On Notice, now with more stank

So this is Christmas

Last December, after a solid week of Christmas celebrations and food and gifts and family, we sat, stopped in traffic on 95 for the third time in days, I turned to my husband and leaned my head into my arm resting on the divider between seats.   With an exhausted sigh, I moaned into my elbow the same promise made every late December.

“We are not doing this again.”

Every year, we swear we’re going to escape to some remote tropical island and sip adult beverages, look at palm trees, and pretend Christmas isn’t happening. But every year, we instead pack the car and sleep in the rooms of our childhood.

It is hard to argue with people who love you.  It’s even worse when you hear “but it might be (insert elderly relative/sick relative’s name here) last holiday.  We might not ever be all together again.”  That kind of guilt weighs down the heart of a girl who lost her grandfather one week before Christmas not many years ago, the same girl who missed his last Thanksgiving because it was the in-laws’ turn.

For almost a decade, we’ve negotiated and given and taken and driven and rushed from one family event to another, from one state to another, with a car full of gifts and suitcases and dog food.  We go willingly because we are thankful we have family who want to see us, and we want to see them.  But someone’s family is always left out, and someone’s Christmas morning doesn’t feel exactly correct.  The impossibility of trying to make everyone happy all at once (and failing miserably) makes for an exhausting start to the new year.

Somehow, the holiday season transformed into the obligation season.

“Oh,” everyone I asked for advice said, “when you have kids, when you have a family, then you can control what you do.  Then people will come to you.”  I patiently explained over and over that it doesn’t take children to be a family.  My husband and I are a family without kids for now, and we don’t require them to create our own traditions.  I got smirks and eyerolls and thought I would bust in the teeth of the next person who gave me the same lecture.

Last year, when we swore we weren’t doing it again, we meant it.  I wrote it down on a piece of paper and kept it in my wallet, my only resolution.  I swore I was going to put up the damn tree and some lights and actually be home to enjoy them and as 2009 progressed and kicked our asses over and over, I clung to my resolution like a life raft.

We decided to travel to Pennsylvania the weekend before Christmas, and zip up to northern Virginia on Christmas Day.  And then, we would have an entire week free to relax and putter around the house, go to the gym or not, drink bourbon and sleep late.  We could celebrate our anniversary on the 28th on the actual day, not three days or a month later.  (See?  We used to love Christmas so much we had a December wedding.  There were trees and lights and festivities and cheer.  We were merry, goddamnit.) Our teeny house is no tropical island, but we were giddy at the prospect of hibernating for an entire week just the same.

Then, the other shoe dropped and my in-laws asked us to go to Florida with them for Christmas. My heart broke a little, but I figured we’d solider on, that maybe next year would be the year. There was a fair amount of discussion and drama and handwringing and staring through my fingers in horror at yahoo travel’s stupid grid before it was determined that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.  We would celebrate with them when they returned. It would be ok.

This year will be different. It’s maybe the only resolution I’ve ever kept.

Halloween Costumes: A Cautionary Tale

Recently, I accidentally wandered into the halloween costume aisle at Target.  I quickly turned around and ran out of the store, sped home, and poured myself a big glass of Ketel One. The children screaming “but I WANNA be Hannah Montana, I don’t WANNA be a ladybug” made my ovaries retract.  This is why I have dogs. I can put them in a hot dog costume or slap a Darth Vader helmet on them, and all they can do is silently judge me and then surreptitiously poop in my bed.

After seeing this spectacle of expense and whining, I gained new appreciation for my mother.  She refused to buy Halloween costumes.  Her rule was that the costumes would be made, and they had to be warm because Pennsylvania October evenings do not lend themselves to temperate weather.  This was in the 80’s before global warming got so popular; I’m sure legions of little Pennsylvanians now run around dressed as mermaids and lifeguards and don’t even have to wear mittens.

