Greetings, devoted blog readers. Since I’m sure you guys are just perishing from lack of blogs, I wanted to drop a line to let you know I’ll be out of commission for a few more days - my faithful Mac finally died, and the new one (thank you, student loans) is on the way. Stay tuned!

A couple of years ago, at one of the Madison Writers Institute conferences, I went to this class on marketing yourself. Up until then, my appearances at the conference had mostly been writing-oriented - I had, after all, never taken a single creative writing course in any of my formal schooling, so I had a lot to catch up on. This time, though, I finally felt ready to branch out a little.

And that’s where I first learned about the power of Twitter. I had heard of Twitter, of course, but only as something that people used to spend time with Ashton Kutcher. At the conference, though, they basically told us that if we wanted to be writers, we had to do certain things, beyond, you know, writing the book. And having a Twitter account was part of that.

See, it used to be that authors would do these things called book tours, where they would travel around and read parts of their books to live crowds at bookstores (and by “crowds,” I mean 4-7 people). And that was pretty much the beginning and end of an author’s involvement in marketing. Now, however, the landscape has changed, and publishers want an active author who participates via something called a platform. A platform is basically what you can bring to the table, marketing-wise. Maybe you’re a University of Wisconsin professor, and your book can be marketed throughout all the UW campuses. Maybe you wrote a book about rock-climbing, and you’re involved with different rock-climbing organizations, all of whom will promote your work. Maybe your blog has a rabid fan base, and all those thousands of visitors each day can be counted on to purchase copies. And so on. It’s a combination of your background, your book’s topic, and how much or little you interact with the public, and it’s incredibly important.

That’s where things like Twitter and Facebook come in. When you’re trying to sell a book, publishers will be interested in how many friends you have, because each of those friends is a potential book buyer. So as I’m trying to get a platform together for my agent to present to publishers, I have an assignment: get more friends.

Ha.

Guess what, folks? Making friends wasn’t easy in third grade, and it isn’t much easier now, despite the overwhelming access to others that we have now, thanks to the internet. With Facebook, this is my own fault - I always considered Facebook to be something I wanted to keep private, for me to communicate with people who actually know me. So I’ve turned down a lot of friend requests, and I’ve made no effort to get new ones. Whoops.

With Twitter, though, it’s another story. How the hell do you make Twitter friends? I’ve had two ideas. First, I asked all my Facebook friends to be my Twitter friends, too, which is kind of cheating but who cares. And second, I’ve been trying to tweet to celebrities.

I know, it’s super douche-y, am I right? Trying to piggyback off the fame of others kind of makes me nauseous, but it’s come to my attention that if I make a clever comment to a celebrity as a response to one of their tweets, people notice. Still, this isn’t exactly a great strategy. If anyone has ideas on how I can…um…get more friends, I’d love to hear them. Unless it’s even sleazier. Then I’m out.

Oh yeah, and if you’d like to take this blog as the sort of shameless self-promotion that it kind of is, you can find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lisolson.

The time is now 3:00 AM. Mattie will undoubtedly wake me up before seven, and I have a very full day tomorrow, but I still find myself completely unable to get to sleep. It’s because of a book. Well, two books.

I had a little free time this week (!), just enough to pick up my reading a bit. I’ve been deep into Justin Cronin’s “The Passage,” which is this summer’s “The Historian” or “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” In other words, as far as I can tell, it’s the “It” book of the summer, and with good reason. The novelis a nearly 800-page mash-up of “The Road” and “28 Days Later,” and it’s sort of a big contradiction.

See, when it comes to books, there’s a pretty defined line dividing the two classes (even more than in the film industry). There is genre fiction, which is just as it sounds - horror, mystery, romance, medical thrillers, whatever. This kind of writing (the kind I write, by the way) is also known as commercial fiction, because it sells. To the everyday, ordinary reader. The other kind of writing is best referred to simply as literature, and these are the prestige books - all the big classics, plus the work of Michael Chabon, Wally Lamb, John Irving, and many others. (I would give you more examples, but there’s a baby asleep in the room with my bookshelves.) These are the books that are released as hardcovers, and then the big $15 fancy paperbacks you see on the Buy 3, Get 1 Free tables at Borders. They win awards. They get raves from the best critics in the world. They achieve great renown. They are turned into movies which do very poorly at the box office and very well on Oscar night. You get the idea.

The divide between these two kinds of writing is pretty deep, with feelings of snobbery and inadequacy infiltrating both camps. But, occasionally, a book comes along that actually manages to be both things, critically adored and hungered after by the masses. And they usually pack quite a wallop.

