Unmatched

JD is overseas again. This time for pleasure, and with Monkey in tow. They be having a great time. I be less wound up than when solo piloting the craft that included buttload of work deadlines in addition to the usual complement of school drop offs and pickups and the numerous extracurriculars. But I am not what you would call chilled. For one thing I have a crazy long list of things I am trying to get done, what with fewer things I have to do, aka everyone's favorite game-- catch up. For another, and more to the point, it turns out that having no reliable me time, courtesy of the unpredictable schedule of one teething infant, wears you down. Single parents everywhere, can I buy you a drink?

So, the list. I am making progress, slogging through. Many things on it that unquestionably need doing, but only a couple that I look forward to. King of the hill in the latter category is "the reader," as in my Google Reader, the oft-neglected, long-suffering aggregator of the flotation device that is my friends inside the computer.

I read blogs for years before I felt any real need to get me one of 'em too. When I did, completely coincidentally exactly two years ago-- how's that for a nearly missed, entirely forgotten up until this very moment (so much so I just had to click through the archives to check) fortuitously most appropriate piece of trivia,-- it was because I needed to speak. I've been talking a bit, in the comment sections of the few loss blogs I found by then. But I had more to say, to get out, to hold to the light and examine, on my own terms, in my own time. I hoped not to be talking entirely to myself, but I wasn't banking on it. I needed to speak, and so I started speaking.

But at some point there, I wasn't talking to myself. There were others. Suddenly, there was this incredible gift, given to me over and over-- to be heard, to be validated. When I jumped in, I had no idea how much I would need that, how attached I would become to it. This community that listens, embraces, and stands by you through thick and thin, that does not avert its eyes from the scary, the ugly, and the very painful, that knows better than to succumb to platitudes. This community that abides.

This community that is made up of amazing individuals--
generous, warm, unique-- un- matched. Faced with the same realiza- tion one fine and busy work day, incredible Kym conceived of a physical manifestation of this very concept-- the Sock It To Me funky sock exchange. Do you see the genius of the idea? It has it all-- the warmth, the support, the funky personal touch. Damn, but it's good.

And do you see the bounty of colorful goodness that the lovely Katie of The Happy Hours has gifted me with? The label said missmatched. But, forgive the bad pun, it's really should be unmatched. Just like the community from whence the exchange sprang, and to which it testifies. Check the built-in metaphor: we are all funky and unique as these here socks, but we mix, and we match, and we go together. Ok, ok, I'll stop with the metaphor murder now, but if you want to see more (and often way more laconic) tributes to this here community, be sure to visit the Sockeroo headquarters and have a click around. That sounds vaguely dirty. But you know what I mean, don't you?

(Psst... Katie is, these days, counting down to her beta. So, if you are so inclined, please go over, admire the funky socks she is sporting, and keep her company while she waits.)



As the weekend runs away from me in the (admittedly relaxed-like, but still) haze of various and necessary tasks, I keep looking forward to the soul food that is beginning to catch up on my reader. My plan, by the way, for when the catching up is fully accomplished, is to add more blogs to teh old reader. I have a list of those I've been meaning to check on more regularly, or to begin reading altogether. Fittingly, Katie, the giver of the unmatched socks, admitted, in a lovely card she sent with (decorated with sock stickers-- kid you not!) to having been a lurker around these parts.

So to wind this post down in style, and because I also, in my typically lame fashion, missed that delurking day when, apparently, it's acceptable to pester one's readers to come out of their individual bloggy closets, I thought I'd do it now. Hence-- for my blogoversary present, pretty please, with sprinkles on top, tell me who you are. The reader doesn't grow itself, you know.