This year my dog Rigby and I are turning the same age – 35 – and for the curious minds out there, of course we are planning a bomb-ass birthday bash. But before we party hard, I wrote her a depressing love letter about how I miss my first dog and have realized that I will never have a dog as great as her, and how it makes me sad for all of my future dogs knowing they are being put up against unreachable expectations.
Rigby is my second dog and is true to her name, which comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby, a sad lonely lady. Rigby is the polar opposite of Scout, and at times, I suspect she is a feline. Her anxious tendencies and intense fear of separation ensure that all of the toys in the house have chewmarks and all of my bras are carried away to Never Never Land, which resides under our bed where she hides for a majority of the day. But regardless of how Rigby perceives being the second dog, I want her to know will always love her deeply, but deep down I will always hope that she grows up to be my first dog.
It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.
Back before I died inside from a bad job and a lack of sparkle, we had a black Labrador Retriever named Scout after the protagonist Jean Louise Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout was our first baby, and she taught me to be me: how to explore, revealing that Chicago has more countryside than I realized and that Colorado is just as beautiful as the pictures suggest. I almost witnessed her plummetting to her death on a hike in Boulder where she chased a tennis ball down a steep ravine upon catching the scent of water and not fighting to urge to immediately find it. I spent every pre-bedtime snuggling her for at least fifteen minutes, lathering my face in her snout and nearing suffocation from smothering my face in her thick mane; my husband missed me during those years but understood the necessity of the cuddle.
Scout was diagnosed with bone cancer when we took her to the vet for what we thought was a broken paw but ended up being a tumor-infested shoulder that burst the bone surrounding it. A large piece of my soul was lost when Scout went into the ether, and I am still searching for it to this day. As I put my forehead to hers for the very last time, I sat in the room and watched the universe drain from her eyes as she was infused with death. It took me more than a while to pry myself off of her and leave her side for the remainder of eternity.
As we contemplate adding another dog to the household, I wanted to write a letter to my current, future, and past not-first dogs – all of the dogs after Scout. Cheers to the dogs that will never be good enough but try hard to get the job done, for you are the ones that need the most love.
Dear Future Dog
Dear future dog, please slobber all over my face with your smelly, rat-scented breath. It invigorates my soul.
Dear future dog, please run in between my legs after you lay outside in the sun for hours to imitate the feeling of straddling a large comforter thrust out of the dryer. My inner thighs need more of you.
Dear future dog, please perform an acrobatic routine whilst making your descent off of the couch. The sight of your butthole in my face, opening as wide as a newborn’s yawn, never seeming to close, brings me extreme pleasure.
Dear future dog, please have mercy on me when I yell at you to stop speaking, for no creature should have its voice revoked. Barkers unite, howlers revel! Maybe not at 5am though…
Dear future dog, please take up the entire side of my bed, forcing me to insert myself under the covers like a kid who forgot a sleeping bag and has to share. And when I lean over to kiss you, please inhale like you took a fresh bong rip, and exhale with fury, spattering spitticles all over my face and your whiskers, and be sure to give out an exonerable sigh that resurfaces my suspicions that you really can talk. And when I finally get situated in our shared space, please get up at that exact moment, move two feet away, do a few circles, and plant yourself on my newly-bowed legs. And when you do that, please rest your head on my thigh and make me feel safe, sound, and smothered – more secure than a newly-swaddled baby.
Dear future dog, please search in the yard for slimy yet crusty tennis balls that lie near ancient piles of poop I have neglected to pick up all winter. And when you find the goods, bring them to me and pile them in my lap like sacrifices for my kingdom, streaking my pants in the sign of the dog. And if I fail to tend to these neon spheres of goodness, nudge them onto my shirt to make a mud-streaked ensemble, for I am now the ruling queen of Muddledtennisballland and you shall never go without a dirty ball for as long as you shall live.
Dear future dog, please gain momentum to cannonball into the water like boat being pushed out to sea. Please perform an expert, synchronized paddle routine, swim far enough where I become convinced you will run out of steam and force me to rapidly contrive a plan to save you, and on your return to the shore, please hack up what sounds like steel hairballs until you make it to safety and rush to my side to douse me in a hefty sample of the almighty pond water.
Dear future dog, please throw out my rotator cuff from using the tennis ball launcher for hours on end. I crave the pain and attention.
Dear future dog, please let your mind, soul, and body get as lost as that tennis ball you are trying to locate as you run paces back and forth in a fervent yet diligent manner. And make me wait longer than I want to while you navigate it with your outrageous sense of smell; the suspense is killing me.
Dear future dog, please scope out that massive mud puddle when we arrive at the dog park, and be sure to immerse yourself in it like a person who just found a new religion and celebrated it with a full-body bath in the spirit wat.., errr, mud. Cleaning the bathtub and carpet are two of my favorite pastimes.
Dear future dog, please put your nose on my leg when I least expect it, propelling me six feet up from thinking I was prodded with a wand made of liquid nitrogen. Once I come back down, tap me again, this time longer since your nose will now have received the powers of warmth, transferred from my flabby thighs to your leathery snout. I will be ready for it, and I will dig it.
Dear future dog, when you go to take your seventh nap for this day, please put your paws together like an elephant balancing on a wooden box. Please be open to me squishing all of your paws together, and please be ok with me rubbing my face within the twelve righteous paw pads, for these are the receptacles that infuse me with life every morning – give us this day our daily corn-chip-smelling bread.
Dear future dog, please shed your coat all over my house like a Grammy-winning diva slipping out of her sequined cloak on stage mid-song. Please store up monumental tufts that fly away like a grand finale when I go to give you a full-body scratch, and strategically place said fluffballs by a place of violent airflow, so they can catapult onto my freshly-made lunch. I will dine like royalty.
Dear future dog, please make me believe you are human by the time you reach four years of age. Convince me that your presence is necessary, and overtake my mind so that I could not imagine a household without you. And at the four-year mark, please turn into a completely different canine and emerge with superpowers, extreme muscular definition, and a serene outlook on life. Make me understand that one’s twenties are a special time of discovery and that one’s thirties are when the true self is found.
Dear future dog, please do not fear me because you have been waiting almost a year for me to bring home your sister dog, my first dog, the one who I suddenly took away one morning after a fabulous game of fetch in the backyard. Do not be afraid that she never came back, and do not deem me evil for her abrupt disappearance. Please trust that I took her somewhere safe where she is happy, comfortable, and well-fed. And please forgive me for making you trust me after this, for no one should have to put their faith in a person who takes away something as important as a best friend. People are asked to trust a fake deity on the regular, but you do not deserve to be treated as such. You have a right to the truth. And please know that I did not want her to go either. Dear future dog – please help me get through this.
Dear future dog, please do not fret when I come back one day with another one of you. And please be patient with the new friend as it is my way of giving you companionship during times when I cannot. And please do not get upset when I snuggle with the new companion; you have not been replaced, you never will.
Dear future dog, please know that you are the reason I live my life. Without you, life would be dull, grey, and unable to be traversed due to the giant, flesh-eating army of uneaten crumbs.
On my last writing roundabout, I received a complimentary visit by friends I had made from my previous stay. These companions happened to have web-feet and came in waterfowl form. This time though, the ducks had multiplied by six (or maybe it was seven, I lost count after five) and walked around the community like they owned the place.
I watched in admiration as the mother duck led her six to seven ducklings to the pond, providing swimming lessons in the most patient manner. She then routed them across the street, where they clung to her side and adhered to her commands like a barnacle on a legendary ship.
I thought to myself, “Why haven’t we looked to the ducks for parenting advice?” Probably because ducks cannot talk, but nevertheless, I will go to my grave knowing that the ducks have all the answers.
Instead of blubbering in sadness from not being a bitchin’ mother duck, I decided to write a poem/song/mishmash of nonsense about mothers and how awesome they are, how under-recognized they live each day, and how hard they bust their asses only to be ogled at for not keeping the house clean, knowing full well they never sat on the couch once that day.
This one’s for you, you badass warrior women.
The Stay-At-Home Mother Song
(I originally titled it this, but it has since evolved into an all-encompassing, non-discriminatory song about all forms of mothers.)
Oh being a stay-at-home mother Is not for the vain or faint-hearted. Often your cleaning up pee-soaked pants Or answering the question of “who farted?” (Wasn’t me…)
The gig will cause you to lose your mind As you guide the gremlins on how to be kind But these warnings should not deter a mother As they are expected to show how to care for each other.
The children will beat you and attempt to defeat you, And sometimes will make you turn blue, But hold steady to your morals, values, superstitions, Fortune will find you when they become self-sufficient
Kids will challenge your temper, most times they will win Stand tall, rise above, and drink silky gin They will tell you that everything you know is wrong, that you are constantly teaching them the wrong song, But maybe if all mothers had a proverbial bong, Perhaps everyone would merrily float along strong.
Oh being a stay-at-home mother, Requires a disciplined, habitual brain smother Sometimes you wake up at the break of dawn To keep your sanity from rolling away on the lawn You fill your head with numbers and books, To scratch the itches in your self-care nooks, But it never lasts long enough.
You might get a second, a minute, an hour, But soon you find yourself under a tower, Surrounded by 80’s hair band wannabes, Donning wild hair, scratchy voices, and neon jammies Crying for help, demanding attention, You then hide your valuables and give them the kitchen.
Let’s not forget to applaud the others, The most fearless of all, the childless mothers, The ones taking care of our sisters and brothers, The ones tending to the animals and supporting our druthers. The sweet loving ones who would adopt a kitten, Even if at first glance they were not quite smitten, Because that kitten needed food, love, and mittens, But it lacked the attractive fur that can glisten.
And please empathize with the delicate abounding, Those who longed to succumb to the world of child-rearing, But were told by the stars it was not in the cards, That now gnaws at their heart and keeps their love behind invisible bars. Or the mothers who have loved and lost a child, For those are the ones who have hearts that are violently wild.
Lest not we forget the mothers who hustle, Who work outside of the house and sacrifice being the muscle, For these are the heroes surrendering to, A broken system and a messed up view. Let’s feel for these mothers and give them a hand, And strive for a time when they will be able to band Together to slay the working-class struggle And make money and do the mom-dance juggle For there should be a way for them to do both, But the dearth of perks for mothers has inhibited growth.
Regardless of all the hullabaloo, The most important job that a mother can do Is teach how to care, how to give, but it’s true That a mother forgets she is a human too, While being herself should be the easiest task, She finds that “Remaining you” is the most arduous ask. So for anyone who is a childless mother, or has some gremlins or cares for her brother, Or presents as a person who cares for a cuddler, Never forget to follow your star, Please remember to be who you are, At times you will forget, but never relent To sparkle, always sparkle.
As an Idealist, I sift through the daydreams of my mind on an all too frequent basis; I ponder mindless topics such as the future of our melting world (lots of post-apocalyptic prep going on in my melon), the genesis and continuation of the gigantic universe (or what happens when the computer programmer in another galaxy decides their “Human Project” just isn’t worth maintaining anymore and angrily crams Earth into the trash, salivating as our world flames up before them in the rusty can, immediately pivoting their attention to a new, foolish, primal, vulnerable planet who will succumb to any command they throw out there), or my most favorite gnat-like daydream – what will happen if I ever become famous.
Many folks would tag someone who premonishes fame as vain, egotistical, or just plain ignorant. I mean, who would give me, a whiny cynic, even one peg leg to stand on, let alone two? And for the record, I would proudly stand askew on my wooden legs if and when my current getaway sticks get chopped by the axes held by the critics of life; I would still be complaining, judging, and lecturing as my legs were consumed by pesky, greedy termites who refused to see other perspectives; I would continue to shout as the bullying fire ants, full to the brim with one-sided opinions and closed minds, devoured my opinionated and half-muscular, half flabby body. As a time traveler, I think I have been to the future, and some who are ahead of our time say you can still hear my soul screaming out about justice, humanity, and “going green” on nights when the wind is foggy and thick with pollution.
