Anonymous

It's a modern day nightmare.

You are driving, or perhaps you are about to park.  Someone cuts you off, or steals your spot. You honk with fervor.  You gesture.  You yell an obscenity from the inside of your car.  And as you ultimately pass the other driver by, you go to give them a dirty look and....

You know them.

I should start by saying that this has never happened to me.  But I'm always scared it will.  I usually have a brief moment of panic right after the road rage incident where I think, Uh oh, I think I know that car.  I have been spared the humiliation (though I can't say the same for my husband, but that incident will remain in the vault).

It's a weird and universal phenomenon.

No matter people's natural inclination, if they are going to be rude, they tend to be rude to strangers.  It's not just with road rage, it's on an airplane.  On a telemarketing call.  Waiting in any long line.  Navigating a crowded grocery store.  (As an aside, I once had a postal worker yell at me (and I mean yell) when I carried my then puppy in with me to the post office in a carrier.  She made me cry, hard, for some odd reason.)

There are many opportunities for anonymous hostility, but I think the most highly populated avenue is the internet.

Working from Home, Leaning In, and Having it All

You can't avoid it if you want to.  The issue of women in the workplace is everywhere.

First there was Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's announcement that she is calling an end to telecommuting.   In the memo that changed it all, she wrote:

"To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side.  That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings.  Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.  We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.  Beginning in June, we're asking all employees with work-from-home arrangements to work in Yahoo! offices." (Memo found here).

I'd venture to guess that this new policy will most predominantly affect women -  mothers in particular.  Ms. Mayer, a mother herself and a notorious workaholic, doesn't seem to mind.  In fact, she took her position at Yahoo when she was five months pregnant, and after having her first child, she was quickly back at work after a two week maternity leave.  (Yes, you read that right - A TWO WEEK MATERNITY LEAVE).  I suppose its not a surprise that her value system is being thrust upon the entire Yahoo workforce, but I, for one, am glad I don't work there.  (And so is Richard Branson, by the way).

Then there's Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook and mother of two, who is all over the news for her new book, Leaning In, where she argues that women are their own worst enemies - that we need to be more ambitious, more aggressive, more assertive.  That, in essence, we need to be more like men.  She's wants to start a movement, and perhaps she is the perfect person to do so - in a world where 96% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are men, Ms. Sandberg has done pretty well for herself.

In an interview last night with 60 Minutes, she stated that in the business world women "start leaning back.  They say, 'Oh, I'm busy.  I want to have a child one day.  I couldn't possibly, you know, take on anymore.' . . . . I've never had a man say that stuff to me."  She has a point, I suppose.  Neither have I.  But is there something inherently wrong with that?  I did want children.  I didn't want to take on anymore.  I wanted some semblance of a work-life balance.  What does that make me?  A failure?  A thorn in the side of this new feminist movement?

Have a High Chair

I take the kids out to restaurants all of the time - probably more than the average person.  The reason is threefold:

1) I enjoy eating out and refuse to allow motherhood to take away this joy from my life.
2) It is an excuse to get out of the house and kills at least two hours.
3) It means that I don't have to cook for the kids at home, watch them not eat the food I cook for them at home, battle them when they continually refuse, and ultimately clean up all of their uneaten (and thrown) food.

I try not to take the kids to fine dining establishments, but I also don't only take them to kidcentric restaurants either.  My rule of thumb is if I show up at a restaurant before 6pm, it's all fair game.  If people want to ensure that they do not encounter screaming children while dining out, show up after 7:30pm.  These are the unwritten rules that I have decided to live by, and I am at peace with them.

My kids are generally well behaved at restaurants.  I come equipped with Ipads and LeapPads and arsenals of matchbox cars and cheerios and goldfish crackers.  I have perfected the art of bribery with ice cream and the staggering of juicy beverages.  I am a pro at this.  I have even had random strangers come up to me and tell me how well behaved my children are.  I smile with pride and graciously accept the compliment.

