Velveteen Mind

Promises promises: I promise you a pig.

Hot damn!  My post, Hierarchy of Suffering, is featured on Blog Nosh Magazine today!

And I absolutely love how I never got around to posting something new over here.  One of the things I stress to the editors is to try to give their bloggers enough time to spruce up their blog for any new readers coming their way once their post is published.  Ahem.

Would you buy it if I told you that the editor that chose my post for the Overcoming Adversity channel, Heather from The Spohrs are Multiplying, never told me my post was being featured?  Hm? 

No, I didn't think you would buy that.

So...  I'm writing this as I'm getting my sons ready for preschool.  If you are a new reader (hey you! isn't Blog Nosh fun?!  all of the posts this week are amazing, but that one of mine is one of my favorites and one of the reasons I even started this blog, as I needed to get that off my chest), come back in a few hours and I'll have a brand spanking new post up.  In the meantime, check out my "Favorite Posts" in my sidebar...  just look for the baby feet.

And if you are a regular reader, don't tell the new guys that I am totally full of it and don't actually post here more than twice a week.  Because you are all a bunch of liars.

Seriously, new post.  Coming.  Here's a teaser:

"And then I will hire a dancing pig to sit next to her mother."

Yep.  You are dying to find out what that's about, right?  New post.  As soon as I get back from dropping the boys off at preschool.  And, um, as soon as I write it.

But I'll write it in my head on the way to and from school.  And I type wicked fast.  I won the typing award in high school, you know?

Yes, I am that cool.  You have come to the right place.  Get yer nerd on, folks.

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But seriously, Monday...  big day.  Don't miss it at Blog Nosh Magazine!

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Tattle-Tale

"I have a need for everyone to follow the rules and admit when they are wrong.  I guess it's a 'tattle-tale' issue."

That was the line I just delivered to my dad during his impromptu visit to our house so that he could say hey to the boys.  While here, he brought up my recent post-edit about comment deletion and my strong stance against it.  His response to my revelation about needing to impose order in an unruly world was little more than a blank stare, a roll of the eyes, and a look that said, "Hi, have we just met?  This is not news."

I have been fighting a losing battle to make the world bend to my opinions my entire life.  The "rules" I want people to follow are mostly rules I have made up in my head.  If I could pass them into law, I would, but that requires a lot of organization and probably at least a few business suits. 

"Your expectations are too high" is something I've heard so often that I would like to announce that from now on, all you have to say is "Code Flying Pigs" and I'll know what you mean.  Yet I keep plowing right along, acting surprised and disappointed when people make decisions that I disagree with, or at the very least would not have made myself.  You know, wrong decisions.

(that was a joke-- are the trolls still sticking around?)

Needless to say, it should come as no surprise that I was fascinated by all of the different takes on how I could have handled finding a three year old boy alone in Hellboy II the other night.  You were all refreshingly honest about how you would have handled it and that is what made it so interesting. 

If you haven't read it already, the brief rundown is that while poking my head into Hellboy II on my way out of the local movie multiplex, I found a three year old boy sitting alone in the passageway into the screening room, wrapped in a blanket, watching the movie alone at midnight.  After a bit of hesitation and disbelief, I pulled up a little piece of dimly illuminated hallway with him and kept him company for the duration of the movie, trying to distract him during scary parts, and then accompanied him to the exterior hallway after the movie was over.  After some lost-in-translation Spanglish, a handful of siblings appeared out of the other theatres to claim him and I went about my business, a little more disillusioned than when I had entered the theatre over three hours earlier.

But I couldn't help wondering if I made the right choice.  The right choice of multiple choices available, all which raced through my mind while I made "ew" and "yuck" faces at him during the movie.  Here is what you said:   

• 9 of you would have done the same thing I did, which is sit with him until someone claimed him but not report it to management
• 2 of you said you would have left him alone and minded your own business
• 13 of you would have taken him to management
• 3 of you would have left him where you found him and went for management yourself
• 4 of you would have called the police

So why did I choose to do what I did?

Leaving him alone was certainly a thought that crossed my mind.  More specifically, "What are you getting yourself into?" is what crossed my mind, but I was already sitting down, so there was no turning back.  I never could have stopped wondering what happened to him.

Likewise, leaving him alone while I went for management was not a viable option for me because had he been gone when I returned, I would have tortured myself with doubt.  Pretty much, I claimed responsibility for him from the moment I saw him and wasn't going to relinquish it until the responsibility was handed over.

That leaves us with taking him to management and/ or calling the police.