“The Passage” is one of these books. Story-wise, it’s very ‘genre’ - we’re basically talking about your garden-variety post-apocalyptic vampires-take-over-the-world kind of deal. Very cinematic. (Fun fact: The rights to the book have long since been purchased by Ridley Scott’s people. Not a fan.) This is, of course, exactly the kind of thing I can’t resist. But the writing is very ‘literary.’ Deeply drawn characters, thoughtful, relate-able themes, and an emotional intensity that you never find in anything by Janet Evanovitch. Hell, Cronin has an MFO from Iowa, which is probably the best writing program in the country. More than anything, I think it’s a book about despair and hope, with despair in the forefront for the majority of the trip.

In other words, it’s exhausting.

To combat the depression that this book inspires (and because of the impending due date at the library), I did something I almost never do: I started another book at the same time. And although I felt like a dirty cheater. my motive was pure: I wanted something light and fluffy to relieve the tension. I have enjoyed the previous books of Emily Giffin, a women’s lit author best known for the book “Something Borrowed,” which is now being made into a Kate Hudson movie. And although the last thing I read of hers - “Baby Proof” was suspiciously somber, I thought picking up her latest, “Heart of the Matter,” would be just what I needed.

So. Wrong.

“Heart of the Matter” is all about marriage, and the gender dynamics of women who stay home with babies vs. men who go off to work. Basically, the plot breakdown is this: A happily (or ARE they???) married couple hits the rocks when the guy starts to consider an affair. Probably 80% of the whole stupid book is him dancing around this idea, and the tension is unbearable. Reading these books together, in the same week, was kind of like having someone’s fingers wrapped around your heart - fingers that squeeze just enough so you’re uncomfortable, but not so much that you can quit. It was awful.

In the end, I don’t have many good things to say about “Heart of the Matter” - the book tries to make an affair out to be this complex, nobody’s-fault thing, but at the end of the day the whole story could have been summarized in about three pages. I felt very much as though I’d been put through the emotional wringer for no payoff. “The Passage,” on the other hand, is all about the payoff. Epic, engrossing, distressing, captivating; I can see how this book has earned “It” status. I couldn’t put it down, as much as I often wanted to. So much of the story is bleak, bleak, bleak, but there’s enough hope and joy and badassery that you just become really invested. Of course, the stupid thing (800 pages!) ends with a cliffhanger, which means a sequel or even long series, but I can’t be that mad about it. Mostly because I want to read on.

I think when the next book comes out, however, I’m gonna plan a spa day in the middle of my reading time, or just organize hourly hugs or something. In the meantime, I just want to try to get some sleep.

Two things are happening in Mattie’s world right now.

First, she is (hopefully) finally getting over the two-month ear infection that’s plagued our house. We’ve tried…I don’t know, four or five different antibiotics, and the last one has finally worked. If she gets one more ear infection in the next six weeks, however, then she has to have surgery to get the tubes. I’m not thrilled about her having surgery, but the past two months have been so rough for her; I’m ready to do about anything to make it better.

Which brings me to the next thing. As often happens with sick kids (or so I’m learning), having her ears messed up has completely thrown off any semblance of a schedule Mattie may have had. Namely, she’s not sleeping. She won’t go to bed, and when she finally does, she won’t stay asleep, and none of that stops her from getting up earlier than ever.

Now that she’s finally getting better, Husband and I had a State of the Union on sleeping, and we’ve come to the following conclusions:

1. Mattie needs to sleep better, or we’re both going to go crazy.
2. She needs to go to bed earlier - 8:00 would be ideal
3. We are doing everything wrong.

That last point is the result of research I’ve been doing on toddler sleeping habits, which work differently than baby sleeping habits. And it seems we’ve been making a lot of mistakes. First, our crazy schedules (we both work nights, but I never work the same nights and get done at all different times) has made it difficult to establish a solid bedtime routine, and we stopped trying. Mistake. Secondly, we’ve been letting her fall asleep with the bottle, which a)keeps her from putting herself back to sleep in the night, because she expects it, and b)can contribute to her ear infections, not to mention c)is bad for her teeth. Mistake(s). Furthermore, neither of us are willing to let her “cry it out” anymore, especially when she’s been so sick, so she still hasn’t really learned how to put herself to sleep - she gets to sit with us until she’s out, and then someone carefully places her in bed. Mistake.

Do you ever feel like you’re just failing on all fronts?

Obviously, changes need to be made. The current problem is how to change them. We decided to start with the actual TIME she goes down, figuring once that routine was established we could work on getting rid of the bottle, etc. Baby steps, pun intended. But there’s just one problem: nobody asked Mattie if this plan was okay with her. Every night this week, I’ve tried to get her to go to bed - the idea was to go 15 minutes or so earlier every night - and each time she’s pitched a huge fit that got her all worked up, which ended up just delaying the time she finally fell asleep. Last night she was wandering around in her pajamas at 10:45, and I just ran out of ideas, which is an awful feeling. We traditionally get her to fall asleep by laying down with her and a bottle, playing quiet music or TV in the background. But this week the kid refuses to lay down. Try to cuddle her, and you get the screaming fit of your life. Which just riles her up further.

