Dirty Sugar Cookies.

Welcome to the latest stop on Ayun Halliday’s whirlwind “Dirty Sugar Cookies” virtual book tour. Ayun asked if I would do this, and I couldn’t say no. I am powerless to resist the charms of anyone who writes as she does. And if you read “The Big Rumpus” or “No Touch Monkey” or “Job Hopper,” you know what I mean.

As much as I love her (and my love borders on the inappropriate), when I read "The Big Rumpus," it bothered me. Actually, only one phrase bothered me. Two words! But so much so that it colored my opinion of the entire book, even though I laughed and wept throughout the rest of the book. So when she emailed about the tour, I knew I had to mention it. Below is our email discussion on the phrase in question:

Me: “I read The Big Rumpus when Henry was just born, and I literally loved it to pieces. It dissolved from overuse. But I must tell you, there was one part that bugged me. That made me want to write you letters. Or, you know, one letter. It was where you were discussing the joys of nursing and referred to giving a woman giving her baby a bottle 'the hairy eyeball.' (Or you saw someone else giving said hairy eyeball.)

As someone who was completely incapable of nursing, and god did I want to, this made me cry. And I thought, really? What if the woman had adopted? What if she had no breasts? Is the hairy eyeball ever okay?

Unless I misunderstood and this is shorthand for 'the hairy eyeball of understanding.'”

I wrote this and then cowered in a corner of my room, rocking back and forth and petting an old sock, so worried was I that one of my writer-heroes would hate me for my critique.

And here’s Ayun’s response (which I read through my fingers):

“Oh my god, I got so worried when I read the end of your letter that for the first time in years, I reread the entire breastfeeding chapter of the Big Rumpus, terrified that five years ago, I had committed to something flip and nasty, trying to be funny.

Here's what I found at the end of the chapter:

(following an anecdote about a woman getting kicked out of barnes and noble for breastfeeding in the junior aisle) ‘There's rarely trouble when a child drinks from a bottle in public. Occasionally I have seen a mother hunched over her child like someone caught shoplifting as a park bench of proud breastfeeders gives her bottle the hairy eyeball.’

What I wanted to do w/ that sentence is turn the tables and show a scene where a bunch of (breastfeeding) mothers gang up on and exclude another (bottlefeeding) mother for something totally benign and normal and not their business. You know, treat her like she's a stupid little
bush-deer and they're the big, bad-ass jaguars who rule the jungle. To use your phrase, never okay. Never okay for the breastfeeders to judge the bottlefeeders, never okay for the bottlefeeders to judge the breastfeeders, especially not in the land of the free, yo!

So, I wish I'd written the sentence better or longer or something, so that it conveyed what I wanted it to convey, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain myself and bringing the matter up in such a polite, non-hostile way. Actually, this sentence kind of makes ME want to cry, b/c of how unfairly and often the mothers of little children get judged, when they're working their butts off taking care
of their kids.”

Can I tell you how happy this made me? Just like that, whoosh, all the badness got washed away. And while this isn’t a Big Rumpus book tour, I asked Ayun if I could use this exchange, seeing as how misunderstandings seem to be the order of the day around this place. Just as I thought Ayun was a breastfeeding bottle-hater, people seem to think I’m out to murder senior citizens! Or, wait, just laugh at them? Either way, wrong wrong wrong, all of us! Let the healing begin. Or something.

None of this has much to do with Dirty Sugar Cookies, which is described on the back cover (and I concur) as “an omnivorous, rollicking chronicle of culinary awakening.” Part memoir and part cookbook, it served up childhood memories of the Betty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cookbook far too vividly (Bunny Salad, anyone?), and after reading it I will never drink grape Fanta ever again, not that I was considering it, but STILL. I’m also looking forward to making Postcoital Pancakes (rowr) or Monkey Brain Tartare (delightfully monkey-free!). And the part about finding her Gran’s rice custard recipe made me cry--which is weird because we all know I’m a heartless senior-loathing robot that was constructed without tear ducts. Ayun can be both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time, and my only remaining problem with her is that she makes it look way too easy. I don’t think she gets enough credit.

Comments

[sweetney]

Oh my god, LOVE THAT WOMAN. The Big Rumpus (and The East Village Inky) saved my soul and sanity after Mina was born and I was all postpartumy and feeling like I was the only Mother in the world who felt and thought the things she articulated so beautifully. I think I might have even said that to her in an email at some point several years back (she indeed does provoke inappropriate -- nay, borderline stalkery -- feelings of affection in many of us).