Unlike Bruno Mars, I do not want to be a billionaire “so freakin’ bad,” although the money would not hurt my venture of wanting to live in a van down by the river and travel the world, all while not going into debt. However, as my parents sadly know from the several times they have lent me cash to help me stand up to death and taxes, being in the negative never bothered me since you cannot take it with you when you go. Life is one big credit card, and whether my money is spent paying for that $400 finger wart to get removed for a second time (I’ve since decided to keep it because of its aversion to liquid nitrogen and its ability to withstand extreme conditions; it deserves to live on my ring finger out of its sheer tenacity) or spent to feed my children, I will persist and insist on finding a way to stay afloat regardless of the income flowing in or how many people on this globe know of my name (and potentially relate to it).
Being famous is not a top priority to me as I write this “book” I keep telling everyone about. Hell, most people probably think I am spending my days writing nonsense, trying to become an all-star tie-dying master, and wait, where in the hell did this soap-thing come from? The truth is, my quest to be an author of written works is simple: I want to share my weird and outside-the-box perspective with people, open up minds, create more questions than answers, that kind of M. Night Shyamalan stuff (my heart hurts for him and the expectations he set for himself with The Sixth Sense), and potentially make someone relish a wee bit more in the highs and lows of life because when you look back on it, even the moldy and smelly stuff make life worth living.
A funny thought that always creeps into my visionboard of fame is the world learning of my upbringing. I scarf down documentaries on the regular, absorbing the childhoods of my favorite geniuses, trying to connect the dots on how I relate, and I laugh thinking of a scenario where someone wanted to make a film about my origins. If anything, my family deserves to be famous more than myself; after all, they did create Butt Darts, or at least I think that is how the legend goes.
In Our Family Portrait, We Look Pretty Happy, We Look Pretty [Ab]Normal
Instead of fantasizing about what cool car I would drive, what I would stock my mansion with, or what clothing line I would represent if I became famous, my mind becomes curious about what would happen if they wanted to interview my family members – not even my immediate family, although they are pretty wild to dissect, but rather my extended family, because they are the ones my mind goes to first; I am not surprised by this as I spent the bulk of my free time with them until I was 26 and escaped from Illinois, never once looking back but checking in often on those who remain there. Having children has thrown off the balance and frequency of our visits back to the IL in the past few years, but returning to my family is like visiting with a deeply incredible friend after a long time off – you pick up right where you left off.
For the record—I have no clue who “they” are who have chosen to interview us (what kind of show are we making here anyway?), but in my mysterious brain, “they” show up one day, wanting to share my story with the world and take a tour of my grassroots. Rest assured, this thought is as surprising to me as it is to you. After consulting with my family, this thought is not foreign. My cousin Jill, who is a bombastic English teacher and was willing to give up an hour of her life to proofread this post, said this:
Ironically, I have often thought about this too, but in my mind it is a reality TV show. If Reality TV would have been the rage in the early nineties when we were growing up, and in the height of the family shenanigans, we would all be millionaires…or we would have all been living in different families because CPS would have taken us out of this environment. Because let’s face it, not everyone thinks teaching children the finer points of the lime in Corona’s and shoving quarters up pants-clad back end is a proper, upstanding way to rear children.
Jill and I originate from the Caves of Sensitivity, a place only few family members attempt to traverse due to the heightened state of emotion it evokes.
My Family Is the Centerfold
Ever since I was birthed by my mother, a wise warrior woman, I have been routinely surrounded by a tribe that fluctuated between twenty to forty assertive, humorous, and adventurous people. I write this post in the present tense because even though I now live 1000 miles away, I feel connected, close, and in tune with my kinfolk. We make an effort to meet up–vacationing, visiting, and checking in via social media. The extended family on my mother’s side resides within thirty miles of each other back in Illinois, a longstanding root that will live on well beyond my short-lived time in this world.
Not only does this group live close together, but we gather frequently, well more than the average amount as has been revealed to me as I traverse my [fake] adult years. As Jill says, we do not need an excuse to gather. We could decide to get together because it is snowing that day. Someone sends the smoke signal, food is prepped, beer is bought, and before the day’s end, we have ourselves a party.
We coerce with minimal drama while diving into tough topics like why some of us did not baptize our children (this one was me) or why one of us chose not to vaccinate our kids (this was was definitely not me, and of course I had an opinion about it), we take on activities and feats of strength that result in maximal fun, we bring up endearing memories about the large percentage of us who have passed away from the Big C and the small percentage of us that avoided cancer but departed in other ways, and we help each other scooch along the road of life with pointed opinions, blunt questions, and ribbing jokes.
I Said Leave Me Alone, I’m Just Carryin’ On An Old Family Tradition
My mom’s side is from Germany, the land of beer, grumpiness, and strong-wills; we bitch, moan, and gripe, all while holding an adult beverage, a paper plate full of various casseroles and side dishes, a sarcastic outlook on life, and potentially an annoyance to the noise level of whoever’s house we are congregating; I forgot to mention that in addition to these glowing and assertive characteristics, we are also pot-clanging loud with any activity we take on. One could sit in the room of our family parties and witness ten simultaneous and involved conversations (some of the pairs being people across the room from each other), children carrying beers to their parents like miniature waiters and waitresses, a tight game of Taboo going on, along with three people watching and becoming very involved in a sports game. Big D, our newly twenty-one-year-old cousin who allowed me to coddle him back in his toddler years as I pretended to be a thirteen-year-old mom, is now a guru at inserting the lime in the Corona because as a wee lad this was his main responsibility at our family gatherings; he also a noise referee (I will explain later) but I believe he crossed the picket line after he realized the loud ones were the cool ones.
We handle our drinks well for the most part, but we sometimes have people who take the liquid courage too far, aka too many shots of Colorado whiskey or too many Claws (ain’t no laws with the Claws). When people get rowdy, we banish those clowns to their dungeons; my Aunt Jan once kicked my husband out of a family Christmas for taking down too much whiskey with a fellow out-law, aka, my cousin’s husband. It was quite a year, it has to be in the top-ten holiday moments of all time, or top-twenty, because there have been so many epic memories made. Alas, if we get kicked out by the matriarchs, we (safely) move the party to another house; problem solved. We also have kind members of the team who stay sober and referee the events (one of Big D’s first gigs), tapping one on the shoulder if they get “too loud” (which is well beyond the definition of loud since the refs give us a lot of grace), telling us to “take it down a notch,” knowing this is a useless action and it only makes us enhance our boisterous talk.
I’ll Take Butt Darts for $1000, Please
My extended family likes to wash their vices down with a tall cocktail of games and fun, and the best game we have in our closet, in my humble and assertive opinion, is Butt Darts.
We play other games, like our annual lip-syncing competition on the Fourth of July where we dress up and dance to popular songs while the crowd judges our level of tomfoolery and outlandish choreography; one year my aunt jumped into the pool for the final refrain of her song, and this past year she dressed as Kenny Rogers, her husband as Dolly Parton, and they jammed out to Islands in the Stream in the best way possible; Aunt Laurie is a longtime lip-syncing champion and the type of famous you and I can only dream of touching. However, we should all bow down to my fairy godmother, Aunt Nancy, gone way too soon but always with us in spirit, who transformed the lip-syncing landscape altogether, creating an unsinkable dynasty with my godfather (aka THE Godfather), Uncle Pete. Their dynamic duos had us in tears for multiple years as we sat in the backyard, swimming suits damp, bellies full, and hearts happy. One year they performed a pristine rendition of Jay and the Americans “Come a Little Bit Closer” where they did a gender reversal; somehow to this day I cannot erase the image of my uncle in red lipstick.
We also contrived a rendition of Double-Dare that Nickelodeon wishes they would have discovered. We are good at reproducing and we managed to convince an ever-changing team of at least five to twelve kids to play whichever year we had the itch to put on Double-Dare; we converted toddlers, adolescents, preteens, and teenagers who still considered us cool into savage gladiators, battling in the ring, while the adults wagered, cheered, and booed from the stands. Yes, please dip your head into this bucket of water, one after the other, and bob for that apple. Don’t worry about what is in that murky kiddie pool filled with water, jello, oatmeal or other varying hodgepodge of kitchen ingredients…you are just going to jump in and roll around and then get out really quickly before we tell you to move on to the next thing we think is hilarious for you to do in this game! Germs, spit, none of that matters; keep your eye on the prize. And carry that upside down cone full of water, strapped on your head, while weaving through cones.
No wonder I am so determined.
In addition to lip-syncing and Double-Dare, we coordinate mean games of volleyball, where one year my cousin Joe’s newly-pierced nipple had a mean entanglement with the volleyball net (yikes, we had been ribbing him about the new jewelry all day, and then that happened, poor buddy), bags (aka Cornhole, screw whoever came up with that weird name), and other fads of the year or games someone came back to teach us from the Land of College. I believe we once got a massive game of flippy cup going one year, but that might have been a daydream or a blurred line I remember from college or from my brother’s wedding shower.
We slash board games too, sometimes playing Trivial Pursuit into the wee hours of the night, that is, if we can maintain a pleasant drunken state and not get kicked out by the matriarchs. One time we played a game that required you to guess the phrase from a conglomeration of other words – for example, a card would say “Way Camp Ache,” and that meant a popular slang phrase. I’ll let you figure out that one instead of spoiling all of the fun by giving the answer. Hint: It makes for an exquisite morning. Anyway, I excelled at that game because I had a toddler who spoke gibberish on the regular and I already spoke nonsense.
Last but not least, we organize the fiercest Christmas gift exchange east (and probably west) of the Mississippi. It is unstoppable, and there was a year when in the heat of the moment my cousin (notoriously of high volume) called my aunt a B#*ch so loudly I pray to this day someone captured it on video; I saw clips from this year and they were playing a rendition of Plinko on an elaborate, handmade board; you never know what games these brilliant minds will make up.
Why Do You Build Me Up [Butt]ercup?
I realize I made you read all of this before actually talking about the topic of this post, Butt Darts, but I felt it necessary to describe my mythical family before taking it to the main stage. Allow me to explain this magical centaur of a game.
Before you continue reading, please know that you might gasp, shriek, and have the inclination to report our family to the higher-ups. As Jill said, we should have been taken away by Child Protection Services a long time ago, but we were not, and so now you have to deal with us. I implore you to refrain from incarcerating us, as we are merely trying to have a good time. We are not harming any humans, and we do not impose our idealisms on other families, not unless you decide to visit one of our family functions by tagging along with your friend, aka my cousin, or your boyfriend, aka my other cousin. Should you be so Spartan-like with your tenacity to experience new things, come on in and see us; please know that we will interrogate you with probing and exposing questions, strong-arm you into playing our games, and poke fun at you without even getting to know you, trust me, we will see inside your soul before you depart for the evening, but we require very little “warming up.” In addition to ribbing you at your first gathering, we will be kind and make sure you are fed and watered throughout, not make you feel like an outsider by including you in our devious and enlightening conversations, and we will make every attempt to make you giggle and want to come back. We have a sizeable following of outsiders who checked us out once upon a time and morphed into our new family members; sometimes I forget who is blood-related and who is not.
The rules of Butt Darts are as follows: You take a roll of quarters, you place them between your buttocks; Jill wisely reminded me to remind you all to wear pants while doing this. No one needs butt germs, they are doing just fine on their own. However, the type of pants you wear could make or break you – jeans seem to work best, but I have heard sweatpants can give you a flexible advantage. Once you have the quarters between your ass cheeks, you waddle over to a 16 oz cup (not anything made of glass, no need to break anything), strategically flexing to hold the quarters in between said cheeks; when you arrive at the almighty cup, you release the quarters, aiming for the hole and hoping all of them made it into the cup.
Any missed quarters go into the pot, or ante if you are fancy, which goes to the last [wo]man standing who will be crowned the Butt Dart King or Queen. Somehow I feel like I am making most of this up, or getting my rules wrong, and my family is going to be so disappointed in me, but let us keep moving on to discuss the importance of Butt Darts and why you should incorporate this into future family get-togethers.
Look To the Butt Dart
Butt Darts has taught many lessons – not only do you get exercise, but you get instant satisfaction if you are skilled at the game. You reflect on your abilities – your butt did that swan dance, it got the quarters into the cup; you have champion glutes and cat-like steps, and you eventually have a chance at winning all of those quarters, which you will have to probably wash before you go cash them into the bank….or will you? We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no.
