No longer have a BF

Did you hear?
I fell off the face of the earth.
Well, that's not totally true. I just fell off the blogging world.

It's sorta like this: Tomatoes have always been my favourite food. I eat them on everything: bagels, potatoes, tacos, eggs, cheese. Then, starting in 2007, I just stopped buying them. All of a sudden they were acidic and just not that tasty.

Back in February, when I stopped blogging, it was beginning to feel like a chore. Family and friends were e-mailing and calling to question why I wasn't writing enough. More! they demanded.

So, of course, I gave them less.

Blogging, for awhile, seemed acidic. It was making me tired and irritable and I just didn't feel like doing it.

Today, for some reason, I felt like typing a tad.

So, I'll give you the quickie update and I promise to give you more in the days to come, OK?

1. Ran my first 10-kilometre race last weekend in 1 hour, 53 seconds. Damn those 53 seconds.

2. Went to the Ontario Newspaper Awards last month. I was nominated for best humour writing for my columns that appear in the Kingston Whig-Standard. Lost to a dad from Guelph who penned a piece on his vasectomy. I'm psychic though. I just knew I was going to lose to him. Still, I got a nice runner-up trophy. And I looked pretty. And looking pretty is all that matters. :)

3. Little Man is the cutest baby in the world. Fact.

4. Thought I was going to win the $38 million Lotto 649 last month. Obviously I didn't.

5. No longer have a BF. Shocking but true.

And, I still don't like tomatoes.

There might be more(or not)

Gag me with a baby spoon

Anyone who's ever been barfed on by a baby knows that nothing in the world compares to the stench of the curdled juice.

Not even adult barf smells like baby barf.

Sometimes I try and pretend that Little Man hasn't just released a white glob onto his outfit but after awhile, the stench is too overpowering and I have to put him in a new outfit. Again. For the fourth time that morning.

The other day, I was burping Little Man and I was sure, absolutely sure, that I heard him do a little baby barf. I immediately checked my shoulder. You see, you're supposed to put a blanket on your shoulder so you don't get the goo on you but there's never one around, or I've taken them all downstairs to be washed, or it was one of those instant barfs that come out of nowhere so I didn't ever have the need for the blanket.

No spitup on my shoulder. "Strange," I thought. "I'm sure I heard it."

A few minutes passed. Now I also thought I could smell it.

I looked again.

Nothing on my shoulder.
Nothing down my front.
Nothing on him.
No drippies anywhere.

"This is exhaustion," I thought.
"I'm dreaming that I'm covered in baby barf."

I accepted that I was nutso and went on with my day - but the smell followed me.

It came with me to the laundry room as I washed dirty workout clothes.
It came with me to the bathroom.
It came with me to the nursery to change a diaper.
It came with me to the mailbox.

I was being haunted by the ghost of baby barf.

Until I wised up.

I was wearing this little blue sweatshirt - actually, as the cool kids say, a little blue hoodie.

I took off my sweater and there, inside the hood, was a pool, a pool I tell you, of baby barf. I'd been carrying it around all day with me.

I was like a Kinder Egg. I had a surprise inside.

That was lame. Oh barf.

There might be more(or not)

Sorry, Mama

Mothers, I am now one of you.
I’m overworked and underappreciated.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Now that I am overworked and underappreciated, I understand how overworked and underappreciated my own mother was for the 23 years I lived under her roof.
So to you, mom, and to all mothers out there, let me say this: I’m sorry for all the times, the hundreds and hundreds of times I didn’t help you.
I’m sorry. Let me count the ways.
(Why does it take having children of your own to realize just how much of a scumbag we are as children, teens and 20-somethings to our parents? I know Little Man is only five and a half months old but I can already feel this bad behaviour coming on …)

1. I’m sorry for always vanishing whenever it snowed and it was time to shovel our driveway. My hardworking father would nicely ask me if I could help out a little. “Sure,” I’d say. And then I’d do everything possible to not have to touch a flake of snow. I’d go look at photographs in our crawlspace. I’d start a conversation with my mother. I’d pretend to do schoolwork – anything to get out of helping my father, who was in his 50s when I last lived at home.

2. I’m sorry for never turning off the lights when I left a room. When I was a teenager, I honestly felt like if I had to reach up and hit the light switch, I’d just die. It would be too much exertion. I’d just die, I tell you.

3. I’m sorry for always leaving my wet towel on the bedroom floor. Hang it in the bathroom on a towel rack? The exertion! Again! It was just asking too much.

4. I’m sorry for all those times I’d get home from school and watch Geraldo, The Young and the Restless and The Ricki Lake Show and then gallingly look at you, mom and dad, as you walked in the door at 6:30 p.m. and ask: What’s for dinner?

5. I’m sorry for always leaving just a dribble of milk in the pitcher so that I didn’t have to change the bag. Exertion. Again.

6. I’m sorry for all those times you made me a nice lunch, even when I was 18 and 19 years old in high school, and I’d pitch it out once I got an offer to go out for lunch and buy a slice of pizza with friends. Waste of money. Waste of time. But it wasn’t my money or time so it never really bothered me.

