Until about an hour ago, I thought the meanest thing my husband and I had ever done to our son Alec was not buying him a dog.

But according to an article in Social Science Quarterly – What? You don’t read that? – we have also given him a terrible burden to bear.

A friend sent me a link to a segment from the Today Show (always on the lookout for new ways to depress us in the morning), which cites the article, saying that giving your newborn boy an “oddball, girly or strange first name may just land them in jail.”

First on the list of top 10 “Bad Boy” baby names?

Alec, of course.

My husband points out that the list is in alphabetical order, like that helps. The other names are Ernest, Garland, Ivan, Kareem, Luke, Malcolm, Preston, Tyrell and Walter.

Now I don’t know what jails the good people from Social Science Quarterly are frequenting, but I have yet to see a prison movie where any of the convicts are named Preston, Walter or Garland. That said, put me on a playground with an Ernest when I was a kid and yes, I would probably have tripped him for no good reason.

And Kareem? Are there really a lot of those running around, other than Abdul-Jabbar?

While the article says  these “unpopular” names are unlikely to be the direct cause of crime – Gee, ya think? — Shippensburg University Professor David Kalist and his associate Daniel Lee (sure, David and Daniel) write that the social pressures of being given a god-awful name “increase the tendency toward juvenile delinquency.”

The research was based on a study of approximately 15,000 names given to baby boys between 1987 and 1991. Apparently during the time span, there were kids on playgrounds all over America sending little Alec’s down the road to no-good by calling them “Smart Alec.”

Thankfully, our Alec was born in 1998, so he might be OK (unless, of course, anyone gets wind of the fact that I like to call him “Alley Cat” sometimes, and then he’s doomed).

When I was little, girly boy names like Lesley or Adrian or Ira were not good. But oddball? Are they kidding? Have they read People Magazine?

Apparently, there are no bullies in Hollywood or all the celebrity kids there have their own bodyguards. Is anyone tracking Gulliver (Gary Oldman’s son), Hopper (son of Sean Penn and Robin Wright), Kyd (David Duchovny’s and Tea Leoni’s), Ocean (Forest Whitaker’s) or the ever-popular Pilot Inspektor (actor Jason Lee) to see if they turn to a life of crime?

I’m more than a little offended. Names that will go to jail? How about much lower than that? How about Osama, Attila, Idi, Bernie?

There are no rules now. Emerson, Grayson, Carson. Mackenzie, MacKinley. Caden, Teagan, Boden. Carson and Cannon.  Asher and Finley. Boys, girls or puppies, it’s impossible to tell.

My son Alec just walked in and wanted to see what I was writing about, so he read the article and was insulted. He cited two Alec’s he knows personally, including himself, and said both were good kids.

But he claims he is not angry at us for saddling him with such a liability and really, why would he be? We could’ve named him Garland.

A good friend who cares about my blog and my reputation as a writer with some shred of merit, sensed  that I needed inspiration and sent me an idea tonight.

He was watching a show on the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing and was suddenly struck that he was the same age, 13, when he watched Walter Cronkite’s live broadcast of the event, as his daughter is now.

He remembered where he was and who he was with and how awed he felt 40 years ago, and he tried to impart this wonder on his daughter as he watched the special. He was still moved by the moment, by the passing of Walter Cronkite, by the memory of it all and how simple life was back then. But every time he’d  tell his daughter to pay attention to the television, she’d go back to her laptop, where she was busy communicating with some other 13-year-old on her laptop.

He was wondering if there was some sort of lesson in all of this, other than giving me a blog idea, but I could not help him. I could plagiarize from him, yes, but I could not do much more for two reasons. One, I was seven going on eight in the summer of 1969 and the only thing I remember when I was seven was my second-grade teacher at Todd Hall, Miss Vihon, and even that was fuzzy.  

The other reason I could not get all poetic with him is that I have a pounding headache and cannot concentrate and may lapse into a coma at any minute because I have been off sugar for two days in an effort to break myself of this addiction and maybe lose some weight in the process.

