OMA > LGA

Last week I went to New York and shot engagement photos. Fucking ridiculous. I was there less than a week ago and it already feels like a giant blur. 

I had never been there before. NYC was sort of this representation of everything I was afraid of in life. NYC is epic. It's challenging. It's uncomfortable. It was the embodiment of every fear I have in my career, my marriage, motherhood. Does that sound crazy? IT IS JUST SO BIG. And going big terrifies me. But I went. And I survived. And you know what? NYC isn't any different than Chicago or San Francisco. It's just a shitload of people trying to live their lives without going nuts. It was easy to get around on the subways or on foot. No one mugged me. No one tried to sell me counterfeit Prada. No one even spoke to me. (Except tourists. I kept getting asked for directions from tourists.) It was kind of great. Big cities offer a level of anonymity that say... Omaha... doesn't have. 

I stayed in Tribeca and walked all over SoHo and the East Village. We shot over in Brooklyn in Dumbo (where I saw the $25 million clock tower apartment) and in Times Square. I visited Strawberry Fields alone on a rainy morning which broke my heart like you wouldn't believe. Standing outside the building where John Lennon lived and died was crazy. I tried to go to the MoMa but I made the mistake of taking a cab there. It was 30 minutes of hell wherein I clutched my mouth and tried not to puke in the backseat. I also met up with a friend from high school which was exciting on a whole different level. She was totally sweet and beautiful, just like she was 11 years ago when I last saw her. 

So - New York - loved it. It wasn't scary at all and working there was a dream. I felt big time. I feel like I hit a new high in my career. Someone actually paid for me to travel to another city that isn't in rural Iowa. That doesn't happen all the time.

The New Digs

Yesterday, I went with the other two photographers to check out the progress on our studio. Walls are up, still waiting on drywall and electrical. It should be finished any day now... In the meantime we have the little task of naming this studio. We started out thinking we'd just name it something like Studio 212 since we're in suite 212. But now that seems lazy and a waste of a great identity. The more we think about it, the more we're collaborating on a new business rather than opening a studio. We're in a sweet part of town with tons of amazing creative businesses. We have the potential of creating workshops, taking on large jobs, combining our skills on photo shoots, working with commercial clients... We want to be more than "those girls" in 212. I think we're going to go the route of consulting with a branding and identity company that's located in the building. And this is the point where I'm thinking WTF have you gotten yourself into??? When did you become so grown up? In the past month I've consulted with a CPA, a lawyer, a real estate agent and a branding agency. This shit is real, guys.

And then just so you can be sure that I'm still a major dweeb, I did something dumb this morning that I'm going to tell you about. I found out that someone I used to date also has a company in the building. I went on Facebook this morning to look him up and check out his biz but I made the mistake of doing so on my iPhone. Well, tiny buttons plus fumbley hands adds up to me accidentally sending him a friend request. I cancelled it as soon as I possibly could, but now I look like a major stalker. Which I am. But people don't need to know that.

How I spent $5000 this week

Taxes! Taxes are so much fun when you're self-employed and married to someone who is also self-employed. I still owed on 2011 and my first quarter 2012 federal and state OH DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE STATE TAXES, CHRISTINE were due today, so I spent about $5000 in the last two days on fun things like government programs and public education. Yes, they need my money and I am a proud tax paying bleeding-heart Democrat... but do they really need so much of it?

And now that I'm totally broke I'm kinda regretting that girl's weekend shopping trip I just came back from... My new shopping policy is that I'm not allowed to buy anything until J.Crew's fall line comes out in September.

Word is out on the new studio. I consulted with my lawyer (because I was doing something that could potentially get me sued), and put in my notice to leave early. Turns out, I won't get sued. And I was able to pay my lawyer with a Whole Foods gift card and free photos. Hooray for bartering! Construction could be done as soon as three weeks. The space isn't technically ours until July but we've been given the okay to move in early to paint and prep.

This is such an amazing thing I'm doing. I don't mean that in a bragging way. I'm just saying that I never in a million years thought I would be doing something like this with my life.

Also equally impressive, I realized the other day that I was typing an email while watching HGTV. Like, my fingers and 1/2 my brain were doing work and my eyes and other 1/2 my brain were learning about the return value of basement remodeling. It was a proud moment.

Big news...

I have to let something out before I blow up and I don't have a safe public space to do it in. So, I'm putting it here since this blog is nearly all but abandoned and only read by people who end up here through errant google searches. (And maybe my sister!) 

