Stinkerpants

Q: Have you ever donated your hair to Locks of Love? - Anonymous

A: haha, this question must have been asked by someone who knew me in middle school!  Most people don’t know that I used to have extremely long hair - like, past my butt - when I was young.  In seventh grade, I decided to chop it all off to my shoulders.  Unfortunately, back then Locks of Love wasn’t around, so I wasn’t able to donate it.  My mother, however, decided to (this might be considered weird, I’m warning you) keep my hair.  A few months ago, we were going through some old boxes to find my baby clothes for Charlie when I pulled my ponytail (in a plastic bag) out of a box.  I sent it in to Locks of Love a couple of weeks later.  So the answer to your question is YES, I HAVE donated my hair to Locks of Love, but only after it sat in a box in the attic for about fifteen years.  Isn’t that weird/crazy/gross?!

Q: You've said before that you don't really eat meat. Have you had a hard time sticking to your mainly meatless diet now that you're pregnant? Have you been craving anything in particular? -Anonymous

A: At first, the answer to this question was a resounding NO.  I eat dairy (organic) and eggs (from the backyard chickens), but otherwise I actually really dislike meat. Aside from being super sad about the pain and suffering of the poor widdle animals, I'm generally just skeeved out by meat (ask Y--I used to "pick apart" my meat because the off-colored bits grossed me out).

However, at about 7 months pregnant I had a blood test done and was told that I am severely anemic.  My doctor told me to start taking iron supplements and start eating iron-rich foods.  Since the beginning of my pregnancy, I have had a really hard time cooking anything (the smell of food cooking turns me off and makes me nauseous), and I am still grossed out by pretty much anything and everything I eat. The idea of adding meat to my diet was NOT an idea I wanted to entertain.  I have, however, been periodically eating small amounts of meat (from places like Whole Foods) as a supplement to what I’m already eating because I can't handle trying to add a bunch of other stuff to my diet when I already can't stand simple things like broccoli.  I cannot wait until I can go back to being a vegetarian.  It is really hard to stomach!

Q: Do you ever regret leaving Weddingbee? - Anonymous

A: The short answer is, "no." However, I think this question really needs a long answer. And because I have a tendency to be so wordy, this will likely be a LONG answer. ;)

As a bit of a background for people who have no idea that I ever blogged for Weddingbee, or that I stopped: In 2008 I started blogging under the name "Ms. Cream Puff," and I very happily blogged away about my wedding plans, right up until the website was bought by eHarmony.

Now, anyone who knows me knows how much I care about gay rights, and how passionate I am about equal marriage rights specifically. eHarmony doesn't exactly have a spotless record for being accepting of same-sex couples (that is, perhaps, the understatement of the year), and because Weddingbee makes its money from it's volunteer bloggers, I knew that by continuing to blog for them, I'd be making eHarmony money. Furthermore, I'd be VOLUNTEERING to make them money. Somehow, that just didn't make me feel as warm and fuzzy inside as making Bee and Mr. Bee money. As much as I loved blogging for Weddingbee, I really felt that staying would be the wrong decision for me, given how much I care about this issue. I don't think I would have been able to sleep at night.

Okay, now to answer your question: Weddingbee was a really great opportunity for me, and I loved almost every minute of blogging there. More than anything, I really loved the community, of both the bees and the readers.

Things have changed a bit since I left. For example, eHarmony is making a better effort to make their site available to same-sex couples (albeit only as a result of several lawsuits, but still). I appreciate that. At the time of the sale, I thought I might return to the hive if eHarmony changed their stance, but I haven't for two reasons (I'm going to be totally honest here): first, I'm no longer wedding planning, and I don't really have anything useful to add. Secondly, I don't really feel all that welcome over there anymore. Unfortunately, as much support as I received for my stance, there was also some amount of hostility. I think some people took my decision to leave personally, which was never my intention. Right now I have nice e-friendships with the Bees that understood where I was coming from, and I'm cool with that.

