I lost track of how many night terrors I had last night. I don't remember them at all, but I remember my heart racing so fast afterwards that it felt like it might just leap out of my chest and get a room at the Holiday Inn so that it could get some rest for pete's sake. I also remember John getting very frustrated at being violently woken up so very many times. And I distinctly remember feeling very small afterwards, so very small and so very broken. I must have laid awake for at least half an hour at one point, not daring to fall back asleep lest John and my heart decided then and there to leave forever and never look back. Night terrors are such tricky things, so ill-understood by doctors and sleep specialists that the only things they can prescribe are sedatives to knock you out and force you to sleep through the night. That's not the kind of life I want to live. So I remain, at 30 years old, perpetually wary of sleep, and so very broken.

On yesterday's Today show, Heather Armstrong gave a short interview in which she defended (again) why she blogs in general and why she (occasionally) blogs about her daughter in particular. (In case you're not up to speed on the situation, I'll sum it up for you briefly: "mommy bloggers" have been in the news lately and have been catching a lot of flack for blogging about their children, as critics claim such bloggers are violating their children's right to privacy and putting their children in danger.) Heather's argument has always been that she finds blogging to be a wonderful creative outlet that puts her in touch with a larger community and, in the case of blogging about her daughter, makes her feel less alone to know that other mothers and parents struggle through the same problems. Furthermore, she argues, putting her child's photo on the web doesn't put their family in any more danger than walking down the sidewalk, since children often get kidnapped at random. (You can read her entire, much more articulate argument, here.)

But logical, well-reasoned arguments don't stand a chance against Kathie Lee Gifford, who during the interview declared that while she "doesn't know much about computers," blogging about one's children seems "dangerous." Ahem. I find it ironic that when women like Kathie Lee or Kelly Ripa or any number of other celebrities trot their kids out on national tv, it's just fine, but when women like Heather Armstrong and others post photos of their children on their blogs, it's somehow RECKLESS and DANGEROUS. What gives?

We know return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Ever since the semester ended, I've taken to getting up around 8 and not showering right away. Instead, I hang around the house (working, yes, don't worry) in my pajamas for a few hours until the mood strikes me to take a shower. (N.B.: This is what happens to you when you work from home. Do not desire it.) John, of course, is a willing and able accomplice in all this and sometimes manages to out-do me in the Dance of the Shower Postponement. This is all fine and well, of course, until the doorbell rings. And then we both get that deer-in-the-headlights look and suddenly our lives devolve into all-out negotiation. It's a battle of wills, really, of Stubborn v. Stubborn. And when one of us finally breaks down and goes to the door, after innumerable rounds of PLEASE GO GET THE DOOR FOR ME! I'LL UNLOAD THE DISHWASHER! and OH COME ON, IT'S NOT THAT BAD- JUST GO ANSWER THE DOOR!, inevitably the person at the door has left. Hopefully they assumed that the people inside were on important conference calls to London, not sitting around, unwashed, holding talks about door-answering responsibilities.

So, it sort of dawned on me over the weekend that we'll be moving next summer (fingers crossed, knock on wood, salt over the shoulder, and all that). And, along with that move, we'll also have to sell our house. Our first house. The house we've been working on since we bought it four years ago. The house that, thanks to our hard work, has been stripped of its 1980's cedar paneling, has bamboo floors throughout, has updated appliances, and has cheerful landscaping. (And gutters! This week we're getting gutters!) But with weekend realization, I've started to think less and less about what improvements we could make that we would enjoy, and more and more about what we could do to make our house more desirable to prospective buyers. It's a subtle shift, I suppose, but it's a weird transition nonetheless. It's odd to think of other people-- strangers-- living in our house, our home.

When I'm queen, people will know how to bag groceries correctly. Grocery sacking in this country is a travesty. It's far worse than the economy, folks. So when I'm queen, I'll institute a few simple rules with regard to bagging groceries.

• Fruits and veg should go in their own sack. Put more robust fruits and veg, such as cantaloupe and onions, at the bottom of the sack. Delicate items, such as berries and leafy greens need to be at the top, lest they get squished. Under no circumstances should a heavy juice container be placed on top of bananas. Such cross-pollination of groceries will not be tolerated under my reign.
• Refrigerated or frozen goods should never be placed alongside goods in paperboard containers, such as cereal boxes and the like. Inevitably, the cereal box begins to take on the condensation its chilly neighbors, and its structural integrity begins to fail. And nobody wants that with breakfast.
• Liquids, such as milk and juice, shall go in the same sack/s. Likewise, any toiletries or paper products shall also go in their own sacks. (See above note, regarding cross-pollination of groceries.)

As you can see, all of these simple rules follow a basic concept: like with like. If we can all follow these basic procedures, the world will be a better place. Long live the queen!

I woke up the other night with a start. John was still awake.

Me: "I had a dream... well... I think it was a dream."

John: "Okay..."

Me: "I dreamt that I left out a bunch of food. Food that makes alligators big and strong."

John: "... ..."

Me: "And a bunch of alligators came and ate it."

John: "And did they get big and strong?"

Me: "...yeah."

So recently, my laptop has been acting... funny. And by funny, I don't mean "ha ha" funny. No, instead it has taken to... well, crashing. Sometimes it crashes a program, sometimes the entire computer locks up, sometimes (sob!) there's a kernel panic and I get a friendly message saying I need to turn the computer off. Now. Naturally, when the kernel panics, I follow suit. I have a Mac, and Macs don't crash. They just don't. So I knew something was wrong. While I started wondering if I needed to shell out money for a whole new laptop, John wondered if the RAM had gone bad. We ordered new RAM, and waited for its arrival. I had two choices: use my current laptop, and hope like hell that it stopped crashing, or use my old laptop which is slow as molasses and has none of my research on it. I opted to use my current laptop, and counted no fewer than 10 crashes, of varying degrees, between Tuesday and Wednesday morning. When I finally had to shut it down after the last kernel panic yesterday morning, I was at a loss. What could I do without a laptop?!? My laptop is my means of communication, my means of research, my means of employment... I finally opted to clean the house, and was just a few minutes into that task when the FedEx guy arrived with my new RAM. Whew! I'm happy to report that my laptop is working like a charm now, and I'm breathing easier again. Though I have some suspicion that Steve Jobs has a plan to get us all completely dependent on our Macs, then unleash us on the world to do his evil bidding...