Anything Said: May 2008

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Brain power

Observe me not packing. Also, not preparing. I am telling you, I have worked my interview powerpoint so hard that if I look at it any more I might turn into a 12-point Times New Roman hyperlink and float away. The interview is on Monday. I probably won't have any more time to think about it between now and then. Which is good. Honestly, now that I've put so much into this, what with the lecture and the handouts and the worksheets and the ubiquitous practice-interview-questions (Am I a people person? Mais oui!) and all, I'm feeling a bit more attached to the idea of possibly getting the job. And getting the job, I must stress, would be one hell of a long shot. Gotta take a few steps back, pack a couple of boxes, drink a beer, go make a down payment on a house. You know. As you do.

Part of me, I think, has enjoyed the process of studying up for this interview. I don't think I have been challenged for quite some time (professionally, that is -- the Former Fetus kicks my ass with a steel-toed boot on a regular basis). It feels good to think, to be critical of my work, to nitpick small details and perfect something. Even if this job doesn't pan out for me, it's been nice to turn my brain on again.

This is going to seem like a big fat random leap, but stick with me here: do any of y'all read Bitch Magazine? I know that a few of you do but I'm guessing a lot do not -- it's polarizing and kinda ugly and only comes out four times a year. I subscribe, and I have a love/hate relationship with the rag. I was reading the current issue yesterday, though, on a break from my powerpointing, and it suddenly dawned on me why it is that I keep on paging through the thing even when it pisses me off or annoys me. It's because Bitch Magazine turns my brain on, too.

Like this issue, there's a piece on the absence of women of color in the world of "mom-blogs." The article talked about all the navel-gazing that goes on in mom-blogs, how we (yes, we, begrudgingly) agonize and gnash our teeth over whether or not we are doing right by our kids by working-slash-not working, how we let the media cast us in these made-up mommy wars, while all the while we fail to realize that we're a bunch of predominantly comfortable white women fully ignoring the experiences of mothers of color who make up a huge percentage of the workforce and who historically have not been given the same "to stay-at-home-mom or not to stay-at-home-mom" options. Dude. I won't elaborate more because I'm a navel-gazing white woman and I'll just fuck it up, but if you're a prone-to-bitching mom who blogs like myself, take a gander at your blogroll. I don't know about yours, but mine's looking pretty monochromatic, at least the mom-segment of it anyway.

And then, AND THEN. There was this piece last issue, or maybe the issue before that, about domestic discipline. We're talking about educated, successful women who ask their male (at least in this article) partners to spank them -- not for sexual pleasure, which the gender studies minor in me feels moderately prepared to support, but to discipline them for their self-admitted transgressions. Like, they want to get better at something, fix a bad habit, what have you, and their husbands and boyfriends help them achieve their goals by smacking their asses like petulant children. And I'm reading this article, right? And the article is in Bitch Magazine, so I'm telling myself "Honoring women's diverse lifestyle choices is a true feminist principle," and "This system is designed in a safe way that allows women to reclaim authority by turning it on its head" and meanwhile all I can think is These bitches want to be spanked when they're bad! What is going ON??

Am I making any sense at all here? I'm saying it kind of rocks to be made uncomfortable, to have to think about stuff and work it through.

Whatever. If you don't understand the link between powerpoint and ass-slapping, I don't know how I can make it any clearer for you.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Among her people

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

In which I whine

People. I am o. ver. whelmed.

I had to break up with my therapist and my hairdresser this week, in that order. Do I really have to explain that the therapist was harder? I dissolved into a puddle of need at our final appointment last night. She kept trying to play her closure cards and I refused to accept them. She gave me a hug as I left, which was very un-therapisty of her, and exactly what I needed.

The hairdresser breakup was just, like, "Thanks for the 'do; have a nice rest of your life."

On Thursday I am breaking up with my job. There was the party last week, and then there's another party -- the one that happens at the office, the one where the people who never talk to you feel obliged to attend -- this Thursday followed by a dinner. I'm walking around the library wishing I could disappear a little bit, feeling very conspicuous and just wanting to move it all along. I will miss the people and the familiarity of my routine; I won't miss that place. I sure as hell won't miss that commute.

By a week from Saturday, we need to be all packed and ready to move. Right now, we are not.

