Because You Care What I Think About Healthcare

So the bill is signed, and Armageddon has not yet arrived. I straddle two very, very different worlds in that I have worked for big, white corporations for over a decade now with lots of big-business types, but I live in The People's Republic of Cambridge and seem to be the centrist one among my hippie, trippy, lefty pinko friends. When that gavel hit, Facebook exploded and depending on what friend was posting, I could assume that either Fidel Castro was going to become the next President or all the world's ills would soon be solved by the new Virgin Mother, Nancy Pelosi.

So I give my friend, Steve, credit for posting the following:

"Raise your hand if you fully understand the supposedly "historic" health care bill and the ramifications it's going to have on our country. Putting Facebook, Twitter, New York Times, Wall Street Journal editorial/opinion pieces aside--and even your own political opinions/agendas--do you truly understand? If I only had a dollar for everyone who could explain the overhaul in 100 words or less."

The posts that followed were actually civil, and wide-ranging. Imagine that. I checked out the various "What Healthcare Reform Means For You" graphics on the New York Times and Washington Post, but I suspect that my feelings about this bill being passed would not be that different even if those graphics told me, "hey, take a good look, whitey, you're going to have to pay a shit ton more taxes now."

Do I want to pay more taxes? No. Do I believe in big government? No. Am I happy about all the back-door deals and strong arming that went on to pass this? No. Do I think that the bill is seriously flawed? Yes.

Still, I am extremely happy that it passed. To me, this is a moral issue more than anything else. How can the richest country in the world justify not taking care of its sick? How can we seriously believe that if you lose your job and get sick that you somehow deserve to bankrupt yourself and your family to get better? It doesn't jive with all those American values that we think are cheesy when used in statements about VALUES but secretly believe strongly in. It doesn't work. You take care of the sick. That's...just what you do. Right?

I could make more arguments about how we'll save money in the long run (preventative care, blah blah), but I really don't give a shit about those arguments. You take care of sick people because it's the right thing to do. It's not socialism.

The church I go to had a lot of good stuff to say about healthcare, and through them I found Faithful Reform. I really liked what their vision statement (bolds are mine). The language is a bit 'o divine merciful blessings on this beautiful godly day' for my tastes, but the message resonated strongly.

Vision ~ Inclusive: Health care is a shared responsibility that is grounded in our common humanity. In the bonds of our human family, we are created to be equal. We are guided by a divine will to treat each person with dignity and to live together as an inclusive community. Affirming our commitment to the common good, we acknowledge our enduring responsibility to care for one another. As we recognize that society is whole only when we care for the most vulnerable among us, we are led to discern the human right to health care and wholeness. Therefore, we are called to act with compassion by sharing our abundant health care resources with everyone.

Vision ~ Affordable: Health care must contribute to the common good by being affordable for individuals, families and society as a whole. We believe that in the sacred act of creation we are endowed with the talents, wisdom and abundant resources necessary to meet the needs of one another, including the health care needs of all. Therefore, in our calling to be faithful stewards, we understand our responsibility to use our health care resources effectively, to administer them efficiently, and to distribute them with equity.

Vision ~ Accessible: All persons should have access to health services that provide necessary care and contribute to wellness. We believe humanity is sacred and that all persons should benefit from those actions which contribute to our health and wholeness. Therefore, we are called to act with justice and love, to ensure that all of us have access to the health care we need in order to live out the fullness of our potential both as individuals and as contributing members of our society. We must work together to identify and overcome all barriers to and disparities in such care.

Vision ~ Accountable: Our health care system must be accountable, offering a quality, equitable and sustainable means of keeping us healthy as individuals and as a community. We believe that as spiritual and sacred vessels, we are responsible for the care of our bodies to the best of our ability and for the care of one another regardless of individual circumstances. Therefore, individuals, families, governments, businesses, and the faith community are called to work in partnership for a system that ensures fully-informed, timely, quality and safe care that treats body, mind and spirit.

I can't raise my hand and say that I know what the bill means for me, but I can say that I'm happy about it, and that whatever price I have to pay, I do think it's worth it.

Thanks Steve for the topic! :-)

I Need A Motherfucking Project

Because otherwise, I am not going to write. Seriously, this is just not going to happen for me if I don't have a deadline, so comments/suggestions/etc are welcome. I did great in writing class because there was a due date, and I do well if I commit to these "one entry a day, week, whatever" things. On my own, though? Not so much. My brain is just one long run on sentence.

What have I been up to?

* First there was the lead up to San Francisco. Long work hours, work drama, wanting to spend any minute left with Zygote and YG.

* And then there was San Francisco. I practically had a stroke leading up to this trip. I couldn't imagine being away from Zygote that long, and I was panicking about her starving to death and/or loathing me when I got back. Or worse, forgetting me. I also over-planned a bit, trying to imagine what it was going to be like dealing with the TSA and a cooler full of breastmilk.

As usual, my imagination was far, far worse than reality. It was fine. The TSA gave me no problems at all. The pumping sucked, but I expected that, and I can now cross "pump at 35,000 feet" off my life's to-do list. Sadly, I will probably never be a member of the mile-high club, but pumping? Aw, yeah. Rock!

I suffered from WILD mood swings the entire time I was gone. I could go from "woo hoo, I can do whatever I want. Let's go get fucked up!" to "I am going to steal your baby and suckle it" in a matter of seconds. And then I got a sinus infection and spent a day in bed. And then some bitch told me that I didn't know how to do my job, and I actually called YG and cried and said "I want to come home" like a kid calling his mom from summer camp. And then one of my work BFFs got some shit news. And then I ate nothing but cookies and bacon and alcohol for four days. And then I got ripped a new asshole by someone super senior. And....EXHAUSTING.

And, oh yeah, and then I took a red eye home, managed to get a cab from the only white, English-speaking cabbie around who also happened to be a talker and Glen Beck hater and 'the world is ending' kind of dude, and at 7:30 a.m. , opened the door to my wide-awake baby, overtired husband, and my parents, sleeping on an air mattress in the living room of our very-small apartment.

* For the past few weeks, I have just been digging out, and getting into near fist fights at Shaws. I'm still training for that half marathon, and the runs are getting longer and more intense, and the rest of my time is spent with Zygote.

So, yeah, I need a motherfucking project.

Happy Birthday, YG!

Happy birthday to the bestest of the best people I have ever known.
San Fran is not quite the same without you.

Animal Planet

This Is What A Relationship Looks Like: Black Ops Edition

Sometimes you end up having conversations about things you really never imagined you would have conversations about. Like, you know, what you would name your own butthole.

To set some context, I bought YG the first two seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for Valentine's Day. We were discussing our favorite episodes, and I mentioned that my all time favorite episode is the one where Dee wants to have a Sex&The City girls night out, and they are all drinking cosmos and Artemis shouts out, "I have a bleached asshole!" Hilarity ensues.

Multiple tangents later, we get to this conversation:

Me: Ha, ha, ha. "I have a bleached asshole!"

YG: Your asshole is named Blanche.
Me: Blanche, the bleached asshole.
[editorial note: I still do not quite get the whole bleached asshole thing. If you don't either, I suggest you resist the urge to
Google Image Search]

Me: What should we call your asshole?

(YG ponders)

YG: Black Ops.

Me: Black Ops?

YG: Yeah, Black Ops. Beyond top secret military missions.

Me: Ok.

YG: In the defense budget, there's a whole line item for Black Ops, but nobody really knows what it is.

Me: Okay, so your asshole is Black Ops.

YG: Get it? Double entendre.

Me: Yeah, got it.

YG: You are not sufficiently laughing.

Me: Funny.

YG: Black Ops IS funny.

Me: I GET YOUR DOUBLE ENTENDRE.

YG: But you are not laughing hard enough.

YG: I turn a deaf ear to you now. Literally.

Me: Now THAT's funny.

The Universe Conspires

Against my blogging. I had this wonderful post in my head last night about how things have been going pretty good here for a while, or not going well, but I am pretty mellow, thus the appearance of things going well. And then Zygote woke me up at 5 this morning, and it was snowing and cold and this fucking conference and business travel and school vacation blows when you're working and blah, blah, blah. Woe is me.

So no long post on how mellow and Simply Abundant I am. Just more lists:

Recently read: Everything Is Illuminated -- Again, about five years after everyone else did, but lovely and heartbreaking and funny.

