That is how long it took me to start crying after I got back into town.

I wasn’t even actually home yet.

I don’t know why I was surprised. This happens every year. I go to BlogHer and I leave feeling amazing. I see people I only get to talk to face to face once a year. I meet people in person that I have been internet friends with for five years. I watch amazing panels of women inspire me to be a better writer, mother, artist, person. I get more compliments in three days than I do for the other 362 days a year combined.

At BlogHer I make business connections. I learn. I socialize. I reunite. I am recognized as a writer. As a business woman. As an individual.

At home I am recognized as “Ian’s Mom”.

At BlogHer people ask me how I do it all.

At home people ask me why I’m not doing more.

At BlogHer I am one of the hosts of the most amazing party. We had a cake from Charm City Bakery, we had a DJ and we did The Hustle. I was sparkly.

Jen and Sarah posing as “robot hookers”. We actually wore the same dress to Sparklecorn. What are the odds that two people would buy this dress? Photo by Laurie White

At home there is a rotting cantaloupe on my kitchen counter, my sink is full of dishes and I can’t find my glasses anywhere.

At BlogHer I meet with producers of major television news networks that want to discuss the upcoming book in which two of my essays will appear.

At home it is dismissed because it is a “little blogging thing” and did you hear my sister-in-law is going to have an article in Oprah’s magazine? Did I know that she was a real writer?

At BlogHer I sit on panels next to WNBA champions and people come to the session to hear me speak.

With Megan Hueter and Kelly Mazzante at BlogHer 10. Photo by Laurie White

At home I sit next to my cat who will not stop meowing. I have no idea why.

At BlogHer I say intelligent things and people write it down.

At home I walk into the wall and hurt my elbow.

The same wall that has been in the same place ever since I moved here in 2006.

Every year it is like this. Maybe next year, when I go to my sixth BlogHer I will stop being surprised.

I’ll see you in San Diego.

Second of all, her dumb movie made me cry on the airplane.

Twice.

And I was sitting next to a 14 year old boy who probably thinks I am the biggest loser that ever lived.

Hmph.

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Full disclosure: I was not at all able to refrain from laughing at that last one. I think I may have even snorted causing him to say “But Mommy, it’s true. My upper nut hurts.” which crushed me on my insides and made my outsides laugh even harder.

On a related topic, what do you call the area right above a person’s penis? I guess I should have sucked it up and taken anatomy and physiology after all.

I remember what the doormouse said, I just have no idea what to do with that information.

Love,

Sarah

I know, I always say that I don’t like outside and I hate nature unless it is the beach, but that sort of comes into play.

First (and least surprisingly) it is good exercise and gives me a feeling of accomplishment. When I am done I can actually see that the lawn looks different. That is nice.

Second (or third, that part was kind of two) my iPod is awesome. My iPod is way better than other people’s iPods because there aren’t any songs on it that I hate. I used to put stuff on my iPod so that my husband wouldn’t laugh at me, or so if someone was in my car they would think I was cool. I don’t do that these days.  I don’t give a shit anymore. Now I just put on songs I like. Right now I have 594 songs all of my choosing. Today when I mowed I heard Slayer, Mozart, Tomahawk, Alice in Chains, R.E.M., KIX and Blur. It ruled.

My attitude is also better. Well, maybe not better, but it works.

Mowing my yard has become Sarah vs. Nature. When Slayer is on – no mercy, when Mozart is on la vendetta. Pixies? Wave of Mutilation.

Now that I think about it my iPod has a lot of pent up hostility.

Now that I think about it I have a lot of pent up hostility.

So, mowing works for me, and I think it makes Gabe’s life slightly easier.

Plus my neighbors think I am a good worker.

It is a win/win/win/win. For now. Soon it will get too hot and I’m  sure I’ll hate it again.

My other friend Jean, you might know her as Stimey, had a fabulous idea. We all want to support Susan, but we don’t want to dwell on her illness. Since Susan is a scientist, Jean thought that we should have a virtual science fair in her honor.

I jumped at the chance to honor Susan, then in typical Sarah fashion I procrastinated all week, then panicked because science is not my strong suit.

I am a writer and a musician for a reason, people.

But! It turns out that we did science accidentally. It wasn’t so much a science project, as our hypothesis would have to be something like “Tomatoes and peppers may grow in our side yard if we plant them.” but it was an experiment as we’ve never tried to grow anything in this particular flower bed before.

Behold:

My kids told their grandparents that we are farmers.

And of course these three did most of the dirty work.

What? Somebody had to take pictures with their cell phone. (Did I tell you that Nikon finally made me return Precious?)

Science is all fun and games until somebody gets very tired and her Dad touches her with his dirty hand.

My prediction is that we will grow tomatoes and they will taste better than the ones at the grocery store and I will save money on my salads and fajitas.

Ian’s prediction is that deer will come to our house and eat our vegetables.

Gabe’s prediction  is that Ian will sneak out in the middle of the night, eat all of the tomatoes and blame rogue deer.

Claudia was ignoring me when I asked for input.