Next Thursday, we close on our first home.

This Saturday and Sunday, we have a family reunion (mine, on my dad's side; it will be Cletus' first frolic with the Amish). It is ill-timed, to say the least. Clearly someone didn't get the memo that it's all about me.

And as of a couple days ago, I have a job interview in New Collegetown Home. It is going to be held the Monday after we move. It involves me preparing and delivering a one-hour library-related presentation. In the midst of a move. With an almost-two-year-old who cannot quench her thirst for temper tantrums.

Let's talk about this again when it's all just a humiliating footnote.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

A going-away present, freshly withdrawn from my library's collection

Last Thursday my library homies threw me a going-away party. Here's what I got:

Come on, take a look inside. It's as delightful as you might imagine:

This next one comes with an illustration:

And of course, everyone's favorite:

They also got me this:

It was a good party.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Press the pound key for more options

Ok, so you know how when corporate groups or community organizations want to make their staff sit through customer service training, they always bring in some asshole from a major company like AT&T or Walmart to give a presentation? Like, at my library's last all-staff inservice, they brought in a higher-up from a major grocery store chain to talk to us about making our customers feel happy and appreciated? Except that said major grocery store chain is known for offering high prices and crappy service? Just like how most major companies treat their customers like numbers and make them wait in long lines to get served by underpaid and undertrained and undersupervised employees or make them sit on hold listening to instrumental versions of Beyonce songs before transferring them to "Julie, the automated customer service rep" who will force them to shout things like "Yes. No. NO. Speak to an agent. SPEAK TO AN AGENT!" and then ultimately disconnect them? And yet those same companies all purport to offer unmatched customer care and have gold fucking stars plastered all over their websites and answer your call (after you've been on hold for a good ninety days) by saying something like "Thank you for calling Blah, making customers happy one at a time, how can I fulfill your needs today?"

I just spent about two hours setting up and cancelling accounts with utilities companies.

I mean, why even bother with the whole "WE CARE" song and dance? Automated customer service rep Julie is not asking for my home phone number so she can "better address my request" -- she's asking to make things easier for the phone rep who will pull up my account on the computer, take my call, and then ask me for my phone number AGAIN to confirm. The electric company's hold music advises me to try effecting my transaction on their website, so I obey. But the website is a mess and keeps insisting that I want to start service when really all I want to do is stop service. This makes me feel 90 years old and confused, so I call them back on the phone, and when I finally get off hold and explain to the phone rep what I'd like to do, she asks me if I might like to hang up and have my request fulfilled online "for my convenience."

When I call the gas company to have my gas shut off, some twelve-year-old answers with a three minute long "how can i make your wildest dream a reality on behalf of the fine folks who lovingly deliver your heat" spiel which she delivers in a flat monotone while chewing gum or, perhaps, Skoal. Do I even have time to get into this here? I mean, just, WHY? Like, who believes that the gas company is remotely concerned with the desires of my heart? What am I going to do if I'm disappointed with their care? Take my money to their competitor, a little company known as Freezing To Death?

Just drop the act, you know? I don't want to hear you read your script, I just want you to say "What do you want?" Then I want to tell you what I want and I want you to make it happen. If you feel the need to take a couple of minutes to try and sell me some shit, feel free. I can appreciate that there's probably some kind of commission involved and I respect your family's right to thrive. Then after I politely reject your extra offers, I'd like to draw your attention back to the issue at hand, and I'd like you to respond with prompt action and a confirmation number. Not one of those U-Haul imaginary confirmation numbers that leave you carrying boxes to your Hyundai on moving day -- a real one, one that you're typing in somewhere, one that I can use. Then I'd like to call it a day.

Oh, and when I give you my forwarding address for my last bill and you ask me "Is that an apartment or a house?" and I say "IT'S A HOUSE, MY HOUSE, MINE MINE MINE," I expect you to align with the "Don't Hate; Congratulate" school of thinking. Maybe you can even lend me one of those gold stars.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

It's Sunday and it's raining and I don't have to leave the house

"Do you ever have those moments in life...where everything is ok? Do you know what I mean?

Just for, like, one moment everything is great?"

"Not since I graduated, no. But, yeah...yeah... When you, like, catch yourself in a moment,

and you're saying, wait, I'm happy here in the moment."

