Working For Despots 101

I can’t even tell you how many completely irrational, crazy people I’ve worked for. So many that I now have no healthy fear of being fired– and I have never been fired. When they get crazy enough, I either in so many words or figuratively tell them to go fuck themselves and I walk away. Life is too short to spend eight hours a day with people you hate.

One time I threw my office key in one of my boss’ face. Unfortunately, I was in the driver’s side of my car and it bounced off the passenger door edge back into my car, and I had to put my car in park and rummage around for the key, so I could throw it at him a second time. I think we both almost laughed. Worst dramatic leavetaking ever.

That boss was so crazy that even after I tried to throw my key in his face (twice), he still asked me to come back.

Anyway, the boss where I work now is… certifiable. I would not be shocked if it ends with an article in the paper or a lawsuit or -suits.

I used to not worry about her love for persecution of my coworkers so much, because by and large she’s been unsuccessful in firing the people she chases down with a rabid blood lust. And I was the golden child. I could do no wrong.

Then I inadvertently pissed her off yesterday. It was kind of awesome.

If something happens to me, and I doubt it will, I know that I will land on my feet. I always do. But jezus, how nice would it be if the mentally ill were not the people always promoted to management?

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Leaving The Land Of Sick People

After eight years of intensive psychotherapy to try to salvage the remainder of my life from the fallout resulting from a truly horrifying childhood, my psychotherapist has told me that I no longer live in The Land of Sick People. I asked for a diploma, but none has been forthcoming.

All I know is this: I am a normal person now. My highly-qualified shrink says so.

For you normal(ish) people out there, you don’t know what a gift this is. Having spent most of my life metaphorically peering into the windows of Normal People with Normal Families with an expression of utter confusion, I thought I could never be normal. I went to their house, I befriended them, and then I learned how to approximate something that looked like normalcy.

It’s a facade one can only maintain for so long before one cracks, as I did in 2002.

Eight years later, I am profoundly grateful. I’m not perfect, and I’ll always have the genetic gift of the depression gene(s) (which I’ll continue to treat like a case of herpes by medicating the occasional flare-up), but my life has never been better.

Recently I met someone and fell in love, but due to circumstances that are nobody’s fault, we just can’t be together right now. The Beatles lied. You do not only need love. We are both devastated and in pain, but we’re trying to be smart about the reality of the situation. I hope it works out in the end. I can’t quite give up hope, no matter how much I want to move on with my life and remain open to other possibilities. I’m ready for someone. Not just anyone; I’m really picky. But I’m going to try to remain open to opportunities that may present themselves, even though what I really want is this particular man. LIfe may have something bigger in store for me.

It’s hard not being an emotional robot anymore. This is probably the first time I’ve ever, truly had my heart broken. Usually the end of a relationship means assuming a default position of anger, because sadness was never in my emotional repertoire. In fact, anger was the only emotion I’ve ever been in touch with. So today when I cried over the loss of this relationship, it was a Pretty Big Thing. I’ve never been able to cry except when angry, or when seriously clinically depressed. Today I was neither. I am capable of appropriately feeling sadness without shame or revulsion. This is another Big Thing.

I’ve always had friends. Sometimes I’ve had a lot of friends. But it wasn’t until recently that I looked around and realized that not only do I have a lot of friends, I have a lot of exceptional friends. I know that if I fall, they will catch me.

Life is not perfect, but it is good, and it keeps getting better. I don’t miss the Land of Sick People at all.

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Anne Lamott Makes Me Cry. Again.

She always makes me write, too. I, like everyone who loves her essays, imagine that she and I would be great friends, because we seem to have the same thoughts. But this is what’s great about how she writes– you feel intimately connected, even when you know that Anne Lamott is not reading you; that you are not on Anne Lamott’s bookshelf. And then she compels you to write. She makes it look easy. Your writing is never going to come out that well, but you still feel like she wouldn’t begrudge you for trying.

Her son and mine must be close in age. Operating Instructions was published in 1993, two years after my son was born. I wish I’d had it to read back when I was a brand-new mother. I would have felt less crazy. Even though I have no baby but a son who went to Senior Prom last night and a kindergartner who reads me bedtime stories, Operating Instructions makes me feel like I have a baby in the next room, and that I am desperate with love and loathing for that baby. It brings it all back so vividly.

