Throw Momma from the Bus

I tried to write this post from at least six different angles before finally throwing in the towel, which also happens to be the same as throwing my mother under the bus. (Sorry, Mom. Good thing you don’t read my blog—probably.)

When I was in kindergarten, my mother dressed me up as a lawyer for career day—complete with a little briefcase and everything. My skirt suit matched what she wore that day. What I wanted to wear was my red cowgirl boots and a fabulous dress with a tutu and carry around paints because I was going to be a cowgirl, artist, singer when I grew up. Ambitious.

My concept of what I wanted to be slowly morphed into one big question mark by the time I hit sixth grade. My father saw this as an opportunity to influence me toward what he believed was the wave of the future. It began with software developer or computer sciences, but when I showed an almost degenerative ability in that area, he switched to bioethicist or diabetes counselor for old people. Maybe a computer science specialist, bioethicist, diabetic gerontology counselor. I think we know where I got my ambition.

Whenever my mother would overhear one of our conversations, she would smile knowingly and condescendingly. Silly of us to even discuss what my options were. What a monumental waste of time. She knew what I was destined for, but she would bide her time until I came to the inevitable conclusion myself.

English is what I ultimately wanted to major in in college. I love reading books, so I should do what I love. Not so, said both my parents (Father could betray me at the worst moments!). A college education was for studying something you couldn’t do on your own and preparing for a real occupation. What in the world did I think I could do with an English degree they asked, their voices husky with laughter.

Joke’s on them. My first job was book editor. Although I think the argument was a draw since I didn’t major in English and was still able to land an English-centric job. But in my diary I counted it Buttercup 1, Parents 0. Obviously I couldn’t count on them for any sort of occupational advice in the future. (That didn’t stop me, because who wants to be responsible for a decision that big? It’s easier to just blame your parents if it goes horribly wrong!)

However, the company I worked for was not ideal in many ways, and soon after my second year I started looking for a way out. I moved back home due to a confluence of forces and considered everything from working two part-time retail jobs to going back to school. This is when my mother preyed on my weak mental state. Why didn’t I study for the GRE? In fact, she’d even pay for the test if I also agreed to take the LSAT.

Folks, my parents cast long shadows. They’re both lawyers and are wickedly awesome and adult and involved and responsible and intimidating. My mother, for example, worked for the DA’s office straight out of law school prosecuting criminal drug cases and never lost a case. Then she was recruited to do the same thing by the US Attorney General’s office—so on the federal level. She could have been a high profile judge or something by now, but she decided for her family’s sake she’d confine her awesomeness to her and Dad’s law firm and running the women’s ministry at church and starting a band program in our school and serving on city committees about things like LCD signage and ethics in law practice and on and on it goes.

So part of my lifelong reticence to pursue law could be rooted in not wanting to compete with that shadow. But what played an even larger part in my decision was that my parents worked so hard all the time. We were never on a vacation that my parents weren’t also working. My brothers and I were in daycare from the time we were toddlers, and when we were too old for that, we had to be involved in extracurriculars because my parents worked all day and then some. If my mom had to pick us up from school or an extracurricular, she was always late. It was just a question of how late. If it was under half an hour, she was practically on time.

Now—this isn’t some sob story. We had family dinners, my parents were involved in school and homework, we went on vacations together that were awesome, and my parents never missed a single game, debate match, or play. My brothers and I have never felt neglected or abandoned. In almost every way, my parents were exemplary in their roles of mother and father. But that didn’t leave any other time for my parents—no personal time that wasn’t either filled with work or kids or both. And it was a strain to fit it all in.

And, to be concise, law just doesn’t appeal to me.

When I took the LSAT as a way to get my GRE paid for, I studied really hard because I can’t not take tests and studying seriously. This was a mistake. Not only did it get my mother’s hopes up, but it also confused my poor mind into thinking “So we’re into law now? Guess I should plan out a career trajectory.” And that’s what I did. Which is how I ended up thinking I should totally be a jury selector or a mediator. What you’ll no doubt notice is that neither of those involve being an actual lawyer.

I did well on the LSAT. When I finished, my father took me out for a celebratory dinner of fried fat at Chili’s, where I confided to him that I wasn’t sold on being a lawyer. But how would I ever tell my mother?

“Buttercup, honey, I don’t understand what you think your mother will do to you if you don’t pursue law. She’s never been able to restrain herself with you and your brothers. If you decide to pursue psychology, she’ll jump on the bandwagon. Just show her you’ve done some research know what you’re talking about and she’ll start helping you plan the future you choose in no time flat.”

(In case you can’t read his tone from the “honey” he threw in, his voice was filled with paternal patronization. He clearly didn’t think there was any reason at all to believe that disappointing my mother was something to be feared. I find this surprising considering how many years he’s been married to her.)

The night after the LSAT, the nightmares began. Horrible dreams where I was either swallowing my teeth or my teeth fell out or my teeth broke while I was eating something. Every night.  

And then I stopped working on my law school applications and started researching non-law careers instead. The dreams stopped. Obviously, my subconscious did not want to go to law school. Now to tell my mother.

I did as my dad suggested, gathering up loads of information about current job market trends and job stability projections and salary averages and gave her a binder of information.

