Wednesday, November 18, 2009

On Feminism.

So there’s this song that came out about a year ago by a preppy band called 3OH!3. The hook to the song is “shush girl, shut your lips / do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.” It’s a super catchy song and, I have to admit, that line never bothered me, but I was shooting the shit with a few of the girls at work – not the super conservative religious republican ones, the girls who aren’t offended by me on a regular basis – and I got the most shocked and offended response from the person I least expected. It stuck with me for two reasons; first, because moments like that help to show me where the line is with people, and now I know where hers is and second, because it was such a surreal reaction that it occurred to me I might be pushing the limits of what even the most liberal people find offensive.

My mom is sort of a lesbian. I’m not really interested in explaining that any more fully – it’s complicated, lengthy and in no way amusing – but it bears repeating because she is thereby inherently a feminist to a certain degree….and by ‘certain degree’ I mean she strikes me as bat-shit insane about 90% of the time. She belongs to a book club that only reads books written by women because they feel that when men write women, they write them the way a man would want a woman to be, not the way that a woman is. She goes to a music festival every year and declares that the most enjoyable experience of her entire life is ‘the sound of a thousand female voices with not a man amongst them.’

This strikes me as nuts, okay people – like clinically, prosecutably insane.

I have no beef with strip clubs and porn stores – and not just for single people, for married ones, dating ones and every iteration between – I couldn’t care any less. I believe in the awesometasticness of high dollar hookers. I’m all kinds of in favor of porn. I point out attractive girls when we’re out in public and have taught my brother and my nephews three very important lessons – if you take video/pictures of your naked teenage girlfriend, don’t distribute them because is a federal crime, don’t sleep with the crazy girl and if you ever hear the word ‘no’ back the fuck away and dont come back with out a signed affidavit. I have friends who are strippers and, single or in another life would absolutely be a total strumpet. I’ve vowed that if Mike ever dies tragically I’m opening a brothel with Courtney and that, once in a while – okay, fine, more often than not it feels amazing to be man-handled a bit.

When I have a home improvement project I have no problem batting my eyelashes, pulling out the little girl voice and leaning over the counter at Home Depot to inspire people to help the vulnerable little thing with the power tools despite the fact that when something breaks in our house I’m the one more adept at handling it. I once convinced an AutoZone employee to not only come out to the car to tell me the make, model and year but also convinced him to install the O2 Sensor for me…in the parking lot…for free….and all it took was a damsel in distress smile. I’ve never moved my own furniture. When we move, I am the designated “door holder and beverage provider,” I seldom carry more than two bags of groceries when we go to the store, I have take the garbage out twice in the last year and cleaned the bathroom once. I work in a call center – 98% of our incoming calls are from men and when things get tough and people get upset, I drag out the little girl voice and start making jokes that hug the inappropriate line so tightly they should be wearing a body stocking and a pink wig because helpless and sexually charged beats angry and screaming any day of the week.

I am a very lucky, very spoiled girl and I am aware of that, but here’s the thing – I get that most feminists think I am one of those people setting the movement back by decades every time I pull out the flighty cocktease routine and I’m well aware that almost every man I’ve ever had in my life since the age of 13 has, at some point, said “God I wish you had a sister. Please tell me you at least have similar friends,” – I just don’t care.

Very much like my take on racism, my feeling on the feminist movement is thus – I think we have progressed past the point where I need to consider myself part of the persecuted sex. If anything, women have more choices than men. I can decide to become a powerhouse in business, or to stay home and take care of kids or to be single and happy. With the exception of my grandmother and my quasi-mother-in-law, I don’t feel pressured into marriage or kids or career. I know that I could be whatever I wanted to be – including the president – if it struck me as such. Are there people I would have difficulty getting past? Of course. I work in a company with no female executives because they have a hard time penetrating the good ol’ boys club. Thing is, they have a hard time with that because it’s not a club for the kind of person they are, not because they’re female. The good ol’ boys club loves me, because I like strippers and scotch and witty sexual repartee.

So tell me ladies, who has the problem here?

What brought all of this up is actually NaNoWriMo. I started this year with nothing but two characters and no concept of a plot or where the story was going. 30,000 words into it, I can tell you it’s going no where good. It’s 50K in a month and I had no plot. It was never going to go anywhere good and the text itself won’t be something I ever take pride in, but what I can be proud of is the fact that I did it – that I did something in a month most people won’t do in a lifetime and that part is kind of cool. Think of it as a literary wedding cake.

Last night, Mike and I were talking about it because I hit a big milestone, making 30K of original fiction. That’s a line I’ve never crossed before and it’s kind of cool. Nonetheless, we were discussing the fact that createspace.com is donating a paperback proof copy of your novel to nano winners, which is sort of awesome and its something I wlll probably claim. Mike offered to let me hide it somewhere and I told him that wasn’t necessary, I wouldn’t mind having it on the bookshelf where we, you know, keep the books as long as we all promised to keep the same rule we always had – ‘don’t read it. And if you do, just don’t tell me, m’kay?’ He suggested that might not be the best idea since everyone who comes into our house likes to scrutinize the bookshelves and then I’d have to explain something I didn’t want to explain and my uber religious grandmother and my super feminist mother would both try to have me committed upon reading it.

Here’s the thing, the opening scene involves a two thirty am visit that is followed up with partial nudity and a half a bottle of tequila. Remarkably, the scene ends with no pre-marital sex but I don’t think either of them would see it that way…and if they made it past that page they’d find more drinking, more inappropriate sexual repartee and at least three examples of sex that they would consider violent, degrading and offensive. Worst part is, all I’m talking about are a few instances of pinning someone to a wall…its about as vanilla as it gets :) Yet, there I was getting twisted into knots knowing that they would invariably want to read what I'd written or know about NaNo and I would have to explain it to them - that I would have to apologize for not having a compelling urge to 'protect the gender.'

I guess, and forgive me for being pedantic, but I feel as though the feminist movement of today passes judgement on my lifestyle just as much as the bra burners of the sixties abhored the women who still wanted to stay home and raise children and - frankly, I'm fucking sick of it.  The whole point of the feminist movement is and was to give women choices - to protect us from being boxed into the pre-ordained life society set forward for us, but now that we have those choices, we're being told which ones to take by the very people that purport to be protecting them.  I appreciate that I grow up in a time when I have the freedom to choose to be and do anything I want and I in no way rail against the women that got me here - who took jobs and got divorces and refused to have children and demanded rights and freedoms through the generations so that I could make my own choices for myself.  And I'm sorry if you disagree with my choices - it's a real bummer that your boyfriend's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates when I said I like strip clubs and wish I could sit down and have a two hour conversation with a hooker, but thats between you and him.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Just One Mistake

This is a rough time of year in the household of one Epiphany-Halcyon household. It marks the anniversaries of a lot of unpleasant events in our shared past as well as my favorite, and thus most feared holiday and this year it was compounded by several factors outside of our mutual control what with his family imploding and mine dying. It’s nothing more or less than either of us expects out of the fall and I think, to this point, we’ve taken the hits fairly well. (Him more so than me, but what would be the right in the world if I wasn’t the one on the business end of the emotional breakdown.)

The last few days have been difficult and it’s for the stupidest, most self-imposed reason.

In 2006 I attempted NaNoWriMo with a concept and research I loved. I made it approximately 3000 words in before I fell behind, unable to do the thing that everyone kept saying – just keep writing. At the time, I knew it was more than I said it was. I said I wasn’t inspired or that I was busy. It wasn’t any of that – I was afraid. I wasn’t the only one that loved the concept and the research. Everyone who knew – and the scope ranged from family to friends to online buddies to total strangers – they all loved what I was working on. Hell, when people hear about it now they still love the concept and urge me to write it. They tell me that it’s so the epitome of me and what I should be doing.

I cannot express to anyone what kind of pressure that feels like to me. In the end, I caved under it. I stopped writing and, two weeks in, the computer I’d stored it all on crashed and I took that as the universes way of telling me it was OK to give in to that.

