Bloggers, especially mom bloggers, have taken a lot of heat. We’ve been accused of neglecting our children so that we can go online and post how-to-make-tutu guides on our frivolous, silly blogs. We should get our asses back into the kitchen and tend to our kids! We should turn off our pink lap-tops and stop trying to pretend we’re important. If we want a job, well, we should go out and get one.

To be honest, I don’t quite understand why anyone would get their hackles up over blogs about tutus, blogs written by women, or blogs written by Russian spammers, for that matter, but the New York Times is famous for dragging bloggers through the mud. My best guess is that they’re lashing out at the New Media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc) and using it for page views and free publicity. You know, all of us who write our rebukes on our own blogs that link to that article we’re so furious about?

Anyway, it’s all bullshit. You know it, I know it, and the New York Times knows it, or they wouldn’t be writing about it every other week.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat in the keynotes at BlogHer, listening to all of my friends up on the stage, reading their words aloud, and realized how important what we do is. Their words were more moving to me than anything I’d ever read in the New Yorker or the Atlantic, because they were real and they were honest and they were true.

I hugged some of them later, amazed that my own friends could write such beautiful words. Words that moved me, words that inspired me, words that made me laugh. I was so proud to call them my friends.

Later, I sat with some of my infertile and baby loss friends, who had raised money, supported and loved each other through many of the procedures necessary to produce the very children I cuddled on my lap. They’d all met through the Internet. It was an honor to call them my friends as well.

When Amelia was born sick, my life was upended, all my neat plans were tossed aside as I flipped into survival mode. Part of what happens when a family member becomes very ill isn’t just the immediate threat of losing someone you love. It’s the change in dynamics of all of your relationships, and I do mean all of them.

People who you could normally count on to lend an ear or shoulder suddenly become harsh or distant or “can’t deal with you right now, Becky.” They say things that maybe they cannot recall, but you won’t forget. Everything is irrevocably changed.

In the midst of the chaos, I was so fortunate, though, to have the one thing I could count on: my band of Pranksters. You.

Maybe that sounds silly, saying that when my daughter was so sick, The Internet held my hand and made it all better, I don’t know, don’t care, but it’s true. It was amazing to know that people thousands of miles away were praying for me, holding my hair as I puked, and sending me love. It was what I needed. I’m honored to call you my friends. All of you.

So when I hear people mock blogging, I just laugh, because it’s clear to me that they have no idea what they’re talking about. They’ve never sat up at night, frantically trying to Google “blogs and prepartum depression,” desperate to make a connection with someone who might, just might, understand what they’re going through.

We don’t have coffee clubs* anymore. In my neighborhood, I’m the only one who stays home with my kids. I can’t find a mom’s club to save my life. My best friends all work big girl jobs in the city and have no children. During the day, it’s Your Aunt Becky and the tumbleweeds on my block.

That’s just the way it is now. Connections aren’t as easy as popping over next door for coffee and a chat. We have to seek out friends and confidants.

But I hope that none of us ever forgets that we are more than simple words on a computer screen. For every comment you get, there are ten people not saying a word, reading, learning, connecting with you, and though they may never speak up, they are there. Your words mean something, dammit, every single one of them.

And to anyone who says that blogging isn’t important, I say, with all due respect, “Fuck you.”

*what the fuck is a coffee club?

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Incongruently, my Toy With Me post is up! It’s pretty hilarious. Sex toys and conservative in-laws, anyone?

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So, Pranksters, what do YOU think about why blogging is important?

I’m putting up a Mr. Linky in case anyone wants to respond in a blog post.

I’m deathly afraid of fish, rather than spiders, live fish, although I’m not apt to go running out of an aquarium shrieking and screaming in the throes of a major panic attack. In fact, once you learn that I was once stuck in middle of the ocean, ensnared in the tendrils of a Portuguese Man ‘o’ War until I was blistered and raw, my fears of fish seem a little less absurd.

Probably only a little, though.

When I was a waitress, I worked at an outside restaurant right on the river here in Geneva, and one of the jobs in the morning was to clean out all of the cobwebs that sprung up overnight, so that the spiders wouldn’t *ahem* shit on the guests while they ate their overpriced burgers.

Your Aunt Becky knows how to be glamorous, eh?

So, when I woke up on Saturday morning to find this on my back door, as I went out to lovingly minister to my roses, I was mostly amused:

My recreation is stunning, I know. It’s so…realistic!

I did the mother fucking limbo to get underneath it so that I could tend to my roses, and made a mental note to watch the hell out for that web. Spiders eat mosquitoes which are the Devil, so I like them around.

But Friday was also Of The Devil and Your Aunt Becky got a migraine as karmic payback for past misdeeds, so by that evening, after I’d finally gotten the last crotch parasite to bed, screaming her ever-loving head off, I went back outside to water my exotic plants. I’d only bought them, you see, because their names sounded like STD’s and turns out that they need a whole TON of water to stay pretty.