You know what’s awful to drink? Smirnoff Ice. Never, ever do it.

We moved. I am an adult (again, after a ten year detour). My life is coming together so nicely. I become euphoric sometimes. This is not normal. My shrink just shakes her head at my inability to process happiness. At least it does sink in, eventually.

I’d be an even better adult if the couch I want would just… be in stock.

To make matters worse, I think I am in love. With someone from the Y chromosome crowd. INORITE. Before you cock your head and clap your hands and say, “Awwww,” remember that new love is two parts euphoria, and one part complete and utter insanity. Even worse, in my case, it’s mutual. Oh my god– stop doing that. That clapping  thing. Falling in love is torture. It’s embarrassing. Nothing could be more mortifying. If I could stop it, I would.

On top of that, I have six boxes of bookshelves to construct. To add to the four already in the living room. For the first time in my life, I will have enough room for every single book I own. I will have surplus shelf space. My son told me I needed to buy more books, which is pretty much the most amazing thing anyone can ask of you.

My son today put down a deposit on a rather large tattoo he is planning to get. It will take 3 hours just for the outline to be tattooed on. Before, I was all, “Make sure you get something that can be covered by a t-shirt, in case you want a white-collar job. So people can’t see your tattoo through your shirt.” I worried he would regret it later. But he wants a tattoo that people will see, and it took me about… a year to grasp this concept. I think I understand better now. Now I feel like… how amazing that you’re not the big scaredy cat I am. How nice that you do things that please you– big, irreversible things. Things that aren’t practical. How cool that you’re going to put art on your body (while I can’t even commit to art on my wall). What cojones you possess, Little Badass. But still. All that innocent pale skin. Gone.

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Life Is Good

No complaints.

Srsly.

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Things About Working In A Big Office

Good Things:

The same amount of money paid to you every other week. No big checks, then little checks, then no checks, then big checks.

Office flirtations with Attractive Non-Threatening Married Dudes.

Doughnuts, even when you have to buy them yourself.

New high heels.

Participating in the collective slack of burned-out employees somehow still stuck at the office on a Friday afternoon.

Downtown Tucson– grungy, sometimes smelling of urine (I’m talking to you, 6th Ave. pedestrian underpass), but still charming.

Meeting and learning about new people with fascinating backgrounds. So far, four lawyers with acting and theater backgrounds. Another one who taught himself Latin as a teenager so he could skip the translated classics and get straight to the good stuff. Who knows what lurks beneath the smooth surface of lawyers?

Comraderie.

Not As Great Things:

Windowless office.

The smell of urine in the 6th Ave. pedestrian underpass.

Almost getting killed daily at the bizarre 500 direction intersection of Alameda and 6th Ave.

Office intrigues. People watching people watching people.

Budget shakiness. Raise freezes.

But things are good. The one high school friend that stuck with me when I was a pregnant sixteen year old girl and then a seventeen year old mother is having a baby shower on Sunday. Her first baby. I rented a car with air conditioning and I will drive hours to attend, but I am thrilled to be there to celebrate the beginning of her journey into motherhood. Weirdly, a couple of days later I will be the mother of an 18 year old.

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And So, Like, How Are You?

I took the bar exam in July.

I had a feeling my boss was going flaky on me, so I applied for another job.

I usually have pretty good instincts. Boss was going flaky on me.

Go figure. Bosses can be flaky.

I got that other job about five seconds after I realized that my boss was an unreliable flake.

Now I work 8-5, which I haven’t done in… years. It’s cool. The consistent paycheck is cool.

I get my bar results in October. I don’t want to curse myself, but I think I may have done it. Passed, that is.

Baby’s in school now, big kid’s in stable health. Time for me to get back to my career.

A little scary.

My five year old started kindergarten. She still doesn’t seem to “get” it. I think she thinks she just switched daycares.

Boy am I glad to not have to pay for daycare anymore.

It’s much easier to send your second child to kindergarten than your first.Though I had romanticized my first child’s departure to kindergarten for years before the actual event, I walked out of the school when the bell rang, feeling lighter and maybe like something great and freeing had just happened. I think that a lot of people feel that way but instead say they wanted to cry, because that’s what you’re supposed to say to show that you love your kid a suitable amount (i.e., more than Parent X). Or maybe they really did feel that way and I’m the freak who lacks sentimentality.

