Catching up, with some changes

I've hesitated writing for a while. I had a blip where, again, I was thinking, why do I need to have an opinion about everything, why do I have to (for a very limited, or very anonymous audience) share, share, share my glorious (smirk) thoughts and feelings? Who cares? Maybe I should be more private. Not air any dirty laundry. Change privacy settings. Change them back.

But, I feel like I need an outlet.

Hand-writing in a journal seems so...slow...and closed. I guess I am more used to this by now. Here I have a somewhat continuous tale of life over the past several years, while throughout my house, amongst my things, I have scattered notebooks with a few pages written here and there in fits and starts.

So here I am again.

We just got back last Saturday from a nice trip to St. John for Spring Break. Here, I thought I'd worked through my internet addiction, food addiction and lack of motivation to exercise, but it looks like I have not actually conquered these things completely. Still working on them. I think I could say I am a little better than I was before I left.

The big news is I've accepted a job offer from my big client/former employer to come back and work for them full-time. So, now my off-ramp/on-ramp story will have a nice little full circle thing going on—except for the reality that nothing is really ever settled is it? The whole thing has gone so well, so easy, relatively, that I keep thinking there must be some impending disaster I will face.

It's just not supposed to be this easy. (They are even paying me a significant amount more than when I left—and, riding high on the Sandbergian Lean In ethos, I negotiated for a bit more leave time.)

On the other hand, I have been working really hard for the past six years doing the consulting thing, pretty much being there for them whenever they needed me, staying up late to get things done, feeling, sometimes, like all I ever did was work and take care of my kid. I guess I didn't know how hard I was working, or it didn't hit me, or something...because I was doing exactly what I wanted.

I feel so fortunate to have been able to take the time to be with my daughter when she was a baby, toddler and preschooler.

This year, with her in school most the day, though, it's been really really hard for me. My feelings of missing her overtook any motivation I would have had to do much more than work that I was accountable to others for completing (that would be clients). Marathon training, making art, working out like a madwoman, doing major house-cleaning or repair projects—just really could not find it in me to do them. (Though I did some painting and gardening last year...) Something about work-work, though, writing, designing, organizing, managing, I can do.

As I see my time at home come to a close, I kind of lament the things I had in mind to do these years that I did not accomplish. These things that were not just to be with my child and watch her grow (I can say I feel like I did a good job doing activities with her, setting her up in good stead educationally and emotionally, bonding with her). But things like learning to play guitar, learning Portuguese, getting certified as a personal trainer. I feel, sometimes, guilty for "squandering" my time. But then I think more on it (or rationalize, you might say) and realize all that time I was working a lot for my clients, and that kept me pretty busy, and of course, doing what I was supposed to be doing, just being with my kid. And then there was all the reading and writing I did not for clients over these years, from which I feel as though I nearly completed some independent Women's Studies program! So, overall, not too bad.

I'm excited and nervous about what's to come, but I have a couple months til I start. That time, I don't know if it's good or bad. I am more of a let's-jump-in-right-now-and-do-this kind of person. I don't like being in limbo. But, two months goes by quickly. I want to say I am going to make the most of this time, but I probably won't do that either, as I still have my big client as a client and now of course I won't want to do anything to piss them off so will have to remain very much on. Still, it will allow me to take my child to soccer practice (which starts at 5 pm, so working-parent unfriendly) through the rest of her season.  Next year, the practices are later for older kids, I think, and my husband is going to be on P.M. afterschool duty so it won't be my problem anyway!

He's really going to be stepping up to the plate to make this all work and we are fortunate that he has so much tenure at his job and such a flexible schedule that he will be able to fill in the gaps for me. For example, our child will still have that lazy summer experience instead of a whole summer of camp (she'll just do that for the last couple weeks of June and then in July) because after our trip to Montreal the first week of August for his conference, he will be able to take the rest of the month off and hang out with her at home (popping in to the office on Fridays, my teleworking day). So I think that's the perfect balance. Then when school begins, she'll go to Tae Kwon Do after school for lessons and then hang out in their program til he picks her up. My flexible schedule, with a 10 am start time, will let me have relatively relaxed mornings with her and get her to school without having to use a morning care program.

I couldn't even really go back to work if it wasn't for my husband's flexible schedule, the flexible schedule my job is giving me, and my husband's willingness to help. I read an article recently that told of a woman who asked her husband to go in late one day a week to help her out and he waffled. It's not clear whether the situation at his job was really such that it would be detrimental to him to accommodate her schedule or if he was just not being a team player at home. In any case, I recognize how fortunate I am!


 

What do Sheryl Sandberg and Kate Upton have in common?

A regular chick’s take on Lean In

I am not a career woman. I enjoy my work, I take it seriously and do a good job, but I’m under no delusions. I have a B.A. from a small Liberal Arts university. I’ve never made six-figures. I am working, right now, part time from home. Really, a nobody. And yet, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In had something for me. I like to take lessons from wherever I can find them.

I’ve been enjoying the many reviews and online discussions about the book, and I  understand, even if I don’t necessarily agree with, many of the criticisms. Other, though, seem preemptively dismissive and angry, as this Salon piece notes.

One of the best commentaries I read on Lean In came from Penelope Trunk who observed, “Sheryl Sandberg is such an incredibly aberrant example of women at work…She is great. Smart. Driven. I get it. I am doing a life that she would hate. I thought I was a high performer, but Sheryl Sandberg has no time for people like me. I spent so many years working hard to get to the top, but the truth is that I’m not even close. I was never in the running. I am nothing like Sheryl Sandberg.” Trunk added, “Sheryl Sandberg gives up her kids like movie stars give up food: she wants a great career more than anything else.” Harsh, I know, but I don’t think she meant it in a mean way or meant that Sandberg doesn’t love her kids. She’s just…different.

I always used to think, regarding women who felt bad that they didn’t measure up to models and actresses, that they were out of their minds even thinking they were in the same league with these women to begin with. Women like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girl Kate Upton. The complaints about “the media” and women’s body image never quite resonated with me because I had already faced the reality: I am not a super model. Surely, most other women must know this too, shouldn’t they?

I once read a book called The Secrets of Skinny Chicks and found, really, no secrets, but just what one would expect. These women worked out a significant amount of time and they really, really watched what they ate. As one reviewer said “…this book absolutely does not pretend that you can be a Size 6 US without considerable deprivation; we’re talking 1200-1600 calories a day AND a two hour cardio and weights program, ladies. It’s also honest about wishing it could hate food; this is really not the book for anyone with much gusto about mealtime…” I kind of know. Before I had a kid, I worked out, actively, a couple hours a day, plus briskly walked a round trip of four miles to work. I just didn’t have that much else to do at the time. My life is different now and I accept it. You have to put in a certain amount of work to get certain results.

The same goes for careers. When Sheryl Sandberg was at Harvard, I was waitressing, partying, taking classes a couple at a time at community college and otherwise meandering through my twenties. I somehow made it out the other side with a degree and was able to hold decent jobs, but I don’t expect to be the billionaire superstar Sandberg is (by the way, she was also an aerobics instructor at one point). It really wouldn’t be fair. I can still learn from her, though, just like women can learn from the “Skinny Chicks,” super models and Upton, whose trainer describes her daily double sessions and multiple cleanse diets. Sandberg talks about going home for dinner at 5 and having taken a 3-month maternity leave like these were major breakthrough concessions she made for her family. The dedication to her work and the intensity with which she works is extraordinary and more than I’d be willing to put in, just like double workout sessions and super-strict diets are more than I’m willing to do to look a certain way.

As an aside, Upton’s trainer defends her “porkiness,” which, of course, is laughable, except that I can see that as lean and sexy as she is, Upton is fleshier than many other SI and Victoria’s Secret models. She’s somewhat approachable. Just like Sandberg.  In Lean In, her voice is friendly and diplomatic as she nods to caregiving being important and acknowledges “Many people are not interested in acquiring power, not because they lack ambition, but because they are living their lives as they desire. Some of the most important contributions to our world are made by caring for one person at a time…”

Understanding I’m not Sheryl Sandberg or Kate Upton, and not in their league, I can take notes from aspects of their successes I may be interested in achieving for myself to a lesser degree, keeping in mind the reality that I don’t have the will (or genetics or background at this point in my life) to take it to that level. I can still work out regularly and cut out extra junk and be in nice shape. I can speak up in business situations, be confident and lean in, where appropriate for me, and improve my place in the work world.