“What’s this?”

“Just some research I’ve been doing on possible careers.”

She smiled. “What type of law, you mean?” She opened the binder.

“No. I don’t think—” Her smile was gone and she was arching her eyebrows in disappointed disbelief. “I don’t think I’m going to law school probably. Maybe. I don’t know!”

I squawked and ran away.

A couple days later, my parents and I were eating dinner. My mother’s lips had been perpetually pursed since my super mature, confident confrontation with her about my future. Staring at her dinner plate, she asked me, “So which law schools have you applied to so far?”

My father and I paused, exchanging a worried glance. Surely I had made it clear that I didn’t intend on attending law school.

“Mom, I’m not going to law school. I’m going to take the GRE and do something else. Probably something in psychology. Did you read all that information I printed f—”

She threw her napkin down, scooted back her chair, and cut me to pieces with her ice blue glare. “Well don’t expect me to take any part of it. Clearly you can’t make up your mind or stick to decisions you’ve made. I don’t even want to hear about it since it probably won’t happen anyway.” She stood up and stomped away in her ridiculous house slipper/sandals.

I was too stunned to even tell my father “I told you so.” I never pass up an opportunity to tell my genius parents I told you so. Eventually, after a few minutes of silence, I turned to him and said, “Uhm. Did you expect that?”

He laughed. Laughed. Clearly he didn’t understand what had happened. My mother had disowned me. Over not going into the profession she had chosen for me probably when I was first born but definitely by the time I was in kindergarten. Even in my worst imaginings she hadn’t reacted that way.

“Well, we’ll just have to work on her,” he said. As if it would be as simple as that. Cha right.

It has been two years since I took the LSAT and crushed my mother’s dreams (she eventually started talking to me again), and I finally took the GRE this August. I took it blind because I couldn’t be bothered to brush up on math. Which is why I scored somewhere in the 30^th percentile. Taking grad schools by storm and totally proving my mother wrong. Right.

The problem with this is that I won’t be able to get into a program until Fall 2014. I’ve decided to take courses that will count toward my program as an unclassified student which is way more expensive, but I can’t stand the idea of putting my future off for two more semesters. However, the program I was/am going to apply for is changing in 2014 and might take longer to finish, and some of the classes I asked to get into have refused me. Which makes me just want to study professional writing and give altruism the middle finger.

This place feels very familiar. In undergrad I had wanted to study English but ended up majoring in social sciences because that’s what my parents suggested. (I actually ended up majoring in the same thing my mother majored in—surprise, surprise.)

I told my mother I was thinking about just studying professional writing because I scored super high in verbal on the GRE and they’d probably be thrilled to have me instead of apathetic like the psyc program was.

“And what job can you get with that?”

I sighed dramatically as I’m wont to do with this line of adult questioning. It’s so tiringly practical. I much prefer to dream about the types of things I might do one day given enough time to practice my trade and maybe a little help from God. Like be the next J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin. How I feed myself or pay my insurance during that practice time will just work itself out.

“Well, I could maybe just teach adjunct and write and edit freelance…”

Her eyebrows raised as if she was surprised that I was capable of such stupidity, but her eyes were coolly disdainful. She knew full well I was capable of that level of stupidity. So this was going well.

“Buttercup. You need a full-time job with benefits. Without one, you’ll end up poor and homeless.”

I laughed. She didn’t. Okay, so that was a serious argument.

“Mom, I will not end up homeless if I don’t have a job that pays benefits. Plenty of people have jobs that don’t pay benefits and they have a place to sleep—some are even above the poverty line.”

“Name one person.”

I seriously didn’t think I would have to because there are so many careers that are contract based. And yet, every single one of those careers completely flew from my mind. But thank God I listen to NPR.

“All of the support staff in D.C.” She looked doubtful. “It’s true. They all have to go on Obama Care.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to reading her book. I waited a minute or so for a response. Maybe she was just thinking.

“Are…are you mad because I won the argument?”

She snorted. Won the argument. As if! “I’m not going to talk to you when you’re not even making sense.”

What???

“Uhm…”

Still not looking up, she said, “We’re not going to have a conversation about this.”

I got up to leave the room and said over my shoulder (I think I’ve already proven what a scaredy cat I can be), “So that’s a no on you supporting my decision.”

“What decision? You don’t even understand the opportunities or consequences tied to your proposed change in plans.”

Lawyered.

The thing is, she’s right. But how could I possibly know all the consequences and opportunities attached to any decision or course of action? This is what paralyzes our generation, I believe. Our Baby Boomer parents are financially supportive, but they aren’t very supportive of our dreams. Sure, when we were young they were all, “You can be/do anything you want to be/do!” But then we grow up and they’re all, “I didn’t raise you to be a humanties major!”

I am not concerned with fulfilling my parents’ dream(s) for me—obviously, since I’m not a lawyer nor a bioethicist, computer scientist, counselor to diabetic oldsters. But I do want their approval of my career choice I eventually land on. I want them to be proud of me. I want my cake and to eat it too.