I signed a lease on a studio today!!! I haven't put in my notice at my co-op that I'm leaving, so I'm trying unsuccessfully to keep it on the DL until I do. I'm going in on it with two other photographers. It's 100% ours, in an amazing part of town, in an amazing building - I don't want to let the entire cat out of the bag but the building name begins with a "Master" and ends with a "Craft." It's huge with beautiful natural light. We get to name our studio, get a logo and a sign... The whole shebang. I also have a new excuse to buy more furniture now. Gotta have a work space! And a fancy coffee maker.

 

Do you come here often?

I went out with a couple of lady friends last night to see a local band play. I was sitting at the bar and a man... let's just say he was unattractive in the most general and complete sense... hit on me. I informed him that I was married, to which he asked if I had a kid. (Because married is okay but being a mother is a deal breaker?) I told him yes and he replied - and this is golden - "Well, you've still got it because I find you attractive. I hope I made you feel good about yourself tonight." 

Ya. Thanks. Being someone's mom makes me feel like a total hag but THANK GOD you came along and made me feel better about myself. He actually made me feel terrible. I thought, really? That's all the ass I can pull these days? Good thing I married the hottest guy I ever dated because, obviously, I was never going to do any better. 

A little glimpse of success in this parenting thing

Matt and I take turns waking up in the morning with Lennon. Today was my day to take morning duty. When he started crying at 5:30am (poor kid pooped his pants) my first reaction was "Noooo!" And then I realized there was poop involved and my reaction changed to "Fuuuuuuck!" We ate some breakfast and then I turned on the TV and naturally, because I'm a good mom, I picked Wayne's World for us to watch. 

Then this happened:

Lennon asked for me to pick him up (asking = hands making grabby motions) and he sat down in my lap on the couch. After a few minutes, he scooted off my lap and laid down on the couch. I laid down next to him, put my arms around his adorable little body, and we cuddled and watched TV. It was the first time he's ever done that. It was one of the best moments of my life. 

Resolutions

I'm working on a few new resolutions in conjunction with the new year and new job. I feel like I really need to work on my communication skills. In business, I'm terrible about answering emails in a timely manner and I am turrrrible (say that in a Cleveland voice) about answering voicemails. I freaking hate voicemails. I need emails so I have written documents for sessions and weddings. Working things out over the phone leaves way too much room for someone to forget something. (Someone = me.) And when someone emails me and then immediately leaves me a voicemail to say that they've emailed me... Well, you're going straight into the trash folder. Those people are high maintenance and usually cause problems so I ignore them.

See? Major communication issues.

And in my personal life I'm even worse. My friends aren't going to give me a bad review on WeddingWire if I don't answer their emails right away so I usually flag them for "later" and then forget about it for 3 weeks. And then it seems too late to answer without looking like a jerk, so I just let it sit there and make me feel guilty. I'm bad about texting too. My parents, sister and husband are the only people who are guaranteed to get return texts. I'm just a flake and I'm bad at relationships. Always have been. I'm a lifelong loner and retaining friendships over long periods of time isn't an easy thing for me. I don't fall out of like with my friends. We don't fight. Nothing goes wrong. The only explanation is that part of me simply doesn't care. It doesn't really bother me to be isolated from people so I let my friends sort of drift away without making any attempt to keep them. It's a pretty shitty personal trait.

Other resolutions:

Stop shopping - Even though I'm buying a new couch today.
Take a vacation - The goal is Iceland but the reality is Minneapolis.
Work out bigger business goals for 2013 - I'm starting to think about finding my own studio.

Finally. 2012.

Hey ole blog! So, here's what's been going on:

My plan to quit my job in March 2012 got bumped up when I had a complete meltdown in October and decided to leave work at Thanksgiving. Best. Decision. Ever. Between the wedding album orders rolling in, all my fall weddings, and families getting photos done for the holidays, I was working at least 60 hours a week. It took until Christmas to catch up on everything.

And then Christmas happened. Or rather Day of Epic Disappointment happened. The plan was to host Christmas with my family for the first time ever so I went a little crazy. I bought holiday plates, table cloths, decorations for the house, $200 worth of food... And then I spent Christmas day hunched over the toilet. My family couldn't come over because my grandparents are in their 90s and can't afford being sick. I crawled out of the bathroom to watch Lennon open his presents and then I went back to bed and slept until December 26th. Wouldn't you know it, the next day I was totally fine.

