Keep a Better Eye on My Kids

"Hey blog."
"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in."
"I know, it's been a while, but I've been busy."
"So busy you couldn't write on me?"
"Yes."
"Busy writing every place else except here?"
"Sadly, yes."
"I see. I'm your oldest piece of work and now that there are shiny, new places to write, you don't like to write here."
"I'm sorry. If it makes you feel better, you are a piece of work."
"I see what you did there, and I don't appreciate it. Your mother makes bad puns for jokes, don't go skipping down that path."
"It's inevitable that I become her, I might as well embrace puns."
"You'll embrace no such thing. Anyway, what do you want?"
"Can't a girl sling a few phrases together to say 'Hi!'"
"I suppose that's possible, but that's never enough for you."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You know perfectly well that you use seven words when three will do, and ten penny words at that. Do you really expect that people reading your blog will read it with dictionary.com open in the next tab?"
"I don't consciously pick big words, this really is my vocabulary."
"It's annoying. And pretentious."
"You're pretentious."
"I'm a personification of a weblog, hardly grounds for pretension. But let's get down to business."
"Remember how I'm bad at supervising my children?"
"Why, yes! As that anonymous commenter very helpfully informed you! Thanks for turning back on the anonymous comments, by the way, because it always ends so well for me."
"Well, while I was feeding the baby and also maybe working, this happened:"

"Are those books?"
"Yes. It's the lower half of my library laid out end-to-end in a large circle through my living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, and the foyer."
"It's almost like an installation piece!"
"And he did it while completely naked, so I really do think I was experiencing a visceral, deep social commentary on the modern condition."
"He's clearly a genius."
"Clearly. Less genius was what happened a couple months ago..."

"Wait, is that..."

"Yes, a bucket of flour with a half-naked 4YO stuck inside it."
"But...how...is he...a shirt...what did you do with the flour?"
"I threw it away. After I made them some pancakes. No need to be wasteful."
"That's disgusting. Anonymous commeters back me up on this one: you really should keep a better eye on your children."
"But if I keep a better eye on them, what will I blog about?"
"Bait. Nice."

The Blog Also Rises

“Hello?”
“Where have you been, freak?”
“Blog? Is that you?”
“Yes, where have you been? It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth.”
“I’ve been sick.”
“Am I supposed to feel sad about that? The nausea can’t be that bad anymore, and you can write through the dry heaves. You’ve already done this twice before.”
“It just feels different this time.”
“You always think that, but the truth is that morning sickness is morning sickness and any self-respecting writer can write through anything. Think about Hemingway; he wrote everything in a revolving state of drunk and hungover.”
“Maybe that’s why I never really cared for Hemingway.”
“No, you never liked him because he was annoyingly masculine.”
“Guns and women and war and guns and killing and colonialism and manhood and GAH.”
“Right, but one of you is famous and the other of you spends most of her day face-deep on a sofa wondering when the next wave of heaving will reach her metaphorical shore.”
“Can we talk about something else? Please? In a hurry?”
“What’s that in your hand?”

“It’s a list of questions El Guille wrote down for me to answer.”
“HA! It’s all math questions! No one can doubt the parentage of your child now!”
“Wait, was that ever up for debate?”
“Nevermind. How is the fetus?”
“Sucking the life out of me. Remind me why we do this?”
“You’re creating humanity anew! Experiencing the incredible life force! Every new baby refreshes the world! Or maybe that’s a Pepsi. For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
“Enough with Hemingway, seriously. Plus, that story might not even be attributable to Papa.”
"Oh, sure, go check Snopes. Can you do anything ever without checking Snopes?"

"It's just a useful repository of which people should perhaps avail themselves more often."

“Yeah, we're all impressed you can use the Internet. Let me ask, are you craving anything interesting?”
“Meat. I ate a hunk of ham for a midnight snack the other night. I felt so primal.”
“How Green Hills of Africa of you.”
“Stop it.”
“I thought you were into Asian foods, like last time.”
“After an unfortunate night following a maiden voyage to Pei Wei Diner, we might have cut that obsession short.”
“Can you really vomit on command?”
“Affirmative.”
“Wow. I’m kind of impressed. Can you stay awake?”
“Not for a million dollars.”
“So you’re a narcoleptic refunder? What a delight!”
“I’ll say.”

A Wakeup Call From My Blog

"Hey Blog, how's it going?"
"Oh, HAI Carina, isn't that what you're calling yourself these days?"
"Carina is my name, it's what most people call me."
"But your handle has been Azúcar for so long, people don't know you by Carina and now it looks affected that you're using your real name."
"First of all, props for the proper use of 'affected' and second, I'm not going to have a conversation with you, Blog, about whether I can or can't use my real name. Drop it."
"Fine, whatever, I'm just saying."
"I'm busy, Blog, with important things, more important things with you. Why did you call?"
"I heard a rumor about you."
"I'm sure you hear a lot of rumors about me."
"I heard that some of your friends, like Vanessa, said they "want to be like Carina when they grow up."
"That was nice of them to say, wow, I'm blushing."
"Right, you don't blush. Anyway, they don't know that you're a nerd."
"I'm not a nerd!"
"Yes, you are, you are a total nerd."
"How can I be a nerd? I own and wear these shoes!"

