Uh....

Gay-boyfriend-like Stylist: Are you married?
Me: No.
Stylist: Do you want to be married?
Me: No...well, maybe once I reach my fifties, but right now, no.
Stylist: You should want to get married now.
Me: Why?
Stylist: Because right now you're still young and have your looks. When you're older, you'll be ugly, and everyone else will be married, and you'll be alone.
Me: Rrrright.Changing topic, are you doing anything fun this weekend?
Stylist: No, I kind of like to stay home during my time-off.  I talk to people all week long for my job, and their problems can be really draining.
Me: Really, why?
Stylist: Well, most of my clients are in unhappy marriages and don't have anyone they can talk to about it. It's pretty sad sometimes.
Me: Rrrrrright.

Some women can't get past a man's world...

Much like Magic Cookie, I only just now got around to reading the Atlantic article about how “Women Can’t Have it All.” Personally, I think I pretty much started ignoring Atlantic articles on women after that one chick wrote the piece on how women should settle.

But anyway, I read it the other day, and while there are many things I agreed with such as the need for more freedom in one’s schedule and etc, I kinda snorted and laughed out loud at certain parts –

A similar assumption underlies Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s widely publicized 2011 commencement speech at Barnard, and her earlier TED talk, in which she lamented the dismally small number of women at the top and advised young women not to “leave before you leave.” When a woman starts thinking about having children, Sandberg said, “she doesn’t raise her hand anymore … She starts leaning back.” Although couched in terms of encouragement, Sandberg’s exhortation contains more than a note of reproach. We who have made it to the top, or are striving to get there, are essentially saying to the women in the generation behind us: ‘What’s the matter with you?’
…
To be sure, the women who do make it to the top are highly committed to their profession. On closer examination, however, it turns out that most of them have something else in common: they are genuine superwomen. Consider the number of women recently in the top ranks in Washington—Susan Rice, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Michelle Gavin, Nancy-Ann Min DeParle—who are Rhodes Scholars. Samantha Power, another senior White House official, won a Pulitzer Prize at age 32. Or consider Sandberg herself, who graduated with the prize given to Harvard’s top student of economics. These women cannot possibly be the standard against which even very talented professional women should measure themselves. Such a standard sets up most women for a sense of failure.
…
Very few women reach leadership positions. The pool of female candidates for any top job is small, and will only grow smaller if the women who come after us decide to take time out, or drop out of professional competition altogether, to raise children. That is exactly what has Sheryl Sandberg so upset, and rightly so. In her words, “Women are not making it to the top. A hundred and ninety heads of state; nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, [the share of] women at the top—C-level jobs, board seats—tops out at 15, 16 percent.

Ok, did you read those parts?  Good.  Here’s what was going through my mind as I scanned through the article.

Sheryl Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook.  A major corporation? Yes.  Huge leadership position? Yep-yep.  Makes lotsa money?  You betcha.

But wait a second.  Sheryl Sandberg, who now no-doubt rarely sees her family due to not just work demands, but also from riding the highly self-gratifying speaker circuit, makes personal sacrifices so that she can further a really-big corporation’s bottom line. Her really-big corporation does this by collecting personal information and passing it on to advertisers.  Most people who use the site, freely and sometimes unknowingly handing off their information, do so so that they can partake in the honorable activity of catching up on their friends’ gossip, usually while goofing off at work.

Sheryl Sandberg doesn’t partake in a career that helps educate people or feed people or teach people to feed themselves. She doesn’t save lives or mend hearts. She doesn’t create an art that inspires others or reminds people of the beauty in life. She doesn’t seem to do anything that has a positive benefit on humanity as far as I can tell, though as I’m typing this, I can see an argument for the role that sites like Facebook played in relation to everything that happened last year in the Middle East, and it's true that there can be other indirect positive benefits. It's not like the site eats babies to make money.

And I laughed because I was like, “WHO is this chick to be telling any woman (babies or no babies) that their priorities are f-ed up, and why are we calling her out as a 'superwoman'?” Different people have different values and different measurements of success.

But here’s what really pisses me off about the whole article:

Why is a corporate-powerhouse like Sheryl Sandberg or government official like Condoleeza Rice still considered the only yardstick when it comes to occupational success for women? Why are intelligent women like the author of this article still measuring success according to what is a traditional, patriarchal standard? And WHY, dear goodness, are they telling other women that they should too?  I mean, pull out your suits with the big shoulder pads because that thinking is just, so, 1980’s.