7. I’m sorry for all those times you asked me to help pick up the hedge clippings as dad was shearing it. I just couldn’t help. It would have been, like, totally embarrassing for someone to see me doing yard work. Can you imagine? Oh my god.

8. I’m sorry for always leaving the table and never, once, offering to load the dishwasher or put away the leftovers.

9. I’m sorry for bringing the car home when it was basically running on empty.
10. I’m sorry for always making you wait up for me. But I was never late, right? You said my curfew was 1 a.m. and I was home, every time, at 12:59 a.m. That’s early! I should have been rewarded, no?

11. I’m sorry for making fun of your veal parmigiana that night you were just trying to make us something new, something different.

12. I’m sorry for all the times I left a room and left the TV on. It’s a lot of work, you know, having to take the remote control and press the OFF button.

13. I’m sorry it took me almost 30 bloody years to say I’m sorry.

Oh lord, this list could go on forever – but I can’t end on number 13 because my mother is superstitious and it would scare her to see a list ending on 13, so one more.

14. I’m sorry for all those times you called me when I was at university because you were missing me and I was too busy on Sunday nights watching The X Files to take your calls.

Love you.

I really do.

There might be more(or not)

Crosbiemania in The Vancouver Sun

It has been years, years I tell you, since I connected with someone instantly.
The last gal I really fell for was a sweet little blonde thing, very pixie like, named Amy.

Amy and I instantly bonded.

I knew I liked her, and we'd be BFF, when she told me she'd just farted - just a day or two after meeting her.

Well, that was five years ago.

Today, she's a reporter, music reviewer and columnist at The Vancouver Sun.

She's a talent, I tell you. Someone give the girl a National Newspaper Award already, would ya?

Anyway. This week, on Tuesday, she wrote about blogging (and me) in her column, Match Point.

Here you go.


Headline: Humour, writing blogger's gift to all
Section: Arts & Life
Byline: Amy O'Brian


There was a time when bloggers baffled me. Not that I gave them much thought or felt compelled to either like or dislike them.

It was just that I didn't know any personally -- at least, none that I was aware of -- and I was a little confused by those who felt the need to post their venomous rants or details of their daily activities on a website for the world to see.

So it was with significant curiosity that I first ventured to my friend Sarah's blog. We'd been doing some sporadic

e-mailing while she was pregnant last summer, but after she had the baby and I asked for photos, she directed me to www.sarahcrosbie.com.

I was initially slightly offended because I wanted to think I was special enough to warrant a specially e-mailed photo.

But once I discovered her blog, I became hooked. I checked for updates almost everyday, feeling weirdly guilty, as if I was cyber-spying on her, even though she'd put all these rather intimate details of her life out there for the world to see.

I never bothered asking her why she did it. Before going on maternity leave, she had a weekly column in the Kingston Whig-Standard, where she wrote about the BF (boyfriend), wrote about her pregnancy, and shared light stories about love and life's annoyances with her readers.

But then, last week, I saw an article about a new book by University of Calgary Prof. Michael Keren, who argues that bloggers live in an isolated, lonely and mostly make-believe world filled with superficial relationships.

The not-so-positive assertion prompted me to finally insist on a live phone conversation with Sarah, rather than e-mails and blog updates. I was curious to see whether she agrees with the good professor.

"This is why I do it. This is the honest answer," she said in her ever-coy voice from her home in Kingston.

"Because there are people who can do great things in the world, like my mother, who's a genius teacher, or doctors who can save people. Other than being really good at being in love and baking a great banana bread, I don't have a lot of talent.

"But I think I'm sort of funny and I think I can write fairly well and so that's kind of my thing that I can do and give to people. Even though I get accused of being egotistical or full of myself or I just want to see my name in print, I actually think maybe there's a couple people who it makes them laugh, it makes them smile."

There are more than just a couple of people reading Sarah's blog. According to blog-tracking website Technorati, hers is about the 2. 6 millionth most popular of the approximately 55 million blogs out there. Pretty impressive.

But Sarah modestly says it doesn't matter how many people read her blog, as long as it brightens the day of one person.

One of her favourite e-mails was from a woman who wrote to thank her for making her transition to Kingston a little easier.

"She sent me an e-mail saying, 'This is going to sound quite silly, but I just wanted to thank you for your writing because you made me feel a little less lonely in Kingston because your life always seemed a little bit crazier a little bit more outrageous than mine.' "

She gets plenty of nasty comments too, but deletes most of them -- only posting the more moderate ones that she can respond to.

"I don't know if they hate me, but they dislike me strongly.

"Some of them are so ridiculously snotty and mean and depressing that I just delete them because I don't think it's doing anyone any good to put them out there. The misery on blogs just fuels more misery."

Luckily for Sarah, the interactions she has with her readers do not form the foundation of her social life. She writes when her boyfriend is at work and her baby is asleep, knowing that she has plenty of meaningful relationships outside of her blog.

But for those who don't -- for those who use a blog as a means to connect with others, why not? Why judge them when all any of us want is to be heard?

There might be more(or not)