Still suffering from my migraine, my earlier mental note had been tossed aside to make room for the lyrics to “Baby Got Back” and I walked face-first into the spiderweb.

While I appreciate SPIDERS, I do NOT appreciate a face full of spider WEBS and I made my displeasure known by shrieking and then running around my yard impotently for a couple of minutes yelling, ‘GET ER OFF, GET ER OOOOFFFFF.” But the yelling and running only drove the spider webs into my mouth, and then, because I’ve recently lost enough weight and not bothered buying new pants, my pants fell down, I stopped running around, and went back inside to wash the spider web off.

When I came back outside to gather my gardening sheers, some 45 minutes later, I noticed two things:

1) the spider web had been entirely rebuilt.

b) It now had an occupant. A big gigantic red occupant.

“Hey buddy,” I said to it, because I was deliriously migrainey and Charlotte’s Web made me cry like a baby. Plus, a spider that big is always a good ally.

I ducked under the spider web–no way I was about to make THAT mistake again!–and as I was halfway through, the big ass spider spun some web out of its ass and swung itself towards me.

“WOAH,” I cried, as I stepped back, off the porch step. I’m okay with spiders, but this didn’t seem like an overly friendly gesture to me. I grabbed my garden sheers from the table and headed back towards the back door, preparing to go inside.

Casually, I eyed my door-dweller. It stared back at me and lifted one leg at me and shook it menacingly.

No, I rubbed my eyes, that’s the headache talking. It has to be the headache talking. I looked down at my poo-eating dog, Auggie, who was standing next to me, and he looked back at me as if to say, “I dunno.”

Figuring something as small as a spider couldn’t possibly have a vendetta against me, I tried to step back through the doorway. AGAIN the spider spun some web from its butt and lunged at me.

I shrieked and jumped backwards off my stoop, shockingly, not landing on my ass.

The spider wasn’t a regular spider. It was a MAN-eating spider. The spider was going to KILL me for ruining its web!

I went around the outside of my house and through the front door, where I then observed my enemy from the inside. It had caught a bug and slowly eating it while watching me and I swear he was winking at me.

Every now and again, it would raise a hairy leg toward me as if to say, “I’VE WON.”

Then I realized, I could never go to sleep again. EVER. Because that spider not only knew where I lived, it had a VENDETTA against me. It would wait until I slept and lay EGGS in my EARS and then pretty soon, my brain would be full of spider babies.

I got out an icepick, a six pack of sugar-free redbull and lay in wait. Knowing that the spider would come for me, and when he did, I would be READY.

Tragically, The Man Eating Spider had another idea in mind. He hit me where he knew it would hurt most.

Yes, Pranksters, The Man Eating Spider killed MY FAKE CAT MR. SPRINKLES!

That BASTARD! How could he kill my FAKE CAT!?!

But I showed him! Ben crushed his web once more that morning, like the Man Eating Spider crushed my DREAMS for my FAKE CAT.

*shakes fists at sky dramatically*

WHY, MR. SPRINKLES, oh, WHY DID YOU TAKE MY FAKE CAT FROM ME?

*sobs*

P.S. Now I need some good bug stories, Pranksters.

Dear Aunt Becky,

So, I’ve been single for over three years.  I’ve dated a couple of guys here and there, but haven’t found any that I “click” with or even enjoy after being around them a handful of times.  It’s been over seven years since I met someone that made me feel all squishy inside and that relationship ended horribly after only four years.

I’m nearing thirty (very, very nearing), which isn’t old, but it feels like as I get older, I just don’t find many men attractive anymore.  If I meet one that likes me (which happens decently often it seems), I’m usually not interested or become disinterested incredibly fast.

Is this normal?  I’m not looking to jump into a relationship, marriage, or have kids.  I’m just looking for someone that I actually *feel* something for and want to spend time with every so often.  It’d be a breath of fresh air, because I’m starting to feel like it just isn’t going to happen anymore.

I know these seem like crazy thoughts, but I was wondering if anyone else experienced the same thing?  I feel like throwing my hands up in the air and becoming the crazy cat lady who never leaves her home.

Some background: I’m attractive, work out, have an excellent job and am well-educated, I don’t have high standards (I will give almost any man a first date just because he had the balls to ask me) or expectations.  I do a decent amount of varying social activities, so I’m not limited in where I would meet men. I just don’t seem to connect with anyone, even when they’re great guys.

Am I not giving them enough time to grow on me?  Am I expecting a connection in the beginning when there doesn’t always have to be?  In my experience, no connection in the beginning means no connection later on.  Am I wrong?

Signed,

Frustrated, confused, and missing that loving feeling.

Well, Prankster, I’ve enlisted The Daver AND my homie The Next Martha to help me with this question because Your Aunt Becky isn’t the best at answering dating advice, and we all have some advice for you. Hopefully, my Pranksters will also be able to fill in the gaps.