Reading: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins -- Fast, interesting read. At some points not believable, and at others, grotesquely so. Also, horray, I am not in the most soul sucking profession. It could be worse.

Listening: The Away We Go soundtrack -- I liked the movie. I really like the soundtrack. Such a good hipster. Plus, now I can stop saying that I discovered Alexi Murdoch from a Zach Braff movie.

Watching: LOST. I'm not salivating with excitement, but I do end most episodes thinking 'what the fuck just happened?' and that is why I love me some LOST. Diva recaps so that I don't have to.

Watching: Big Love. Mormons are fucked up, yo. I loved the gay Albee story line, and feminist Margene. Could do without the campaign.

Watched: Julie and Julia. I was meh about the book, but it was the first thing I read post-Zygote, so I found it entertaining. Meryl Streep was fabulous, but I could have done without so much of Julie's twentysomething angst. Even more irritating is the fact that my mother saw this movie, loved it, and told me that the Julie character reminded her SO MUCH of me. Please refute. Thank you.

Enjoying: The Best Life Ever. Have I linked to these folks before? I found them through some link love, and have read them weekly ever since. They make me happy when I am feeling grumptastic like the morning I described above. And then manage to write about being happy in a way that is not all barfy, simple abundance style.

Upcoming: San Francisco. Five nights away from Zygote. I can count on my hands the number of times I have not put her to bed since she's been born. I anticipate this being tough. I also anticipate finding my strength in good food and mixed drinks (aw yeah, pump and dump).

Little Artiste

JD's Dead

J.D. Salinger died last week. I still remember reading Catcher in the Rye for the first time out in Long Island. The copy was my dad's and it's still out there -- maroon covered and yellow paged. I was in middle school, and I thought I had stumbled across me in print. My high school quote was from Catcher, and I just assumed that I was the ONLY ONE that really got Holden. We were both sooooo misunderstood.

And then I found out that every frat turd in the world also thinks he is Holden Caufield, and I had a glimpse of my future corporate life. Sigh.

Erin Shea wrote a really lovely post about Salinger's death that you should go check out. Especially poignant is this bit:

"It’s funny to me now that I requested such a non-conformist book for such conformist reasons. I cut myself a modicum of slack, obviously, since I was all of 12, and when you’re 12 you desperately try to locate that secret space in the world where you’re unconditionally accepted by everyone for being staunchly, fiercely not like any of them at all. That place doesn’t exist, of course, but it takes years, many regrettable decisions concerning your hair, both its length and color, and the sheer exhaustion that comes from trying to fit in before you stop caring as much.

I wanted to read Catcher in the Rye because that’s what someone like the person I thought I wanted to be would read. It’s that simple. And I read it. And it changed everything.

Hyperbole aside, books like these for kids who lean towards awkwardness, like me, are game changers. This is how it happens for us. We know we’re supposed to like what everyone else likes, and for the most part we really do, but something else in the universe is calling us, moving us toward it, moment by moment, until we’re almost there. Books like Catcher land in our laps and it’s the first of many of those moments. Without it, we’re not ready for the next one when it comes along. We needed the first to unlock the rest."

I was so desperate to escape my middle-class suburban life and my perfect classmates and my parents that didn't understand.
And I escaped reading my DAD's old book.

Sometimes Our Coworkers Are Funny (Even Funnier Than Me)

I told my coworker that I was planning to just put "Fuck You" on my email signature at work and out-of-office autoreply. His funnier out-of-office autoreply is as follows:

Thank you for your email.

As there is a 98% chance your question or request is stupid or fucking annoying, please do not expect a reply.
It is also quite likely that I won’t answer your phone call or return your messages.

You can especially fuck yourself raw if your note is:
- Just a “thanks” or “heads up”
- If you are reminding me to buy tickets to your event. Your event SUCKS, and I hate you.
- Has ANYTHING to do with [insert name of trade show that drives us batshit every year].

Don’t bother calling another member of the snot-nosed, uncooperative PR team.
We all hate you.

All media inquiries may go to [insert PR agency name].

I hate you.
[Insert name]

THAT is a thing of beauty.

Good Reads: The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women

I'm keeping with my tradition of reading controversial books about five years people have stopped talking about them. I just finished The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women, and while it's a few years old, I still found it relevant.

Or maybe these perfect mommy/insane momism/superwoman books are appealing to me right now because they meet me where I am. Very much in the middle of trying to make sense out of this whole parenting, career, want-more-now thing.

"The new momism is not about subservience to men. It is about subservience to children. And there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide."

What Was Awesome

* The look at how government has played a role in creating the conundrum that almost all women find themselves in is fascinating. I learned way more than I ever knew about the history of the childcare debates, the original hearings on FMLA and just how shitty the Reagan Administration really was.

* Similarly, the chapter on welfare mothers was also fascinating. Just a few quotes

"Through , conservatives kept the coals of misogyny warm without offending the politically prized 'soccer mom.' And they succeeded. The poor mother no longer represented the failings of American society to take care of its own. She represented the failure of individual women to take their maternal responsibilities as seriously as possible."

"One of the most important trends that we found during this period was that the attacks on the maternal qualifications of welfare mothers increased, over the years, in direct relationship to the increased emphasis on the new momism. There is little doubt that for working mothers, espeically white working mothers, these highly negative portrayals of welfare mothers enhanced our own self-esteem at a time when we, too, were very much under attack...In other words, the stereotype of the lazy, irresponsible, neglectful, and promisicous welfare mother became so important in the 1980s and beyond because however insecure we felt in our identities as 'mothers,' we suddenly (if briefly) felt very confident and virtuous when juxtaposed to this other, bad mother."

* The chapter on marketing to children is chilling, especially when I look back on my own childhood and remember the toys that I begged my parents for. My childhood was when target marketing was really taking off, and it's frightening to see how I, and all of my friends, fell and continue to fall for it.

* Given that I was pregnant not that long ago, the chapter on parenting trends and the commercialization of pregnancy are riddled with underlines. I LOVE that they describe that fuck Dr. Sears as the Dr. Laura for the high-achieving, educated set (fell for that shit too), and describe how different parenting "fads" have changed in just the last decade.

What Was Sort of Meh About It:

* The book is billed as a pop-culture critique of new momism in the media, but I found the chapters on media fairly boring and lackluster. This may have more to do with the time lapse (does anyone even remember thirtysomething?), but the television and advertising critiques weren't in depth and the authors didn't really explore WHY women are so susceptible to these images.

* Very long and dense. I started this on Thanksgiving weekend, and just finished. It's not exactly a page turner.

* The tone is pretty snotty and arrogant. It sounds like me, and not in a good way.

* Like most critique books, the "so what do we do about it" question remains largely unanswered. There's a rah rah ending about confronting the new momism when you see it, but given all the interesting information on how our government plays such a HUGE role in devalueing women and children, I would have liked to see more about how to get involved.

Writing Fridays

I spent most of my morning avoiding writing like the Plague, lingering at the babysitter's house, grocery shopping (a task I normally loathe) and even venturing into someplace named "The Creativity Craft Store." Clear avoidance. But then I broke out my exercise book and spent a few hours writing, and it feels awesome -- with a minor stopover in Guilt land because everybody else at work is so busy.

And then I remembered: I DO NOT GET PAID TO WORK ON FRIDAYS.

Anyway, I loved this:

So we're all floating around in a state of confusion and insecurity, looking for publication as our only real measure of success and validation. And because so few people get published, and even fewer then go on to making any real money, are we all failures? Are none us writers? Are we all wanna-bes?

Tricky question. I have long defined myself as a writer, before I got anything published, before I got an agent, before I made a dime. I have known I was a writer since I was twelve, maybe even before that. And how? Because I didn't want to do anything else but write. All I wanted to do was write, ever, always, and amen.

I guess that we are writers if we write, if we write all the time, if we improve, and if we want to do it more than anything else. I'm not absolutely positive, but I believe that I am a writer. And today, if you are writing and not looking back over your shoulder too often, you can be one, too. -- Caroline Sharp

Well, then.

Grateful

For these mornings.

Stories I Like

Our pastor friend, Dan, told this story in a sermon on Sunday. He was having food and drinks with Peter Gomes, and he asked Gomes what he thought the key message of the Gospel was. Without missing a beat, Gomes said, "you do not have to be as you are."

Regardless of your faith or nonfaith traditions, there's got to be something comforting about not always having to be "as you are," no? That you can be who you were intended to be.

