because we see in each other the passion that makes us blog and defend our opinions. Mostly though, we are friends because they are just wonderful people. Sometimes, we disagree and toss words back and forth on various blogs and social networking sites. In person, we are just friends. I don’t think our friendship is unusual. Then again, the man I love with all of my heart and I don’t see eye to eye on everything and we’re okay with that. He lets me use the words “hare-brained scheme” and “paranoid conspiracy theory” without getting offended. I let him be ridiculous. Actually, I count on him to know when I need a hug and when I need a swift kick in the rear. That’s a pretty big responsibility. Maybe he’s not as crazy as I claim he is. Either way, we are very lucky to have friends who tolerate our craziness.

My *words read so hillbilly that I should stick to just talking to children. Instead, I am going to be at Gay Street’s Versus on Saturday, May 10th from 7 until 9 pm for a local blogger gathering. I won’t be playing Guitar Hero, but I will cheer you on if you want to try it. Versus is family friendly and the owner is a charming ex-puppeteer. Bring the gamer in your family and enjoy this charming little geek playground. Afterwards, maybe someone can point me in the direction of a good dessert spot.

*I tried not to offend the school board, avoided using the word homophobic and used examples that I thought they would understand. My letter:

Dear School Board & Superintendent,

Last week, the Franklin Graham people were in two of my children’s schools. Not just visiting the school, but having assemblies during school hours so that the students could watch a skateboarder and get invited to win prizes at their weekend revival. I have several problems with this. First, whenever I ask any teacher (except a kindergarten teacher) why they can’t do more experiential learning and less worksheet activities, the answer is always, “we don’t have time.” If this is true, they really don’t have time to watch someone skateboard. Second, skateboarding has zero academic value. It wasn’t accompanying any lecture on physics or science. It was purely fluff. Third, no matter how good a person the skateboarder is, skateboarding is not a lesson in character. The schools have the character counts program to enforce good character traits. Fourth, if one religious group is welcome in the schools, then all religious groups have to be welcome in the schools. I personally think that some of the groups are dangerously stupid (Scientologists), while others are primarily hate groups (W***boro Baptist Church). I am sure that someone with children in our schools supports those groups. They don’t want their children listening to the people I approve of and I don’t want my children listening to them.

I have no problem with people and organizations using schools to distribute information. I have a problem with them interrupting the school day. Having a religious group interrupt schools for something as silly as skateboarding sets a bad precedent. I don’t want the church of flying spaghetti monsters suing to have programs in our schools, too. Please consider establishing a protocol for what type of events are allowed during school hours.

Cathy McCaughan

I got back only one answer. He told me to talk to the school principals. I also got one phone call from a teacher who agrees with me but isn’t allowed to complain.

The host for our sites doesn’t like us any more. We are now exchanging terse letters of frustration. They are frustrated because our “sites put an unfair burden on the servers.” Our frustration is based on bewilderment as to how we could possibly be abusing bandwidth. Is our host too small? Are they comcasting us into bigger and better plans? Is this a common problem for bloggers or just another one of those weird things that seem to only happen to us?

A year and a half ago, my mother got two new knees. I didn’t heed the hints from my mother and father how much this would involve me. I had a love/hate relationship with the hospital, especially the ever present invisible germs. I was too tired to post much more than thoughts that should have been twittered and pictures of the new knees. My father was as helpless as my mother. Sometimes, the stress and chaos were too absurd to do anything but laugh about. I cried anyway. She stepped down from the hospital to a nursing home and there was less worry about her health, but a LOT more errands to do for her. I was eager to get back to some semblance of normal, but terrified that my mother wasn’t ready to go home. It starts with knees. After that it’s a roller coaster of broken body parts and chronic illnesses.

RSVP in comments.

Other bloggers have done roundups of last night’s Blogfest. Nobody mentioned the charming sign on the ladies’ room door at Wild Wings. The picture is grainy, but I think you can see that this bathroom is designated for “Hot Chicks.” I had to pause at the door of the needed room and decide if I should:
1. wait until I got home to use the restroom,
2. ask an employee where the middle aged has-beens bathroom is located,
3. use the men’s room OR
4. break the rules and use the “hotty” potty.

After three glasses of tea, waiting wasn’t a viable option. I was the only person in the room who, instead of fixing their hair, putting on clean clothes and looking their best before going out on Saturday night, chose instead to go straight from a couple of hours in a stinky laundromat to a night on the town. I was too embarrassed to make eye contact with an employee, let alone ask the way to the back of the bus, so I passed on the second choice. The other customers were far too sober to find option number three acceptable, so I was stuck with option number four.

I dashed in and used my mom super powers to be lightning quick. I would have expected something more impressive to pamper the “hotties” than the traditional restaurant ladies’ room. There wasn’t a couch for sitting with your potty partner and discussing your dates for the evening. There were no full length mirrors to check your spray-on tan. All they had was a television broadcasting golf. Golf! I finished washing my hands and snuck out of the off-limits room. I thought I made it back to the table safely, but since we were literally run out of the restaurant a few minutes later, I fear that my crime didn’t go unnoticed. I apologize to the rest of the bloggers for ending our evening. Next time, I will drink less tea.

How do these statistics compare to physical and emotional health issues in other industries? An article from old media desperately hoping that new media is a fad is less than convincing. Most bloggers LOVE what they do. They thrive on the constant input and rapid output of information. Doug gets an adrenaline high when he is experimenting with new technology. I feel disconnected without my steady diet of breaking news and access to multiple outlets for my stories, opinions and ideas to flow out. Would I feel stressed and pressured to blog if I was paid in products, services or cash? No. Blogging about the places I go, the things I do and the people I meet is easy. You know what’s stressful? Blogging about the details of my personal life knowing that the consequences could be more severe than a cranky troll. Getting a free trip in exchange for detailed stories and observations? Easy. Blogging about the real, imperfect feelings and actions in my mundane world? Hard. I don’t need a scientifically sound study to prove what I anecdotally know is true about blogging. Bloggers love to write. We are the diarists of the past. Our blogs are as necessary to us as the old journals were to our like minded ancestors. We Twitter instead of doodling in the margins. We Flickr and Seesmic instead of illustrating. We link instead of taping old articles into our journals. We actively participate in the entire Web experience. We read and comment to others as much as we write for ourselves. It makes us feel more alive, not less. The more I am able to post, the happier and healthier I am. When I am silent, you should worry about my health.

I have noticed a new trend in the search terms people use to get to my site. Although I still get a lot of readers trying to solve the mind bending dilemma of why Caillou is bald, I am now getting a lot of breastfeeding in public and breastfeeding cartoons searchers. I am happy to be the retired poster mom for breastfeeding in public. If you want breastfeeding cartoons, you need to look here. Also, Lynn Johnston did a lot of great breastfeeding cartoons before she wrote FBOFW.

Someone got to this site by looking for pantyhose. I don’t understand that one. I haven’t worn pantyhose in more than a decade. You should come here looking for knee socks. People come here looking for information about basement floods. If that’s you, I am sooooo very sorry about your basement. I feel your pain. I still get nervous during the heavy spring rains. I get a lot of people here searching for domestic psychology. If you are really looking for an explanation of that phrase, come spend a day with our family. Otherwise, I’ll just guess that you are curious about my e-mail address or lost my url. I know that one of those searchers was my 11-year-old who spent the better part of an hour reading once he got here. “Hi Noah!”