First, I’d offer up my own words of wisdom (which, frankly, is worth cat shit in a bag): the times when you’re LEAST looking for a relationship is always when they manage to find you. There’s something about when you’re alone and really comfortable in your aloneness that really seems to attract that one special person. So I’d say that perhaps getting nice and comfortable with yourself is the way to be.

The Daver pointed out that perhaps you’re dismissing the people you’re going out on dates with too soon to decide if you have a real connection with them. He also thinks that maybe you need to be more choosy about the people you go on dates with (so that you value the dates more).

The Next Martha thinks that maybe you have some unresolved issues with your ex-boyfriend that you may have to work through before you can move on to successfully date again.

So there you have it: three different people with three different sets of advice for you. Ignore what you hate, take what you like, and hopefully my very brilliant Pranksters will fill in where we left off.

Good luck, Prankster.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I come seeking advise from thee, oh wise and great one.

Basically my family does DRAMA. Most of the time in a good, snarky, crack you up laughing at something really twisted sort of way. But lately… its gotten a bit complicated and every time I come to town it gets WORSE.

Long story short: Me, my Hub, and the wee one live 1000 miles from my folks, my sister, bro in law and nieces.

Base conflict: One of my nieces is special needs, as part of my sister’s reaction to this she has become ULTRA SCHEDULED. She is all about the plans and the control. Things do not go well when the plans get dissed. Understandable but frustrating b/c my sister is a very intense, relentless type person, which is good in some ways and tiring in others.

My parents have both survived multiple rounds of cancer. They now refuse to get worked up when plans fall through. They just roll with it. This makes them a bit flakey but lowers their stress. I tend to be more like my folks and try to roll with things.

Needless to say my sister does NOT handle the flake well. Most of the time they just deal with it. When it becomes a MAJOR problem is when I come to town.

Because apparently I am a hotter commodity than chocolate in a PMS convention and so lots and lots of plans are formed when I come to town. Some times one group does not even inform the other groups that plans have been formed.

But either way the melt down that will ensue regardless of whether the dissage was informed or not is a sight mighty to behold.

And honestly its getting REALLY old. Its almost never personal when the plans get dissed. I do love my sister and want to see her. I also wouldn’t mind getting some one on one time with my Mom. But the sis seems to take this personal.

Any suggestions on how to defuse the situation? B/c the repeated melt downs almost make me wanna NOT go home and they rob so much of the joy from my trip.

I don’t wanna cause drama. I just wanna see my family. I’ve even said this and it hasn’t made a dent apparently.

And so in my extremely verbose fashion I seek wisdom from the great and glorious Aunt Becky (bytheway – have you lost weight? Cuz dang girl!!).

Sincerely,
Gonna Beat ‘Em ALL Down and Be Done With It

Prankster, you’re making MY head spin with this, so I can only imagine how this would be for you to deal with. Your Aunt Becky needs a drink (or thirty) right now just to type this response.

So, it sounds as though your sister needs concrete plans for the days that you’ll see her. I understand that. I have kids on a rigid schedule, too, and that makes sense. Flakiness is hard to handle for us, because our time-table is fairly, well, rigid. You should make sure that you make the plans with her ahead of time and stick with them first and foremost. If everyone else is more laid back, then plans with her will be the ones that are most important to be on time.

As for the rest of the time, maybe it’s wise to schedule it out BEFORE you leave for the trip with the people who will want to see you if you’re interested in avoiding The Dramaz. This way, you’ll know on X Day this is the plan-ish. If they fall through, okay, but that’s the plan for the day. Then there’s not so much up-in-the-air-ness about the whole situation and if your sister can make it to the events that are planned–great–if not, okay.

Sometimes plans change. It’s hard for those of us with special needs kids to accept that the rest of the world doesn’t live like we do. It just is.

But maybe if you can do a lot to get it planned out ahead of time, it might save you some grief during the vacation.

I hope it helps.

Pranksters, I’d love your take on it.

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As always, please fill in where I left off in the comments. And feel free to submit your burningest questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky button at the top of the screen.

Dear Benjamin,

I’m sorry that I don’t write you a monthly letter like Dooce, but I’m afraid that those would become painfully boring and mostly about me because, let’s face it, by nine, what you do each month isn’t much different. I, on the other hand, am endlessly entertaining (to myself). Also, it would require me to do math and math is hard.

I hear a lot of parents talk about how their kid changed their lives, and it’s not that I don’t understand what they mean, but you, my son, you really did change my life. The moment I grabbed that pregnancy test, recently bathed in my own urine, and said, “that can’t be a motherfucking line,” (forgive my language; you always do) because trust me when I say I was TAKING PRECAUTIONS, my life was forever changed.

I went from a carefree unmarried twenty-year old whose main concern was where to find her next twenty bucks for a tank of gas to someone who had to figure out what to do next. So, I scrapped my life’s plans, ditched the whole “Imma be a DOCTOR” idea, waddled back home to my parents, enrolled in nursing school, and then three weeks after I turned twenty-one, I pushed your gigantic head out of my vagina.