ALL HAIL AYUN, she who makes us feel less freakish and alone in the world!

(And smooches to you, dear Alice. Glad you're feeling better!)

[far and away the farthest]

I am old. When I was young I knew I would be totally unlike the old people I lived around. Well, I am pretty much just the same. But I think I would have to be senile to decide that instead of being funny you were being mean.

Lordy, when my grandmother worried that the watermelon rolling around in the hatchback would jump up and break the eggs that were in the top of one of the bags I thought I would suffocate laughing at her. Every time I say something just as stupid, I know she is hanging over my shoulder saying 'Gotcha!'.

Being old also gives you the ability to see what an idiot you were yourself in the past. If that doesn't make you a little more tolerant someone should put chewing gum on your cane.

Keep us laughing and ignore whining and pouting. You can give all cranky or wounded folks a timeout. It has to be the same number of minutes as we are old. We could all use the break.

[The Dissent]

I read "The Big Rumpus," and found it to be the most judgmental, mother-hating, self-congratulatory gibberish I've ever suffered through. I understand that you like Ayun's work, and obviously folks can agree to disagree on these issues, but I know I'm not the only one who's deeply disturbed by her gratuitous, below-the-belt insults of any mother who dares to do it differently than she does. And she wonders why motherhood isn't more valued? Please.

[alice]

Dissent, where did you read the insults? I'm geniunely interested, because I did things incredibly differently from her, and as I wrote above, the two word above chafed, for me. But the rest of it I found not at all gratuitous.

[alice]

Of course, the anonymity of your comment does tend to reduce your credibility.

[Dissent]

Sure. Some of her statements are made outright - for example, I remember one in which she states that so-called "Ferberizing" your child is child abuse. I personally would not and have never resorted to "crying it out," but I would never, ever call mothers who do "child abusers" (an absurd claim on its face, and an insult to anyone who's ever suffered abuse). However, many of her insults are conveniently put in the mouths of other women - her friends, to whom she gives lots of air (and page) time, and with whom she clearly agrees. It's a neat trick, the way she can insult other mothers, yet simultaneously abdicate responsibility for her judgments. Mothers who attend "Mommy and Me" classes are all frightening "replicants" (and again, I never attended those classes, but who cares??) - according to her cool friends, at any rate. Working mothers are responsible for misbehavior on the part of their children, and stay-at-home mothers are morally superior (I'm a SAHM, but really recoil at these kinds of artificial dichotomies). Or your example - of course, it's SOMEONE ELSE who insults women who can't breastfeed, not her! Never mind the endless banwidth she devotes to the topic. Never mind the fact that she's the author. The only part of her book that rang true for me was when she acknowledged how "easy" she finds it to judge other mothers, especially working mothers, whose income she imagines going to support "boat payments." Alice, I love your blog and think you're an incredible writer, and my respect for you will definitely prompt me to take a second look at the book - but I doubt I'll find anything to change my mind.

[alice]

You know, because I was such a new mother when I read it I think the part about sleep training went right over my head. I was all, la la la, child abuse, sure! I'm never going to do that! (HA HA HA HA hurp.) If I had read it later that part surely would have bothered me, and I would have emailed Ayun about it some more along with the hairy eyeballs and whatnot.

I wish I had the book right here, but I don't. The rest of what you're saying would have stuck in my craw, if I had thought she was entirely serious, but I didn't take it that way.

[Lisa V]

Now, because of the two of you I want to read the book. Interesting dicussion.

[kristin]

i was going to post some long-ass comment about Dissent being critical of Ayun for expressing her opinion, when it's just an opinion in the first place, but i don't have the energy.

I'm too busy breastfeeding while simultaneously giving someone the hairy eyeball and running over an old person. ;)

[Elisson]

Connections, connections - one of the things I love about Bloggy-World. I've had finslippy on my blogroll for ages (I tend to lurk here) - and a few weeks ago, I read Ayun's No Touch Monkey, which I found thoroughly enjoyable.

Who could imagine that there would be a connection between you and Ayun?

Ahhh, the world is a beautiful and strange place. Bloggy-World, even more so.

[Heather]

I shall definitely check it out. It was really nice that she explained the hairy eyeball sentence.

[Lena]

Nothing better to brighten a weekend than hairy eyeballs and dirty cookies. Yesss!

[phoeber]

Heh, I love Ayun. We named our daughter's lovey Doggiepants.

Dissent, how do you feel about Ariel Gore? I'll take a guess..

