The forecast today?

Sunny with a chance of PINK.

Looks like we’re having a girl. My wallet is aching already.

In a stunning fit of Did You Really Pick THAT Day? among years of this same pattern, my mother (read: babysitter) is going to be out of town tomorrow. Which is normally no big whoop for me, since I’ve been able to function without seeing my mother every day for many years now. But it’s hilarious to me since she always happens to be out of town the on the one day (or days) that I could really use her help. The timing is always perfectly, well, off for all of us.

So, this means at 8:45 AM, instead of dropping my big son off at school, I will be dragging all of the members of The Sausage Factory into my OB appointment, where I’m hoping to get a definitive look at such irrelevant structures as “The Heart” and “The Brain.”

What? I meant the Tin Man and the The Scarecrow lived without them and they were JUST FINE.

(Thankfully, although I’m not specifically trained to read ultrasounds, I was immediately able to see the baby’s wee heart, all four chambers intact, beating away the last time. This touched me more than it should have.

Along the same lines of Things That Made Me Silently Weepy But Are Weird is this: I was looking at the ultrasound picture of the Baby Sausage and noticed that in one picture it’s mouth was open. The next photo, it was shut. Why this was so incredibly heartwarming, I don’t know. I guess I realized that it takes after it’s mother in it’s inability to shut it’s mouth for a goddamned minute).

I’m also hoping to know for certain if my Blog Poll was correct, of if I merely had a boy with an unfortunately sized weenis (not that I would care AT ALL. The respective sizes of my son’s weeniers is just not important to me. In fact, I don’t WANT TO KNOW). I’m dying to call Baby Sausage anything other than that OR “it.” Just seems kinda impersonal for something that is both causing me to eat every chocolate chip cookie in sight while sweating like a sumo wrestler, right?

Oddly, I’m not as nervous now as I was for my first, since I can feel this baby moving around and boogying around in my old uterus, and since I’m aware that nothing was wrong the first time around. Just wasn’t big enough to get real measurements.

While I’m aware that tomorrow morning could be a Disaster of Epic Proportions, I’d have to have lost both legs AND arms to stop me from going.

Alex will be, well, a destructive force the likes of which are rarely seen this far from the Mason-Dixon line and Ben, well, Ben will be the most talkative narrator on the planet, peppering my poor husband with observations about everything from the sidewalk outside of the hospital, to the inevitable vending machines we’ll pass, to the plastic potted plant in the waiting room (Hel-lo Run-On Sentence!)

Looks like Dave will have his poor hands full while I get checked out.

Wish us all luck!

Meanwhile, I’m going to give my people some pictures:

First, this is a picture of my husband, The Daver, who is rarely captured on camera. He’s elusive enough that I’m quite certain there’s a subset of people who believe he’s all in my head. Or maybe not.

Here is Ben, preparing for the addition of another sibling by reading a book about siblings. Why yes, they all have the same haircut! How kind of you to notice.

And here is a picture of Alex (whom we often call “J” after his middle initial). I asked him what he thought of having a sibling. This was his response:

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself shopping for the last thing in the world I’d ever expected to be shopping for. Shockingly, it wasn’t the mini-van we test drove. No. It was something even more shame-provoking and cool-reducing than that (if that even sounds remotely possible!).

That’s right, my sweet and sexy Internet, I looked into buying a BLACKBERRY.

Big deal, right? I’m sure some of you are saying. I have mine, I’ve had it since dinosaurs roamed the planet and I couldn’t live without it. It’s my right arm AND my left arm.

And to all of you, I stick my tongue out and blow a large raspberry in your general direction.

Kool-Aid drinkers.

I’ve mocked Blackberries since I saw the first Business Professional Douche-Bag talking into what appeared to me to be a wallet. Having recently come from my Mental Health Rotation, I was actually wondering if the guy was psychotic until I looked at his uber-shiny leather shoes. Nope, not crazy.

I was incensed well before The Daver drank the (work) Kool-Aid and brought one home from work himself. Here is a device that has made it socially acceptable to–while out to dinner and engrossed in conversation with a Real! Live! Person!–whip out a wallet sized menace and CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

I don’t know about you, and maybe it’s just jealousy on my part, but the emails that I do tend to get on a day-to-day basis fall into one of two categories:

1) Chatting with friends. Simple emails, usually, a couple of lines, asking something specific or just saying howdy. Obviously not urgent.