I mentioned that I am a tattle-tale, right?  I not only want people to be called out for their mistakes, but to admit the mistake and make amends for them, as well.  "An eye for an eye" just makes us even in my book; the punishment begins after we are even.

And no, the irony is not lost on me that I was in effect "stealing" the last 15 minutes of a movie.  I went in that room with that intention, so the boy was no excuse.  In fact, I routinely "steal" up to 30 minutes of movies before and after the film for which I have bought a ticket.  In my defense, I never watch more than 30 minutes, because that would just be wrong. (insert the equivalent of a wink here.)  I think of it as an extended preview; if 30 minutes is good, I definitely buy a ticket the next time around.

I never said that my rules are necessarily based on law.  They are also subject to change without notice.  I will admit that being a subject in my queendom would be challenging, at best.

Nevertheless...

Something about how comfortable this little boy appeared (in the situation, not as an audience member of Hellboy II) told me that this was not the first time he had watched a movie in this theatre at midnight by himself.  He had a blanket, which just said "I came prepared" to me.  Then, when his siblings appeared, everything about their relaxed demeanor told me that this was routine for them.

For the record, had no one showed up to claim him after the movie, I would have delivered him to management and stuck around until the situation was resolved.    However, my initial suspicion that one of their parents must work at the theatre was confirmed when the oldest girl nodded in response to my question, "Does your mom work here?"

As far as I could tell, their mother worked the late shift at the theatre and used the movies as babysitters.  This was more or less confirmed when the oldest girl said, motioning to the double sign indicating either Hellboy II or WALL-E as the movie showing on that screen, "Yeah, he always thinks that movie is WALL-E."

Given this, I could have marched them all to management, or at least to their mother, and lectured everyone involved about how wrong it is for kids their age to be out at midnight, let alone watching a horror movie.  But I didn't, for the same reason I did not call the police.

What if management didn't know their mother was doing this and she was therefore fired?  She would have to find another job, which around here might mean working at a casino, and then what would she do about child care?  Who knows what shift she would have to take and there are far worse places for kids to be at midnight than in a movie theatre, in the same building as their mother, who can probably check in on them occasionally, should she so choose.

Look, I know this is a lot of conjecture on my part, but this was my thought process in a dark theatre, watching a scary movie, in the middle of the night with a tiny little boy I did not know.  I wanted to do right by him, but doing right by him in the short term and the long were two different things.  My need to make everything "right" by my book might not be "right" for his life.

By the same reasoning, had I called the police, I may have been doing more than punishing the mother for making a bad decision.  If she was, in fact, an illegal immigrant, I can't imagine the consequences.

So I stayed with him until I could turn him over to someone that could claim him as their own.  I didn't take him out of there because even touching him seemed like crossing a line.  I didn't turn anyone in because the repercussions were more than I could reasonably predict.  Instead, I tried to help him out and distract him for a short period of time during which I could reasonably predict the repercussions.  Hellboy II is not a movie for toddlers, in case you were wondering.

I still don't know if what I did was right, but I thank you for your opinions.  You all felt so strongly about it and it was seriously fascinating.  Can you imagine what that scene would have been like had we all been there?  Mad chaos, to say the least.

I still don't know if what I did was right.  It felt right, but sometimes beating people over the head until they cry "Uncle!" feels right.  Figuratively, not literally. 

When you open yourself up to what is happening around you, it is amazing what you will find.  If you just scratch the surface, you might stumble into a world of underground theatre children, for whom spending their nights at the movies may become just footnotes in the story of what their mother did to provide for them.  Or for whom you may be provided a single opportunity to help and you blow it because you don't want to make things worse. 

I still don't know if what I did was right.

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Internet Fame is for the Nerds: Post-BlogHer Identity

(edited below for clarification on 8/10/08)

As I was packing for San Francisco to attend the BlogHer 2008 blog conference, I was confident of two things about myself:  I write a decent blog with one hand and change dirty diapers with the other.  I know who I am and I know right where I belong.

If anything, attending BlogHer would have one of two results for me: 

1) I would discover that more people read this blog than I realize.

or

2) I would be put in my place as an anonymous face in a sea of anonymous faces.

I was pretty good with either of those outcomes because the real reason I was heading to BlogHer for the first time was to meet other bloggers, not promote my own blog.  I can talk about me any day, but I can only meet you on the very rare occasion.

What I discovered is that most of the friends I have made online are my friends in the flesh, as well.  I also discovered that I have far more friends than I realized.