[dianeinjapan]

I'm sorry--but when did it become unacceptable for someone like Ayun to express (light-hearted) disapproval of, say, letting a child cry herself to sleep? Apparently it's not safe to voice an opinion anymore--unless, of course, we can be somehow be assured that our readers whole-heartedly share each and every one of those opinions. Ayun knows that it's always Open Season on those of us who have chosen to co-sleep or to breastfeed a pre-schooler--we take those slings and arrows constantly and no one seems to make any fuss about that--but hoo, boy, make a comment about the benefits of staying home with an infant and suddenly you become the neighborhood pariah.

Do I agree with Ayun on many things? Yep. Everything? Nope, and I don't have to, in order to enjoy her scrappy nature and hilarious anecdotes. And wait--Ayun is "self-congratulatory"? If you read her books and zines, you'll find that she is nothing if not self-deprecating.

Okay, I'm going to jump off my high-horse now and get back in the trenches of working with my kids (disclaimer: yes, I homeschool--but I'm not about to give the Hairy Eyeball to any of you who don't!).

[Anne in New Jersey]

Is Ayun's name actually Anne? There was a caption under a picture of the author with her mother and it definitely referred to her as Anne. So is Ayun just a play on how she's accustomed to pronounce it?

I don't have children so I shall not chime in to this whole hairy eyeball breastfeeding Ferberizing thing. Except... my mother-in-law (who did not breastfeed her children) frequently shoots me the hairy eyeball when I say that I plan on breastfeeding (if I can) for a good long while. I think she thinks it's icky or something, or that I'm going to harm my children. It's kind of weird.

[Teresa M.]

OK - forgive me but I'm late to every single party in life - but I have never read her and I'm crushed I missed reading that immediately following the births of my two daughters. What's more, I'm in a real 'feel sorry for myself mood' and this posting just hit the last nail - I have a gut wrenching feeling that I am going to love her stuff, and cry in my Cheerios in the morning because it's the same kind of thing I wanted to write or do or be- but as a teacher humiliated me in front of the class with saying "yes, but you didn't." SIGH - keep on keeping on I guess.
Now, that aside, I can't wait to read this stuff - I NEEDED a good book recommendation and now I have a yummy list! Thank you much!
I also have to say I am passionate how darn tough it is/can be to nurse or not nurse for a woman - on the body, the mind & the emotions....nobody should be judging anybody on anything (including ourselves) when it comes to one the most intimate of circumstances and choices such as breastfeeding.The choices/reasons(to do it or not) are all as individual as each of our cup sizes - no two are alike and I for one think it's hard on us no matter how it goes.
I'm rambling here but I am grateful to learn of yet another wonderful writer & Mom to read & be changed by. You have done that for me already in numerous ways.Thank you.
FWIW- I laughed so hard at your last post - NEVER once thought you hated the elderly -suburban grocery stores & their price saver cards maybe, but not the elderly.

[la_depressionada]

You know New York -- more specifically, Manhattan, and most specifically, my neighborhood (my formerly beloved neighborhood) the East Village -- used to be a place only suited for, and mostly inhabited by, ADULTS. Can you imagine how much fun a place like that might be? Maybe you can harken back; most of your readership I doubt can.

Of course, Ms. Halliday, and others of her ilk, changed all that. Now, not only is my city overpopulated by children and their parents (who by all accounts seek to remain children themselves), they litter and clutter formerly sophisticated venues with their grossly outsized and overpriced baby materials. There is no such thing as a hip mommy. A hip mommy is a bad mommy. (You, yourself, are above reproach having highed yourself to some decorous spot past Ikea somewhere. You should congratulate yourself.)

Therefore, I suggest to Ms. Halliday that she not appropriate a term such as hairy eyeball. That term should be reserved for its proper use. Yes, that is, we adults of good taste use it to refer to the look reserved for the fulsome vulgariennes who insist on breastfeeding in all sorts of inappropriate places (and I think I might include the entire of downtown Manhattan in this definition).

We, people of sensible mind who would never imagine sidling up to a bar with our twin toddlers and godforbid another set of parents and their goddamned progeny (Don't these barhopping stroller parents realize that a good bar is very nearly a place of worship? Oh of course not, Mommy is too busy playing the bass while Daddy skateboards to the Apple Store.), are repulsed by the gauche and dripping, too often public, lactators and, it is they and only THEY who, in this leche-y discussion, deserve to be given the hairy eyeball.