I won’t say I spent the years between then and now regretting losing the research. I have an excellent memory – the research is still there…and as far as having lost the characters, I didn’t lose them…they’re easy for me. What I will say is that, since then, I haven’t considered participating in NaNoWriMo until this year and this year it was an impulsive decision and one that part of me regrets.

I’ve never written and completed a piece of original work. I write bits and pieces of things I never finish and I won’t admit why to myself.

I’m scared.

People that love me read the little bits and swear up and down that the characters are real, they fly of the page and demand to be heard….that I have a voice entirely my own and that I should do something with it. The thing is – as wonderful as it is to hear that kind of praise, it’s the second most terrifying thing in the world. (the most terrifying thing in the world, as near as I can tell right now, being the panic attack I had last night that had me convinced for about five minutes that there was a good possibility I was having a heart attack and was literally going to die right then and there.)

It’s terrifying for two reasons. 1) because it could all be a lie. The thing is, it’s a lie that it feels so good to hear that it’s hard to be willing to ask for objective feedback – and even if I could ask for objective feedback, how do you evaluate the validity and truth of that?

That’s the second scariest question I’ve ever asked myself. My mother has read some – bits and pieces of what I’ve written. Linda has read literally almost everything. Courtney has read some… These are three people whose intelligence I respect but whose opinions I can’t trust for obvious reasons. My mother is my mother – if that one needs explaining you probably need therapy. Linda is the most encouraging person I think I’ve ever known, other than my grandmother. (Don’t take that the wrong way, Linda – my grandmother is the most encouraging person ALIVE – EVER… SINCE JESUS) Linda finds a way to compliment the worst things that I’ve ever read, and she’s found a way to praise some of the worst things I’ve ever written – so how do I know if what she’s saying is an honest assessment or a gentle hand for a friend? It’s similar with Courtney.

Where’s everyone else in the conversation? As for real people who are really in my life day to day, King is the only person who I ever allowed to read a word I wrote. The sad thing is, the only reason I let him do it isn’t because he asked in such a pathetic offended way, it was because brilliant though that man was, I knew if he said something that hurt me I could turn it back around on him so fast it would have given him whiplash, because that man and I could hurt each other so effectively. Why not Chris, who I adore so much – whose uncomplicated friendship has been a reminder to me through so many difficult years that uncomplicated friendships can exist? That’s easy. Because I adore him. Because he’s one of the sweetest people I know. Because as gently as he has scolded me from time to time over the nine years I’ve known him, he would never ever say something he thought would be hurtful. And if he was honest and he did tell me he thought it was awful I would be devastated – partly because the truth can hurt and partly because I would be so embarrassed as to have admitted to being so deluded. Because I’m so afraid of losing the respect he’s offered me that I hesitate to do anything that could earn it. It’s more of the same for why I’ve never given any of it to Mr. Halcyon. If he said something nice I’d never believe him and if he said something mean, I’d never forgive myself.

Which, I suppose, brings me nicely to the second element of my problem, 2) because what if it all is a lie? What I if I ask for honest assessment and they look back at me and laugh? For a person who has spent their entire life able to float their failures and missteps on a raft of potential, what would it feel like to have that potential stripped away, and how do you move forward from that? A while back (a long while, I might add) a friend of Mr. Halcyon’s got into a nasty car accident and lost some of her mental faculties. Since that happened I’ve always told him that should something ever happen to me and there is a question of coming back from death with brain damage, let me die because I don’t want to live knowing I can’t do what I’ve done before.

I told my little brother when he was eleven that if he learned one thing from me over the years about social interactions – one lesson I wish someone had taught me when I was a kid – it would be to go big or go home…to fake it until you make it….to rock who you are, whoever that is. I’m funny, I’m not sweet. I’m smart, not pretty. If you need someone to help you finish an assignment, call me. If you need someone to go out for drinks with and have a blast, call someone else. People don’t ask my advice until they’re at rock bottom, willing to do whatever I tell them to to get out because while my advice may be right, I don’t know how to deliver it sounding gentle or kind.

At the end of the day, I seem confident and, while not together, I seem like I’ve learned to make my life work for me. To an extent I am and I can. I’ve learned how to take my limitations and live with them and I’ve learned to wear my scars like a badge of honor. I’ve learned to be good at the things I’m good at and avoid the things I’m not wherever possible – and when I can’t, to make a game out of the failing. I’m doing okay. But honest here – the confidence is a lie. I don’t feel like a smart girl. I don’t feel like a funny girl. I can joke that I’m an acquired taste, but I believe that every friend I have tolerates me because they feel sorry for the crazy girl.

NaNo has been rough. Rough at first because I was afraid I couldn’t do it and rough now because I’m starting to think that I can…that 1667 words every day isn’t all that much and that I can hit the 50K mark at the end of a month. That should be something to be proud of and even stripping away the element wherein pressure and writing long after you know you should have stepped away to take a break or not editing comes in… I feel as though I can be proud of what I will have done because what I’m doing isn’t good…. And of course the people who I’m willing to ask tell me that is and I think they’re lying but I won’t ask the people who wouldn’t be.

NaNo has been rough because in an effort to not let the plot or the characters be the thing that held me back, I wrote the thing that I know…. a damaged girl who has been fortunate to happen upon people who are willing to not only believe in her despite her self-destructive behavior but who are also willing to take care of her despite the way she abuses them. Sound familiar?

This character is every color of damaged I’ve ever been… and the thing is, writing from what I know means that the other presence is a dangerous one. The other presence, the person willing to take all of the shit, pick up all of the pieces and put that person back together…the person who makes that girl feel safe and comfortable when she needs it and pushes when they can get away with it…. That person is someone I’ve known and, for my particular situation, they’ve never been healthy.

Fixers have their own unique set of neurosis – they’re their own brand of damaged. They’re the guy that falls in love with you because you’ve set no boundaries or limitations on your relationship who ends up hurting you in the end when he realizes you didn’t have it in you to love them the way they wanted you to…. who comes around a bit too late or a bit too early. The relationship that you will always know would have been dangerous and self-destructive for both of you because neither of you were right for the other but that had the right spark…. The person you shouldn’t be with but you kind of want to anyway…

That guy – he’s been a common character in my life and over the years I’ve learned to spot him from a mile away and it takes everything I have to push him away because I long for that safety and that comfort. I’m always just one mistake away from tearing my life apart around a man like that.

Writing what comes naturally to me, while hopefully cathartic in the end…while hopefully reading honestly…. It’s difficult for me to write because it’s hard not to miss every incarnation of that guy…particularly since that guy, he believes in everything you do. If your mother is supposed to love you unconditionally and believe in anything you can do, that guy is somehow more dedicated to the pursuit.

Why not let Mr. Halcyon be that guy… why not give him the opportunity?

Part of that guy he can’t be. He can believe in me and he can build me up when I feel torn down by my own hands. He’s the guy who rushes home because you ask him to but if we walked out of the house today and got mugged, I’d be the one to defend him, not the other way around. Not because he’s weak or incapable of defending himself but because when faced with a fight or flight situation, he immediately goes to the third option – negotiation. And the thing is – that’s why we work. The very reason we aren’t self-destructive or unhealthy for one another is because he understands the principle of negotiation and can handle my crazy thusly.

To distill the difference between him and that guy – the thing I have had such a hard time saying goodbye to is that moment when you’re presented with a danger small or large, that guy steps between you and the hazard, and then handles it.

A friend of mine names all of her men-friends and her conquests. Over the years we’ve described men as “the desk” and “the water cooler” and “the big heart” and the only term I’ve ever found effective for describing “that guy” has always been ‘the wall’ because that’s always been the way they’ve looked to me in a moment of fear…like a wall suddenly materializing between me and the monster. Thing is, walls also have the capacity to trap you – to collapse and to prevent you from getting where you have to go… and in my life, they often do.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

A Bit Of A Downer

Practicality paid off again this week.

My grandfather, well into his eighties, was diagnosed with liver cancer about a month ago. The doctor told him he could hope for a year. More practically, my father and I estimated no more than a few months.

