Weird Fact of the Day

If you google "Mei Lei Massacre" my blog comes up fourth. (???)

Swollen like the Cahaba River last week.

My contribution to the Greater Birmingham Community this year was to show what a girl looks like after an emergency C-section and a week in the hospital. Sitting for the photograph was not as brave as say, storming Omaha Beach, but it was my Iwo Jima.

You can't see the photograph, but you CAN read the essay here Got to buy the magazine to see Su Su Puff Face.

Thank you for another opportunity to force myself upon the world, C.J.

(Look for Kristen's essay, too.)

Lonely

I have spent more of my life being lonely than not. Maybe that's why I love lonely places--summer camps in September, empty sanctuaries, the beach when school started Monday and a hurricane is coming. And that's where I find myself today. Nobody is on the beach. Nobody is in the restauraunts. Nobody clogging up the shops. And I like it. But it feels a little lonely.

I have a friend with a new baby (newer than mine by a month) in the NICU at Children's with an infection spread by some nurse who didn't think it worth his or her time to wash their hands before handing a little baby too new to be home from the hospital. I'm angry about it. Is that not the first friggen thing you LEARN in nursing school?

Having a baby in the NICU is the worst thing that can happen to you short of not having a baby in the NICU. I can't fathom this. I can't understand this. And I'm sad about it.