I'm more than ready for the holidays to be over. It really feels like my new life is starting in 2012. There's no office to go back to, no shitty career that I don't like. When I go to a wedding, it feels like I'm going to work. I go and I work my ass off and I bring home a paycheck. It's good stuff.

$600

I spent $600 today on an advertisement for my business. Six hundred freakin dollars. I would love to have spent that money on a bunch of stuff from Fossil that I'm freaking out over... but instead I spent it on a featured ad on a wedding website.

Sigh.

This is what it's like to run a business.

I can add up my contracts for next year and say, ok, I'm going to make $50,000 next year. (That's just a number I made up.) But "me" making $50,000 and "my business" making $50,000 are totally different things. There is a surprising amount of overhead to running any business. For me, I pay a monthly lease, a monthly vendor listing on a wedding site, shipping costs, album and printing costs, office supplies, camera/new lighting equipment, second shooter payments... It's insane. Of all the money I've made off this business this year, I've spent $14,000 on getting it up and running to the point where I will be able to make money off of it in 2012.

It's just so strange to have woken up this morning and spent $600 like it was nothing. With any luck, the advertisement will make my money back in bookings, but it's still such a lot of money.

Not the good kind of high

Turns out I have high cholesterol. How awesome is that? It's gone up 27 points in the last four years. I'm not an expert on these matters, but I don't think that's a good thing. Right now I'm in the "elevated" range of 200-240. If it keeps rising at the current rate, I'll be in the 240+ "high-risk" range by the time I'm 31. I think the biggest factor affecting my cholesterol level is genetics. My mom's family has some crazy cholesterol happening over there. If genetics are negatively effecting my cholesterol, there's really not a whole lot I can do about it.

The other factor in cholesterol levels is, of course, weight, diet and exercise. Now. I'm not much of an exerciser these days, so the obvious solution to that is - more exercise. But diet? Do you know the foods that are contributors to high cholesterol? Meats, cheeses, butter, baked goods, packaged snacks like crackers and chips, shrimp, full fat dairy… So, basically all the good ones. I'm going to try to cut out beef and pork and a lot of the cheese I eat. At home we're going to do a mostly vegetarian diet with fish and chicken added in occasionally. We've been cooking a lot of curry and bean based dishes lately, so I don't think it will be that big of a deal. I'm going to miss bacon though. Bacon is so fucking good. Turkey bacon and veggie bacon are a joke. I don't know who came up with that stuff and thought, "Oh ya, people will never miss the real thing."

Bacon and my mother are probably equally responsible for my cholesterol.

Feeling Sucky

I returned a batch of wedding photos to a client and I'm afraid that she doesn't like them. She responded to my email with a question and nothing to the effect of "I like these." I'm insecure here, folks. If you don't tell me you like your photos, I assume you hate them and that you're going to bash me on an internet forum somewhere. I constantly live in fear of ruining peoples' weddings and getting destroyed by online ratings. Fuck, the life of a wedding photographer is so glamourous.

Matt also left today for Texas. I'm bummed out because he's going down there to play at a surprise birthday party for friends of the family. I used to work with both of them and have known them for probably seven years so I'm a little disappointed that he gets to go and I'm staying home. Stupid responsibilities.

On top of that, I have actual work to do at my 8-5 job and I've been in a total rage all week over it. I'm learning this new IT platform and it totally blows. I hate the internet. Wait, correction. I hate building things on the internet. I hate design work. I hate HTML. I hate sitting at a desk.

Oh, and I keep thinking it's Friday. Which it's not.

I think this is just one of those weeks where life sucks and hopefully beer and sleeping in this weekend will fix it.

Catch Up!

Lennon was on Offbeat Mama last week.

I have missed a lot of that boy lately. Between May and June I had nine weddings and they kicked my ass into the ground. I got everything edited and ready to return and no one hated their photos. Everyone actually liked them. I couldn't believe it. So, now I have a bit of a lull in work until August weddings start approaching the late mark. That means I get to be a real person again and spend time with my family and blog for non-self-promotional reasons. I have 24 weddings booked next year, which unfortunately is not enough to meet our income needs. I'm confident I can book 10 more to cover all the bills... but it would be so much easier if I just raised my prices $1000 a wedding. Every bride in Omaha is finding me though some "Budget Brides" member board over at The Knot. I would like to personally thank whoever started that thread because she's keeping me in business. As of April 2012 I will no longer be working my 8-5 job. I'm quitting on my five year anniversary. How fitting! My 401K will be fully vested, wedding season will start the following weekend, and I don't see the need to stay one day longer than is necessary.

