I have some business to take care of here at SNM (I’ve just realized how cool that sounds - I’ve always wanted to write an S & M blog.) Forgive me while I blow my own horn because Greeblemonkey has given me an award: This is what she had to say:

“If Meg wasn’t way hotter than me, I would think we were twins. I can’t think of a post she has ever written that I haven’t screamed “Can I get an AMEN!?!?” at the end of.”

Okay, about the hot part, Greeblemonkey has never actually seen me and is going on the very few pictures I’ve posted of myself which are all at least sixty years old. About the rest, can I get an Amen?!?!?

Aimee gave me my very first award like a million blog years ago and pretty much put me on the blogging map. Any time I’m passing on awards, she’s the first on my list. She’s a daily read even on my busiest days. Plus, she knows how to do magical things like make some words red and get her archives to pull down, not to mention her photography is amazing!

And now I have to pass on this award to ten bloggers minus one because I’m pretty sure I just gave it back to Aimee.

2. OKAY, FINE, DAMMIT

Maggie has become another daily read and I’m quite sure she’s received this award already hundreds of times. Maggie has a way with words that inspires me. She is a story teller. She has an ability of letting you into her world and into her heart so you feel like you’ve known her forever.

3. The Well Read Hostess

I know you might be getting bored with my obsession, but she makes me laugh out loud every single day, and sometimes even twice a day. I have a feeling this woman’s weekly grocery store list is funny.

4. Family Clay

Clayjack is a new blogger and, HE’S A MAN! This is the first Daddy blogger who has caught and actually held my attention. He’s also just about the nicest guy you’d ever meet. Virtually.

5. From Here to There

Natalie has a way of being so human and so honest, she makes it easier to be me. I’ve followed her journey for a long time now and I love how she is always growing and striving to be all she knows she can be.

6. The New Girl

Who is not so much the new girl any more. I’ve so enjoyed watching TNG grow as a first time mother. She has a wicked sense of humor and her writing is beautiful. So is The Littlest New Girl!

7. Magpie Musings

I usually shy away from bloggers who are this intelligent, but she also lets her daughter dress like this, which makes us automatically members of the same very cool club. I’m so drawn to Magpie’s life in a quiet little house outside of New York City. Somehow our lives are as different as two snowflakes, but they keep falling on the exact same spot.

8. All Adither

If All Adither didn’t live on the other side of the country, I would park myself in her kitchen and never leave. She has a way of making you feel that comfortable.

9. The HG-Spot

If you can get beyond the whole Battlestar Galactica thing, HG is always funny and has recently gotten her bloggy groove on. It’s best if you believe in fairies if you’re going to read this blog.

10. Whimsy

Treat yourself to a trip to The Creamery. Whimsy, new mom to baby Bean, brings back the sweetest memories for me of the very beginning.

Hanlie, another Excellent blogger, gave me this award:

Before I bore the non-bloggers to bits, here’s my quick list of bloggers who know how to chat. I’m sure I could talk to them for hours:

Kathy Likes Pink

Sweet Home Alabama

Our Crazy Life

CEO Mom

The End of Motherhood?

Rainy Day in May

I could go on and on… but I’ll stop there before I lose the last of my readers.

On the subject of awards, I know I don’t get to comment on all of the blogs I’d like to as much as I’d like to, especially when I read them off my Google Reader, but if there’s an award for the funniest commenter, I think it should go to me. Let’s face it: I slay me.

I’m filching from WRH today because we’re back together.

Just to get it out of the way for those family members and close friends, so you don’t have to frantically scan the list for validation, I don’t believe in being on time. There. I said it. Ya happy?

1. Scientology. I have never and will never embrace Scientology even if I refuse to shoot the messenger.

2. Resolve Carpet Cleaner. If you actually tested the contents of those bottles, my guess is you’d find flat club soda and White Shoulders. It’s worthless. I’m all over Spot Shot though. (It does not take black Sharpy out of couches.)

3. Squirrels. Nathan has done this to me. What exactly is the value in the squirrel beyond chewing through the wires in our attic, tormenting my 12 year old dog, tipping over the squirrel-safe bird feeder, and laughing at me when I swerve to hit them in the road? Oh, wait. That’s commercial animation. Rats with tails.

4. The family bed. Please don’t hit me. I think very often the family bed is an excuse to insulate oneself from both physical and emotional intimacy with one’s partner, especially when the child/children need a parent in the bed to go to sleep.