Between Mom’s creative ingenuity and my grandmother’s seamstress skills, our costumes were all homemade and I also credit her for not really giving us a choice as to what we wanted to be.  If it couldn’t be sewn or put together from things around the house, then too bad.  No whining.  And I also can’t blame her, because I apparently did not understand the concept of a Halloween costume.  One year I dressed Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the next year, The Easter Bunny.  I started reading at the age of three, but apparently the concept of a calendar was too far above my head.

Here I am Christmas morning wearing my made-by-grandma Rudolph costume as pajamas. Which is an appropriate time to dress as a reindeer, not Halloween, but hey, kids are dumb.  Missing are the red clown nose and antlers made of branches (not kidding) as they were pretty painful to sleep in.  My mom is dressed as  a woman who was up half the night putting together a bicycle for an ungrateful daughter who will put horrible pictures of her on the internet 20-plus years later, and my little sister is dressed as a chubster mcchub. That look on my face, pretty sure I just heard a Wham! song for the first time.  Dad is the only smart one, as he’s not in the picture.  He was dressed as a dad.

Here I am dressed as St. Christina for All-Saints day at my Catholic school.  I also wore this as my trick or treating costume the night prior.  It’s costumes like this that made me stop going to church and turned me in to the 1998 UR Beach Week kegstand champion.

This is me.  At the age of eight. Dressed as Lawrence of Arabia. This is what happens when your parents leave you unattended with your other grandmother, who lets you stay up until the wee smalls watching old black and white movies.  Instead of Snow White, you dress up as Peter O’Toole. This costume has all the hallmarks of our halloween gear – sweatsuit base (note the rockin’ late 80s print sleeves), something my grandmother sewed out of sheets, and my mom’s belt. This is also pre-orthodontia. (I’ve left out pictures of the years I dressed as a Mexican man,  (complete with mascara-drawn mustache), Indian, and gypsy because they are just too insensitive and people will get their panties in a bunch.  Especially considering my husband is Cherokee and my great-great grandfather was an actual gypsy.  The 80s were a different time. No one got their panties in a bunch over anything.  Must have been all the cocaine.)

Here I am with my sister.  In a departure from the norm, she is wearing her dance recital costume OVER a sweatsuit.  Though this violated the rules, we didn’t actually have to buy anything for the costume, so apparently this was allowed.  The name of her costume is “Old Fashioned Lady” and the name of mine is “Ninja.”  Which is also, black sweatsuit and black mask.  There are throwing stars in my pumpkin.

These are probably our most memorable costumes.  I am that gorgeous butterfly there at the back of the line, and my sister is the frumpy little caterpillar bringing up the rear.  She was PISSED and who can blame her?  There was a lot of crying.  My grandmother made her costume and it’s a shame I don’t have a close-up, because she out did herself, down to the dangling legs and antennae. I am wearing (SHOCK) a black sweatsuit.  My mother created the wings from a refrigerator box and poster paint and would not let me help. This was at my cousin’s birthday party, and you can compare our costumes to those inferior store-bought ones in the picture.  That dalmatian especially is piss-poor execution.

Here we are, dressed as nurse and magician. We’re at other grandmother’s house, and that’s a picture of Jesus on the wall. Please note my old friend, the black sweatsuit.  Grandma made my cape.  Sister is wearing one of my dad’s shirts backwards over her sweats, with a belt.  Mom made her nurse cap from paper, and that’s a Fisher Price stethoscope.  I’ve replaced my throwing stars with a bunny; this was after my anger management classes concluded.

Here’s my sister, dressed as the Fire Chief.  Not just a regular fire man, the boss of all firemen. She’s wearing her sweats under her raincoat.  That’s a fire hat from our dressup clothes, and I think she’s got a piece of garden hose in her hand for authenticity.  She probably wanted to be something normal, like a princess, which would explain the look on her face.

And lest you think my mother didn’t get in on the fun herself, she’s in the back here.  Dressed as a construction worker. And the best mom ever.