Perhaps my favorite part of Butt Darts is its lesson on vulnerability and awareness of one’s own potential. Think about it, you are having to squeeze quarters in your ass in front of many people, those on the sidelines laughing incredulously as you develop your own creative technique for getting those coins, which have now become slippery and somehow smaller than you thought judging by the way you have to clench to the right so much, from point A to point B without losing your cool or laughing too much that you let go midway and blow the entire operation to smithereens. People, this is where you find out about your true self. This is where the magic happens.
You also learn if you are superstitious, since that rusty old quarter from 1993 is the one that religiously goes into the cup after each round, dubbing this your “lucky quarter” and profusely rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger before inserting it back into the butt sleeve again for yet another adventure. No whammies, no whammies, no whammies.
On gloomy days, I like to think about my cousin Mitchell, conducting a ninja-like dance of an unknown species, successfully carrying his butt-pocket change to the precious cup in a way that no one had ever witnessed before, taking home the gold for the evening. It still makes me laugh as hard as the first time when I saw the choreography, and no one can deny that kind of awesome memory recall.
Even though butt darts might sound strange and a vector for infectious diseases, I continuously thank my family for the courage they have given me to be myself via these games and other feats of strength. I will never forget being poked at for not dancing at a Mama Mia concert; being a shy and sensitive one in a family of bold and blunt extroverts is not always easy, but it has allowed me to learn how to come out of my shell, to express myself, and most importantly to laugh at myself often and to never take myself too seriously, because I am a dip, (and okay with it).
Jill also reflected on her life-skills obtained from our rowdy family:
I really have “no shame in my game” and I tell my students that frequently. I am free to be my silly, singing, dancing, corny self because I do not care about the thoughts of others and I am self-aware. I learned this through this family, these silly games, and this fun upbringing. Be loud and proud and expressive of who you are. So you might get kicked out of your aunt’s house for yelling at a 10-year-old…the next day all will be well; all will be forgotten and you still will be welcomed and loved in this family. (I don’t know if that was the incident with the whiskey or not–but I know Aunt Jan kicked someone out at Christmas too because Rick and Dawson (aka Big D, our family child who morphed into a twenty-one-year-old adult in a flash) stayed to play games, Dawson learned to be a smart ass from this family, was talking shit, and then someone started yelling at him for talking shit…so she kicked that person out…). Even being the sensitive soul in the family doesn’t bother me as much in adulthood, because I know this about myself and I simply don’t care that others do too. Learning to laugh at yourself and to be self-aware are some of the best lessons to learn in life.
For the sake of your happiness, for exercising new ab muscles from laughing, and for new glute muscles from clenching,
get out there and play Butt Darts.
It might make the world a better place, it could make you braver, and you might even learn something about yourself.
Looking back on my seven-year career in healthcare leadership, the most profound growth I experienced was through (hold on to your butts for this huge reveal) courses and programs held by the Organizational Development (OD) team. Whenever I was given the time and permission to feast on the OD energy, my development advanced by miles rather than the inches I crept when doing other monotonous leadership duties such as building [fake] relationships, coaching others [who did not want to be coached], and proposing ideas [that were dismissed in seconds].
I made many attempts to directly join the OD team, these tries being met by equal amounts of “No, thank you, stay in your corner,” this being a good move in hindsight. Most of the OD peeps were encouraging and open to me helping spread the good word known as OD through my current role, but as for opening the door to a career in OD, that was damn near impossible. One OD person even told me I had to go get a Master’s in OD (without knowing I had a Master’s in Healthcare Admin. Sure, let me add school to my to-do list, go into even more student loan debt, and most likely not get the OD job).
My hunch is that these Organizational Development people wanted me to remain naive to the glorious roles they were sporting; holding the jobs close to their chest for fear people would find out that they were actually having fun and loving the position. If they brought a manager over to the other side, it could let the cat out of the bag, and then no one would apply to be a manager again. Doom and gloom on all accounts, but looking back, I am glad they pushed me away with their sword-like presentation pointers. I did not deserve to love my job, that would have made too much sense, and this does not jive with the David Byrne rule that I follow on the daily. I had to find the work happiness myself, the Scary Happiness.
Truth be told, I did just that and found my own damn way to be content. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
Baby, I Was Born This Way
Within the spark-inducing Organizational Development courses I took, the personality tests were the firestarters that kicked my unaware ass into shape. My addiction to these tests became such that the moderator of the personality assessment courses became my friend, and I was given puppy-loving attention during the classes by using my results as examples throughout the sessions. Other people gave me the weird side-eye when the classes started, insinuating and inquiring as to why I would be taking them again, and again, and again. Somehow I managed to keep getting analyzed, probably due to the numerous leadership classes I took that had the personality test as an ice-breaker.
The tests I have undergone:
DISC
Weakest of the epiphanies, but a good starter test.
My results: D & I were the strongest. Big surprise here as D stands for Dominance and I for Influence. My D & I were complimented by 70 people who were blends of S & C, which mean Steadiness and Conscientiousness, both of which I have severely depleted values (you mean you want me to be calm and actually think about my decisions? Nah, not for me.). Ooo baby, baby, it’s a wild work world, and that it was. The majority of that group (who lived in a lab cave if you are still wondering who they might be) said to me, and probably still say, “Hey, go away crazy lady!” I even had a person tell me to stop leading with emotions and only focus on the technical stuff. Since I love everyone and do not judge, I find myself feeling sad for this person, as they obviously had people issues, bullied the others (still do from what I hear), had no feelings, and were in an internal black pit of despair. I wish them the best as they find a way to mutilate confidence wherever they go. Whew, sorry, had to get that out. I feel better now.
Birkman Assessment
I took the detailed test on this one, and it gave me x-ray vision deep into my soul. I also did a partner assessment with my co-manager, who was my direct opposite; super cool experience that I still think saved my marriage at the time as my husband is my direct opposite.
My results: Too detailed to write out, but I am a Red Hot Dictator. Direct, obtrusive, demanding. Yes, yes, and yes. If I had an evil bone in my body, I could easily row the Sailboat of Life with the Donnies of the world if you catch my drift. Thankfully my moral compass steers me toward the sunshine instead of the black hold of financial lust and hunger for power.
Myers-Briggs
The spookiest, most accurate assessment I keep ogling at to this day.
My results: INFP – The Idealist, the Mediator. I read this article the other day that felt like the writer had been following me around since birth.
What I learned from these tests:
Personality tests serve as the toothpicks that keep your emotional eyes open. Some humans are born aware and accepting of their tendencies, others discover their weaknesses but choose never to acknowledge or look them straight in the eye, and others are blind to the madness until it is too late to turn back.
For example, my temper has been a known beast since my younger years, and I let it fastidiously grow until it had octopus arms, cheetah legs, and shark teeth. Anger sits on my shoulders each day, breathing down my neck and encouraging me to lash out at the next opportunity. Instead, I ignore this ugly gremlin, not letting it get its jollies on just any frustrating situation. It wins on occasion, giving a drooling, cheating grin whenever I lose my cool for no apparent reason. But for the most part, I keep it locked up and torture it by forcing it to observe my kindness fill up the crevices of this melancholic world.
A fascinating takeaway from personality tests was that character is something you are born with, not something you can select as you age and experience. The logic is sound to me, and I incorporate this wisdom into my parenting style. My children cannot be changed, I can only cultivate their talents and expose them to the ongoings of the world; what they do with that information is purely in their hands. I pray to the (somewhat imaginary) gods that my children listen to themselves throughout life and do what they feel is worthy of their time. I will not force them to be something; I hope they are anything and everything they find fit. They will fail, and I am ok with that. I will share my wisdom, my perspective, and my experiences to provide them with the pros and cons that I am aware of, but demanding is not in the cards. Check back with me in 5, 10, and 20 years to see if this stands true as I will veer off the tracks numerous times. Hell, I have already broken this promise if we are being true to the conversation.
Express Yourself
What I learned about myself after taking personality tests: I am a rare circular change-loving monster floating in the ether, feeding off of other people’s energies or lack thereof, expecting the same energy level in return, which is a false dream, as I am a bouncing antelope living in a world of stagnant, immobile walruses whose bark is indeed worse than their bite. Not all of you are walruses, do not take offense to that; from my perspective, I am an energetic, happy, and grateful person, but oftentimes people interpret me as a freak who drinks pounds of espresso on the regular, never stagnant, encroaching on the tame and mild. My energy scares people without me realizing it. Now that I know about this, I make a point to observe the reactions of others whenever I enter the room. You probably thought I would say that I toned it down a notch, but the results ended up invigorating my scientific mind to the point where it could be considered taunting.
My Tigger-like bounciness can be both a blessing and a curse, as the expectation is for me to always be bubbly. It can be tricky to uphold that legacy, so on my sad days (which happen more than you think) I like to stay at home; which can also be tricky since I was not allowed to work from home back in those corporate corpse days. But I changed that aspect, and I now can stay home whenever I damn well please. Again, stick that deliciousness in your pipe and smoke it.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
My point is such: Take a personality test. Understand yourself better. Pivot and find yourself via your passions and tendencies. Be aware of YOU, and sparkle. Always sparkle.
My next goal: Force my family to take these tests so I can learn who they really are.
See? I have already failed to refrain from forcing. Guess it is just part of my character (teeheehee).
Dr. Stay-At-Home Mom: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Broken System.
Life has swallowed me up so much as I work on being a more involved mother, forming better habits, and breaking into the writing industry, that I have neglected to post about work. Fear not – I have been drawn back to the humming sounds of the office printer and the high-pitched squeals of employees begging for help (and sanity) and have been inspired to write this post about work benefits and how I lost a ton of money and support when I became a stay-at-home mother, aka a dinosaur supervisor.
A wise person once told me if a problem or dilemma is brought up three times in a given period by three different people, then that is a problem worth paying attention to. This past week I had three different discussions with three different people, two of which were acquaintances, and one a tremendous friend. Out of these three people, two were mothers and one was a seasoned father. Biased group, but what the hell, let’s talk about it anyway.
Break a leg (but only if you work full-time)
Way back when (what feels like eons ago but was no more than seven months ago) I was a marionette for the wealthy and powerful, I had a vast portfolio of kush benefits from my employer. This array of insurances covered my and my family’s lives; our health, teeth, eyes, cars, pets, home, daycare, chronic illnesses that might be lurking in the dark, and even accidents that we kind of knew were going to happen but clenched our teeth in anticipation for if and when they would happen (like my child falling headfirst off of a kitchen chair on to the hardwood…yup). If anything crazy happened, or if one of my children stuck a crayon up their nose without me seeing it, we were covered financially.
Ah, when we had those benefits, life was good. Or was it? Looking back at that time, it was a stressful period of life, and I do not believe my newborn or toddler children were the main contributors to hair-pulling anxiety. Lest we forget I also had to sell my soul to get those benefits – I sacrificed so much for the damn benefits, including beautiful moments such as spending time with my family, following my passions, reading books regularly, exercising on a healthy basis, and making my own decisions in any given situation.
Come to think of it, the incidents that were then covered by the luxurious insurance might have been occurring more frequently because of the long hours and multiple balls in the air. Similar to the Tootsie Pop theory, the world will never know.
No soup for you (when you are sick). You cannot afford it.
When I left my role at the hospital, I also said sayonara to my benefits, but I did not say goodbye to the company itself. However, I still work for them off and on, about twenty hours per month, because that is about all my mental capacity can stand.
I tried working more, but raising two children and following dreams takes a lot out of me, and I make mistakes at work if I overextend at home, which can lead to killing someone unintentionally, which I try to avoid at all costs both inside and outside of work. So I told myself to stop working for them so much because no one needed to die from a mistyped unit of blood or an inaccurate lab result that happened because a working mother could not keep her eyes open after a long day at home with her children. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place: Work more and make errors, or work less and go broke. Choices.