I have, of course, consulted the “experts” (thank you, Google, for helping me demonstrate my parenting inadequacies in 14,003,295 ways). Here’s a list that’s basically a summary of everyone’s advice:

1. Keep your toddler active during the day with plenty of outdoor play.
Uh, yeah. The heat index yesterday was like 92. Taking my child outside is like taking a goldfish out of water, except with sluggishness instead of flopping.

2. Create a consistent, calming bedtime ritual. Start with a warm bath, for instance, then play quietly together in his room.
Again, the problem with our schedules - she alternates which parent puts her down, and half the time I seem to walk into the house while Tyler’s trying to get her to sleep, causing dogs to hyperventilate and baby to wake up. Then there’s the fact that Mattie’s not actually allowed to play in her room, because her idea of “playing” is emptying all the dresser drawers and bookshelves.

3. Cuddle your toddler in your lap as you read a story or sing songs together.
Yeah, we do that all day. How does that signify “bedtime?”

4. Don’t let your child get used to sleeping with a bottle or dozing off in your arms. Offer her a comfort object instead, such as a stuffed doll or a blanket.
Too late.

5. Play a tape or CD of soft lullabies or soothing music as you leave the room.
First, Mattie doesn’t give a crap what she hears when she’s dropped off in her crib - she starts screaming the moment you walk into her room, if she’s still at all awake. Second, we don’t own a CD player. We used to have a speaker for my iPod, but Mattie broke it, which is looking more and more like a calculated move to not have to sleep. And third, if the idea is to teach her how to put herself to sleep so that if she wakes up in the night she can put herself right back down, how is this at all helpful?

The final method I’ve seen basically involves reasoning with your kid - offering some sort of reward for going to bed on time, or explaining the importance of sleep. But Mattie is sixteen and a half months old. She’s only recently discovered where her nose is. And if she was old enough to bargain, I can assure you she’d not only go to bed, but also be eating vegetables. Not happening, people.

So, taking all that into account…I’m pretty much at square one. I have nothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an agent.

A brief warning: If my experience at [unnamed large video store chain] and [unnamed government organization] has taught me anything, it’s discretion. I’ve been conditioned to believe that talking too much about any internal-organization activity may violate something I’ve signed or perhaps the Geneva Code. With that in mind, I’m not going to get too deep into the details, but here’s what happened. As you know if you read this blog regularly, I’ve been sporadically sending out query letters for a little over a year. Eleven days ago, I finally got a hit: an agent in Virginia liked my book and offered me a standard agency contract.

First, I peed myself. Okay, not really, but you know what I mean. But I got very, very excited. My excitement was a little tempered, however, by the rest of the agent’s email. She was very upfront and honest about her status in the publishing world - she had only been an agent for a year and a half, and had one solid sale under her belt, an audiobook. Not the most confidence inspiring situation, but a) beggars can’t be choosers, and b) I of all people understand the whole “you need a job to get experience and experience to get a job” paradox.

But before I signed the contract, I asked a fellow author for some advice, and based on that, I made a business move: I emailed the four other agents who had requested to read part of my book, and let them know that I’d had an offer. As it turns out, nothing lights a fire under an agent’s behind like knowing they may miss out on something. All of them promised to get back to me by Monday, and all of them did. And I got another hit - another agent offered to represent me, the one who I’d pitched to at the Madison Writers Institute. She had a lot of published books out there already, and I have to say, it made me more comfortable that she lives in New Jersey, close enough to all the New York publishing houses. The big twist was, though, that she made the offer on my second book.

In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves, whoa.

See, it’s not so often that you get put in a room with an agent, and when I met with her, I’d decided to pitch both books to improve my chances of getting some interest. At the time, though, my second book, Dead Spots, was…well, not quite done. By the time I got the offer last week, of course, it had been done for awhile, but I hadn’t even sent out any other queries yet. Which made the offer of representation kind of a big surprise - one of those awesome surprises you get excited about. I was impressed by this agent’s eagerness and enthusiasm, and I signed the contract on Friday. By yesterday, I had my first list of edits to get started on.

And that’s how it all worked out. Phase 1 was writing the book, Phase 2 was finding an agent. Now we come to Phase 3, in which we edit and try to find a publisher. And for the first time, it’s a we, not a me. I have a partner now, a knowledgeable, experienced partner. Who’s legally required to have my back.

In a very unsettling glimpse of my possible future, I am having non-pregnancy morning sickness.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time, you may remember my long, agonizing battle with morning sickness. It was terrible. It was agonizing. It was…a great reason to never have kids again. At one point, the doctors put me on the same antinausea medicine they give cancer patients to help them cope with chemo. And a week and a half ago, I started having the same familiar bouts of nausea. I knew I couldn’t be pregnant, so I figured it was a stomach thing that would pass, but unfortunately the sickness has kept up on and off ever since. Over the last two days alone, it’s built up to the point where I had to call Husband to come home from work today to take care of me. And the question on everyone’s minds, folks, has got to be, “what the f*%@&?”

