Day 25: The Magic Behind the Madness

Dear Readers,

There are some who would rather suspend disbelief, who would rather not know how things work. They do not want to know that the Death Star was actually a model made of styrofoam, or that the guy who played Gimli in The Lord of the Rings is actually bigger than my dad. (And we would probably all rather not know why so many home runs have been hit in the major leagues over the past 10 years...)

But then there are those who wonder, How does that work? How did they make the ape look so realistic in King Kong, especially when they couldn't even write a decent script? How did they get the little dog to jump over the big one in the Kibbles 'n' Bits commercial? Well, this post is for you, courageous inquirer.

There have been ... questions about this blog. Being generous of spirit, I will not call them doubts. There have been those who have said that it seems exceedingly worldly and witty for an author less than a month old. There have been those who, explicitly or otherwise, have even suggested that I have a ghostwriter in my employ. As fabulous as that would be... no.

How do I do it? It is true my hands are too small to type effectively, and that my arms, while deceptively strong, are not yet enough under my control to keep my hands on the keyboard anyway. But I assure you that every word of this is my own, thanks to some cutting-edge technology from the Emory School of Neuroscience for which I have a been test subject:

Do you see now? No? It's the hat, which has had fiber optics woven into each strand of merino wool, forming a matrix of neural sensors over my whole skull. When my neurons fire, this network picks up my thoughts and transmits them to a word-processing program.

I admit, I do have an editor. This is what my unedited thoughts would look without one:

Milkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkwhatisthatoddgassyfeeling?
milkmilkmilkreallyhilariouswittythoughtmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkdamnyou!damnyougassyfeeling! Ihateyouwithallmytinyhatred!poooooooooop!ahhhhh!milkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilkmilk

You wouldn't want to read all that, now would you? So my editor cleans out the quotidien stuff, leaving you with only my really hilarious witty thoughts. Enjoy!

--Maddie

Day 23: I think I still feel a pea...

Dear VH1,

I understand that you are interested in The Fabulous Life. I think you need to put me on one of those shows.

How fabulous is my life? Consider:

• I wear as many as half a dozen outfits in a single day ... Fabulous!
  
• I have a staff of two full-time employees at my beck and call ... Fabulous!
  
• Sometimes I drink so much that I throw up all over myself ... Fabulous!
  
• I don't even have to walk anywhere -- I have people to do that for me! ... Fabulous!

Thank you for considering my life.

Madeleine

p.s. If you're not making any more of those shows, could you forward this to MTV's Cribs? I notice that none of the people on that show even have cribs(!), but we could fix that easily.

Day 21: My many faces

Day 18: March Sadness

The good news: Duke's streak of never losing a game while I'm watching is still alive.

The bad news: That's because I fell asleep last night during the game. You can see how upset I was when I woke up and realized what had happened.

Dear JJ, Shelden and Coach K: I'm sorry I let you down.

-- Maddie

p.s. Dear Coach Goestenkors: I'm going to be tall. Don't understimate me just because I'm half Asian. Don't forget, Yao Ming is Chinese, and so is this woman.

Day 17: Monsters

Hi everyone!

I haven't been able to get to the blog for the past couple of days because I've been helping my dad prepare a monster midterm -- in Ugaritic, which is like Hebrew's eccentric grandaddy. Some people think I'm precocious, but this one was easy since Proto-Semitic is my native tongue (basically a bunch of monosyllabic guttural sounds). It was Aunt Amy's idea for me to learn that in the womb -- good idea!

Next, I'm taking up Mandarin -- that should be easy, too, since I've had a private tutor here for the past week -- thanks, Grandma! I'll always be your Xiao Guai Guai.*



What else can I tell you? I'm convinced there are monsters under my bed, but Mom and Dad say it's not so...


* -- Good little girl

Day 14: A dark-horse winner

Dear readers,

You may recall that we staged a poll recently to determine which parent I resemble. Well, the results are in, and the surprise result is... neither!

Whom do I resemble? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the winner:


If you don't get it, you obviously haven't seen me when I'm hungry...

Maddie

Day 13: My so-called blog

It seems to me that the focus of this space has meandered a bit too much over the past few days. As I told my agent, people don't come here to look at Mom and Dad. I'm the franchise, baby. (Or should I say, "I'm the franchise baby"?)

So let's get re-acquainted, shall we? Think of yourself as Barbara Walters doing an interview, and I'll be happy to cry for you. You want to know the real me? Here I am in a quiet moment:
That's pretty much what I'm like... Pardon me for a second -- Mom and Dad, why are you laughing?