Add to this my mother’s argument, which is exactly why I hadn’t chosen another career. I had thought editing books was it. But I was wrong, and the possibility that I can choose wrong again terrifies me. It’s a type of failure. And since I cannot know all the opportunities and consequences attached to my decision, I find it impossible to fully commit to a decision.

Giving rise to the Peter Pan Generation—the other name professional condescenders call the Millennial generation. It’s not that we don’t want to be hardworking professionals. It’s that there are forces in our lives that try to talk us out of making the decision we want. Which delays it for a while. And that is why we’re almost 30 or already in our early 30's and still trying to figure it all out. Perhaps what our generation is missing is the fire in the belly that makes us defy all other opinions and all obstacles and all self-doubts.

Why do you think our generation is finding it so difficult to decide what career to follow? Or, if the career has been chosen, actually pursuing that career?

Suzy Orman Is Not My Role Model

The big Three-Oh is barreling toward me at 60 minutes an hour, which is scary fast turns out. It’s got me thinking about adulthood and what it means to be an “adult” without the familiar trappings that usually accompany that life phase: spouse, children, career, a first killing. What does adulthood look like? What are adult habits? What are adult thoughts? (Get your minds out of the gutter! Those are decidedly junior high thoughts.) What does it mean to be an adult?

Things I have done this year to bring me closer to adulthood: a) Consistently listen to NPR on my way to work and on my way home from work—I will not cop to what I listen to the rest of the time, b) took the GRE, c) applied to a graduate program that could possibly lead to a career, d)accomplished a goal I’ve had for a while to train my dog as a therapy dog, and e)date men. My dog and I were actually supposed to go out on our first solo therapizing visit yesterday but he died. The patient died. I’m volunteering with hospice—that might be an important fact to mention.  

Thus bringing home mortality and the fact that I’m rapidly approaching mid-life and I still live at home. I need a role model, a strong female mentor. Tina Fey’s Bossy Pants while hilarious and inspiring in many respects did not provide the sort of role model I feel comfortable following—mostly because she’s so career focused. And I gotta say, that just does not appeal to me (hello, problem! Nice to meet you). Hillary Clinton, Suzy Orman, and Mother Teresa fall under that same category. Who has a decent work/life balance but isn’t necessarily married? Heck! It can be a guy. It’s sexist of me to limit myself to a female role model, right?

In lieu of a clear role model, here are things that I associated with adulthood:

• -cleans—as in does dishes immediately after eating/cooking, scrubs the toilette more often than just when company is about to come over, and hangs up clothes rather than piling in the floor next to her “dirty” clothes pile (just for instance)
• cooks—even if living by him/herself, an adult cooks regularly at home (turbo adult points for nutritious food)
• files—doctor invoices? Filed! Car maintenance? Filed! Receipts? Filed! Credit card bill? Double-checked for accuracy instead of never opened and thrown in a drawer!
• exercises—a regular part of the routine
• routines—a routine exists
• lunch dates—adults have lunch dates with friends, clients, family members. Doesn’t it just ring with maturity?
• budgets—knows what kind of lifestyle is possible, puts money back, and budgets for things s/he knows s/he will want in the future or will have to pay for in the future (such as dental work—we’re all getting older and so are our childhood fillings, as I found out this year).
• hobnobs*—adults should have enough life experiences that they have accrued hobbies that they enjoy and pursue regularly as part of their routine.
• schedules—teeth cleaning twice a year, yearly physical, eye exam, oil changes—all scheduled a year out
• currents—stays up-to-date with news by listening to NPR or reading the NY Times or watching nightly news—whatever it is, they know who their congressional representative is and how they hope s/he votes on such and such a bill and how it will affect the state and the nation (maybe this is too high an expectation, but when I get in conversations with “adults” I feel like they know everything and have really thought it through carefully with a much wider frame of reference than I have access to [probably because I don’t read newspapers and sometimes don’t listen to NPR so I can listen to I Heart Radio])

Looking at this list, I see that I perceive much of adulthood as a productive routine. One that allows the adult to plan for the future. One that feeds the dog every night at 5:30 rather than sometime between the hours of 5 and midnight. One that provides structure for those desirable adult activities. When I think of those of my friends that are the most “adult,” they are above all organized individuals with structured routines. They’re also not afraid to tell me no when I want to hang out and they have something else planned, like cleaning the house. I will say yes to just about anything rather than clean my house. Which, if you’ve ever visited me unannounced, explains a lot. Hm?

So here are my questions I leave you with. 1) Who is your role model? 2) What characterizes an adult in your mind? 3) If you don’t see yourself as an adult, what is it that is preventing you from achieving that? Is it a prioritization issue? Is it Peter Pan syndrome?

*I do know that to hobnob is to socialize or rub elbows with. But I like the word and I’ll use it however I feel like. You knew what I meant, and that’s the sole purpose of language anyway.

Did the laptop jump, or was it pushed?

After quitting my full-time job, I lost a lot of my angst. I think it is in no little way correlated to the fact that I’ve spent less time in the presence of one J-Bare, who can wax philosophical and theoretical and analytical and psychological on any subject. I’ve gotten out of the habit of analyzing. This is bad because, as I’m about to show, I need to regularly analyze not only my external world (which I positively cannot stop doing) but also my internal world (which I negatively ignore 99% of the time). It isn’t that my angst is gone, necessarily, but that I’ve stopped maintenance on my internal state, assuming that now that I’m in a better place, I’m hunky-dory emotionally too.