No. I am definitely not pregnant. When I called my doctor today to discuss, the nurse told me to take a pregnancy test immediately and call for an appointment with my GP if it was negative. I did, and it was. So I called the GP’s office to make an appointment, and was immediately shuffled off to a nurse, who told me that I wasn’t sick enough to see the doctor (you’ll change your tune when I drive over there and throw up on you, lady), and I should pick up some Pepsid. Which is a heartburn medication. Because, being an idiot, I don’t know the difference between heartburn and nausea. Silly me.

In other words, nobody can tell me what’s going on, and I feel pretty anxious about that. But I’m distracting myself with this thought: whatever this thing is, it’s also sort of like a visit from the Ghost of Illness Future. Because if I decide to have another baby - and that’s always been the plan - I’m going to have to be going through this again, every day, for at least four months. And that concept is getting more and more terrifying.

See, the first time I had morning sickness, I had no idea what I was getting into. No idea. And that made things easier because they were inevitable - by the time I realized just how bad it was going to get, it was too late to back out. Now, though, I know exactly what will happen if I get pregnant again - hell, I can feel it. Am I really going to be able to pull the trigger on the next baby knowing what i now know? There’s a big part of me that would prefer to just adopt, but I’d feel terribly guilty about it - there are so many childless couples in the world; I really don’t want to take a child away from them when I’m sitting on a perfectly good uterus.

Yeeps. I think I need to calm down and stop psyching myself out. But hey, universe, that would be a lot easier if you’d stop making me crazy sick. Help a girl out, here.

Huh. Apparently, the blog that I thought I wrote last week never actually made it onto my website. This is especially irritating when I’ve already been slacking off on the blog writing. Come on, internet, I don’t need any help to look like a miscreant. I do it all by myself.

Anyhoo, the world of entertainment, Melissa edition, has been pretty dominated this week by my new hero. That’s actually the Sprint Hero with Google, the smartest phone to ever vibrate the earth. Okay, there are probably smarter (read: more expensive and therefore probably more sophisticated) phones, but I can’t imagine what those must be able to do. Take care of my child? Do landscaping? Solve the Middle East crisis?

The Hero does everything I can imagine. It tells me the weather, with adorable little touches like a windshield wiper sweeping across the screen when it’s raining, or clouds floating around when it’s foggy. It has a 5.0 megapixel camera, which lets me toss pictures around like cheap confetti. It’s a touchscreen, of course, so the games are phenomenal and the apps (when did we stop saying “applications?” WHEN?) are both breathtakingly useless and hilariously random. For example, there is actually a coin flip app. For, you know, when you’re overwhelmed by all the real-life manual labor of FLIPPING A COIN. You can download a barcode scanner app, which lets you scan barcodes in a store and instantly compare the price of that object with other stores. You can track your menstral cycle, follow your favorite NASCAR team, or play a game called Mario vs. Zombies. There is honestly a Bible app, people. A Bible app. And that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg - I’m playing this game where I won’t read any of the phone’s instructions, so I’m sure I haven’t begun to make it work yet.

My favorite thing? The notifications. The phone doesn’t just tell me when I have a new voicemail or text; it shows when I have a new email or facebook message. I don’t have to check my computer 80 times a day anymore; I just glance at the phone’s homepage. It’s glorious.

Even as I play with all this, though, I do worry that I’m somehow contributing to some sort of upcoming apocalypse. All this technology can’t be as easy and fun as it claims to be. Have we learned nothing from the movie Pulse, people? Okay, no, we actually did learn nothing from that, but what about the Terminator movies? (both of them. Yeah, I said it.) I mean, the phone’s software is called the Android system, for crying out loud. I feel like I’m just begging to open the door to a robot-wielded shotgun blast. “Melissa Olson?” “Yeeees?” BOOM.

And what happens when an EMP takes out the phone after I’ve become pathetically dependent on it? I’ll go through creepy withdrawal symptoms, my thumbs flickering around uselessly as I try to blink as fast as I can to simulate animation. It’s going to be awful. Maybe this phone is going to cause me more worry than having no phone at all.

But you’d still have to pry it from my cold dead robot-murdered fingers.

Numbers 567 and 568 on the list of Things I Did Not Expect when it comes to parenthood: just how often the baby would be sick, and just how much more complicated vacations would be.

Mattie is currently resting from her second battle in as many weeks with pinkeye and an ear infection, simultaneously. My poor girl is just miserable, and once again I’m feeling both completely inadequate and a little…annoyed? No, that’s not the right word. Frustrated? Tired? Something more along those lines.

See, when Mattie gets sick, it sends ripples out into the entire little world that my family lives in, affecting plans, work, daycare, the dogs, my writing, the cleanliness of the house, etc. And lately it seems like she gets sick all the time. By the time she ‘recovers’ from an ear infection, she’s got a fever from teething, which leads to another ear infection, and then the antibiotics cause her to develop a yeast infection, and then she gets pinkeye from daycare…it’s endless. The ripples never seem to stop.