For reasons far too complicated to enumerate here, this is a difficult death. I’ve dealt with a lot of death and most of it has been difficult in it’s own ways but this, in particular will be hard. Not because my father is losing his father or because I am losing my first grandparent, having grown up with not only two complete sets but also two great grandmother’s as well – it’s complicated because, for my father’s relatively small side of the family, there are a lot of rifts and divisions. For the most part, the only reason we’ve stayed in touch has been my grandfather. Knowing that his lifestyle would catch up with him eventually, we’ve hung closer than we would have liked to my grandmother, my aunt…. People that, for the most part, we would all rather be rid of than anything else.

Yesterday, my dad called to bring me up to speed with the most recent medical developments. The doctor that gave him a year took him off of the chemo and installed a shunt to allow for more rapid and less painful drainage of the abdominal fluids that accumulate when your liver has failed. Now the prognosis is down to three months, if he’s lucky.

I wasn’t surprised. For his part, I think my father knew it was coming as well. I’m not saying it doesn’t suck – no matter how much you know something is coming, you can still hope for the best and certainly our hopes were dashed but at least we were already prepared. From the sounds of it, my aunt wasn’t. She seemed to think that he would be fine. She got him an appointment with The Cancer Treatment Centers of America and thought that they would work miracles. Now they won’t even see him. She’s devastated.

As for my grandfather? We’re not sure if it’s the anesthetic or the pain killers or the mad-cow, but he’s floating in and out of lucidity and, at this point, we’re not sure if he knows he’s dying or not. We’re not even certain he knows they’ve taken him off of the chemo. We are sure that, given my particular families particular dose of crazy, he can’t go home so we’re forced to find a hospice facility will take him. In my experience, taking people out of their homes is the fastest way to kill their spirits and that makes me sad, particularly in light of the fact that he doesn’t have any real grip on what’s happening.

At the end of the day this experience is reminding me how being honest with yourself about the outcome can keep you from being hurt, but it’s also reminded me that I’m not who I am because I have a negative outlook on life, I am who I’ve become because reality has necessitated it.

It may bum people out, but at least I’m honest.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A Shout Out To You, Internet

I have less than 50 friends on Facebook.

My friends (!?!???) and family have always joked that, while I may not have a lot of interpersonal relationships, I'm still kind of a big deal on the internet.


This, I won't lie, is a little hard to explain without feeling self-deluded.

Still, when you show up for a midnight showing of a movie and strangers want to hug you and you get a call from CNN the next day, it's hard not to think there might be something to the rumors.  For the most part though, I tend to keep a pretty low profile.  I use the same login name everywhere, but I don't cross link my blog, my twitter account etc... to any of my websites and I don't do it because being "kind of a big deal" doesn't really interest me.  It's wonderful to be appreciated and there's nothing handier than having an 'international contingent' when you want to travel and you need to know what kind of outlet adapter to buy, but I'm not Tila Tequila, nor do I want to be - so I'm me, and if you want to web stalk me and follow me around, go for it.  I won't be making any Forbes lists anytime soon....

Where am I going with all of this?  Today I was looking for a new avatar to use, so I was browsing my gallery to see if anything struck my fancy or if I was going to have to make a new one when I got home.  Internet, I've had Gallery installed for years and I love it, but I've never really noticed the "views" feature. 

A few months ago, I removed all of my files from Gallery and re-uploaded them with all new meta data to give myself a uniform structure and remove a lot of crap I didn't want.  Doing so, obviously, reset the view counters... This was July.

 
What have you people been up to because I don't even like that icon...
I guess sometimes I forget that there are people out there reading my blog, browsing my gallery and looking at my tweets.  It only really occurs to me when I have to confront that, despite the fact that I block search engine spiders to save on bandwidth, in the last 63 days that single icon has not only been looked at but been clicked on 1049 times. 16 times a day?  Seriously??!?  I don't advertise...my stuff is not posted all over the internet and the first time I walked into a store and saw someone wearing a t-shirt i'd designed I almost passed the fuck out.
It's weird, but it's a good weird - so thanks, Internet.  I love you too.

Yo Momma So Fat....


I hate Craft People.
This strikes most everyone who meets me as slightly…shall we say counter intuitive on account of my status as the Queen of Why-Would-I-Pay-You-To-Do-That-When-I-Could-Do-It-Myself? I have a cursory knowledge of painting, wine making, light carpentry, re-upholstery, garment making, knitting, crochet, jewelry construction, stained glass design, baking, cake decorating…etc, etc, etc… In the last month I’ve made blankets, two costumes (one of which included the most obscenely ornate trench coat, both of which I completely drafted my own patterns for), a wedding cake and greeting cards. My big goal at this point is to locate an Eames or Plycraft knockoff lounge chair on Craigslist and refinish it in a light gray vinyl and Brazilian Cherry stain.
I may have repaired my sofa with mounting brackets, plastic coated wire and a borrowed hammer tacker but before you confuse me with Craft People, you should understand that there is a subtle distinction between me and them: everything I do is useful and usable.

My Kleenex boxes do not have quilted cozies for every season – though I’m not above picking up some bulsa wood and spray paint to bang out an adorable, mod Kleenex box cover should my lifestyle ever warrant hiding the hideous floral patterns their corporate office reveres so. And yes I could knit you an ugly sweater, but I would rather make your kid an adorable stuffed hippo. Of course I can tell you that vodka and vinegar are the most effective ways to remove a strong scent from fabric, but that doesn’t make me a Craft Person – that makes me crafty.
A few weeks ago, I got quite the shock when one of the girls invited me to her baby shower. It wouldn’t have surprised me because, at their core, most people will do anything for free stuff, except this shower is not the “everyone from work” shower – this is the “friends and family only” shower. At the office, only an elite group of five were invited, or so I was informed in whispers when the card was dropped off and she hissed “friends only – I don’t want a bunch of other people there.” Forgive this for sounding strange, but I didn’t know I was friends with this girl.

It’s not as bad as it seems, it’s just that I’m not a person who has “friends.” There are people that I hang out with/around at work who I don’t do the tuck and run for when I catch a glimpse of them at the grocery store, but I wouldn’t presume to be friends with these people. I wouldn’t call them and ask for help moving or invite them to my baby shower…. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I would resent them asking the same of me, I’d do it in a heart beat…. Maybe it’s the after effect of being the kid no one liked in school but I there are exactly no people that I know whom I would feel comfortable imposing upon in any way. I just assumed that meant I didn’t have any friends – all though, apparently I do. Go figure.
Anyways, the point of all of that is that in the near future, there is a baby shower looming for me. The best thing about this is that this particular person is by far the most reasonable pregnant girl I’ve known and I have every confidence that she will not attempt to make me wear a pacifier necklace or participate in a diapering relay race….(not that I don’t totally pwn in those relay races.) If there were another best thing, it would have to be that this is also a “cool” pregnant girl. I’m one of those people that see something they like once and files it away hoping that some day the information will be useful. Among those ‘somethings’ have always been baby items that I saw once and thought were totally awesome but never had someone to give them to because no one I knew would ‘get it’
This girl – she gets it. I could explode. Suddenly I have a place to bestow all of this stuff that’s clunking around in my head. (Finally I’ll have room for that cure for cancer Colin was always bitching about.)
Problem? The physical manifestations of this stuff are just not as good as they were in my head. Iron on transfers fade, rhinestones fall off, embroidery is too Holly Hobby, that design is so ugly it ruins the funny…
Of course, to the crafty, these are not problems, they’re challenges :P
So last night I raced to four different stores to pick up the necessary supplies but, damnit, the thing that existed only in my head has been brought to fruition…delicious, snarky fruition.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

B is for BuSpar

I think I was seven when it first occurred to me that I probably didn’t want to have kids.

I know that sounds silly because, at seven, most little girls are playing with Barbie’s and Baby Alive (Or, at least that’s what we were doing in the early 90’s. I guess now they’re playing with rolling papers and dreaming about fucking a Jonas brother, but whatever.) For me, seven was the magical age in which I got my little brother. My parents say that I asked for him. They remind me, emphatically even, every time he does something stupid and I start raising money around the neighborhood to send him to a boarding school. I remind them in turn that, unless you want to know which Care Bear is which, you shouldn’t be looking to six year olds for guidance on major life decisions. Either way, the experience of getting my little brother was one of the more traumatic endeavors of my young life. My mother, in her pursuit of raising a well rounded daughter who was attune to the world around her, decided that I should understand the concept of birth and labor in a “first hand” kind of way.