It isn't always so smooth, however.  There are missteps and low points.  There are thrown objects. Spilled drinks.  Breakdowns and tantrums and shrilling screams.  I have carried a perpendicular kicking child out of a restaurant more times than I'd care to share.  But it all comes with the territory.  If you're going to brave a restaurant with two kids under five, you're going to have your war stories.  I usually take it in stride.

But a restaurant rocked me yesterday.

I'm in Love with a Boy

Head over heels, actually.

And I'm not talking about my husband.

We shared a bed last night.  We held each other until he fell asleep.  I caressed his hair and stared at his face for as long as I could before succumbing to sleep myself.

He's absolutely gorgeous, you see.

But it's not just his looks that I have fallen for - it's absolutely everything about him.  He is funny, ambitious, intelligent, loyal, and kind.  All the qualities I've ever looked for in a boy.  His smile makes me glow.  His touch warms my heart.  His laugh tickles me inside.

I tell him I love him all the time, but words fail me.  Words don't seem to express it quite adequately. Sometimes I love him so much, it almost hurts.  Almost like I've lived my whole life just to meet him, and now that he's here, and he's mine, I don't know what to do with all the happiness he brings.

He's in love with me too.  Perhaps more in love with me than anyone has ever been.

He misses me more than anything.  When he knows we have to part, even for a short time, he cries.  He never wants to be away from me.

Riding the Zoloft Roller Coaster

I love zoloft.

I really do.  It has saved me numerous times.  Every time I think it won't.  I think, what the hell can a pill do for me?  I start taking it and I still don't believe.  But then....

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  So this is what it feels like to be normal.

I have been taking it on and off since my early twenties.  In the beginning, once I started feeling "normal,"  I would think, See, I'm fine!  I don't need to be on medication!  

Then I would go off of it, and I would be fine for a while.  Until I wasn't again.  And so began yet another cycle of anxiety... feeling fine, feeling anxious, feeling too anxious to go on medication, finally going on medication, feeling fine again, going off the medication etc.    The cycles can go for months, or years.  But the bottom line is, after a decade or so, I have been humbled (a postpartum episode will do that to you).  Can I live without it?  Yes.  Is life a bit more enjoyable while I'm on it.  YES.

A Revolution Against Males (Inspired by my Hall Bathroom)

I know it seems like I've been all pro-female, I am woman hear me roar lately.  That's not usually my shtick.  But as I sit here, smelling the stench of urine emanating from my hall bathroom, I feel compelled to make this pitch for a revolution against modern men.

Braden has been potty trained for two years now.  But somehow, he still can't quite get it in there. It's on the toilet seat, on the floor, on the walls, and in some unfortunate circumstances, clear across the bathroom when he suddenly turns to tell me something mid-stream.  

I clean that bathroom often.  I scrub.  I light candles.  I open windows.

It still reeks of urine.   

I can't blame Braden, because really, he's just doing what he's told.  He's standing.  He shakes when he's done.  He's doing what males do.  Which leads me to the question...

Really?  This is how men behave in an advanced society?  

Lets break this down.  

It's Sad

I've met lots of friends through the blogosphere, but one of my nearest and dearest is Darcy.  Our blogs are very different, but our backgrounds are very similar.  We both worked in biglaw, we both left it to stay home with our kids, we both live in the DC area, and we both enjoy a good cocktail.

It was over one of these cocktails last week that she mentioned to me an article she read where the author argues that women who plan to stay at home with their kids do not deserve an education, because they are taking the spot of someone who will better use that opportunity for a real career.

I rolled my eyes, but I didn't get too angered by it.  After all, I've heard this before - from articles, from message boards, from the look on people's faces when I tell them I quit my job.  I've heard it on this blog, through a comment that caused me to write a whole post in horrified opposition. (Said comment, in case you don't feel like clicking on the link, went something like:  "I wonder if [your] coveted law school spot would have been better spent on someone who needed [a law firm job] and would more likely stick with it.").

I try not to get too angry over this stuff anymore. I figure it is just the rants of ignorant, chauvinistic kooks, and why should I even spend my time thinking about what they have to say?