I started shooting with another photographer and she's beyond awesome. She's only doing one wedding a month with me right now, but next year she's going to shoot almost all weddings with me. I'm so relieved. She makes the wedding day go so much smoother. And I have someone to complain to. The only snag at our first wedding was she left early because the wedding ran over on time, and then they started the first dance while I was in the bathroom. Seriously. It was the first time I took a break to pee in over six hours and I miss the first three minutes of their dance. (These are the types of complaints I have. Majorly interesting stuff.)

We've done some work around the house. We made-over our bedroom, got new windows, and swapped out some furniture in the living-room with things that Lennon can't gash his sweet noggin on. We also bought a new bed for the guest room since my studio equipment is being moved out and we're actually having a guest come stay with us. So, that's up next. When all the rooms are done I want to do a house tour and submit it to Offbeat Home. I would send it to Apartment Therapy but I think my house is a little too low-brow for that site. People on there say mean things when they don't like your coffee table. Going back to the windows - those damn things cost us over $7000 to replace. 16 windows cost $6700, then we had to pay another $500 because the current windows tested positive for lead. While I'm happy to not be living in a drafty, lead infested house, I'm not happy to have just dropped a staggering amount of money on something so not fun. Being an adult blows sometimes.

I'm continuing to make poor clothing choices. Including but not limited to: platforms so tall I can't walk or drive in them (but my legs look gorgeous), red high-waisted shorts, ultra-high waisted 70s jeans, wide leg pants that some lady thought were pajamas, a John Lennon tunic tee that says "WAR IS OVER," and a shiny lime green pencil skirt. I was on the look out for a jumpsuit but couldn't find one I liked. Which is probably for the better. I've given up trying to have a definable style and now I just dress like a kook. My favorite fashion related spots are ModCloth and Bleubird Vintage

Bedroom Makeover, Like it Might Finally Happen This Time

I'm on a self-imposed home decor buying hiatus until the Missoni for Target line comes out. Or until the pictures come out and I decide I hate everything and don't want any of it. Which isn't likely to happen. It's multi-colored chevrons, people. How would I not like that?

In the meantime though, our bedroom sucks. I had HUGE, HUGE I TELL YOU plans a couple years ago to make the bedroom awesome. But I didn't. I bought curtains and a runner and gave up. The basement is the only successful start-to-finish room makeover I've done. The livingroom? Didn't happen. Nursery? Nope. Office? I don't think so. So, now I'm going back to the bedroom but I don't want to spend a whole lot. (Damn you, Missoni!!!) Using mostly accessories I bought for the office and then dumped into storage when Lennon came along, I came up with this:



The walls right now are powder blue and chocolate brown. Yes, it's as fugly as it sounds. I think I want to paint the room white (that's a first) and paint the closet doors a super glossy black. The curtains and chandelier I already have. I just have to buy the rug if it will fit in the bedroom. And please, tell me you can look at that rug and not immediately start singing Outkast.

Sunday With the Fam

Here's the family hanging out on Sunday. Lennon can't crawl yet so he can't get away when I'm smothering him.

My brain is home

I am so friggin glad that Matt is home. My brain went into survival mode while he was gone. This morning I found a stack of photo payments in my purse that I never cashed and a pile of bills that were due 2 weeks ago. If a task wasn't related to work or Lennon, it got pushed to the dark, cobweb covered, back corner of my brain. And now that everything is slowly coming back to me, I'm realizing what I spaz I was while he was gone.

And in some super awesome photography news, I'm meeting with a lady on Thursday who is opening a photographer's co-op in September. She's going to show me the space and her build-out plans. If everything looks good, I could potentially be signing a lease on a real studio space! I would sign a lease based on the amount of time I want every month, like 10 sessions or 20 sessions. It works out great because I really only pay for what I need and I'm not the one responsible for the expense and upkeep of a large studio. It's incredibly affordable and the lady I've been talking with is really nice. Assuming the space looks good, I'm 90% sure I'm going to sign. WHOO HOO! Just another step closer to doing this full-time.