So with that, I’ll share some of the best points of Lean In that are applicable to women (anyone, really) in most jobs.

If you want or need something, ask for it. It never occurred to Sandberg, or anyone else at Google, that maybe pregnant employees could use parking spots closer to the building—until, that is, she got pregnant. After a mad rush to the office from a far flung spot, naseuous, she marched into Sergey Brin’s office and made her request. The company set up special parking for pregnant employees. Of course, you might get an answer of no, but you won’t know unless you ask.

Sit at the table. Sandberg tells of a Facebook meeting she hosted for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in which women on Geithner’s team hung back not even sitting at the table with the rest of the group—even when personally invited to sit there by Sandberg herself. I mean, really, I’m just a schlub and I know better than that. If there’s seats, take one. If you’re invited, gosh, it’s weird and rude not to take one. But, apparently the inferiority complex is so deeply ingrained into some women that they need extra cajoling.

When you don’t feel confident fake it. Pretty straightforward, read the book for more nuance.

Take initiative. Sandberg says, “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.” She cited data from Hewlett Packard that men will apply for a position if they meet 60 percent of the requirements and women only apply when they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria needed. “Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that—and I’ll learn by doing it,’” she says.
At my first job out of college I was hired as a Communications Coordinator making 30K. I quickly realized I could easily do what they expected and was always asking for more work. I got sick of asking for more so instead I just started looking for things the organization needed and doing them. I took over the website (it was 1999 and having taken one web design class in college, I knew more than anyone else there at the time). Soon after, I outlined what I had been doing, suggested a title change and raise to 45K and they agreed. That’s my little pond story of initiative. As Sandberg notes, “…opportunities are not well defined but, instead, come from someone jumping in to do something. That something then becomes his job.”

Understand and work the system, even if the system is wrong. Sandberg discusses the many challenges women face with regard to powerful women being not well-liked and the trap of women who are nice being assumed incompetent and women who are competent assumed not nice. She acknowledges this is not right, but gives great advice on walking the line, nonetheless. Using a negotiation as an example, she advises women to “think personally, act communally,” prefacing the negotiation by explaining they know women often get paid less than men so they are going to negotiate rather than accept the original offer. “By doing so, women position themselves as connected to a group and not just out for themselves, in effect they are negotiating for all women.” Sandberg advises the use of the word “we” instead of “I” whenever possible. She warns, though, that a communal approach is not enough and women must also provide a legitimate explanation for the negotiation.

Combine niceness with insistence. This piggybacks on the previous idea. Sandberg cites Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, who says this means being “relentlessly pleasant.” This involves “smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals” and approaching situations as solving a problem as opposed to being critical.

Speak up, stand up. Sandberg talks a lot about how men in power can help women by standing up for them in key situations and she gives many encouraging examples of when this was done for her. She notes Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express, as a leader in this area who acknowledged that “in meetings, both men and women are likely to interrupt a woman and give credit to a man for an idea first proposed by a woman.” Chenault stops meetings to point this out when he sees it—making quite an impression coming from the top. Sandberg advises that anyone can do this, though. “A more junior woman (or man) can also intervene in the situation when a female colleague has been interrupted. She can gently but firmly tell the group, ‘Before we move on, I’d like to hear what [senior woman] had to say.’” Sandberg explains that this not only benefits the senior woman who was interrupted but boosts the junior woman as well, because speaking up for someone else demonstrates a communal spirit—and confidence—and shows the junior woman is both competent and nice.

In Lean In, Sandberg acknowledges the systemic issues women face that can make it more difficult to rise to the top, but also offers a useful mix of overarching ideas for society with nuts and bolts tips for women at work. Just like with the Skinny Chicks‘ secrets and a glimpse into Upton’s regimen, I can incorporate those ideas that fit my lifestyle, not expecting to find myself on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition or in a C-Suite, but inspiring me to run that extra mile or to speak up with confidence on something I’m knowledgeable about with colleagues.

Beyond Betty: Moving from feminism to human rights

Was the problem that had no name possibly the lack of Wi-Fi?

I wish that line was mine, but I have to give the credit to Noreen Malone, who in a Slate discussion of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (on the 50th anniversary of its publication this week) noted:

...Work doesn’t automatically put you on the road to self-actualization (as Friedan implies it does), and the degree to which it contributes to it probably waxes and wanes at different points in a person’s life. What about women (or men!) who genuinely do find the bulk, or even part, of their creative fulfillment in more traditional homemaking tasks, or at least less corporate ones, and who derive their sense of mission from helping people—even if mostly the ones related to them? Friedan doesn’t allow for those scenarios, at least among the educated women she’s writing about, and that feels weird. Also oddly missing in the book’s treatment of parenting, was any kind of real consideration of kids’ needs...

To Malone, I say right on!

I won't lie, I enjoy working, and of course I've been lucky to have a very unique situation (enabled by Wi-Fi!) that let me ride the fence of the SAHM thing and having work satisfaction in semi-creatively satisfying work.

But, I don't know that there are sooo many jobs out there that are sooo interesting and stimulating that workers don't have to psych themselves up for just as much as someone at home would have to do some mental gymnastics to make a "baked potato" or "vacumming" interesting. At least when you do those things you're not doing it for "the man" but for yourself and your own family!

I'm also willing to wager that my grandma who worked in a canning factory would have welcomed the life of suburban housewife ennui...

As a friend commented when I posted the Slate article on Facebook, "That's always where the feminist lionization of work breaks down. Those women are writers and academics, which is not the same thing as having a typical job. When your whole job is self aggrandizement, then of course you love your work! When you're scrubbing toilets or asking would you like fries with that?—not so much." So true!

This recent New York Times opinion piece by Stephanie Coontz attempted to answer "Why Gender Equality Stalled" and raises some interesting points. An excerpt illustrates the frustrating bias toward the idea that women necessarily want to work instead of taking on child- and home-care duties:

So, especially when women are married to men who work long hours, it often seems to both partners that they have no choice. Female professionals are twice as likely to quit work as other married mothers when their husbands work 50 hours or more a week and more than three times more likely to quit when their husbands work 60 hours or more.

The sociologist Pamela Stone studied a group of mothers who had made these decisions. Typically, she found, they phrased their decision in terms of a preference. But when they explained their “decision-making process,” it became clear that most had made the “choice” to quit work only as a last resort — when they could not get the flexible hours or part-time work they wanted, when their husbands would not or could not cut back their hours, and when they began to feel that their employers were hostile to their concerns. Under those conditions, Professor Stone notes, what was really a workplace problem for families became a private problem for women.

This is where the political gets really personal. When people are forced to behave in ways that contradict their ideals, they often undergo what sociologists call a “values stretch” — watering down their original expectations and goals to accommodate the things they have to do to get by. This behavior is especially likely if holding on to the original values would exacerbate tensions in the relationships they depend on.

But, it's really not that simple. Pew Research studies show that the majority of women want to work part-time (which is one reason why Obama's recent attention to universal pre-K may be misguided). Most working fathers, though, say they want to work full-time. At least according to this study, it would appear that men and women want different things—and to me, that's OK! It's also fair to note that different men and different women want different things.

No study is going to capture everyone's wishes and no policy is going to necessarily make everyone's path to what they want easier. We have to blaze our own trails a lot of the time.

Coontz observed:

Under present conditions, the intense consciousness raising about the “rightness” of personal choices that worked so well in the early days of the women’s movement will end up escalating the divisive finger-pointing that stands in the way of political reform. 

One one hand, I am skeptical of "political reform" based on almost everything I've read in recently years from feminists that places workforce engagement above caring for young children and goes to far as to view children basically as some sort of commodity or cogs in the capitalist machine. But, the conclusion of the Coontz piece leaves me hopeful that maybe the feminist movement is beginning to see that work is not the be-all-and-end-all of "equality" (or life) and that different people want different things, and that "people" also means men.

Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let’s stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. To do that, we must stop seeing work-family policy as a women’s issue and start seeing it as a human rights issue that affects parents, children, partners, singles and elders. Feminists should certainly support this campaign. But they don’t need to own it. 

What Coontz might not realize, though, is that for many talented, educated and able women such as myself, putting my "gender values into practice" for me meant scaling back my career when my baby was born, working part-time from home to be with her, and navigating my own on-ramp as she gets older.

I agree that feminists should not own the work-family policy campaign, because based on what we've heard from leading feminist voices in recent years (Linda Hirshman, I am looking at you) they're going to get it wrong!

Grateful or greedy in America

I feel grateful for the material aspects of my life—all the time. Rarely a day goes by that I don't, in at least some small way recognize that I have it really good.

My house is not impressive, but it's in a good neighborhood and is in generally good repair (knock on wood). We don't have cable TV or flat screen/LCD TVs. We don't have smartphones. Our stove should probably be replaced as it doesn't really heat super well or evenly inside, but it can get the job done. Our refrigerator should probably be replaced. I keep a tupperware container in it under a water drip and change it out every so often when it fills. It basically works, though. One of our cars is 17 years old. The air conditioning doesn't work and the ceiling lining has come off, but it runs (full disclosure our other car is just 7 years old and feels luxurious to me). We could probably get new things as we have a significant amount of cash savings in the bank, but we don't. That's just us. If it works, we use it. When it breaks, we'll replace it. So I do get a little twitchy when I read things like this about allegedly poor people in America, redistribution schemes and all the great things government can provide for people.

I do understand, though, that there are other things the poor may not have—health insurance, for example, or savings, or retirement and things like that—that are not mentioned in the following post and study. But still. I'm mildly skeptical of those who say we need big, new overarching programs.

Anyway, I'm not sure why NRO is tweeting this now, as the post and study is over a year old. But, I remember reading about it at the time and it was interesting to me then as it is now, comparing different points about how many "poor" people in America live as compared with how we live in our family.

  The post cites results of a study from The Heritage Foundation (yeah, yeah, I know, conservative, but I think people should be reading and parsing information from many resources) called “Understanding Poverty in the United States” which notes the following tidbits about "the poor":

• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Fully 92 percent of poor households have a microwave; two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR.
• Nearly 75 percent have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
• Four out of five poor adults assert they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.
• Half have a personal computer; one in seven have two or more computers.
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.
• Just under half — 43 percent — have Internet access.
• A third have a widescreen plasma or LCD TV.
• One in every four has a digital video recorder such as TiVo. 

And the post observes, "TV newscasts about poverty in America usually picture the poor as homeless or as a destitute family living in an overcrowded, rundown trailer. The actual facts are far different:"

• At a single point in time, only one in 70 poor persons is homeless.
• The vast majority of the houses or apartments of the poor are in good repair; only 6 percent are over-crowded. 
• The average poor American has more living space than the average non-poor individual living in Sweden, France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
• Only 10 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers; half live in detached single-family houses or townhouses, while 40 percent live in apartments.
• Forty-two percent of all poor households own their home; on average, it’s a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

On the other hand, "the rich" are richer than they have ever been before, too, as reporter in this New York Times editorial.

Or, are they?

It's hard to say.

But, I have to admit, I get fearful and whipped up sometimes over worry about becoming poor, or not being able to get back into the workforce full-time, or our retirement, or my kid's prospects growing up. Or I jump on conversational and link-posting bandwagons crying out for help for these poor, poor people. But maybe I just really don't need to worry so much. (Yes, yes, yes, I know, middle-class privilege, I've got it, but I've been working in some capacity since I was, like, 13 years old and moved out of parents' house at 18, so I'm no stranger to taking care of myself, either.)

Then there's this article from the Boston Review, "Before Greed: Americans Didn’t Always Yearn for Riches." That talks about how  in the time of Lincoln, people strove for a level of "competency," that is, "the ability to support a family and have enough in reserve to sustain it through hard times at an accustomed level of prosperity. When, through effort or luck, a person amassed not only a competency but enough to support himself and his family for his lifetime, he very often retired." I love this.

I feel, to a great extent, that's how we live in our household.

But, the Boston Review article notes, "Most Americans have come to think of the American dream not as a competency but rather as the accumulation of great wealth." So, it seems to me that those on both ends of the spectrum, and the policy people need to tuck things in a bit on each end. People don't need the lifestyles seen in the Queen of Versailles movie (pre-crash), but it can also be argued that "poor" people don't need flat screen TVs, Tivos, new cars, and all those trappings, either.  What they do need, of course, is affordable healthcare (this links to a must-read, loooong read TIME article) and to not have to bail out banks (much shorter must-read), so, it's a mixed bag.

I just have to wonder if things are ever as dire, across the boards, as the media makes things out to be, and I think, maybe an understanding of the mixed bag can alleviate some anxiety. Gratitude works.

Newest 'final words' on the blog

I've started and stopped this blog many times, frustratingly proclaiming a last post, but always coming back. But this would definitely be a great post to end with, even though I know it might not be my last. Definitely something I need to work on, and the reason why a few posts I had in the works will never see the light of day.

Same dribble Down Under on 'slacker moms'

I follow some Twitterers in Australia because it gives me fresh tweets in the middle of the night when I sometimes get up and read my Kindle, lying in the dark, next to my kid. I've gotten into this weird habit where I'll wake up in the middle of the night and leave my husband's bed then go into my kid's room and sleep with her on the full-size floor futon—plenty of room for both of us and it's firmer and she is a super sound sleeper so the light of the Kindle doesn't bother her like it would my husband, plus she's got a humidifier in there and I just like it!

So I came across this Sydney Morning Herald article that's been making a bit of a splash: Over-mothered? No, over mothering and it's the same sort of theme I've seen in American mommy culture that I think they're calling the "slacker mom movement." The BlueMilk blogger responded to the post with what I thought were some valid retorts and lots of good links.

A big part of the response was pointing out that it's all cool and liberating for privileged white mamas to be lackadaisical, but if a poor, brown skinned mama went this route, she'd be under scrutiny from more powerful elements than the neighborhood biddies and quite possibly at risk of a visit from Child Protective Services. I get that, and that's valid, but I have to say I'm a little weary of so many discussions turning to my privilege. I know I am lucky and I know I am blessed (or whatever)—and yes, privileged—but each in our own ways we're all muddling through. And hearing other white women trot out the white privilege thing seems like their safe place to critique something, you know, get on the side of some underdog, further under and doggier than the hapless slacker moms.

The response had some other insightful aspects on how "the slacker mother movement seems to be taking a nasty turn lately towards judging mothers it sees as being too dedicated to the pursuit of motherhood." Which would resonate with me if I gave a shit about whether or not some random blatherer on the internet was judging me. (Ph.D. in Parenting had a good post about this the other day.)

Maybe it is because of my place of privilege (oh man, now I'm doing it!) that I have never felt pressure to "mother" a certain way. I did the homebirth thing, I breastfed 33 months, I stayed home with the kid in her earliest years, we co-slept. But the child has seen a lot of Dora and Diego. I've yelled, I've spanked (regret, regret, regret). The child had to have several cavities filled when she was four because I just kind of spaced on the notion that she needed to have her teeth brushed after every meal. (I didn't, and I didn't have many cavities, but maybe I have very unusual teeth, or different saliva, or didn't eat as many foods with sugars in them—who knows, I messed up!) I don't feel excessively guilty about the teeth or the TV, but I'm not going to glibly brag about it either and take on "slacker mom" as some sort of persona.

What I don't get about the "slacker mom" thing is why people would revel in this sense of being crappy at something and not caring—especially when it comes to something as precious and important as one's child. "Slacking" seems to be about backlash against some standard of perfection, but I'd argue that this standard was never real and smart women know this. "Slacking" is just too reactionary.

I don't really embrace the "slacker" persona in anything I do, though. I try to do my best at work, I try to do my best eating healthfully and staying in shape. I try to be kind-hearted and compassionate. Yes, I fall short in these areas, but I don't feel threatened by "perfection" and get mad and run to the "slacker" credo, just saying "fuck all," like, forever and always. I just say, hey, I'm human and I'll just try to do better tomorrow.