Yeah, I’d say that’s a little different than having to give up date night.

But there you were. All 7 pounds 13 ounces of you, with a mane of black hair so shocking that I thought someone had put a wig on you. What amazed me is that everyone was so astounded that I loved you. Over and over I heard, “wow, you really DO love that baby.”

Apparently, I have one hell of a poker face. Also: of COURSE I fucking love you.

This year, though, was the year I was dreading. It was the year I’d been dreading for years, and when I saw it barreling down upon us, my heart shattered.

This was the year you realized you were different than the rest of the world.

Our uniqueness can be a gift, but sometimes, in order to blend in with the rest of the world, we have to put those aside and learn things that come so easily to other people. This year you are trying so hard to understand feelings. Where your brother can look at someone and easily detect what mood they are in, to you, it’s as complex as the Pythagorean theorem.

Does that face mean anger? Sadness? Happiness? It’s a puzzle to you, but for the first time, you realized that just because you can’t understand it, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. It breaks my heart to see you struggle with this, but as you told me yourself, you don’t want to spend your life hurting others. So we practice. Diligently, you practice, and day after day you tell me excitedly, “MOM! I think I’m FINALLY getting this emotion thing!”

My heart smiles, because it’s just such a Ben thing to say.

I am the one who named you. I don’t know if you know that, but I chose your name. Benjamin means “son of the right side” and I hope that, true to your name, you inherited all of the best parts of me. All of the right parts of me.

If the first nine years are any indication, I think we’re both doing okay.

Happy, Happy Number Niner, Benjamin Max,

Love,

Mom

I do not honestly know how to thank you. I have a post, sitting in drafts, that I want to finish, and I will, because I’m a compulsive freak of nature, but for now, I want to say that I am shocked and humbled by your kindness. I am always shocked and humbled by you, my Pranksters.

I’m proud to know you and prouder to call each of you what you are: my friends.

But for today, when my words fail me, and I sit here, trying to pick out something, anything to follow up the post that I am most proud of, I know that I cannot. Nothing will come out that will make any sense.

So, instead, I give you this. A montage of photos from my iPhone. Someone should give me an award for the breathtaking quality and composition.

P.S. Am I the ONLY blogger with no interest in becoming a decent photographer? I mean, I want to BE a fucking amazing photographer, I’m just not interested in working at it. At all. Or spending time, money or effort towards becoming one. Ever.

If I cannot store my drugs or money in the Quest Diagnostics Laboratory box, well, where the fuck CAN I store it?

Mmmmm…Soapy mealtime snacky-poo. Who isn’t smacking their lips now, Pranksters? (seriously, drug companies, GO BACK TO PENS)

And I call this, “I’m About To Shiv My Brother:”

It’s a nice enough looking building, all official and comforting, with people buzzing in and out in their neatly pressed scrubs, looking like they know precisely what they’re doing and where they’re going. In the hallway there, there’s a heart statue, or maybe it’s a statue of kids in a ring, perhaps playing a game of “Ring Around The Rosy.”

The desk is always manned by a sweet-faced volunteer to help you find whatever you’ve lost or find your way, except when, of course, you cannot find it at all. There are flowers there, too, beautiful flowers, always fresh flowers. Usually lilies are mixed in, fragrant lilies, reeking of death and funerals, but the flowers are so beautiful that you can almost forgive the scent that makes you want to vomit.

Over there is the place you cried until you dry-heaved as you took your infant daughter to her third MRI in her first week of life. And just past that is the chapel where you prayed for her life. The stained-glass windows during that frigid February day shone a cold bright light as your daughter slumbered through an anesthesia coma, and you tried to forget all that you knew about neurosurgery.

You prayed with all of your soul.

Above the chapel is the waiting room where you sat after you’d dropped your daughter off into the arms of her neurosurgeon, hoping that the last kiss you gave her warm, delicious head, wouldn’t be the last kiss you ever gave her. You sat in that waiting room with the three people who cared enough about you to show up and hold your hand and you choked back tears as the operating room nurse brought you back a bag of your daughter’s first hair in a bio-hazard bag.

You held that bag and wondered if that would be all you had left of her.

Below that waiting room is the gift shop where you dragged Nathan, someone who you will always treasure for being a friend when you needed one most, to buy your daughter something hopeful. A necklace. Carefully, you pick out a necklace that you will give your daughter and someday tell her, “Amelia, Princess of the Bells, Mommy bought you this when you were having your brain surgery.”

It’s a very beautiful necklace. A crystal encrusted heart on a simple silver chain in a velvet bag. It is perfect.

You hope she knows that this necklace is very, very important.

Two floors and a yawning corridor away, is the happy floor, filled with women and new babies, where your life was forever changed with seven words, “Becky, there’s something wrong with your baby.” A new world was created then, a secret place only you could go, this land of tears.

Your soul broke.