I like this very much this week. I've got a bunch of work piling up and I am trying very hard to not be me, and to spend my time not there very much here with this cool kid I've got.

Plagiocephaly -- Zygote's Flat Head

Supposedly one of the benefits of having a c-section is that your baby ends up with a perfectly round, cherub's head. Well, our little cherub has inherited YG's big noggin and has developed a flat spot. We had her scanned at Children's Hospital this morning for a helmet (I KNOW), and she took it remarkably well.



We pick up her skull & crossbones helmet in two weeks. On the good side, bad parents that we are, I guess we don't have to worry so much about her banging her head now.

In My Language -- David Foster Wallace On Getting By

I'm nearing the end of Lit. I totally forgot that Mary Karr dated David Foster Wallace, and reading the brief part about their relationship made me go digging up that commencement speech he gave -- the one everyone was reminiscing about when he unfortunately died.

About as far away from the language of Simple Abundance as you can get. My favorite parts:

"And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what day in day out really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about.

By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be but you can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough check-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line’s front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to have a nice day in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn’t yet been part of you graduates’ actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way?"

Followed by some more DFW stuff, and then this gem:

"It just depends what you what to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. "

And then he ends with:

"It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime.

And it commences: now. "

Brilliant. Tangent: I also somehow blocked out that DFW wrote most of Infinite Jest when he lived in Syracuse.

By way of contrast, the commencement speaker at my graduation was Robert Fulghum, who gave a totally charming speech, but still, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?

This Is What A Relationship Looks Like: Night time Edition

SG: Can you stop snoring?
YG: You need to stop moving the blankets around. You're letting the cold air in.
SG: I can't sleep. Because of all the snoring.
YG: I'm not snoring.
SG: You are snoring.

(pause)

YG: Will you please stop bumping into me?
SG: I'm not bumping into you.
YG: Shut up, or I'll stick my big dick in you to shut you up.
SG: Are you going to stick in my ear? Because that would keep the snoring out.
YG: Bitch.

End scene.

Choking Down Some Simple Abundance, Hoping Not to Barf It Back Up

I'm going through a lot of old books, trying to find one that might help me with my get-out-of-high-tech-find-something-else-to-do plan. If you read this, I'm assuming you know me and will reassure me that people do not think ill of me for owning the following titles among many of the same ilk: Learned Optimism, Zen and the Art of Making a Living, What Color Is Your Parachute, The Artist's Way at Work. Really.

This doesn't include the small books, those tiny books like Women Who Do Too Much that I guess you're supposed to carry around in your bag and read when you're having a bad day instead of threatening to stab your cab driver. I have an entire drawer of these, either bought during some apparent time of wanting to turn over a new leaf or given to me by well-meaning friends and back in the day, fellow 12 steppers, that thought I was an angry bitch. I read them sometimes.

Digging through the pile, I found Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy. You just threw up in your mouth. It was given to me by Abby, this seriously cool woman with a great job and charming husband and nice clothes. She had a lot of cats, but there was nothing about her screaming RUN or Howling Wolf t-shirt! She said it was helpful, and I believed her.

My first reaction, upon reading the first few entries, was that it was quite possibly the gayest shit I have ever read. Tea! Flower sachets! Dream journals! OMFG, SLEEPLESS IN SEATLE! I imagined the Delicious Dish ladies sitting around discussing the book and how their "authentic selves" had baked gingerbread cookies and had cocoa on a snowy winter's day. Barf. Plus, the suggestions were so mundane and almost insulting to women -- everything involved cooking or cleaning (discover the real you by reorganizing the spice rack!), setting the angry feminist radar on high alert. There's even a website that greets you with some breathy music chanting, I shit you not, "the gift of love." Not for me.

Or so I thought.

I picked up the book the other night, and after getting through all the new age hippie crap, I found myself almost liking the central premise: that you have everything you need to be happy, you just need to find it. I believe she says, "discover it," but...ew. Maybe it's the baby. Maybe it's the meds. Or maybe I've tried to think of everything that will help me figure out how to change careers, and I've hit such a wall that a glittery dream notebook and a pink pen seem like plausible ways to do this.

So, I'll be reading one of these meditations (even the word makes me cringe) each morning and attempting to follow through, blogging about my..choke...journey to peace and plenty when I can. Humorous, probably. Enlightening, maybe.

You now have my permission to laugh out loud.

Exit Strategies or Quotable Quotes

"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Howard Thurman

New Year 2010 Procrastination Stream of Consciousness

I have been dying for some uninterrupted time to do some writing for weeks now, but when it comes to me by way of a sleeping baby and a husband watching the Hitler channel (Military Channel, I believe, for those not into weaponry television), I pretty much do everything in my power to dick around and not get down to it. And then I complain about not having enough time for myself. Yep.

And now the baby is crying so I could conveniently forget about this if I really felt like it. I forgot to give her vitamins today, so I could go and do that. Note: I forget vitamins a lot, but only when the administration of the vitamins will get me out of something do vitamins truly become important. Or I could return to my obsessive compulsive project of cataloging and hanging all of her new clothes in appropriately-labeled bins in the closet. See Exhibit A: Attack of the Aunts and Grandmas.



Or I could get another beer. Or go back to reading my book. But it was reading the book that got me to thinking about projects for 2010 and what to do with my writing Fridays, so I might as well just suck it up.

2009 was momentous for a number of reasons (do I really need to tell you about Zygote? The smartest, coolest kid in the world?), but one of the cooler things was having the opportunity to read the right books at just the right time. I don't really understand people that don't read. I'm sure they have their reasons or their other ways of engaging with the world, but is there anything better than reading something and obsessively underlining because 'OMG, THIS IS SO MY LIFE RIGHT NOW'?"

Anyway...I'm reading this book. I was obsessed with Liar's Club when it came out, and read it twice. I liked Cherry well enough, but I LOVE this one. Because of the earlier books, I obviously knew a little about Mary Karr's life, but I literally dropped the book when I read that she had been toiling away in FUCKING TELECOM before the first books of poem was published. Telecom! I am the only person in high tech who dreams of being a writer. Obviously. Eye roll.

This, of course, got the brain spiral going and I wondered why the fuck I didn't take a class with Mary Karr when I was at Syracuse? Why didn't I take a class with Tobias Wolff? Or Junot Diaz? I read (past and present) pretty much everything these people write, and they were right there -- right within my grasp. Shit, I even served these people at Bruegger's, but I never spoke to them and I didn't dare try to register for a creative writing class. At the time, I'm sure I had legitimate reasons for doing so like a double major and a job and whatever else I was "soooo stressed out" about when you live with your friends and drink on the couch watching 90210 every night. But in retrospect, this seems really stupid. Actually, totally fucking retarded. I'm sure I didn't take those classes because I didn't want to actually TRY writing or get critiqued or face the possibility that the pseudo image that I created for myself (misanthropic writer chick with appropriate hairstyle and glasses to match) was way off base. Dumb.

And now we're 12.5 years from college, and I have been toiling away at this bizarre career, dreaming of my other career, but always putting it off. And now I have the time. I have the husband who thinks this is important and has helped us finagle our finances so that I have one day a week to face the page, and I have a bunch of friends encouraging me and the validation of my recent teachers that I'm pretty good and funny for more than my allotted 15 minutes a day. The only thing getting in my way is me.

So I don't have a lot of resolutions for 2010 other than the usual crap about losing weight and saving money and finding a good red lipstick. But I do want to try and stay out of my own way and out of my own head and see where this writing thing takes me. I don't know how I'll define success, but I'm going to try. Trying to control every facet of my life has obviously not worked out well in all areas, so I will attempt to follow all of these cheesy sayings: go with the flow, let go/let God, blah blah blah.

And please dear god, if 2010 isn't my last year in high tech, please let me have an exit strategy.

Favorite Zygote Stories

I was out to dinner the other night with a bunch of work colleagues, and a lot of the people with children were sharing horror stories about poopy diapers and smeared baby food and middle-of-the-night wake ups. Another sans-child friend said that one of his favorite questions to ask people with kids, since they tend to commiserate on the horror stories, was what their favorite recent kid moments were.

In no particular order:

1. Zygote sleeps through the night now most nights, and she sometimes even skips the 5 a.m. feeding which is nice in some ways, but sad in others. When she does wake up at 5, we bring her into the big bed, feed her, and then let her sleep with us for the rest of the morning. She makes baby noises and holds my hand, and when she wakes up and realizes I'm there, she gives me this big grin as if to say, "Cool. You're here. I am happy that we are hanging out."