The real me is the mom who gets down on the floor and plays with the child—when I feel like it, which is sometimes, but not always. I do art projects...sometimes. I bake for the child's birthday (I am not really so into bringing treats to school because I don't believe school is a place for this and if every kid for every birthday brought treats, they'd really just be having too many treats...) I read to her, do math and science projects with her, a lot of the time, but not all the time. I do enjoy building with Lego. Overall, I'd say I'm into it, but I like my web surfing, beery nights with friends and long runs alone, too. That's what being a normal, balanced person is. At my core though, I have to admit I am pretty passionate about my kid, and I don't care if that's not cool.

I understand the Jane Caro piece is supposed to be humor, but I think that joke is played out.

Life in limbo

So last week, I heard from a colleague at my big client, in  my old department, that he's leaving to go to Sao Paulo and get his MBA—some guys have all the luck! Which meant, for me, an opening to get back in to a full-time, in-office position. I didn't think too, too much of it the first couple days after I'd heard his news, though it did cross my mind. Then, my boss/client lead called me, from her home, while out sick, to tell me they were looking at this opening as an opportunity to bring me back, pending budget and staff need factors. I was pretty stoked. While I'd stated that my ideal would be to go back this fall, at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year (so I could spend "one last summer" with my kid), I'd let them know in no uncertain terms that I'd be willing, at this point, to jump back in whenever they needed me.

After the call, I immediately started figuring out childcare options for after school and summer (both readily available) and sorting out with my husband how we'd manage our schedule, how much they'd need to make in an offer for it to be worth our while, and we were ready. (The boss confirmed they could pay at least what I was making before I'd opted for part-time consulting when my kid was born five years ago, and as an on-ramping mom in a shitty economy, that was good enough for me. She seemed very concerned, too, with not "insulting" me with a lousy offer. Imagine that!)

My heart had been so heavy (for quite a while, weeks...months...) not knowing "my place in the world," having this big empty hole six hours a day when my child's at school, not feeling motivated to do much more than whatever paid work I have (which does not take six hours, and often comes at the wrong time of day, when she is around and I'd rather be focusing on her, but can't)...and then I feel so guilty and lame that I don't make better use of all the free time I have during the days. I was really looking forward to diving into the "back-to-the-office" job, if only as a means to shake me out of this place I'm in.

But, I talked to the boss Friday and she said that they are not going to fill the position right away and that she's just going to send me a contract for another year of the work I've been doing in the mean time (with a "raise" commensurate to the raises other people there got, so that's nice...) She said the soonest they'd have me, or anyone else, in the position is May. Now, I know that if they were going to have someone else, they'd need to put an ad out and start looking, like, now, probably (to find a quality person) and she said they weren't advertising, so....

I don't think they're messing with me, trying to be sneaky, lie about what they're doing. I'm aware of a big budget hit they took recently and I think they are trying to save money by having the position vacant for a while. It's unfortunate because things in the department are already so backlogged, but, it is what it is. The boss tells me they are still very interested in having me back, that "nobody does what you do" and that she's told the president that I want a full-time job and may look elsewhere, with them running the risk of "losing" me...

So, I guess I am in a good place because I really didn't want to, ideally, with regard to my kid, do full-time til after summer and any amount of putting it off while still remaining an option is good, for a while (though they might want me in May, or June, or July...who even knows!) but, at the same time, I am disappointed because I was ready to dive in, like now (as in March, April...) and now I really need to find a new lease on life to shake things up for me because the long days of reading the internet and doing nothing are really, deeply wearing on my soul. I will do it, though...

On Vagina

Well, I finally broke down and got Naomi Wolfe's Vagina: A New Biography. I thought it might help me out with my sexuality, but I think instead it led to a fight with my husband.

The other night when we were supposed to do it, he did what he usually does—laid down next to me with his eyes closed like he was asleep and started rubbing and scratching my back. I usually do the same thing and if we don't pass out and fall asleep we might start kissing, I might start stroking him and it might lead to sex. Or, it might lead to me complaining about why he always lays there with his eyes closed.

See, Naomi Wolf told me that the adoring male gaze is part of the "Goddess Array" and that I need it to feel special and get turned on. It kind of made sense. After nine years of marriage I do get the feeling that he doesn't even look at me, pay attention to me or notice me, really. I feel pretty fine about how I look and so I don't need his gaze for self-esteem, but I do understand how, if he gave me more of a signal that he saw me, I might respond with a little more fire than I do.

So, I called him on the eyes closed thing. He defensively gave me a bunch of excuses that it was awkward for him to stare at me when he was so close, that his eyes couldn't focus well, he didn't even have his contacts on. It kind of made sense what he was saying, but, Naomi said he should be looking at me.

He's also supposed to treat me like a Goddess—this is never going to happen.

One of the things I value about my relationship with my husband is our friendliness. We are friends. We are friends who have sex. As much as I may be into my power as a woman, I don't think he is ever going to look at me as a Goddess. That's not to say I don't think I am worthy. I do. It's just not who my husband is. And I don't think he's the type who would grow into it and I'm not sure I want him to—it sounds kind of smarmy.

There's a lot that's good about the Vagina book, but there's a lot that's corny—and suspect.  Lots of reviews get more into it (The New Yorker, Jezebel, Feminste, WIRED...) so I am going to stick to a my personal reaction rather than anything societal or overarching.

Many times while I was reading it, I couldn't help but wondering, what about the guys?  It was all, women want this...women need that. It seemed to have an undercurrent of...men just want to get laid and so they need to do all this attentive stuff for their women and the men will get better sex out of it. There was this unspoken assumption of men taking the lead sexually and that men were kind of monolithic in their sexuality. I realize the book wasn't supposed to be about men's sexuality, but it did seem to assume a lot about that.

I like the idea that our bodies (our vaginas) should be sacred and private and not abused or made fun of. I don't think it's revelatory that if women are raped it damages them wholly, not just physically in their vaginas (Wolfe has much to say about rape as weapon of war and such, and I just kept thinking, of course, of course, these things destroy women's self-confidence and lives overall).

It makes sense, too, that a woman with a satisfying sex life in a good relationship would have the happiness, peace and wellness spill over to other areas of her life, like work and creativity, as well. However, I don't think that it has to be vaginal sex only and I don't think that an otherwise healthy woman who has not been raped or otherwise damaged and abused but who may not be having amazing vaginal sex will necessarily suffer in other areas of her life. Sex is not everything.

I don't say this just because I don't have vaginal orgasms (never have). I say it moreso because I'm not that interested (at all?) in having vaginal orgasms. If it happened, cool, but I don't feel like I am missing something and am not now driven to pursue it. Of course, maybe it's a shortcoming in me that I don't even care. But, to me, it's not the kind of orgasm my husband gives or doesn't give me, or even the sexual techniques at all that are important, it's the attention and care overall (yes, sometimes lacking) but I don't think it has to be so prescribed.

Wolfe does say in the book that she doesn't mean any of this to necessarily be prescriptive, but more of an a la carte assortment of things she found out in her research and connections she made. I question much of what she calls "science"—she relies a lot on rat studies to make her cases. She mentions as an aside a sugar rush from semen and I just wonder how much a guy would have to cum for the amount to, chemically, really evoke anything physiologically in a woman that she could really feel. One Amazon reviewer lists suggestions for Google searches pointing toward articles critical of Wolfe's interpretation of the science: Neuroscientists take aim at Naomi Wolf's theory of the "conscious vagina"; Naomi Wolf's "Vagina" is full of bad science about the brain; Pride and Prejudice, by Zoë Heller (The New York Review of Books); Feminist Dopamine, Conscious Vaginas, and the Goddess Array; Of Mice and Women: Animal Models of Desire, Dread, and Despair; and Upstairs, Downstairs; `Vagina: A New Biography,' by Naomi Wolf (The New York Times).

Also, the tantric coach who charges $150 per hour for "yoni" work, including hands-on massage grosses me out.

