It's a marathon and a sprint

Congratulations to the sisters and brothers of the parental bloggerhood who were mentioned in the Paper of Record's Sunday Styles page. And many thanks to Jay over at The Zero Boss for the reflected love. If you're new here, I only wish I could stand and welcome you properly. As it is, I'll be over here on the floor for a while.

Here's a fun idea. Click over to the article, then to Zero Boss, and then back here. Then do it again and again, faster each time. NYTimes, Zero Boss, Laid-Off Dad. NYTimes, Zero Boss, Laid-Off Dad. Faster! Times-Zero-Laid! Times-Zero-Laid! Times-Zero-Laid!

Do you feel agitated and spent because you got yourself all up in a lather but ended up in the same place you started? Welcome to my day.

Now say it backward: Laid-Zero-Times! This, too, is relevant.

My wife is out of town until tomorrow night, having left the two knuckle-draggers to forage for ourselves during Operation Give Daddy Something To Think About During His Golf Weekends. And today, the activity was nonstop, from 7 this morning until he passed out in his high chair after his friend's seismic birthday party.

Since there's another day to go, I'm off for some carbo-loading and a hot shower. Or perhaps a cold one.

UPDATE 1: Sunday morning on "In the Papers" on NY1 (our local news station), Kristen Shaughnessy highlighted the Times's blogger piece and editorialized that the featured blogger-parents are "those you might not necessarily want to run into on the playground." Clearly, we have much more work to do before the Normals can accept us.

UPDATE 2: In the print version of the Styles page, right below the blogger article, appeared a piece about the limousine frenzy leading up to Sunday's Super Bowl. Apparently, there is great demand for "extralong Hummers." Well, obviously.

Comments

[alice]

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU.

Then again, at least your name wasn't misspelled.

[LOD]

I have to give the man credit. I asked him not to use my name, and he came through on his promise.

[melissaS]

You must not be self absorbed and obsessive enough to be included with all of us narcissistic hand wringing obsessives.

Congratulations!

Melissa

[The Zero Boss]

You actually *were* going to be in the article, but then my head swelled up and pushed you right off.

[Jenn]

But if you had been mentioned, none of us would be able to zoom through the site to come up with Laid-Zero-Times. And let me tell you, that is some fun stuff.

I love Laid Off Dad whether he mentioned you or not.

[sac]

It's way cooler to not be in that article. I should know. Fucking sellout parent-bloggers.

[anne]

that article was so ridiculous i don't even know where to start with it. i really don't want to have to re-read it, but i have a feeling if you took out "blogs" and put in "phones", it would be clear who is doing all the hand-wringing.

they're just scared, cause print journalism knows there are better news writers on the internet than in most newspapers. they don't want their readers jumping over to the whole new-fangled "blogging" thang.

i would love to runinto you on the playground, by the way.

[The Zero Boss]

Bloggers "you might not necessarily want to run into on the playground"? Dude, I'm putting that in my fucking PRESS RELEASES.

[melissaS]

Oh that playground comment is so funny.

But I have to tell you, that Alice is so angry when she's not blogging I wouldn't want to run into her and Mrs Kennedy might just rip my face off if she saw me at the playground.

Trust me you don't want to run into me at the playground, you never know what I'll do!

[L Man]

Hmmmm, who would I rather meet on the playground: A blogger who writes about the joys and challenges of raising kids or a shallow local news reporter who likely views children as mere obstacles on the way to the anchor chair?

Perhaps she was put-off by all the big words?

[LOD]

Inquiring minds may read Ms. Shaughnessy's bio here. (A golfer's wife!)

To understand NY1's editorial take on children, you might want to check out the station's "Parenting" correspondent, a proud survivor of charisma bypass surgery.

[Anita]

If there's one good thing from the self-absorption brouhaha, I've found some good new blogs! (of course, if I could simply stop writing about ME I could read these other blogs....)

[Mrs. Kennedy]

No, you don't want to run into me at the playground because I'll eavesdrop on your conversation and then blog about what a psycho you are. Other than that I'm the nicest person in that whole article! And the most self-absorbant. I just swell up like a roll of wet paper towels in the rain. Can I wash your car?

[LOD]

Please stop what you're doing and go read Sac's post on parent blogging. Then go clean your keyboard.

[alice, uptown]

The Times is my local newspaper. For 40+ years it has a history of being late-with-the-story. It takes a long time for something to filter up the editorial food chain for the Times (no ital, per the Times style sheet) to recognize it as a story.

That said, I have also edited for its op-ed page. It is, to say something non-Timesian, a sucky place to work. The editor I worked for treated diversity as if it were a Chinese menu, and he needed one writer from column A (black or latino) and one from column B (say, a lesbian, to kill two birds with one stone). They sent him to the sensitivity training weekend, but he failed to retain the memo info that predicated his attendence.

I also have numerous and sundry acquaintances and friends who have worked for the Times over the years. The corporate motto is, if you like your job here, we'll move you to East Siberia, where you'll hate it.

The editorial motto is, we don't know shit about any subject on which we are called to edit. Therefore, if we spell your name properly, we've earned our union wages.

[Uma Andersson]

The last time I was at the park, there were two choices of who to hang out with. One was a goth, single mother the other was a burberry wrapped bunch of wasps pushing bugaboos and talking about Pilate-hockey classes and vedic flying children's workshops. You tell me which one you'd prefer!?