CrankMama

Cry Baby

The babies.  They have totally ruined my tough chic groove forever.  My insides are on the outside and my outsides are mushy and swollen when I want them to be taut and lithe, or at least free of peanut butter schmear.

So today.  Work.  Everything is going along swimmingly.  I'm showered, wearing lipstick and heels, and looking like some facsimile of my former self.  Confidently and cheerfully, I head into a meeting with my boss to present the budget. 

And I can't describe what happened next very clearly, but the next thing I knew, he was pointing out a mistake in my numbers and I just knew I was about to cry.  Blubber. Burst into sobbing gags.  I excused myself and washed away as much of the redness and puffiness as I could. When I returned he was onto the next spreadsheet and didn't look up, so we began where we'd left off.  But I absolutely couldn't shake it.  So his clever parries were met by mute agreement and the appearance of total obedience on my part.  And this, got his attention.  He said, "Are you all right?" and I said yes but that I had to get back to work.

Sometimes I hate that I've lost the cool exterior, the toughness, the ability to not cry at commercials about starving children in Africa.  Sometimes I really despise this mushy mom person I've become.

Maybe I should just embrace my inner flower child and be done with it!!

Spinal Tap always makes me smile
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Confessions of a Working Girl

Since it's Sex Week here at CrankMama, I thought I'd tell you a little about my life during my 2nd week of working again.

First, the pimp calls to set up the meet, identifies the John and tells me where to go, what was ordered, and how much I'll get.

Then, I get all dolled up, do my quick tantra meditation, grab the lube and whip and go!

Not really. That was my other job.

This job is less remunerative, but also quite a bit less stressful and, let's face it, much much easier on the wonderflower. 

Today is only my 2nd of 3 work days this week and I'm already totally dog tired, hope I never have to use my legs/feet again, and am gripped by the familiar mixture of joy & despair that accompanies working while raising young kids.  Ambivalence is the hobgoblin of working mothers everywhere... at least this working mother.

The inner dialogue goes something like this:

Jesus!  The kids are driving me CRAZY this morning!  When will J get here so I can get OUT and go to work?  Thank GOD she's here so I can go...

I hope V doesn't do anything cute today that I'll miss.  She WON'T! She'll be napping most of the time you're gone anyway!

Ahhh... work.  A reprieve. Hot coffee.  This is such an interesting spreadsheet.  A headache... Shit! I really miss the kids!  Look how cute they are in that picture... Was V ever that small? I have GOT to do that photo album before I lose track of time... 

I want another baby!  NO! You DON'T! You just THINK you do because you're no longer insane with sleep deprivation!  But I do! NO NO NO!  What if you had another set of twins? GULP. You're right.

Only 2 hours more and then I can go home.. I'm so tired today I can't see straight.  Poor V.. I hope she doesn't miss me.

           Home again.  Relief. 

See? Working girls can't win...

whip whip

Work It, Mama

All mamas work.  Let's get that qualification completely out of the way.  Some work for money, some work for chits, pennies in heaven, for the good of the children.. fill in the blank.  Me, I work for money and I work for my kids.  I have two bosses now -- actually four if you count all 3 daughters and the new boss man --but unlike Crystal Gale's 70s lament: "Torn Between Two Lovers", this is a perfect set-up for a chick like me.

I get to enter the World of the Adult Brain, specifically the world of nonprofit financial management, for exactly 19 hours per week.  And then I get to come back into the World of the Child Brain/ aka: the World of Mommy's Addled Brain/ aka: the World of Peanut Butter, Oatmeal, and Big Blue Eyes a'cryin', with a belly-laugh thrown in for good measure -- usually theirs, not mine -- for the remaining  149 hours. 

It's a good hearty complicated life... well, technically, it's been a good hearty complicated life for two whole days, so I'm sure IT (LIFE) will have tons of fun devolving and evolving into many other things over the next 3 months of my contract.  But it has many boxes (literally & figuratively) and I like it that way.

And this (this mood, this strange moment listening to the twins wrestle my husband who is playing the favorite game of tired parents everywhere ' Log in the River' -- all you do is lay on the ground and act like a log while the kids climb on your back) is the closest a non-Buddhist / uncentered/ totally unzen girl like me comes to being content.

This is my life on contentment.  And it ain't half-bad.

Adventures of SuperFriend

Thus commenced Great Hair Repair 2006:   Having found the F-Tubes to call my hairdresser and tell him I didn't like looking like a Crayola, I went to Salon E. to give this relationship one more try. 

I came in early (I believe in maximizing "mommy's alone time" by showing up early to all appointments-- especially those offering eat, drink, and celebrity magazines) and began leafing through the sorrow & tragedy of  Anna Nicole's kid's death.    

I waved warmly to Patrick, the Gay God of Sassy Hair, who was busy finishing with another customer. As I watched him chat with the woman in his chair, it slowly dawned on me. 

I know this woman.

Holy hell! She's my nasty nemesis from Henland and here I am with this bad red hair looking like an idiot reading through People chomping away on a mint.   

OH GOD!

