Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Archives for July 2007

Intolerance — The Panel I’m Still Having in My Head

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My Intolerace PosseBlogHer felt like an overwhelming success to me this year. I had cute shoes. The conference venue was gorgeous and things ran smoothly and were well organized. People were kind and discussions were thought provoking and respectful. (I’ve got a few words to share on the closing session with Elizabeth Edwards but that will have to wait till tomorrow.) I did not have to cook for anyone and the magical hotel fairies made the beds for me each morning.

My panel was on Friday afternoon, led by the excellent Liz Henry, a woman who can make anyone feel at ease and understood. How fun is she to be taking pictures of the panel and audience as she moderated it? That certainly helped relieve some of the nerves I’d been struggling with that morning. To be honest, I felt a little like a fish out of water in that group. There was Laina who writes about race, ethnicity and culture on the BlogHer website, Liz who seems to know everyone, blog on every topic and have one foot in nearly every social group and Tish who regularly stands up against The Man in a male dominated communications blogging culture.

I like this picture because my mouth is open, my eyes are red and I look very intense.

Then there was me with my charmed life, writing a non-issues-based funny mom blog and periodically being touched by drama because of my religious beliefs. I’m much more comfortable being a smart-alec than having a serious discussion about social issues.

what a cute audience!I think the panel went well. We had some good discussion, although I feel that it would have been more productive on a small group level. I wanted the chance to look my fellow panelists in the eye and really come to an understanding of what they were saying, something I’m sad to say didn’t happen.

In my closing statement, I said that everyone is intolerant of something. In fact, if you’re not intolerant, I’m not likely to be your friend because you’re either lying or you’re so relativistic that you don’t know who you are anymore. We tend to call each other on intolerance when our intolerances don’t match up. Personally, my main intolerance is towards mean people. Why can’t we all just respect each other?

Then I said something that I’m not sure about. I said that through my experiences, I’ve learned that what I love about the internet is that it is a great equalizer, giving everyone the freedom to speak their mind and to form communities of their choosing. I think that the people who spoke out against me because I’m Mormon had the right to do so and can form any exclusive group they want. If I want to have a blog for only people who like lima beans, I can do it and if they want to draw lines based on the Nicene Creed, more power to them. I said that if they didn’t want to include me, then there was no reason for me to want to be included, to beg to be part of their group. That statement doesn’t sit right with me.

In that particular instance, I’m happy for them to have their own little group because it doesn’t affect me in any significant way. However, I know there are so many cases in the world where people are being excluded in a way that is materially harmful to them and to the world at large and some situations need and deserve some direct intervention.

After the panel, two such situations presented themselves. Stefania spoke up in the State of the Momosphere panel and mentioned that she is constantly being pitched marketing opportunities on her various websites but receives none of the same offers for Kimchi Mamas, her successful blog for Korean moms. Kelly from Mocha Momma had started teh converstaion because she has experienced the same kind of exclusion from marketers.

Does it offend me that I am excluded from writing for Kimchi Mamas because I’m white? No. There are approximately one billion places a white woman can blog. I fully believe Korean moms should have access to an exclusive community. But I think it’s wrong that women of color are being excluded in so many other communities. If Club Mom or Parenting were making a point of only hiring white bloggers, I’d have a serious problem with that. So, is it only okay for minorities to be exclusive? I’m not sure where the line is. I just know that some exclusive groups are right and some are wrong.

Another example comes from my co-panelist Laina, who went out to dinner in downtown Chicago and was denied service when a black friend asked for a table but a moment later a white friend was able to get her name down on the waiting list. It blows my mind that things like this are still going on in places other than Uncle Bubba’s small town café in Backwardsville, US. Seriously? How can this country have come so far, and still have such a disconnect between our perceived shared values and the way people actually treat each other?

Sleep Deprived, Homesick, Happy Airport Resident

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Eve and I break the flight news to our babies.My flight has been delayed for 3 or 4 years now and I’m getting to know the many citizens living in this airport community. There’s “Red Cap” reading a book by Vince Flynn, an older man with a mustache and no beard who CAN NOT believe that someone could be stupid enough to leave their laptop in the plastic tray after going through security. Can. Not. Believe. It.

There’s Rag Reader, perusing In Style to unearth the deats surrounding Brangelina’s latest breakup. I eye the cover of her magazine. Gradually my pity for their invaded privacy turns to disdain for people who read that trash, turns to morbid curiosity, turns to a burning NEED TO KNOW what kind of needless argument could have caused the split turns to a great desire to stroke their hair and counsel them through the hard times.

Angry Business Man seems to gain power pellets by yelling into his phone in FRONT of other people, the same way I gain them by using CAPS in randOM places and stockpiling bushels of shwag. Finding an appropriate moment to wear my Butterball Turkey button is beyond the scope of my limited imagination, and yet it’s currently keeping my 10 ugly t-shirts and foot-long pen company in a luggage truck somewhere out on the tarmac. I think it’s on the tarmac. I’m pretty sure my plane isn’t. My airline does not like to give out sensitive information, information like “WHERE ON THIS EARTH IS THE *BEAUTY LUVIN’ PLANE?”