I am not sure how this all started but I can’t imagine how heroin withdrawal would be much worse, and I’m pretty sure it’s my husband Rick’s fault.

I was never a big sweet-eater. Not when I was seven and should’ve been paying more attention to the lunar landing. And not when I was a still-skinny teenager and could have probably eaten one of my mother’s luscious cheesecakes every day without a problem but instead missed my chance.

And then I got married.

Something strange happens when you get married. When you’re a woman, I’ll admit, the pressure is off a little. No longer do you worry about how you will look eating a giant bowl of ice cream in front of your boyfriend because now he’s your husband and he’s calling out from the kitchen every night, asking if you want a giant bowl of ice cream.

“You want some ice cream, honey?”

“Sure, honey.”

“OK, honey.”

It’s all very cozy and nice until both of you can no longer see your feet and you suddenly realize you need to go through rehab to kick this ugly habit.

In recent years, I’ve gone into hiding while reading every Suzanne Somers book on the market and have determined, through her scientific research, that consuming hundreds of grams of sugar per day is not healthy. This, and I noticed that when I miss my 4 p.m. cookie fix, I develop a migraine and when I miss a day, I turn violent.

The other night, I came home unexpectedly early to find my husband and children enjoying various Dairy Queen treats. Rick had called my cell to ask if I wanted him to bring me something, but I missed the call and when I got home to find them licking up the last remnants, I was not pleased.

The DQ episode, as they now refer to it, was not something I am terribly proud of. But it was not something I could control either. I was mean. My daughter described it as “berserk” and my son amended it to “Blizzerk” using a terribly clever play on the DQ Blizzard, a personal favorite of mine and I would think everyone’s unless there is something seriously wrong with them.

So now I am going cold turkey, because Skinny Cow’s and diet sawdust bars do not work for me, and a little ice cream once a week would be worse than tickle torture.

I will try to write my way through this. But I cannot promise anything.

And in the meantime, maybe someone will invent a sugar substitute that will taste like a real Blizzard.

I mean, if they could put a man on the moon . . .

One of the best things about writing a daily blog is you can pour out your heart, express your frustrations, confess your weaknesses and occasionally, when you’re in the mood, embarrass your family.
 

You can talk about your son’s piano lessons, your daughter’s new bed and your sister’s old boyfriend, and not get fired.
 

“Just, whatever you do, can you leave me out of it?” my daughter Amanda begged tonight as I ran a made-up quote by her. “I think you need to keep your personal and professional lives separate.”
 

“But I don’t have a professional life,” I reminded her, which is about when she ran away from me trailed by her little brother, who was afraid I would follow up the piano lesson blog with an inspired piece about his tuba.
 

As a professional newspaper reporter, writing about women I observed in restaurants not wearing pants was not encouraged. Neither was writing about my loss of memory, naked men or my co-ed softball team.
 

I think that must be why I have written with more frequency and more joy in the last three months than I had in a long while. If I could make a living at this, I’d be the happiest woman in the world.
 

Not that I am not happy writing sports. I am. After a few months of seriously wondering whether I would ever return to sportswriting, I am happy to report that in writing about women in restaurants without pants, I have also re-discovered how much I truly enjoy being a sportswriter in my new duties for ESPN.
 

If I hadn’t returned to sports, I may have forgotten all those off-hand remarks people make when you interview them that never quite find their way into your stories because they just don’t fit, but that never quite leave you either.
 

Like when you’re finished talking to Cubs manager Lou Piniella about Ryan Dempster and the pitcher’s infant daughter’s health crisis, the interview is finished and Piniella slowly shakes his head.
 

“You don’t get it back,” he says quietly, talking in general about how the baseball culture has changed from the days when he was allowed a day off for the birth of only one of his three children. “Kids don’t forget about not being there for their birthdays and mothers don’t forget about not being there for their babies.”
 