Avoiding the Mom suit

I've been debating what to do about a swimsuit this year. We go to a pool maybe twice a year so I'm not in dire need of one. But the awesome Nike bikini I bought a couple of years ago might be facing retirement. I lost all my pregnancy weight and I don't have any stretch marks or other gross-to-talk belly issues. But my stomach does look a little... sad. Like my belly button is making a frowny face. And for whatever reason I now have a pinchable bit of ribcage fat that wasn't there before. I feel comfortable clothed and even clothed in tight shirts. But this isn't something I'm ready to bare to the general public. I need bootcamp and a cocktail before that will happen.

I really wanted this because I think it's kind of crazy and retro so people will just think I'm a weirdo and not that I'm hiding something. But I'm not sure I'm ready to admit defeat against my body and the two-piece. Plus, buying a one piece online worries me. If I could try this on before buying it, I would probably end up getting it.

However, I decided to go with a tanikini. But not just any tankini, a Victoria's Secret Miraculous tankini. I've decided that the only logical thing to do while I cling to the remaining years of my 20s is to show as much boob as possible to deter people from looking at the rest of my body.

It will be arriving today and I hope it does not does not disappoint.

UPDATE...

Oh god. It was bad. Its already wrapped back up and waiting to be taken to the post office.

What's for Dinner?

We've reached the point in our child's life where we have to start feeding him real food. I can't even explain how terrifying this prospect is. I finally have a firm, white-knuckled grasp on parenting and now I have to add another step into the process.

Bottles: Got it.
Medicine: No problem.
Bath time: Easy.
Bed time: Under control.

But food? What the eff... It's complicated. You'd think it would be the simplest thing ever. Heat food and put it in your kid's mouth. I'm stressing about it a lot more than that, though. Food shouldn't take the place of bottles, so he has to have a bottle first before eating. But what if he isn't hungry then? Or what if he eats too much and then barfs it all over? What if he wants something to drink afterwards? Do I give him another bottle or can I give him water?

Will my pediatrician think I'm a psycho if I ask her these questions? Should I just forward her to my blog and beg PLEASE GUIDE ME!!!

Obviously, there are certain foods best suited for feeding a baby without any tolerance for food, or teeth. But we still have to be conscious of his MSPI and reflux so foods with a high acidity, or foods containing or resembling soy (lima beans and things like that) and dairy are out of the question. I've checked a bunch of sites and I have a small list of safe foods: carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, green beans and mangos. Yumm. It's kind of funny that my baby is a vegan.

I am kind of excited for him to start growing and packing on some weight with these new foods. He's kind of small. The ped's office usually measures his height really fast because he's squirming, so it's not totally accurate. They measure him about 2 inches taller than he really is. According to them, he's around the 25th percentile for height, but I measured him while he was sleeping and he's actually off the chart at less than 5%. He's just a wee little man.

The Crazies Down the Street

A couple months ago, a Planned Parent opened up in our neighborhood. We all know that PP are a bunch of Satan-loving-baby-killers, so as soon as the new location was announced, the holy started protesting. First, they argued that a strip mall was an unsafe and dangerous place for a medical business. Ironically, there's a plastic surgery center down the street in a strip mall. I don't have any first-hand experience with abortion procedures, but I'm guessing they're a lot less dangerous than a boob job.

When that didn't fly, they argued that the close proximity to a daycare was inappropriate. They said, "What do I tell my child when he asks me what an abortion clinic is?" From the street, you can see one tasteful sign that simply says, "Planned Parenthood." They decided to forego the giant "GET YOUR ABORTION HERE" sign with the flashing red arrow pointing to the front door. Unless you tell your kid it's an abortion clinic, it looks like any other place of business from the outside. Which, it is.

And when the attempts to block the clinic from opening failed, they resorted to picketing. And when the picketers wore out, the only thing left to do was hold 24/7 prayer vigils from the sidewalk outside. And that is where they still are to this day. At any hour, on any day, you drive by and there is at least one person standing on the sidewalk, facing the building, praying. Sometimes it's just one old guy (and he's started to bring a chair along with him.) I understand why these people are praying, but I don't understand why they're doing it from the sidewalk. Most of the time, the clinic is closed and there is no one near the place, except for the folks praying. So, they're obviously not praying for the people working or patronizing the clinic - Because they're not there! The only people who see them are people who live in the neighborhood. Are they preying for the building to burn down? Praying for congress to repeal PP's funding? (Oh wait…) If so, why can't they do that from home or from church? Does distance from the thing you're praying for effect the strength of the prayer? Probably not.