Sorry Sheryl and Condi.  I may not know what to do with my life, but I do know that I don’t want to spend eighty hours a week working my butt off so that I and a few friends can make a bunch of money and/or otherwise feel like big dogs because I make “BIG” decisions.  I mean, seriously.  Get a clue, and then get a life. Or don’t. It’s your choice, really. Do what makes you happy, I'll do the same, and we'll call that success.  That's when we know that we have it all.

No really, I'm good!

So another one of my assignments when I was working with the life coach was to question my own beliefs about things. Like, if you think you’re more successful in life because you’re a lawyer instead of basket maker, why is that? How important is money in your life? What does money mean to you? Is it safety and security?  A necessary evil? Something to share with friends? Is it limited? Why do you think that? Is it possible that it could be something else than what you think?  Why or why not?  What is your true measure of success?  What is your true measure of happiness? Are your answers for both questions the same?

Supposedly most of our beliefs come directly from our experiences, and for the most part, childhood. It happened once; therefore we assume it will happen again.  Things our parents told us over and over as children were accepted many years ago and possibly never questioned or considered. Now today, whenever we have a 'choice' in front of us, we don't actually weigh the infinite options.  We weigh our individual experiences along with what we've been brought up to accept as true. According to the coach, once you recognize these beliefs, you can change them (if they hold you back in some way). As I have a sense of hope for both myself and the world around me, I was inclined to agree with her, but in certain moments, striking out into new territory isn't always well-received.

Ring…Ring…Ring (phone).

Dad: Hello?
Me: Happy father’s day!
Dad: Hey Dot. Thanks.
Me: How are you?
Dad: Oh, I’m pretty good. Got in a few rounds of golf this week despite the weather. I’ll be happier in November when our nation hopefully gains a new president.
Me: Dad, can we not talk politics?
Dad: Wasn’t talking politics, Dot, just stating a fact. How are you? Still freelancing?
Me: Yep, starting to hit my groove on that, hoping to pick up a few new clients or a few more assignments, but it’s pretty cool.
Dad: So how’s the job search coming?
Me: Well, I’m not really looking for a full-time corporate job right now, Dad.  I have two main customers.  One where I’m learning a lot, the other where I’m flying by the seat of my pants. I do work in Houston and Austin, hoping to build both avenues so that if I decide to move back to Austin one day, I’ll already have the work part set-up.  My main client is a pretty good person to work with, which is super refreshing  after some of my more recent career experiences.  I’m not making a ton, but I am making enough to pay my bills and my student loans, and like I said, hopefully this will grow a little bit.  On the plus-side of that, I only work about two-four hours a day, make my own schedule, don’t have any kind of dress code, and have tons of time to explore other options and interests, like trying to teach myself to play violin or doing volunteer stuff. After kinda blindly chasing the next step on the ladder of life for the last ten years or so, it’s been really nice to just take a break, enjoy life, and finally take the time to explore and figure out what I want my next move to be.
Dad: But you don’t have health insurance, right?
Me: Well, I pay for catastrophic.
Dad: Yeah, that’s not health insurance. And no other benefits like a 401k or anything?
Me: Nope.
Dad: And you pay ADDITIONAL employment TAXES that would otherwise be paid by a company except you ‘work for yourself.’
Me: You got it.
Dad: Well, hopefully in November the nation will elect a new president, the economy will recover, and you’ll finally be able to get a job.
Me: Or maybe the nation won’t, and I’ll finally get some effin' health insurance.
Dad: Well, I tell your mother you said hello. We’re pulling for you, Dot.
Me: Thanks Pop. Love you lots.

My life coach was pretty awesome.  Sadly, she was so awesome that she got really popular and started charging $450 an hour. When I said I couldn’t pay that much, she let me know that she perfectly understood; she was aware of the self-limiting beliefs I had in relation to money.

I'm being zen, goshdarnit!

When I worked with the life coach last year, one of the things she had me try was “allowing” things to occur.  It’s basically an exercise for the Type A, super control freak, high-achieving-types.  You don’t plan everything down to every second.  You don't harp on your spouse to do things around the house. You don't call your date from two nights ago to ask if he wants to meet for drinks. You don’t worry about making sure that everyone around you gets all of their items done correctly.  You go with the flow.  You let things get done on their own.  You “allow” for things to happen. And then you "allow" yourself to receive - which means that you let other people do stuff for you, instead of doing it yourself because you secretly think that no one else can do it the right way, or that it won't get done if you're not the one to do it.