Up above that room, down another winding corridor, you screamed as they wrenched your nursing baby from you. Your breasts wept, too, as you cowered in that bed, terrified, in your secret place, your own land of tears.

In the dark basement, worlds away from the happy new parents above, you joined the ranks of the hollow-eyed ghosts in the NICU as you signed in and out to see your daughter. There, at least, you didn’t scare anyone with your eyes swollen nearly shut from crying and cheeks raw and bleeding from hospital grade tissues.

Above her bed there would be her bed post-surgery in the PICU and seeing her in a gown that bore the same logo as the hospital you’d worked at in nursing school made it almost easy to pretend this was all some vicious nightmare. That maybe you’d wake up to a normal, healthy baby.

Then your daughter would cry, her voice raw and hoarse from intubation and you knew this was your new world order.

When your other children came to see their sister, you’d rearrange your horrible face into a mask of what you hoped would pass as cheerfulness, ply them with candy, and hope that they wouldn’t look too closely at your shaking hands or tear-stained face. When they screamed, “I want MOMMY!” as they left for the day, you felt torn between the two worlds, one of which you’d just as soon leave behind, too.

All corridors eventually feed into the cafeteria, where you remember laughing for the first time in months. It was a jangled, strangled sort of sound, but there it was: a laugh, from your mouth, and it was real.

Down by the statue of the heart or perhaps children dancing in a circle is where you waited with your daughter as you took her home with you for the last time. Surrounded by all of the pink things you could find, balloons deflating slightly in the cold February air, you were exhausted, but ebullient: your warrior daughter had made it.

A mother had never been prouder. You held her car seat close to you as you whispered to her sleeping cheek, “You made it, my girl. You’re a fighter like your Momma, all right.” This time, for the first time in her life, when the tears wet her cheek, they were the good kind.

But late at night, when the rest of the house sleeps, these are the corridors that your mind roams, over and over. Your memory, always photographic, can recall everything with the sort of clarity that makes you relive those days constantly.

You are forever delivering that sick baby.

Constantly having her wrenched from your arms, always back in those terrible moments roaming the halls, seeing the same desk clerk, smelling those awful lilies, dry heaving into the diaper bag.

The sadness is omnipresent and yet nowhere. It is the new world order.

Save for roaming the corridors all night every night, you haven’t been back to those halls since your daughter had those awful thick black stitches removed from the back of her head.

You must return. New problems, a new specialist, means one thing: you must face your demons and return.

A new desk clerk and a new flower arrangement await you in the official looking building in which you found absolutely no comfort and now you must face up to walking these halls once again. It’s likely that you’ll cry. It’s likely that you’ll dry heave. It’s likely that no one will understand your reaction to this big official building. It’s just a place, after all.

But this is so much more than a place. It’s where the old you shriveled up and died and the new you was dragged screaming into the world.

So you and your ghosts walk the corridors all night every night, reliving the worst parts of your life, wishing they could be laid to rest, knowing that they never will.

Ever.

After spending most of the day imagining many adventures where Mr. Pinchey, my imaginary Monkey Butler and I rode horses through the Australian Outback looking for pirated treasure and eventually roasted some shrimp on the barbie, I got down to some serious thinking. After, of course, I ate a hot dog. Mr. Pinchey stories always makes me hungry.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why we blog.

As my friend Cecily recently pointed out, a lot has changed in the time since we dinosaurs started our dinky blogs. I mean, when I started, WordPress (which I think was Typepad back then) didn’t even have a spell-check feature–which explains the abysmal spelling of many of my imported posts–it had a “BOLD,” “ITALICS” and “STRIKE-THROUGH” button at the top of the post. That’s it.

I started to blog on Mushroom Printing because, as I’ve said many times, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I began Mommy Wants Vodka because I needed a space where I could let it all out. Mushroom Printing was supposed to be a humor blog and once Alex was born, I needed a space where I could talk about my kid, too. Somewhere that I could be Becky, In Real Life, not just Becky, The Motherfucking Clown.

I kept on blogging because I’m a compulsive freak who has to do the same thing every day, lest my brain explode into a pulpy, spattery mass, and I’ve watched as bloggers come and go. Some of them good, some of them great, some of them terrible. I’ve added and deleted links from my blogroll, mourning the dead blogs of my friends while I happily added new ones.

But last night, as I read what Cecily wrote, I found myself nodding along, because she’s right. Memoir-style blogging, blogging where we bare our soul and tell stories and let our ugly warts hang out for the world to see, these blogs seem to be dying.

Instead, I find new blogs (not yours, Pranksters) that present a sanitized version of life, a Palmolive commercial, if I may (and I always may, because this is my blog and I am sponsored by myself and the pennies I find in the couch cushions). Life is good, children are adorable, and wouldn’t you know it, gosh-darnit, Jim, my darling-hubby is just the cutest darn guy on the planet!!!

I get it. I do.