"Right. And then it just goes away really quickly."

"Gone."

"I know I've had a couple of those, you know. I always forget them, but I know I've had them."

"Oh, me too. Like... right now, is one."

"Yeah. Like now."

If I have to tell you where that's from, you and I would not have been friends in 1994.

I only have two more weeks to work at my current soul-suckage of a job. Only two more weeks of commuting two hours a day. I can't tell you what that does for my frame of mind.

I've been watching a lot of movies lately, instead of doing what I should be doing which is packing and preparing and ordering appliances and buying a year's worth of dry goods from Trader Joes. I saw Lars and the Real Girl, from which I was expecting nothing. It was almost unbearably good. Sweet and smart and crazy. I saw Margot at the Wedding and Rendition. They depressed me. I saw The Savages and was disappointed. Philip Seymore Hoffman is one of my fantasy boyfriends, along with Bono and Mark Ruffalo and Jon Stewart and Steve Nash, and this movie was supposed to be all funny and moving and really it pretty much just made me sleepy. The husband and I watched There Will Be Blood. It took us two nights. We had to turn it off about ninety minutes in when I started to doze off, not because I was bored or didn't like it -- more because it was the kind of movie that seemed to require a little more processing than I was able to give. We finished it the next day and boy howdy -- the last ten minutes are the kind of batshit crazy that only comes around once in a great while. Good stuff.

The husband and I also finished season 2 of Angel on DVD. It almost filled my Buffy hole. We're saving season 3 for after the move. As you do.

Last night I went out to see Baby Mama with Jen. We went to the late show at 9:30. I got downtown a little early, parked my car and walked down the street to the theater to meet Jen. It was dark and all these kids were out, standing around in groups laughing, carrying Starbucks cups, filling up the whole sidewalk. It felt like I was the oldest person around; it felt like I was walking around in this hidden subculture I knew nothing about. I am never out past 9:00 anymore. I am rarely out past 7:00. I tried to explain this to Jen when she arrived, but she looked at me like I was crazy. I think it's because she has a life.

I have not done the research (read: googling), but I can't imagine that Baby Mama is going over too well with the infertile and TTC communities, by the way. Gotta love those magical pregnancies that spring forth from nowhere.

This morning I got to sleep in until the glorious hour of 9:30. I woke to the sound of my daughter pounding on something, I know not what, with drumsticks. The husband made me waffles and turkey bacon and I managed to shield a good 2/3 of it from the pathetic begging of the child and the dog. I got to take a long shower, scrub my face, finish off with my mother's day present -- the stupid-expensive organic face moisturizer I've been guiltily wanting. Now I'm blogging while the husband is off playing soccer in the pouring rain. Later I will lounge and read trashy magazines and eat sushi. Sometimes even I have to admit: life is good. Happy mama's day, all, to you and the nice ladies who birthed you.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Oh no she di'int

Oh yes she did!

Sketchy McBetterbusinessbureaupants emailed me yesterday to share that she will be showing the apartment from 3-5 PM on Sunday. That's Mother's Day to those of us with a soul. I emailed her back, all "Look, I know you don't celebrate Mother's Day in your house because that would mean you'd have to let the kids out of the attic, but my family actually loves me and I plan to spend the day being lauded and feted and generally drooled on in the comfort of my own home. Which is currently this apartment. Let me call your attention to Exhibit A: your fat wallet stuffed with my cash. As long as nothing's broken, I get to rock this place how and when I please."

Bitch did not respond.

But she did call my phone this morning to leave a message about all the showings she planned on doing today while I was at work. I had already blown the joint, so I did not have a chance to properly skankify all exposed surfaces. This will be remedied post-haste.

In other news, my library is in the midst of an end-of-the-fiscal year spending spree, wherein librarians in my position are encouraged to order books with wild abandon, paying no attention to critical reviews, quality, or price. It's wasteful and mired in bureaucratic bullshit and, as such, in the past few days I have taken this unchecked opportunity to offer The Man the following additions to the collection, in response: a 500-page tome on transgender history, an anthology of feminist Vietnamese poetry, a treatise on gay marriage, the Go Fug Yourself book, an Icelandic cookbook, and a couple of manuals on how to speak Africaans. Because if there's one area in which white suburban Illinois needs to build skills, it's the language of oppression.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

We get cultured

We have yet to hang any signs, but after we left the apartment yesterday for the afternoon showings and returned to find that Shady McSlumlord had picked up Cletus' toys and sprayed some kind of stanky cleanser into our freshly mildewed air, we made sure to position mousetraps in prime locations around the kitchen.