2. She's finally gotten into the bath routine. Now that she knows how to splash, she screeches and laughs and swats at the water. Other time, she lounges back on the tub pillow and crosses her feet and signs. Ah, the life.

3. When she nursed when she was little, she would kick and swat around and generally be very wiggly. She still does this to some extent, but at her last feeding of the night, she puts her one arm on my chest and her leg curled around my other arm and calms down. It's like getting a great glass of red wine at the end of a shitty day.

4. She screeches and pants whenever the cat comes into the room. If he's feeling it, he will rub up against her and she laughs like crazy.

5. She likes my renditions of Christmas carols.

6. When she wakes up in the morning and she's not in our bed, I can hear her gooing and gahing and generally keeping herself entertained on the monitor.

7. She loves the MG. She gets the biggest smiles.

Why I'm Not Blogging: Or Things I've Done in The Past Month

In no particular order:

* Bought a new car
* Not driven new car much because registration is hung up somewhere between MA and NJ. Long, boring story.
* Spilled entire bottle of breastmilk on insurance agent's desk while relaying this tale of woe
* Started Zygote at daycare
* Zygote's first cold
* My bad cold
* Dropped Zygote on floor. Twice.
* Allowed Zygote to eat laptop cord. Inadvertently.
* Pumped in weird places. Twice.
* Attended useless meetings. Multiple.
* Christmas shopping.
* Christmas cards.
* Thank you cards. Again.
* Thought about writing. Lots.
* Wrote. None.
* Thanked God for Zoloft. Multiple.
* Wished for lottery ticket. Multiple.

Today Was Hard

Nothing in particular went badly. I just found myself, more than once, thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?" Or "I'm leaving the kid for THIS?" I really don't want to use Zygote as an excuse, but all that job disatisfaction from before has become so much more...pronounced now.

Sometimes I really just wish somebody would tell me what to do. An oracle or something that just appears and says, "I've been thinking about your life, and this is what you need to be."

I try and remember that it is not the job (it's a fine job), and that it's me. And that in the grand scheme of things, I am a happy person with a good life and nice husband, cats, children, family, things, etc.

But when pumping is the best part of my work day, something needs to change.

I have applied for four jobs in the last week. I just want an interview.

File Under: Things That Make Me Feel Old

Every job that I want requires "knowledge of social media." What does that even mean? I use Facebook. Does that make me knowledgeable?

Anyway, I'm attending these social media brownbags in the hopes that I will become a hipster doofus with a job title like "Social Media Expert." We watched this today. Interesting, but made me cringe too.

Zygote: Month Five

I hope it's not cheating if I just cut and paste from a mail I sent to a few friends.



Zyogte turned five months old today. That seems so old. We no longer get "oooh, tiny baby" or "fresh baby" when we go out. She's growing up.

What to say about a baby that doesn't sound like the usual my-baby-is-so-special-and-I'm-so-in-love-with-her drivel that is really only interesting to the parents and grandparents? Nothing, really. I am so in love with her. This is a good age. Our first month was just nutso with the normal postpartum period and the flu and MG's appendicitis and YG's hearing loss and my crazy-ass depression. Once the antidepressants kicked in and she started becoming more aware, it seems like it's been pretty smooth sailing. Or if not smooth all the time, at least we have a mutual appreciation of each other and how much we can piss each other off. So we try to limit bitchfests as best we can.

She is a happy, smiley baby most of the time. She started with the smiles very early, and giggles and talks a lot. I haven't heard a lot of B sounds, but a lot of gahs and cahs. She also discovered how to make this high-pitched shriek that she uses a lot, mainly when talking to her hands. I find it charming, but I imagine it's annoying to anyone sitting next to us in a restaurant. Rich has an easier time making her laugh than I do, and I think it's because of his facial hair and his renditions of songs from the Muppets. She humors me when I sing her Beatles songs, but I can't really get her laughing unless I'm tossing her in the air or really roughhousing with her, and I'm sure there's some book somewhere that will tell me I'm damaging her by doing this.

She has a variety of stuffed animals and toys that she likes, but prefers the smaller ones that can be stuffed in her mouth. One of her favorite games is throwing her binky down, and then picking it up and putting it back in her mouth. I watched her figure this out over the course of several days, and it's much more fascinating than it sounds. She had this look on her face like, "I am such a BOSS right now. Look at me with this thing."

The Exersaucer reigns Supreme. I also tried some Baby Einstein despite my pre-kids belief that babies shouldn't be watching TV. but it just put her to sleep and/or she got much more interested in chewing things. She drools like a Mastiff, and her teething periods SUCK. But she's such a champ the rest of the time that we're handling them okay. By handling them okay, I mean white-knuckling and trying to keep her as comfortable as we can what else can you do?

She's also very active, or as active as you can be when you can't walk or crawl yet. She doesn't snuggle, and never really did when I carry her around, she's always peeking over my shoulder or wiggling around to see where the action is. When we put her on her stomach, she grunts and groans, but she's managed to pull her knees up to her chest already. She definitely wants to move, and she most definitely wants to catch the cat. She does a lot of rolling and jiggling too. I suspect that we're going to need to child proof our place sooner rather than later.

The transition back to work has been about as difficult as I expected. I was feeling very apathetic about my job and my career before I left on maternity leave and I have been itching to do something new. Add the feeling that I'm missing watching this cool kid develop on top of that...hard. My mom lived with us for most of October when I first went back, and it worked out way better than I could have imagined. I seem to regress into a sullen teenager whenever my mother is around so I thought we would spend the whole time fighting. And yes, there were times when I wanted to kill her ("why do you have to talk with your mouth full?," "for the nth time, no, you cannot put a blanket in the crib," and "she is not starving because of breastfeeding.") But I was mostly just grateful to have her around when I left in the morning and came home at night. It was also the first time in my life that I learned more about what it was like for HER working and raising three kids. She also took Zygote to all the historical sites around Boston and developed her own routine with her. Nice all around. Rich's sister is watching Zygote this month, and that's been working out as well. She starts daycare in December, and then I'm hoping that we will finally settle into a routine.

Right now, I nurse her in the mornings twice before I go to work, have my work day, and then rush home to spend some time with her and nurse her again before she goes to sleep. Pumping at work is another thing that doesn't suck nearly as bad as I thought it would. It's not fun, but it gives me some breaks during the day to think about the baby and to try and imagine what I'd be doing if I wasn't working here. I mostly draw a blank, but the pumping time gives me a few minutes to remember exactly why I'm here. Cliché, but true.

I'm not working on Fridays and besides the whole bleeding money thing, I like having that extra day to spend with Imme. I plan to use that day for writing once she is in daycare, but for the past two months, we've been sleeping late, going to the bookstore or the movies, and sometimes taking the T to MGH and running back to Cambridge along the Charles when it's not too cold or windy. There's also a ton of mundane errands to do, but I've been enjoying the time. I still haven't quite come to grips with the fact that I am now a part-time worker and that effectively puts my career on hold for a bit, but see above: not so hot about that career anyway.

Things are good. Looking forward to the holidays and introducing Zygote to Christmas, Italian-style in NJ.

We Just Bought A Flip -- Can You Tell?

In lieu of real blogging...movies! Zygote's baptism from a few weeks ago. What I find hilarious is how absolutely shell shocked and miserable I look. Totally wasn't the case, but I guess I just have that mama look now. Bring on the cat sweatshirts.

It's The End of the World As He Knows It

Poor kitty. He thought the last few months were bad...

Straight for Equality

I attended an online seminar for Straight for Equality at work this week. I mainly wanted to support my coworkers who are members of my company's LGTB alliance, but I found it really useful. Particularly around issues of understanding why gay coworkers are not comfortable sharing pieces of their personal life at work. I heard a horrifying story about a straight guy who hung a flier for a LGTB event in his cube and overheard people discussing "fucking faggots" and it reminded me of my own run-in with a bigoted mofo at work a few years back -- a gun-toting NRA member who told me he stopped his subscription to Time magazine because they had a photo of Ellen on the cover. We got into it, but I wonder how many people are comfortable are getting up in some one's face because of mofo bigotry. And I wonder how much of my fuck-you-I've-got-balls attitude would stay in tact if I really felt I was in danger. This makes me alternately depressed and wanting to beat some heads.

So I signed The Pledge. You Should Too. And check out the guide.