For those who are concerned with good form, I suggest a genuinely withering stare. Personally, I like to combine the hairy eyeball with a slight curl of the upper lip implying that something smells slightly off -- like new cheese -- which, unfortunately for these bovine belles, it often does.

[Tina]

Man, I'll need to read those books. I remember seeing Ayun in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind a decade ago, and being wicked impressed.

I have an 7 week old baby - my first - and the breastfeeding odyssey has been a nightmare! Primal, concentrated sad and bad feelings when it was going wrong. But somehow we've just barely, BARELY eked through to being able to do it. I was thisclose to throwing in the towel, and felt judgement hanging in the very air waiting for me about it. Dealt with six lacation consultants, one of whom was a huge blithe suckball who insisted that there's nothing hard about breastfeeding. Yeah, um, does not your livelihood depend on the fact that in fact it can be excruciatingly hard??

Pardon me. Bitter tangent!

So, yes. NO HAIRY EYEBALLS, or hairy anything about anything about how anybody feeds anybody. And my interest is piqued about the books. I go get them now. Thank you for the alert.

[Anna]

Ooh! A meeting of one of my favourite bloggers and one of my favourite writers! I'm actually managing the UK publication of The Big Rumpus (though we've had to rename it), so it's great to see people loving Ayun's writing.

It's funny; I'm not a mother myself (er, I'd say 'yet,' except that could sound a bit ominous to certain people [boyfriend]), so I'm obviously a lot less sensitive to opinions (I think). What riles me is when people are cruel or forceful in their beliefs, and I would never in a million years say that Ayun comes across like that. But I guess that just goes to show how differently people can perceive things.

[Dissent]

Diane, with all due respect, I think you're misrepresenting what I said (but then I have to stop, because talking about Ayun's book is almost as painful as reading it). I'm about as crunchy/progressive as they come, but I don't think that makes me morally superior to other mothers. In my opinion, calling all Ferberizers (as one example) "child abusers" is "expressing an opinion" in the same way that Anne Coulter expresses opinions. Can Ayun say it, given that it's what she truly believes? I agree with you that she absolutely can. However, she can't then grab the self-righteous mantle of "motherhood defender," or "spokeswoman for all mothers" - she is, by definition, just another writer looking to make a buck by taking pot shots at mothers. The fact that she dresses it up doesn't make it any less reprehensible or harmful.

[S-Way]

La_depressionada seems pathologically anti-parent. Was there some trauma in her past, perhaps? A deep-rooted (misogynist?) hatred of her adult female body, with its ability to grow and feed an infant? Perhaps mommy and daddy didn't love her enough? Because nothing else could explain her diatribes against city mothers. Listen, honey, if you want to live in a place where there are only child-free adults, might I suggest a retirement community in Florida? Because living in a vibrant city environment clearly isn't for you.

[alice]

My love for Ms. Way just increased a hundredfold.

[kristin]

la depressionada, you are an ass. I'm sorry, I can't really be more eleoquent than that because it's really only that simple. la dpressionada= big fat hemorrhoid riddled asshole.

(and finslippy, sorry for using your comments to express my disgust, but really, she is an ass).

[jonniker]

I'm totally perplexed, confused and...flummoxed, I guess, at the amount of passion riled here about your apparent hatred of old people and also, bad mothering. I actually find it funny, in a sick, distanced sort of way. I mean, are people who come here to criticize and belittle actually serious? It all seems so tongue in cheek, with its impassioned arguments, unilateral disdain and hurling insults, yet sadly, I think people are serious. Yet, I cannot contain my compulsion to laugh, because, honestly. They sound ridiculous.

Separately, I'm now in love with Ayun, whom I never read, as I am not a mother yet, if for nothing else, but for the last sentence. Yes, mothers are too-often judged for trying to be good mothers, and I hear about it so much even as a non-mother that it terrifies me. What kind of world do we live in?

[Angela]

It is interesting how these topics inevitably come up when these topics are touched upon.

I am interested in these books because I haven't heard of this author until now and I always like to read new things.

I don't have children yet and as someone who seems to be obsessed with reading the blogs of moms I sometimes feel it isn't appropriate of me to chime in. However I do want children I am just waiting until I am ready for them.

In any case I don't know why women feel they need take sides on the issues of childrearing. Why must women have to feel bad about their choices?

I am a big fan of verymom.com. I want to have a home birth, I want to breastfeed until my children are about 1 year, and I want to use cloth diapers. However, whenever I start hearing talk about how one way is morally superior to another it really gets under my skin. For example those billboards for breastfeeding. I know breastfeeding is better for the baby and I know a lot of women choose not to for the convenience, but sometimes it isn't a choice. What does it matter to you and your life what someone else does?