Or when you’re sitting in the dugout one morning waiting out a blinding rainstorm with Dempster and your sportscaster friend Peggy Kusinski, and it’s just the three of you, three parents, talking about how much you love your kids.
 

“You know that movie “Taken?” says Dempster, whose baby is still in the hospital at this point, still with a tracheal tube because she is unable to swallow on her own some three months after her birth.
 

Peggy and I nod, though I doubt she knows the movie any better than I do.
 

“Liam Neeson is in France looking for his daughter,” Dempster tells us, “and the chief of police there says, ‘I’d help you but you’re tearing down the city.’ And Liam Niesen looks at him and says, ‘I’d tear down the laceName w:st=”on”>EiffellaceName> laceType w:st=”on”>TowerlaceType> to save my daughter,’ and that’s the way I feel about this. I’ve always felt that way about my son but seeing my daughter sick and in bed and going through this, I’ll do whatever I have to. I just want to get her better.”
 

It was for the same story that I spoke to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who as always delivered with comments uniquely Ozzie. But then you turn off your tape recorder and he adds:
 

“The only thing in life you have is your kids. As soon as you leave this game, they’ll remember you when you die and if you ever go to the Hall of Fame. The only time they bring you back here is if they can make some money. But when you talk about your kids, that’s the only thing that’s really yours. Your wife, your mom, they’re not yours. If one of my kids gets sick, [screw] baseball, I’ll go be with them.”
 

Those are the best moments, even when you can’t always work them into print.
 

And that’s why I love my blog, because I just did.

One of the best things about writing a daily blog is you can pour out your heart, express your frustrations, confess your weaknesses and occasionally, when you’re in the mood, embarrass your family.
 

You can talk about your son’s piano lessons, your daughter’s new bed and your sister’s old boyfriend, and not get fired.
 

“Just, whatever you do, can you leave me out of it?” my daughter Amanda begged tonight as I ran a made-up quote by her. “I think you need to keep your personal and professional lives separate.”
 

“But I don’t have a professional life,” I reminded her, which is about when she ran away from me trailed by her little brother, who was afraid I would follow up the piano lesson blog with an inspired piece about his tuba.
 

As a professional newspaper reporter, writing about women I observed in restaurants not wearing pants was not encouraged. Neither was writing about my loss of memory, naked men or my co-ed softball team.
 

I think that must be why I have written with more frequency and more joy in the last three months than I had in a long while. If I could make a living at this, I’d be the happiest woman in the world.
 

Not that I am not happy writing sports. I am. After a few months of seriously wondering whether I would ever return to sportswriting, I am happy to report that in writing about women in restaurants without pants, I have also re-discovered how much I truly enjoy being a sportswriter in my new duties for ESPN.
 

If I hadn’t returned to sports, I may have forgotten all those off-hand remarks people make when you interview them that never quite find their way into your stories because they just don’t fit, but that never quite leave you either.
 

Like when you’re finished talking to Cubs manager Lou Piniella about Ryan Dempster and the pitcher’s infant daughter’s health crisis, the interview is finished and Piniella slowly shakes his head.
 

“You don’t get it back,” he says quietly, talking in general about how the baseball culture has changed from the days when he was allowed a day off for the birth of only one of his three children. “Kids don’t forget about not being there for their birthdays and mothers don’t forget about not being there for their babies.”
 

Or when you’re sitting in the dugout one morning waiting out a blinding rainstorm with Dempster and your sportscaster friend Peggy Kusinski, and it’s just the three of you, three parents, talking about how much you love your kids.
 

“You know that movie “Taken?” says Dempster, whose baby is still in the hospital at this point, still with a tracheal tube because she is unable to swallow on her own some three months after her birth.
 

Peggy and I nod, though I doubt she knows the movie any better than I do.
 

“Liam Neeson is in France looking for his daughter,” Dempster tells us, “and the chief of police there says, ‘I’d help you but you’re tearing down the city.’ And Liam Niesen looks at him and says, ‘I’d tear down the Eiffel Tower to save my daughter,’ and that’s the way I feel about this. I’ve always felt that way about my son but seeing my daughter sick and in bed and going through this, I’ll do whatever I have to. I just want to get her better.”
 