I have no issue with the act of prayer and people who pray. But I have issue with the crazies who stand out in the rain at midnight on a Saturday and pray at an empty building. It's just crazy. I have a feeling these are the same people who walk around our neighborhood and slip Christian literature under peoples' doormats. Matt answered once when they came to the door and the guys asked where we worshiped at. We said we didn't have a church and he told us that we were going to spend an eternity in hell together unless we found God. I would have kindly told him to get the fuck off my property if he wasn't soliciting Jesus with his five year old grandson by his side. This is why I have a problem with the PP prayers. They're out there because they think that people who walk in those doors are sinners and terrible people who are committing terrible acts against God and need to be saved. When really, they're just people who need affordable medical access and from time to time, need access to an unfortunate, yet entirely legal, surgical procedure. They're exercising they're rights to assemble, protest, and be judgmental.

Baby got sick. I love taking pictures. Matt's job is exciting.

Our household suffered our first go-round with a sick baby. It was only mildly terrible. He was a total grouch for a couple of days before we started doping him up with Tylenol. His cold turned into a cough at which point we went to the doctor. Lennon ended up with bronchitis/croup so the doctor rewarded him with a nebulizer. Just so everyone knows in case it comes up in the future, babies freak the fuck out when you put a nebulizer mask on them. He got used to it after the third treatment, but my god it was the meltdown of the century. He's still sick but it's tolerable now and he's happy again. Parenting = accomplished.

I am slowly getting back into photography season. (Is it a season if it lasts 8 months? Isn't that just life?) It is so much fun. Seriously, I can't believe how enjoyable it all is. Last year, I think my pregnancy affected me mentally more than I realized. I always felt worn down and my photos weren't consistently good. I've had a few recent engagement sessions and a wedding and all of them have been incredible experiences with great results. I also found a workshop with a photographer who I absolutely love. Like, I would forsake my wedding vows for this women she's so incredible. She's offering one-on-one workshops where we would shoot together with a model and talk business topics like marketing, workflow, post-processing, what I want my style to be, my passion for what I do, being an upbeat businessperson, etc. It sounds perfect.

Matt also has something really exciting going on. Him and another performer in his show were recruited by a huge national Beatles act to audition for parts. The show tours and does Broadway. He's reluctant to say he's excited about it, but I think he is. He graduated from a performing arts high school in Florida with the likes of Mickey Mouse Club members, television actors, American Idol finalists, Broadway performers, and purse goddess, Rebecca Minkoff. I think a part of him wants to do something really big like this so he can be one of "those kids" who succeeded and got to do what they wanted with their lives. He's already doing really well, but this is a jump from community theater to motherfuckinBroadway. How could he not be excited? It would be pretty sweet if it worked out and he got to audition. But even if he doesn't, he just signed a contract to perform for a week on a cruise. He's getting paid to go to Key West and the Grand Cayman Islands. That ought to cheer him up.

That's about it for an update.

People Be Crazy

I read this crazy Sarah Palin quote (but really, aren't they all?) on CNN this morning:

"No wonder Michelle Obama is telling people to breast feed their babies, because the price of milk is rising so high."

Uhh. What? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't feed a baby milk from a cow as an alternative to breast milk. Sure, some formulas are made partially from cow's milk, but straight up cows milk would be hella cheaper to feed your kid than $15 cans of formula. But I don't think that's what she was talking about. I think she's just a dumb lady who says dumb things and she was trying to make an ohsnap on Mrs. Obama and the current Dem run economy but failed. She's also upset that Mr. Obama isn't hanging out in Egypt telling them how to run things over there. I think we're all in agreement that Egypt is a nation unto itself, not controlled by America, so I'm not sure why she thinks they want to listen to anything he would have to say - especially considering the fact that we can't even run ourselves efficiently.

I read another crazy quote from someone on a message board who said she avoided having an epidural during labor because she didn't want her kid to get autism. I guess I missed that chapter in What to Expect When You're Expecting because I was completely oblivious to the fact that there is an autism/epidural link now that the autism/vaccine link is old news.

People are really, shockingly out of their minds sometimes. A former roommate once told me that he didn't use teflon or the microwave because they cause cancer. The actual words out of his mouth were, "Do you think ancient Greeks died of cancer? No, because they didn't have things like teflon and microwaves." Ehem, the word cancer came from Hippocrates, a really old Greek dude.