That’s not true, because my almost-18 year old just started his senior year of high school and I can get sniffly over that any time I think of it. It’s hard to think of him being an adult. I want him to live with me forever. But not in that creepy Living In My Basement, Playing D&D kind of way. I’m afraid I’m not ready to let go just yet.

Maybe he’s not either. Maybe the crap economy will keep him at home. That’s cool with me.

I’m back to reading. Reading all of the bar study books 8-12 hours a day temporarily abated my love of reading, but I’m back.

I demanded that my 5 year old get all of the books out her her bed because “books go on a bookshelf, and not in a bed.” So she pointedly looked at my bed, only half of which I sleep on. The other half is covered in books. Touche, clever child.

I forgot how much an 8-5 will take it out of you. I don’t know when I’ll have any time to spend all this money. Oh, wait: creditors. Probably they’ll want some of it.

The cure for being depressed about waiting for your first desperately-needed paycheck is to spend it on hot new dresses. Everyone knows that.

I also forgot about office politics and intrigue. I forgot how everyone wants to corner the New Girl and fill her in on their version of office gossip as a preemptive strike against the next person who will tell you a completely different version of the same story.

I’m going to go read and pass out on allergy medication. Y’all stay out of trouble.

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You Don’t Need To Re-read Nancy Drew Mysteries

When Anners will do it for you. I hope she reviews and summarizes every single one. It’s very, very amusing.

If any of you ever come across The Three Investigators books, get them for me, willya?

three-investigators

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We Used To Be Friends

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It’s Hard To Blog When Your Brain Is A Pulpy Mass

More so than usual, that is.

One day down, one to go.

To respond to the most common question I’ve been asked today: “Soooooo… how did it go??”

I say, “They give you extra points for creativity, right?”

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Dear People Obsessed With Nadya Suleman:

It’s true: there’s something not quite right about Ms. Suleman. I suspect psychiatric analysis would reveal a number of mental health issues and neuroses, the treatment of which would pay for at least a couple shrinks’ kids to attend Ivy League schools. This we can agree on: she’s a wee nuts. Whatever doctor implanted six embryos into her already overworked uterus: also a little nutso.

Here’s where I depart from most of you in opinion: I don’t think it’s any of my business. Or yours. It becomes my business when police show up at my door and tell me that I’ve been conscripted into nannying for Suleman. Or that a special Nadya Suleman tax has been deducted from my paycheck.

Now, I know what you’re saying: but my precious tax dollars! They’re supporting her!

Yeah, sure, like your tax dollars bought Air Force One and entitle you to a complimentary ride on it.

It always amazes me how many people still talk about how their tax dollars are paying for social service programs without knowing how few pennies of their tax dollars are actually allocated for social services like welfare. The following is from The American Psychological Association website:

Myth: A Huge Chunk of My Tax Dollars Supports Welfare Recipients

Fact: Welfare Costs 1 Percent of the Federal Budget

Widespread misperception about the extent of welfare exacerbate the problems of poverty. The actual cost of welfare programs-about 1 percent of the federal budget and 2 percent of state budgets (McLaughlin, 1997)-is proportionally less than generally believed. During the 104th Congress, more than 93 percent of the budget reductions in welfare entitlements came from programs for low-income people (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1996). Ironically, middle-class and wealthy Americans also receive “welfare” in the form of tax deductions for home mortgages, corporate and farm subsidies, capital gains tax limits, Social Security, Medicare, and a multitude of other tax benefits. Yet these types of assistance carry no stigma and are rarely considered “welfare” (Goodgame, 1993) (emphasis mine). Anti-welfare sentiment appears to be related to attitudes about class and widely shared and socially sanctioned stereotypes about the poor. Racism also fuels negative attitudes toward welfare programs (Quadagno, 1994).

I was trying to do some really, really rough math using info on the web to figure out how much the average taxpayer is spending on welfare (welfare includes food stamps, cash payments, and subsidized health care):

Say you make $40k a year. After deductions, you end up paying $4,445 in income tax. Let’s say that 1% of your tax dollars is spent on welfare programs, since 1% of the federal budget is spent on welfare programs. This is being generous, since the federal budget has other sources of income besides income tax, but whatever. So roughly $44.45 of your tax dollars fund welfare programs. Now let’s divide that $44.45 among the approximately 2,000,000 welfare recipients for the year 2005 (that number has surely increased dramatically in light of current economic factors). That’s $0.000022225 per person.