I may post again with more than you ever wanted to know about the conference today since it appears I’ll be making my permanent home on this grey pleather chair with Jenny and Eve.

When it became apparent that I would be making like Tom Hanks and semi-permanently inhabiting the airport, I called home and told Dan to prepare for life as a professional blogger and Laylee and Magoo that they’d better learn how to warm their own spaghetti-o’s. Laylee asked, “What have you been doing in Chicago lately?”

oprah-ex-aparmentDo you wanna know what it’s like to be a worm’s breath away from Oprah’s ex-apartment building? I’ll keep you in suspense for a moment longer. Right now I’ve got to build a spitting fountain in concourse D for Catherine Zeta Jones and eat some pizza.

*Jenny was recently told that she should wash her son’s mouth out with soap if he keeps using foul expressions like “DANG IT!” This weekend we helped her come up with more positive phrases she could teach him in place of his most heinous language. The best we’ve come up with are MARSHMALLOW PEEPS! PRECIOUS MOMENTS! and Luvin’ BEAUTY Joy! Nicer alternatives, no? May save her little miscreant son from a life of crime and offensiveness.

I can’t fill her shoes

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With Kathryn at BlogHer, I’ve taken the helm around here. Let me tell you, it’s been surprisingly difficult.

No, not taking care of the kids. I mean, it’s really hard work, but I’ve been solo with them before, so it wasn’t a surprise how much work Kathryn does on a daily basis to keep our ship sailing. Since I’m the one hanging out all day with the kiddos, I figured I’d try my hand at the blog-about-how-cute-the-kids-are thing, and that’s what I found surprisingly tough.

How does she remember all the cute things the kids say? They are spouting cuteness at all times except when I have something to write with. There was at least one really, really great Laylee-ism, where she took some colloquialism and turned it funny somehow, and I cannot remember what it was. I’m so glad that Kathryn captures a few precious drops of toddleric wit and wisdom here on the blog. We’ll always have some little-kid fun-ness preserved here, long after they’ve broken the four foot barrier.

And then, when does she find the time to turn their antics into blog posts? Well, it’s true; I know where she gets some of the time :)… but still–it’s a big investment.

All of this on top of being the World’s Greatest Mom. (As the World’s Greatest Dad, I am authorized to write that about her with Proper Noun Casing.)

Thanks for all you do, baby.

Well, it’s the day before she comes home (well, it’s after midnight, so it’s technically the last day of the trip), and this is what I’ve got: one picture and one story.

Laylee dipping her cantaloupe in ketchup:

Funny, this cantaloupe tastes like chicken

A few nights ago at teeth brushing time, Magoo wanted to rinse and spit just like Laylee. We don’t use toothpaste with him yet, so he doesn’t really need to, but it would be a good skill for him to acquire, so I hand him a cup of water to try it. He takes a swig, swishes it around, tips his head over the sink, and … *gulp* swallows. The lack of water to spit disturbs him. He repeats this two or three times, getting more frustrated with each failed spit attempt. I hope he didn’t notice me chuckling. Before I took the cup away, he did manage to get one good spit in. Good times.

I can hardly wait to snuggle on the couch with my schmoop while she regales me with stories of her adventures. Come home soon, baby!

Big Fat Harry Plot

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glasses-kidsJ. K. Rowling is trying to take over the world through social isolation, lack of personal hygiene and sleep deprivation. With half the world’s population starved for quality sleep, unshowered and refusing to talk to even their closest friends, Ms. Rowling is poised to take over the muggle world.

I finally finished last night and I can now speak to people again and even use the interwebs, no longer afraid that someone will drop a spoiler disguised as a “review”. When people at church told me they’d finished it, I would walk away from them quickly before they could utter another word. I did not want to hear, “It was so awesome” or “It didn’t quite do it for me” because then I’d know something and I wanted a blank slate experience. I can now go to sleep sometime before I’m supposed to wake up and I may even shower later.

Did I like the book? If you’ve already finished it and you’d like to continue this discussion via email, I will be happy to share my humble opinion.

So What’s the Deal with Pajamas?

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In the morning they wake up and I feed them food.

They use the food to feed and decorate their pajamas.

I peel the pajamas from their bodies and dress them in “clothes”.

Throughout the day they continue to feed and decorate their “clothes” with slime, food, slug sweat and nasal excretions. Depending on what our next activity is, I either change their clothes again or ignore their filth.

Then at bedtime I change them back into pajamas regardless of the state of their clothes.

Tonight Magoo was wearing a freshly clean outfit at bedtime but I stripped it off for the sheer love of doing laundry and due to the fact that people, like fish, are not supposed to sleep in “CLOTHES.”

The thing is, his pajamas are indistinguishable from many of his outfits. I think that the determining factor for sleepwear should be the same as play-wear. It should all be made out of recently replaced Austrian window treatments and should have a matching head-kerchief. When it’s wet, slimey or smells like milk or other bodily fluids, it should be changed, and not before.