Bloggers don’t want to bare themselves or open themselves up to criticism or scare off potential companies who will be all, “wow, this blogger says, ‘fucking shit,’ we’d better not pay her a boat-load of cash to shill our crappy product!” They don’t want to embarrass their children or spouses by telling the world that hey, you know what? SOMETIMES MY KIDS SUCK, TOO. SOMETIMES, I HATE MY SPOUSE. They don’t want to blog their life as it really is for whatever reason. I get it.

But in turn, that dehumanizes the blog, makes everyone seem like beige paint, and makes me, quite frankly, bored. If I want to watch a commercial about how life is supposed to be, I’ll turn on the television and watch it. I know how my life doesn’t stack up by comparison to the sunny television kitchens, and I don’t care.

I love my imperfect life. Maybe not every single day, but most days, I do. My imperfections are what make me human, and being able to come here every day and be honest about them is why 6 years later, I can still do it.

I don’t make much money off my blog. I’m not sponsored by Colgate or Crest or Palmolive, or even a vodka company. I run ads so that I can pay for hosting for this blog and Mushroom Printing. If I had to change who I was to be more popular or become “Mommy Wants Vodka by…xxxx Big Company,” I wouldn’t do it. Because that’s not me.

I’m ugly in the mornings. I don’t always say the right things. My entries are too long and not always edited and I can’t spell to save myself. I swear. A lot. I’m unapologetically who I am. You probably won’t always like me. I’ll probably always like you.

If I can offer new bloggers one piece of advice it’s this: write hard. Be authentic. Write because you can’t imagine not writing. Write because those beautiful words get stuck in your head like butterflies beating against your skull until you let them out and BAM! there they are on paper, in front of you and it’s perfection.

Even if you’re the only one who reads it: write hard. Do it for yourself. Don’t ever doubt that you can do it or that you should do it. Just do it and stop second guessing. Second guessing is for amateurs and punks.

Write hard, my Pranksters.

—————–

So, why do you blog, Pranksters? Alternately, why don’t you? I’m throwing up a Mr. Linky if you want to answer on your own site.

Because Pottery Barn is an asshole and I cannot possibly resist their tempting overpriced wares, every time they come out with their Halloween Issue, I tear into it like it’s a brand new issue of Maxim magazine. Eagerly, I examine the overpriced costumes and figure out which ones my kids MIGHT allow me to dress their very particular bodies in before the inevitable day when they say, “Mom, I want to be a ghost” and beg for a simple sheet.

This year, I managed to grab the magazine as I was headed out with Alex, who was highly INTERESTED in what I was looking at.

I’ve been TRYING to get one of my children to be the Land Shark for years, and no, every year they deny me. Which means that I need a costume party to be the Land Shark and be all ‘CANDYGRAM’ and then no one will laugh but me, but I will laugh enough for everyone else.

Well, anyway, I’m in the car with Alex and I’m all, “you could be popcorn! or rootbeer! or a carton of milk!”

And Alex, my miniature clone, said, simply, emphatically, with his mind made up, “No.”

Perhaps he is paying me back for these costumes.

The Halloweenier.

Or this:

The Hedgehog of DOOOOOOM.

Because he said, “I’m going to be a beautiful butterfly. But be careful, Mom, don’t step on my wings!”

The butterfly costume is this, Pranksters:

Pottery Barn, you win again. My son will be the most beautiful, manly butterfly in a dress, ever.

And I will never, ever stop hearing the end of it from his father, grandfather, my brother and every other male he comes into contact with. But I don’t fucking care. If my kid wants to be a beautiful butterfly, he can be a beautiful fracking butterfly.

I just might buy him some wee combat boots to go along with it. And maybe a spike collar. He will be the most beautiful butterfly on the block.

And I will punch anyone who looks at him funny. Because it’s a MANLY TUTU and he’s just a little boy who likes butterflies and flowers and light and for GOD’S SAKE his first word was PENIS and he can throw a ball better than most 20-year old’s I know, and really, Alex is composed primarily of sweetness and light and snips and snails and puppy dog tails and I have never met anyone more wholly good than him.

So yes. A butterfly. My son, Mister Butterfly. Spike The Butterfly.

Sounds kinda manly.

Right…?

Dear Aunt Becky,

I have a crummy blog that gets comments every now and then, which makes me more happy than you would ever imagine.  Well, the thing that bothers me is that after a few days I stop checking for new comments (I may be a bit vain but not vain enough to check every entry for the rest of my life, right?)

The thing is that I really want to know if I have any new comments because those comments mean the world to me.  Like way more than you’d ever know!

Is there something I can do on a blogger account so that I know when someone has commented on my blog?  Especially the older ones??

Trust me, my friend, I know all about how important comments are, which is why I dutifully fish through 800 pages of Russian Porn Spam to find the one single comment that my blog spam filter has accidentally marked as spam. So, comments = GOLD to a blogger. I dig this.

As I am a lowly WordPress Blogger, I did not immediately have an answer to this question for you.