Maybe we will take their suggestion and have a I Love Gays party. That's not what they call it, but I reserve the right to edit.

I Was NOT Raped By My C-Section

The first time I heard the phrase "I was raped by my c-section," I didn't actually take the time to think about how offensive that statement might be to actual survivors of rape. I just thought it sounded stupid and melodramatic. In Childbirth Is Not Burger King. You Can’t Always Have It Your Way., Rachael Larrimore takes these people on. I like the piece. It sums up my feelings nicely.

Then you get to the real crazy in the comments.

There is nothing quite like birth and parenting to bring out the fundamentalist crazies.

Missed Last Week: End Fat Talk

I could use this reminder right now.

A Typical Weekday

Between 5 and 6 am: Get up to feed Zygote

Next two hours: Shower, eat, dress Zygote, play with her a bit, feed cats, feed Zygote again

Between 7:30 and 8: Drive to work, curse traffic on 95. Remember that I promised never to complain about traffic after my hellish commutes in NJ. Think, "fuck that."

8-10: Various cube-dweller related items

10: Pump

10:15 - 12:15: More work. Curse Powerpoint.

12:15 - 12:30: Eat lunch at my desk. Always a packed lunched. Check the New York Times. Get depressed.

12:30 - 1: First panic that I am not going to get done everything that I need to get done.

1: Pump again. Double pump to save time. Try not to stare at the clock.

1:15 - 3:30: Endless conference calls, phone calls, emails, living of the dream.

3:30: Pump again. Count ceiling tiles. Make a mental gratitude list.

3:45 - 5: Mad rush to complete everything.

5: Slink guiltily out the door, convinced that I will be fired for my lack of commitment to work.

5-5:40ish: Commute. Curse Alewife. NPR.

5:45 - 6:30: Play with Zygote.

6:30 - 7:30: Feed Zygote, feed self, dress Zygote for bed. If she has reached the smelling point, we bathe her.

7:30 - 8: Clean up, make tomorrow's lunches, grunt pleasantries at YG.

8: Feed Zygote again.

8:20: Collapse on couch. Converse with husband. Mind numbing t.v. and Internets. Occasional reading. Guilt over not writing or blogging or keeping track of Zygote's various accomplishments in the 500 baby books we have.

10: Bed.

It's kind of exhausting and you'll notice that I don't really do the cooking, and we outsource (heh) our cleaning. Also, my mom is with us this month so there is no rush to get her to daycare in the morning. Yet.

I know that we're going to get it together in time, but I am already feeling the pull between work and family and then wondering how I am going to fit me time (writing, reading, running) in.

Seriously, though, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Back To Your Previously Scheduled Program Shortly

So I wildly underestimated how exhausted I would be with this whole work/mommy/exercise/baseball combo. Much like I underestimated how time consuming the whole baby thing would be at first. Underestimation seems to be the theme of my life lately.

More to come shortly. Hopefully before the post-season is over.

At least we know one thing about the Project -- it kept me updating.

Post 30: So What Have We Learned?

So this is it. 30 in 38 is now complete. Did I learn anything?

Well, for one, I really wish I was a full-time writer and not a full-time cube dweller. I was hoping that I could have written this yesterday or earlier today so that I could avoid being maudlin, but I was spending that time with Zygote. YG asked me if I wanted to cry now or later, and I answered "later" and then promptly started crying. It's not that I don't want to work. Work is important to me, and sometimes I'm afraid that I don't have an identity without work. I am a Hard Worker. And if I'm panicking at the thought of going to work tomorrow and not really wanting to be there, then who am I? A not very hard worker with a non-existent writing career? Blah. Whine. If you're unemployed, you probably want to gag me right now.

So right, lessons learned.

1. I work best when there's a deadline. I've been half assing this blog for about three years now, and I know from my Google stats that some of you do read it. But I only update sporadically. Having this self-imposed deadline helped me to do some minimal journaling, that I then translated into these posts, and maybe someday will turn into something else.

I'm not taking any classes this semester and that worries me because having class assignments forced me to write. Without the deadline and the potential to be embarassed, I just don't seem to write, and that leads me to number 2.

2. I need to make the time to write. Fairly obvious, but I'm horrible at that. I try and squeeze it in when I can, but I don't make it a priority. People have told me to treat my writing as a second job in order to take it seriously, and that works for about three seconds, and then I go watch t.v. Or read more books that I wish I wrote.

Fridays will be my writing time from now on. No work, minimal baby, not a lot of distractions.

3. Marketing is not bullshit. I've taken a few classes now on how to market personal essays and I've purchased an embarrassing number of books on the same topic. I take copious notes and check Writers Market from time to time, and then I don't do much.

4. This is related to the time thing -- edit, edit, edit. Some people journal or blog and the result is beautifully crafted, breathtaking prose. This is so not me. I am all jumbled stream of consciousness. I finished two pieces in the last year that I really loved (and got my personalized rejection letters for -- woo hoo!), but I had worked on them over the course of three semesters. I need to remember to give myself time to edit. Or if all else fails, spell check. And barring that, fix the where/wear, their/there/they're things. At least give the appearance of trying to be a "real" writer.

5. Take notes. My brain is full. I see the world as if it's a story I'm living and I'm constantly thinking of things that I want to jot down and remember (various conversations with the crazies on the T, overheard bits of interesting factoids, city life, Zygote, etc). And then I don't remember. And that's how this happens.

6. Define success. For this little project, success meant just putting some shit out there for 30 days. I really don't know how I will define being a successful writer. Does it mean being published? Does it mean writing every day? Utilizing my Fridays? This is important since I am prone to oh-woe-is-me-I-can't-do-anything sorts of ramblings.

7. YG told me this one last night. He took a class and said the instructor told them to change the phrase, "I'll believe it when I see it" to "If I believe it, I'll see it." Normally, the earnestness of these types of leadership instructions makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little, but I like that one. I have to believe that I have as good a shot as anyone of getting published, and stop believing that I am destined for the cube for the rest of my life.

8. Just write. There's so many warm, fuzzy writers' manuals filled with that advice. Again with the earnestness and the encouragement. But it's true. Some of my babble is bound to take shape sometime.

So that's it. I intend to keep up the blog to keep folks updated on Zygote and me and the rest of the fam, and I intend to keep up the journaling and fine tuning my other pieces this Fall. And working. And taking care of Zygote. And running. And.....I will be fine.

Post 29: Things That Were Awesome About This Summer

A far from exhaustive list:

1. Zygote. Do I really need to get into this one? Watching her go from rubbery blob to tiny, sometimes blobby person has been amazing.

2. Two weeks in Long Island.

3. The return of copious amounts of wine and beer to my diet.

4. An inordinate amount of time watching bad t.v. and not feeling guilty, like usual, because I was 'nourishing my child' while doing so.

5. Running again.

6. Discovering Cambridge and Somerville with the stroller.

7. Reading.

8. Not working.

9. Restaurant Week.

10. The Water Club at Atlantic City.

11. JP Licks.

12. Walden Pond.

13. My birthday.

14. Being able to stay in NJ for more than 24 hours.

15. Drinks in Davis with YG, while church friends watched Zygote.

16. Can we say AL Division Champs?

17. Seeing old friends.

18. Sleeping until 9 most days, showering whenever, unemployment (read: elastic waist) pants

19. Ball games

20. Dinners on the porch with a bottle of wine.

It wasn't quite the "Summer of JM" that I imagined, but it was still pretty great.

Post 28: This Is What A Relationship Looks Like -- Guess You Had To Be There Edition

I hate feet. I mean, I really, really hate feet. I get pedicures because I don't even like touching my own feet. I find foot fetishes weirder and grosser than plushies or furries. Feet = gross.

YG knows this, and when I am being super cranky or getting all up in his face about something, he will take his hand, rub it on my face and say, "mmmm....I was just massaging my calluses" or my personal favorite, "I love giving pedicures to the homeless."

He also steals my pillows every night. Being a tad obsessive compulsive, I have a system for proper placement of my pillows. The memory foam one is for my head, and the fluffier one stands propped against the headboard for easy access if I want to hug it or move it in some way.