Another thing is women who bottle-feed. I have witnessed dirty looks from other women when my friend bottle-feeds her baby in public and I don't think that's fair. She breastfeeds, but it is easier for her to bottle-feed her breast milk for when they are out together, but to me it wouldn't matter if it were formula.

I guess what I am trying to say is it makes me sad when someone expresses their opinion in a nice way and everyone jumps on it and makes it seem wrong. It's okay for people to be different. I mean I referenced a love for verymom.com who is a Mormon and has her own distinct childrearing and life views and I am an Atheist lesbian. Put that in your pie plate, Bingo. (If you got that reference I kind of love you.)

So that was a very long and most likely confusing way of me being interested and grateful for hearing about this new author and also being sympathetic to those who may not agree with her.

P.S. - Why would someone who hates children be reading a site where the writer has children? Aren't you afraid Alice might describe something child related and you may hallucinate smells?

[Angela]

Alice,
I appologise for the length of my above comment. Can you tell I have had to much coffee?

Love,
Angela

[Trish]

Wow what a lot of discussion about Ayun and her books. I loved every single one of them just for the very reason that she makes herself out to be a fallible human like everyone else. In "The Big Rumpus" she captured the minutiae of everyday life with small kids in a way that only one whose been there/done that can relate to. I traveled vicariously with her in "No Touch Monkey"...the monkey with the flip flop had me in stiches. And "Job Hopper" was just a fun read. In fact I work in shop just like the bohemian shop she talks about...Monndancer was it?

I also have to say, Alice, that I am enjoying finslippy so much I posted a link to it from my blog...I'll be checking in on a regular basis.

Trish

[Mir]

I pink puffy heart Ayun. With GLITTER.

[Anne in New Jersey]

Can someone please just tell me how to pronounce her name? Is Ayun actually pronounced like "Anne" but with a really nasal AY-un thing going on?

Seriously. Anybody?

I think what all of this heat about mothering and parenting goes to show is that this has become highly contested terrain. I think what this indicates is not that there are a lot of asses out there and a lot of people who've got it exactly right, but that the whole conception of motherhood and childhood and fatherhood are undergoing considerable change. Right now, we find ourselves in a liminal space of neither here nor there, we're neither June Cleaver nor the Glorian Steinem-esque eighties working gals, and this whole tug and pull of seemingly opposed identities is problematic, to say the least.

At the risk of incurring the general wrath, and though I believe that La_Depressionada needs to take the shards of her broken martini glass out of her ass, I think what her rampage evidences is that there has been a kind of blurring between the spaces previously recognized as adult and those understood as belonging to the child. Hannah Arendt has a lovely essay on education in which she emphasizes the importance of we adults making our children understand that they are the inheritors of a world and that they need to grow and learn to exist within it. In other words, rather than allowing their children to go and spend the dinner hour jumping in a ball pit, the little ankle biters might be better served by being made to learn to sit at the dinner table and behave. Or something like that. The increase in child-friendly spaces says something about, perhaps, our reluctance to take on this responsibility.

However, and once again, I am not a mother and can only imagine the blessed relief of letting the kids run wild in a contained and padded space while spending twenty minutes or so in relative peace and quiet.

[Lioness]

I'll just write this here bcs adding a 104th comment seems too much. You are unhappy you have too much arugula? Move here, come to Portugal! There's no arugula to be had, none, and arugula so makes my heart sing! we get it only in obscenely expensive, prepackaged bags w too little of it, no arugula heads to be seen anywhere, only that boring lettuce and then the iceberg one, which we seem to have got from you - and both are dull, dull, dull! Fine arugula, nice arugula - 57 types, you say? If I ever find one in a supermarket (and let's face it, they will, zucchinnis have been available for abt 10 years now) I am bound to stick my face in it and inhale bcs I'm sure arugula smells spicey but HOW CAN I BE CERTAIN YET? Will log off now and weep, contemplating the vast arugulaness of my life.

[Sue G]

"I wrote this and then cowered in a corner of my room, rocking back and forth and petting an old sock, so worried was I that one of my writer-heroes would hate me for my critique."

It's lines like this that keep me coming back to your blog. I don't really even care what you say, it's how you say it that draws me back in time and again. And your hairless-kitten-with-the-wounded-paw-and-bad-eye post has stuck with me because even though I am not going through the exact same thing, I know the feelings you were expressing and I felt less alone from reading your post.