I enjoyed reading about different historical mores related to the vagina, although certain parts of the past and certain current practices within cultures that denigrate women were troubling. If anything, it made me grateful to be a grown woman in the West married to a kind, if not stunningly tantric, man, even with the porn-addled consciousness that supposedly ruins us all. (I think some people of my and my husband's age may have escaped exposure to and getting hooked on or damaged by some of the more distasteful or harmful porn.) I have to be careful not to focus on ways my husband may not be treating me like the Goddess I allegedly am. Maybe try and come up with some ways to quietly evoke this in him, because my direct requests for things like eye contact don't usually work. I'm not sure knowing what I know now after reading Vagina will improve my sex life, but maybe that wasn't the point. It was her personal discovery, not mine.

That funny feeling...again...

So I have that funny stomach-buzzing, tight-chest/heart anxiety feeling again. It's not a physical problem like I am going to have a heart attack or be sick or anything. I know what it is. It's anxiety. I can't pinpoint what caused it (causes it) but I can give some details on a bunch of little things that I think contribute to it...maybe.

I think it's at it's height right now because I need to run or do some exercise to burn off a bit of the frustration I've been feeling—except I can't because I have a client call in about 35 minutes (well, I did, til she postponed it another 15 minutes, and will probably then also be late, which means I could have ran or done some exercise and alleviated myself somewhat of this feeling, but now I can't because I'm on to writing to fill the time til the client call...ugh).

It may have started yesterday when I took my kid to this fancy-pants playground. She'd been there before and then she's been seeing it in a video she has and she kept asking to go. School was out yesterday, it was unseasonably warm, and so, we went. I was glad to take her somewhere special that she wanted to go, but I myself am not super crazy about the place. It's nice that it is 100% handicapped accessible, that's great. But it's, like, a 30-minute drive away and it's kind of in a shi-shi "neighborhood" (you can't really call it a "neighborhood" exactly because it's in a suburb with rolling hills and multi-acre lots, but anyway...) and there is always this weird mix of "the beautiful people"—moms with $700 riding boots, Chanel sunglasses, blown out hair and makeup—and then the nannies. Of course, there are "tourists" like me who go there, too, sometimes...and like this mom of a kid from my kid's old preschool who I saw and was trying to avoid.

So, I was having some fun walking around, following my kid around as she played "Froggy Fairytale Land," pretending she was a frog and leading me on a tour of her homeland, avoiding some bad guys here and there, achieving some little adventure goals along the way. Being with her lights up my heart I love to watch her facial expressions when she talks, love to hear her voice, her ideas.

I have to admit sometime I grow weary of her fantasy play, though, and I have to tell her so, now that she is getting older. She had woken up wanting to play mommy and baby animal, so we were hyenas. Then she wanted to be a pet cat that I was adopting. In the car ride to the playground, she was a dog who was going to marry our real dog. I couldn't take it anymore. It takes a lot of effort for the adult mind to engage in imaginative play like this while at the same time being grounded in the real world, taking care of the adult things that need to be taken care of like making and cleaning up breakfast, responding to emails, and...driving! I told her I feel kind of lonely sometimes and really would rather just talk to her as her real self. I told her I like her, I don't want to talk to a bunch of different pretend animals all day, that I want to talk to her. She seemed a little disappointed, but she "got" it and then I engaged her in a real-life conversation.

Back to the playground. After indulging in some fantasy frog play, she wanted me to play hide-and-seek. I generally don't like to play hide-and-seek at playground (or places other than our own yard) because after all, it's my job to watch my kid and know where she is and it makes me nervous to not know where she is. But, I gave in. The first couple hides I cheated and watched her, doing that thing all parents do where they pretend not to be able to find the kid and then they pop out and laugh and it is all so cute. The final hide, though, I actually lost track of her. It's a sprawling playground with lots of structures. So, I was wandering around looking for her for what felt like quite a while. I was a little panicky, but not extremely so. She's not a baby or toddler anymore. When I was her age, I probably went to the corner playground all by myself, so was it really a big deal that I couldn't find her for a few minutes? But, then I started to get a little panicky and mad. And to boot, the children of that mom from the preschool that I was trying to avoid were following me around. I don't know if they recognized me or my kid. I do know that they know I was looking for my child and they were tailing me, in a way I felt pretty sure was mocking or making fun of me. Maybe I am too sensitive or reading too much into it, but to me, it is rude and disrespectful to follow someone around this way. I never did like this mom (or her friend who was there with here awful kids too). It was so infuriating. I told the kids after several pauses and dirty looks to stop following me and that it was rude what they were doing. The friend of the mom collected them shortly after that, not acknowledging me, and it's not clear whether they noticed me or not. And shortly after that, I found my child. I scolded her mildly, but didn't want to take my frustration out on her. I just told her we weren't going to play hide-and-seek at playgrounds anymore and I told her about the awful children following me and she said "I'll protect you from them!" She is the best.

So, that caused me anxiety. Then, coming home, I had to make sure the child did her homework —which I'd lost cleaning off my desk of the gazillion papers the school sends home. Since I lost her homework, I had her make her own little booklet. All they do is color pictures and identify words with certain letters in them, a task which is far beneath my kid's level anyway, and I always make her do some element of extra work, like actually writing out the sentences in her own hand on lined paper, or something like that. While supervising her homework, I have to field a bunch of emails from an annoying person about issues that are really beyond my purview. But, I have this thing where I try to please and look like I am doing all I can to help. Still, when asked about things I don't really understand or control, it makes me very anxious.

Now, though, today, I am also feeling anxious because I miss her. Days when it is just me and her are even better sometimes than weekends with all three of us because they are like the golden baby days of..."just us"... I love having my husband home, too, and the time for myself that having him also parenting allows, but there is a different dynamic when he's home that's sometimes more chaotic (read, less under my control) than when it's just me and her. Now it's just me, alone, with my work and I miss her face and her words.

Kind of comforting, but not really

I recently finished Comfort, by Ann Hood, that I'd set out to read as maybe a bit of a lesson on how not to be so anxious about my own child—losing her, either through death (kind of an irrational fear for every day) or through just her simply doing what kids do and growing up.

I learned about Hood through an essay she wrote following the Newtown, Connecticut, tragedy in December where young schoolchildren were gunned down and killed.

Hood writes really well. She captures the love of a mother in beautiful detail. I felt like I could really identify with all the things she notices and loves about her daughter. Many of her daughter's quirky qualities reminded me of my own child. I found myself sobbing in the beginning, wondering whether it was really a good idea to read the book, as I was getting really emotional. I thought of my parents. They'd lost a child, just a little baby. She was not even one year old. I don't remember her at all.  I just remember getting swept up by some friendly paramedics as they rushed us...somewhere. Really, that's all I remember. I thought that any shortcomings they had as parents are just totally forgiven because they'd lost a child.

My connection to Hood kind of ended, though, in her coping. I guess that is OK. We all have to find our own ways to cope and of course hers would be different from mine and, of course, I don't really know what mine would be til it would happen. I do know with a good amount of certainty, though, that I wouldn't adopt another child, and I don't already have that other, other child (her older son) that Hood had.  Aside from the other children, Hood seemed to be quite comfortable financially. Writer job. Big house. Ability to take really great vacations. She'd had a nanny before for her children (including the daughter who'd died), too. I think having other children probably makes a big (the biggest) difference and is something I would not have.  This scares me, and so my takeaway is that I just have to be present and savor life as it is and try not to worry. I'm not a huge worrier, compared to other women, based on things I hear from people and things I read, but still, it's easier to tie that concept up in a little concluding sentence than to actually live it...

A great week!

Just wanted to take a minute to note how good I am feeling right now.

I've been doing pretty clean eating this week, sticking to my 30-40 minute, but intense, workouts and I actually lost a few pounds this week.

But that's not all. I had a really good week work-wise and kid-raising wise.

An annual report  I did for a client has gone in draft from the VP to the president and he said: "Haven’t read the Annual Report carefully yet, just flipped through it for “look” and “feel.” The verdict?  I LOVE the look and feel this year. It’s unique and creative and seems to give off a lot of energy – like we’ve really been busy doing something. Can’t wait to get the hard copy and read it more carefully."