"You are a nerdy-nerdy-nerd, no matter what shoes, what pants, what shirt you're wearing."
"I have just figured out how to dress myself, that's all."
"Yeah, after years of trial, error, and some really questionable fashion choices that involved the color peach."
"How was I supposed to know I can't wear peach, or really any pastel colors?"
"Well you know now, don't you? I mean really, peach moiré taffeta, could you have picked a worse color for your prom dress?"
"I just thought the watermark on the taffeta was so elegant."
"Snort. And how funny was it that not only did you pick peach moiré taffeta, but that your mom made your dress, and when you got to prom you were in a group with another girl whose mother made her dress and you had both used the same pattern--you were wearing the same homemade dress!"
"Yeah, and hers was far more elegant, being made of black and white, and not peach taffeta."
"Nah-heard."
"I've grown out of that, I am not a nerd."
"Let me ask you a question, did you buy a book this week?"
"Yes."
"And is this book The Gathering Storm, the twelfth book in the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan? A series that you've been reading since 1993?"

"Yes. They're really good though, promise."
"Oh, I'm sure they are. Aren't you planning on taking a day off this week just so you can read your nerd-gastic fantasy novel?"
"I have to take time off, you know that, or I'll lose my paid days at the end of the year."
"And didn't you freak out when Robert Jordan died and were unable to even talk about how this series that you'd spent fifteen years reading might not ever end? And you resented Harry Potter fans for getting predictable and compact release cycles?"
"It was a difficult time."
"NERD."
"But I'm all pop culture aware and listen to cool music!"
"Poser. You're a poser nerd. That's even worse than a regular nerd. You watch all these hip TV shows, like Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries, but deep down, you are still crying over the end of Battlestar Galactica. Sometimes you even watch shows, like Castle, or Smallville just because they have the same actors as Battlestar, or Firefly, or whatever nerd show you love."
"Remember how Helo and Colonel Tigh are on Dollhouse right now? That's so awesome."
"NERDY nerd! Only nerds call actors by their old character names on their new show. Mostly because you can't let go of the past. Battlestar, sheesh, I can't believe you watched that show."
"Hey, you're hurting my feelings!"
"Whatever, this is just a pattern. Do you recall your first crush? While all your friends were pledging their hearts to Kirk Cameron, Johnny Depp, or Corey Haim, your heart belonged to Wil Wheaton."
"Sigh. I know. I had such a crush on him. He was in this TV movie starring as the young Harry Houdini? And then he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which I never missed, as Ensign Wesley Crusher.I thought I would die from his cute. Seriously, my heart hurt every time I saw him."
"And then years later you ran into Wil Wheaton's blog and found out that he was a Dungeons and Dragons playing computer nerd. Is it any wonder that you married a computer nerd who was a former D&D player?"
"I guess it's not exactly a shock, is it?"
"It's about as shocking as snow in January. It's all just a pattern of nerdery that you've gotten really good at hiding with MAC makeup, learned ease in social situations, and remembering that no one wants to hear about cold war theories."
"You know, there's nothing wrong with being a nerd! We've changed the world! Steve Jobs is a nerd! Everything you see, from your computer, your phone, the Internet, LoLcats, it all came from nerds!"
"Just what a nerd would say."
"I glad I'm a nerd! I'm glad I love science, genetics, history, and know about the Crystalline Entity. I listen to music obsessively and read sci-fi/fantasy. I know what an RPG is and wish I could be more like Starbuck! I watch Joss Wheadon shows and sing Dr. Horrible songs all the time. All your base are belong to us! There's nothing wrong with that!"
"Just don't tell anyone, OK? We have a reputation to maintain. We're The Jet Set."
"My lips are sealed."

I Feel Like Phoning Into This Blog Today

“Hey blog, so uhm, how’s it going?”

“Good. It’s good. Yeah…good.”

“I guess that’s good.”

“Listen, uh, it’s been like over a week since you last posted something.”

“Oh really, it doesn’t really seem like a week.”

“Over a week.”

“Right, well, who’s counting?”

“I am. Look, do you remember back in the day before you used Google Reader?”

“I think so, gosh it’s been years.”

“Do you remember refreshing people’s blog pages and checking constantly for them to update?”

“I didn’t really have a lot to do at work back then, so I vaguely remember that.”

“Well you were all, 'I hate when people go a week without updating, I mean seriously, is it that hard to just write something?'”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, nice Judgey McJudgerson. Guess the stiletto is on the other foot now, isn’t it?”

“I meant to write something, really, I did.”

“Right.”

“No seriously. I had this whole post planned the other night about how I hate red roses with baby’s breath and how my husband gets them every year for me. And how he called me on the phone as I was leaving work to suggest something…”

“Go on.”

“Well, I have to save what he suggested, because it was pretty good. And by pretty good I mean it made me so angry I couldn’t see straight. I fumed as I drove to the grocery store. A lesser writer would have told you that they ‘literally’ fumed to emphasize how upset they were, but I am not and have never been in danger of spontaneous combustion, nor am I on fire.”

“Oh yeah, we all know what a ‘great’ writer you are.”

“Shut it. Like I was saying, as soon as I walked into the store there were 30 arrangements of red roses and baby’s breath and it was like ZEUS HIMSELF WAS IN LEAGUE WITH MY HUSBAND TO CAUSE ME ANGUISH and frustration at the general lack of floral integrity in this world.“

“And…”

“I went to Cooking Club and got all the rage out in front of them instead.”

“They don't want to hear your narcissistic take on flowers. What else did they say?”

“I think they were generally shocked at my level of outrage. It probably seemed a little over the line. But then Nemesis made a rape of Nanking joke and I collapsed into giggles.”

“Hardly seems a joking matter.”

“Guess you had to be there.”

"Clearly."