So I did what any self-actualized girl does --- I panicked, hid in the alley, and called SuperFriend to come save me.  Lucky for me, SuperFriend works around the corner from Salon E. and due to her genius at design, owns her own business and had a spare moment to fly over to rescue her girlfriend in distress.

Donning a cheerful smile and sassy gauchos (a clothing choice that sets off fashion alarms when I even *look* at them) SuperFriend very casually found her way over to me (the one with horrid hair madly waving and jumping up and down next to the smelly recycling bin).  When I apologized for interrupting her day, she reassured.  "Don't worry, I do things like this all the time for my sister." 

Huh?  I have brothers.  They're good for offers of ninja attacks on bad boyfriends, but not for comforting one in an alleyway where one is hiding from a nasty ex-coworker while sporting crayola red hair.

She watched out until the mean mean lady left the salon.  Patrick immediately called wondering where I'd gone... "Um... Rachael? You were in here a minute ago.  Where did you go?"  Thinking quickly I mumbled something mysterious about the kids, bid adieu to SF, and leaped quickly into the safety of the now-empty salon.

And so he fixed my hair.  It's still red, just less punk.  I'm more like Strawberry Shortcake all grown up and less like... Ronald.

Many thanks & future candle-lit shrines to SuperFriend, who obviously knows all about girls like me.

Yay! Men!

Today I woke up early, showered, and curled my hair.  This is a revolution in personal hygiene for someone who of late hasn't been dressing until 4:30pm. The occasion is an appointment with a former colleague to talk about a possible job opportunity with his company. His company.  He's a man.  Do you know how exciting this possibly is?  After my last hen hell experience I swore I'd never work in an all-woman organization again unless we were dressed as cowgirls and performing in a vaudeville circus. 

The thing about women in my experience is that many of them are afraid of expressing themselves directly for fear of (being understood? being disliked?)....  Meow meow.  I'd rather be hit by a plate in the head than whispered about behind my back.  And as the leader of this all-woman organization, the problem was compounded by the issue of supervising women 2 decades my senior.  I'll leave the rest to your active imaginations, but you get the picture.

I love women.  Some of my best friends are women.  Truly.  I just don't want to work with them.  They make me talk about feelings.  They tell me about their toe surgery and uncaring husbands.  They ask me if I think they've gained weight and cry in my office.

Give me the linear freedom of rational discourse on strategy and spreadsheets and budgets.  Give me something clean and clear and understandable.  Give me work with men! 

My Friend Miranda

My Mom is a very helpful nice Mormon lady who only swears when her husband is not around.  Like many LDS women, she's pretty sure moms should stay home with their kids full-time rather than work.  I say "pretty sure" because she was, at the time of my raising, a career woman.  Perhaps it's regret from years past.  Perhaps she knows something I don't.

In any event, she likes to tell me stories of women who stay home (usually they're former career women) and find a way to make it work.  What she doesn't realize is that she tells me the same stories of smart women who learn to be happy staying home with their kids at least every 3 - 6 months.  The following is her favorite and it was received this morning as I stumbled around making coffee and toast and cleaning up the disgusting kitchen:

My Friend Miranda

Welcome to my world.

38. The New 15

Like many left coasties raised in the 70s, I wore the "Girls Lib" and "Girl Power" shirts with my tennis shoes and head scarf.  My Mom took me to her NOW* and AA** meetings and took pride in not showing me how to cook.  My brothers were given black baby dolls the same Christmas I was given a train set and skateboard.  My parents took seriously the call to raise little girls to be firemen, and little boys to be ballerinas.  We listened to "Free to Be You and Me" and all of us adored Wonder Woman.

I was encouraged to be any old thing I wanted, excepting of course a traditional woman (stay home, raise kids, cook nice dinners).  But this free and open wide horizon left me wanting more structure and feedback and encouraged an absolute worship of education and teachers and books and (good) grades.

I'll never forget walking home from school at 15, sobbing over a newly received B- on a French paper.  I remember a kindly neighbor pulling over and asking me what was wrong, and attempting to make me feel better with the usual talk about it being  a perfectly respectable grade and why when he was young he was lucky to get a "C."

Even at the time I knew it seemed overly dramatic to get so upset, but I know why I was so heartbroken.  I wanted the hard work and discipline and love of learning to be reflected in the universe around me.  I wanted my love to translate into success.  And success wasn't a B-.  I wanted there to be a seamless line between my inner world and the world of other people. 

And this discordance is so like how I feel about my job loss that it's uncanny.  I thought if I brought my best most open self to my work and if I led the organization with determination and integrity and treated the employees fairly, well, the good would just spill out of the clouds and the people would see my effort and admiration would flow forth.  Of course now that seems terribly naive. 

That last day, the worst day, when I listened to the complaints about the direction of the agency and the vote of no confidence, I was so stunned that I was absolutely frozen.   All I could think of was getting out.

I dream about work still.  I dream that it turned out better, or worse (depending on the night) and I wake up thinking it's time to get ready to go to work.  Then I realize it's just me and the kids today at home.  And they ask me what we're going to do today and sometimes I honestly have no idea.  So I make them breakfast and try and think of something.

*National Organization of Women
** Alcoholics Anonymous