Because I chose to step back and work less, I am not eligible for benefits. The rule is that you have to be working full-time to receive benefits, part-time workers have to pay about $10K a year for family health insurance (as much as my husband’s benefits cost, so it was not worth it for me to go part-time and put the girls back in daycare), and per diem employees (what I now am) get zero benefits with the exception of the pension (which I am grateful for).
A handful of people would say this benefits structure makes sense – you have to work your hours to get your benefits. What I see is a huge gaping blind spot that is invisible to the naked eye, the kind of hidden snack only mothers can spot in the pantry.
Here are the questions I have for the corporations with people who had to cut their hours because of life events:
Have you thought about the caretakers that cannot work full-time but still need benefits?
Do you want to be the company that supports their people no matter how many hours they put in or do you want to be the company that requires full-time hours in order to get reasonably-priced health benefits? Let’s say someone is holding multiple, part-time jobs, probably a single mother or someone who never got the opportunity to go to college because it costs Elon Musk’s annual salary to do so, don’t you want to be THE employer that supports them with benefits? If they choose to switch jobs, chances are they will not drop you from their list since you are treating them like the amazing and overworked human they are. Let them work their multiple jobs at least knowing they are covered if something happens to their health.
What about the people that sacrificed their careers to spend time with their family? Right now it feels like we are punishing them for choosing happiness. They leave their toxic workplaces only to find that the doctor’s visit that once cost $50 now costs $350, thus deterring said people from maintaining health for fear of a large bill they cannot pay because they are too busy shoveling money into groceries for their gremlins?
I Got Bills in Low Places
I need to be honest and face reality – this post is not about my employer or any employer for that matter, the real cause of this post is the American health system; you know it, I know it, let’s face it, it’s terrible. Other countries with universal healthcare understand that health is a right, not a privilege. Similar to how people should not have to pay to use the restroom, I, nor you or your family, should not have to pay to be healthy and survive this tricky, relentless, and joyous game of life. Sure, we need to be accountable for our health by taking measures to prevent illness and accidents, but if I get cancer, have a baby, or become diagnosed with an illness out of my control, that, my friends, should be covered, with minimal financial damage to my pocket and yours.
I now am under my husband’s health insurance, and it is ridiculously expensive and covers very little. Still worth it to see my family more.
Would you rather
Would you rather get a wart removed or push a baby out of your vagina?
I would rather get a wart removed.
But wait! What if it cost you $400 to get the wart removed and only $200 to push the baby out of the vajayjay?
Wait, I want to change my answer. I want to have the baby instead.
That scenario happened to me because I lost my benefits with the employer I currently work for. And because American health insurance is complicated, unreasonable, and not in the best interest of anyone except for those on yachts.
And maternal and paternal benefits are lacking. There, I said it. There is little to no support for those who are building the future of the world. I want to have a third baby, but I cannot afford it. I will have a third baby, you watch me, and I will go even broker doing it, but it will be worth it. And I will not go back to work full time in order to be covered financially to have the third baby. I refuse to see my family less.
Support those who support others.
I could have just written those five words instead of going on this rant.
We are six months into the new phase of life with me staying home with the gremlins and with Frank thriving, providing, and profiling in his career in cannabis (such a cool thing to say). The girls and I have tested several schedules that poke and prod at our time management skills, but we have mostly gone unscheduled and off the cuff with our adventures by randomly exploring as much of metro-Denver as possible, including the non-friendly kid areas where I had a sixth-sense to say “Don’t touch that!” every five seconds of the walking tour.
We succeeded most days in exploring, learning, and being stubborn, and if the weather was shaky (which it rarely was in this hunk of a state), we shelled up at home like little pistachios and spoke to no one; we also played the hermit crab game on brilliant sunny days if we were not feeling it – gasp! Emotions are hard, socialization is draining, and life is too short. Stay home and relax if you want, said my conscience. Continue to work on your new journey into the fine arts; the children will entertain themselves.
[Black] Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
What the Conscience forgot was that while life was sweet, screen time was a possessive demon. As I continued to hand the iPad to my toddler, I would knowingly think to myself, how can a child entertain themselves if they have not yet learned the meaning of entertainment? The answer is this: children cannot entertain themselves unless taught to entertain themselves, they can only absorb their environment as it is given to them. Amidst the many projects I was taking on for myself, the boat tipped over from the weight of the iPad; screen time was enveloping our lives and brought with it temper tantrums, refusal to listen, and inability to be creative and concoct simple moments of fun. No, I am not against screentime, but I am opposed to it replacing my role as a mother, which somehow I allowed it to do when I was not looking. Life is a balance, everything is moderation.
Several events led to our destruction at home – I became busy with my business, Souled Out, and decided to pursue craft fairs in November, meaning a month leading up to it I was kicking up new projects like a bucking bronco; a batch of soap here, a slew of tie-dye there; thrifting like a champ and building a website like the fake IT person I never knew myself to be. Many of these projects had to be done sans children and with extreme focus, so I gave the toddler the black mirror and let her figure it out herself. Thankfully, we shielded the baby from most of this as she took long naps and I conducted my work during that time. Whew, at least one of us was spared from the black hole of artificial learning.
I Was Just Guessing At Numbers and Figures, Pulling the Puzzles Apart
I operate my life like a scientist, constantly observing, analyzing, and concluding. I peered in at my children’s behavior during this time of (dare I say) neglect, and I noticed that they were rotting from the inside, not to mention I too was decomposing internally from not letting my parent flag fly. As I became more submerged in my personal goals, I realized I was off by a mile trying to hit the mark on my main goal – spending quality time teaching my children how to live.
My body and mind reached the depths of the dumps that you only get to when you need a wake-up call; my kids clung to me like bush-babies, begging me to play blocks with them or paint with them, and I kept saying, “I will after I do x, y, and z.” Totally wrong of me, but I was focusing on my task at hand, not theirs. For an A-type personality, disobeying your to-do list is a criminal offense. And allowing the pressures to pile up can mean a volcanic eruption for all parts of life; serenity now, insanity later.
Don’t Call It a Comeback
My family continued the struggle for balance, thus I generated the idea to revive ourselves (or myself) with a two-week writing walkabout at my parent’s place in Florida; the focuses being to dissect and to develop a process for untangling this mess of words I had jotted down over the months, to categorize my thoughts (an enormous undertaking), to slice and dice words (kill those darlings, people, kill them and never look back), and to inundate my brain with new ideas of the unknown (give me inspiration or give me death).
The most important key to this rejuvination was that my children would concurrently continue their education of life since my parents would be caring for and showing them the world. My husband, Frank, could also benefit from this since three of his four women would flee the house for two weeks, leaving him with his favorite female of all, our dog, Rigby. I am not naive and do not believe there is a fool in sight who would pass up that deal.
These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, and That’s Just What They’ll Do
I am on Day 12 of the walkabout, and I have absorbed and accomplished much more than I thought possible, all in different ways I knew possible. Contrary to what you want to hear, I did not make much headway with my book(s). I arrived in Florida with sixty pages of content, three storylines, and a gallon of ideas for Souled Out (I get thirsty just thinking about them). I had little to no organization for all three stories, but I had vigor, faith, and a few skeletons of summaries that told me to keep on swimming no matter what turbulent waves I encounter.
The best thing I packed in my suitcase was the pile of guts to keep on going.
You Grieve, You Learn, You Choke, You Learn, You Laugh, You Learn, You Choose, You Learn
What I expected to do while I was down here:
Shell up, write twenty or more pages of my stories, summarize and create outlines for my stories, and edit my stories.
Some of this happened, but mostly not.
What I actually did while I was down here:
(Re)discovered that writing is in my top five most difficult challenges of life. If you are an aspiring writer, do not let anyone tell you differently – being a writer is TOUGH. As I worked through editing 30+ pages of content, my brain became defeated. Hell, I even removed an earlier posted writing entry from my blog webpage out of sheer embarrassment for previous pieces of work I had written. What in the hell was I thinking when I wrote this? This part makes zero sense. I sound like an idiot here, there, and everywhere. What I failed to realize is that writing is not supposed to make sense the first, second, or even third time around. It takes practice, diligence, discipline, and the ability to be kind to yourself and your thoughts. I might repost it, but right now I am still coping and building back my confidence.
Realized that I am fit for writing. Name a job where you can make your own decisions, write your own rules, and still be challenged without interference from other social opinions. So far, I have found one role that fits that description, and that is writing. I am certain this perception I have of writing will change as time evolves, but for now, I am challenging myself in a way that I never thought possible – MY WAY. I do not have someone telling me to meet a metric that means nothing, I do not have an employee verbally thrashing at me for my wild yet strategic ideas that could make the world a better place if one gave it a chance, I do not have anyone dictating how to display and share my words. Writing is mine, and I am writing. It is the biggest challenge (aside from breastfeeding, raising a toddler, and strengthening my marriage) that I have known to date, and it is one of the best. I will get defeated, I will be torn down, I will most definitely try to quit at least three times, but I will continue knowing that I have found something that I can call my own.
Created a weekly schedule for 2023. I went from being a strictly scheduled corporate corpse for over ten years to being a free-range chicken; the transition was similar to putting a saltwater fish in a freshwater pond. I came near to exploding, imploding, and bursting into smithereens; I did too much of what I wanted, I drank too much alcohol, I indulged in other vices, and I tried to have my cake and eat it too. I became off-balance, and something had to be done. My structure-loving heart was doing whatever it wanted, and it was going berserk. I have since offset this imbalance by creating a weekly schedule, one that I will try out, morph, tweak, and mold until it becomes outdated and I have to start over again on a completely new schedule. Such is life. I am proud of my schedule as it has more family time budgeted than work time, which is essentially what we were looking for in the first place, eh?
Researched how to sell smoked cheese. Because Frank and I have been smoking cheese. And it tastes like whatever heaven would taste like if it existed. And I want to share it, but I cannot afford to give it out for free. So I need to figure out how to package it without the feds coming to get me.
2023 will be a grand adventure; a new picture taken from a different corner of the same room.
Well folks, here we are. It has been over thirty days since my last post, and I am not proud of it. In fact, I failed several goals I was aiming to accomplish, and yet, somehow, I am okay with all of that. Life happens when you are busy having fun.
The various flavors of the month include a full scoop of innovation, a smattering of family time, a shot of hell-raising, and a (lovin’) spoonful of relaxation. Yes people, we are in another state, doing research and building future goals.
On Being a Free Range Chicken
Unemployment has gifted our family with many ups and downs, the highs being more plentiful than lows. From my perspective I was given one of the most gracious gifts a person can receive: the gift of time and, even better, the gift of no agenda.
I was “free-range chickening” it, and I was receiving the blue ribbon award more often than not with my supreme ideas on where to go, what to do, and how to fill our time. The gremlins and I were, and still are, knocking it out of the park.
But then pesky work came along and ruined it all.
Smile-Hustle-Smile-Hustle. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
When we drove cross-country and stopped in Nashville, we of course had to check out the hottest chicken spot out there – Hattie B’s Hot Chicken. Now that free (or not free, I am not sure. I failed to research their food sourcing practices) range chicken was the true winner. Saucy, seasoned, crispy, tender….are you drooling yet?
The chicken was exquisite, but the apparel won the award for the day. Situated in my direct vision was a shirt hanging up that said “Smile, Hustle, Smile Hustle,” intertwined as a symbiotic relationship. I immediately gave up my money and bore the threads as the slogan described my Wild West Entreprenuerial lifestyle change to a T.
Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job
Since I decided to give up my leader responsibilities, a not-so-lavish salary, and the expectation to work fifty plus hours per week on items handed to me from unseen dictators, I decided to start working on my own terms and following my passions. My initial dream for quitting my job was to start up a shop, and I am slightly proud (in a semi-shy way) to say that I can check that box halfway, or all the way depending on how you look at it.
My store was opened in November, hitting my mark of having tangible results within a year of being unemployed.
You’re Fooling Yourself If You Don’t Believe It
A wise friend recently told me to be kinder to myself for missing deadlines. They told me to create an alter ego that could coach, coax, and listen to the person stressing, screaming, and never forgiving themselves for not completing a project in time.