Internet, there are things that you cannot unsee.

I remember four details surrounding my brother’s birth.

1. I was allowed to bring my Duplo’s and my Tiger games to the hospital for my mother’s labor.
2. My parents had no idea what to name him and chose his name only because the hospital wouldn’t let them go home without filling out the name on the birth certificate.
3. We dressed him in a 101 Dalmations outfit, complete with ears. This first experience with incognito dressing would come back to haunt us in years and years of “I don’t wear clothes! I wear Barney/Superman/Big Bird/Woody/Wonder Woman!” screams from the afor mentioned child.
4. ….

You know what, I can’t even tell you about four. This is the one time I am going to get up and call this experience a unique little snowflake. All I can really say is I didn’t have a cheap seat or, to use another euphemism, this was not an “above the curtain” viewing. I’m pretty sure I can still feel my grandmother’s fingernails digging into my shoulders.

It goes without saying, but my first real understanding of child birth was graphic, gory and utterly repulsive. Add that in with the particular variety of little brother I got – one that has gone far beyond the usual reaches of stealing your stuff and tattling when you sneak out of the house on Saturday night and into… well, suffice it to say that my little brother has endeavored to become everything I ever hated about other people. I’m sure he and I will iron it out later in life after he has a few life experiences and grows the fuck up but in the interim, we’re not doing to well.

Either way, I’ve spent every day since his birth very confident that I never wanted to have children. I don’t blame my mother for this in any way. In fact, she inadvertently stumbled upon the best form of contraceptive on earth. Never has there been a more careful or conscientious person when it comes to keeping the risk really really really low and I’ve been exceptionally dedicated to ensuring my own little corner of the world doesn’t contribute to the climb in teen pregnancy rates. I pass out condoms like they’re candy and we’ve taken every teenager in reasonable reach to Planned Parenthood.

As I got older and the people around me started having kids and settling down, it started to make me anxious. It took me a lot longer than it should have to come up with that word but it really is the most appropriate one for the emotion. When one of the girls at the office gets pregnant I get physically uncomfortable. When a family member pops out a kid I back away. God forbid someone in their late teens or early twenties gets their girlfriend pregnant accidentally – when that happens it’s a little like pulling the parking brake for the first time in a few years – the whole drive shaft seizes and smoke starts coming out of my ears. (Perhaps my understanding of pregnancy, child birth and child rearing was slightly skewed by my friend embedding a bullet in his skull because he knocked his girlfriend up and she wouldn’t have an abortion. That might have had something to do with it…maybe a little.)

I’ve developed a nervous twitch when people mention that they’re trying to have a baby…It’s just completely surreal.

I get that my reaction is irrational and that my behavior may read with a wink of “thou dost protest too much” but I can’t ever help it because it’s how I feel – completely and utterly repelled.

About two years ago, I got pregnant. I was on the pill but karma, in that way that it does sometimes, reached into a disastrous situation and decided to make it just a little bit worse. The sex that lead up to the almost baby was had on the cusp of Mike’s near suicide attempt. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, my boyfriend told me he’d bought a gun and intended to eat it because he was on the edge of financial ruin and what happened but I went and got myself knocked up. A lot of factors went into my decision to have an abortion but, to be honest, the emotional turmoil and our status as completely unprepared to raise a child really didn’t factor in that much. I didn’t want kids and, for his part, I don’t think Mike really wants kids either, though I think he’s far more inclined to tolerate them than I am. To boot, I was a miserable pregnant girl. I didn’t have morning sickness – I had all day long sickness, and it wasn’t just eat and wretch it was a simple inability to eat, period. Was part of that psychosomatic? I’m sure. Had I wanted to be pregnant the fact that I had to drink all of my meals for a few months probably would have seemed a lot less problematic. I might have even gotten over the fact that taking fifteen steps was enough to make me want to pass out I was so dizzy. I probably could have avoided the anemia if I’d been planning a pregnancy.

Two years later and I’ve never regretted the decision to have that abortion. It’s a decision I revisit often, like I’m sure I’m going to change my mind about it at some point – like I’m supposed to. Pop culture and the media pumps you full of the notion that if you elect to abort you will live to regret it – to miss the little life that could have been – and maybe that’s true for the spiritual but for me I’m still sure that this was absolutely the right decision for me. Sure, the protestors outside the clinic were scary – it seemed like the wrong moment to be pouring salt in people’s wounds. The fact that they had bomb doors and a video intercom system was more than a little foreboding, but when it was all said and done it was a comparatively painless experience.

I’m older now than I was then. While my eight year long relationship with Mike has always raised eyebrows and the question “when are you crazy kids gonna settle down and make babies?” over the last few years, the tone of the question has changed. People ask now with a lot more sincerity than they used to. Co-workers who I barely know stop me and tell me that I’d be a great mom and ask when I plan to have kids. The office pregnant girls, who are more than aware that “no, I don’t want to touch your stomach and feel the baby kick – tks” smile and point out that they wish they could be half the mom that they know I would be if I had kids.

They don’t do that to everyone and I’ve never really understood that because I’ve always had the hunch that I would be a horrible mother – a selfish one. I like watching bad tv and would do everything in my power to ensure that my child was enriched by PBS, not Dora the fucking Explorer. I wouldn’t give my kid Disney cd’s, I’d teach them to love metal and big band and blues and indie rap. There would be no cutting the crust off of the edges of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because that’s some pink bullshit right there. If my kid fell down roller skating, I’d probably be laughing when I went to help them up because I don’t care what you say, it’s kind of funny. Just because I made you get your drivers license doesn’t mean you’re ever getting to use the car and I think it’s fabulous that you want a $200 pair of jeans…come to think of it, they’re cute – I want a pair too. Oh well, now we both need a weekend job cuz there’s no way in hell I’m buying those for you just because you want them. I’m happy to make edible play dough and stay up all night making a costume for the talent show but god help us all if my kid ever took an interest in t-ball or fishing (or became a Heather… shudder) because I would have no idea how to relate to them.

When I look back on the mother’s that I’ve known – my own included – I see women who have made incredible sacrifices for their children and, while they don’t seem to resent them for it, are certainly a little worse for the wear. My grandmother stayed in a marriage that is ultimately bad for her simply because she had children. My mother is, to a large extent, doing the same despite the even larger sticking point of her sexual orientation. She has effectively swallowed that in order to maintain her relationship with my father so long as my brother is still in the house. From the outside, I can see nobility in their actions, but I can also see the negative impact it’s had on their children. Exempting myself from the conversation, I know my brother was ready for my parents to just get a divorce and move on from the age of twelve – I think he’d rather. Conversely, I’ve had pictures of the bad moms too. My other grandmother is a cold, calculated, manipulative truly evil woman. I won’t say that the abuse her children suffered at her hands was the worst kind but I think Loralie Gilmore said it best when she said “Honk if Emily Gilmore thinks your mind is her personal playground.” My grandfather is dying of liver cancer and the entire family is afraid to go see him because We Dare Not Speak It will be there. I’m pretty sure that’s some bad juju.

At the end of the day, I’ve never been able to pinpoint what it is that these relative strangers are seeing that makes them think I should be entrusted with another human being.

I don’t read “Mommy Bloggers” – but I do read a lot of Bloggers that have gone Mommy over the last few years and, I have to be honest, they’ve done a lot to change some of my perceptions about parenthood. Their missives on raising their own children have gone a long way toward making me feel less alienated…a little closer to whatever it is that people see before they feel the need to grab me by the arm and encourage me to “marry that man and have a little baby!”