The past few months have been wonderful in so many ways: going on a trip around the world, getting to see my little brother for the first time in a year, quitting a job with too much work and too little reward, working for myself, and having the freedom and time to explore my options for the future. And those wonderful things are what I’ve been focusing on. I don’t think many people would describe me as an optimist because I’m not smiley sunshiney positive Sandra Dee all the time…or ever. My default mode, though, is to look for possibilities and opportunities. To see what can be. That’s the definition of optimism.

This past week, “what is” crashed in on my “what can be.”* Several things happened in a seventy-two-hour period. 1) I paid my credit card bill, and without giving away too much personal information, my bank account isn’t at a level I feel comfortable with. 2) The coffee shop seems to be stalling and my brother/part owner keeps changing things on me. 3) Jasper, my big, lovable, old man dog, had a seizure. 4) I got next month’s credit card bill, and there isn’t going to be a bank account left after I pay it. 5) My computer committed suicide.

*Dear editors who are reading this: I apologize for the scare quotes, but I felt the sentence was unclear without them. I swear that it was an agonizing decision on whether to include them or not, and I did not add them in cavalierly.

The morning of the laptop crash I woke up early (for me that means before 9 a.m.) to finish a manuscript. I’d been working on it too long in small increments while also doing research on the publishing industry and query letters and working on the coffee shop (of course!). I was determined to finish by noon because my brother had promised that we were going to work on our business plan that afternoon. Since I’d recently paid my credit card bill I was keen to a) get paid for the manuscript and b) get the coffee shop up and running as quickly as possible so I would have a steady income.

Grant was supposed to be doing yard work while I was working on editing—both of us securing our temporary incomes in the morning so we could invest in our future incomes that afternoon. Just before noon, my brother walked into my apartment with his miniature dachshund and informed me that a lawn crew was about to show up, so he would be working outside after they left.

This made me angry. Why hadn’t he been outside working this entire time? We could have been working on our business plan while the lawn crew worked. But since I was crawling through what should have been a fast manuscript and wouldn’t be done for the next couple hours, I decided I couldn’t really talk. So I returned to my editing, more determined than ever to finish it and get one thing off my plate since it looked like I would be the only one working on the business plan that afternoon.

Shortly thereafter, several things happened all at once. I paused in my editing to save my manuscript, as anyone who regularly works with documents habitually does. The lawn crew showed up. All three hound dogs let loose barking and baying at the top of their lungs.

The software froze, as it had been doing occasionally.

Barking.

I told the dogs to stop barking.

Barking.

My mouse and keyboard shorted out.

Barking.

I told the dogs to stop barking.

Barking.

The computer was five years old.

Barking.

I told the dogs to stop barking.

Barking.

I lashed out at the closest body to me hard enough to elicit a yelp from Jasper, who cowered at my feet. “Shut. Up.” Ceasar Milan doesn’t have anything on me. When I have energy, my dogs feel it. And I was radiating red. Jasper curled up on the couch. Buckley hid underneath the bed. And that stinking dachshund with her annoying yip ran to the kennel (a place she usually eschews).

If this was a momentary flare of frustration or stress or anger, it should have faded just as quickly, and I should have felt immediate regret for hurting Big Boy. I didn’t. I had left rational, optimistic, analytical Buttercup. I’d stepped out of my brain and fully into the locus of emotions. In this instance, I don’t think the locus was my heart.

When I was younger and I got angry at my parents or my brothers, I would throw my shoes and Barbies at the window in my bedroom. It was a large target and covered by wooden blinds that made this beautiful, satisfying cacophony when hit. The physical action coupled with the resulting racket expressed my frustration and soothed my ruffled emotions. I suppose that influences me still today.

When, only seconds after sending my dogs into hiding, my laptop continued to flicker at me unresponsively, I pounded the keyboard with my hands. Of course, nothing happened. It wasn’t worse or better—and neither was I. The image that had been circling my head since the beginning of this episode swam dizzyingly clear in my mind’s eye. The satisfying crash. The comfort of exacting revenge on the cause of my anger and frustration. Expressing my negative energy in more than just words.

I decided, consciously decided, to take my open laptop and spike it into the ground.

It made a jittery plastic thud on the carpet. The screen swung forward and then back, revealing the spidery effect violence has on sensitive technology and the now 96% dark screen. The casing skewed slightly apart so that the laptop had a pitiful hangdog appearance. What a hick laptop would look like if Disney decided to make the computer version of cars with fancy Apples and the more varied PCs populating the movie as characters.

It was satisfying for all of thirty seconds. And then I was even angrier with myself. This is what happens when I don’t keep tabs on what’s going on internally. I break things. So now I’ve got the laptop on life support, hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

What have I learned from this other than emotionally I am still a five-year-old? Optimism is all well and good, but you have to check it with your present reality and adjust possibilities accordingly. And, most importantly in my present circumstances, not mentioning external concerns as they occur can build into an internal problem.