Every night, I will go to the bathroom and when I get back, the pillows are either switched up or gone entirely. Ticklefest ensues, and I beg YG not to take my pillows anymore, to please, just let me be at one with the pillows. On the rare night that he does not touch the pillows, conversation goes something like:

Me: What's wrong?
YG: What do you mean?
Me: You didn't take my pillows.
YG: You hate it when I take your pillows.
Me: Are you pissed at me?
YG: Yes
Me: It's because I'm fat, isn't it? You're mad at me because of the lard.
YG: And the prattling.
Me: Yes, you hate me because I'm a fat prattler.
YG: That is exactly why I didn't touch your pillows.

I'm sure this is the type of thing that is only amusing to two people.

Post 27: Reality Check

YG and I just went through a budget exercise to try and figure out what our financial picture (aren't I grown up with my fancy phrases?) will look like after I go back to work at reduced hours and we factor in child care. The result is not pretty. I'm not in total panic mode yet, but I know that we're taking a big hit. My Fridays off are supposed to be for writing, sending out some writing and spending time with Zygote. If I were a contractor and I worked hours on Fridays, I could bill for them. But I'm not a contractor. I'm a regular employee working reduced hours, so if I work more than my allotted hours, I lose money. The onus is on me to make this work. The onus is on me to not check the crackberry, not be available, and use the Fridays to figure out how to extracate myself from this career that I've built.

And the onus is on me to not get laid off while doing so, because the alternatives (check out: U.S. Job Seekers Exceed Openings by Record Ratio) suck.

I WILL NOT DO WORK THAT I AM NOT PAID FOR. Hold me to this, Internets.

Post 26: Race Update

36: 47! That's not as good as my time last year, but way better than my times in the races I ran while pregnant. It was perfect running weather -- about 62 degrees and sunny. The race venue was not that great. They switched locations because of overcrowding so the route went through the bowels of the seaport, including Seaport Boulevard that stunk of well, seafood.

I feel pretty good about myself. Yes, I was slower. Yes, I have a mom belly. Yes, I will always think I need to: lose weight, eat better, exercise more, etc. Today, though, I am a-okay.

The MG took pics.

Pre-race, wearing my super-flattering XXL UPenn sweatshirt purchased at my brother's graduation. I tell myself that it wasn't that long ago and that I don't need new workout wear, but...it worked out well during pregnancy.



Zygote, not so impressed by having to be out in the cold.



Post-race.



Congrats on this beautiful day!



Slightly happier now that the food source has returned.

Post 25: Zygote's Letter

Say what you will about Dooce, I love/d that she wrote her kid a monthly letter. YG and I had this plan to faithfully update our journal for Zygote, but things didn't quite work out that way. Here are excerpts from the three month one, and I have to say that these updates would be much easier to write if she wasn't staring at me and shouting every time I dare to turn my head and pay attention to anything else.

Dear Zygote --
You are now 3 months old, or 15 weeks and one day to be exact. Sometimes, I can't remember what it was like before you. We had a tough first month, but right now, most of my time spent with you is a joy. You still have moments when you scream bloody murder and I can't figure out how to comfort you. Then I have this crazy cocktail of emotions ranging from helplessness to anger to fear because I'm afraid that I'm not doing this mother thing right, that I SHOULD know what to do to make you feel better.

The crying moments are few and far between, though. Most of the time, you give me these huge grins and giggle when I make up songs for you. Our days are pretty lazy. I usually feed you in bed in the mornings and then we play and I watch t.v. while feeding you again. Afternoons, we'll go out for a run or walk to Harvard Square and I'll get a cupcake and bring you to the bookstore.

When you're older, I hope that I have more friends with kids for you to play with. We go to mommy and me group (barf at that name, you'll understand in time) every week and may make some new friends, but for now, I'm content with it being just us. And your dad. He's still my favorite person in the room, and I hope you'll see how cool he is when you grow up.

Next week, I go back to work. I am not looking forward to it. There is nothing wrong with my job, but I have no connection to the work that I do. I am unimportant. And have mixed feelings about leaving you to work that doesn't mean much. Still, work, and earning your own money, is important. When you grow up, you can be anything you want to be, and I encourage you to be selfish -- you are allowed to find that job that you love. I'm going to keep searching for that because I want to be a good role model for you. I know that I will miss you when I'm gone, but know that I'm never really GONE. I'm always with you.

Love,
Mama

Post 24: Running Blah Blah

I'm running my first race post-Zygote tomorrow morning. I am excited, nervous, insert adjective of your choice. I ran this race last year at my best time, 10:35 per mile, and I'm pretty sure there's no way I'm going to beat that. A little sad, but then I remember I couldn't really WALK three months ago. My goal is to run the whole thing without stopping.

It's been nice getting back to running. Earlier in the week, I took Zygote down to Kendall Square and ran the 2.7 miles along the river back to Harvard Square. The stroller weighed about a thousand pounds, and the wind was right in our face, but still, totally glorious. She slept and I rewarded myself with a cupcake.

In other running news, I decided to switch up my sneakers. I had been totally devoted to Saucony Triumphs, but read that ASICS Nimbus were also good for under pronators. YG swears by ASICS, so I'm trying them out. So far, I'm neutral. They feel much stiffer than the Sauconys, but maybe it's because I'm just not used to them. I threw away my faithful green machines, otherwise known as the Saucony Triumph 4. They were my second pair of Sauconys, but I logged the most miles with them and really got into running at that time. Still, small apartment = no space for tons of old running sneakers littering the floor.

Wish me luck.

Post 23: Things I Wish I Did More of This Summer

The theme of the day seems to be social awkwardness.

There's no easy way to say this, but I wish I had more friends. If you are reading this, you're probably a friend a therefore exempt. I was hoping that a summer off with a baby would magically get rid of the social awkwardness and that I'd be going out on lots of play dates, meeting other people with kids. My mommy groups have been great, and I've been able to meet lots of new women, but I never seem to be able to make that transition from meeting at a particular place and time to "hey, let's go out for coffee." I see these women in the neighborhood all the time, and we chit chat, so I seem good at making acquaintances, but not friends.

How DO you make friends as an adult? As a kid, it seems like you are constantly thrown in these situations where you get to meet other people or you can just go knock on someone's door and ask if they want to ride bikes. And then there's college where everyone knows no one, so you naturally gravitate toward people like you. After college, though, there's work and....?

A friend of mine moved to a new city with her family and made up business cards with her contact information that she gave to people that she thought were cool. She recreated a whole network of friends and acquaintances within a few months. I admire someone that can do that and can naturally go out and meet people, but the idea of me doing it makes me just cringe.

Still, Zygote at least gives me a conversation starter, so we're going to try another group today and see if we can make a friend.

Post 22: Additional Dumb Shit That I Say

In trying to pay attention to the "likes," I've noticed an overabundance of "it's kind of funny..." followed by stories that are not actually funny and aren't meant to be funny. It's the modern girl's version of "no offense."

Post 21: Networking

YG and I went to a networking event downtown last night. Our dinner plans were cancelled and we already had a babysitter lined up, so we figured what the hell. Networking is one of those words that makes me cringe. I know you need to do it to find jobs. I know that you're more likely to get a job from someone you know. And I know that you need to meet people in order to get to "know" them. I know all this stuff, and I still hate it.

Networking brings out the worst of my social awkwardness and brings me back to my middle school days when you wonder who you're going to sit with at lunch. At these events, I always assume that everyone knows each other, is easily carrying on tons of scintillating conversation, and does not want an interruption from a dorky outsider. It's worse going with YG because he's Mr. Big Man on Campus and a relentless networker -- he has a natural kind of social ease and can get even the most boring and awkward people to talk. I usually stall out after "what do you do" and "what do you want to do." I then mumble my way into the "where are you from" and eventually land on the weather, where most conversations go to die.

It actually wasn't that bad. We set a goal of collecting five business cards before we walked in, and I work well with goals. I had a glass of wine so that I'd have something to carry and lubricate myself to be a little less lame, and I set off. I had lots of conversations with laid off investment bankers and people in the financial services industry, one fun conversation with a woman who had started her own event planning business, and only one painfully awkward one with a person in "educational leadership." A lot of the women talked about needing to find something more flexible because they have kids which was expected, but still depressing. YG rescued from a conversation with some douchebag financial analyst obviously looking to pick up women, and then we left and had dinner "al fresco" at Upstairs on the Square.

Overall, it wasn't that bad. Knowing that YG was there and watching me forced me into conversations, as opposed to hiding out in the bathroom. I had a lot of trouble answering the question, "so, what do you want to do?" I really have no idea. I still like PR, but I know it's time for me to get out of high tech. Suggestions welcome.