2) Emails that remind me a) that I have a tiny, tiny penis and I should pleasure my woman more (aside here: how did they KNOW?) b) I’m incredibly overweight and should buy this non-FDA diet drug from an Internet Pharmacy or c) Nigerian pyramid scams. Obviously incredibly urgent.

I cannot see how either of these riveting emails must be responded to post haste.

In the past couple of years, I’ve come up with some elaborate schemes to rid myself of The Daver’s irritating Work Umbilical Cord (up to and including flushing down a toilet, throwing from a train, and my personal favorite: smashing to bloody bits). I gave up shortly after I realized that no matter what I did to it, work would be damn sure to give him a nice new untainted one. In a word (or two), my ideas of destruction were utterly pointless.

I guess that having that stupid device around is a constant reminder of how much MORE important The Daver is than I am because he DOES need to check it. It also reminds me of how much I hate living in such a highly reachable age some days.

But for me, someone who gets either chatty emails or spam, someone who rarely even remembers to bring her cell phone around with her when she goes out in public, a Blackberry is the most useless waste of $200 I can think of.

Hell, I’m not even enough of a gadget person to claim that the reason I’d wanted it was to dick around with it. If I were somehow to get one, I’d probably demand beg Daver to set the whole thing up for me so that I didn’t do what I normally do with small, expensive gadgets: break them into tiny unrecognizable pieces without even trying.

I stood there in the T-Mobile store admiring all the shiny colors and teeny buttons, picking up one, then the other and for a moment, I nearly bought one. Even now, I don’t know why I really thought this was a Necessary Evil.

I put them both away, thanked the patient yet befuddled clerk and walked out of there. I figured that if I was going to spend some dough on something that I really didn’t need, I’d buy an unnecessary new iPod.

And I got back up onto my high horse and resumed my Campaign of Terror Against Blackberries once more.

After I had Ben at age 20, I was left looking around and figuring out what the hell to do with my life. Professionally, I mean. I won’t bother getting into how PERSONALLY having a baby really crimps your style, especially when your kid is the one that screams like a banshee whenever he’s, well, awake.

I’d finished half a degree with a dual major in Bio/Chem, and had some pretty lofty Follow In The Males Of My Family’s Trek To Med School ideas of what I would do. Lofty, perhaps, but also the only damn thing I could think to do with my life. Whomever decided that 17/18 year olds should be in charge of choosing a profession is a wicked genius of a person (and also the reason majors like Media Studies are invented).

There’s a stupid commercial out there and the tagline is something like “Having a baby changes EVERYTHING.” I call it stupid, because I’m pretty sure that’s the most annoyingly obvious statement I’ve heard in my life, for a seasoned parent or not. But in the case of my schooling, it was irritatingly spot on.

Even if I’d been able to get into med school, which is either highly or only slightly laughable, as a single mother, I was aware that something was going to have to give. And if I’d chosen school, my son would be without a real mother at home (although I could have gotten a life-sized cut out of my picture and insisted that it follow him around creepily watching him as he went about his day), until he was approximately 26 years old.

Figuring I’d take my chances on extra-massive therapy bills for him later on (mental note: deposit money into Future Therapy Account every time I tell The Internet about my kid), I buckled down and made my choice: Ben.

Which left me with another choice: what the shit was I supposed to do now? I had to finish A degree in SOMETHING, and preferably something I could, oh, I don’t know, get a salary upon graduation WITHOUT asking if they wanted fries with that.

And as I saw it, my future was a toss-up between teaching and nursing. Neither of which were anything I’d ever considered as actual career options before then, so I chose what I considered to be the lesser of two evils. For approximately 12 minutes.

Yes, my friends, it’s true: I considered becoming a teacher for about 12 minutes. I even went as far as to try and say “I’m going to be a TEACHER” out loud. It was when I couldn’t contain my laughter AFTER that statement that I reconsidered my initial thought. The thought of me as a teacher was as laughable as the thought of me as a nurse.

I have the highest regard for teachers, really, I do. They’re tasked with wrangling OUR CHILDREN (or at least the children we know) all day long, and trying to teach them as they bounce off the walls like monkeys.