But, Merry Prankster! Have no fear! I also have a BLOGGER blog set up so that I can comment on all of your “I don’t allow anonymous comment Blogger blogs.” I just had to remember how to FIND it and get in there. It’s clearly unused.

From your dashboard, go to Settings. The settings menu will offer you a variety of selections. You want “Comments.”

Now, scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN to the bottom of the screen, which I cannot actually show in an entire screen shot, because, well, I don’t know.

But at the very bottom you will see this:

In that box, you can add your email (or 10!) and it should email you, after, of course, you click, SAVE SETTINGS (something Your Aunt Becky FREQUENTLY forgets to do because she is very, very smart), whenever anyone comments. Even those lovely spammers you get.

WordPress is wonderous because the comments are such that the most recent ones–no matter on how old the post–go to the top of the comment queue on the dashboard. I heart you, WordPress. Hard.

Hope that helps, Prankster.

——————

Good Morning Lovely,

Can you recommend a blog designer?  I need a little updating…

Minnie

Well, my darling friend, I’m so glad that you asked. Because I will tell you what NOT to do, my Merry Pranksters.

Do NOT get onto Twitter and say: “I NEED A SITE DESIGNER” when you are slightly drunk because you know what? The world is a site designer. Except of course, me, who is all, “I LIKE SPARKLES! AND PINK! AND UH, MOTHERFUCKING SKULLS WITH RAZORBLADES HANGING OUT OF THEM.”

It’s very helpful when you know precisely what you want (read: not me) but not helpful when you don’t know what you want (read: me).

But the person who did my site design and tolerates my questions like: “WHY *stamp stamp stamp* can’t I make that feed-thingy work?” is Jon from Keeping You Awake. What’s shocking is that he STILL tolerates me. Actually, what’s shocking is that ANYONE tolerates me.

Alas, I digress.

I do not, however, know how much time Jon has for this stuff. So I am also shouting out the fabulous Robin from Oppositional Design, a.k.a. My Business Card Person. I’m telling you that you need to ASK someone how cool they are, because the coolness cannot be captured on film.

(seriously, it cannot)

(P.S. I still have a kajillion of them, so Imma be passing them out for-freaking-EVER)

(P.P.S. I SUCK at social networking, apparently)

(P.P.P.S. I’m going to Type A Mom. I’m going to be FLINGING the cards at people. Sorry if I hit you in the face with one).

But Robin does this stuff for a living AND puts up with me AND still takes my emails, so, Pranksters, I’m giving you two people that Your Aunt Becky can personally vouch for. Hit it up in the comments, Pranksters, because I know YOU guys must know other people who are also awesome in the graphic design world.

———————-

Dear Aunt Becky,

What to do with a mother-in-law who insists on always trying to give/serve expired food?

OMG so gross!

Oh Prankster, you asked the right person this question. Because I? Have FOOD ISSUES. I’m sure if I were a kid, they’d be all, “she has sensory issues,” but really, I’m just weird about my food (okay, I’m just weird.).

First, you’re clearly not going to change her mind by leaving pictures of E. Coli viruses out, so I wouldn’t bother. Second, I’m guessing that your husband just tolerates it because that’s his mother, right? I mean, what can he do? (no really, what can he do?) Third, I’m assuming, of course, that she is in her right mind.

My advice is to take a page from the Aunt Becky Playbook:

1) Eat before you get to her house.

2) If you’re going for any amount of time, pack food in your purse. Like non-perishable stuff, not a turkey or something because if you packed a whole turkey, now, guess what? YOU’RE THE FREAK.

3) Push the food around your plate LIKE you’re eating, but instead of actually eating, just occasionally put the empty fork in your mouth. That way you’re being polite and not a jerk, because really, hurting her feelings isn’t going to solve anything.

4) Drink lots of tap water or bottled water or whatever to make it look like you’re eating like a normal person.

5) Compliment her often. Again, you’re not doing this to be cruel, you just can’t really be rude. It helps nothing.

Also, I wish you good luck and God Speed, Prankster. I’ve SO been there. Not with the expired food or anything, just because I’m a freak.

—————–

As always, Pranksters, please fill in where I left off in the comments. And please feel free to submit your mostest burningest questions to the button-thing at the top that says, “GO ASK AUNT BECKY.”

So today, Pranksters, I have a guest post from Team Mandy from Harper’s Happenings. She’s also on Twitter, here. Not only is she hilarious, but I also MET her in NYC and gave her one of my Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirts before we went to Sparklecorn/Prom, which is awesome. Because she wore it. See? I tweeted this last night, so if you are seeing it again and annoyed, FORGIVENESS (even if, even if, you don’t looooove me anymore).

I’m thinking of making a Flickr page for anyone who buys these shirts so we can all revel in our awesomeness. Thoughts? I HAVE a public Flickr account, and we can totally be BFF but they just marked me as Adult Content, even though my account is LITERALLY pictures of my kids and not nekkid boobies or anything.