Post 20: Reading I Have Enjoyed This Summer

The best part about being home with Zygote this summer was that I had more time to read than normal. My summer list included:

1. Cconsider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace -- When DFW died, I felt like a bit of an ass because he is supposedly one of the voices of my generation and I hadn't read anything by him. The title essay was fantastic, but the piece on John McCain's 2000 bid was even better. I now want to tackle Infinite Jest.

2. Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It by Andrea Buchanan -- My friend, Sarah, sent this to me when I had Zygote saying that it helped her through the early weeks of motherhood. I read this collection of essays my first few weeks with Zygote, while she slept on our walks through the neighborhood. It took me forever to finish it because she screamed a lot during those weeks, but I found it infinitely relatable.

3. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld -- Light beach read. I loved Prep, so I was expecting more, but this was nice for Long Island.

4. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb -- As with all his books, I adored this. It took a while to get going, but it was worth it. The characters are so developed and the plot details are intricate. It could be cheesy, but it never is.

5. The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter -- The best way I can describe this book is ....interesting? A few friends gave it rave reviews, but because I don't normally like mysteries, it sat on my shelf for three years. I still don't know if I liked it, but it was 672 pages and I couldn't put it down. That's saying something.

6. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose -- This is normally the kind of book that I love. I'm a big fan of reading about doing things as opposed to actually doing them. I liked the focus on sentences and paragraphs, getting back to grammar basics, since it's something that I'm terrible at. I also liked the examples, but had a hard time relating to passages that I hadn't read before. It's not a guidebook, though. Another plus is that I now have another list of books that I'd like to read, including giving Chekov another shot.

7. The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer -- I haven't finished this yet, but it also falls under the category of Books That I Am Not Sure I Like But Still Can't Put Down. It's about a group of friends who all gave up their careers to raise their children and what they are thinking and feeling ten years in. I don't particularly like the characters and find them very snooty and whiny and over educated and navel gazing. But, cough, also highly relatable.

I'm hoping to tackle a few more in the next week, and of course, keep it up once I return to work.

Edited to add: Relatable is not really a word? See above about grammar and me.

Post 19: Does This Count?

I laughed out loud.
And then cringed a little because I am such a corporate yuppie.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Post 18: I Don't Know What to Write About

That isn't entirely true, but I feel like I would need a novel to get into everything swirling around in the brain right now. I know that I want to write about how conflicted I feel about going back to my job (not about working, but going back to work that I don't feel that passionate about and that I'm not doing particularly well at). I also want to write about the first three weeks after we brought Zygote home from the hospital because I'm finally far enough away from that to talk about it. And I want to write more about Zygote.

But all of that stuff is HEAVY. No queef stains or fart waffles in that.

Please leave suggestions in the comments section if you would like to hear me rant on a particular topic. I think that would actually be a good job for me -- ranting.

For now, I'll go back to walking around with bluebirds on my shoulder and rays of sunshine coming out of my ass.

Post 17: Found Items That Bring Back Good Memories

While I was in New Jersey last weekend, I found the perfect item that provided a snapshot of a brief few months of my life. I have been using the same planner format from Daytimer since I started college. It's the one page per day format, and if they ever discontinue it, this whole facade of an organized life will crumble.

I was searching around for something to read while waiting for my parents' impossibly slow computer to load, and I found my planner circa 1997. On the outside, there were two stickers for Mil Mulliganos and Too Hectic, and inside, flipping through the planner pages, I found:

1. Directions to Wilmington, North Carolina and a phone number for the Fountain Motel. BB and I drove down to the WE Fest to watch Mil Mulliganos and The Sidedoor Johnnies perform that summer. We were also running from the roommate incident from Hell. Both of were all hung up about making sure that we had a place to stay with a pool and found the motel online. After a full day of driving, we found the motel and the pool AND the Interstate and the gas station both were next to. If you leaned on the headboards in that place, you would stick.

A quick Google search informs me that the WE Fest still exists and is described as "an artist driven celebration of up and coming musicians and independent culture, featuring more than 70 bands from around the country and the world." It should not be confused with the other WEFest, some sort of country music event.

I have pictures from this trip, and I am always wearing platform sandals. Also, a green floral bikini with boy shorts. Disturbing. I also remember a night at a bar where some idiot told BB she looked like Tori Spelling. She does not.

2. Plane ticket stubs to Chicago. I took a number of trips to Chicago to visit my then boyfriend. He was living with his band. He supposedly had an air mattress, but it was really a pool raft. I slept on the raft because that's what you do when you are cool enough to have a boyfriend in a band and you get to fly out and visit him. I also remember their favorite bar in the neighborhood and the cool people that worked there.

3. A big "21" scrawled in marker across the page for my birthday. The Mulliganos were back in Syracuse, playing at Chuck's. At midnight on Sept. 4, we went down to Armory Square so that I could have my first legal beer and then some. On my actual birthday, I wore a polyester leopard print shirt and two of the roommates from 850 made me a big leopard 21 that I wore as a necklace. I drank a lot of beer. The insane roommate fell off our porch and bit off part of her tongue. I have a picture of NN and KL in our house, looking all "are we dating or just hanging out?" Now they're married with two kids.

4. Postcards from different art students that lived in the Red House. I thought my life would be complete if I could be "arty" enough to be considered for The Red House. I still have a plastic beer cup from one of their last parties. It's a frat house now.

5. A post-it note that says "hand in assignment to Hubbard." Hubbard was one of our magazine professors and I believe he was my advisor for a while. NN and I were in a class together with a number of other women named Jennifer and a few faces from the Feminist Collective. He called us the coffee clatch because we all sat together.

I really miss college sometimes.

Post 16: Health Care Debate vs. The Anus Bandit

I like to think that I'm a fairly intelligent person. I watch the news. I read the paper. I'm somewhat well-informed. I had a dream about a brilliant post that I was going to write concerning the healthcare debate and how I see this more as a moral issue than a political one. It was super -- clear, articulate, etc. All the things I was hoping that this blog would be.

And then I spent more time than necessary flipping through Creative Cursing: A Mix 'n' Match Profanity Generator, and anything intelligent I had to say slipped out the window. YG's niece received this book as a 21st birthday present, and we got such a kick out of it that I made a special trip to Urban Outfitters to buy our own copy. The fact that it's stocked at Urban Outfitters should tell you that I am too old for this shit.

Still, YG and I laugh so hard that we now have a word of the day. Last night's was anus bandit. Say it with me -- anus bandit. Awesome.

Other recent favorites:
Fart Waffle
Rectum Diddler
Queef Stain
Boob Licker

Some people end up with book deals because of their blogs. I suspect this will not happen with anything that includes an anus bandit.

Post 15: Like More Dumb Shit That I Say

A list of other idiotic phrases I've noticed myself saying in my attempts to speak like a literate adult.

1. Yeah, but....
When there's a break in the conversation for a bit. It's my version of "as I was saying."

2. I mean...
Of course I mean it. I'm saying it.

3. Literally...
Incorrectly.

4. Dude, totally...
I do not surf.

5. Ya know?

6. It's like...
A like, but somehow more annoying.

7. Do I even need to mention the swearing? You know me.

WHY DID YOU PEOPLE NOT TELL ME THAT I SOUND LIKE AN ILLITERATE OAF?

Like seriously, in my head, I sound much smarter. Dude.

Post 14: BREAKING NEWS REPORT -- Foot Discovered in Suburban New Jersey

Whippany, NJ -- Two feet were discovered earlier this morning after several unsuccessful attempts to locate them.

The discoverer, a three month old child named Zygote, located the feet at approximately 9:01 a.m. ET this morning. She described the event as "gaaahh.."
Onlookers noted that she seemed quite proud of the achievement, with continuous shouts and smiles.

Attempts to place the feet in the child's mouth have been unproductive thus far.

Post 13: Like Seriously with the Likes

If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you most likely saw the video that my good friend, SKB, posted of Zygote doing...well, nothing. Zygote is staring, immobile, and SKB and I are talking in the background. SBK is, as usual, hilarious and in between my own daily 5 minutes of funniness, I noticed a horrible, glaring defect. Like a totally awful defect like. Like it was totally like gross.

My love of "like."

I've long known that I use the word "like" way too often. I took a public speaking class to try and help with it and I try to catch myself. But it always slips in. "Like" has replaced "said" in almost all my stories and it's become a replacement for all my other "ums," "uhs" and "ya knows." I was hoping that people couldn't notice, or that if they did, they were so utterly taken with my wit and charm that they let it slide.