In other news...

Tickets to the Field Museum? $28.00. Gassing up the car for the 45-minute drive to the city in bumper-to-bumper traffic? $30.00. Parking at the Field Museum? $15.00. Acquiring enough fruit leather and pretzels to mollify a stroller-contained toddler for roughly one hour while parental units gaze upon dinosaur bones? $5.00.

Getting off the highway at the first exit and scrapping the whole plan in favor of going for coffee and then sitting in a bookstore reading Tori Spelling's autobiography (me) and a paperback about punk rock (him) while Cletus damaged merchandise we were not about to pay for, all before going out for a dinner of hot dogs and cheese fries? Priceless.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Tenants at will

As our many, many years of renting draw to a close this month, I'd like to take a moment to thank all the fine folks who made this bliss called "Throwing Money Into a Fucking Hole" possible. First I'd like to thank my husband and myself, for deciding to spend our post-college years living in large metropolitan areas while engaged in a combination of grad school, post-docs, and dead-end jobs, thus rendering us both poor and transient, two excellent qualities well-suited to longterm renting. Next I'd like to thank my Tivo, my Netflix subscription, and the various and sundry strangers who put the most recent season of the L-word up on Youtube, for robbing me of my ambitions and helping me realize how comfortable my couch really is. Without your help, I might have got off my ass and researched how much money I've lost to rent payments over the years -- but because you're always there to distract me with something shiny, I guess I'll just never know.

And finally, I'd like to thank those crazy kooks who made all the magic happen: our landlords. You guys! What are we going to do without you? (Besides be warm, be happy, and build equity, that is.) It seems like just yesterday that you, Washington DC Landlord, were ignoring my calls about the dirty water pouring through a ceiling leak into my kitchen. Hey -- remember that time when you refused to return my security deposit for no reason? That was fun! Oh, or how about all those times that you, Boston Landlord #2, drove by our apartment like a stalker to make sure our trash can was pulled back against the house the way you liked it? Or when you, Boston Landlord #3, fucked up the plumbing so that stuff from the garbage disposal came up through our bathtub drain, then sold the house and left us with Boston Landlord #4 who was about 12 years old but didn't let that stop him from raising the rent $200 and trying to kick us out? Ohhh, don't worry Chicago Landlord #1, I'm not forgetting about you! Why, just the other day I was reminiscing about all the good times we shared with you and the mouse infestation and the kitchen scattered with pots to catch the melting snow dripping in through the rotted-out roof that you refused to fix.

Given all these fond memories I hold so dear, you can imagine my joy at receiving an email today from my current landlord, listing the approximately 305 showings she has scheduled over the next 3 days for the apartment we are about to vacate. I checked Craigs List for the apartment listing to see if it makes any reference to the ridiculous paying-the-heat-bill-for-the-whole-house arrangement -- you know, the one she innocently "forgot" to mention to us or to include in our lease -- and *SURPRISE* it does not. The listing also mentions a dishwasher (the dishwasher does not work and is missing its bottom panel) and "good privacy" (I generally know what my upstairs neighbors are eating for dinner on a given night based on the sound of their chewing carried through the paper-and-cardboard walls).

In the spirit of togetherness, with a heart that fervently yearns to promote the goodwill of my fellow renter and to strike down oppressive forces, I am trying to embolden myself to hang signs bearing the following messages:

Hung above the thermostat--
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
Someone's paying the heating bill for this entire house even though they don't know it yet
And that person is you."

Hung in the kitchen--
"Do you want this malfunctioning dishwasher, dangling cupboard door, exposed pipework, and crumbling molding to be repaired before the day you move in? Guess what?? SO DID WE!!"

Hung on my person via a sandwich board--
"Ask me about the snake who just handed you a rental application."

I welcome any additional suggestions. Because dressing stuffed animals in lingerie and writing "BALLS!" all over the kitchen dry-erase board just didn't do it for us last time...