This is not usually any issue with me, but I have the hardest time broaching certain subjects with family members. Because then it is always personal, and I only really have seniority on my little brother, and he’s in India. So I’m low man on the totem pole.

I’ve got some serious conversations coming in the near futures with family members, and I need to make some decisions. Do I continue to help my brother with his dream, which I dearly want to see him achieve because I think he’d be great at it? He could seriously be the OKC Monopoly man. Or do I start building my future, volunteering with different populations to give counseling to see whether or not I want to be a clinical psychologist or an industrial/organizational psychologist?

Whatever happens, I’ll continue writing. Share with me what emotional outbursts you’ve had in the not so distant past. Did you, too, feel like you shouldn’t be acting that way now that you’re an adult? What caused the outburst or what did you learn from it? How do you keep tabs on your emotional health? (I’m asking because despite my resolve to do better, I’ve always been woefully inept at understanding my own emotions.)

P.S. Jasper is fine. After initially ignoring a proffered snack as a bribe (a first in Big Boy’s six years), he climbed into my lap and got a full-body doggy massage followed by some chicken broth. I swear I do not usually hit or yell at my dogs. They’re spoiled rotten.

Entrepreneurial Spirit – It Takes a Charismatic

Blarg. ß This is how I feel. My brain has emitted this noise—albeit internally—ever since my brother and I began writing the business plan for a coffee house that might eventually one day be a reality. I can feel my forehead growing wrinkles. I say that because I haven’t been able, literally physically capable, of unknotting those muscles. My expression is one of perpetual perplexity. It doesn't help that I’ve misplaced my reading glasses.

Writing a business plan, starting a business, is not only scary, it’s humbling. Because you realize how dumb you are. And boy, am I dumb. I haven’t used the dictionary this much since I took geology in college. White boxing. Build out. Financial projections. Demographics. Market analysis. Triple net lease. SBA. Term sheets. It’s terrifying diving into something that is so financially threatening when you don’t know anything.

It’s as if you’re staring out across a lake and see an island you’d like to swim to. But there is no nice, easy, soft, sandy beach to ease into the water. The lake is surrounded by cliffs. Sheer drop offs. The water is full of terrors. And you don’t know how to swim.

Dotting the cliff tops are tents. The labyrinthine tent hands out free lifejackets, but you find they have heavy weights attached. The colorfully striped “professional” tents give expensive verbal and written lessons on how to swim, but no practical swimming lessons in water are to be had anywhere. And in the other tents—some grand and impressive, some less so, and some lean and drab—you find swimmers, folk who have taken the plunge and survived to tell the tale. These experienced swimmers will sometimes share tips they learned from their experiences, but some do not. Some are more helpful than others. And some speak so much jargon you can’t glean a single inkling from the conversation.

Since the dive and swim are so perilous, you feel you need as many lessons and as much equipment and as much information as these tents have to give you. But you only have so much money. The advice can only go so far. And to frustrate you even further, the counsel you receive is contradictory and vague. There isn’t an end to the tents. You’ll never feel fully prepared to dive in, and you’ll never run out of tents to visit.

To conclude, right now I feel overwhelmed, stupid, and utterly out of my depth. And repetitive. I feel rather redundant as well. There’s so much I don’t know, and there’s so much information to be had, learned, assimilated, and forgotten.

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and for some part of it I will be revising the front page of our business plan to focus on concept so that we can move forward in our bid for a sweet location for the coffee house. A not-for-profit association bought the building we hope to lease from them. So board approval is involved. By the time we get an interview with the big britches, we’ll have talked to bankers and have a firmer idea of how we’re going to fund this song and dance. That’s when we’ll have a proposal that focuses on finances. (Oh here’s a laugh. When I asked our accountant when we should get the loan, before or after signing the lease, which order do they go in? He answered, well ideally simultaneously. I had no response except to knit my brow together.)

Belated Father's Day

When I got back from my three-months-long vacation with my parents, right before Father's Day, my thoughts were none too charitable toward either of them. Thirty-three uninterrupted days with my parents, the last ten days of which were spent in the car on a road trip. Thus, for my card to my father (which is all he got from me seeing as I don't have a job and am trying to start up a company), I borrowed sentiments from someecards.com. Something to the effect of "Sorry I can only afford the same Father's Day gift I got you when I was seven, but I'd be honored to buy you a celebratory meal with the credit card you pay for."

On previous Father's Days I've been sentimental, and this has been brushed off. None of our immediate family is too comfortable with emotional expression. So I didn't feel too bad about my lighthearted card. But this past Sunday I learned that a couple of guys I went to school with, brothers, had lost their dad in an accident during a trip to celebrate one of the brothers getting into med school. This is the fifth dead father of school friends--that I know of! And I don't think we're at the age that our fathers should be dying. They're not even retired yet!

Ever since this terrible news, I've been inundated with a feeling of gratefulness. I'm so grateful my dad is alive. But even more than that, I'm grateful that he's such a good dad.