I tried this tactic with my writing as I discovered that although writing is a true passion, stress-reliever, and motivator for me, it is the one thing I avoid like the plague as I somehow believe that time will magically be carved out by shiny little elves that follow me around and pick up my crumbs and fan me when I get sweaty. Fun fact – the elves never showed up. They ditched me back at that one lady that gives them free beef jerky and candy canes; she knows what is up.
So as I waited for these elfin creatures to arrive, I kept filling my time with other things I loved: tie-dye, soap-making, website-building, reconnecting with old friends who have never fully gone out of my life but remain part of the Genius Club (at least those who were willing to communicate back). Some people ditched me, perhaps it was for the better, I have a grand feeling that there are companions standing alongside the imaginary road of life with their thumbs sticking out, ready for me to pick them up on my Magic School Bus, equipped with snacks , cocktails, and herbal remedies that seem to make music sound just a tinge better. Those future friends will balance it out.
Alas, I became so good at the [insert new hobby here] game that I lost track of the primary game I was playing. I partied all night, hobbied/partially raised kids during the day (most times I failed on my motherly duties when business picked up), and then the weirdest thing started happening. I got moody.
The Day the Scary Happiness (Almost) Ended
For no reason, I got irritated. I was snippy, I was down in the dumps, I spent a week with my parents as a snooty sassafras rather than an energetic adventurer. But why? My life was damn near perfect being a free-range chicken roaming the mountainsides. Sure, numerous roadblocks and speedbumps had exposed themselves during this time, lessons had been learned, as John Cragie says, “bad people had to get elected…civilizations had to crumble”, so on and so forth, but all of that is to be expected. Life is tough no matter what the conditions may be. But amidst the adversities, what was I so turned up about?
So I began to acknowledge these feelings as they poked and pestered me as routine as my exercise regimen. Every time my blood pressure rose or my anxiety strangled my energy, I would reflect. Dissect. Diagnose. Correct.
The villian’s face never revealed itself after a few weeks of tremors and trepidations, but a Stress-Relieving Goblin hovered over me, steaming its hot breath right in my age-spot ridden face, laughing and getting its spittle in my eyes. The monster was Writing, and it haunts me like a feroucious, hangry toddler, not letting my leg go until I cough up the fruit snacks and Chex Mix. Threatening to scream or pee its pants if I hold out on the spicy pistachios. That damn goblin, I tell you.
Every time I wrote, the sadness seeped out of my brain like syrup from a freshly-tapped maple tree. I let the madness out, and damn it felt good.
There’s Got To Be Some Changes Made, Gotta Make A Change Someway
Because of my (what seemed like) everlasting depression, I decided something has to give.
Sadness is the body’s way of telling you it’s time to do something different.
So I set out to do something different, even though I had already been doing many various tricks and trades, I still needed a change, and I knew it. I knew I needed to write more, but my five year plan consisted of being a dinosaur supervisor – raising children and being an innovator only on the side. Having a full time writing gig feels unreal and impossible. The defeat of it all was an elixer effective enough to repel me from doing the act that I loved the most – writing stories and sharing my brain on paper.
Instead of pushing my demon aside and exorcising them from my body, I decided to rebuild a harmonious house, a way the goblin and I can co-create, high-five during lunch time, and do one of those half-jumps for a sweet photo that we would use on our combined Facebook profile page. Life would be sweet with the Writing Goblin and I.
And so here we are, two days from embarking on an epic writing walkabout, or roundabout, or sitabout, or whatever the %&*! you do when you are without children for more than two hours and have a bundle of time to spend on binging TV shows.
I choose to spend my time writing, and so I shall…for the next ten days at least.
My blog posts have been lagging a bit these days. Originally I had established this blog to help me explore the act of writing and build a healthy and productive writing habit. Here are some things I have learned about writing:
It is damn near impossible to write with children in the house. Case in point – I woke up early today to spend sexytime with my blog, only to open the laptop’s sleek case, gently tickle the keys to type in the password, some light pokes with the mouse to get to the blog, and then, what’s that?!? A tiny voice crying for me to help get underwear and Garcia the bear. I am a magician and I can make focus time dissipate into the unknown! My forces are stronger than I initially thought.
Writing for hours is difficult, sequestering those hours is even harder. See item #1 about time disruption. However, ask yourself if you could sit and pump out a colorful tale in one hour without feeling like you transported to another world. The tricky part is getting your mothership back to the real world after that hour.
The urge to recap is impossible to satiate (mostly because of a lack of time). Whenever I worked on a project in the corporate corpse world, I would review my work from the previous day, massaging my cranium and jolting it to recall the masterpieces created the days before. With writing, doing a total recap is not an option, or else you would be rereading your future book seventy thousand times, thus never giving yourself time to start, continue, and finish said book. Can I get an assistant over here please? Someone perhaps more willing to follow instruction than a three year old gremlin.
My time with writing has been one of the best endeavors ever. A profound percentage of my quests and jobs in life have been to satisfy my craving for learning, this writing journey is no different. The challenge is the enchantment.
So for now, I will continue to write. I will remain a top-notch mother who teaches my children about the simple, complex, and sometimes deceiving machines of life, and I will power on my journey of learning. Eventually my brain will explode into a million tiny ideas that will sprinkle themselves over the universe, causing others to catch the Learning Bug (forget my other post about Death Wishes to You and Yours, the Innovative Explosion is how I really want to go out).
My name is Matt Foley, and I am a motivational speaker.
Motivation is a mysterious beast. It can be alluring, tantalizing, yet a nasty little shit. I write this as I am tender and sore from a workout that I praised and cursed within two minutes of each other (I believe f*#k you was what I said this time I was doing alternate V-situps today. Better yet, the guy on the video, my pal Phil, said to me (like I knew it all along), “And if you need to take it slow today, you can keep your legs on the ground for this move.” I hear this phrase while the whole time I had been putting my legs on the ground, unaware that they were supposed to do elevated. Even more embarrassing that I had been STRUGGLING that whole time with the “legs on the ground” version. Needless to say, after that move was over, I let out a nice giant F U to my microscopic phone screen, mostly because it was a pain in the ass, pun intended, but a morsel of my heart was saying F U for getting me motivated enough to even try a move like that. Motivation, you sneaky little succubus.
I pulled a butt muscle the other day, and I would have taken that feeling over the alternate-V-sit-legs-floating-in-mid-air dance any day, any time.
But wait, there’s more. Not even three more moves into my buddy Phil’s workout, and I am doing plank jacks and sailing along like the badass warrior woman that I claim to be, cheering along with my boy, P, on YouTube, ready for the next circuit, which ends up being something as awful as “the move before that must not be named.” See above paragraphs if you need a refresher. Ups and downs, all within twenty minutes. 1200 seconds, the amount of time I allow myself to sit on Facebook each day. The 20 minutes on FB feels like a flash in a pan compared to the 20 minutes of exercise. Similar to how lunch break is always cheated while some thirty minute meetings were a struggle to remain from slipping into Freddy Krueger’s world. Sheesh, doesn’t anyone know how to have fun around here?
Bad news, team. Fun is hard work.
This is hard livin’
It takes every morsel of my energy to push through an exercise routine, maybe even more than that. I first have to convince myself that it is worth doing, which it always is, and then I have to walk past a mirror at least twice for glimpses of my metamorphosis, the small muscle tone that exists acting as reassurance that the work is worth doing. Then I have to don my attire, which I make sure takes extra long, even drawing out the speedy task of tying my shoes. Honestly, it is kind of difficult to tie your shoes in slow motion, try it sometime, the brain cannot compute. Finally I make it to the part where I gather my water, my phone, and my headphones, and I trudge upstairs, tell that damn Computer to turn on the Theater light, and I get down to business. Twentyish minutes or less. Full of cursing, taking breaks, and cheering my pathetic self on. Sometimes I get cocky and do a spicy five-minute arm workout after that, and that one always is icing on the cake. Afterwards I bask in the glory of that extra energy, the spryness of my steps, and the ability to fit into clothes I spent money on years ago, only to be looked at, not donned, peered at in a museum-like fashion during the past four years of being in and out of work in the pregnancy department. Those poor clothes. Somehow I manage to convince myself they are worth retaining in my tight closet year after year; the day I finally wear them will be the day I resent them.
The Locomotion, mixed with lethargy
Exercise is a good choice. Deep down I know I will have to continue being healthy up until the day my body explodes into a confetti burst of ideas for the future of tomorrow, but most of me wants to know if there will ever be an opportunity to let go of the jumping jacks and do the fun stuff, like being a couch potato and reading all day. My heart wants to say yes, but my head knows that constant lethargy will get me nowhere but down in the dumps. I wonder if everyone struggles like this – my inferior mind says I am the only one, but my emotionally intelligent brain is mentoring me, stating that a majority of people also struggle through and despise grueling exercises.
I used to hide from exercise like a prisoner escaping in the middle of the night. No way does it see me…..I am slinky and sleuth-like, back against the wall, keeping busy with other tasks so it thinks that I have more important things to do. It cannot reel me in today, I have better plans, a more promising day. I will walk around today, that will be good enough. That was always my motto. And then I got sad because said clothes did not fit anymore. And my stomach felt dense and of the consistency of the La Brea tar pits. Bubbling yet still, gelatinous, clogged with whatever sodium-saturated snack I decided to plunge into at 10pm the night before. Any hangover medicine turns its nose up at my practices of vice-maintenance, hangovers don’t like working hard, so why would their medicines do any different? Nothing works.
Alas, now I have built a routine, and I crave it. Exercise has become a part of my flabby little being, no matter how hard I try to shove it out of my mainframe. Now to uphold and give it the respect it deserves….
A friend asked me to help her out at an event the other day. She has created a magical sustainability coaching business that provides support to businesses, homeowners, and humans of all kinds. She helps people understand the importance of being eco-friendly and reduce waste around the house (i.e. using glass containers to store your leftovers/lunch instead of Ziploc bags or setting up a home milk delivery from the dairy instead of buying it in the plastic gallon jugs); she outlines small steps anyone can take to decrease the speed of that tear in the Ozone layer,. You know the hole I speak of, the one that is causing catastrophic weather events, bouts of unexplained skin cancer, and is the copyright owner of the tagline, “Damn it never used to be this hot outside.”
My friend is a world-saving, bold, warrior woman who tells people how to shape up and be more friendly to Mother Earth, the OG mother who never gets a break.
My friend’s company is called Eco-Minded, and she is lifting it off of the ground like a mighty rocket. With blood, sweat, and probably tears, she has spread her roots to the music festival scene.
What Eco-Minded does is incredible. The team goes to festival events and they sort the trash to ensure that the recycling actually gets recycled and also decreases the amount of unnecessary waste going to landfills by sorting compostables in a compost bin as well (biggest compost bin ever by the way).
Think of the countless concerts and jams you have attended where all of those shiny, groove-inducing bottles and cans containing remnants (or full gulps) of magic juice go straight in the trash, where they do not belong. We all used to think, “Man, if someone recycled this stuff, they would probably make the world a better place.” She capitalized on that shit if I ever saw it.
My friend asked me if I wanted to work one of her events, AND she even paid me, which was a sweet bonus considering the job description was made of dreams and rainbows, dumpster-diving aside. The gig I signed up for was Trash Sorter, but we all know the actual title was Waste Warrior- A Simple Music Festival Lover, Showing the World How Easy It Is to Do the Right Thing, One Compostable, Half-Eaten BBQ Platter and Recyclable Plastic Cup Full of Unfinished Beer at a Time. Note, both platter and cup were harmed in the making of this story; both were thrown in the trash. In front of my very eyes. Ouch, humanity. Hit me, baby, one more time. Right in the gut, please.
Our team was mighty. Made of five, steady full-timers that expanded as large as nine deep at one point in time (we had some floater litter patrollers who knocked the socks off of the gig). We fought hard, we braved the extremes, we took shit from no one (and got shit on no one), and we smiled at everyone.