It was for the same story that I spoke to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who as always delivered with comments uniquely Ozzie. But then you turn off your tape recorder and he adds:
 

“The only thing in life you have is your kids. As soon as you leave this game, they’ll remember you when you die and if you ever go to the Hall of Fame. The only time they bring you back here is if they can make some money. But when you talk about your kids, that’s the only thing that’s really yours. Your wife, your mom, they’re not yours. If one of my kids gets sick, [screw] baseball, I’ll go be with them.”
 

Those are the best moments, even when you can’t always work them into print.
 

And that’s why I love my blog, because I just did.

Heard from Marty Biviano. This made my sister nearly choke when I called. I’d like to say, being the communications professional that I am, that I was not surprised. But I choked a little too.

I mentioned Marty Biviano in a blog I wrote several entries ago on coed dorm rooms now being allowed at the University of Chicago.

I was trying to illustrate how much dorm life has changed from when my sister attended Lincoln College in the late 1960s and men had to sign in with the dorm mother. Men like Marty Biviano, my sister’s boyfriend her freshman year in college.

I did not have to mention Marty by name or really talk about him at all. But I liked the story about her having to rush their goodnight kissing to make it in by the 10 p.m. curfew, another feature of dorm life in the 60’s.

And I liked his name. Marty Biviano. I mean, it’s a great name and I thought it gave the story a little added color and credibility.

I called my sister back to tell her this and she thought I was a little more nuts than usual.

“You’re writing about Marty Biviano?” she asked. “Are you sure it’s OK to use his name?”

“Why?” I asked. “Was he secretly married as a freshman at Lincoln College? Was he leading a double-life and really part of a religious sect that did not permit kissing?”

“Fine,” she said, only a teeny bit exasperated.

And then Marty Biviano e-mailed me.

From another state nowhere near Lincoln College, nor his hometown.

My sister was blown away.

I was also astounded, as if this was the first time I have ever written anything that appeared on the Internet and was seen by real people I did not personally know who did not live in the Chicagoland area.

Marty could not have been nicer. If we were surprised, imagine how he felt, he wrote, when his son sent him a link to a blog referring to his life more than 42 years ago.

He remembered what my sister had described and he remembered visiting our house and my parents lending them their car for his first drive into Chicago. I’m not sure he remembered my sister trying to pass him off as being Jewish to my father, who cared about such things in 1968 and was clearly easy to fool.

Sadly, Marty didn’t have any stories about the adorable little sister but it must have been a brief visit.

He updated me a little on his life, I updated him a little on my sister’s and now we’re e-mail buddies.

But there was one thing I still had to know. Though I’d like to think this website/blog of mine gets around, and I know it has moved beyond my immediate family, how did it get to Marty?

I wrote him again and he responded that just by chance, his son had Googled his name and it was in the top 5 hits. I was suddenly proud. Top five, wow.

Googling yourself  is not a new phenomenon. It even has some nicknames, like “egosurfing” and “egogoogling.” No name that I know of when you google your loved ones, but I’m sure it’s in the works.

My daughter Amanda once googled herself  and was shocked to learn that she was the author of two “books” – one on the tennis player Anna Kournikova and another on Allen Iverson. She was about seven at time and didn’t recall having written two books. So I had to come clean and admit that I was not all that proud of the rush-job I did for a European publisher (I mean, Anna Kournikova? Need I say more?) and decided they would be ghostwritten by Amanda.

“Oh, great,” my husband said at the time, “now she’ll never get into a good college.”

So amusing. At least she can buy them all up for about eight cents each.

Marty said he’s sure he’ll never hear the end of it from his family regarding his brush with fame. He also told me he was a retired public school band director, which gave me the perfect opening to e-mail him all about our son’s budding music career.

Funny, I haven’t heard back from him in a while.