More About Anonymity and Sleep deprivation

There were a couple of news items recently that were in the vein of people rioting at the thought of losing their internet secrecy. One was pointed out to me by one of you faithful readers (Hi Roy!), a story about the harassment a female gamer receives if the nerds she games with find out her real name. To me,this actually supports my belief in online identification. If the lonely stalkers were held accountable to what they were doing, held to the same standards and rules that a real world stalker would, the incidents of harassment would drop dramatically. They are hiding behind a convenient fallacy that things on the internet aren’t really real, so they can do normally reprehensible things without feeling guilty.

The other story was Blizzard trying to introduce real names into their Warcraft forums. Again, I think this would eliminate the majority of the bloated nonsense that clutters the web. The players can maintain their escapism into an alternate identity within the game, but forums are public areas where real people interact.

On the parenting front, Max’s sleep pattern has become unstable again,so we’re running on low sleep juice for everyone. Things I lose when I’m tired: the ability to make an omelette, and the capacity to fully follow a recipe. Thankfully, the family likes my hot egg messes, and forgetting the olive oil in homemade hummus makes it ‘low fat’. Ta da!

Ouch! AH!! Ouch!

(AKA I can’t use a firepole correctly AKA My fingers are burning and I can’t Swear*)

Another trip to Storybook Gardens, this time spiced up with a touch of misadventure. I was escorting Max up the rather steep ladders on the pirate ship, all the way up to the two storey slide. Sometimes the slide is a little too intimidating for him, but he was full of gumption and confidence today, so up we went.

On his second trip down the slide, I had a moment of indecision on how to most easily and efficiently get down to the ground to meet him. The previous trip down the ladder had worked just fine, but for some reason I needed to explore my options. My foolish brain leapt to the conclusion that I’d try the firepole. I DON’T KNOW WHY. It’s not like I have any memories of using a firepole successfully, much less enjoying it. Let’s chalk the choice up to curiosity.

Immediately after grabbing the pole and stepping off the structure, I realize I have no idea on how to proceed. Once again, my quick-thinking process chooses the worst option, and I loosen my grip enough to slide a little bit down. With the friction and heat (it was a black metal pole in the sun on an obnoxiously hot summer day) the contact points between my soft flesh and the pain pole start blistering right away.

I somehow made it down to the ground to find my child, as my fingers screamed in a terrible fiery pain.  I spent the next 20 minutes staring at my hands for signs of the flesh actually combusting, and trying to touch absolutely nothing. Of course, it’s impossible to keep one hand quarantined from interaction when you have a curious imp of a two-year old child, but I managed to stifle both my need to swear, and my desire to yelp and cry a little each time anything brushed my hand. As a fun fact, though I couldn’t remember using a firepole before now, this pain was instantly recognizable: I have done this before, and I should have known better.

After a few hours, the pain lessened and there doesn’t look like there’s any real damage. No amputation today.

*An alternate bonus title for the smuttier readers : ” I don’t know my way around a fireman’s pole”

There goes my Dad of the Year award

Cue my emotional overreaction-Max has a……CAVITY! That’s right, being lax with tooth brushing, especially after his bed time snack (and back in the day when we let him fall asleep with his milk bottle in his mouth) has led to exactly the outcome you expect. Its a big ‘un, too, on the back molar.

The appointment for the pediatric dentist will get made tomorrow, and it will loom in my mind until the appointment is finished and he’s fine. The added stress bonus is that they’ll sedate Max to do the filling, and I’ve developed a mild fear of anesthesia. I know he’ll be fine, but I wish I would have worked harder to prevent this from happening to my special little guy. And he was so good at the dentist, so cooperative and cheerful. I am the sad.