Living Out Loud volume 20: You won't read this anywhere ...

Rich and I have joked about making a list somewhere of all the things my father doesn't like. That list would be very long, but the recent examples I can think of are Canola oil, luan plywood and Cox communications. Each of those could be a blog post (or several) of its own which is one of the many reasons I need to make my father a blog so that he can tell the World and not just us. A kind of old man therapy, if you will. I've also noticed a trend lately in truisms these days. There's a very entertaining site called 1001 rules for my unborn son with such gems as "388. If you don’t know what a knob does, don’t fool with it." and "311. Don’t date your bartender." That combined with the Twitter turned book turned TV show with William Shatner called Sh*t My Dad Says made me realize that we all have rules or beliefs that we need to pass onto others.

My father is often known to start a sentence with "you won't read this anywhere but ..." He can't actually say it now without grinning because it's all just some inside joke. But the nugget of wisdom has to be shared!

So that's what I want you to do for this month's Living Out Loud project. Tell us some of your rules. Maybe it's how the toilet paper goes on the roll. Maybe it's something about finding the perfect mate. Maybe it's some lesson that involves hiring J. Walter Weatherman to teach your children a lesson about leaving notes. It could be one really important rule or a list of guidelines for living. But the best part is they're your rules.

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each prompt above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, September 5th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

We'll all just keep doing the things we shouldn't do unless you give us a list of rules to not do them!

Recap of Living Out Loud volume 19: Tooting your own horn

I must admit I was a little proud to pick a topic that stumped a lot of people. But then again, if I stump everyone, it's hard to get a lot of folks to participate. So this month, we had only a few LOLers but I enjoyed reading them all.

Rachel's the Battle Scar So many people struggle with their bodies but it sounds like you've got the right idea that you're happy and alive.

Megan's A Woman Made of Words I would say you should be proud of your strength and your toughness. And your calves - you have great calves. :)

SuziCate's Not Exactly Musical But I'll Toot My Horn Anyway! I would totally be full of pride about that. You're a trent setter!

Ruth's Pride Part One I love your writing. But you don't need me to say that. You already know it!

and my own Stick with me and you'll be fine

It's interesting to me that it was so hard for folks to find something to brag about when it came to themselves. Perhaps this tells us something about the whole Living Out Loud project on a larger scale. It really is easier for us to bare our shortcomings online than it is to pat ourselves on the proverbial back. We should work on that.

So this month, I'm being all crazy and naming myself the winner. Even when I asked Rich last weekend what I should write about he said I should be proud of this Living Out Loud project. He blurted out "you could do an LOL about LOL! That's all meta and shit!" So indeed, while I wrote about the things I'm proud of about myself, I'm also very proud of this Living Out Loud project. But that means that in addition to taking pride in organizing it, I'm also very proud of all of you for participating.

Go us! We rock!

Stick with me and you'll be fine

When I was four years old our neighbor's dog mauled my face. My father had to search their lawn looking for my nose, something I don't wish on any parent. When we got to the hospital and the plastic surgeon was stitching my face, I remember lying on the table with bright lights shining down on me and silent tears streaming down my cheeks. The nurse chided me and said she didn't want any alligator tears. And I remember my father telling her sternly that I was FOUR and to shut the hell up. In contrast, my mother cut her pinky toe nearly off as a child and when asked to retrieve water for her, my grandmother returned with a pitcher of water and promptly poured it on Mom's head. Grandma didn't deal well with crises.

Our family was always raised that we were not allowed to panic. Daddy had watched a man die in Vietnam after stepping on a mine and only losing his foot. I can remember his ranting, "and it was a clean wound! He never should have died but he panicked!" So panicking was never an option for us.

It poured "like a motherfucker" as Rich would say Friday night and the restaurant we were in lost power for a few seconds. The hostess next to us literally told her friend she was terrified and that blew my mind. Her voice was shaking and all I could think was "it's rain, not War of the Worlds."

I was diagnosed with diabetes 25 years ago. The doctor told my mother there was no cure and that I'd die without injections for the rest of my life. But my strongest memories from the ordeal are being bored in the hospital room and using needles to suck the juice out of oranges with my roommate. I certainly don't remember being terrified. And in the last 25 years, I've remained pretty optimistic about being diabetic.

When I was first asked about what I wanted from my birth, I told the doctor I wanted a healthy baby, I wanted a quick recovery and I wanted as little drama as possible. My "birth plan" equated to "don't do anything you don't have to and don't do anything without explaining why to me first." I'm pleased to say I got what I wanted in all those areas.

Each of these is a specific event but they combine some of my best traits. I'm unusually optimistic, I don't give up easily and I never panic.

I got my optimism from Mom. She's amazingly patient with so many things and able to find a reason to laugh or smile through nearly anything. When I got pregnant it never occurred to me I couldn't have an unmedicated birth. I would have even stayed home if I thought Rich and any midwife would have stood for it. Some may call that naivety but I call it optimism and empowerment.

As we drove to the hospital at 3am I had no idea I'd still be pregnant 24 hours after that. But as the days of labor stretched on, I remember just rolling with it (quite literally with the aide of the birth ball). The game plan kept having to change and I admit to a fair amount of frustration, but I wasn't going to surgery unless we literally had no other options. I still had fight in me.

I got my vaginal birth, I got my beautiful baby boy and when they needed to take him from me for monitoring, I happily let them. I've read birth stories of women yelling because their babies were taken from them for minutes. Ian was in the special care nursery attached to a CPAP machine and couldn't nurse for the first day at all, but we did fine. I learned to nurse my son in the rolling office chair next to his bassinet and remember only joy and wonder at his tiny perfect little features.

Rich's uncle Tommy is in very poor health. We thought we were driving to Richmond this weekend to say our goodbyes to him and have a memorial service Sunday. In an amazing turn of events, we just left his hospital bed where he joked with us, smiled and said he hoped to be out of the ICU soon. It's been a whirlwind week of emotions for everyone, but I just did my thing. I remain optimistic about Tommy, I didn't give up on him and no one was allowed to panic.

So if there is an alien invasion, come to our house. We'll be the best prepared and no one will dump water on you.