Obviously I am no statistician or accountant (or even good at balancing a checkbook) and these numbers are really rough, but my point is that with a contribution of the tiniest fraction of a penny to this woman, we really don’t have much standing as individual taxpayers to claim that she’s soaking up all of our hard-earned tax dollars, and thus justifying mean-spirited judgment of her by claiming that she’s taking “our” money.

And let’s look at the double standards that apply to this single mother, and the married couples who also elect to conceive and give birth to what is called “higher-order multiples.” No one asks married couples for a copy of their financial statement to make sure they can afford their 50 gazillion “miracle” (um, science-created) children. Reporters do not track down inflammatory details about them. We assume that the couples that opt to have multiple embryos implanted and opt to not terminate any of the viables have the means to support the children.

Why do we assume that? From what we see on TV, they don’t have the means, either– they need massive financial assistance. The difference is that they get assistance– from friends, family, strangers, and major corporations. We assume that they don’t receive public assistance (though they most likely do in some form, if it’s not straight-out welfare or food stamps, then in the form of state or federal medical and disability care for the kids who are inevitably born with medical issues common with multiple births. The McCaughey septuplets: two kids with cerebral palsy, in addition to other medical issues.) Why don’t we question their financial ability to support massive multiples? Because they’re married. Maybe they don’t have to go on welfare because of the aforementioned donations of goods, time, and money. But maybe they do need state assistance with health insurance or food stamps, because most people can’t afford to raise 50 gazillion “miracles” on a single income (or can’t afford to raise 50 gazillion kids and pay for daycare for them with two incomes, if both parents work). No one is really asking those questions of the married parents, is my point. They are, by virtue of being conventional (married), deemed worthy of assistance– which is lavished upon them, it seems. No one wonders what kind of psychological issues led them to such a risky and impractical choice– they are just assumed to be loving, benevolent, and next to frickin’ godly for loving children so much.

From Wikipedia, not the finest source in all the land, but sufficient for these purposes:

The McCaugheys were the recipients of many generous donations, including a 5500ft² (511 m²) house, a van and diapers for the first two years, as well as nanny services, and even the State of Iowa offering full college scholarships to the babies upon their maturity and graduation from high school to any state university in Iowa. U.S. President Bill Clinton personally telephoned Mr. and Mrs. McCaughey to wish them his congratulations.

So the McCaugheys opt to have fertility treatments, opt to not selectively reduce the number of fetuses, choose to have seven kids they can’t afford, and they’re heroes. If Suleman was married, her community would probably get together and build her an awesome, huge house. Pampers would have a delivery truck backed up in her driveway, crammed full of complimentary diapers.

If you’re a single mother, though, all bets are off. Your budget and lifestyle and the number of children you have birthed, and how they were birthed, are scrutinized and judged. Nobody checked any of our checkbooks balances before we conceived; why is it our business if she has 50 gazillion kids? If she has some child-collecting mania and her parents are dumb enablers, why is it our business? Why is that any worse than a married couple who has sextuplets or whatever crazy number of multiple births? You know, the ones that were just as freaky child/baby-hungry as she likely is and also went to astonishing and insane lengths to have children, resulting in 50 gazillion kids? The difference between the two scenarios is that one situation is valid by virtue of the presence of a man. That all-important husband. The legitimizing man.

And now you’re back to, “But my precious tax dollars!!! Those babies will cost taxpayers MILLIONS!” Let me remind you that if she had private insurance and not taxpayer-funded insurance, and it happened to be the same insurance company that you have, your insurance premiums would have gone up. Just like all of our private health insurance premiums go up when people drink themselves to a liver transplant and accrue a million dollars in medical costs. Just like the rate increases resulting from the myriad health problems resulting from the millions of people who commit the voluntary act of smoking. Do you do anything that endangers your health and could result in financial burden (directly or indirectly) to taxpayers or the people who are part of your private health insurance company? Do you ride a bike? Drive a car? Eat fast food? Smoke? Jog? Jaywalk?

Nadya Suleman: not someone we generally hold in high esteem, agreed. We’re probably not rushing to her website to make a PayPal donation. Us: hardly the kings and queens of perfect judgment, also agreed. Lots of people in glass houses throwing stones: glass everywhere; watch your step.

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