The first time someone came up to me and asked, "Are you the Velveteen Mind?" I thought I was going to pass out from excitement.  How cool is that?  After sessions, during which I had to pipe up and hog the mic (being sure to say, "Hey, I'm Megan from Velveteen Mind" and hope someone would look me up on their laptop), there would sometimes be people lined up at my table to meet me.  Me.  How crazy is that?

It's bat-shit crazy, is what it is.

Then, somewhere around the 12th time someone approached me in the hall while I was talking to my elusive roommates and shared with me that they read my blog or follow me on twitter, it started to feel a little embarrassing.  It never embarrassed me if I was alone, but it kept happening in front of the same people and, honestly, I started to feel like a bit of a whore.

Like, "Gah, how much does she pimp herself on twitter, anyway?"  Yeah, pretty much just like that.  I could feel eyes rolling around me (not my roommates') and I felt like I should defend myself or explain away how these people knew me.

Because God forbid I have a popular blog or a heavily-followed twitter account.

Why does success feel so dirty in a platform like personal blogging?  It feels downright pornographic if you are a mom-blogger.

And before your eyes roll right out of your own head, let me clarify what I mean by "success."  On one floor, of one hotel, in one city, in one country, in all of the world, for one weekend...  a handful of people knew who I was and were excited to meet me.  Go up or down one level, step outside of our bubble, and it was all gone.

Internet celebrity is a farce.  It is meaningless.  It is fleeting.  And it is rampantly revered...  by people reading the Internet.

Ask your dad who Dooce is.  Then get back to me.

BlogHer was a schizophrenic's EEG.  Intoxicating high's (the recognition) and feet-to-ground lows (the blank stares in response to "I'm Megan from Velveteen Mind").  Trust me, my feet were solidly planted on the ground most of the time.  Half the time I wanted to say, "Yeah, I know, I totally made up that blog name.   I don't even own a computer." and the rest of the time I felt sure someone would ask for my autograph.

And that was all on that one floor of the hotel.  Step outside and I went right back to feeling foolish for admitting that I was at a blogging conference.  Surely someone would wonder where my Spock ears were.

The point of all of this is to reiterate that the deference given to big-name bloggers is laughable at best and damagingly naive at worst.  I thought I could let all of the post-BlogHer drama posts slide, but it finally came to a head for me today and I just have to beg you to stop.

These are real people.  They probably won't be "famous" next year.  Don't hesitate to reach out to them.  Don't hesitate to talk to them.  And don't be afraid to cross them if you disagree with something that they have said.

Engage them in a conversation.  Chances are, they are starving for real discussion.  No one respects a fangirl, but everyone loves knowing that their work is appreciated.  Get beyond that hurdle and you might be surprised at the human you find behind the blog.

I swear, I feel foolish even writing this because my in-real-life friends are going to be saying to themselves, "Is she serious?  These are just blogs."  Yeah, I am.  There were people who were too intimidated to approach me at BlogHer. 

That, my friends, is pterodactyl-shit crazy.

All of this is sort of ridiculous.  Yet, blogging has true value.  I learned that definitively at BlogHer.  And no matter your vitriol (I think it's a law that all bloggers use that word at least once), you can't change that for me.

By the way, I'm writing this on my couch, I haven't had a shower today, my sink is full of dishes, my boys may not have clean clothes for school tomorrow (working on that), and one of the highlights of my day is yet to come:  putting my sons down to bed, which includes reading a couple of books, rocking the two year old and singing "All You Need is Love," and then all three of us cuddling in bed for a minute while we talk about the stars projected on their ceiling.

I know right where I belong.