The VP said: “I agree it's an amazing look. And I think the print version that [me] envisioned will be very unique and very classy. So glad you like it. [Me] did a great job.”

I suck up praise like a sponge and live for it. (LOL? Need to read and re-read my last post? Or maybe that is just how I am going to be...) So I was really glad to get these comments. And I did all this work (well, not all of it, the design ideas have been several weeks coming, but the crunch work) at the end of this week amidst shortened school days because of snow. And concurrently with my biweekly newsletter writing and publishing for this client.

Meanwhile, my kid had many happy times and fun activities as I juggled snow play amidst my consulting work. She is so happy, healthy and smart and I wake up regularly to her saying "Love you!" I don’t pat myself on the back often (I don’t think) but I’m going to say it: I rocked this week!

(And I'm writing it so I can look back and remember...)

Stop trying to impress everyone

Last week I came across this article in a print magazine at the hair salon and it really struck me. I cried. "My Boss Taught Me to Stop Trying to Impress Everyone" it said, and went on to tell the anecdote of a former outgoing, overachiever who'd always reach out to people. It reminded me of someone. "Why don’t you try sitting still and letting other people come to you? That way, they can discover the real, wonderful person you are for themselves," the boss tells her.

Now, I'm not an overachiever in the true NY/DC sense. I'm not a lawyer or lobbyist. I don't have an advanced degree. To many, I'm probably small potatoes. But, I am always on it. I'm the one who picks up the slack. I'm the one who never forgets something. I'm the one who never misses a deadline. I make mistakes now and then, so I'm not saying I am perfect, but I am dogged and always trying very hard to please. It's not just because I am self-employed and have clients. I was this way at work when I was an in-house employee, too.

So, I get an email from my big client/former boss that "I'm probably not going to get edits to you on the annual report til Tuesday, and am going to ask for it back by noon Wednesday, do you think that's doable?" She admits jokingly it may be hard to say given I don't know what the edits are, and I agree, also pointing out I don't know when on Tuesday she's getting back to me. "But, I usually have a way of getting you what you need when you need it!" I replied, cheerfully.

Well, it's 5:30 Tuesday and still nothing from her. I'm not going to work on it this evening, so whatever I can get done from 9:00 am til noon tomorrow is what she is getting. I actually think she'll be fine with that. She's never been unreasonable. It's me who has had a way of setting myself up as some kind of superwoman. I'm tired of it, though, and slowly, I am going to change.

I don't want to end up like this (overworked and underpaid in the "great speedup").

We have to strategically make our boundaries and protect them.

In a mood

Posted this on Facebook yesterday—made it myself : ) Yesterday I actually also made myself that kind of smoothie, departing from the usual, based on stuff I've been reading in the Conscious Cleanse book (I am taking the book with a grain of salt, as a whole, but there are some useful points). I felt amazing after drinking it, for real. I got a flash of sun and air when I took out the trash, too, and was immediately compelled to go for a run, when minutes before I'd been kind of lumbering around expecting to do yoga in the basement. It was powerful.

(Hold on, being interrupted by kid now who wants to show me a book she just made and feel like I do actually have to stop what I am doing and pay attention. This is my life...)

Anyway, the day yesterday had its ups and downs, but overall was OK. I did my run, I ate healthy the whole day. I took my kid to the library and the nature center (which included a mini-hike in the woods). I made a perfectly lovely and healthy meal for my family—ginger-garlic wild salmon and veggies with brown rice. Read lots of stories to my kid and fell right to sleep with her.

Then, I was supposed to wake up and go spend some time with my husband. But I just didn't want to get up. We were supposed to have sex. It's been a while—over a week. He's been sick. But last night I was just flooded with such exhaustion, I didn't really know why. I tried to figure out why, in addition to being so physically tired I felt awkward and weird about having sex (I sometimes feel this way other times) and gravitated toward the fact that so many women and raped, bullied, abused—in the U.S as well as all over the world. And that in television, movies, even music, sex is portrayed as something I can't really say I like. Lots of domination, violence, women made to look very typecast either as just pretty and empty or sexy and dangerous, I can't pinpoint it, but it goes on and on (my husband, I think, thinks I am crazy, as I tried to explain this to him yesterday and he thinks maybe I consume too much media—and he may be right, but his focus was on the serious rape media, not the cheesy mainstream media that might actually be the problem).

(Hold on—just ran outside twice. The first time to ask my husband why he was taking the crappy car on his outing today when he could be taking the nice car, with heat and a decent stereo—me and the kid weren't going anywhere this morning. Whatever. Then, after coming back inside and noticing he left his credit card on the table, I ran back outside AGAIN, I ran all the way down the block in the street screaming at him, hoping he would notice so he would have his card. If we were normal people who BOTH had cell phones, I could just call him up—I guess that's another story. But, yeah, this is my life...)

So I woke up this morning generally OK. I woke up in bed with my kid. I started in the bed I share with my husband, but I went to bed before him (remember, I was exhausted) but my kid woke up sometime around an hour after I'd drifted to sleep (and it was a really, nice relaxing sleep I'd been in) to pee and I don't know, when she wakes up to pee, I guess I am programmed from when she woke as a baby to go lay down in her room with her, so I did. So we woke up together and we cuddled and she took me through the multiple "I love you mommys" and "You're the best mom evers" and I returned her admiration, sincerely, looking at her beautiful, beautiful face with its big green yellow eyes (almost the same as mine, but darker), marred only by one slightly pink eye from a little cold. She tells me she "just wishes we could get a cat now" (we cannot, my husband is allergic, she will have to wait til she is on her own)..."I wish I could make a big dinosaur" and she means like a larger-than-human-size structure she can go in, replacing her previous desire for a large, walk-in, "hippo robot" she wanted to make before, this new idea prompted by one of the books we read last night.

(Hold on another interruption..."I wish I had glitter..." said in a long, wistful whine...to which I reply, "No. I am not getting you anything or doing anything for you now. I am writing and having my coffee, then doing my exercises and making my breakfast and then, only then, will I do things with you, get things for you or play with you. You have a house full of toys. Go play with your dollhouse, build with your legos, play with your tiles, your k'nex...anything. I am not getting you anything right now... She had now moved on to playing with some tangrams blocks repeating 'Theo, Theo, pumpkin Leo' again and again, then asks me if I like what she is building...)

As I was saying, I woke up generally OK. Most always happy cuddling with my child and seeing her beauty, being grateful for her health, my health, the warm house. But there is that pink eye of hers. I will have to put drops in it from the last time she had it back in November. It's always a struggle. Who likes having something put in their eye? I like doing it even less than she likes getting it, though. And the struggle marks the bad turn for the day.

As I get up to get the medicine and face the day, and the tasks ahead—make breakfast, hope she will eat it, continue to hear and try to follow a barrage of demands for play and supplies, maybe get some client work done, while my husband lumbers around, hopefully playing with her a little bit, as he often nicely does, but leaving messes and getting in the way, too...and I just become overwhelmed with the sense that I don't really get to have a lot of fun or freedom in my life. I bitch and moan. I slip into a really bad mood really quickly.

But now, of course, typing this, I feel like an ass. "I don't get to have a lot of fun or freedom...? Really?" Asshole! Seriously.

(Mommy! I thought we were going to play dress-up dolls!—I am not making this up...)

Seriously, though? This is what I tell myself: "Bitch, you have a motherfucking DAY OFF. And every day is kind of a day off for you right now since you work in yoga pants and each nachos at all hours of the day (that latter bit is changing) watching Girls (or Cosmos, as your intellectual level fluctuates). Anyway, you have a day off today because your big client is off and so they won't be emailing you with stuff. You basically can do what you want all day everyday and so if, intermittently, you have to answer your child's request or pick up after your husband and then suck his cock at night, you better just do it and like it. You know, some women have to walk five miles dodging militant rapists just to get murky water for their starving children to drink? So, STFU."

OK, going to play dress-up dolls now. Hopefully I will get that workout in shortly after. I will, too, be interested to see my husband's reaction when he comes home from his errand and I tell him (and child corroborates) how I ran down the street waving his credit card and screaming.