Kindness was our weapon, and we were so green we even reeked of a certain semi-legal green plant that some of you are familiar with. In fact, that plant might have helped us cope/mask that garbage smell that followed us around like Pigpen’s cloud of shame. We were Helicopter Parents to the trash, recycle, and compost bins, never letting them out of our sight and always poking, prodding, and peering in. If someone threw something in the wrong bin, not only did they get a lesson in accountability (they always looked back to see how we handled it; some apologized, some grinned out of embarrassment, some did not look back until they were out of sight), but they also became educated on how we can help keep the world in OK shape if we take two more seconds to think and make a decision about that beer can we just chugged.
Do I want that beer can to live longer than I will, or would I like to help it reincarnate into a new beer can, meet a new lip lover, and fall in love all over again, only to be left for dead in a can with the other suckers? Of course I choose the latter, call me a hopeless romantic.
My observations from my eight hours I spent digging in the trash and sorting out the recyclables (all while jamming to live bands might I had…Third Eye Blind might I add; my 90s heart is happy):
PEOPLE ARE AWESOME. Today I heard and felt more gratitude than I have received in quite some time. And trust me, I worked in the LAB during COVID. The department where all the testing was done. During COVID times at the hospital, people thanked us all of the time, they bought us lunch, they sang us praises, hell, they even howled for us night at 8pm on the dot for a good year or so. But the genuine and kind nature of the thank yous that came my way during the festival event today were of an alien nature (a nice alien, in the same category as ALF and ET). Yes I know, I bitch a lot on this blog about how rude people can be, but deep down I know the world has a fine balance of good vs evil, the great usually outweighing the rotten. The kindness that came my way proved that people want this whole eco-friendly thing to work, but they are hesitant to put in the work. Rightfully so. It is not for the timid.
Being environmentally-conscious is worth the time and energy. Not only does saving the world require you to stick your arms two feet in a trash can to pull out a plastic cup and place it in the recycling bin, but being eco-friendly is sometimes more expensive and laborious than going to the store and buying a preservative-packed Lunchable that is drowning in plastic and probably shedding plastic into the processed lunchmeat section. It is easier to do the wrong thing and use the plastic, and that is what is wrong with this picture. Be prepared to work hard for sustainability, but please, please, please help us work diligently now to make it easier in the future. I am referring to the life that your cute grandkids, nephews, nieces, and children will be living out. You determine if in the future you would like for them to be able to walk outside safely or not.
Trash Juice, the name of my next band. Not sure how many times I said “trash juice is on my pants” today, but the group I was with probably wanted to drown me in it at some point in time out of annoyance. I am turning into my mother, and it is terrifying. Nonetheless, my pants, shirt, and arms were doused in a healthy dose of “trash juice” today. You decide what color it was.
Some people will do the wrong thing, intentionally or not, mostly because it is easier. They will look you in the eye, ask you which bin to use, and then throw the item in the opposite bin. People used to tell me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
More people will throw the plastic cup in the trash bin when you aren’t looking. For the plastic cup, the trash is the wrong bin for all viewers out there – plastic can be recycled). Said people who gave the plastic cup a death sentence at the landfill will turn around to look at what happens next. They know you will not see them looking at you since this Waste Warrior is forearm deep in trash juice (literally cannot help myself from reincarnating this definition), digging out your plastic cup along with three other passerby’s cups. And if the person performed the act out of poor intentions (which I was told in corporate leadership that all people have good intentions) they usually move on, quickly, perhaps walking even faster than before, realizing the retributions of their choices they inflicted on the Recycling Queen. Who is soaking in a tub of beer remnants and pizza crust.
The work itself was easy, mostly because we were doing the right thing. Colorado Sunshine. Bluebird Day. Live Music.. Walking. Talking. Beer. Buds. Buddies. GOOD STUFF.
A tiny part of you dies inside when you find a full beer, an uneaten meal, an untouched cigarette, or an entire anything on the ground or wasted away in the garbage. An entire Oscar the Grouch has a seizure whenever this happens. You deal with that guilt and tell me how you go to sleep every night.
Stats Save Lives: At a glance, here is how the waste broke down for the day: Roughly 15% Landfill (the bad place), 35% Compost, 50% Recycling. That’s 85% eco-friendly if you think about it. Impressive. Here is a picture to prove it.
Had we not been there to sort it throughout the festival, it would have been about 75% Landfill, 20% Recycling, 5% Compost. Sad, but true.
….we can help you. People are scared to understand how to save the world, recycle and compost.
Compost at a festival or live event (different from composting at home) = anything that can rot in less than one month. Not a McDonald’s French Fry, a cigarette, certainly not a plastic straw. Think napkins, paper plates and to-go containers with food.
Recycling = Aluminum, cardboard, plastic, sometimes glass. Teach your children well.
I walked 9.8 miles today, and it felt damn good.
The people who were on my team were true artists, and not only did I enjoy their company, but they helped me get out of one of my first bouts of writer’s block that has been haunting me this month. I have always dreamed of finding a troupe like the one Bob Dylan used to run around with, one full of storytellers and dreamers. It felt good to be around like-minded company.
I learned that the Ronald McDonald House pays its electric bill using soda tabs. Apologies for fry-shaming you earlier, that is a cool technique.
On top of all of the fun, we even squeezed in an impromptu dance party right before the last set was over. Dancing while picking up trash? Yes, please! Put me down for two.
Today was an awesome day. I hope you had a good one, too.
Back when I moved to Colorado, I was wrapping up my Master’s Degree in Health Administration, and I had no idea where it would take me. I knew I wanted to keep learning, I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to help people. It was an online program that I hit hard when working night shift in the lab at my first job as a clinical laboratory scientist in Chicago. Keeping my eyes propped open with toothpicks, I would write entries on the implementation of Obama Care (also known as a damn revolution in healthcare, for the better), watching Barry singlehandedly kick everyone’s asses and take progressive thinking to the next level.
Side note – If you have your heart set on keeping American healthcare costly, confusing, and only accessible to the rich, I welcome compelling arguments in my direction. Anyone who lobbies for American healthcare to stay the same is a fascinating beast to me, like a mythical creature or a car wreck that you cannot look away from, and I want to learn more about them. My hunch is that this group of people probably has not ever read a single bit of information on why our current system is absolutely terrible, however, I do not like to assume or put people in stereotypical buckets, but it is hard not to do that with this one. Sure everyone, keep fighting for higher bills, less help, and for all of us to die a bit sooner than we normally would since we do not have universal access to basic necessities and support. That sounds wise….not. Again, I welcome, and appreciate all perspectives, so if you want to school me on this one, go right ahead. My only ask is that we have a beer or a whiskey while we talk it over to keep things exciting.
Quit [Power]Playing Games With My Heart
When completing my master’s degree coursework, I would write stuff, and I would get A’s on my papers, because that is what happens after you procrastinate for four weeks and then spew out a 10-page paper days before it is due, editing it in hours before the deadline, and I would think to myself, man, I really like learning about this. I thought, when I graduate, I am going to help so many people and make so many differences. I might have been a tad off on that theory…
You see, the class they forgot to sign me up for (or even have on the course list), was “How to Play the Game.” That lesson came from the School of the Hard Knocks, which I am still attending, thank you very much. No one prepared me for the Game. No one told me that at 30(ish) years old, a middle-aged man in a director role would tell me “Oh you want to be director, oh that is a reach,” even though I met all qualifications for the role.
Not one person warned me that the same slimy lizard would tell me that I was “power-playing” him when I asked him to involve more stakeholders on a discriminatory decision he was making. Spoiler alert – he made the decision without involving anyone else, and he got promoted for limiting diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Gasp! Shriek! Are we really surprised here? What a meatball. On top of that, when I brought this to the head of HR’s attention, A FEMALE MIGHT I ADD, she backed him, saying that we do not always have to agree with every decision, but at the end of the day, we all have to walk out of that meeting rooting for the idea that was chosen. What a load of nonsense that was. If it is a wrong decision, if it is not the right thing, we do not have to agree with anything. Quit trying to control our thoughts.
Great Expectations
My husband, I have so many kind words to say about him, but I know that you know that I know that you know how much I love him, so we will refrain from writing a love letter since this blog entry is about people being ridiculous, and he is not one of those people, he would always say to me, “I am not sure why you are always surprised when people act indecent. You always think people will be different, but they disappoint you.” He is so right; I acknowledge that skewed expectations is a problem I have. I like to think that the world operates with integrity. That everyone is fighting the good fight. Truth is, very few of us are, and those who are, I love that we are friends, and I thank you for your participation. I look forward to meeting more of you lovely gems as I age and experience life. The sad thing is, there are not enough of us to go around. So if you are one of those people, continue making your mark on this world, because if you do not, the balance will go off-kilter, and the world will explode into a million tiny pieces since the terrible people are going to have power-hungry battles and will end up blasting us all into oblivion.
Back to what the hubs said….I am practicing on lowering expectations for humanity. Taking it a step further, I am not expecting anything from anyone. It has taken me years to get a feel for humans, and I am spellbound by their many behaviors and tendencies. People can be absolutely awful to each other, especially if a personal gain is involved. It is mind-boggling, not to mention terrifying.
Hate the Game, but Know the Game
So here I sit, trying to cope with the fact that evil lurks in all corners, and there really is no way out of it. Sure, integrity and kindness can be found if you look hard enough, but ultimately we must admit and accept that the world is run by a bunch of assholes, and that, my friends, is why you MUST learn how to play the Game.
Here are some tips I have learned when playing the Game:
Listen, a lot, listen to people and find out what their motives are before opening your mouth.
Observe, watch, peep, ask to shadow people, find out what in the hell is going on, infiltrate, inquire, be curious.
Know that people love to talk about themselves. This helps with the creeping.
Ask an absurd amount of questions. Also, ask questions that let them know that you know what they are up to. Ask them questions they cannot seem to answer. Put them on the spot, and make them share with the world that they are awful.
Let them know that you are a Fighter for Good. It will blow their mind, and they will be scared, because they will realize they let you in for long enough that you cannot easily be removed. Think of yourself as a barnacle. Just keep hanging on.
Keep living that sweet, sweet barnacle life, and it will take you far, my people.
How do you play the game?
Listening to: Poison Trees by The Devil Makes Three
Watching (still, because I still kind of work and have kids..): The Knick, HBO, Clive Owen, early 20th century medical breakthroughs, addictive personalities. Full send.
**Caution: This post is long, and kind of old. I wrote it a few months ago but never published it. I had to break it up into two parts so your eyes would stay in place.**
Have you ever felt that you did not belong? Perhaps you were an imposter to your own game? Maybe you acquired access to a high-clearance area, got giddy, yet immediately questioned why anyone would have allowed you to be there? And every time you turned a corner, opened a door, or read a document, you kept saying to yourself, “Did they mean to let me see this? When are they going to find out ?”
This takes me back to the Bizarro Jerry episode on Seinfeld when Kramer uses the restroom in an office building, tries to help someone fix the copier machine after he leaves the bathroom, and gets mistaken for a full-time employee. He rides this mistaken identity for all it is worth and begins showing up to “work” each day, working 9 to 5, throwing jokes out at the water cooler, bringing in a suitcase full of crackers, and living that corporate dream. Eventually the jig is up, and Cosmo Kramer ends up in the boss’s office, where he is told he is being let go, only to respond with, “But I don’t even work here.”
Even though Kramer was living that uninhibited dream, me, myself, and I had a lurking, uneasy feeling of trespassing when I was a “leader.” Imposter Syndrome was a real thing.
Paint That Pollock – An Ode to a Damn Good Mentor
The person who initially let me through the door to corporate leadership was and still is an amazing person; they are part of the 3% (see Scary Happiness and the Corporate-Corpse Revival or Office Zoos, Innovation Incubators, and the Mother of All Schedules if you need a refresher). They knew what was up then and they still know what is up. They are my mentor for my life and they never signed up for that. Now they succumb to my midnight texts when I discover yet another thing that makes my brain swirl.
My mentor led me in to the Room Where It Happens, knowing I would f*ck sh*t up (in a good way of course). This act of promoting me into a manager role with zero formal leadership experience was similar to leaving a toddler alone in a white room with a box of markers and a tub of paint.