Wonder Woman

The last few days at work will be filed in my filing cabinet in the folder labeled Things, They Are Ridiculous But At Least No One is Throwing a Dictionary At My Head.  It’s a pretty fat folder. But not quite as big as the one called Cheese I Wished I Had Eaten but Ate Egg Whites Because I Hate Wearing Spanx.  My label maker sees me coming some days and just starts weeping.  (Someone recently used it without asking and broke it and didn’t tell me.  When I finally get around to fixing it, I’m going to make a folder labeled People That I Hate and put that person’s  picture in the folder.  Along with Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin and Nancy Grace. I’ll move them out of their current folder, C-words Who Need Better Conditioner)

Here lately, I’ve been anxiety-ridden and tired and feeling Oh Mah God SO BUSY, I AM SO BUSY, DID YOU HEAR ABOUT HOW  BUSY I AM?  In case you haven’t heard I AM BUSY BUSY BUSY.  I have to constantly remind myself that no one cares. Nor should they, because busy does not mean I am better or important that anyone else. I’m hoping maybe I can make a convincing arguement that these dark circles under my eyes signify my one-woman crusade to bring back heroin chic. Calling forth the specter of mid-90s Kate Moss in her Calvin Klein underpants is much sexier than saying dude, I was up editing half the night.  Also, my eyes are brokedown like a Volkswagen. But still, no one cares.

Then, last night, while trying to process the weight of the list of things that everyone needs from me now NOW NOW or the world will apparently end, my husband said “I’m ready for another blog post from you.”  My first response was Whaaa? Really? Haven’t you gotten the memo about how I AM BUSY? I mean, I have all this work. So much work.  And there is laundry. And abandoned puppies that I have to find homes for or they will die.  I have to make protein muffins from scratch. We’re out of apples. And I have to dig shit out of the dog’s behind and dirt out of the other dog’s ears and iron my shirt for tomorrow and clean the floors and make dinner and there are stitches in my eyes and my god, I HAVE TO SEND THESE RIDICULOUS TWEETS ABOUT MAD MEN RIGHT NOW, so formulate your own damn blog post.

But I think he was trying to make a point. I do not want my tombstone to say “Here Lies Kristin, She Was Always Doing Stuff for Everyone Else and Then She Died. Also, She Drank a Lot of Starbucks”

Recently, I turned 30.  The  promise I made to myself for this birthday was to stop putting everything I love to do way back in the queue behind the things I feel compelled to do.  Keep in mind that I made this promise to myself pre-lunch at a swim-up pool bar in Jamaica right after downing six of these drinks called a Wonder Woman, and I will never forget their refreshing, delicious, tropical taste or how relaxed I was at that exact moment.  Possibly, I had significantly impaired judgment. More likely, it’s that saying I learned from the sampler grandma embroidered on a pillow- In Vodka, Find Truth.

So right there, on that perfect, warm January morning in paradise, to the strains of Bob Marley and the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of softly swaying palm trees, I banged my empty glass down on the bar and promised myself that I was going to let go.  Sometimes, the floor could stay dirty and my husband and I might go out on a Tuesday night.  I do not need to answer work emails after work is over or even immediately the next morning. I could say no. Every time I pack a suitcase, it would not have to contain every item I  might possibly need.  I would remember that sometimes, good enough is good enough. I had a Special Moment of Importance and Clarity.  I stopped just short of getting up on the bar and shouting Carpe Diem! Dylan Thomas! Slow Clap! while pumping my fists at all the pasty tourists from Ottawa.  Which is probably good, because those Canadians, they scare easy.

Then I came home from heaven and life intruded on my perfect little Dead Poets Society fantasy.  I got sucked back into the black hole of my own extreme competence and lapsed-Catholic guilt and curse of a strong work ethic. I wound up where I was last night – tired from waking up in a panic for the last several nights, crumpled on my sofa in a foul mood with sore eyes and a headache and a husband who was not so subtly trying to tell me to LET IT GO.  Wear a wrinkled shirt, do something you love, do something that matters, maybe do some writing or eat a block of cheddar.

And so I did.  I felt so much better.