Maybe I’ll just make like a sci-fi movie and enshroud him in breathable hoseable rubber zipper-front jumpsuits with our family logo emblazoned over the right breast, our family logo which is of course a stylized likeness of my floating head… wearing pajamas.

Best Day Ever

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Today I did something I should have been doing consistently for just years now. I “let” Laylee help me clean the house. This was rare and precious both because I was actually cleaning the house and because I let Laylee be a part of it.

Usually I try to plan activities to keep her busy if the cleaning bug bites me but today she asked meekly, “Mom. Could I please help you scrub the kitchen floor?”

“Um. Sure.”

“Oh THANKS! Will you please save me some of the really sticky parts.”

The really sticky parts are vast and the grid pattern makes it easy to section off the floor into sticky chunks for easy division of labor. I got out a couple of rags so we could do the job Cinderella-style. When Laylee would get up to rinse her rag she would charge me forcefully with the task of saving her sticky squares so she could do them when she got back.

And she did… beautifully. She is a natural at slave labor and she begged for more. So I let her scrub the outside of the fridge and promised that she could scour something tomorrow. She asked me to never clean without her and I made a binding promise. (Future Laylee if you’re reading this, you now know you have no one to blame but yourself.)

In her prayer at bedtime, she thanked God for the chance she had to clean the floors with me and get all the crayon out of the grout. And pieces of my soul floated heavenward and were enveloped by the laughing moon.

Magoo is obsessed with all things Cars. When we arrived at Costco tonight, he saw the pizza stand and yelled, “FOOD! CA-CHOW!” and I loved him well, even though he doesn’t yet pray with fervent thanks for the opportunity to give me spa pedicures on demand. I’ll keep working on that. Maybe by the time he’s 4…

Were you wondering how much of a dork I am? I will tell you how much of a dork I am. At the park today I saw a woman reading the August issue of Parenting Magazine and I wrestled with myself about whether or not to approach her. Periodically they reprint small blurbs from my blog and I happened to know off the top of my head that there was a picture of Laylee’s fuzz-ball hair on page 32. What’s the point in being minimally famous if you can’t tell complete strangers that you are?

So as we pushed our kids on the swings, I nonchalantly said, “My daughter’s picture is in there on page 32.” And she gave me the best response ever.

“Oh!? Is she the hair?”

Yes! Laylee “the hair” Daring. It’s her new mafia name and I couldn’t be prouder.

Intolerance Intervention?

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Can I tell you how much I love getting email with the subject line “Re: Intolerance Intervention”? Very much do I love it and I’ve been getting a lot of it lately.

I’m really excited to be speaking on a panel at BlogHer next week and I’d like your help preparing. The topic is Intolerance and here’s the official synopsis:

Does the Blogosphere Need an Intolerance Intervention?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of speaking across divides, and trying to be a “bridge”? What do we gain and lose when we assume we’re blogging to people a lot like ourselves? Let’s talk about insularity, authenticity, intolerance, and diplomacy. At times, bloggers can be like indie bands, risking having their original fans stop liking them the minute they start being appreciated by a more diverse audience, outside the original “club”. There’s bloggers who cross all sorts of potential barriers…and bloggers who like it in their own neck of the woods just fine, thank you very much, go away if you disagree. Do Birds of a Feather groups encourage intolerance? Or are diplomats “sellouts”? Decide where you stand. Liz Henry moderates this discussion around a topic a lot of us observe, but few of us say anything about. Bloggers like Laina Dawes, Tish Grier and Kathryn Thompson have a few stories to tell!

I was included in this session largely because of formative experiences I had a few months after I started my blog. They really shaped the way I feel about tolerance and ethics online and helped me take what I was doing much more seriously. I came to think about blogging as a community-building experience and not simply an outlet to dump my thoughts into each day.

When I was fairly new to blogging, some good online friends nominated me for a small award. The stated purpose of the awards was to recognize blogs that brought beauty into the blogosphere and the woman running the contest was Christian. She wrote an obviously religious blog and it was understood that the awards were meant to recognize Christian bloggers.

I found out about the awards after I became a finalist and was so excited not only to be nominated for humor but by a group of women who had included me in their religious community even though I don’t often blog openly about my faith. As a Mormon, I was pleased to feel accepted by a circle of mainstream Christians, a group that doesn’t often recognize my religion’s central belief in Jesus Christ as Christianity.

The day after I won the award however, a prominent blogger in the community publicly outed me as a Mormon (something I thought everyone knew if they’d ever read my blog), and wrote a scathing post about my participation in the contest and the lack of discernment shown by my readers.

Needless conflict and drama ensued, during which I formed some of my strongest blogging relationships to date, several with women who had much more in common theologically with my critic than they did with me, several who have no religious leanings but simply rock solid morals and character, and some who were just so flippin’ hilarious that they helped me get through the pettiness of it all.

Without sharing my specific thoughts on the subject of online intolerance (I’ll blog more about that after the conference.), I’d love to hear what you have to say. What questions would you ask me as part of that panel? What thoughts would you share if you were on it?