Welcome to the portal to the Stirrup Queen Ballroom, a site of bulletin boards and discussion groups. Before you click over to this Facebook-like page for the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) community, please read these basic guidelines:

This forum is open to everyone in the ALI community–from the newly-diagnosed to those parenting after IF to those living child-free.

• You will need to sign-up in order to join. Everyone (with the exception of spammers) will be approved within 24 hours.
• If I don’t recognize your email address, I will send you a note asking for either your blog name or a few blogs you read. Truly, not trying to keep anyone out except spammers…
• Once you’ve joined, you can begin personalizing your page (as you would with Facebook) or jumping into the main features including the bulletin boards and discussion groups. Please choose a profile picture that does not contain a picture of a baby or pregnant belly. The only place where baby/pregnancy pictures will appear on the site are in the designated photo areas.
• Access to the discussion groups is moderated as well. Again, access will be given within 24 hours by the group administrators.
• There are no rules about posting except to be thoughtful in your words: those spewing hate or offensive remarks at members will be removed. You may post about a personal business or fundraising effort (for a third-party organization) you’re doing if you are an active participant on the boards, though personal fund solicitations, medication solicitations, or medication offers will be removed and members banned after a warning. Think about it this way, if it wouldn’t get into LFCA, it isn’t appropriate on the forums.
• These forums stand in place of the LFCA on the weekend when the LFCA is not traditionally posted or on days when I cannot post the LFCA. Therefore, please use the specific open thread to post news, ask questions, and gather support.
• If you like the little pomegranate badge, you can get the code to cut-and-paste into your blog right here.

Either jump right into the living room, or scroll back up to click on this button once you’ve read the information below if you’re here for the first time (just a reminder–sign in with your name and wait a moment. When you get a password prompt, click on “enter without password” and continue):

A few years ago, I had a student whose father bought a storefront and tried to create a living room. “Is it a store?” I asked him, a bit confused. “What is it going to sell?”

“Nothing,” he told me. “It’s just a living room. You can come in, hang out, watch television with other people, read the newspaper, drink a cup of coffee. Anything you want. It’s a living room, except it’s public. Because too many people hang out in their living room at home all alone and need a space to be with other people.”

It was a great idea. Unfortunately, it was closed as a health violation. Apparently, when you have a store that brings in no money, you don’t have the ability to get the space up to code. There was no money for running water hence no bathroom. But it’s suffice to say that people hanging out in a living room still need to use facilities when they are consuming the cups of coffee they brought with them. It turns out that the city doesn’t love the idea of a crap bucket. But I digress.

This place–this blog–is my public living room. Where I come and hang out and talk about what is happening with me emotionally and hear what is happening with you emotionally. And having this space gives me a place to go mentally when I’m stuck in the real world between two women on a sofa springing their pregnancy announcements on me. I hope you feel like you can mentally jump here too in addition to your own blog when you are in a shitty situation. It has made the journey manageable this time. It utilizes the best parts of what I heard in my student’s father’s idea–without the crap bucket.

And now I’ve taken it a step further to actually set up a space where people can meet in real time and chat. In other words…a chat room. Except that this is our chat room. And it is a public space where you don’t need to have a special email program to chat and numerous people can speak at the same time. We can use it to hold virtual meetings, watch television together, or sit with you when you’re doing your first injection.

This is the way it will work. At certain times, it will be “signed out”: there will be a specific discussion happening in the space. Anyone can join in, but the topic on hand will be the focus (you know that I’m talking about 9 p.m. Thursdays for Grey’s Anatomy). At other times, it will be open and if you see that no one has reserved it, feel free to tell others to meet you here (simply send them the url for the post) and use the space. Or simply sign in and see if anyone else is hanging around too.

If you want to sign it out for a specific time–a meeting, to watch a television show with other people, at 8 p.m. for your first injection, leave a comment in the comment section on this post and I will start compiling a list of who has called the living room. If you are reserving it, leave a date and a span of time based on Eastern Standard Time (sorry, non-East Coast/non-US people, you’ll have to quickly calculate the time difference). I will place your event on the sidebar of my blog below the living room icon so people can see what is happening and I will add event information to Lost & Found.

Before you leave your comment below to sign out the space, make sure you have scrolled through the last few comments to make sure something else isn’t scheduled for that time. Hence why everyone should use the comments section rather than emailing me so you can see all the “reservations.”

So relax. Enjoy. Bring your own drinks. Be polite. No feet on the sofa. No cursing out others. Just your average public living room.

The living room is our main space, our hang-out pad and general all-purpose room. This second spot–the bean bag chairs behind the couch–is a special space for smaller meetings and book discussions. Click on the coffee cup to enter if you’ve already read the information below.

Enter my Chat Room

Free Chat Rooms by Bravenet.com

Like the living room, this space can be specifically reserved. Though it’s missing some of the features that make the living room fun (colour-coding your words, sounds, and avatars), it has other advantages. Chats from the bean bag chairs can be archived (the perfect feature for a book club meeting that someone has to miss, an author chat, or a THFB meeting) and IP addresses for unruly bloggers can be blocked.

Most get togethers will be held in the general living room. Only ones specifically marked “the bean bag chairs behind the couch” will be found here.

If you want to sign out the bean bag chairs for a specific time, leave a comment in the comment section on this post and I will add your scheduled meeting to the sidebar. If you are reserving it, leave a date and a span of time based on Eastern Standard Time (sorry, non-East Coast/non-US people, you’ll have to quickly calculate the time difference). I will place your event on the sidebar of my blog below the living room icon so people can see what is happening and I will add event information to Lost & Found. It will be specifically marked “the bean bag chairs behind the couch.”

Before you leave your comment below to sign out the space, make sure you have scrolled through the last few comments to make sure something else isn’t scheduled for that time. Hence why everyone should use the comments section rather than emailing me so you can see all the “reservations.”

The bean bag chairs are a cozy spot in the room. Be mindful and kind to others and kick back on the floor. There are throw blankets if you want one and a big bowl of candy in the center of the circle. And relax. This is our space.

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While you can’t submit a comment on this form without providing an email address, it is a way to leave a comment without having it appear on the site. Please leave your thoughts, concerns, and opinions as well as questions.