A few of you have probably noticed my profile, that one of my hobbies is "looking askance at people." You may wonder, What does that look like? Like this:

Just imagine yourself being manhandled all the time by 18-foot-tall, 3,000-pound people, and you will understand how I feel. In order to keep my cool under such challenging conditions, I have taken up yoga. This position is called the Inverted Flamingo:

Day nine: Now look here

It has come to my attention that there is a group of people out there who think Dad should be doing something other than paying rapt attention to me. This dangerous group, known as "Faculty," is a threat to our (well, OK, my) way of life.

I just want to say to those "Faculty": You do not stand a chance. I am the future, and you will never gain a foothold here. Here is what Dad sees when he looks up from his work:
"You want those books, scholar boy? You're gonna have to go through me!"

Surrender now!

--Maddie

The first Maddie-ness reader poll!

As you may remember, there is a disagreement brewing in the house about which parent I resemble most -- Dad says Mom, Mom says Dad. I've gotten a little tired of hearing everyone talk about it -- in fact, it's been keeping me up at night -- so I've decided to let you, dear readers, decide.

Do I look like Mom? Here is some data on her to allow you draw your own conclusions:

Dad says, "I rest my case."

Do I resemble Dad? Here is some data to allow you to decide for yourself:



Mom says: "I rest my case."

You are invited to vote in the "Comments" section.

Day eight: Hangin' with my peeps

Yesterday and today I finally got to meet two of the babies who were making me leap around in the womb (Luke 1:41ff.). They came down from Athens and Alpharetta to the mean streets of Dekalb County, where we keep it real, yo.

Barritt Chambers is every bit as cute as he looks on his blog -- he's the quiet, creative type. And today it was Miriam Anderson, who is my new hero. I aspire to get as big as you and shout like you, girlfriend.

Well, there's a lot more going on, but Blogspot's server is not letting me post photos today, so I'll hold out for multimedia.

Peace to my homeez,

Maddie

Day six: The cavalry arrives

Gram and Grampa have been here the last couple of days helping out; it's been a mixed bag.

I am publishing the first photo in order to document the conditions of my confinement here. This torture method is called "bath" in the language of my captors. I don't know what the statute of limitations is on abuse cases like this one, but hopefully I will know how to use words before it runs out. On the other hand, that lady really knows how to burp you.

In the other photo, Grampa (we were going to call him Gandalf, but it didn't take) provides tanning services. It's Spring Break, after all, and swimsuit season is just around the corner.

p.s. Leroy, that's a good dissertation chapter; but I do have a few comments which I will convey to you via abstract milk-spit shapes on your paper.

They tell me this is supposed to be educational...

...but since I passed my first test yesterday anyway (I'm beating my jaundice), I'm not going to study very hard.

Day four

So, today we had our first real excursion, to the pediatrician. The doctors say it's something about "John diss." I don't who John is or why he's feeling dissed, but enough with the blood tests. I thought you had to be more than four days old to be a blood donor.

You don't want to hear me cry, though (that's my parents' job). So anyway, I had a first-class seat for the trip, but the entertainment options were slim. I thought the supplied reading material (see photo) was a little formulaic and dull, despite the graphic nature of the diagrams.

My name is Madeleine Mei.

Mom thinks I look like Dad. Dad thinks I look like Mom. I think I look like Zhang Ziyi, only with a little meat on my bones. Seriously, girlfriend, do you think anyone who watches your movies believes you can kick that much butt, being so skinny? 

This was the trailer for my grand opening. I think it resembles me. 

I sport the latest French fashions, courtesy of Aunt Abbey in Seattle.

One of my favorite things is to wedge my head in the crook of my dad's arm. It reminds me of Mom's pelvis in the good old days. 

Mom was tired, but I was keeping alert in case of a nurse invasion. 

Day three

I was born March 7, 2006 at 10:37 a.m. It was a difficult move (isn't it always?), but I had to get into a larger space. I felt like I could hardly breathe where I was living before. I mean, I weighed 8 lbs., 13 oz., and was 21 inches long, which is about half the size of Mom.

I had some interesting times at the hospital. My admirers were all over me -- everybody wants a piece, you know? If it's not a diaper change, it's a heel prick. By about the fourth one, I tried to explain that my blood sugars were fine, thank you very much. No luck. Note to self: tell Gram to step up sensitivity training in the Duke nursing program.

Anyhow, it's good to meet you all. I hope to meet you in person, if I can squeeze you into my busy schedule of eating everything in sight and then conking out.

One more question for you world-wise grownups out there: If you call a Web log a "blog," why don't you call a Web link a "blink"?

--Maddie