Because in two little hearts, in one home, on one street, in one city, I am the most famous person in all the world.  And there is infinite value in that.

~~~

(edited to add:  I was going to have a bunch of fun photos, but before I could upload them, I was flooded with emails telling me that a gracious yet very pointed comment I left on a big-name blogger's recent post was deleted.  I have never been censored in my life, so I'm sort of floored.  You know me.  Can you imagine what I would have had to write to get deleted?

Ah, the irony.  This post suddenly looks very naive to me.

That being said, unless the natives settle down considerably, my post on Monday will be called either "Inciting the Queen & King" or "Utah is the new China.")

***Final edit added 10:30pm 8/10/08: The comment deleted was my final comment made on a blog written by a Utah blogger named Jon Armstrong.  He is dooce's husband.  I do not care that Jon deleted my comment (one of 4 that I left as the conversation progressed), but rather that Jon evidently deleted the vast majority of all dissenting comments submitted to his post, none of which appear to have been hateful or malicious, but rather just disagreeing with his presentation of a story that had long since been settled.  His call, our opinions, his censorship.

Ultimately, his blog.  Again, he has the right to hide my opinion from you, as well as dozens of others.

Silencing dissenting opinions has never been a good thing.  As you will see in the comments of this post, I refuse to silence dissenting opinions as long as they do not attack my readers.  Regardless.  Transparency and humility are integral to this platform. 

Here are the facts, for your consideration:

1. Jon and Heather Armstrong live in Utah. 
2. China is infamous for viciously censoring all dissenting opinions.

Here is my opinion, for your entertainment:

Utah is the new China.

But it doesn't have to be.

Side note:  If you are here looking for drama, you might want to move along (after leaving your requisite hateful comment) because I rarely enter these frays.  If what you take away from the above post is that I actually think I am famous, then you probably won't "get" this blog.  You'll be disappointed when I start writing about "community" and "morals" and my kids again.  Good Lord, half the time I talk about the Discovery channel and Matt Lauer.  Move along.  Or don't.  That's your call.  You might want to consult my "comment policy" at the bottom of the page, though.

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When Batman and Hellboy are no help, call on Dora and Diego. Ayuda me!

(disclaimer:  No children were adopted in the making of this story.  I did not become the Angelina Jolie of our local movie theatre, though I did come this close to donning my Tomb Raider outfit and kicking some ass.)

Last night I ditched out and went to a movie.  Just about as frequently as I ditch out on the readers of this blog, I ditch out on my family.  I may be a 31 year old mother of two in Mississippi, but I still have a pulse and sometimes I need that pulse to not be matched by the beating pulses of so many that share my DNA.

I should develop some kind of code to indicate that I am heading out, will be back later, and not to come looking for me unless you see the bat signal.

Yeah, I went to see The Dark Knight.

Now for the trite:  Christian Bale was stellar.  The entire time I was watching him appear out of nowhere to save the day and the girl and the city, I totally had "I Need a Hero" playing in my head.  Who doesn't love to be saved?

Heath Ledger.   I am such a sucker.   Count me in for all of the glowing reviews of his performance.  He was breathtaking and, sure, I felt an impulse to perform the sign of the cross when he first took the screen.  My ability to suspend my disbelief and be consumed by a performance is second to none. 

I don't write movie reviews so much as I write obsessive stalker notes. 

The Dark Knight was amazing, engaging, engrossing, and inspiring.  Yep, I just fell all over myself and gushed "inspiring."  The message in this film was precise and clear:  You sometimes have to be the fall-guy in order to be the truest hero.  The Dark Knight was an exercise in altruism and it was fascinating.

Go see it.  The end.

The showtime I caught was the last showing of the night, so it was after midnight as I made it out of the theatre.  I took the side exit directly into the parking lot, one of those exits that is at the end of a corridor of theatres.  As I was pushing through the exit, I stopped to listen to the movie still playing in the last theatre by the door.  It was incredibly loud and sounded painfully violent, so naturally I had to poke my head in. 

A trip to the movies would not be complete for me unless I stole at least 15 minutes of another movie.  Because screw you, Ben Affleck.

The signs above the entrance doors indicated that the movie was either WALL-E or Hellboy II:  The Golden Army.  By the sound of the screaming, I put my money on Hellboy.  Or technically, not my money.

It was one of those smaller screening rooms where you walk up a long straight passage bordered on one side by a high wall blocking the view of the stadium seats.  A 31 year old mother on the run could stand in that passage and watch a movie without being seen by the people in the seats.

So could a small child huddled under a blanket on the floor.

In the soft red light of the floor runners in the dark passage, a young boy sat, knees drawn up in front of him, fleece Spider-Man blanket wrapped around his small body and over his head so that only his face peeked out, with eyes wide and fixed on the screen ahead of us.