Leaving Weddingbee was definitely the right thing for me to do at the time. To be honest, I might have felt differently about it if I were gay myself. Maybe I would have felt like I'd be able to use the Weddingbee platform as a way to show the world that same-sex marriages are beautiful and just as "right" as opposite-sex marriages. But I'm NOT gay. So I don't think my staying would have made any sort of statement at all. I think I was able to stand up for what I believed was right by leaving, and I don't think I could have done that in any other way. So no, I really don't regret leaving. I regret that people's feelings were hurt, but I also don't think there was anything I could have done differently, as I tried repeatedly to make sure that my reasons for leaving were clearly about eHarmony and eHarmony alone.

Just to clarify a few points, since we're talking about Weddingbee:

1. I was/am genuinely happy for both Bee and Mr. Bee about the sale of Weddingbee, whether it was to eHarmony or not. I wish it had been another company, but at the end of the day, they'd been working their pants off for years and deserve a freakin' break. ;)
2. I'm not opposed to visiting Weddingbee and making eHarmony money by loading their pages, just as I'm not opposed to leaving my wedding vendors reviews on Project Wedding. I think Weddingbee (and Project Wedding, too!) is a great resource for brides-to-be. I just didn't want to spend hours and hours writing blog posts for them. But no, I don't think clicking on a link to Weddingbee is going to cause the entire gay rights movement to explode, nor does it make a statement about how much you as a reader care about gay rights.

Wow, as expected, that was a really long answer (hahaha). It was kind of a fun question to answer, though!

Q: Do you ever get lonely working from home ?  - Anonymous

A: I used to get a lot more lonely than I do now. Somehow after working from home for 2.5 years, I've gotten used to it. I'm a really social person, though, so it's definitely not natural for me to spend most of my time alone, with no one but my dog and cats to talk to.

The one good thing about my schedule is that it's flexible, so I try to make time at least once a week to get out and see other human beings. Lunches with my friends don't always happen, but I do always manage to go out to get my mail, and sometimes go to the grocery store in the middle of the day. So yeah...it's not ideal, but I'm making it work. :)

Q: if you didn't run stinkerpants, what job do you think you would have? - Anonymous

A: I'm not sure! I feel really lucky to be able to run Stinkerpants.

Before I started this business I was in graduate school, getting a doctorate in Psychology to become a clinical psychologist. I had to take a year off from school because the stress (I'm a total Type A if I let myself) and the building where my classes were located were giving me daily migraine headaches. Once my year off was up, I realized I *really* didn't want to go back to school, and being a psychologist wasn't really my calling. I may have figured it out a year late, but I'm just glad I figured it out before I had $300k in student loans!

At this point, I can't really imagine myself doing something that isn't creative, and I love being my own boss. So I don't know!

Q: Will Stinkerpants Jr. be a vegetarian? - twochicksnest

A: No, probably not. Cuisine is a huge part of Y's culture (and mine too, let's be honest!) and I wouldn't want the poor kid to miss out on Chinese food or brisket. But at home, we'll probably eat mostly vegetarian meals (since I'll be the one cooking). Any meat we buy will be from a sustainable place, Y will cook it, and I probably still won't eat it. ;)

Q: How do your neighbors feel about your chickens? Do you think you'll add any more animals to your family? - Anonymous

A: This is actually a very timely question.

For the most part, our chickens are very quiet, and the neighbors haven't said anything negative about them.  We’ve given eggs to both of our next-door neighbors, and when we first started, our very cool next-door neighbor saw Y building the coop in the backyard and was super curious to know what it was!

However. As some of my twitter friends may recall, a few months ago we had a bout with Rosarita where she WOULD NOT SHUT UP. Specifically, she would get up at 7:45 every morning and start making a bawk-bawk-be-GOCK! noise at the top of her little chicken lungs. And then, as soon as she started, she stopped.

As it turns out, Rosarita was molting along with 3 other chickens, and during that time she stopped laying eggs. About two months ago, she started laying again...and she started making NOISE again.

We didn't really know what to do about it.  I felt horribly guilty and didn't want to make our neighbors insane. We ended up giving both Rosarita and her best friend Violet to a friend with a bunch of chickens in Berkeley (which made us both feel super guilty) and she seems to be happy.  

To answer the second part of your question, not any time soon. We fostered a few puppies about six months ago, but that's as close to commitment as we're going to get, especially with the baby on the way. Eventually I might be interested in getting another dog to keep Lulu company, but it would have to be the *perfect* dog, and we'd have to own a house instead of a condo first. :)