I pictured myself standing there in front of The Youth Of America, trying in vain to get the kids to stop eating each others’ boogers, my cardigan (I’d have to wear a cardigan if I became a teacher, this I knew) stained and buttoned incorrectly, my eyes puffy from a long night of drinking to make the voices go away, and I knew I just couldn’t do it.

This weekend, the care of 7 of The Youth Of America in my incapable hands, was like a vision into The Future That Could Have Been, and I hated every moment of it. As soon as we got there, the incessant questioning began. It’s like the kids could sense who was least equipped to handle their weird questions and glommed onto it.

“Why aren’t you serving pizza?” (the party was at 2:30 PM)
“Why are the cupcakes green?”
“I thought there would be more kids here” (me too, sweetheart, me too)
“Can we go to Pizza Hut?”
“Is Ben’s baby (points at Alex) a girl?”
“Why isn’t he a girl?”
“What’s his name?”
“Why’d you choose that name?”
“Are you having another baby?”
“Is it going to look like Ben?”
“Can I have some more money?”
“Can I have some more money NOW?”
“Why is that called air hockey?”

This was pretty much all I heard for the last 30 minutes of the party (thank you moon bounce for making them be quiet for an hour and a half), and while 30 minutes sounds like no time whatsoever, I found myself wishing that I had thought to bring a telephone number list to call their parents to pick them up EARLY. See, I’m not so patient. Or teacherly.

So, to all of the teachers out there, Aunt Becky salutes you. I consider you to be among America’s Finest; standing in the trenches and educating Our Youth while I hide at home. Away from the questions I can’t answer.

What job would YOU be unable to do, my Internet peeps?

Things haven’t been exactly easy for me in the past year or so, and while I’m remiss to talk about them here, because honestly, every time I put up some whiny “woe is Aunt Becky” post, I’m immediately annoyed by it. Then, because I happen to have some of the best readers in the world, you guys come over and try and make me feel better, which leads to a Wayne’s World-esque “I’m not worthy!” in my head.

Ranting and complaining just isn’t something I do well, so I don’t really bother. If I’m not posting one of two things is happening:

1) I’m having hot, hot sex (shut up. It COULD happen)

or

2) I’m not feeling it, dawg (is it just me pining for American Idol to come back? Probably).

I’m slowly picking myself up off the ground, dusting myself off and trying once again to pee rainbows and sunshine rather than hatorade and spite, and it’s working. Mostly.

But nowhere is my Mind Slippage more evident than apparently in the realm of cakes. Yes, that’s right, I said cakes. My eldest turned 7 last month, and due to a number of incredibly boring reasons, we waited until this weekend to have his Kids Party. Mainly because the last thing I want to do is host a party for a bazillion 7 year olds. Or something.

Normally, most of the thrill of having a big party for me lies in the almighty Cake Selection. You see, despite not really caring for the taste of cake, I happen to have a bit of a love affair with fancy cakes. Like, I kind of want to marry fancy cakes and make cute ickle cake babies. Or something. It’s always been with great gusto that I selected a cake for Ben’s birthday (also: the first time I alone hosted a large party. With or without beer), and great pride that I unveiled it to my guests who probably didn’t give a crap.

Case and point, the first cake that’s made it’s way into my iPhoto gallery.

Okay, so the second cake isn’t as cool, but so what?

And Alex’s first birthday this year…

Is that a….

It totally is! That dirty bitch!

I realize that this is a somewhat poor representation of all the Cakes I’ve Loved And Served, but I’m unable, without major work like lifting my fat ass off this chair and into another one, to show you the catalogue of other awesome cakes I’ve bought. So just PRETEND that you’re seeing a whole ton of pictures mmkay?

Well, this year, I was going to get another bomb-diggity cake for Ben’s birthday party, only to be seen by 7 year old eyes for the sugar content and not the amazing artistry that had gone into it’s creation, but, well, I just didn’t. I took the easy way out and went to Target, pretty much blindly selected a cake (cakes get far less cool for older kids, let me tell you) and picked it up today.

And…it’s hideous. Simply hideous. Awful, even. Don’t believe me?

I mean, after half-watching about 1,000 soccer games I’m appreciative that they got the ethnicities right:

But hey, at least he likes it. Loves it, is more like it. Even though the characters are GROWN MEN and not kids like I thought they’d be (no one to blame but myself here). I mean, hello, creepy Uncle Pervy men here. I’m shocked you can’t quite make out The Bulge in their shorts.