I feel like this is one of those situations where seasoned parents everywhere are nodded in satisfaction at me, thinking to themselves, “Gotcha! We didn’t tell you about this when you were thinking about having kids, so you’d end up as miserable as we are! Muwahahaha! Another hapless victim!” Evil parents. If that sounds kind of harsh, well, I’m in a harsh mood. I’m very tired, and feel in most ways drained of my life force. And this, mind you, is after three days of vacation.

Yes, in that all-too-brief window between Mattie being sick last week and Mattie being sick this week, I took her up to my aunt and uncle’s cabin near Drummond, WI to Olson Family Memorial Day. Now, I’ve always loved Olson Memorial Day, if for no other reason than we all gorge ourselves on junk, and everybody wants to relax. You can sit and read for six hours straight if you want (and I have), or engage in any number of family togetherness activities, like fishing, campfires, shopping, hiking, whatever. Sure, the mosquitos and ticks are oppressive, but it’s always been worth it for the laid-back attitude.

This year, though, it was different. I still had a great time, and I know Mattie did, too. I’m always happy when she gets to be around my extended family, because I grew up in the middle of a huge tumble of family members, and I want her to have that experience. But while the weekend was fun, it was also anything but relaxing. Mattie’s a toddler, and has to be watched every second. She was already starting her ear infection symptoms - neither of us slept much, and she wouldn’t eat anything but raisins, which made her poop a lot - and the massive quantities of people were just intimidating enough that she did not want to be more than two feet away from me at any given moment. Okay, to be fair, the separation anxiety thing has been happening for awhile now, but everything was just so…enhanced. My family was wonderful about trying to help with Mattie, but she rarely wanted to go to any of them, and even Tyler couldn’t help, since he was stuck at work in Madison.

I was reminded of a recent episode of ABC’s “Modern Family,” the one where they go to Hawaii. Phil, the bumbling, clueless husband, encourages his type-A wife to just relax already, and she says, “Honey, I’m a full-time mom with three kids. For me this isn’t a vacation; it’s a business trip.” When I saw that episode, that line made a big impact on me, because I knew right away exactly how true it was. This “vacation” up north was a lot of fun, but it was also exhausting. I don’t know, maybe it was like that for everyone, or for all the moms there. But everyone else made having their kids along look so easy.

Sigh. I just kind of feel like a failure here, but I’m not even sure what I’ve failed at. Keeping my kid healthy? Having a good attitude? Having the energy to do the things that are required of me? I’ve been working on this new theory of parenthood, which goes something like this: every adult in the world has this percentage number, which is the percentage that he or she would be a good parent, if and when they had kids. So out of 100, this number is their aptitude for parenting. Some people have a really low number, and should probably avoid having children. If they do, they’ll probably be terrible parents. Some people have a high percentage, and are just chock-full of nurturing goodness, and when they have kids, you know those will be the most well-rounded, best-behaved kids in the world. My mom was like, a 90% (maybe her number was even higher, but since I haven’t worked out all the factors in this equation, I’m staying conservative), as is most of my family, but I’m only like a 60%, which means that while I’m still on the good side of 50%, I’m going to have to work harder to be a good mom, and I’ll probably never work my way up to 90. It’s like a gold handicap. Think about it: how many of your friends have you thought, “Oh, he should never have kids,” or “oh, she would be the best mom?” I’m telling you, I’ve got something here.

Okay. With that said, I’m going to take my crappy attitude and my low aptitude and go lay down.

I can’t help it; I just feel like I should be really, really into LOST.

The sci-fi, time-travel, drama, confusing-ass show finishes it’s six-year run tonight, and I am not watching. By all accounts, this show should be my absolute current favorite: it’s sci-fi/fantasy, which is my favorite genre, most of the time. It’s a cult show, while also simultaneously being wildly successful. It’s character-driven, serial, well-written, and action-packed, all of which is right up my alley. So why don’t I watch LOST?

I did watch the first two seasons religiously. Then in season 3, I got bored and wandered off. When I heard that things had improved again, in season 4, I decided to give it a little time to make sure that was true. (Incidentally, while all this was happening, I was also living my life.) Then it became one of those things that I kept meaning to get around to. Then it seemed like there would be plenty of time to catch up, because the DVD’s were all available.

By the time I actually made the effort to get myself caught up with LOST, last year, it had just become way. Too. Big. I was something like 40 episodes behind, and that seemed awfully daunting, especially when one is a perfectionist and refuses to just jump right back in. In my defense, too, this show seems absolutely impossible to jump back into without catching up first. The mythology is just too dense.

