Brace Yourselves

I don't know if I can do this, but I've been given a challenge.

The charming and witty Adria Richards is holding a contest for bloggers. The challenge: write 25 blog posts in 24 hours.

There are prizes and stuff, but really, the contest is about getting busy. Too often, I-and most bloggers I know-have lots of ideas floating in our heads that we never write down. With Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, chatroulette, etc., we've lost that instinct to take our ideas immediately from inspiration to blog post. I want that spark back. Thanks, Adria, for a clever way to reactivate the blog.

If I get stuck, I see Adria is keeping a running list of her own blog post ideas. I might steal some of those. We'll see how quickly the well runs dry. (Although I don't do the work she does, and I'm not nearly the social media butterfly she is, so maybe that idea won't help.)

It's already 7:19, so I've missed a few hours. (Darn sleep.) One down, 24 to do. Yikes.

"Julie and Julia" and Me

This is going to be a little bit self-indulgent, so bear with me. I just saw a preview for Julie & Julia and I got unexpectly choked up.

I'll explain. Julie Powell started her Julie/Julia project as a Salon blog, around the same time I was starting up my original blog. I feel a kinship to her, even though we've never met and for all I know, she's never even looked at my blog. She was one of us, along with Meg and Patia and the Grumpy Girl and Phil and Nancy and the guy who did Fried Green Al-Qaedas Virtual Occoquan.

And then Julie exploded into a huge phenomenon. I don't think I knew at the time how big it had gotten, but I knew she had gotten to a level that most of us hadn't and probably weren't.

But that's was cool. I'm proud of her, even though, again, nothing whatsoever at all to do with her success. I can't wait to see the movie. And when in the trailer, they showed a quick shot of her computer with the old blog banner (albeit a completely different blogging service), I got a bit verklempt.

So congrats, Julie. I feel a little like the kid who used to play playground basketball with Michael Jordan before he became Michael Jordan. But I'm thrilled that it's come this far, and hope you're having all kinds of success and wish you nothing but more.

P.S. Oddly enough, I just looked up the old blog, and stumbled across this article about the movie. Apparently, there's a bit of controversy about the way her blog is depicted in the movie. Salon's Kerry Lauerman is quoted.

Hello to Gilly's readers!

And, lest I forget, fuck the fucking Yankees.


(Note: that's not my kid.)

Hi to everyone who came over here from Steve and Jen's blog. Like most - maybe all - of you, I've been anxiously watching Jen's posts and monitoring Gilly's health. I don't know Steve. I've never met him. But he's someone I feel connected to, through the voice on his blog. I know that some people have worried about him losing readers if he spends months rehabbing, but I'll be there. Hope you will, too.

So the story of this blog is pretty simple. I'm a former community organizer for the local affiliate of a national organization (you'd recognize the name), former stay-at-home dad, and I spout here occasionally about politics, the world of non-profits, parenting, and whatever hits my radar.

I have an intense interest in grassroots politics and tend to see a lot of things through that filter. Politics is better when more people are involved, plain and simple. The best thing happening in the Democratic party is that more rank-and-file members are getting involved. John Edwards and Barack Obama impress me because they're really working on motivating their supporters - and not just motivating them to work for their candidacies. They want people to be involved, to give a damn, to pay attention.

I liked this exchange from the Couric interview:

Katie Couric:
Some people watching this would say, "I would put my family first always, and my job second." And you're doing the exact opposite. You're putting your work first, and your family second.

John Edwards:
But this is not work. Work is what I did as a lawyer. This is service. This is... this is a country that I love – both of us love, as much as we love our lives.

Politics should be about serving the country and the greater good, not about craven seeking of power. I haven't decided who I'm supporting for the Dem nomination - it's still very early in the race - but I'm going to go with the candidate who looks most like he's working to make us all better, not just him or herself.

So anyway, welcome to my corner of the blogosphere. Hang around. My little boy is named Oliver, and I talk a fair amount about him. I've railed about ACORN. I live in Seattle, so I occasionally talk about what's going on here (read: the bullshit viaduct debate.) Occasionally, I'll talk music. Look around. Welcome.

A month?

Actually, it's been more than a month. I've got some 'splaining to do. I have no actual excuse. I haven't been sick, I haven't lost my job or my mind. I just haven't been doing it. It's kinda like your laundry when you were in college. You ignore it and ignore it until it's piled so high that you can't begin to figure out how to even sort it, much less where to get started.

So I'm just going to get started without an apology or anything so sappy. So, hi. I'm back.

It's not as if life has stood still for the last month. Things have been happening. We moved into a house - an honest-to-Pete house with four bedrooms and a back yard. Hardwood floors. A dignified kitchen. A basement. (It's about thirty blocks south of our previous apartment, right on the border of White Center and south West Seattle.)

Oliver's thrilled to have his own playroom, and we're just as happy to have a living room that's not covered with his toys.


Now, it's only sprinkled with his toys. It's an improvement.

Ollie spent the last ten days recovering from a combo eye/ear infection. He came home a couple of Fridays ago with mucus dripping from the corners of both eyes. The next morning, his eyes were nearly glued shut from mucus. He was diagnosed with a mild eye infection (I think it was officially conjunctivitis, but his eyes were only barely pink) and not coincidentally, a minor ear infection on one side. He got a course of antibiotics, and it's our good fortune that he loves, loves, loves the taste of whatever sweet stuff they put in that medicine. He was thrilled every morning and night to get his dose. He never got sick besides the occasional gunk caked on his eye, so that was a relief.

He's trying out new words every day. Unusual words, too: cracker, cookie, granola, orange. "Kitty" comes out like "diddy," so he sounds like he's chasing Puffy Combs around the house all day. "Diddy, diddy, diddy."

He's recently learned the deadly combination of shaking his head "no" and nodding his head "yes." He also says the word "no" with great gusto. It's a useful word for communication, but sometimes he seems to get the mistaken impression that he can change things by expressing a negative opinion. Like, if he says no, he won't have to get his diaper changed. Or go to bed. Or put down daddy's phone. Or get pajamas put on him. It's a sad sequence: he learns yes, he learns no, and then he learns how insignificant his opinion really is.

I kid.

(But not really.)

Anyway, I'm going to do my best to post more often here. There's lots going on, and I just need to be more faithful about running this blog. I want to make sure you're getting your money's worth. Anyone who's disappointed can email me to have their subscription fees refunded.

So, anyway, here's one more gratuitous picture:

We bought the kid an easel with a roll of paper attached, so he can color and draw with abandon without running out of his chosen medium. He loves having so much space to color now, and it's a much better option than sitting down on his teeny tiny table with a couple of sheets of paper. It's much better on my knees, anyway.

Hi Jeff Tweedy, if you're reading this...

So if you know anything at all about me, you know I'm a huge Wilco fan. My very first post on the original TMBS, in fact, included a link to hear Wilco's album "A Ghost is Born." Huge Wilco fan. Huge.

So guess what?

Wilco has a new album, due May 15th.

And guess what it's called?

"Sky Blue Sky."

Yeah. I'm freaking out just a little bit.

So, Jeff, if you're reading this, um, congrats on the new record! (And if you want to do a liveblog thing or, I don't know, anything at all, let me offer an unequivocal and enthusiastic yes. Just tell me where and when, and how much to grovel.)