When I was little, it was taken for granted that all dad's were tall, good at sports, and smart. I even thought that my dad might be a little worse than other dads because he had a terrible temper. The number of times I can remember that temper being untempered, though, is less than mine ten fingers. In fact, whenever me and my two brothers really pissed him off by being too annoying or wrestling too much in the car, he would give us the option: "Do you want me to pull over now and spank you on the side of the road, or wait till we get home?" We of course always opted for when we got home because a) he wouldn't be pissed anymore, so the spanking wouldn't be as hard, b) who wants to be beaten on the side of the road--embarrassing, and c) most of the time he would forget!

Although, the older I get, the less I think the forgetting theory is likely. He probably just didn't want to beat us once we were behaving for once. Who wants to listen to wailing children? And boy, did I holler whenever I was in trouble. All he had to do was look at my crosswise and I'd begin welling up, sobs backing up at the bottom of my throat. One false move by him and they'd be released. More of a punishment on him and anyone in my vicinity than on me, really.

The older I get, the more women I know who had poor relationships with the fathers. My dad was great in many ways; some I have, I'm sure, unfortunately forgotten. The things that stand out clearest to me now are those things that are so dramatically different from what other women have experienced with their fathers.  

One of my friends had a father who assigned all women to one of four categories: beautiful, pretty, cute, ugly. He would tell my friend, his daughter, she wasn't beautiful or pretty, but she was cute. It made sense that she would have a dysfunctional relationship with her body image. 


My father always complimented me and my mother, and it never made me feel that beauty was something to be sought after nor was it a competition I was in. By no means am I the most beautiful or the most attractive woman. My dad's compliments didn't make me vain or preoccupied with my image. Every woman has her own innate beauty, and I am confident in mine because of my father's attention. And he still compliments me. I painted my fingernails and toenails hot pink on Sunday. At lunch when we held hands for prayer, he said, "Oh! That's a pretty color. What's it called?" And I replied around a mouthful of food, "Pwinksh." (The sh sound is the sound of me sucking spit back into my pretty mouth. I'm sure he's as proud of me and I am of him.) Not only did he notice a change in my appearance, but he complimented the change and asked for information about it. Which I didn't know because I really can't be bothered with details. But it made my day.

Another friend of mine has a father that "tells her like it is," often remarking, "Stop being such a bitch." And she says she likes, even needs, that sort of straightforward talk in her life. My father, I'm sure, has had to have had the passing impression that I'm acting like a b****. And that's probably a kind thought. My teenage years were not pretty, ya'll. But he has never, ever, ever called me that. Nor would he! You do not call the people you love degrading names. Instead, he instructs me (most patiently considering my headstrong behavior) how to be a lady and a godly woman. I am almost never grateful for this instruction, but when compared to the alternative, I think I'll change my tune. And because of his respectful way of talking to me and my mother, I've never sought a verbally abusive boyfriend or had those acidic thoughts about myself. I might be awful or mean, but I never view myself in subhuman terms.

Play time. I rarely hear my friends talk about playing with their fathers. My dad played with us. We would wrestle. We would swim. He would make up stories about Walter and Penelope (although that was more of a way to get us to go to sleep instead of staying up till all hours chasing each other with squeals of addled excitement). He coached us in sports (though those good memories are mixed with uh...other memories, pretty evenly). And I have a couple of very fond warm rain memories.

Oklahoma gets warm rain. Sometimes the sun is even out when it rains. Warm rain requires the temperature to be 75F or warmer, and the rain is about air temperature. The benefit of warm rain is that it is excellent singing in the rain weather. But that's not what we did with our dad. One morning, when we were all still very small, he piled us into one of my brothers' wagon and pulled us all around the neighborhood in our pajamas. It was a very small parade, but the memory of getting pulled around in the rain by our zany father remains one of my fondest.

The other warm rain memory began too early on a Saturday. There were thunderstorms, and Father pulled us out of bed before we ready, before we'd even had breakfast, and instructed us to put on grubby clothes. We were going to dig trenches. This, dear readers, probably doesn't sound like much fun to you. Nor to us! Oh the bellyaching that met my father's ears as he tried to roust us from our warm roosts. Once outside, the digging began. But we had to use our hands. And there wasn't any apparent system to Father's trench scheme. The need for the trenches was also beyond our ken. The backyard wasn't flooded, had never flooded, so why did it need trenches? I don't know who threw the first mud ball. I have my suspicions that he stood a head taller than the rest of us and had a better arm.

After a couple hours, we resembled the Swamp Monster more than children. Mom made us bathe outside with the water hose--which was quite a bit colder than the rain--before coming inside. This, of course, led to a water fight, with our father having control of the only weapon the majority of the time. After seeing what little progress we made, she demanded we disrobe outside and  provided us with towels to hide under as we ran, giggling, to our rooms to properly bathe and put on normal clothes.

I love the memories I have of my dad, and I appreciate the way he parented me then and now. Sometimes I'm misunderstood, but I'm always loved. Sometimes I'm hurt, but he always asks forgiveness. Sometimes I'm angry, but he's always willing to explain. No one is perfect. But my dad is the perfect father for me.

Share some of your childhood memories below or discuss how you feel about your dad.

*P.S. Next month I will post some fictional writing I've been working on. Be sure to come back and let me know your thoughts!