5. Thank you cards. I carry around the guilt for every thank you card I haven’t written or, more accurately, wrote and never mailed, for the last twenty years. Why must we have such baneful torture practices in such an advanced civilization? Didn’t I say I loved it when I opened it? Please, please, please, Emily Post; could you make it so that counts? For all those who are still waiting: Thank you, thank you, thank you!

6. Waiting until the umbilicus falls off before bathing a newborn. We’re the only country that does that. There’s absolutely no reason other than to speed up the falling off process and to force women who stink from their own bodily contraptions after child birth to snuggle close to something that smells like the inside of an old thermos.

7. Spontaneous combustion. If I didn’t do it this week, it couldn’t possibly exist.

8. Political polls. Pascal said it best: we want to be deceived.

9. The sugar blues. Please. Nothing brings more joy to more people in this whole world than chocolate.

10. Forty is the new thirty. I beg your pardon; forty is the new twenty six.

Filch on, Friends!

I had one of those nights last night where you wake up at 2 a.m. and just know that your eyes are not going to close again. I laid there thinking about everything one should not think about while trying to fall asleep, like all the work that didn’t get done during the day and will most likely not get done upon waking (loosely used) due to the inevitable brain fever, scratchy throat, and grainy eyes that come from staying up worrying all night about everything that needs to get done tomorrow. And then there were these lovely memories:

The laundry room door is actually wedged shut by the piles.

Madigan has a non-fiction book report due on Friday about a book that has still not been read.

Nathan and I had an argument at bedtime about — wait for it — Tom Cruise.

I behaved poorly.

Not quite as poorly as Finn, however, who Sharpied the living room couch yesterday then passed the Sharpy to Rowan who, in full Goth fashion, colored her lips black.

My children did not like my tuna casserole.

I had 38 e-mails in my inbox offering to help me increase the length of my tool to please the ladies. Who needs the ladies?

I forgot I was on a low-carb diet and ate chocolate cake for breakfast.

Madigan and Keira used up all the printer ink on business cards advertising their upcoming backyard pet circus.

Finn stuck an Extreme Cheddar Goldfish up Ezra’s nose and she snorted the crumbs out all over the house for hours.

WRH and I broke up.

I was short with my children.

I was testy with my husband.

I hung up on a fraternal order of policeman who was asking for money.

They all deserved it.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I watched Oprah’s interview with Tom Cruise last week and I felt compassion for him. This doesn’t mean that I think he is completely correct in his arguments; after all, I do not know the history of psychiatry, and he does. I have struggled with depression my whole adult life. I have managed it at times with medication and at other times with diet and exercise. I have stretches when neither approach works. I have also suffered from one scary bout of postpartum depression severe enough that my OB insisted I be medicated. Not to be too Dooce about it, but I’m trying to make the point that I am the exact person who should loathe Tom Cruise.

The reason I don’t is because I see in him a human being - a person who is trying to be more than just an icon, who is trying to be a good man, a good husband, and a good father, who is trying to have substance behind the beautiful face. I see a person who is trying, just like the rest of us. He believes in his convictions, and, in so many ways, he is spot on. Instead of taking a hard look at what he’s saying, we’ve chosen to attack him, to tear him apart like fresh prey in a famine.

The media massacre that has taken place on Tom Cruise is appalling. Because he is in the public eye, we believe that we own him and that every private and intimate moment of his life is fair game - ours to ruin or defile. You might argue that it comes with the territory, but why does it? What does it say about us as consumers? You might argue that it’s the fault of the media, but we are the consumers of the media industry and it comes down to simple supply and demand. Why has a fifteen year old girl posed topless for Vanity Fair? Because we’ll snatch up those magazines so fast your Mickey Mouse ears will spin.

Along with our integrity, now we have handed over our democracy to the media as well. Don’t be fooled - the media will decide who will be our next president come November. I used to think Charlie Gibson was cute, with his crooked teeth and saggy little face, but now I feel only contempt for him. His interviews, not to mention his managing of debates, are so biased it’s scary. Where does he get off thinking he has that kind of power? Oh, Yea, straight from his network executive bosses!

And what about bloggers? Are we part of the problem? Are we handing over our personal integrity for a few more page views? (I did just attack Charlie Gibson!)

And for the record, I saw Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch the day it aired. It made me smile from ear to ear. I know that kind of love; I remember the early days of it when I was jumping on couches too. I just don’t understand why we can’t stand to see our icons happy.