Brian's started a new themed blog, QAHATESYOU.com. No, you need not capitalize it, but it's very fitting to do so. hln

Posted by: hln at 01:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hope is defined (first definition) rather inelegantly by dictionary.com as "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best."

In the last two weeks, I've heard the term "giving false hope" twice - once in a very personal situation with a family member and once on a television show. It got me thinking.

What is false hope? If hope is merely a feeling, an attitude, how can it be false? I know, I know, someone's feelings can be based on illogical premises. But the hope itself isn't logical, after all. If there's false hope, there must be true hope, no?

So I googled the concept of false hope. Here's what others say.

AskMen.com - "Don't Let Any Woman Give You False Hope." I don't need to read this - the title alone covers it - someone else responsible for your hope or lack thereof.

Firstthings.com calls the promise of stem cell therapy false hope. And while the web page begins with some nice comments about hope, it lobs the term "false hope" a couple of times. Here's an example:

To offer false hope to the desperate as a means of advancing a political, social, or economic agenda is worse than merely cruel, it is objectively evil. Valuable resources are being diverted from other, perhaps more promising, areas of research, and, in the meantime, patients and their families are serving as pawns in a political arena. People facing the prospect of suffering and death deserve better than this. As patients, they deserve the best that science and medicine can offer. As human beings, they deserve honesty. No amount of false hope can alter the fact that after more than twenty years of unrestricted research on animal embryonic stem cells, this field has failed to yield a single cure for any human illness.

Posted by: hln at 12:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So we have this baby. And he started out as this cute-while-sleeping and/or not-wailing bundle of...something. "They" tell you to get ready for changes, but no one really gives you objective advice other than the vague "it gets better" that helps you through the first several weeks of "when do I get a human?" instead of Fussbucket-whom-I-cannot-console.

And then something happens - this human becomes HUMAN. He smiles. He develops at this amazingly rapid pace, both physically and mentally. My baby just turned 3 calendar months old. He's in primarily 6 - 9 month-old clothing. He makes this obnoxious, "thhhhhhhhhhhhh" noise that cracks me up. He laughs. He likes the mirror. He likes to kick on the floor to trance music. And he LIKES me...wild.

I've never been especially maternal. Wasn't too comfortable with the thought of amazing responsibility involved in rearing a child (but at least was cognizant that that responsibility is there if one chooses to do so). But here we are. Child. Rearing. Wow.

The first night he was home from the hospital I listened for him to stop breathing. I prayed and prayed and prayed that he would be healthy. That I would be competent. I think I set the record for human praying. I adopted a mantra of "every moment is a gift" which I repeated ad nauseum (I know, that's what one does with a mantra) even through nearly gritted teeth as the wriggling lump wouldn't stop crying. I watched myself become competent and then good.

It's weird to be all about "other" when most of life has been all about self. Other is far, far more rewarding. But, I'm also glad I was able to get "other" back to sleep. Now, for self...

hln

Posted by: hln at 03:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...I eagerly await Martha Stewart's launch of her new magazine, Arresting House, with such features of "Five Months to a Completely Redone Home" and "Decorating With Orange: Your Next Challenge."

hln

Posted by: hln at 09:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Could there be anything I am less interested in learning about? No. But our two non-standard sized windows in our bedroom need something, and I need complete dark for a good night's sleep. Any experts willing to give advice? All of the precision measurements and strange lengths of what we saw at Sears when we visited gave me one ugly headache.

Do you just deal with the fact that drapes/curtains (for I truly don't know the difference) are going to be way too long? Do I have to put on seamstress hat and cutslashhem? We know that horizontal blinds are a bad idea because that's what the house came with. Cats like to poke their heads (and often bodies) between them. That leaves some discombobulated (spelling?) horizontal blinds.

Can I borrow someone's fairly drapemother and just wake up tomorrow and have this be done?

hln

Posted by: hln at 02:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I love original and strange turns of phrase, and I have to tell you folks, I'm married to the master turner. If you haven't read Brian today, go and read him just because of this line.

Just open up your maws, little cheepies, and mama CNN will regurgitate its truth down your gullet for your own good.

Posted by: hln at 08:35 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Yeah, this one's going to be fun when Brian arrives home from work tonight:

"Hi honey. I'm sorry I opened your Playboy. I thought it was Reason."

(Ah, those magazines the aspiring author must collect).

I hope you're laughing as hard as I am.

hln

Posted by: hln at 03:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Shidoshi of Paranoia Speaks about Ingestion, and, well, you'd better listen.

hln

Posted by: hln at 10:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Uh, honey.

Fabrications about our private life on the blog. Bad.

(I note that the spouse has spoken thus

I don't even let my friends listen to my tapes or CDs for fear of violating my licensing restrictions, and I even forcibly prevent my gym-buffed wife from reading books I purchase for my own private, non-transferable enjoyment.

Posted by: hln at 10:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Visit the Spouse

I'd be remiss if I didn't send you here. He makes me chortle.

hln

Posted by: hln at 08:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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