It was like drinking a Wonder Woman instead of trying to be one.

I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles

I watched Mean Girls the other day for probably the tenth time, which should surprise no one, as I turn on  this movie any time it’s available.  I have a girl crush on Tina Fey, the same kind of crush I have on Anderson Cooper, the kind of crush that is not about making out but more about getting together and wearing fabulous shoes and trendy, geeky glasses and making snarky comments as we watch The Real Housewives of Whereever and eat crudite and swig Grey Goose straight from the bottle.  And I always sort of hope that as Tina gets drunker, she’d tell the carrots and celery to go fuck themselves and sit on my kitchen counter eating peanut butter out of the jar with her finger.  And Anderson would look on in horror.

I also watch this movie so I can weep for Lindsay Lohan, the Lindsay of the modern Parent Trap, the Lindsay before the Rachel Zoeification, shredded leggings, faux lesbianism and inablity to realize that anyone can actually see the things she’s tweeting.  She used to be so shiny and talented and normal.  I always hoped she’d overcome the fact that she has the worst mother in the world and win an Oscar nad wear a size eight dress to accept it and keep her red hair and BRING PEACE TO THE WORLD.  Or at least not succumb to the whole blonde, vapid, coked up not ever eating a sandwich thing that’s the current trend in Hollywood.  So yeah, sad.

But mostly I watch this movie over and over because I am this movie.  And every woman I know is this movie.  We keep perpetuating the same crimes against each other, and it’s wearisome.

I’ve been a victim of mean girls.  I remember the acute pain I felt in 7th grade when all of a sudden, the friends I had since 4th grade told me on the first day of school that I couldn’t sit at their lunch table.  I didn’t understand why.  I still don’t.  Maybe it was my big feet or my glasses.  They just arbitrarily cut me out of their circle, and now, 20 plus years later,  when they try to become my facebook friend, I reject them.

Through high school and college, which included a stint as sorority president (and it is every bit what you think it is) I experienced both sides of the Mean Girl phenomenon.  It’s made me wonder if the whole reason we’re so mean to each other is because we’re mean to each other.  I know in my case, in many instances, being awful was a first strike to avoid someone doing something awful to me.   The cycle perpetuates itself, creating Queen Bees and followers and boyfriend stealers and bitches and sluts and whores and cougars and pumas and lots and lots of psychological damage and hurt feelings.  And when this is the norm, when we’re terrible to each other because others were terrible to us, how does it ever stop?  Being horrible to someone else won’t make you feel any better about yourself, this is for sure.

Thankfully, I have cultivated some outstanding friendships now as an adult that have no trace of this awful mess, but it took some doing.  It was not easy for me to trust these ladies.  For quite a while, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, kept wondering when things would go sour.  But then…they didn’t.  I’ve discovered that friendships with women who you really trust are irreplaceable.  There is understanding and empathy that I’ve not found anywhere else, and I’m not entirely sure how I’ve survived without these things.  We should all have these kind of friends – everyone needs friendships like this,  not ones riddled with meanness and spite and ulterior motives.  Ladies, we all deserve someone to go to for support and no judgment when we want to kill our husbands or our bras don’t fit properly or our kids won’t stop screaming or our boss is being an asshole.  We need to let all the other shit go.

Because then we can all get together and eat crudite and swig vodka from the bottle and maybe scoop peanut butter from the jar with our fingers.

On notice

Whoa there

Someone sent me a few very nasty comments, which, hey, thanks for reading!  Come back next week and try the lunch special!

I should of course ignore them.  Instead, I will summarize the main points in a bulleted list, mostly because the original submission was so rife with grammatical errors and curses that I cannot bring myself to repeat it verbatim.