So, if you want to see me, you have to change your settings. WHATEVER.

ALSO, Mushroom Printing is UP, yo. Ready for ACTION.

Now, onto the action.

——————-

so this one time i was attempting to shop for a dress for BlogHer (because seriously? goldfish crackers deeply encrusted into jeans and whatnot doesn’t scream “new york city!”. at all.) and looked at my phone to see a message from our very own Aunt Becky. it read “hey slore. want to guest post for me sometime?”. after i promptly gagged (think dumb and dumber), i responded calling her a slag.  so yeah, here we are. romantic, no?

to say i have romantic feelings towards our Aunt Becky would be like saying i only slightly dislike the shift key. i hate the shift key. i pink puffy sparkly with unicorn farts on top HEART Aunt Becky. hence? the gagging.

(unicorn farts smell like samoa girl scout cookies and chris cornell’s freshly washed hair, obviously. well at least my unicorn’s farts do. your unicorn’s may smell different. moving on.)

speaking of farts (i’m all class, folks. all class), i thought i’d share a story from back in the day that i have tried hard to remove from my memory – because of the level of embarrassment – but that is damn funny looking back. hold on to your undies, Pranksters (if i may call you that), because this one is full of the awesome. at least for people who it didn’t happen to.

when i was 22 i was having some digestive issues. i was often feeling sick to my stomach, and i was missing a lot of work because of it. my age automatically threw me into the “maybe she should lay off the sauce and come to work” category with my co-workers, but that wasn’t the case (for the most part – i mean i did my fair share of one dollar vodka sour nights at the local crap bar). i finally decided to go to the urgent care to see what was up. after an x-ray thingy of my insides, the doctor proclaimed what my family had always been telling me – “you’re full of shit”.

(can we take a moment to focus on what a kick ass doctor he was? because he really said that.)

“when was the last time you had a bowel movement?”, he asked.

after thinking for a while i was all “last week? two weeks ago?”.

turns out that is NOT normal. who knew? well not me, because for me it was the norm. awful right? pooping is the best. and i was being deprived! so with some powdery stuff to make me shit and a referral to a special poop doctor (i’m positive that is what their documents say), i was off.

my first trip to my special poop doctor was a little nerve wracking to say the least. i mean, i was young, embarrassed, and going to a doctor who was going to only talk to me about the function of my butt hole. as i sat in the waiting room i felt like the other patients were looking at me like, “wonder what up with her butt hole”, which made me want to scream “YOUR BUTT HOLE IS HERE TOO DUDES!”.

my special poop doctor was a very sweet indian woman with a pretty thick accent. i liked her right away, except for her use of the words anus, feces, and bowel movement. i mean i get it, you’re a doctor so you have to use the technical terms, but really lady, this would be more comfortable for me if you’d just say butt hole, shit or poop. i mean honestly.

she asked me all kinds of questions about my eating habits (which clearly did not include enough fiber) and junk, and a bunch of weird questions that i answered uncomfortably. then she was all “have you ever looked at your anus with a mirror?”.

i wanted to yell “WHAT KIND OF POOP DOCTOR ARE YOU, YOU SICKO!”, but refrained and answered, “um, no”. BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY, NO.

“the reason i ask is because you could have (insert medical term) around your anus and that can be causing you to not feel the urge to take a BM”. she said in her thick accent.

“oh. um, yeah i’ve never done that. should i?”, i asked, knowing what her answer would be.

“yes. just use a mirror and look for anything out of the ordinary”.

“sure, ok, i will do tha…”

“you know what? since you’re here, let’s just look now. the restroom is right across the hall, i will meet you in there”.

WAIT WHAT? i started to sweat. my hands got sticky. my heart was beating fast. this is not what i signed up for! i just want to poop like a normal person, not put my BH on display for some perfect stranger (who at this point i had decided i now hated). i tried to stall, come up with reasons i just couldn’t show her my butt hole today, but before i knew it, she had ushered me over to the ladies room and told me to holler when i was ready.

ready? ready for you to come examine my poop shoot? yeah, you’ll be waiting for a while lady. and why am i in a bathroom? can’t you look at it in the exam room? what the DUECE is going on here?!

soon my fears were realized as she came in (did i say i was ready? NO) and explained to me she could only see the (insert medical term here) if i was pushing like i was going poop. phenomenal. this is why we’re in the bathroom. you guys, i had to sit on the toilet, lean forward in a way so that she could see my dumper and then push as if i was taking a shit. WHILE A LITTLE INDIAN LADY WAS LOOKING.

i will never in my life forget being bent over that toilet, pants at my ankles, and being told “it’s ok if you fart”. practically face first into the tile, the most exposed i had ever been (later this story would be laughable as i pooped on a table having my daughter) and trying not to crap on an indian lady.

if i can give you any advice, Pranksters, it would be to EAT YOUR FIBER. eat your fiber hard.