Identifying feelings

Part of my meditation and mindfulness training involves recognizing a feeling you may be having and letting yourself feel it. I am doing that, but the feeling I have right now is so intense, I'm compelled to record and try to analyze it, at least just a bit.

I just dropped my kid off at school. I have the "nice car" today, so I should feel a little happier. I suppose I do, but I still feel a strong sense of anxiety. I feel a tightening in my chest and a seed of sadness right above my belly. I have this awful sense of loss I have most days when I drop my child off at school. I've cuddled her upon waking, talked to her, cuddled her some more. All this cuddling might sound weird, but I assure you, it's not, just basic mom cuddling, a hug, a squeeze. But I notice things. I smell her hair, my face feels the softness of it. I am very aware of the feel of her small, soft-skinned, so new hand in mine. This hand that draws so much, plays so much. Always with marker inks on them.

I am so scared of moving on. I am so scared of the days where I drop her off then have to rush off to an office, not seeing her at 1:20 or 3:50 (still so long), but maybe by 6:30. I know that is ridiculous. I know it would probably be better for me to rush off to an office than sit around here all day doing just little bits of work amidst my emptiness. I know it would be good to fill my day with someone else's bullshit and get paid for it. I have to let go of the fear. I'm afraid of work becoming untenable. Taking over. I want to post this article about the need for flexible work schedules, on Facebook, but I am afraid of future employers seeing it and seeing me as a less than dedicated worker—even though I do think the job I potentially have lined up (several months away) will probably be fairly flexible.

Let's see. What else am I afraid of? I am afraid of doing the workout I know I have to do. I am afraid of feeling the pain. Afraid of facing that I am not what I once was, while being nagged by the idea that I could be what I once was, and better, if I only pushed myself. This one's easier—just do it, as they say. Maybe the exertion will push out the anxiety—the endorphins Jackie Warner will talk about at the end of it. Then I go get my haircut. Then I volunteer at the school. I will just take it one step at a time.

Fucking off, just one more day

So yesterday and today I was a total lazy fucking loser. I ate a lot for pleasure and watched lots of TV. I've been doing a Girls marathon. After seeing (being reminded of...I'd heard of her before, certainly) Lena Dunham on the Golden Globes and thinking, ugh, she is so awful, what is the appeal?, and then finding out I could get season one on Amazon instant, I bit. Thing is, I actually like the show. I feel like since I am so old, so removed from these people, I don't really have to relate to them, I can just be entertained. I do actually like some of the characters (not so much the Lena Dunham character, she just seems so desperate and wrong). It feels not wholesome to watch it, somehow, maybe it is because the characters themselves don't seem particularly healthy, and I will say, I felt better when I was watching Cosmos.

Anyway, I can only do this one more day (today) before I worry about myself. I worked a lot last week and had this hard thing with the husband this weekend and so I feel like it's OK if I fuck off a day or two, but yeah, halfway through day two I start to worry. Why isn't my boss/client emailing me with shit to do? (So I email her.) Am I ever going to be able to go back to work full-time in an office and survive after all this lazy hanging around at home? (Even when I log a lot of hours, I am still at home.) Will I ever get over missing my daughter? Will I ever get my act together and lose those last 20 pounds?

Well, I have to. I want to be one of those really fit older women. And I have to get my act together on the other stuff. And I will. Tomorrow. (I will actually work out today, though, even if it is just a walk in the woods I've still got that.)

Also, I love the Grumpy Cat. It exemplifies how I feel about many things. Yes, I am overall a happy person, but that cat says it straight, things I can't say.

Sorting out conflict

All day long I have to look out the window at this car. The 17-year-old car that I consider "my husband's." The car with the ceiling cloth torn down with the foamy black bits of chemically-infested whatever crumbling. The car, that, though I consider my husband's, I am the only one who ever cleans and organizes. I have a certain admiration for this car. It's still running after all these years. He drove me places in it when we were dating. We drove to New Jersey together, to the beach. We drove to New York City together. It should mean something nice. It should be a happy thing to see. Right now, though, it's a sign of meanness, a trick, a hard lesson someone wants to teach someone they're mad at. It hurts to see the car.

I'm not a big airing-your-dirty-laundry kind of person, but I'm writing about  a recent conflict to try to make myself move on, feel better...somehow sort it out for myself. Laying out the details of the most recent incidents will create something that may sound petty and ridiculous, but I am going to do it anyway.

I think my husband is controlling, dominating and manipulative—though not a bad guy. I know that sounds very funny. There are all kinds of statistics showing overall what total dicks men are to women. I've been hit by my dad and hit by an ex-husband. So, that fact that my husband tends to get what he wants and does what he wants and I end up feeling like what I want is just really not that important, well, intellectually I understand it's just not something to end an marriage (with a child) over, or get too worked up about. Once in a while, though, I do get worked up. I act out. I can't take one more instance of feeling like I don't matter that much and I blow. Then I feel bad, I apologize, saying "Well, there was a lot of truth to what I said about you controlling everything and making me feel like I don't matter, but I shouldn't have called you those names and yelled at you like that..." and things just move on...and don't really change.

I had plans to go to a "girls night out" (GNO) on Saturday. Meanwhile, we also caught wind and got the idea of a beer I had liked being on tap at the local Whole Foods that has taps and a grill and I had the craving and idea that this beer would go really great with a sandwich they serve, and couldn't we go there for lunch? He agreed and acknowledged, well, we don't do what you want or your ideas that much, sure, let's go. But then he got wind of a beer he wanted that would be tapped later, once a certain other one (not the one I wanted) was kicked. So, he wanted to wait til the beer guy posted on Facebook that the other beer was tapped too. I was a little thrown because I didn't want to go too late and have the nice lunch be right on top of the GNO dinner (which was early).

Now, I'm not super big on the GNOs anyway. I like the people well enough, but we're not super close. Sometimes I even feel a little awkward, but I like to go out in this way now and then because I feel like it's a normal and healthy thing to do. Even if I'd rather just stay home with my family because it's easier and I like them, I push myself to do these GNOs. I have to say my husband doesn't really encourage me to do them, either, while he doesn't explicitly discourage them, he never says "Oh, yeah, go out and have a great time! You deserve some fun!" Never would say that. He'd rather I didn't do anything. He doesn't feel like he "needs" friends outside our relationship, but he goes out now and then, I think for the same reasons I try to. I don't think he really feels its as important to psychological health as I do, though. And I don't really feel like the dynamic of our relationship holds him back the way I feel held back.

Anyway, he just insisted we wait and wait and wait for his beer to come up. I decided to bail on the GNO. I really wanted my beer and sandwich combo and felt like just hanging out with my family would be fun, too. But we waited and waited and waited til finally we couldn't wait anymore and it became an early dinner instead of lunch—and the beer I wanted was no longer on tap. I got screwed. He was only sorry because I bitched and moaned and he made a bunch of excuses of how it wasn't his fault, blah blah blah. If we could have just gone at a normal time like we were supposed to and he didn't put his desires over mine, I would have gotten what I liked (which he had previously acknowledged would have been special and rare...) So I was miffed. But we carried on.

Another piece of the conflict was that had I gone on the GNO, he'd brought up wanted to go to this Whole Foods maybe just with our daughter. I didn't want him to do this. I didn't want him to take the crappier car on the highway with her not in her best carseat and I didn't want him to be minding her and driving even having had just one drink because the beer can be strong and I believe he is a less adept caregiver and driver than I am sober or slightly buzzed. I've always been "the primary" with our daughter. I haven't minded, really. I love her to the extreme. I loved breastfeeding her, sleeping with her (still do when I can). I loved being home with her. There is a whole now in my life I am trying to fill with her in school all day. Still, I think there are many ways he could have contribute that he chooses not to. I am 99 percent of the time the disciplinarian. I am the one who registered her for school. Who makes sure the homework gets done. Who makes her special meals when she won't eat what we're eating. I am the gift shopper. I am the doctor appointment maker. I am the one who knows where the lost toys are. These, of course, are natural things that might fall to the stay-at-home or work-at-home mother, but as the child gets older, someone who wanted to do more to help could take it upon themselves to do it. He's not all bad, just not as "on" as I am to the point where I'm not super comfortable with him going lots of places with her. (OK, as I type this, I am realizing I am sounding maybe like the controlling one, so that's maybe something I need to explore...)