[zhanae]

Man, alice. Don't you ever get tired of some of these commenters? What with the "breeder" hatred, and the you can't have an opinion unless it fits with mine? This is why i don't have a blog.

Love Ayun. "No Touch Monkey" is one of my favorite travel books. Can't wait to read the new one.

[mammajude]

I'm old too, and can't imagine how thin-skinned I'd have to be to take offense at your acutely accurate (and fall-down funny)observations. I found you about a month ago and truly, Love -- one does not need to be a young, newly-relocated, intensely lonely, culturally-challenged, and verbally gifted new mom to "get" the richness of your writing. Your honest and colorful sharing of your "mommy" life, your poignant retelling of your emotional life, and the adventurous spirit that spurs you to jump into the next new experience, are gifts to all of us, as evidenced by the fervor of the commentary. Personally, you bring me back in time, you give me a new perspective, and you verbalize the humanness of the incidentals in my life - things that I may let go -- unnoticed, uncelebrated and unsung. Thanks.

[trish]

What she said...

[victoria]

Uh, well, if it's possible to be offended by someone as nice as that writer, I think I am. The excerpt about how her stint as a vegetarian was a completely hypocritical, smug, attention-grabbing stunt? Yuck. I've been a vegetarian for 21 years and it's no stunt for me, and no, I never eat meat of any kind, not even at Thanksgiving. I know she wasn't saying that ALL vegetarians are as hypocritical as she was, but she doesn't seem to give the concept of animal rights much respect, either.

[Robin in San Jose]

Whew. Alice when did your blog get so controversial? This week it's been almost as much fun to read the comments as the original post. Lighten up people. It's called tongue-in-cheek.

Like you Alice, I would have crawled across broken glass to be able to breast feed my two kids, but my skin fell apart and I developed mastitis (ouch). Militant breast feeders REALLY get my dander up.

I LOVE the expression "hairy eyeball" almost as much as "the old stink-eye".

[alice]

Victoria, it's so self-deprecating. She's mocking her shallow teen self, she's not disrespecting animal rights. Where is the smug? I just don't see what's to get offended by. Although it does seem to be in the air these days...

[Deb]

You??? Tear up over something like a lovely family connection? WOW......That is unusual!

Everybody just put on your big girl panties and deal with it...sheesh......chill people.

[Mom101]

Soeaking of hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time...

[Lioness]

And now that I've actually read the comments my apologies, mine sticks out like a toenail in the soup. What a whole world of insecurities some people seem to carry on their shoulders, really. The comments you often get never cease to amaze me in a very disgruntled way. Dripping lactators? Bovine belles? Such venom towards mammary glands simply doing their job can only be explained by very small boobs. Or droopy ones, maybe.

GAH.

[Dad Gone Mad]

I always get hounded at Barnes and Noble for breastfeeding, too. Must have something to do with the fact that I'm a 36-year-old man.

[Anne in New Jersey]

Hey Lioness, I have really small boobs. I'm officially offended.

[alice]

Unofficially, how are you?

[Megan]

Oh! I read No Touch Monkey and loved it, but I remember Ayun (and Greg) from when she was in Chicago in the Neo-Futurists. What I remember most was that she could use her hands to shape a perfect bagel out of her belly, with her belly button as the bagel hole. Not likely that that's what she'd like to be remembered for...

[Claudia]

Well, according to the federal government, the boogs have it. Today's New York Times has a lengthy article on the benefits of extended nursing, entitled "Breastfeed or Else." Kinda catchy. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/health/13brea.html?ex=1150344000&en=2d8cdc2ace79a5a1&ei=5087%0A

[Claudia]

Sorry for the typo. In the post above, the "boobs" have it.

[LB]

Megan- I recall "stomach bagel" as big joke for lots of Chitown Theatre folx. I knew a girl from CrystalLake who did a great one. Even before kids I was more like "stomach brioche"

[Anne in New Jersey]

Alice, do you mean "how" am I offended? Or, were you just inquiring into my general well-being? If it's the first case, I was kidding. My cousin has spectacularly tiny bubs and was delighted to discover that when she put her first infant to her breast in the hospital, the child's head was half the size of her breast. I am not offended at all.

If it was the latter, thanks for asking! I'm kind of bored and lazy and feeling anxious about moving in the next couple of weeks.

[alice]

Anne, I was just being silly. Unofficially! Because you were officially offended! Oh, I don' t know, I just wanted to write something and that was the best I could think up.

[Anne in New Jersey]

That's what I figured, officially.

Off to the park!