And I can be sure to be the parent that everyone hates when their precious kids come home covered in green goo.

Now, I’m not the most etiquette savvy person I know. In many instances, I’ve had to actually consult Miss Manners (dot) com to find out what people are supposed to do in the matters of weddings that were supposed to be weddings but weren’t actually weddings because no one got married for real, and then they broke up and didn’t give back the gifts and now are getting remarried to different people, do I send a gift?

And when I, myself, am planning some bigger event for myself or others, I often take a sneak peek into Etiquette Hell to see how people react to things done in poor taste. Sometimes, I’m shocked by the audacity of the bride and groom (for example) and other times, I’m completely taken aback that someone would take the time to be offended by such things as “not having a receiving line” at the wedding reception (I didn’t have one and I’m not sorry. I hate those things).

It’s safe to say that without having thrown a baby shower, but after throwing most any other kind of party that you’d send invitations to, I have learned a fair bit about the whole situation.

Namely, how people don’t bother fucking RSVP-ing like proper guests.

(in the interest of full disclosure, I feel that I must tell you that I have been The Bad Guy and not properly RSVP-ed to a wedding or two. But eventually, I always RSVP. Typically when things in my life are so incredibly chaotic that I can barely function to put on a clean shirt, let alone remember to send back that wee little card like a proper guest. It happens, and I do allow for some of that.)

I’ll never forget when I had my own wedding, I got back at least 4 or 5 cards telling me that “They” weren’t coming. Who is this elusive “They,” you ask? I HAVE NO CLUE. I got back some BLANK RSVP cards. Never did figure out who “They” were.

———————

Since Ben was a baby, I’ve thrown him parties for his birthday. We’ve had the White Trash cook-out/kegger, we’ve done proper parties without the beer, and up until last year, I only invited adults. I don’t have a ton of friends with kids (understatement of the year) so I just invite my friends. Works out well.

But when Ben was turning 6, he decided that what he REALLY wanted was a party with his school friends. Something that I’d been avoiding because I don’t really know WHAT I’d do with a roomful of screamy 6 year olds. It actually sounds like something out of my worst nightmares. So I did the next best thing: I rented out a room at a kid’s museum and had the party there.

Scratched cornea be dammed, I filled out each and every one of those stupid invitations by hand, carefully writing down all the instructions so that there would be no confusion (mental note: have the computer do the work next time). I invited all the kids in Ben’s class (all 19 of them), I did it a month in advance, and I waited.

Of the 19 or so kids (plus about 3 that he knew from outside of school), I heard back from perhaps 6-7 of them. Assuming that some may show even without properly RSVP-ing, I went to that party with the best of intentions. The result? All of the other kids whose parent’s hadn’t called didn’t show.

Charming.

This year, we had Ben’s birthday a full month after his actual birthday since August 20 falls right on the cusp of when kids are going back to school, and how annoying is THAT as a parent to have a party 2 days before school starts? TOTALLY ANNOYING. I expected that many more kids would be able to at least INFORM me that they wouldn’t be coming.

Har-dee-har-har-har.

I’m only annoyed on principle, since the place that Ben’s party is being held (moon bounce, people. How cool is that?) was a package UP to 15 kids, so it’s not a head count kind of place. I’m annoyed on principle, yet I’m still annoyed. It’s not like these parents KNEW that it didn’t really matter if they RSVP-ed or not, they just chose to ignore the invite completely. Which, having dragged my son to all of their kids’ parties, I know that they know EXPLICITLY how annoying this can be.

So, who is in for eating this damn ugly cupcake-cake thing I bought for more than double the kids that will be coming? YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

Alex wanted me to take a moment and remind the world that everything is better with barbeque sauce. Guess he’s a momma’s boy after all.

And my PSA for the day is this: if the urge to eat an entire loaf of cinnamon bread overtakes you, it’s best not to fight it. Although probably not WITH barbeque sauce. That’s just too much.

Oh, and any tips out there on telling an 18 month old about a new baby coming? I haven’t found any books that aren’t stupid, and I could use some assvice.

“Gah, these shoes don’t fit.”

“Well, at least you HAVE shoes. Some people don’t even have shoes, Becky!”