Priorities: Harry Potter Had Them

I am twenty-six years old and just finished the Harry Potter series. Does the shame I feel come from reading juvenile fiction at my age, or the fact that it took me so long to read the HPs? I'm just kidding. I don't feel shame. I'm talking to all of you pressurers who have tormented and hounded me about reading Rowling's books. I am not ashamed, you hear me?!

But my shame is not what I want to discuss. I want to shame others. I want to shed a light on priorities. It's something that's been consuming my mind in recent years. Yes, even before I quit my job and became an impoverished parasite living at my parents' house with way too much free time on my hands. But again, this isn't about my shame--or my current shame.

The first year I was promoted to management, I worked eighty-hour weeks on average. I was twenty-four. An old friend (as old as you can have them at twenty-four) contacted me out of the blue and wanted to go to lunch. I was absolutely delighted to see him and threw all thoughts of work away for three hours in order to grab a bite and catch up.

We talked of many things, but what he came back to again and again was our friendship. "If anyone had told me we would lose contact, wouldn't talk for years," he said, shaking his head, "I just wouldn't believe it. You were one of my best friends. I still consider you one of my best friends. We can't let this happen."

And it was true. He was the beginning of my priority purgatory. We left filled with plans of getting together and how we would somehow work around my insane work schedule. But reality and responsibility and other reprehensible things constricted me. Weekend after weekend I canceled our plans. Too much work, I couldn't come. It was true...but only if you're looking at it from one angle. I let work, work for an employer I disdained, work for clients who often did not appreciate it, work for a company that did not value me or the value I added to their products ahead of a friendship that could have lasted a lifetime. But it didn't. I didn't prioritize it, and I haven't heard from him in two years.

After that year of hell, my supervisor finally realized that I was near dead and would quit out of sheer exhaustion if not from finding another job (which I had no time to do!). So my work load gradually decreased to the point where I was working an average fifty-hour week. I had time to breathe, look for other jobs, and reevaluate my priorities. The only friends I ever saw were my work friends, whom I loved and still love, but that's not a full life. I had let that blimmin' job fill up every nook and cranny. I used to go home every Sunday and eat lunch with my family, but that all stopped when I got promoted. I had to work on Sundays. I used to go visit my out-of-town friend (the aforementioned Tulsa dweller) at least once a month, but after the promotion, it was more like a couple times a year. Even when I did see her, I would have to bring my work with me.

What good is whining that you have too much work to see people when you detest that work? What good is it to the people you love who want to see you? Who want to be there for you? What will your life look like, years down the road, if you keep choosing work? Is it the life you want to lead?

Harry Potter knew this. He valued friends and family over his life. That's why Voldemort couldn't kill him. (Oh. Spoiler alert.) But we aren't talking life and death here, in our reality. We're talking prioritization of time. But that can be in the HP series as well. I think I'm too much like Hermione. I value learning, but even more than learning, I like applying what I've learned and showing off what I've learned. I like being smart. I'm sure pride is part of it, but it feels like it's more about what you do well. An artist paints and draws and displays it because that's what he loves and what he does well. Like Hermione, I learn well. So I slave over books and apply it through my job or studies. But Hermione had Harry and Ron to pull her out of her studies and out of her head and keep her grounded. She prioritized her friendship with them above her studies. Every time she broke a rule or paused in her school studies to help Harry with some quest, she was choosing her friends over her studies. Sure, she helped them through her knowledge, because that is what she's good at. But she made time for them; she broke out of her "work" to nurture the friendship and simply be physically and mentally and emotionally present when they needed a friend.

Harry was only a mediocre wizard. Perhaps he could have been incredibly powerful, if he had studied. But he valued his friends much more than he did studying. In the end, it served him well.

Of course priorities require balance. You can't only spend time with friends and family. They'd get sick of you. But think, whenever someone asks to meet up, whether or not you can't set aside an hour, just one hour, to see that person. Every time you tell someone "no" because you choose work or an office party or some other obligation that you aren't even particularly happy about, you are prioritizing those things you don't love over those that you do. And the things you don't prioritize, no matter how much you tell yourself you love them, will feel unloved and eventually leave. Because how you spend your time shows your priorities. And what you prioritize above all else is, actually, what you love the most.

Now that I'm an unemployed loser, I plan on spending as much time doing the things I really love as possible.  I'm going to find a church. I'm going to do those little chores my parents want me to because I want to show that I love them. I'm going to help my brother start a business (more to come in subsequent posts, I am sure). I'm going to walk my dogs. I'm going to say YES! every time someone wants to hang out. And I'm going to read and write and edit and enjoy my life. I am determined to shape a present and a future I am happy in. What's the point of suffering through a present for an uncertain happy future? Both are possible as long as you keep your priorities in order.

Teddy, Nick Cage, and Shrimp

"By acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid." --Theodore Roosevelt 


For the last year I've been stretching my boundaries. I made the resolution to be adventurous. This was explored in many areas of my life: work, hobbies, friends, food, activities, social situations, etc. Instead of feeling trepidation, seeing only the awkwardness in any new situation, I vowed to pretend as if I was not afraid. You own twenty cats and always smell a little like urine? Sure! I'll try your brownies. A party that neither you nor I was invited to? Let's do it. That's what the most interesting man in the world would do, right? Oh? It isn't a party after all? Just an intimate affair. Well, I'm not an introverted weirdo. I'm sure this will end with me making friends or something...