I have a post in my near future about finally finding a “cool” pregnant girl that is actually tangibly here – it feels a little like finding a unicorn. I’m not saying that I want to go home and get myself good and pregnant right now. M is still knee deep in classes, we’re planning a move in the not so distant future…It will be a few years before we’re really settled enough anywhere to even consider having that particular conversation, and I do still hold strong to my convictions about being able to afford college funds and private schools, but I think, as long as there are still people out there who teach their kids to laugh when they get hurt rather than to cry I might have some more options than I thought I did and that’s nice.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Do I Have To Spell It For You?

In the last few months, I've caught myself doing a lot of the things that used to drive me bonkers about my parents. Before I embarked on the wedding cake I cleaned the kitchen. Not just a cursory wipe down all of the visible surfaces clean, but the kind where you take every appliance off of the counters and wash the appliance, then was the counter, the wall, the backsplash, the stove, the cupboard doors... If you've ever cleaned like that you'll understand that while you're cleaning the backsplash you notice that there's gunk on the bar, and since you can't reach the bar to really clean it unless you're on the other side, so you go to the other side and the next thing you know you're vaccuming the baseboards and your significant other is standing over you, confused how your project in the kitchen made it all the way to the upstairs bathroom. My mother did this every Saturday morning and, as a kid, I neither understood it nor tolerated it. She would get up Saturday morning and tell us we were going to go get donuts just as soon as she finished cleaning the fridge....three hours later she would be washing the living room windows. It was annoying.

My father didn't share that particular neurosis, but he has this habit. He's had it for years - as long as I can remember, even - and it drives everyone who knows him up the wall. Whenever he says something that you don't understand and you counter with "What?" he repeats exactly what he said, only louder. This is fine when you simply didn't hear him, but if the problem is more that you heard him, it just didn't make sense, it's one of the more annoying things that happens on any given day.

Dad: "Can you hand me the idler bar?"
Me: "What?"
Dad: "The idler bar."
Me: "Huh??"
Dad: "The idler bar."
Me: "This thing?"
Dad: "No, THE IDLER BAR"

I spent the first fifteen years of my life trying to figure out how to better handle this exchange before it escalated into him getting up, puppetting his words with hand mouths to get whatever tool or part he was looking for - all of which looked like hunks of rusty metal to me. I did the obvious and just tried asking "What's an idler bar?" immediately, but that seemed to just inflame him further.

Years later, I work in customer service and I find myself having to explain a lot of things to people over and over again only to be met with obstinate confusion on the other end of the phone line. Today, while attempting to explain to a customer that he would need to contact the delivery courier to find out when he would receive his shipment, I noticed more than a little bit of my Dad sneaking into the conversation.

Me: "Yeah, you would need to contact FedEx to find out when this will be delivered."
Customer: "So it went UPS..."
Me: "No, FedEx."
Customer: "What?"
Me: "The order shipped via FedEx."
Customer: "Right, but I can just call my local UPS office."
Me: "No. It went FEDEX."

You can put that one in the "Things I Inherited From My Father" column apparently - right below my status as Hall Monitor for the Close-The-Damn-Door-The-Air-Conditioning-Is-On Club.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ted Strong

Ted Kennedy died last night. Today I wore blue.

I was asleep when it hit the news, but Mike woke me up to tell me. Getting woken up in the middle of the night is bad enough, but to be asked “I have bad news, do you feel up to it?” isn’t the best follow up.

I get that, for most people, this death is still far secondary to the recent demise of Michael Jackson but, for me, the Kennedy family has always been something far more fascinating. I must have been pretty young when I developed my attachment to the Kennedy’s, because I don’t remember when it happened or what triggered it. Teddy delivered his concession speech five years before I was born. I was nine when Jackie died, and I remember being sorry that she was gone. When John-John died in ’99 I felt for Ted and Eunice but I wasn’t interested in the eons of searching and the conspiracy theories that came forward. When Patrick got clocked with a hammer during a business meeting, I blogged about it. There are Kennedy’s in my dreams, there are Kennedy’s in my closet. There are even Kennedy’s in my office. While my heart may have gone out to Bobby, and Mike may have a tremendous love for the man who gave him the space program, Teddy, by virtue some would say of his mediocrity, has managed to outlast them both, and his legacy is larger than life.

When Sam Johnson died, I wrote the following:

Respect your elders. They’ve seen more than you can imagine. Their stories and advice are the only things that they have to offer you that are of any real value and they’re the only thing you’ll have left after they’ve gone. Realize that you get only one chance, but live it in a way that you won’t have to apologize for later. Never ask permission or apologize for doing something you believe in. Understand that the good things in life – the things you should be most proud of – aren’t tangible; they’re the things that can only be seen by looking into a person’s eyes. Be patient with your friends, but hold firm to what you believe in. Don’t get so caught up in yesterday’s news that you forget what today is all about. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. There’s no point in being jealous. Know only that each person works for what they have, and those people who haven’t worked for the things they’ve received will never really live to appreciate it and that’s a form of half-life. Do the things that you enjoy. Never mind what everyone else thinks of them.

In short, this goes out to all of the people who are spending their weekend relaxing and enjoying people that they love because they know on Monday morning they’ll be back to work at whatever they do, or school for whatever they’re studying, to give it everything they have.

Chappaquiddick, the Bay of Pigs and Marilyn Monroe and Joe McCarthy - all stains on their respective pasts but I think Dennis Leary said it best when he said “Good senator, but a bad date.”

The sentiment applies here, not in the same context, but with the sense that the feeling – righteousness, hard work, ethics and respect are what, regardless of their missteps, these Kennedy brothers tried to be. They may not have always succeeded, but at the end of the day those were the ideals they struggled towards as people and as politicians.

Today is a sad day and the world mourns their many losses.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Ted Kennedy 1980 [listen]

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Murphy's Law

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch dumping beads off of a strand into a container to store them when things went awry and the beads ended up all over the sofa. Because the sofa has button tufting, the tiny beads were getting stuck under the buttons and it took me a good five minutes to get them all freed without losing them in the couch, and while I was doing it I noticed a button that was pulled tighter than the rest, so I flipped the couch over, determined to figure out what was pulling it so hard....

Oh dear...

Since then we've opened the couch up a grand total of four or five times, the first to ascertain that a spring had come lose and reattach it. The second to re-reattach it. The third to install brackets to to hold the springs down. The fifth to hold the spring into it's bracket.

Yeah, it's kinda been going like that.

It's been a week now since we fixed that problem and the spring is still intact.

So today....

Yeah....

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

I have one of those jobs. (And if you've ever started answering your cell phone in your best "Corporate Accounts Payable - Nina speaking." voice you know what I'm talking about.)

In addition to being one of those jobs that completely numbs my mind to the point where the only thoughts that are going through my head when I'm doing it are "Has it been more than thirty seconds since I last said something to this guy?" and "Did I remember to repeat his question back to him?," its also one of those jobs that has a great work to check ratio - insofar as Check > Effort. the day that Check < Effort i will run screaming from the building leaving a trail of flames in my wake.

Or something like that.

When I took this job I knew that it was just A Job and certainly wasn't anywhere near The Job, but I was OK with that, since I was only looking for A Job to keep me from dwelling on the fact that M was, at the time, considering swallowing his gun and, for that A Job would do. To boot, since I was on the rebound from A Really Crappy Job that got mad at me because I took three Monday's off during the five months I worked there to attend funerals of all things, I figured A Job working Anywhere But There would hit the spot. So I applied at precisely the kind of place that employs people like me - "Some College" (because I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up), "Exceptional Technical Skills" (because while I wasn't thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I was staring at a computer screen) and "Extensive Customer Service Experience" (because my parents fear no child labor law) - strip malls, coffee shops, book stores and big chains.

Guess what? None of them would hire me.

The process was always the same - fill out their disturbingly long application and questionnaire, all vaguely personal while being completely pointless and insane and turn it in to the nearest person in khaki's and hideous polo. Wait. Receive phone call from the Happy HR Department. Schedule interview. Attend interview. The interview's all went soemthing like this.

Interviewer: "What makes you interested in working for the Starbucks Corporation?"

Me: "You know, I've worked in coffee shops before and the best thing about any of them was always the fast pace and meeting new and interesting people on a daily basis. Plus, never before more than twelve steps from a double shot of espresso never hurts."