“I know this, but MY feet hurt NOW.”

“Becky, some people don’t even have FEET. They just have worn down bloody stumps of legs that they have to walk on to go to work every day. Can you imagine how THAT feels?”

I knew someone who was more than willing to remind you of how good you have it while other people suffered unimaginable and unspeakable tragedies. I’d call him a friend, but it’s really not what he was, and his purpose was valiant: sometimes it *is* important to remember how fortunate you really are and be reminded of how crappy things can be.

Other times, you just want some freaking sympathy.

I’m fortunate, I suppose, that I have two leading ladies in my life (my mother and my mother-in-law) who will both stop at nothing to remind me, while I whinge on and on about something as trivial as sleeping properly (I have insomnia while pregnant), that there are always people who are worse off than I happen to be.

Those people happen to be: THEM.

Most of the time I can ignore this, although after years of being +1 as a child, I’m particularly sensitive to it. A childhood riddled with illness (on my part, I was a sickly kid) only punctuated by a mother who often would take to her own bed whenever the puke began a-spewing, because she was “afraid she would get it, too,” tends to make one overreact to this as an adult. (She never got the stomach flu, ever).

Nowhere is this more evident than when I have a baby.

Because both my mother and my mother-in-law have had children (obviously) and because those children who married (The Daver and myself) began to produce heinous babies (much like our baby selves, if legend is to be believed), babies do happen to be something that they do have experience in.

No sooner do I exclaim that I’m “having a hard time walking” after delivery because “my son’s head gave me 4th degree tears and I nearly bled out,” than does one, then the other chime in with one of these two nuggets:

1)”Well, *I* didn’t have an epidural when I delivered YOU.”

or

2) “Well, *I* had a C-section. I didn’t walk for DAYS afterward because I had a HUGE ABDOMINAL INCISION.”

Not really the “Okay, honey, I’ll have the nurse bring you your pain pills now” I was hoping for.

Even more frustrating comes months later, after having had no more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep a night for the preceding (pick a number, any number) months. Without bothering to take into account the tears that are spouting from my eyes (without being punched!), the puffy black circles under my eyes, and the fact that I look pretty much like I was run over by a truck named Alex, the moment I say, “I’m so tired,” before bursting into hysterical tears, it’s time to play Whose Pain Was Worse again.

I’m met with any number of response, none of which happens to involve what I want to hear, “Yeah, Alex is quite a handful. You look like ass. I’m sorry you’re struggling so very much. Do you want to give him back now?” Or really what I needed to hear: “It will get better soon, I promise.”

No, what I hear are things like this:

“Well, (insert YOU or Dave here) were AWFUL BABIES. You cried ALL THE TIME. I almost went INSANE.”

Then they look back smugly at my puffy, tear-stained face and wait for me to say…I’m not sure what they want me to say, but I have a feeling that what they really want is some sort of apology or recognition for the horrors of infant hood that they experienced with Dave and I.

Problem is, have you ever tried to feel sympathy for someone who has gone through something similar to what you’re going through while your wracked with such terrible PPD that you are honestly thinking suicide is probably the best bet for a good night’s sleep? Especially when that sympathy is for something that happened 28 or more YEARS AGO?

It’s damn near impossible.

Were I to have this same conversation now, after Alex has been sleeping through the night pretty regularly since about 11 months of age, I could try and at least PRETEND to feel sorry for them. We could cluck, commiserate, and move the hell on with our days.

With (crosses fingers furiously) a new baby on the horizon come January, I know that this is bound to spring up again, and while I’ve tried to steel myself for it, I think it’s high time for me to mention my quandary to them.

I don’t expect that it will lead to tearful apologies or hugs or anything remotely maternal from either of them, as that’s not the way either of them happen to behave, but I want them to realize that what they are doing is NOT helpful. If it’s infuriated me so very much that I’m already dreading it, I think that the adult thing to do is not to look the other way (like The Daver suggested) and change the subject. If they’re not going to change what they do (and I sincerely doubt they would) and are going to continue to look for sympathy from me during this time, they should, at the very least, know that they’re upsetting me.

But I don’t really know how to handle the situation and to diffuse it without screaming at them, which is simply Not Done in my family. I’d love to yell, “If you’re looking for sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis,” but I do like my familial gatherings sans drama.