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We love you, Susan. Thanks for the inspiration.  I’ll bring you some beautiful bell peppers by the end of the summer.

Well, crap. I guess I have neglected to tell my children about The Resurrection.

“Yes, Honey,” I said. “Easter is the most important holiday for Christians.”

Then I proceeded to tell him all about the son of God, and the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I will have you know that I tried very hard to be fair and unbiased. I tried very hard to say that “This is what Christians believe” without any sarcasm in my voice.

I will also say that when you tell a person that God sent his only son to Earth to die on the cross so that we could be forgiven for our sins and then he came back to life and ascended to Heaven it might sound like crazy talk to someone unfamiliar with these concepts.

I thought I did a pretty good job remembering the talking points considering I have not attended a church service that wasn’t wedding or funeral related since before my children were born, and even then it was only because the church was paying me to sing. I have not belonged to a church since the 80s.

I was mistaken about my comprehensibility.

My son later told his father that he talked to me about Easter and he pretty much figured that Jesus must be a zombie.

If you think about it, he is a pretty astute kid, but that totally is not what I said. What I was trying to articulate was that Easter was a very important holiday to Christians and that no, it was not at all surprising that Paige would be going to church on Easter – that to some people Easter is a sacrosanct time and not just the day when kids get candy in a basket.

I have no idea what became of the zombie Jesus conversations, but I do know that on Sunday morning Ian climbed into bed with me and said “Remember what happened today a long time ago? Before the dinosaurs?”

I bit. “What happened today before the dinosaurs?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “You know, Jesus came back to life.”

I always thought it would be less confusing to raise children without religion.

I was wrong.

As usual.

That isn’t that big of a deal except that we aren’t very religious people.

My children believe in God and they like to tell me that. A lot.

Sometimes I think they like to rub it in because I am an Atheist, and while I support their beliefs I’m not really sure where they came from. None of their grandparents or parents currently practice any religion and if any of them have any strong beliefs either way they aren’t really talking about it.

My children believe in God and they believe that he is an invisible giant with no feet.

And I say If he is invisible how do you know he is a giant? And how do you know he isn’t a she? I want to be supportive. I want them to know that I am a well-wisher for whatever belief system they choose to ascribe to. I have chosen my own, but that doesn’t mean I think that they have to believe what I believe. I want them to be able to think for themselves. I want them to be able to choose for themselves.

My children believe in an invisible, giant God with no feet.

Their deity inexplicably has no feet.

And they are (well, at least the boy is) scared of the puppet devil.

And I’m not sure why.

I have no idea how to deal with that. How to I explain the the puppet devil isn’t real when they know I don’t believe in God either. I mean sure, I say, Well, he is a puppet. He is felt with some guys hand up in there. And they say Why can’t you see the guy? and I say Because he is squatting down where the camera can’t see him and that just isn’t good enough for them.

For right now my kids believe in an invisible giant God with no feet and the puppet devil.

And I’m not sure to what to do with that information besides tell you about it.

Babies R Us makes my uterus ache.

It isn’t just Babies R Us either, lest you think they are paying me to say this. The same is true for Carters, or the Target Baby section or any store that has many tiny dresses with bows or jammies with cartoon alligators on them concentrated in one area. Really, even very small shirts with skulls on them make me squeal on the inside. So, no Babies R Us didn’t pay me anything, but even if they had they would probably be on the winning end of things with the amount of cash I dropped in there today.

We have two couples that we are very close to that are both having their first baby. The father of one was the best man in our wedding and the mother of the other one was a bridesmaid. Needless to say I spent far too long and way too much money on these babies. I loooooooove babies that I can hug and kiss and sing to and cuddle and buy things for and then send then hand them to their parents when they poop and I can drive home and sleep through the night.*

The thing is that as much as I don’t want more children stuff like this

makes my body question my decision.

Not my head, mind you, but my body. I actually have a visceral reaction to things like this.

Sure I played it cool, walking slowly down the aisles with my registries in hand, but on the inside I was going OHMYGOD! OHMYHGOD! SQUEEEEE! IT IS THE CUTESTFUCKINGTHING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE!  OHMYGOD! I don’t think I was making any actual noise but it is certainly possible.

I am also pretty sure that I ovulated in the aisle that had the sleep sacks.

I guess my point is that when my body was craving a baby when I was 28 and childless it was no surprise. I knew I wanted kids. it made sense. But why would my body do this to me now? I have kids. I’m done. We paid cold hard cash and spent time at a surgical center to make sure we didn’t have any more babies and it is decision I have never regretted, even for a minute. Biology is a crazy thing. For 29 days a month I am barely aware that I have a uterus, but when I walk into a baby store it does the same thing that my stomach does when I smell bacon.**

The good news is that when I walked down the aisle with the diaper genies and the rectal thermometers I got over it.

* Assuming one of my own children doesn’t: pee the bed, have a nightmare, need water, want to sleep in my bed, fall out of bed, claims they aren’t tired, is afraid of E.T., etc.

** Except I want the bacon.