By the time the last have of this season started airing, LOST had become like that sink full of dirty dishes you keep meaning to get to. The longer you wait, the bigger and harder the task, and the more you wish you’d just stayed on top of it to begin with. I read the Entertainment Weekly all-inclusive (ha!) guide to the show a few weeks ago, and was left with only more questions and annoyances.

And so, folks, I’ve given up. I’m done. And what bothers me about this is that I feel a little cheated. If I hadn’t given up on LOST three years ago, this night would probably be huge for me. Huge. I’d be throwing or attending a party, jumping up and down, going crazy. Instead, because this is the most frustrating show to ever air on television (suck it, Twin Peaks!), I am robbed of this experience. It’s kind of like meeting the guy of your dreams, but you just can’t get the timing right.

So farewell to you, Lost. In another place, another time…we could have been something special.

Yup, you guessed it. Mattie has (barely) survived her first round with pinkeye.

It started last Saturday, when Mattie had these little green bugers coming out of her eyes. A friend suggested a clogged tear duct, and since Mattie hadn’t been exposed to pinkeye, as far as I knew, it seemed perfectly logical. Besides, her eyes weren’t, you know, pink. How was I supposed to know?

(Okay, yes, the parental guilt is killing me.)

So yes. It escalated. Very, very quickly. And by Monday morning, when I could first get her into the doctor, it had spread to both eyes and she was starting to look an awful lot like a prizefighter. It was the first time I have ever taken that kid anywhere and had people NOT coo and aww over her. Instead, for the first time ever, people were afraid.

And here’s the thing: it’s daycare. I was seduced by the power of that place, with their healthy snacks and their Spanish lessons, but I feel like we’ve barely gone a week without some sort of health crisis since she started there. Even though the doctor said she’d probably no longer be contagious by Tuesday morning, I decided it wasn’t responsible for me to take her there Tuesday. On Monday afternoon I called the daycare to tell them, and I said, “Has anyone else had this?” Daycare director: “Uh…yeah.”

Thanks for the heads-up, dude.

So, yeah. This week has been kind of miserable. Along with two cases of pinkeye, Mattie also has an ear infection. It’s a world of awfulness. I don’t know if it’s enough for me to like, pull her out of daycare, but man. Uncool.

As I write this, I’m sitting quietly in the living room while my husband watches “The Pacific.” I do not care about “The Pacific.” I do not like war movies.

Whenever someone asks me what kind of movies I like, I usually say all different kinds. It’s mostly true, the way people ask the question - I do like horror, comedy, drama, action, independent, family, etc. All genres. But I don’t like war movies, prison movies, torture-porn movies (where the entire “plot” of the film seems to be to find a new way to torture a human body), gross-out comedy (with a few exceptions), anything in which a dog is killed, and anything in which all major characters die at the end. Seriously, it sucks when that happens.

Anyway, I’ve taken a lot of flak (you know who you are) regarding my position on war movies, but here it is: I think that there’s only five or six war movies in all of film history, and all of the others are just an imitation of one or the other. Some are good imitations, some are imitations with a sliiiiiight twist, but they’re all imitations. Eventually, a few of the imitations turned out to be even better than the originals, and then became the source material themselves, but it’s all pretty much the same. And I just don’t think there’s much more to say about war that hasn’t been said somewhere already. So why put myself through an emotional movie in which characters I am made to like will be brutally killed in some sociologically significant but ultimately violent and horrible manner, just for a movie that has nothing new to say? Seriously, I just don’t get it. And “The Pacific,” although it’s a miniseries and although it’s on HBO, is just another war movie. It’s basically “Band of Brothers,” which is basically “Saving Private Ryan.”

Now, I’ve never sat down and made the definitive list of the movies that are the source material for everything else, but you can pretty much figure it out. “Saving Private Ryan,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Schindler’s List,” “Full Metal Jacket,” and so on. Also “The Best Years of Our Lives,” which was one of the first movies about coming home from the war. To be honest, I’ve never really worked on making a solid list because…well…I don’t care.

It’s awful, isn’t it? Believe me, I do feel guilty about not being more interested in…whatever, the “war experience.” But I’ve seen enough war movies to understand as much as I’m going to be able to understand by seeing movies. I feel like the purpose of war movies is to “humanize” what war is like for the people in it - at least, that’s what the people who make the war movies would say. But that’s always felt like a contradiction to me, because movies do the opposite of humanizing. Don’t get me wrong, movies can get you a long ways towards understanding something - look at a film like “The Hurt Locker” - but at the end of the day, they’re movies. The whole point of the thing is distance from your own lives. Escapism. Even though it’s been on DVD for years now, I still haven’t seen “World Trade Center,” and I never will. I’m sure it’s a really interesting film, and maybe it’s crazy realistic and dead-on. But I still don’t want to see Nicholas Cage act out September 11th, because it’s more important than that. September 11th should not be on the same IMDB page as “Ghost Rider,” folks. That’s just completely illogical. I don’t want distance from September 11th; if anything I want to pull my own memory closer. Because the people who died, they deserve that. A lot more than Nicholas Cage does.