You say messy, I say “Damn, look at that badass Pollock-esque mural.”
When I was given the manager role, I was astounded. I said to my mentor (who then was not my mentor), “Really? You think I can do this job?”
They said with kindness and confidence, “Yes you can do it, and you will fail at times, but I will be there to pick you up when you fall on your face in the dirt.” And oh how they were correct. I ate mud and continued to smear my face with muck throughout my leadership tenure.
Not only did they believe in me, but they opened the door and guided me throughout most of the journey. Much like Gandalf, showing up when necessary yet offering autonomy most of the time. They allowed me to vent, to cry, to get angry, to be an idiot. At times it felt like we were on a tram ride at a zoo, but instead of animals, it was people in suits – VPs, CEOs, District Managers, all the fancy titles. When the time was right, my mentor would say to me, “Look over there, that is a monkey that looks sweet. Beware, if you come near it with a treat, it will eat your face right off.” or “Check out that tiny fox. So soft, so fuzzy, so cute, but don’t be fooled, it will scratch your eyes out if you get in that cage.” “See that bird with the beautiful plumage? Those claws show no mercy. It will shut down your creativity faster than the blink of an eye.”
My mentor taught me how to read people without having to tell them I was doing so. They showed me how to recognize discrete and subtle toxicity. Valuable life lessons that I am still learning.
Closer to the [Sun’s] Heart
Snapshot of how I felt each day in leadership – I showed up, I busted my ass, I used the techniques my mentor showed me, I exposed, I infiltrated, and I stood for integrity. Life was good. I was able to put more good in the world than not, and I was an advocate for the right thing.
My goal of not replicating actions of the terrible bosses I endured was being accomplished. My life plan was working. Most of you do not know this, but one of my main motivators for becoming a leader was to reverse the culture completely. To be a mole on the inside. To have more ability to changing the workplace for the better being closer to the “sun.”
As an hourly employee, I tried my damndest to get things changed, and I was met with little to no response. I have spoken up for my beliefs since I took a job at sixteen years old. A job where I was felt up by an older male employee one time, and when bringing it up to the leaders of the joint I was told by the female boss to “not worry about it because touching my lower back and butt was not a big deal.” Why should we accept this kind of leadership? How do so many toxic ideas rise to the top? Well I was climbing closer to the top to at least try and overcome the poisonous motives, and if I could not diminish the nonsense, at least I would be able to joust with the self-centered, money-hungry powerful people (and hold my own).
When I was given a leadership role, I felt like I had somehow tricked the head honchos into letting me run the show. It was quite exhilarating to feel like an imposter. But once they caught on to my works of integrity, that is when the blocking, suffocating, and withholding began in regards to carrying out my ideas and strategies. They brainwashed me into thinking I was doing something wrong whenever I brought up an initiative or pointed out a gap in the processes. Whenever I proposed a big project that would improve the workplace for years to come, I would get so confused when someone would shoot down my ideas, their reasoning being that it did not meet business needs, it costs too much.
What these power-playing people really wanted to say was the idea was increasing equality, making people happier, and making it a more fair playing field. But the idea was costly, moneywise, when in reality it was probably equivalent to one week’s worth of their pay. But they would never come out and admit it. They wanted to be the one with the ideas, not me. Day in and day out, I would shrink. The Imposter Syndrome was accentuated – and they made me feel like having integrity was a bad thing.
At that point, whenever decisions needed to be made, I would revert to the new mindset they instilled in me, looking only at the money, treating people like animals in order to make or save a few extra dollars; it was disheartening and defeating, and it jaded me in a weird way. I became like the others, making odd decisions that moved the business along but not the people.
Groundhog Day, All Day, Every Day
Minorities and women probably suffer more from Imposter Syndrome than anyone else, but that could be another fact that I just made up. We have watched the leaders from the sidelines so much that we have formed this twisted idea on how offices and businesses should be run. If we think about it, we are being told this is the way, slam the door on innovation, fight to keep everything the same. We must be robots. Can you really say that this is THE WAY? Is the paperwork that built this country in 1776 still THE WAY? I think not – that shit is in desperate need of an upgrade.
We update our phones on a frequent basis, we renovate our houses occasionally, we modify our hair, we change our minds, but why are laws and foundations of society (and business operations) the exception to this practice? Why are we letting people from 100 years ago dictate how we talk to and treat people? Times have changed, we have discovered a great deal, we have uncovered amazing techniques, but yet chauvinism and prejudice still remains in the world and the workplace. How old-school.
One of my interests is reading books from the early 1900s because it is fascinating to see how little things have changed. History certainly does repeat itself, and it is not ashamed of it either. People harp about learning from your mistakes, but our biggest role mode – our very own human race – does a terrible job at maintaining that rule. Way to set an example.
This post does not wrap up in a nice manner, but I am crabby and am spending little time on closing it up. If you want to keep reading, move yourself on to Part 2 please. I still love you all, but my head hurts trying to give you the closure you need right now.
I think about death often. Not in a bad way, but in a curious, insightful, peering around the corner sort of way. Recently a friend told me they rarely think of death, and this astounded me. I thought everyone had it on the brain at least daily. Perhaps I am the oddball here, but hell we already knew that. Maybe it is my raging case of anxiety that leads me to ponder the grim, dreary topic. Or could it be that thinking about death helps calibrate my mind to be more present and enjoy the moment? I will leave that for you to decide, kind reader.
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Marcus Aurelius
If you ever got caught in someone’s room when you were not supposed to be in there, and you hid in the closet, and you witnessed someone getting taken out, would you watch it go down? I bet you my first born you would. We all would watch. Death is a fascinating phenomenon.
Funeral Dinners, Eyepatches, and Too Many Damn Questions
My main thoughts about death revolve around what happens next. I am not talking about what happens to me after death per say, but more about what happens to the others around. How will people react? What happens to my family? What will the takeaways be from my time with them? Will they miss me? Will I miss them? Will I even know that it happened? Will it all have been worth it? Will they remember me years down the road? Will the thought of me make them giggle or cringe?
Side note – This explains why The Leftovers is one of my favorite shows of all time. Check it out if you can wiggle some time out of your busy schedule.
Many people in my life have left this world too soon, hopefully on to brighter and better paths in the afterlife. My extended family has exceeded the normal amount of cancer diagnoses, seriously, we are oddly numb to it at this point. I have been getting familiar with the Grim Reaper since I was a tot – whether it be helping out with funeral dinners, volunteering at the hospital, or being an administrative, underaged assistant to my grandmother who took a retirement gig at a cemetery – it all has shaped me into the gloomy, melancholy, yet hopelessly optimistic human that I claim to be. In fact, I ask for the gloom sometimes, coaxing my brother to tell me a tale or two of his experiences as a nurse in the ICU (I heard a gory tale the other day, but I will spare you the deets), reading Stephen King as if my life depended on it, and becoming enthralled with scary stories or bloody flicks (currently I am watching The Knick; absolutely amazing show).
I have an idea of when this demise will happen for me, but I will hold off on sharing since that could be too spooky for people. I know what you are thinking, but no, you are not correct – I did not meet the live-version of the witch from Big Fish, and she did not open up her eyepatch, and I did not see the vision of how I get off’ed. In a weird way, I have always had a lingering feeling about when it will happen, a tickle of the mind that will not go away, and I always go with my Spidey senses.
Party On, Wayne
When I go, this is what I want. My steadfast husband already knows this (I think), but now I am holding everyone who is reading this accountable for executing the vision.
No funerals, only celebrations.
Gut-punching, soul-opening music. Maybe a live band? Music is life. This year I started jotting down The Soundtrack of My Life in a list on my phone. So far I have three songs. I will have to update this, or make a playlist. But if I go before my list is complete, just play one of my Spotify playlists, preferably Soul Men or Misery Loves Comfort and Ambition. I listen to sad music on the regular; any of my playlists are funeral, er, I mean, party-ready.
Delicious food. Preferably all of the snacks I love in life – potato chips microwaved with two slices of American cheese, one in the middle of the chips, one on the top (Frank calls this meal Nachos Jamie, and I dig it. I would wager that this delectable dish has at least three of the five food groups, and it really soothes the stomach if you eat it after three or four beers and at the midnight hour, binge-watching tv), definitely toss in some medium-rare filet mignons with sautéed mushrooms, medium-rare hamburgers with garlic aioli, mushrooms, and swiss cheese, French dips out the wahzoo, and last but not least, an array of noodle dishes from all over the world – Capellini with alfredo or butter sauce, Pad Thai, drunken noodles, lo mein, spätzle, mac and cheese, get it while it’s good. This list contains a plethora of red meat, I know, but the vegetarians (who I love and respect) can get down on the chips with cheese, the noodles, and the mushrooms. Make it all salty. If you already added salt, add some more, and if you cannot remember if you added more, sprinkle on some additional granules to be on the safe side. Maybe have a veggie tray there too; life is all about balance.
No sermon, no church, no building (unless it is adorned in art). Do it outside, do it in June or September.
No funeral clothing, unless said threads are comfortable, which they usually are not. Wear (or do not wear) what you want to wear. For example, I have read that not wearing a bra provides ample health benefits. Prove it. I also know that sweatpants and a t-shirt are the remedy for any sad moment in life.
Zero obligations. Make it a drop-in, stop-in, have a beer, stay awhile if you want, leave early if you want, kind of thing. Hell, stay at home and do not even attend if it ends up being too much trouble. The only people who have to rough it for the entire seven-day duration (that is how long this party will go, in alignment with how many days I dedicate to celebrating my birthday each year) are my family members who will be forced to set up this wacky event.
Spend nothing on the disposal of my body. Donate it to science, where it belongs. Too much time and resources are wasted on burials and cremations. Go eco-friendly, and allow those genius scientists a real body to dissect, experiment on, and learn from. My real hope is that I can still provide learning to people even when I am not around.
Refrain from being sad. If I leave this world in the next year, day, hour, minute, second, please know that I have had the best time ever. Life has been so glorious. I would not change anything, other than the fact that I never was able to attend a dog show. Fret no more, I will be coming back as a dog, and I will get to do all the things at that time.
Reflections From the Mudbath
What went well: My best friend had her going away party; new chapters rock.
What could have gone better: I am finally coming to terms with the fact that my best friend is leaving Colorado. I could have done this sooner.
What will I do differently tomorrow: I should have read more today. Instead, I went to the thrift store and got about twenty articles of clothing for tie-dye. Tomorrow I will think about tie dye…and my friend who is leaving Colorado…and…death.
Listening to: Out of the Blue – George Harrison. My favorite Beatle, and quite possibly one of the best albums of all time. All Things Must Pass. ✌️
Reading: The Institute – Stephen King. Enough said. Soaking it up.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.“
Henry David Thoreau
You Ain’t Cool Unless You Pee Your Pants
This week the family realized that we were days away from a mile marker — the end of September will mark three months of being jobless (kind of), free, and focused on making life the best. Three months….feels like a long time. Some might view that as an insult to the journey, but I am impressed by the way that time slowed down.
No need to snicker to yourself and call me a liar…I know that the last three words of that last paragraph were of fibbing-quality. But let me tell you, I did find a way to at least hinder Father Time; made him look the other way for a bit by throwing a medium-rare steak in the opposite direction (Papa Time loves him some red meat), and he is probably going to come back at me with the wrath of three thousand mother bears once he catches on to my diversion.
I hate to say it for all of you wishers and dreamers out there, but time is still moving at a rapid pace; still too fast for my liking. Some days my gremlins appear to be helpless poop machines that cannot fend for themselves, and I sigh and smile as they cuddle me and fall asleep in my arms, but lo and behold, the next day they are damn near teenagers, grown inches overnight, full on adult faces, telling me they are “working on a project,” have a brilliant idea, or want to watch the next episode of a show that they probably should not be watching but found it while spending too much time on their “iPack.” (This reminds me….sometimes I question whether or not certain movies are appropriate for my kids, but then I remember that I watched Pulp Fiction around eight years old and it was life-changing. I thank my father all of the time for what might have been interpreted as a reckless act. Thank you, Dad, you have no idea how this carved me into a Tarantino-wannabe. The good parts of Tarantino at least.)