Me - On The Inside: "Because I am 21, don't want to get a real job where I have to be accountable for what I do and this is seven blocks from where I live."

Interviewer: Phony Laugh. "Good answer. What do you know about Starbucks?"

Me: "That I love a good Latte." Phony laugh from both of us now. "No, seriously, mostly what I know about the company doesn't go far beyond the green aprons."

Me - On The Inside: "I know that as a corporation your earnings are solid enough to keep this location afloat for another six months, which is all the longer I want to work here. I also know that your employees are completely miserable - but I'm going to be miserable either way, so I'd rather be miserable while being payed for it. I also know that your cash counting policies are lax and that you use a machine to weigh your change at the end of the night so I don't have to count it - thank fucking god, because I never want to see another quarter again."


Interviewer: "Fair enough. Let me give you a little run down about the company because, with your experience, I think you'll be management material in no time..."

And that's the point where it all falls apart. My eyes glaze over as Overly-Caffeinated-Part-Time Night-Manager tells me about how many new locations they open each week and how he thinks that, given my management experience, I could be looking at my very own store in less than six months. He seems very excited about this. I am less so. He starts telling me about the benefits package for a regular employee, then waves his hand in a completely heterosexual way and says "What am I thinking?" before shuffling a few papers and getting out the managers benefits package. He is very excited about this. Predictably, I am less so. After about twenty minutes of me feigning interest, he starts to get that I have no intention of turning my potential job at Starbucks into a career choice and that's the end of that.

I repeated that process at no less than a dozen big name chains - each of them sending me the same letter that pretty much read like this: "Your resume was great and you had tons of potential but, by the end of the interview, we could totally tell that you thought you were too good for us, you misanthropic bitch."

At the time - I was furious. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why companies that employed a slew of 16-year olds who couldn't handle showing up for work on time and often didn't know the difference between an MSDS and the Employee Handbook wouldn't hire me. I completed "Some College"! I slogged through almost two years working my way from "we might have a shift for you on the weekends bussing tables" to "you're one of the only two managers we have that we can count on and I need you here for 16 hours today - puh-lease!" My customer service skills are so fucking sharp I should be a god damn hostage negotiator. Why the hell don't you trust me to fold a fucking sweater if i'm willing to work for the same $7.50 as the rest of you idiots? And then I realized that it was totally the part about them knowing that I knew that I could have a better job and I didn't want one...and then I stopped resenting the situation.

Nonetheless, when this job came around, I knew that it was still just A Job despite the higher payscale and slightly larger name tag and I was OK with that. I figured it would never hurt to have a big name company on my resume.

Internet, I feel as though I have been seriously wronged.

A Job that I would keep for six months, long enough to figure out what I wanted to be what I grew up and find something that didn't try to crush my soul with authorized bathroom breaks, cherokee red cubicles, a boss that doesn't think Hawaii is part of the United States and co-workers who think I'm not only insane but also a liar when they say "Check out this cool picture of a raptor" and I say "Raptor bird or Raptor plane?" becuase "What the hell are you talking about Raptor plane? There's no such thing as a Raptor plane." [Just for the mother fucking record, Internet, I am neither insane nor a liar.] That job - does everyone remember that job?

That job is dead and what I'm left with is the rotting carcass of that job - no more self-respect, no more dignity, no more soul. You see, about a year into A Job, M lost his job. To be fair, he had A Job too. His job had been a somewhat longer tenure but it had the same pay, the same hours and the same soul deadening qualities. But, when M lost his job, he didn't just lose his job, his boss enrolled him in a magical government program that allows me to feel like I'm taking back just a fraction of the money I send to the IRS every year and getting to spend it on M's education. You see, M is currently enrolled in an all expenses paid Associate's Degree Program, a period during which he is also being paid unemployment. This is tehAWESOME because M never would have gone back to college were it not for being forced to decide between free school and finding another job right away. This is also tehSUCK because he only brings in about 2/3rds of what he used to bring in, and that means that we are no longer in a position where we could live in the lifestyle to which we've become accustomed on his income alone. We're making it work and, really, I kind of like it better. He's at home for a large part of the day which means I no longer have to interact with laundry, dishes or the vaccum cleaner and, if we get in a bind on a weekend, he can hit the grocery store during the day, sign for deliveries and bring me lunch when I'm jonsing for someplace that doesn't deliver. Having someone at home has made things a lot easier for us - and, since he's not working and going to school at the same time, he has tons of time for all of this while still keeping up with his homework.

The only complaint I have (other than that all this time home alone makes him really really really really chatty when I get home and he's constantly looking for someone to banter about the future robot war with) would have to be that, all of a sudden my job became so much more important. I could no longer entertain the notion of talking back to my boss. I could no longer get up on a Tuesday morning and just decide not to go to work that day. I have to be working and thats incredibly oppressive for me - a person who has, thus far in life, worked for six months, squirreling away money all the while, and then quit my job, living off the fruits of my labors until they were gone only to repeat the process again.

This knowledge has actually driven me completely insane. Two months ago I started doing this:


I
Originally uploaded by waxwingedfae


Yes, that is The Flower Pot Formerly Known As Pencil Cup and Monkey Munch Holder holding about 30 paper cranes. Why is TFPFKAPCAMMH holding about 30 paper cranes? Well because I've gone crazy, silly. When I was a kid I once read a book about a cancer kid who had tons of children sending her paper cranes because legand holds that if you make 1000 paper cranes you get a wish. The kid died, I think.

I wish I didn't have to work here anymore and the collection - it's growing.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009


This is sort of the perfect image to tell you how many conflicted emotions I feel when I am invited to yet another baby shower. Being in your early twenties means you go to a lot of baby showers. Between friends and family getting knocked up and the eternal rotation of impregnated co-workers, it seems like there's another baby shower every couple of months - and if I had more friends, I'm certain it would be more often than that.

Baby showers are a problem for me on a couple of levels. In large part, the fact that I never intend to have children plays a roll. I can see why, if you intend on having one of these events for yourself in the future, you might be willing to wear a diaper pin covered in curling ribbon and plastic rattles for a few hours in exchange for harvesting the population for gifts of your own one day.



because apparently people will do anything for free shit - even if it's just plastic beads

But for me - oh for me - going to a baby shower is several hours of an indescribable pain. First, there's the compulsory gift registry. Like weddings, people register for baby shower gifts. It ensures that you get what you're looking for - that themes are met and it also allows people to fully understand how completely and utterly insane you are. Take, for example, my 19 year old cousin. When he knocked his 18 year old girlfried up on a weekend home from college, they registered for an iPod and iPod docking station for the crib.

Yeah.

I've developed a bit of a "standard" baby shower gift which I will occasioanlly supliment depending on the situation and it works for me - it usually runs about $30 that ends up in the Compulsory and Unreciprocated Gift Giving tally on the yearly budget. By the by, that colum, when you factor in housewarming parties, weddings and baby showers - it's FAT, but it's money I would gladly spend if I just didn't have to actually go to the shower itself.

See, as painful as the gift experience can be for me (I spent a half hour this morning staring at a monkey hat on Etsy wondering which co-worker it would be most appropriate to give it to based on month of infant birth, personality, race, gender and religious affiliation.) the worst part really is going to the actual shower. Bad food, screaming kids, horrible music, and the games - oh the games! No self-respecting woman should be expected to pin curling ribbon encrusted diaper pin to her lapel and listen for someone to do or say something on a list of twenty odd 'taboo' statements or behaviors (leg crossing, the word baby...) in an effort to obtain their pin in exchange for a scented candle from Pottery Barn. No one. Or estimate how many squares of toilet paper it would take to wrap around the Mommy-To-Be's stomach, play musical highchairs, or - and this is the point where I usually throw my hands up and leave no matter how many pounds of pastel colored m&m's they try to weigh me down with - see who can eat chocolate pudding from a diaper the fastest.

