I get bored.

Not everything I do on here, as you've surely seen, is mommy-related.  That includes t-shirt designs.  I came up with this idea yesterday and, though it's not entirely relevant, I enjoyed it enough to turn it into a full-fledged design.  I'm expecting people to want them again in a month or two, since the opposing sides of Congress seem to treat forming a budget like a bunch of toddlers competing to see who can hold their breath the longest.

In defense of Justin Bieber...

(Ed. note:  Before anyone accuses me of Bieber Fever, I'm not a fan.  I can name two songs the kid's done, and those are the two that they covered on "Glee".  In fact, before that episode, I thought his song about "I just need somebody to love" was sung by a 20-something black woman.)

So, apparently everyone in America who isn't a tween girl is mad at Justin Bieber right now.  (At least it seems that way if you do a Google news search for "Justin Bieber Rolling Stone interview".  Over 500 results for that phrase alone.)

For those over the age of 30, let me enlighten you to what all the fuss is about.  Justin Bieber is an adorably little squeaky-clean teenage boy who looks and sings like a tween girl.  Tween girls, being largely narcissists, go completely nuts for this.  He got discovered when he became a YouTube sensation after broadcasting videos of himself singing.  (He YouTubed himself singing pop songs.  Again, the tween girl comparisons just don't stop.)  He became Usher's protegee and skyrocketed to fame.

Part of his appeal comes from the fact that he mostly appears to have remained a pretty sweet kid, and wasn't the result of crazy stage parents selling him to Disney at a young age, but is rather just a little Canadian boy he wanted to be a singer so bad, he self-promoted and made it happen.  (Yes, he's Canadian.  This fact will be relevant later.)

Now, presumably because his publicist is a moron, he was interviewed for his cover issue of Rolling Stone, without a pre-agreed-upon set of questions.  (Something that is very common when interviewing younger celebrities, or those with diminished mental capacity, like Britney Spears.)  Rolling Stone, being pot-stirring sadists, decided to launch a pop quiz on hot-button American political issues on the 16-year-old Canadian singer.

The results were, quite predictably, disastrous.

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My imaginary mom-friends

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey on SNL

I think most people would agree that, when you have a kid, the group of people you hang out with changes. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just the natural passage of time.

The problem I had was, once I had my son, my interests changed so drastically that I stopped hanging around with my old gang before I'd found suitable replacements. And making friends with other moms is hard. It's like being back in high school and trying to break the impenetrable walls around the cliques there, only, with moms, it's not whether you have the right brand clothes or shoes, but whether you have the right whole-grain natural snacks and organic juice boxes (made from recycled materials).

I had a sense that this was how guys must feel getting shot down at bars. I'd be sitting next to another mom at the playground and try to introduce myself, ask which kid is hers, etc. only to get the coldest one-word answers before the inevitable brush-off. It really, really sucked.

So I found myself daydreaming about what it'd be like to be friends with some of the ultra-cool female celebrities that seemed like they'd make great moms. Women like...

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