I wanted to take the nice car to the GNO so I could feel more special. It's a newer car and it makes me feel nice to drive it. The nice car kind of has defaulted to "mine." I know it's both of our cars, but he usually takes the crappy one, since he only drives a couple miles to the train station each morning. Also, he chooses to take the crappy one when he goes out to rock shows in the city because he thinks it's so much smaller than the nice one and so much easier to park. He even insists on taking the smaller, crappy car when we go on dates to the city—again, so much easier to park, allegedly. So he never seems to mind driving this crappy car...until I express a strong desire to drive it, or he comes upon a way to make it some kid of bargaining chip.

We've argued about the car before. He knows that I love the car and feel special driving it. (By the way, it's not some super luxury car, it's a 2006 RAV-4, but compared to the other car, it's just lovely.)

So, I'd bailed on this week's GNO, I'd missed the beer and sandwich combo that I wanted, and I get an email about the next GNO so mention that to my husband. I tell him I'd really feel better if he just stayed home with our daughter or only went somewhere close by with her in the crappy car. I wouldn't be able to relax and have fun worrying about them. He'd previously said I was weird and had irrational fears about this and I told him that he is weird in his own way and I have to accept it, I do accept it and so he was to accept little ways I am weird too. But he pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.

He wanted to be able to do what he wanted to do. He doesn't see that he's not as good and on-the-ball taking care of her as I am. When I try to explain to him, he just thinks he's right. I tell him that it's part his way, part that I'm not comfortable with them driving the rickety, old car with the second-rate car seat that far. I'd be OK with it just going a couple miles. I know that scientifically those opinions may not be valid, but its how I feel and I feel like I ask for so little, he should accept and respect it. He was fairly obstinate, though. We dropped it. He took a shower. I thought about it. I'd swallow my pride and not be so materialistic and I'd just drive the crappy car to the next GNO—a dinner party at the million-dollar home of one of them. I'd previously thought I'd feel bad, showing up in the jalopy, but then thought, who would actually see me in the car? And, I care more about my kid's safety than my looking cool in a cool(er) car. So I told him, you know what, I'll just take the crappy car to the GNO. But he cut me off and said, no, no, you can take the nice car on your night out, but I'm going to take it every day to work.

What?!? He then reiterated to me all the concerns I'd laid out for him about the crappy car on the highway with my small child but he spoke of them with regard to his safety having to make a left turn coming out the train station in the dark. He claimed this new insistence on him taking the nice car to work every day was for his safety. He claimed he'd worried about it now and then before, but it was my concerns now that really hit him. I do not believe him. I think he is using the nice car, the fact that it is something that makes me feel special and "taking it away from me" as a punishment. He actually said, that he paid for most of it and it was his car and he'd take it if he wanted. I just saw it as a hugely un-gallant power play. A way to hurt me. He knows the car means a lot to me. But what means more, and hurts more, is him being mean and manipulative.

When I really think about it, I can let go of the car. When I really think about it, I understand that he might want to drive the "nice" car sometimes. In fact, I have actually felt sorry for him for having to drive the crappy car. But for him to use it this way just really hurt. If he would have asked, if he would have asked to take the nice car at another time—not immediately after I laid out issues about the car. I feel like he's using it to punish me. I feel like he's trying to teach me I better not bring up any concerns, I better just shut up and let him do what he wants or else he'll take away something I like.

Our fight escalated. I screamed so much my chest hurt. I still feel anxiety and stress the day later, even though on the surface we "made up." I screamed again and again that it wasn't about the car but about the manipulation and the domination. He complained that I didn't care about him and he was just a paycheck. Later, I explained to him that if he is just a paycheck it's because that's what he's set himself up to be. When asked to help around the house (I usually have to ask specifically, he won't just do) it's often with a mild gripiness or he does a poor job. I feel he is a bare minimum around the home kind of person. He answers always with a spotlight on the fact that I "only work part time from home"—something I chose to do that I thought was best for our kid.

One of the most hurtful things—or I should say hurtful themes—is the lack of valuing of my staying home. He brings it up whenever he can. He says he'll do more around the house when I go back to work full time. He makes me feel devalued. It's as simple as that. He says I make him feel devalued too because I complain he's not ambitious enough and doesn't do enough around the house.

I feel like my "attacks" on him are only ever in response to his either making me feel devalued or not doing enough—so really, they are counter-attacks. I am not dumb enough to miss the bad cycle here, though, and not see that is is me who has to change the dynamic. So I always do. I always apologize and try to be nice after. He accepts, probably just glad he's off the hook and can have the opportunity to try and place nice for a little while, but eventually slide back into his domineering ways, and we move on.

I guess the only progress is me becoming more mindful of the fact that I am the one who has to change. I let go of my attachment to that car. I walked the child to school, I walked to my store errands. We'll walk home from school and walk to and from tae kwon do, probably. I could drive the crappy car if I needed to, but that might make me feel worse, I don't know. At least all this walking could be a boon to my health. That's what I try to do, look on the bright side. He says that when spring comes and it's lighter out later, he'll take the crappy car again because he won't feel unsafe making those left turns in the light. I think, he's trying to lend some validity to his "safety" scheme. Or, maybe it's legit. I don't know. I do know I am left feeling uncared for and manipulated and bullied into not voicing concerns or grievances. But, that is fine. It's better that I deal with them internally anyway, because after all, I can only change myself.


We'd gone hiking earlier that day. I was happy about it. We had a nice, low key time as a family. I posted pretty photos of it on Facebook. My happy family. But by the time I posted, there was already the pain of our fight. I tried to choose a good quote to keep it just this side of being phony. Some indication that my life is not so picture-perfect, but with the hope that I will be OK, that we will be OK. So I chose this, from John Muir: Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts...

Self-comfort through reading

My New Years resolutions this year were kind of weird. I have this general sense that I need to lose 15–20 pounds by late March so I look good on my tropical island vacation. I want to make my kid practice her keyboard 15 minutes a day (this is a resolution for me because I actually have to make the time and pretty much be engaged the whole time). I want to meditate most days (say 5 out of 7)  I want to do yoga more regularly. One of the most measurable ones, though, or, I should say, one of the ones I am least loathing of measuring is to  start FINISHING all (well, most, the ones I still actually want to read) the books I've got on my Kindle that I grab up every time something catches my interest before grabbing any more. It's getting out of hand!

So, the one I am starting with is Comfort by Ann Hood, which I actually just bought today, so it's not really fair to the other books in my virtual pile, but something I'm hoping will help me in life. I will be, of course, concurrently reading the Mindfulness book I just mentioned, but that's a different kind of thing. Comfort is a memoir about how this woman deals with her five-year-old daughter dying.

Yikes! Right? I have a five-year-old daughter who I am madly in love with. We sit there and say "Best kid ever! Best mom ever!" and trade numerous "I love yous" while cuddling each other to sleep each night. I can't even begin to imagine losing her. And yet, I think about it too much. Not only do I think about actually losing her, which very likely won't happen, I think about her growing up, which is of course a good thing,  and will happen—but I am realistic to know I will not always be able to cuddle her to sleep. She is going to grow up and leave me in a very normal way.

I already am lost over this thing of her being in school all day, still, now in January, after her having been for several months. I'm not a loon of a mommy who is on her at every minute with some activity or always engaging her and who doesn't get annoyed with her at times or doesn't want time to myself, either. It's not that. It's just...I think most parents might feel this way about their child, don't they? And yet, we are all different so we feel love in different ways, so I don't know. I love pretty hard. And there is the thing of her being my only one. And there is the thing of her being a girl. Her looking like me (kind of, but way prettier). Her being every hope and blessing and dream for the future. (No pressure, my girl, really!) So, yeah, I need some help!

I am thinking if I can get an insight into how this woman deals with her child actually dying—arguably the worst thing someone can go through, or one of the worst—then maybe I can come away with some lesson for myself.

OK, I am off to being what I hope can be a couple solid hours of reading (another thing I am trying to do instead of all kind of crazy, disjointed, interruptedness...)