Based on that last post about my travel schedule, I am all of the following:

• An ungrateful biatch who should appreciate anything my job throws at me no matter what
• a horrible person to say these things when so many people (including the comment-writer) are out of work or stuck in horrible jobs they can’t leave
• a spoiled brat whose husband clearly is the breadwinner and has never had a terrible boss or a truly bad day

I get it.  I am immensely thankful for my job.  I enjoy it.  I am grateful every single day that I have gainful employment, amazing benefits, and the opportunity to use my brain at work and travel a bit and have a very cushy chair.  The constant travel and how it was affecting my life was my only concern, and that is fixed.  I wrote about it after the fact, after it was changed. I have no complaints – I have nothing but love for this job.  Especially IN THESE TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES. Because I guess now that we’re done putting everything in the context of Michael Jackson, we’re back to putting everything in the context of THESE TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES.

Part of the reason I appreciate my current situation so much is that I know how bad it can be.  In the past, I experienced some awful, toxic, soul-crushing work environments with the kinds of bosses who make you throw up in the morning before you go to work and cry on the way home.  And you can’t quit because you have bills to pay, and god, how endless they seem when you subtract one income, even though it might not be as big as your spouse’s. It becomes getting through one more day, one more hour, one more minute.  And yes, thank god I have a support system, thank god I have my husband, because when I got to the point where I had to force myself to get through even a single second of the day, I had to to take a scary, scary leap off a cliff.  And he was brave enough to catch me, to catch both of us.

But please do not assume that I have never had a rough work situation, that things have been easy.  I could tell you stories about things people have done and said that would make your head spin around in disbelief like that little girl in the exorcist, and you would spew green bile and then you would choke on it.

Because I promise you, if we held the Olympics of past job insanity, and I entered the decathlon of ridiculous shit a colleague or boss could do to you, unless yours caused you physical harm or ran over your cat, I would win the gold medal and the silver medal, and quite possibly, the bronze medal.  I would set a world record. And then, the National Anthem of Double Vision (which we do have, it’s the song by Foreigner also called Double Vision, because I am lazy and lack creativity) would play and the flag of Double Vision would be raised three times simultaneously for each of those medals I won.  And I would weep tears out of my broken eyes and put my hand over my heart and they would put this spectacle in musical montages for years to come and someday, I would be the subject of a Bud Greenspan documentary.

Because I would win.

So please think for a second before you make assumptions or send mean comments that are nasty for the sake of being nasty about this particular topic.  Remember that you’re  dealing with the Bruce Jenner of this shit, the one before the plastic surgery and all that Kardashian nonsense.  Step off.

The hours go long and slow

I received word a while ago that my work travel schedule is going to calm down considerably over the next year.  And by calm down, I mean I will only have to get on a plane six to eight times a year for meetings.  Initially, I was  bummed at this news, because I truly adore the part of my job that requires me to interact and network with our industry professionals at conferences.  To me, there is nothing quite as rewarding as putting on a fancy suit, killer shoes, and working an exhibit. (Except maybe writing this here fancy weblog, but that does not pay the bills.)

And then I really started to consider how I should feel.  That initial feeling of disappointment gave way to one of relief, of a giant weight being lifted, especially when I realized I could channel all my energy into doing the other things I love about my job.

I realized I had bought into the myth that traveling for work is glamorous and exciting.  Sometimes, it was.  Everyone always said how jealous they were, how cool it must be, and truly, I managed to squeeze in some sightseeing and some wonderful eats. But if I really think about it, I mostly saw the insides of conference rooms, the hotel restaurant, that guy who brings room service. I lost any sense of routine, and as my husband could tell you, I thrive on routine. (I get hungry for an afternoon snack every day at the EXACT same time I used to arrive home from school as a kid. I still wake up to go the bathroom every single morning at the same time I used to wake up for first grade. And so on…) Occasionally, he came along, and that helped immensely.  But it also made me jealous, because for him, these trips were little vacations.  He was golfing in the Miami sunshine, and I was working, and even though I love the work, he was golfing.  In the sunshine I could only see through the window of my meeting room.

The reality is that airplane seats are uncomfortable, switching times zones is constantly disorienting, you cannot avoid travel germs, hotel shampoo will destroy your hair, coffee at conferences is uniformly awful, and eating at the bar with your book gets really, really lonely.  Time drags on, and sometimes seems to stop.  Seeing the polar bears go crazy bananas at the San Diego Zoo would have been so much more fun if my husband had been there with me.