He couldn't have been more than four.

Welcome to hell, boy...  you should not be here.

I walked slowly toward him, stopping in view of the screen but perhaps four feet from where he sat.  He looked up and I smiled and shrugged, indicating that "Yeah, I'm sneaking a movie, too."  He quickly averted his eyes and leaned away from me a little.

But then he looked back.  And then again.  And again.  Until he lowered his blanket behind his head just a little.

I gently sat down on the slanting floor beside him, close enough to be able to whisper to him if I leaned in but not so close that I could intimidate him with my presence or even appear as though I was with him to a certainly soon-to-check-in mother rounding the wall.

Minutes passed and no mother checked in on him.  Was his guardian sitting on the other side of that wall?  Why weren't they checking on him?  Were they that selfish about their movie viewing habits that they didn't care that he was clearly scared?  Not to mention that it was now close to 12:30 at night.

Judging whoever had allowed him to be here was not going to get me anywhere and I couldn't exactly take him out of there, so I just watched the movie.  With him.  Stealing glances at him every now and then to gauge how frightened he was by the epic battle playing out on the screen above us.

He was indeed small.  Delicate frame and fine black hair.  Dark skin and dark eyes.  Surely Mexican.  Ever since Hurricane Katrina, the Mexican population along the Gulf Coast has exploded.  He would poke his feet out from under his blanket every once in a while and reveal his little plastic sandals, but nothing more.

He stole a glance at me and smiled.  I leaned over and whispered, "Wow, this is a scary movie, but she is really pretty, huh?"  He smiled but said nothing.

"Hey, is your mom here?"

Nothing.

"Wow, he's really a crazy guy!"

Small nod.

"Ew, that's gross.  Yuck, huh?"

Smile.  Roll of the eyes.

We watch the movie.   We watch Hellboy.

I moved my wallet near the wall, my drink beside me, and stretched my legs out in front of me.  Indicating that I was in this for the long haul, too.

When he would look at me, I would try to give him a reassuring smile and sort of shrug in a "this is crazy, right?" kind of way, but I could never tell if what felt like reassuring on my face was actually coming off as creepy Stranger Danger in his eyes. 

And then he laid down on the floor and rolled around.  Shooting me smiles and giggling.

The puppy had revealed his belly.

So there we sat, in a dark passage with frightening images of demon spawn towering over us, and we finished watching the movie.

The lights came up, a few people straggled out, and I gave each and every one of them a look that screamed, "I'm just keeping your kid company, you bastard.  No wait, your kid.  No.  Oh.  Okay, your kid."

I am Bruce Wayne about to turn into Batman.  Someone is going answer to this.

And then I ran out of bastards.

I looked at my little friend and smiled.  He hadn't said a word.  Finally, he stood up, draped his blanket over his head and face, and went barreling down the passage with me pulling up the rear, without a clue what to do next.  I expected him to keep barreling toward the concession stand or some room where his theatre-employee parent was surely waiting, but instead he flopped on the floor outside of the theatre doors.

Okay, so, um, huh.

In the light of the hallway, our situation began to feel ridiculous. 

"So, is your mom here?"

Mumble.

"Ah, do you speak English?"

Mumble.  Smile.

Grasping at my high school Spanish, "Habla Español?"

"Sí."

"Hmmm, is your mami aquí?  Aquí?  (insert hand motion indicating the floor)  Aquí?"

Good Lord, I was now pulling from old episodes of The Bob Newhart Show.

Giggling.

"Are you three?  Tres?"  I hold up three fingers.  I'm thinking Dora the Explorer now.  Keep it simple.

Nods.  Laughs.  Says something that I'm pretty sure means "crazy white lady" in Spanish.

By the twinkle in his eye as he says it, I'm almost sure this is not something I would have learned on Diego.

Maybe five minutes have passed and not a soul has walked by and my friend is still rolling around on the floor.

Do I turn him in to the lost and found?  Do I bust whoever it is that must be working here and using these movies as babysitters?  It is well after midnight and this movie was not, in fact, WALL-E.

And then, like a bizarre scene from a movie that I did not audition for, small Mexican children begin simultaneously exiting the theatres around us.  Three of them from three different theatres and they are all headed our way.

Ayuda me!  Please tell me one of them speaks English.

They all smile and lift their eyebrows.  I am on a stage and my audience awaits my first line.

"So, um, I found him in Hellboy.  I couldn't just leave him there because, well...  so I just watched it with him."

The oldest girl speaks.  "Yep, he always thinks that movie is WALL-E.  (motioning to my friend in the Spider-Man blanket on the floor) Tell the lady thank you."

Mumbles something that again sounds suspiciously like Spanish for "crazy white lady."

An embarrassed look passes his apparent sister's face and she nudges him with her foot and shushes him quickly.  Ah, I knew it! 

"Sorry, he's, uh, saying ugly words."

Yes, I know. 

So much for my stint as the Dora-educated Hellboy-watching Dark Knight of the movie theatre.  With great power comes great responsibility.  And almost uniformly no great respect or gratitude from the citizens of Gotham.

 

Dios mio.

~~~

To you, I ask:  From the moment you saw him to the moment you left him, what would you have done?

~~~

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