Then I saw that video, and holy shit, am I mortified. I sound RIDICULOUS. I am 33 years old and I used the phrase "like, oh my god" for real. I have a Masters Degree. In Communications. Something is not right here.

I asked YG for his opinion on me and my likes, and when his response was "honestly?" I knew that I have a serious problem here. He says that it is fairly rampant, but because I make up for it with that aforementioned wit and charm, it's just one more of my lovable quirks. Hmmmm....He says he notices it most when I "prattle." Hmmm again. He's not an asshole, and even if I tried, there's no way I could convince the world that Mr. Eagle Scout/Good Citizen of the World YG was an asshole. I appreciate him because he will give an honest opinion, and when he says that I should work on something because it could be holding me back, I know it's the truth.

So...I'm working on it. And it's hard. Now I stop talking when I catch a "like" so instead of just sounding like an idiot, I now sound like an idiot with a speech impediment. Progress, not perfection.

The world would be so much easier if I didn't need to communicate with other humans.

Post 12: Three Months and 9/11

Zygote is three months old today. It seems weird to celebrate on a date that will always be associated with something bad. More on that in a bit.

First, Zygote is fabulous. She has grown into an engaging little person that I enjoy spending time with. She has crazy big eyes that follow you around a room, and even though I know it's not possible, I imagine that we are communicating when we stare at each other -- that we GET each other. She likes grabbing at things, especially her purple dinosaur, and everything goes immediately into her mouth. I suspect that my laissez faire attitude about germ prevention is going to have to change soon or else she's going to end up with Ebola or some other insane disease. We still go for walks every day and have a routine where we walk down to Harvard Square, browse the bookstores, get a cupcake and then have a feed on Cambridge Common. I'm sad that this will change once the weather gets colder and I have to go back to work. We've traveled quite a bit with her and she mainly sleeps in the car, but will kick her feet a bit when the music plays. The Beatles are a favorite, along with Fiona Apple and Cat Power. She screams when she's tired and hungry, and well, so do I. Or I wish I could. Basically, I love her to pieces and can't imagine her changing, but I'm looking forward to those changes too.

Second, her three month anniversary marks the 8 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It's hard to imagine that my child will have no understanding of a pre 9/11 world. YG said the other night, "I hate the post 9/11 world."

I was watching the coverage this morning and had to turn it off. It was always devastating, but now, having Zygote and imagining all those people who lost their children...it feels different. I couldn't quite handle it.

I'm back in Whippany again which is where I was on 9/11. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and had made it in to work to watch everything unfold on t.v. I couldn't get back to my apartment so I stayed in Whippany, waiting in the house by myself until my parents came home.

I tried to write a story about my experience of that day for one of my classes, but the feedback that I got was that I lost my voice -- that it wasn't funny and it wasn't me. I have a really hard time trying to figure out how you write a funny 9/11 story, but when the teacher asked me why I chose to wrote about 9/11, I told her that this dumb fuck that I work with was chastizing me for allowing the MG to ride the T because "you know, 9/11." I guess I was extremely animated in retelling the story and how I tore this woman a new one, and the teacher suggested I write about that or at least my animosity toward a certain breed of suburban woman who won't allow her child to play in the yard or take a dump by himself lest there be terrorists lurking around somewhere. I don't know. It still seems wrong. It seems wrong to even write about it here.

I do know that I will never forget, and maybe that's all that is important. I don't need to retell it.

Post 11: Birthday Weekend

For someone feeling kind of maudlin at the start of the weekend, it ended up being fab.

Zygote's present to me was sleeping until 5:30 on Friday night, allowing me to function unlike the walking dead on my actual birthday. We packed up the car and headed out to Walden Pond where we found a spot under the trees. YG and I took turns laying on the blanket, playing with Z and reading, and swimming in the water with the MG. It was a perfect summer day -- blue sky, not too hot and the water temperature was "warm" by New England standards. I left feeling warm and freckly, my favorite summer feeling.

After returning home, YG took the girls out for a walk and I went and got a pedicure, a screaming pink color. The woman at the salon remembered that I was getting a I'm-going-to-have-a-baby pedicure the last time I visited and told me how nice I looked. Win! I spent the rest of the afternoon in a quiet house, journaling and drinking wine. YG and the girls came home with a bouquet of sunflowers and hydrangea (my favorite) and we went out for Indian food and people watching in the Square. Followed by cupcakes and the MG's presents at home. She gave me a beautiful pair of earrings and a "to-do list" pad, a gift after my own heart. YG's present would come later.

On Sunday morning, YG gave me time to get in a 2.5 mile run before church and brunch. His sister came over for babysitting duties at 2:30, and he wisked me off to my surprise destination. I asked what we were doing. His response, "what are two of your favorite things?" Well, eating, obviously, and shopping. It pains me to write that. I feel like I should say that my favorite things include visiting art galleries and attending poetry readings and debating philosophy with my professorial friends. And, true, I do like those things, but dudes, I'm from Jersey. I LOVE the mall.

So, we went to the mall, or the Boston equivalent, the Prudential Center. YG knew that I needed a dress for his sister's upcoming wedding and some back-to-work clothes. Most of my clothing post-Zygote is weirdly ill-fitted, and I was hating on my mom pooch and hips and anything else I could think of to bitch about. He escorted me from store to store, helping me pick out dresses, sitting patiently while I tried them on and offering decent advice. We left with one beautiful Calvin Klein dress for the wedding, a pair of jeans sans elastic waist band, a courderoy blazer, two sweaters and a scarf. I was giddy, and felt good about myself. He really is the best gift giver ever.

We had martinis and then dinner at Top of the Hub and were back home by 8:30 p.m. Not a rock star evening, but a great one regardless.

Today, he went biking and I went running again and we took the girls out for lunch again. Now we're all just lounging around, basking in hangover of a long weekend.

This Is What A Relationship Looks Like: Accent Edition

Lying in bed, playing with Zygote, who is immune to all of our tactics to make her laugh:

SG: Z, why are you so humorless this morning?
(Z stares)
YG: Because she's missing the "h" in humorless.
(Glare)

Hahhhhhumorless.

Post 10: Thirty Three

I haven't been looking forward to this birthday. I haven't been dreading it either. It's just there. Thirty three. It's not a milestone birthday or anything special -- it's just, to be over dramatic, a marker that another year has passed. I sometimes wake up and think, "how did I get to be this old?" Not that 33 is old, but I feel like I should FEEL older in some ways, and most of the time, I still feel like a kid in adult clothes.

So, a gratitude list if you will, of things that are working for me at 33:
* My beautiful girl and the successful, interesting pregnancy and labor that brought her here
* YG
* the MG
* my family, as far away as they are
* a great apartment in a fabulous city
* running again
* reading lots of books during my time off
* dribs and drabs of writing
* an uneasy truce with how I look
* my other two children, the cats
* summer nights in Davis Square
* and countless other everyday moments that would be uninteresting to most people but me

The big hole is that I feel largely...unfinished. My return-to-work date is now looming over, and I dread going back. It has absolutely nothing to do with the job or the people. The work is fine, and I actually really love my coworkers. I just feel like I've wasted over a decade doing work that I don't enjoy and that the time is slipping away. And that if I don't figure out something else to do soon, it won't be a decade that I wasted, but rather a life. Most of you that read know that I've been complaining about the same thing for years, but with each passing year, it seems more urgent. And it caught up to me, to some extent. In my horrible-for-many-reasons review this year, I was asked, point blank, "Do you even want to be here?" There is no problem with my work or my work ethic. The problem, I was told, is that people get the sense that I don't want to be there and it's that -- this weird lack of commitment to the fact that this IS my life and my job -- that is keeping me stuck in the bowels of middle management. It hurt. Because it was unbelievably true.

YG scolds me when I say that I have "wasted" a decade of my life and reminds me of all the things that I have accomplished. I also remind myself that it took a while to get the other things that I am truly grateful for like a husband that I respect and who treats me well, and a place to live where I truly feel comfortable. It took me the better part of a decade to figure those things out, and it's going to continue to take time to figure out where I belong work-wise.

The good thing is that 33 doesn't feel too old. I feel like I have a good balance between wondering how the hell I ended up an adult and feeling like 33 is still just the beginning of a lifetime, that I have time to work things out and navel gaze a bit more.