So yeah, seriously.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Economic 180's

I'm a serial temp employee. I figure, I'm young enough not to need the health insurance and old enough to be placed in the long-term contract positions, lazy enough to enjoy the way they just hand me a job and I show up and have a strong enough itch to enjoy changing positions every year or so. Plus, when it comes time for team building exercises that involve trust falls and hug-a-thons, I always get to use the tried and true line of my ancestors - "Dude, I"m a temp."

In any case, over my years of temping, you see that temps are treated a lot of different ways depending on the corporate culture. At some offices, it doesn't matter that you've worked there six months and you'll be there for another 10, they still won't give you a name tag for your desk and half the office calls you "the temp with the glasses." At others, co-workers adopt you into the fold immediately and forget that you're a temp - when the company gives away goodies, they're for everyone, not just the actual employee employees. Either way, it never really mattered to me, but lately, an interesting phenomena has taken hold - Jobloss-itis.

because if you're going to fire someone, you should at least do it with flair.

I temp for one of those really big, international conglomerates that owns a few fistfuls of companies in varying degrees of success and failure. Truth be told, I've never worried about being hired on permanently. M, our brand new student, is set to graduate in a few years, and when he does, we'll be moving. Is it worth it to bust my bosses balls and insist that I get hired on for a few months of health benefits and some paid vacation? To me, not really. If they hire me, yay - i'll be happy to soak up the summer sun on my days off and get my teeth cleaned - but if they don't, I'm not one to feel worried or slighted.

That's how I felt until recently.

Now, if they tried to hire me, I think I might say no.

You see, one of the new fringe benefits of being a temp is that, while once we were the expendible workforce - the people to be cast aside when economic times got tough- now, temps are the lifeblood of a corporation trying to cut costs and stay afloat. They find women and men in their early to mid twenties who don't really care about pension plans because we've already started our own IRA's and who aren't all that concerned with vacation days for sick children because we don't have any. To boot, we're computer savvy, willing to work odd hours and, best of all, we're inexpensive because we don't carry that weighty benfits package. Today, it's the employees that are getting let go and being replaced by temps rather than the other way around.

So, today, when my co-workers fret over layoffs in other branches of the corporation or get nervous when they hear that we might be sold off, it takes everything I have to force myself not to smile and say "Dude, I'm a temp."

Because even if I do get let go from this contract - my temp agency will have me working somewhere in a matter of days. Now that's job security.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Tricycle

Okay, so that might be the least fair name for this particular post, but it was the best I could do. Apparently, my slang knowing days are over.

Feast your eyes on this.

Because M's teeth have been bothering him, I made some chew-free foods for dinner early in the week - a few soups and a batch of ham and scalloped potatoes (which is possibly his all time favorite food) - which meant that for a few days this week, I got to make a dinner entirely for myself.

I picked two dishes - both from Simply Recipes and the both turned out awesome. The first was the Baked Shrimp in Tomato Feta Sauce.

As we've established, my dedication to recipe following is...not high, so I tend to take the list of ingredients and the general cooking method and just wing it, which is what I did here. Since I was cooking for one, I halved the recipe - a little garlic and roughly chopped onion in the pan, followed by a can of diced tomatoes (damn you off season!) and cooked it for somewhat less time than the recipe called for then buzzed it with the immersion blender because the texture of canned diced tomatoes is weird -then I threw in the shrimp, parsley, feta and dill, gave it a stir and tossed it in the oven as called for. It was awesome. Really, I mean awesome. I didn't take the shells off of the shrimp at all - in fact, I threw them in completely frozen and I liked the really seafoody flavor of the broth because of it.

Somewhat less awesome was the burning sensation as I tried to peel the hot shrimp. Of course, you can ask me if I think it was worth it, but you should know I did the exact same thing the next night, so there you go.

I ate it with some great bread and gobbled it up - of course all day Thursday all I could think about was how oh-my-god-transcendentally-awesome-my-super-fast-easy-to-make-no-fuss dinner had been the previous evening, so when M's teeth still hurt and I discovered that our kitchen was shamefully devoid of any white wine, I opted to postpone the making of recipe number two and go for the repeat. Thus, the tricycle...except it's a bicycle since I only ate it once, but that seemed less entertaining.

Thursday night, I followed the same basic procedure but this time tried to cook it all on the stovetop. I possibly made this choice because I may or may not have forgotten to preheat the oven... In any case, I way reccomend sticking with the "baked" part of this recipe. It's totally low maintence.

Also, one other thing, if you're making it for company, you might want to consider leaving feta on the side or in a piled on top manner. While Elises's version turned out pretty, mine came out more orange than red (possibly because I buzzed the sauce instead of leaving the tomatoes whole) and it wasn't all together the most appealing look. It was delicious, but I think for presentations sake, I might add the feta at the last minute and let people stir it in themselves....and also possibly make it with fresh tomatoes instead of diced when they're in season...and also possibly skip the whole "shells on" experience, but throw in some concentrated seafood stock or even a bit of anchovy paste for more seafoody flavor......

Yeah, I am so going to have to find someone else to feed this too :P

Living Smaller Part 1 - The Closet

The closet and I have done battle and one of us as emerged victorious. Or something.

When I decided I wanted to this the last time, I made sure all the wash was clean and then set out to do battle with this the most evil of closets. That was great, in so far as I got to dig through every garment I own and decide if i should keep it, donate it, store it or toss it. Except for the part where I had to go through all of the clothes that I own. See, i'm not one of those people who wears that sweater way beyond it's usefulness - I'm one of those people who keeps but never wears that sweater way beyond it's usefulness, so my closet was full of clothes I never wore and everything that was dirty was stuff that should have stayed. It took twice as long as it had to and I didn't want to go through that again, so last night when I decided that there was no time like the present to conquor one's demons, I didn't rush down the hall to start doing laundry first - as such, the closet was relatively empty.

For the number of clothes M and I posess, the closet is really too small. While M wears a regular rotation of 10 t-shirts and 2 pairs of jeans as a newly minted college student, he owns an entire wardrobe of dress pants, suit jackets, ties and dress shirts and they're all hanging limply in the closet. On the shelf above, we store sheets, towels, pj's, M's t-shirts, M's casual pants and my jeans. This seemed like a good idea when we moved it -it bought us more space for things that needed to be hung and it meant that we didn't need a linen closet we don't have. Yay! Except for the part where - uhm, he started doing the laundry and he's not the best folder the world has ever known, so what were neatly organized stacks have become unweildly piles. To boot, instead of taking the whole pile down to get the one item we want, we both tend to pretend we're far more coordinated than we are and just pull. Naturally, this results in the entire stack falling on top of us.

Sometimes, we pick it back up. Other times, we get annoyed and leave it on the closet floor. Problem? Yeah.

I started with the hanging sweater bins and sorted through that, boxing up a lot of things that aren't in the regular rotation. Once those were nearly empty, I moved on to the hanging clothes. Admittedly, I left his alone. There's nothing wrong with what he has hanging, it all fits him fine and none of it is stained or visually questionable, so it stays as is - but my clothes got a significant pruning. I stashed a lot of long sleeved shirts that I won't have much occasion to wear (and, lets be honest, never really did since I'm all about the light layers) as well as a few items that are stylistically questionable at this juncture and some stuff I just no longer find a need for in my wardrobe. They're things that all have their place and time, but right now isn't it. I also hid a lot of things that don't fit anymore, because staring at clothes you love that you can't wear because you look like a stuffed sausage in them does wonders for your self-esteem, let me tell you.

When I went to bed last night, the bedroom was, admittedly, in a state of disarray. There were three - count 'em, three - bags of neatly folded clothes that needed to be stored sitting on the floor upstairs with another one downstairs and a empty hangers everywhere, but the big empty space in the middle of the closet where clothes had once been? Priceless.