What would you do, if you were me? Any and all suggestions (besides telling me what a trite bitch I am being) are welcome. Would you pull a The Daver (it doesn’t bother him, mainly because it has nothing to do with him) and ignore and redirect or would you make mention that this is bothering you?

And then dish, lovers. Tell me what kind of +1 people do to YOU.

Before I was fortunate enough to meet The Daver, I tended to be attracted to and date guys that were Smugly Superior. Honestly, in Becky-Land, that’s an characteristic of people I’d date: dudes who were Full Of The Rightness. Didn’t matter about what. Didn’t matter whether or not I was more schooled in whatever it was they were trying to argue with me about. They Were Right. And if They Were Right, then I Was Wrong.

If I were to remark on the lovely sky blue pink sunset (incidentally, my favorite color on the planet), each and every one of them would somehow come up with a way that the color of the sky was actually, Becky, green. (I may be colorblind, but I am positive I’ve not seen a green sky).

I’d mention that I happened to like that new Britney Spears song only to be shot down (sadly, not in a blaze of glory) about how stupid and vapid pop music was, and how what I really should be listening to is Peter Gabriel.

But nowhere was my Wrongness more clearly illustrated than in the selection of movies.

I’m not much of a movie person, this much is damn certain. I don’t know different producers, I don’t know geeky facts about obscure movies, and I only know actors because I enjoy nothing more than some time with a good gossip rag. And what’s even more offensive to some is that I DON’T EVEN CARE.

That’s right, my friends, I don’t care about movies.

My tastes run from fluffy to action movies, and at no point in time do I ever enjoy watching hard-to-find foreign films, no matter how many nekkid boobies I get to see. I’ll watch the same movie multiple times (although never in a row) and not be the slightest bit put off if I know how it ends.

I don’t need to watch a movie to feel sad about the world or to make me think and question my system of beliefs. I don’t generally want to feel like slitting my wrists after seeing a movie, I absolutely refuse to think about what the character was thinking after I’ve seen it, and I can think no more suicide inducing thought than to have to talk about the movie ad nauseum once I’ve seen it. I’ll never get most movie references without a clue-in from someone, I’m okay with never debating which version of Romeo and Juliet is best (Oliva Hussey vs. Leo DiCaprio?), and you’d probably never want to play trivia games with me. I’m oblivious at best.

I guess I like my movies like I like my one-night stands: quick, to the point, and without need to revisit them.

But my Haughty Group Of Boyfriends would insist that I did actually like movies, and in that vein, they’d drag me off to the movie store to pick up the newest French movie. Without a care that it was not subtitled and that neither of us spoke a lick of French. On the days without a Movie Agenda, I’d wander around the store while they scoured the racks, and my suggestions to rent Weekend At Bernie’s 2 were always shot down.

It’s probably safe to say that for about 10 years, I never picked out a movie to watch by myself, which sounds far more depressing than it should. When I’d say I didn’t care, it’s because I truly didn’t give a shit. Sometimes I’d sit and watch movies with my boyfriend, other times, I’d take off and do something else.

The only lasting impression that I have of the whole situation is a general dislike for sitting around and watching movies. A handful of times a year, I have an urge to watch this or that with The Daver, but overall, it’s with much teeth gnashing and nail sharpening that I agree to do so. I prefer to do pretty much anything else: watch TV, play solitaire on the computer, read books.

And I can’t really say for certain that my Smugly Superior ex’s are really and truly to blame for any of the dislike I feel, who knows if that’s the case or not?

What I do know is this: every time I tell someone this omission, I’m met with an almost unanimous “You don’t like MOVIES?” and a subsequent eye-rolling so loud that I can practically hear the pop.

So what do people scoff at that you dislike that most people do not? I know I’ve previously mentioned my hatred of all things sandwich, but I’m curious (and I have a short attention span) as to how universal this reaction is.

Since I’m now unable to really do the haircut/color thing that I normally do when I’m in dire need of a change (pregnant Aunt Becky = Oompa Loompa + Short Hair = Pinhead), I’m going to revamp my blog. I’m going to hire a graphic designer and tweak the shit out of this.

I bring this question to you, dear reader: in an effort to provide a list of things I want/don’t want, I need to figure out what is irritating to the reader. So, lovers, what makes a blog design annoying?