The benefit? I’ve gotten pretty good at doing last minute things, which I never did before. I let dates pay, when I go on date. The bad side, I kind of hate making plans now.  I’m like, “Uh, yeah, why don’t you call me the night of and we can decide if we still want to go to the concert that will probably sell out forty-eight hours before?”  I have a standing Tuesday plan for afternoon margaritas with a friend, but I don’t get all freaked when she’s busy, can’t make it, and we simply schedule for another day. The area where I most need to allow allowing?  That would be in personal relationships. On that end, I’m not so hot.  I still hold things in until I burst and then try to pick up the after-pieces. In fact I would say that in the last year, my temper has become more incendiary.  I used to feel hurt and get sad.  Now I get angry and blow up. Believe it or not, this is supposedly a healthy progression.  Personally, I'm ready to get to the next step which offers less judgment and more understanding...allowing, I suppose.

But anyway, allowing…  A few days ago I got in my car to go to do some work for one of my clients, but the car didn’t start.

This is normally one of those things that makes me go, “Oh crap, oh crap. What now?” because I knew that the problem was not just a dead battery. The problem was a DEAD battery. The car battery had twice been dead in the last month, the last time twenty-four hours earlier, and starts had been taking longer and longer all month. I couldn't jump the car and go to the office. It needed to go to the dealership.

So the response to this is to take charge, right?  Have someone come jump the car; drive it to the dealership; do my work on my laptop while waiting at the dealership to ensure that everything is fixed within a few hours; cancel happy hour with the friend; hope that the only problem is the battery and not anything else that takes longer; drive home on the freeway in the evening with rush hour traffic. I had everything nailed worked out in my head within thirty seconds.

Or, I could let someone else handle it.  I remembered that I had free roadside assistance with my car.   It kind of freaked me out.  Hand over my keys to some guy I didn’t know?  Be stuck at my house without wheels?  Then again, I wouldn’t be any more mobile while waiting at the dealership. Trust the dealership to get my car fixed efficiently when I wasn't standing over them like a hawk, examining any questionable issue personally? But I did it. I called them, went back in the house, and sat down to work. An hour or so later the tow truck guy showed up.

“Yeah, it’ll start with a jump, but I just want you to tow it in to the dealership,” I told him

He jumped it, and then told me I could drive it in to the dealership.  It would be better that way, he said.  I’d get the car faster.  Who knows when they’d work on it if the owner wasn’t there.

UH-OH, UH-OH! Wrench in plan!  I was in the middle of working on something that I needed to finish.  I was wearing a cotton dress that would be cold at the dealership. And once I turned the car off, I knew it wouldn’t start again. I said no, but the tow guy kept badgering me to drive it in.  And so I tried to lock my car to run inside and get my stuff, except that as it turns out, my car won’t lock externally when the keys are in it and running.  So I’m sitting there all frantic, trying to figure out what to do, and I ask the tow truck guy if he’ll wait while I run inside and pack up my stuff.  He says no, just leave your car here in the driveway.  In the driveway??  Running??  With the keys in it? Are you serious?  OMG, how did this happen when I was trying to be SO zen and ALLOW!  Strange man that I don’t know, please take my car and go. I don’t think insurance even covers you if it's stolen when you leave the car running and unattended.

And then I decided that I was going to allow…with attitude.

“Here’s the keys, guy.  Tow my car into the dealership.”

And with that I walked back inside the house, sat down at my computer, and very proudly, didn’t sit and watch to make sure the guy hooked up the tow carefully and correctly.  I finished my work, met my friend, and went zen.  No waiting in the dealership.  No stress. No freaking out.  Allowing.

This morning they called to say the car was ready.

“Awesome,” I said, “You have a shuttle that can come pick me up, right?”

I killed Ana...

Here’s the deal.  I want to write.  I REALLY want to write, but…I’m so bored with the blog.  I mean, it was really fun when sardonic and angsty Anastasia was chronicling her journey through law school.  It was a character I could identify with.

And then I graduated, went corporate, received a temporary lobotomy, and waited for my brain to grow back.  In the meantime, I had nothing to write about.

