For Anissa

On Tuesday, the blogosphere received yet another rallying cry to pull together: Anissa Mayhew, wife, mom of three, blogger extraordinaire, and all-around funny person, had a major stroke and landed herself in the ICU in her new-ish hometown, Atlanta.

Anissa’s family has been through so much already. She had her first stroke years ago, and then her youngest child was diagnosed with cancer (and is now in remission). She and the kids were separated from her husband, their father, for months because of his job (it was far from where Peyton was being treated), and they finally settled down, all under the same roof.

And now this.

I finally met Anissa briefly at Blogher ’09 this past July. She was every bit as funny in person as she is online.

One day, Anissa and I caught each other on Facebook. We had a great little Facebook chat, which ended with us each laughing hysterically. (How do I know that? Well, I know that I was, and she told me that she was, so that’s how I know. Stop asking questions.) The reason for the uncontrollable giggles?

Anissa, who had just learned that I work in a nail salon, told me about the time that she went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for her daughter Peyton, and she was the victim of racial profiling.

The pharmacist asked her which nail salon she was employed by*.

(Maybe you had to be there?)

(Nail salon humor?)

(Asian humor?)

Anyway, for a while after that, I sent her tweets like this**:

@anissamayhew I sure could use a manicure!

@anissamayhew Can you come over and do my nails?

@anissamayhew Do you do pedicures?

Her sense of humor is extraordinary. I join in with the rest of her slice of blogosphere in wishing her a full recovery. Her family loves and needs her. Her friends love her. And need her.

Speaking of her friends, before you go, I just want to take a moment to go off on a tangent. Anissa started a group blog a while back, called Aiming Low. It’s written by Mishi, Heather, Angie, and others. When Anissa’s husband Peter posted what happened on her Facebook page, the Aiming Low ladies (along with other friends of Anissa as well) jumped right into action, setting up a way for people to donate money through Paypal to help the family with expenses, opening up a post office box to receive assistance in the way of gift cards and whatever else anyone wants to send, communicating with Peter so that they could put updates on the Aiming Low blog as well as The Spohrs Are Multiplying, and probably many other behind-the-scenes things that we will never know about.

The “About” page on the Aiming Low blog says:

Here at Aiming Low we strive for anti-perfection.
It’s not about the failure to attain perfection….it’s about understanding that perfection is not only over-rated, it’s a big fat whopping lie-burger with cheese…and fries…and onions.

In my opinion, those Aiming Low ladies have attained the closest thing to perfection this week as they became some of Anissa’s angels. I am hoping and praying for Anissa’s recovery so she can return to her family and friends, and then someday discover how the whole blogosphere, led by her best friends, wrapped their arms around her tightly in her time of need.

*If you don’t get it, e-mail me.
**NATURALLY I was joking, people. Get a grip.