This morning, I finished things up and I'm glad that I did. As you can see, the stuff on top of the shelves has now been contained into bins. (The bins that used to store my shoes in the living room, in fact. Now, the shoes are in a pile, but mark my words, they're on the list.) Sheets and towels are in the bins on the short wall, with PJ's, M's t-shirts and (soon - the last bin is currently being used to store bunny paraphernalia, but i'm working on it) M's casual pants. The look, while more than a little "check out my college dorm room" is at least more organized and now he can stop pretending he can fold. The extra hangers are stored on the short wall, for now, but I intend to hang my ever-growing collection of skirts there since they're so easy to lose in the midst of everything on the long wall. As you can see, I didn't ever do much with the sweater keeper beyond take out that which I have no need for. Truth be told, the prospect of folding dozens of cardigans doesn't appeal to me, and since this inexpensive hanging shelf doesn't have hard bottoms, it sags and sweaters get lost. One day I will buy bins or baskets to put in it - or maybe even just cut cardboard inserts for the bottom but, in the mean time, my morning routine is quite happy with the ball-and-shove method I've been using.

To me, though, you can't even see the biggest difference - because it happened inside of one of those plastic drawer units that we use to store little things... Mine stores socks and skivvies in one drawer, nylons and tights in another and t-shirts/tank-tops in the top. Oh-My-God do I have a lot of tights :P Once upon a time I had a regular use for pink and black striped nylons...and white and black striped nylons and three kinds of fishnet in three different colors (that's nine pairs for those of you math wizards out there) Now, not so much. So I beat back that collection as well, stashing the stuff that i'll use, just not often enough to justify digging around it every day and what a difference that made to the sheer volume of stuff in that drawer.

It's not actually completely done yet. M has been suffering with some dental woes this week and hasn't been able to sleep much, so I can't enact the final phase until he gets out of bed, but once he does - I need to put a few nails into the wall for hanging belts and ties.

TIME SPENT: 3 hours
MONEY SPENT: $0
FAVORS BARTRED AGAINST: 0
MATERIALS USED:
- 5 plastic bins
- 4 nails
- 1 hammer
- 4 garbage bags
- a few cubic feet of storage space under the bed.

WORST PART: Knowing that it will be a mess again in a few weeks because that's just the kind of people we are.

BEST PART: Finding almost a half dozen scarves and belts that I forgot I had in a bag behind my metal boots...






As for part two, i'm not really sure. There are a lot of options :P Maybe i'll tackle the bathroom...

Friday, April 17, 2009

Living Smaller

M and I live in a two story, one bedroom apartment. We have a completely open floor plan, three closets, one pantry, and a small cupboard under the bathroom cabinet - and that's it. Due to the two-story layout (the bedroom is upstairs) we don't have any real walls or doors - and we also have great 20 foot ceilings.

I love our apartment. Almost.

The carpet is old and stained and gross - but at least it's grey, not beige. The wood is medium toned and very grainy...yuck, and the walls are the hideous shade heretofore known as taupe and all of these things, they are a problem for me :P To boot, the open floor plan means that anything we have is in plain sight all of the time. I don't have any pictures of the unit - and the reason for that is really just all of our problems with the decor - and thus comes the title of this post..


First, while this apartment got great light in the summer, in the off months, the skylight and the door do a lot less for light than I wish they did - and, as you can see, there are no fixtures for lights on the ceiling fan. The only lights in the unit are the hanging lamp (UGLY!) over the kitchen table, the light fixture in the kitchen, the one above the bed upstairs and the sconce above the stairs. All of these output a very yellow light that seems to combine with the taupe walls to form the most obnoxious yellow orange light that the world has ever known and I hate it.

The second big issue that I have with taking pictures of the apartment right now is the "crap dusting" that we seem to be suffering from. When we moved, we moved with a set amount of objects and they all had a place to be stored - it was grrreat. Except that since we moved, we've gotten more stuff :P M went back to school, which means school books and notebooks everywhere. We also brought a pet into our lives and, with her cage and her stuff -she takes up a large amount of space. I picked up a sewing hobby, which means a machine, notions and a fabric stash, as well as a dress form and - of course, the new clothes in the closet :)

So - until the landlord goes out of town long enough for us to paint, we're working on one simple goal - LIVE SMALLER.

Step One: The Closet
My portion of the closet is possibly a little excessive. There are clothes in there that I don't wear. As long as we have some viable long-term storage space under the bed, I think i'm going to make good use of it, wash, fold and box some of my disused clothing and stash it - while getting rid of that which I no longer need. That will free up some space both in the upstairs walk-in and the downstairs coat closet which is all positive.

In the future, there are a lot more things on the list - I need another place to store the rabbit's belongings, and possibly the rabbit herself...

For this weekend, the closet.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Jack Dalton

My brief and truncated internet research says that MacGyver had a lot of sidekicks over the years, but Jack Dalton seems to have been the most popular.

Thursday's, meet Jack Dalton.


Okay, so maybe not exactly Thursday. Maybe it was Tuesday, but anyway....The saga of the car that is out to get us continues this week in a few minor and mostly amusing tales. The first of which involves the worlds fastest installation of a spare tire and the second of which apparently involves some drafting tape.

Go figure.


In the words of Dennis Leary - "See, some people laugh, and the others need an explanation"

I do, Flickr. I do.



See, and you thought she was sad in that picture.

Just wait until I tell her about this, internet. Just you wait.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Sewing Patterns

I like to sew.

I'm not particularly great at it, but I enjoy doing it and I enjoy the results. Still, I most certainly still need patterns for a lot of things. Not only do they make the act of the sewing a lot quicker, they make the garment turn out better. Sure, sometimes I can still whip something out using a piece of clothing as a guide, but with patterns, it's kind of a no-brainer.

The thing is, patterns for simple things that I could figure out if I try always seem like such a huge expense. Call me cheap, cuz I am, but the notion of spending $10 for a pattern - on top of fabric, notions and the commitment of my time, plus a few needle sticks doesn't always seem like the best idea anyone ever had. When I add it all up, sometimes it just seems easier to wait until that dress is on sale.

I've ordered two patterns from McCalls/Butterick/Vouge before - two dresses. I've only made one so far - it's a little cotton number, loose fitting, easy to belt at the waist and throw on with tights. It's light weight, perfect for spring or fall and still something that I could be comfortable wearing to the office. The other dress is a cute little thing with an adorable bodice but it's cut is slightly more formal, and since I haven't had a great need for it, I haven't made it yet. (I'm trying to tackle the fabric in my drawers before I buy anything new.)

Anyway, today I opened my e-mail to find a 75% off a total order offer from the pattern company and, cheap as I am, I was naturally drawn to the sale. The fact is, I've been shopping for patterns since I bought the first few, I've just held off on buying because the price seems so prohibitive. (It seems that as soon as I open the pattern envelope, I find a garment that fits great at the store on sale for a few dollars that I can tear apart and use as a pattern or I land a free one online.) Today, I went crazy. I picked up nine patterns for &30 w/shipping. I can't say that I've picked a favorite yet. Though, I'm pretty sure B5217 is the most practical addition to my collection. Most of the shirts I tend to buy to wear to the office are a very simmilar shape to those - with embelishments and little adjustments that I can make myself. Sometimes I belt them, sometimes I dont - they're easy and forgiving to wear, and they still look nice enough for me to get away wtih it. (Though, to be honest, people in my office wear clothes that have paint stains on them all the time, so who am I kidding - as long as I throw a cardigan over a t-shirt these people are happy.) M5586 is very simmilar, but I bought it as well because this really is the kind of thing I wear all the time, so I know they'll both get used. I also picked up V1051, a pant pattern. I don't have a pant pattern and my life would certainly benefit from one. I grabbed V8553 which looks super cute for summer and M5703 which is a super cute little jumper that I love in an irrational way and am completely obessed with having even though I will probably look retarded in it. Oh, and of course V1086 which is slightly more grown up than the skull t-shirt I made this weekend and wore underneath my pink argyle polo...



because everyone needs a little dork in their life - and, yes, i so totally wore it with my nerd glasses and a little white cardigan. my grandma would be so proud...

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy V-Day Everyone!



My photography might leave something to be desired but, aside from the potatoes (which stubbornly refused to be cooked through in time to go on the table with the rest of dinner), this dinner did not.

Rosemary Focaccia, a Caramelized Onion & Gruyere Gallette, Fillet with compound butter, mushrooms, blue cheese and some plain old chocolate cupcakes....we're having a happy V-day around here.

To you and yours :)