When you are alone on the road, you don’t have to consider anyone but yourself.  You don’t have to get up extra early so you can take care of the dogs.  You can watch Bravo all night. You can eat what you want, go where you want, throw your dirty clothes in a pile on the floor and use all the hot water.  However, I’ve found that the longer I did this, the harder it became to switch back when I returned home.  I also have a tendency to live inside my head, and this is exacerbated by going days and days with my only human contact being work-related.  The more I’m inside my head, the more I stay there. And the harder it is for me to emerge.

The truth is that I spent the last winter and spring in suspended animation, bouncing here and there, never quite putting my suitcase away, never quite feeling at home even when I was here.  Because in three days, or four, or a week, I left again.  Every time I came home, the transition to real life made me cranky because I could not feel settled. I didn’t feel present in my own life, and I do not EVER want to feel like that again.

I’m still not caught up from the work that piled up in May, the month when I sat at my desk physically for four days total, or from the subsequent week I was gone in June.  I no longer feel like I’m drowning, but I still wake up in the middle of the night and bolt upright in bed, thinking of the endless list of things I have to do, the things I am forgetting.  All the sightseeing in the world does not make up for this feeling of panic. All the comp time I earned can’t replace the three days I lost on a visit my family at the end of my last trip in May when I was  so sick I couldn’t function.  All the cool souvenirs I brought my hubs did not negate the number of times I snapped at him because I was exhausted and out of whack.  All the delicious free meals I ate did not compensate for the ones the pooch refused to consume because he thought I was never coming home.

So when you see people in the airport in suits, looking tired, looking hassled, frustrated because you are taking too long to get your items assembled at security, be extra-nice to them.  Remember that the last time they got a hug from their spouse might have been a week ago.  They might have missed their son’s baseball game, or their daughter’s school play.  They probably haven’t been in comfortable clothes in days.  They might have a dog who sits at the door for days, waiting and waiting and waiting for their car to turn into the driveway.

And they might not have an end in sight.  I do, and I could not be more thrilled.

On Notice, now with more insects

Randoms

Shut up, Al Sharpton.  About everything.

The next time a celebrity dies unexpectedly, I would appreciate it if the manipulative and horribly staged memorial service didn’t fall on days when I have meetings booked solid. I’M LOOKING AT YOU, LOHAN.

Does anyone find it sort of frightening that about a week after the Jacksons were given some new children to raise, one of them was already on stage in front of millions of people?  Because that worked so well the first time? An 11-year old can’t make a good decision in that situation.  Someone should have said, “no, the entire world does not need to know what you look like or see your raw grief in repeated loops on CNN for days.”

I am so tired of the “should larger people have to buy two airline seats” debate.  Yes, they should.  I should not have to give up half the commodity I purchased for someone else’s free use.  I would be ok if the airlines refunded me half my fare as a compromise.  There is this whole big debate about fat taxes and what is discrimination and I just don’t care about it.  I want my space.  Or my money

I am reading a book called The Millionaires: A Novel and the author disregards quotation mark requirements and other grammar tenents to a distracting degree.  It’s a shame I can’t get past it, because the book is quite interesting.  It’s not like it’s a fancy weblog on the internets, it’s a real, live book, so there are rules.  They should be followed.

I have been doing yoga on a pretty regular basis for the last month or so.  I hate it while it’s happening, but afterwards, I feel so good I want to go right back.  Mostly, it’s the stretching and the whole mind quieting thing. Because  if you’ve read this blog for more than 30 seconds, you know it’s normally pretty shouty inside my head.

Is anyone else scared shitless of Vladmir Putin?

My eyes still suck and my fancy pants doctors can’t do anything about them until they get worse.

What happened to those journalists in labor camps in North Korea?

I am so happy that the next two times I have to get on a plane, there is vacation at the end.