My husband’s dog Tucker is afraid of thunderstorms.

When I was growing up, our dog Trixie (may she rest in peace) was nervous about storms. You basically had to open the basement door and let her down there so she could feel safe. I myself have never had a problem with storms, unless I find myself in the specific circumstance of a). being in the middle of a scary book, b). being home alone, and c). having the power go out. Believe it or not, this exact set of circumstances HAS happened, and if it hadn’t been during the middle of the day, I probably would have wet myself. (A Public Service Announcement from Melissa: if you live in the Tornado belt, or anywhere else where you’re susceptible to thunderstorms, you probably just shouldn’t read The Shining. Ever.)

But I digress. Here’s what’s funny about this whole Tucker-storms situation. Max vacillates between the three humans, with clear favoritism to me, but Tucker pretty much sticks to Tyler. Probably because I frequently refer to him as fat and stupid (in my defense, he totally is), and because he sheds so much that I don’t like to pet him lest I become covered in a snowstorm of hair. Tucker is dumb, and one of the few things that has pierced the thick, thick layer of fur and stupidity is the fact that Tyler loves him deeply. But whenever it storms, Tucker sticks to me. As I type this, he is pressed up against the couch right below me (right where I would need to put my feet to stand up; thanks Tucker), and I know he’s not moving from my side until the storm is over. So why, devoted blog readers, would a dog who clearly loves Tyler best and knows that I find him annoying become my virtual shadow? It took me awhile, but I finally figured it out.

Because I’m the pack leader.

In Tucker’s mind, anyway. His simple, simple mind. While Tucker has all the intelligence and depth of linoleum, he has great instincts, in a Call of the Wild kind of way, which means he’s sensitive to pack structure. And he has identified me as dominant to everyone else in the house, and therefore his source of storm-related comfort.

I, of course, find this hilarious. Just frickin’ hilarious. Tyler not so much.

Contrary to what I suspect is popular belief, I don’t really consider myself the “matriarch” or “leader” of this household. I have certain strengths, which are more obvious because they’re more day-to-day: I do the organizing, of things like our plans and our meals. But Tyler’s household strengths are just as important, if not occasionally more so: he does the money/bills stuff and the fixing of things, both of which are not things I am particularly good at. He is also the Doer of Dishes, the Hanger of Art, the Assembler of Things That Need Assembling, the Investigator of Basement Flooding…I could go on. My point is, I consider Tyler and I to be pretty equal in household business, and me maybe a little stronger than him on the parenting side of things, just because I spend more time with Mattie and usually serve in the role of Primary Parent.

Apparently, though, the dogs see it differently, and I find this a little bit awesome. I must say, though, I feel like this title - Leader of the Pack - should come with some sort of benefits. Special business cards, maybe, or like a cape. Perhaps a commemorative mug? At the very least, a T-shirt with “Leader of the Pack” on the front and my name on the back. There’s got to be something good in this for me, right? Because honestly, so far all I’ve gotten is about eight journeys to the floor as I’ve tripped over Tucker, and some extra shed fur coating my jeans. I demand that my position invoke more prestige.

Actually, I take that back. The comedy factor pretty much makes it all worthwhile. And the fact that Tyler can eat his heart out.

For obvious reasons, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the concept of Mother’s Day. I love the idea of an entire day just to celebrate our mothers. This morning I read in USA Today that if stay at home mothers were paid reasonable wagers for all they do, they would make about $117,000 a year. Working moms, who parent when they’re not at their day jobs, would earn an additional $70,000 per year. So if you think about, the fact that we give moms a day of celebration is really only a drop in the appreciation bucket. Okay, so say we’re willing to give mothers their own day. What does that mean, exactly, on a practical level?

In other words, what do I want out of Mother’s Day?

First, it bears noting that being a mom on Mother’s Day doesn’t necessarily mean that your partner should become your slave for the day. (I might quite cheerfully consider this proposal, but hey, Father’s Day is only like a month away, and I don’t want to spend an entire day vacuuming and grilling steak in a Princess Leia slave girl costume.) But every family has a Mother’s Day tradition, and I’d like to kind of solidify ours. With that in mind, and after some thought, here’s exactly what I expect to NOT have to do on Mother’s Day.

1. Change any poopy diapers.
2. Cook or plan any meals.
3. Do any dishes.
4. Drive (if traveling long distances)
5. Exercise.
6. Shower, if I don’t want to.
7. Clean (obviously)
8. Be primary parent. Whenever Tyler and I are both with the baby, we tend to fall into the roles of primary parent/backup auxiliary parent. Tyler, who is a wonderful, wonderful father, most often takes the role of backup auxiliary parent. If we’re at a family event, I’m usually the one in charge of making sure Mattie doesn’t unpack all the bookshelves, bash her head on the coffee tables, hit other people in the face with her toys, etc. But on Mother’s Day, dammit, I’M backup auxiliary parent.

