bLink 32

Normally I wouldn't link to someone's "personal" website, because such sites, or "blogs" as the kids like to call them, tend to be filled with the boring minutiae that you wouldn't even discuss with your best friend. And yes, I do have a blog, and yes, I think it is exceedingly boring. At its best a blog will tell you something you didn't already know; at its worst...well, read mine.

I knew something was different about Dooce, a website run by a young mother dealing primarily with her family, when I saw the banner: "This Website Sux Sweaty Goat Balls." Heather Armstrong has the kind of perfect life that would make me hate her if she didn't write so insanely well. Her descriptions of her daughter's first steps, or first words, or food-based temper tantrums are like little windows into the human condition, and make even this calloused, cynical heart well up with manly tears. Strong, manly tears.

This exchange with her husband is a typical example:

Last night as we were getting ready for bed Jon lingered over the sink and examined his toothbrush with the same awe as a baby presented with its mother's nipple. "Don't you feel like your toothbrush experience has been changed forever?" he asked.

"Jon," I said. "You just said 'toothbrush experience.' There is no such thing."

"But I feel like my teeth are so much cleaner."

Or if you need the kind of soul cleaning only children can provide, check out this post, where she films her daughter singing "Baa Baa Blacksheep." If that doesn't tug at the ol' heart strings, you are clinically dead.

Thom Wong is a law student who spends an unreasonable amount of time online. His 40 bLinks column runs every Tuesday and Thursday on The Tyee.