The Total Perspective Vortex

Apparently it really is "Geek Week" here at Life, the Universe and Everything as evidenced by this post in which I quote Wikipedia* on information pertaining to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as it relates to a recent incident in my life.

The Total Perspective Vortex, in the fictional world of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected. Located on Frogstar World B, it shows its victim the entire unimaginable infinity of the universe with a very tiny marker that says "You Are Here" which points to a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot.

I got a little blog'verse style taste of the Total Perspective Vortex this weekend. I received the following comment on my For Maddy post from Nicki Mann:

Hey! I am in the same room with you at Blogher... the one about exclusion/inclusion. Great question you asked... I think thats the kind of thing everyone would want to ask but didn't want to be the person to say it! :D

Well, obviously it was a mistake since I was on my couch at home and not in Chicago with the BlogHer crowd. I emailed her back and apparently there was a woman in the inclusion/exclusion panel discussion who has a blog named Life, the Universe and Everything. She said something Nicki thought was interesting and she googled her blog. My profile picture was apparently a close enough match that she thought she'd arrived at the right LUE.

I decided to use Technorati to search for this woman's blog, this woman who looked somewhat like me and had chosen the same title for her blog. Quite a few results turned up.

I stopped counting after 20.

I guess I don't feel so clever and unique after all.

Sigh.

Oh well, at least I have the coolest looking blog** named Life, the Universe and Everything.



"Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information." Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflen, Scranton, PA

**Coolest looking blog design influenced by the work of Douglas Adams is courtesy of Izzy of Izzy Design and Graphics.


P.S. I have finally gotten around to putting up my Rocking Girl Blogger award. It is very pink, you can't miss it. Snoskred of Life in the Country very graciously awarded it to me a couple of weeks ago. Thanks Snoskred! I'm supposed to pay it forward and will do so sometime this week or the next.

Sleeping with Bread Monday: with Parental Joy and Sadness

In the last week, when did I experience the most joy as a parent?

There is something about your child growing to love something which you love which makes your heart bursting-full. We all experience those moments throughout the lives of our children. It might be one of the more narcissistic aspects of parenting, but nevertheless, I believe it is a universal parental feeling. I had one such moment this week. Marley had drawn a picture of the earth, the moon and an alien in a spaceship. She wanted to share it at school and in order to do so, she was required to write about the picture. Here is the picture and her words (as is and then translated into grown up English.)

Ifyouhlldallangfllofaryoucansrvavforabou30secis.
(If you hold a lungful of air, you can survive for about 30 seconds.)

This may not have any meaning for most people reading this. I, however, experienced a moment of pure, unadulterated, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-frenzied joy. This--this is MY daughter, without a doubt! (My husband probably would feel a similar sense of joy if he read my son's latest book project for his English class. He read a biography of Jimi Hendrix and stated that he chose the book because Jimi Hendrix is his favorite singer and guitar player.)

In the last week, when did I experience the most sadness as a parent?

There is something sad about persistent maladies and the impact they have on your children. Tonight, as I was trying not to lose my cool while I proofread my son's book report, I was getting a little testy. It isn't unusual for me to get frustrated when he has a project due--that could, and probably will, be a subject of an entire post. He was cooperating, though, with my suggestions. The work wasn't bad. I shouldn't have been as irritated as I was feeling. At one point, I asked my son to please turn out the dining room light. It was hurting my eyes. "Oh great," he exclaimed, "you're getting a migraine when I have a project to finish!" Well, so far, the actual migraine hasn't shown up. The pre-migraine crankiness and light sensitivity has, though. Those symptoms aren't a guarantee that a migraine will show itself, but it makes me sad that my son would know the symptoms and recognize, before I even do, that one might be coming. With a migraine, he recognizes that he will get to experience his mother being cranky, his having to help take care of her and his having to be responsible for an uncooperative little sister. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun, does it?














Thanks for joining me today!

P.S. I wrote this last night and dated it today because I knew I would be busy this morning. Later, in the wee hours of the morning, I wrote an entirely different sort of "How I'm Doing" post over here at my family blog. It ain't pretty but somehow, in the name of emotional honesty, I felt like I needed to disclose it here.

Also Sleeping with Bread this week:

Pam over at MarillaAnne
Sheila at Musings of a Mommy
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