I’m REALLY not a fan of the movie “Knocked Up.” I think Katharine Heigl was absolutely right when she complained that all (both) the female characters in that movie were shrill, unlikable, and sort of stagnant. Good for her. But there’s a line in that movie that’s been running through my head all day:

“I wish I liked ANYTHING as much as my kids like bubbles.”

See, yesterday I installed Mattie’s brand new forward-facing seat in my car. This thing is like the rock star of car seats - steel reinforced, padded all to hell, with comfortable headrests and a cupholder. Best of all, though, Mattie gets to sit in the middle of the backseat facing the front, which means she can see. Where. We’re going.

Holy f%&@ing s#%t, people.

I took her to run an errand yesterday afternoon when she was getting bored and cranky (sidebar: the errand was a trip to Borders to get the new Sookie Stackhouse book by Charlaine Harris, which I read in less than 24 hours and returned to Borders this morning. I know it’s wrong, but if Ms. Harris would write better books, I’d be willing to keep them. She drove me to it.). At first when I buckled her in, she was all squirmy and attempted-escapey. Then I started the car. And backed out of the driveway. And put it in drive. And blew her little mind.

It takes about 15-20 minutes to get to Borders, and Mattie spent every one of them with her mouth wide open and her eyes bugging out with wonder and astonishment. I can’t really blame her, either: if you think about it, her world had literally been turned around. You go your entire life thinking cars move backwards, and it turns out your whole theory of transportation was based on a lie. No wonder she was so amazed. When we left Borders, she squirmed again as soon as I tried to get her in the seat - and then she realized we were going to do it again. And the whole way home, I kept turning around to see her grinning at me like a demented person. It was adorable. I need a bigger word than adorable for adorable, because that would be what it was.

I then tried to remember the last time I had anything approaching that sense of wonder and astonishment. Do I like anything as much as my kid likes riding forward? I gotta say, it was probably actually when I gave birth to her. You go nine whole months trying to get used to this idea that a little person is living in you and intends to come out, and then when it actually happens it’s still the weirdest, coolest thing ever. (Assuming, of course, you have an epidural. Otherwise it’s only cool much later.)

But the thing is, Mattie’s going to get to have experiences like this over and over again, for years. Everyone talks about the first tooth, first step, first words, but what about the first time you go on the swings? (check!) Or go down a slide by yourself? (check!) Or brush your teeth? (check- sort of). To me, it seems like Mattie has tons of ‘firsts.’ But to Mattie, it’s not just the concept of being the ‘first’ time that’s amazing. It’s the thing itself. She’s not excited because this is the first time she’s riding forward and she wants to run and mark it in her baby book. She’s excited because it’s a brand new, insanely cool experience.

It was nice, being reminded of that. And it made me a little jealous, too, because I have a lot fewer moments like that in front of me than I do behind me. But at least I now get to share hers.

I just spent like an hour playing with dolls. Never let it be said that I’m unwilling to do stupid things for the sake of writing.

A few months ago, I read this really interesting article in Writer’s Digest about this man who was trying to write an action sequence. In order to better visualize the whole thing, he actually built a little version of it: He got a toy Hummer that matched the one in the book, and got a bunch of GI Joe’s to act out the scene. I thought this was extremely cool, and filed it away in my head for when I got into a jam, book-wise. Then a few months ago when my Blockbuster was closing, I bought a few Star Trek action figures In a rare display of foresight.

Fast-forward a couple of months, and I’m now finally at a point in my writing where something like this could help: I’m writing the climax of my book, when multiple characters all intersect in the same place. As it turns out, it’s really hard. I don’t think I’ve ever written a scene with more than three people in it, much less seven people, all with their own motives, and all about to start fighting with each other. I knew it was time to call in the Federation.

Here’s who was enlisted to act out my final scene: Sulu, Bones, McCoy, Optimash Prime (the Transformers Potato Head), Taters of the Lost Ark (the Indiana Jones Potato Head) Jayne from Serenity, a little pink stuffed Domo from Target, and an apple, who was pressed into service as a henchman when I ran out of figures who could stack up by themselves. And at about 1:00 this afternoon, my husband Tyler walked in on me commanding this little army on the kitchen table. To his credit, he remembered me talking about the article and sat right down saying, “Okay, who’s who?”

As it turns out, creating your little scene is incredibly helpful. I also learned something: when you have many characters in a scene, they all have to have something to do. It’s not like chess, where one piece moves at a time. All the dolls - I mean characters - have to be talking or moving or fighting. In real life, if there’s seven people in a room, they’re all doing something. Do you have any idea how hard this is to write? Because now, I do.

The moral of the story is this: acting out the scene is helpful, but writing what you set up is still incredibly difficult. Description has never been my strength as a writer, and I’m realizing that now. Here’s hoping the Federation can make it a little bit easier.