After nearly a year of this, I propose that getting out of your comfort zone and experiencing adventure are not the same thing. In fact, they rarely overlap. It's also nigh impossible to find adventure. Adventure or, as most oft occurs to me, misadventure finds you. As will be illustrated in stories of things that have actually happened to me.

A picky eater at birth, I've challenged myself to try new foods and be open. No palatable epiphanies of yet. But I was going on a trip to new countries. Surely if I was going to have a victuals inspiration, it was going to be abroad.

When vacationing in Italy, we went out for pizza. We were greeted by hearty buono seras and ushered to a red check bedecked table. It was all very genuine, and the menu was filled with a variety of meats: salami, prosciutto (raw and cooked), sausage, and marine beasties of all sorts. Well, I was in Italy, was I not? A peninsula rumored to have wonderful seafood. I had not yet had seafood during the trip. True, I don't particularly enjoy seafood, but this was a TripAdvisor-endorsed restaurant and I was on an adventure. As my family members ordered their safe combinations--the 4 formaggio for my parents and the salami for my brothers--I smugly congratulated myself for taking a risk. They were all going to want a piece of my shrimp pizza and rue the day the stayed in their comfort zones.

Except the pizza smelled like it had been dipped into a polluted harbor. And the shrimp tasted exactly as they smelled.

One might be tempted to say, "Well, but you had an experience!" or something to that effect. We experience things constantly; why should we experience uncomfortable things that don't actually enrich our lives? This is not an adventure or even misadventure. Just another epicurean fail. The only thing gleaned from the "experience" is perhaps that one should not eat shrimp that were not harvested from the Gulf of Mexico. My palate was not expanded, my eyes not opened, nor my horizons broadened.

This is one of many stories I can tell about being purposefully adventuresome not working. At all. But non-adventures are boring. So lets talk about real adventure! Or, again, misadventure, as the case will probably be.

My closest friend in thought and behavior lives in Tulsa. I visit her as often as possible, and nothing is ever normal. This is probably because two weirdos weeble-wobbling all over Tulsa, which is no stranger to weird, will naturally attract a certain kind of attention and interaction. We never say to ourselves, "Let's go do X. It will be an adventure!" Both of us are quite a bit more comfortable reading or imagining adventure. Even acting it out with one another. We once had a full-fledged soap opera with the guy who lived across the street from her with his mother. We named him Steve and never once spoke to him in real life. But we had quite the sordid triangle going with me vying for his affections while his out-of-town girlfriend was...out of town. But all my imaginary book donating, leftover sandwich giving, and pants offering was for naught. A few weeks later he packed up his pirate's treasure chest, lashed it to the top of his Kia, and headed for parts unknown. Probably that skank in Vermont. Whom I also never met.

But real life adventure finds us nonetheless. On a trip to New Orleans, we of course scheduled a ghost tour. Stop after stop on our tour was disappointing. The squatty tourguidess regaled us with facts about old buildings, disproved ghost stories, and described pictures that reflected the glare of souls. Or lens flares as they are known by professional photographers. The high point of the tour was when she stopped in front of a gray stone mansion.

"This is Nicholas Cage's house."

She paused significantly, peering up at the group. It was as if she was surprised we weren't running to kiss the stones or swooning at the proximity of such a screen god. As the awkward pause lengthened she gathered herself, round shoulders heaving upward to add height to her toadstool frame.

"As you may have heard, he is in financial difficulties. Lost millions. He'll lose the house. Of course, the house was the problem to begin with. If he had come to me, I could have told him it was haunted, bad luck. Don't buy the house, I would have said. But he didn't, and now he's losing millions. Speaking of Hollywood, did you know Angelina and Brad have a house here? Oh no it isn't haunted. They love New Orleans. Treated like one of the locals."

And so we talked about Brangelina for twenty minutes till we hit our next stop. A school house.

"Isn't this beautiful?"

Her short arm lifted to display a classic French Quarter brick building. It was pretty, and it had nothing to do with Brad and Ange. We all nodded appreciatively, encouraging her toward this new topic. Some even ooooohed in response, remembering the awkward pause at Nick's house.

Her smile fell in sync with her arm. "Well it wasn't built for you."

You could hear the collective intake of breath. Now she had our attention.

"The French Quarter has people who live here and make a living here. Don't throw trash where we make our livelihoods. This isn't Disney World. That concludes the tour. Remember, us in the hospitality industry survive on tips. Thank you in advance for your generosity."

She had snookered us! The ole lead with a question and then thrash you with righteous indignation when you answer positively. We didn't stick around to see if anyone tipped her; just sauntered off, hands in pockets, whistling softly. But I would garner a guess that she doesn't make very much in tips.

That is adventure. It is the unexpected. That's why it can't be sought. But when you're in the midst of it, you can make the decision to stick through it and pretend as if you're not uncomfortable, committing to the unfolding of events; or you can drop out, as many in that abysmal tour did, and miss out on memories and one of my favorite verbal tricks to play on people.

You like this blog? Well I didn't write it for you!