But then today, my friend Darcy wrote an eloquent, well written, and reasoned post in response to the article she had mentioned to me.  She linked the aforementioned article, and I read it.  And I had to write this post.  I just can't help myself.

Me Versus Three Pounds

It's not even about the weight anymore.

It's about the principle.  

There are these three pounds that have been hanging around for a little over two years now.  They ebb, they flow, but they are pretty much always there.  AND I CAN'T GET RID OF THEM.

I've done Jillian Michaels.  I've broken out the treadmill.  I've done Weight Watchers.  I've started eating vegetables.

I've willed them away, with all my might.

But alas, they suck on me like a leach.  Only they aren't sucking anything out.  They just sit there.

There's this voice in my head that says, Aw, just let them stay.  What's the big deal?  Why deprive yourself of a glass of wine that is only 150 calories?  Life is short!  It's only three pounds, for God's sake!  

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, NO I SAY!  I shall not let them win!

Hear ye, hear ye, from this point forward, I shall run every day until every last ounce of that last third pound is off.  I will run like Forrest Gump.  I will run like the wind.

I probably shouldn't have eaten McDonalds today (the fries, oh the fries).

But I'm going to run, damn it.

We Women Get the Short End

We're all equal at birth.

Well, that's not quite true.  Research has shown that baby girls are more likely to survive their first year of life than baby boys.  This is particularly true in the case of premature babies.

Our advantages seem to end there.

We come home from the hospital and we are dressed in pink.  We wear bows.  We look "pretty."  

We are thrust into a world of sequins and barbies and fairies.  We are told we are beautiful and we get dressed up like princesses, and if we're lucky, occasionally we'll get to put on make up and nail polish.  These things make us pretty, you see, just like the barbies and fairies we play with.  We think everyone is pretty.  We don't know any other way.

We play with kitchens and babies and strollers and dollhouses.  Because someday we will be a mom, and we will cook and take care of our children.  We look at boys and see that they don't play with those things (and if they do, that's weird, right?).  No, they play with tools and cars and they wear blue, and God forbid they wear pink, because as we learn quickly, it's shameful for a boy to look or act like a girl.  Their parents cut their hair short so there is no mistaking it.  They are called a "girl" or a "sissy" as a derogatory term.

As we enter grade school, we learn that not everyone is pretty, and the more we veer from that Barbie image that we are bombarded with, the more "not pretty" we are.  We learn that there are "fat" people and "ugly" people, and God forbid, we cannot turn into those.  We start to question how we can avoid that.  We learn that boys like the pretty people.  The ones that look like Barbies.

A Simple Life, an Hour Away

When I lived in London back in 2000, I swore I would always live in a city.  I also swore I would always live somewhere where I didn't need a car.  As life has turned out, I've not kept either promise.  Instead, I've made modifications to my personal manifesto:  I will always live near a city, and I will always live somewhere where public transportation is available - whether or not I use it.  It seems unlikely I'll ever break that promise.

But every once in a while I wonder...

Have you ever heard of Washington, Virginia?

I hadn't either.  But as a self proclaimed foodie, I came to learn of it soon after I moved to the DC area, because it happens to house the acclaimed Inn at Little Washington restaurant, which is consistently the top rated restaurant in the area.  It is a little over an hour's drive from DC, and it is in the middle of nowhere.  And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean it - there is no cell phone service (NO CELL PHONE SERVICE!), and the town consists of about three streets, a handful of B&Bs, and a shop or two.  That's it.

My husband and I made our first trip there back in 2010 sans kids, and I have to be honest, we were a bit taken aback at the time of the whole "middle of nowhereness."  It's not really our scene. But we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless, stayed at the Inn itself (which was a bit hoity toity) and had an amazing meal - I am talking really amazing. We vowed to come back in a couple years.

We did just that this past weekend, and this time, the food took second fiddle to the middle of nowhereness, which, oddly, is becoming more and more appealing to me.