Last year I was part of a layoff, and as disturbing as it was, it was also really freeing.  So I spent most of last fall feeling like a kid on meth:  This is awesome!  My life is so awesome! I AM AWESOME!  My friends are awesome!  I feel so open and connected to you right now even though we have nothing in common and you bore the hell out of me.  But boring is so awesome! I mean, it’s so stable and secure and positive and stuff! Let’s get married and be boring together!  I so love exclamation points and emoticons!!!!  J

The brain has grown back.  The come-down from my metaphorical meth trip has commenced.  Reality has kicked in and the rationalizations have stopped.  And you know what?  I’ve seen a lot of messed-up things in the past year.  Some of it has been my own experience, and some of it has been witnessed through the eyes of my friends.  And most of us are drawing lines in the sand and clinging fiercely to our beliefs, even if we don’t believe them.  Because we have to believe them right now.

A person close to me once had this to say about their thirties.

“My thirties were my most depressing period of life.  I mean, everything was nailed down. Too late I realized that I had so much of life still ahead of me, but had locked myself into so many things from which I literally, figuratively, and ethically could not extricate myself.  And some days, I didn’t want to.  But other days I really-really did.  And I just remember thinking, What if this is it?  What if this is all the more that my life is going to be?”

And I don’t know, but a lot of people around me seem to be going through that kind of phase right now.  Our relationships are great.  Our careers are great.  The kids are great!  I mean, we feel a little disconnected from our significant others at moments, and work can get a little demanding at times, and the job's not particularly fulfilling some days,  and sometimes it REALLY pisses us off that you can’t rationalize with a screaming two-year-old, a psychotic client, or a grumpy significant other, especially at the same time, and sometimes we feel really bad for losing it and being such a horrible person except that X, Y, & Z are all really stressful, you know(?) and we just moved into a bigger house/nicer neighborhood/took a pay cut for lifestyle and oh my gosh, we have so much debt that we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but REALLY, NO.  LIFE IS FABULOUS!  WE ARE SO BLESSED! I MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE!  I DID THE RIGHT THING! I. LOVE. MY. LIFE and I can be a parent/drug addict/bon vivant/ domestic servant/ slacker/ working mom if I want to!  And if you don’t agree with me?  Well, let’s not even go there.

Of course, I added a little dramatic effect there.  It’s how I write.  AND I AM SO TOTALLY HAPPY WITH MY WRITING CHOICES, JUST SO YOU KNOW! ;-)  Anyway, it seems like a lot of us are at a point in our lives where we’ve achieved most of the things that we thought we’d ever want. And we assumed that would assuage our hunger.  We thought it would leave us feeling happier.  And we are happy, for the most part, yet we feel bad for not feeling happier, because, my gosh, what is there to really complain about, right?  And we also can't admit to questioning things because let's face it, we made SUCH better decisions than some other people we know.  I mean, little Joanie who did the exact opposite of us?  What a disaster, right?  I would NEVER want to be her.  She's really paying the piper now!  And is it just me, or do those type of decisions show up in your facial skin tone?

What can we complain about?  Are you kidding me? There’s a ton of shit to complain about!  I have love handles right now, for crying out loud!  I don’t care if it’s a “first-world problem.” It upsets me, and I want to bitch about it. Forget if others think we’re whiny, self-absorbed, or entitled.  I’ve never had love handles in my life, and I’d just assume never have them!  I’m not saying that I’m not grateful for what I have, but I can only tell you how great the dog and live music are so many times a month.

You know what?  I love my job.  The people I work with are great.  I worked two hours today and one yesterday.  I get paid by the hour.  I’m not about to go back to a corporation for any amount of money. I love the free time and the independence, but...I also love paying my bills.  We can whine about these things!  We can crave superficial and material items every now and again.  (Of course, if you need to have them all the time then you're just a horrible person, but you probably already knew that.)

So I killed the character of Ana and created a new one named Dorothy.  And she (not me of course, I mean, REALLY, not me) will journal her fears, her hesitancies, her judgments, her cattiness, and who knows, maybe a few happy moments.  Come by and say hi.  The new layout is trippy and the 'about me' reads as if it was written by an upper-middle-class fourteen year old living in a bubble.  Seriously, it’s gonna be awesome.

PS - And no, I didn't write this post with you in mind, but rather a general audience.  I say that because, while writing this post, I've been terrified thinking about the people I know who may think that it's geared at them.  Like I said, we're all in that spot.  (Well, I mean, not YOU because your life is SO GREAT. ;-)  Really, it wasn't about you - whoever you are.  Don't make me sing Carly Simon.