But after they display their adult-like learnings, they either pee their pants, ask me for yet another snack, or try to con me into giving them candy. And then I normalize, I breathe, and I remember that they are tiny gremlins and that I have a little bit left to cherish before they sprout weird hair and start asking me probing questions which you know I will damn well answer.
But let us pause and give a moment of silence to that one time Carmella announced to the people in the primate house at the zoo that her boobs were “coming in” just like the gorillas. Not yet, my love, the boobs are a long ways away. But not really that far away. And that, my friends, is the scary part.
Every day I wake up, thinking this is the day that my hair will be completely grey.
Father Time, what in the hell do you want to make it slow the eff down? Perchance more filet mignon?
Takin’ Care of Business
The other day I wanted to play a game with my daughter, and she told me “she was too busy.”
Excuse me?
And then it hit me – emulation is a bitch.
These past two months have been a delicate dance of Adaptation. We have grown to know our new schedules, we have become aware of our tendencies and needs, and we have attempted to keep the weeks exciting – museums out the ass, picnics galore, so many swings, not enough time. But when does the housework come in? How does that work?
Apparently in between the fun stuff, I forgot to do my chores.
And when cramming in those chores on a single day, I forgot to play with my kids. And they noticed. Instead of Carmella saying, “let’s go read a book because that is what I always see you doing,” she emulated me from my hectic days and said what she keeps hearing – “I am too busy to play.” How sad! Bad Mom Award Nominee. Proud of it, too. I have also heard “put your phone down,” which is the easiest way to help you become aware that you have a problem.
So next time you forget to have fun or get swallowed up by your screen, remember that your kids are watching, your friends are peering in, and your family is observing. Errands will always be there, like that patch of sample paint you cunningly placed on the wall of a room you still have not painted. No matter how many times you pick up the toys, empty the dishwasher, conquer the laundry monster, it will all be there yet again, ready to consume you the next week and envelope your mind while you are trying to relax and zone out.
Instead of doing chores, suck the marrow out of life. Get your ass out there and have a good time, damnit. Or else you might be connecting with our pal, Father Time, sooner than you wished, grasping and clawing for those past days where you could “forget” to do the dishes and play Play-doh instead.
Yesterday I decided to read some past content that I wrote at the beginning of my writing journey. “Beginning” as in last year, so rid yourself of the images that this has been a long adventure. Like the Carpenters, we have only just begun.
The essay was written during a time where I felt the ground shaking beneath me with anticipation and a new chapter. Although I was not sure what the next chapter would be or bring, I knew I had to follow my heart to find it, so I wrote periodically to help out my brain on paper in hopes that it would aid me in identifying what in the hell I was meant to do in this world.
What I found fascinating was the last thing I wrote, which was this:
“Written at the beginning of this journey but meant for the end of the book: When I look back on this, it might not mean much to anyone else, but it will ultimately mean that I finally gave in to the urge, and hopefully it helps me understand that this is something I can pay attention to.”
Wow – how cool.
I was speechless when I read this last paragraph. Completely and utterly taken by surprise. I can officially be proud of Past Me, because I totally knew what was up, and I was pushing myself to come out of my shell and my hobbit-hole. Hell yes I will pay attention to my writing.
That is all I wanted to share today, in hopes that it will inspire you to write a letter to your Future Self on what you really want to do with your life. And then you can go back and read it when you did the damn thing, and you can be completely and utterly proud of yourself too.
Power on, my fearless friends. I am rooting for you.
Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be.
Yes, let’s talk about interviews…
…and all of the nonsense games that people play with people’s potential and future career paths.
How did I do? Vote below if you want to provide invaluable feedback on my adventure.
Full disclosure: I wrote this entry without editing, and I wrote it fast. In this post you will feel my emotions, and I wanted it to be that way. Interviewing is an anxiety-ridden experience, and I had to shoot from the hip to get my points across.
Can you spot what is wrong with this picture?
Once upon a time, I led an interview panel. That interview panel was made up of nine leaders. Nine people, you say? Yes, nine people. Too big for it’s britches. Out of those nine people, all nine had biased opinions, including myself. All nine would sit in applicant interviews and listen closely, all nine would write down notes to keep the candidates’ answers fresh in their heads, all nine would go back to the office, would chat amongst each other over who was their favorite, and all nine would grade the interview packets days after the actual interviews, and all nine would stack the decks so their clear favorite would come out on top, regardless of if the candidate was the best out of the applicant pool. Because love wins over everything, right? And if you “love” someone, you will help them be successful by trampling on the more qualified candidate and lying about who was the winner.
You better believe I called out all nine of these people on their bullshit. And you might find it difficult to digest, but all nine of these people continued to stand behind their cliquey decision. Humans can be disgusting sometimes.
Filter out the poison.
So I did what any crime fighter would do, I revamped the interview packet so that the following happened:
Scoring for the interview happened within the interview. Interview panel members were not allowed to leave the room until they scored and handed in their packets.
The questions were modified so we heard more real-life examples less hypothetical scenarios. Yes people, we know what you would do in this moment if you were in a perfect setting, but what really happened when this occurred to you in real life? Did you falter, did you cave under the stress when you thought you would hold your head high? Did you actually flip out on someone instead of maintaining your calm composure that you originally sold to us in your previous interview question response about your character and integrity?
The questions were repetitive throughout the interview. We fact-checked the hell out of these people. If their story started one way earlier in the interview and ended up completely different after asking the question in a different manner, we knew we were in the midst of a fibber with flaming trousers.
The questions were the same for all applicants. This one was especially important, because some of the nine leaders would ask specific questions of their friends, or they would grill the applicants they were not fond of to better expose their weaknesses. Tricky, tricky, but I can spy evil a mile away, so good try, go use that tactic on someone else.
After this revamp, not many people wanted to sit on the interview panel. Aha! Success!
Also proceeding this revision, we started hiring people who had soft skills instead of technical experience, and the environment started to become kinder, smarter, and more communicative. Interesting what a little integrity can do for a cloudy day.
Willy and Canny were the best of friends.
The interview selection process is a bitch. No other way to put it. You know you are hurting someone no matter what, and you also are aware that you are making someone’s whole year or potentially few years by choosing them for the role.
You will never know if you made the right decision because there is no right decision. People change, rethink, and reform their opinions, but most importantly, people lie. It is a dog eat dog world, my friends (such a gross reference, my dogs have never tried to eat each other).
However, you can do your best by rooting for and hiring on the Willies over the Cannies. The Willies are the people who are willing to do the work. Does not mean they are capable, but damn if they do not give it a college-effort every single time.
The Cannies are the people who can do the work. They either went to school for it, or they have been living that experienced life for quite some time.
In my mixed-up world, the Cannies are the people who ruin the whole thing. They show up with their report cards of how they are technical dream-machines, but what they fail to expose is that they are usually not skilled in the butter-soft talent known as Emotional Intelligence. They are essentially robots who have a low amount of human skills. They let anger fester, they take action in a spiteful manner, they look down on those who do not have their intelligence level. They are the people in college who told me I was an idiot, but frowned when I came out on top in Biochem. They are the bullies of the workplace. I should be kinder here, but I am shooting it to you straight, mostly because I have been bullied all of my career by these people, and I think everyone deserves to know how to spot one.
Now if you get yourself a Willy/Canny hybrid – A Wilcan, not to be confused with Vulcan or Wilco (Jeff Tweedy, I see you), is a golden nugget of awesomeness. These diamonds in the rough not only can do the job, but they are willing to do it too. And, get this, they are kind, they communicate effectively, and they know how to empathize. Holy moly, a triple threat. What a wonderful world.
Unfortunately, there are less than 3% of these mystical beings on this gorgeous planet. Wilcans come out of the crevices once in a blue moon, and when they do, we celebrate so hard that Prince would be proud.
Be more like a Wilcan.
Do the bladder-stomp.
Back in January 2021, I got pregnant with my second child. After three and a half years of being in a role, I became bored and started looking for my next adventure. I interviewed for over five positions, and I went bold and disclosed my pregnancy in each interview, witnessing literally slumping of shoulders from the interview panels after I communicated my status of having a bun in the oven.
One interview was six hours away from our home, and they had amped me up to be the best candidate since sliced bread, but when I showed up as a blooming, glowing, sweating seven-months pregnant person, they acted as if I did not know how to read or write. They led me on until the very end, looking me dead in the eye and promising me housing accommodations once the offer was extended, only to find out days later via weak-ass emails that I did not get the role, telling me that I was not “good enough” and that they went with an internal candidate (they never mentioned there was an internal candidate in prior conversations).
What they should have said was this:
“We are not sorry, but we went the easy, less offensive route, and we chose the person who already works here that we were too embarrassed or weak to say no to. We were scared to have to work with this person after denying them a promotion, even though we know you would have kicked more ass at this job than Kim Kardashian can fit into Spandex shorts. We all know you are a rockstar, but we are not emotionally intelligent enough to go with the “right” decision. So we will stick with our lack of guts and continue accentuating this toxic culture by promoting the Cannies of the world until eventually the whole team is brainwashed to believe that this is a good place to work. We will train our people to stay within their small comfort zones. Retention, retention, retention.”
My research concludes the following:
Pregnant women + job interviews = Incompatible for life
Willies + job interviews = Do not get your hopes up
Cannies + job interviews = Offer accepted!
People say they do not discriminate against pregos, but the truth will set you free.
Play the game, Prego.
After consulting with others on my struggles to land a new role while holding in my vomit in between questions, I was told by all other women that I do not need to disclose, nor should I disclose, my pregnancy during the interview.
My response – I do not want to work for someone who would not hire me as a pregnant person. Because these people suck, and they will continue to suck even after they offer me the job.
Their response – Hmmm, good point, but you still need to play the game to get the job.
But I am a Wilcan! I can do anything I put my mind to!
Oh contraire.
Apparently you have to play the game because good is hard to find in this world and shittiness prevails. Ahhh, that makes sense, right?
What kind of world are we living in where we cannot share this joyful experience of growing a gremlin with any human being in any scenario without pain, bias, or stereotypes interfering? Why are people hating on the baby mamas of the world? What in the hell did we ever do to you except ask for a chair or for you to pick something off of the floor for us? We are the ones puking in the trash cans, having our bladders stomped on, and having our ribs used like a jungle gym. Just give us a damn promotion and trust that we will come back even stronger after maternity leave. Ignore the fact that we will be gone for three months (still not enough time for maternity leave), and push aside your preconceived notions that we will not be hard workers because we have to care for a team outside of work. Stop discriminating. Stop being jerks. Go get pregnant yourselves and see what it is like, and then come talk to me.
Do not even get me started on the job interviews where the candidate is a Wilcan, is not pregnant, yet still does not get the job. Discrimination happens even when there is not a factor to discriminate against. This scenario is what we define as favoritism, and boy is it rampant in the corporate world.
I chose not to be an ass-kisser, to show my skills and integrity without needing to brown-nose, and that is why I am unemployed.
Transparency killed the cat.
People say they are transparent, they hype up their honesty, and then you discover that at the end of the day, people revert to being selfish and they do what is best for them first and foremost. I do too. You do as well. Please try to convince me otherwise. However, if we can all stop leading people on, the world will be a better place.
The next time you interview someone, I challenge you to do the following: Please do not hype the candidate up, please disclose who they are interviewing against, please let them know what they could have done better, and please share what they did well. Stop telling them they landed the job before you consult with the team. Discontinue choosing the person that your team selects, and go with the correct candidate. Immediately halt on your practice of being comfortable and going with what you know. Be risky. Tell them why you did not pick them, tell them you were too weak to go with the right candidate, and for the love of whatever in the hell created this world, please tell them within two days of interviewing if they did not get the job. Stop ghosting people. Hell, tell them right before they walk out the door if you know, call them that night if you find out you are going with someone else.
Stop playing games. It hurts. It is mean, and it f*cks with people’s minds.
And for those of you reading this who are already hiring Wilcans, hit me up sometime because I would love to come work for you or refer a handful of people your way. You deserve better.
jamiepittsfreelance.com 