Caterwauling

Boca Raton Planned Parenthood Rally

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

Yeah, yeah — another Planned Parenthood rally photo. But that’s because my participation has gotten me thinking even more so than usual.

I just watched my DVR’d “Give it up for Greg Giraldo” special. And I know now that the reason he was so damn intelligent and thoughtful (and therefore so quick and brilliant in his comedy) was that he lived and breathed current events, politics and human nature.

That’s why this Harvard-educated lawyer gave it all up one day and said, fuck it, I’m going to do something I love now.

I remember when I was passionate about my work. My whole career, I lived and breathed the concept of being better than the best. I didn’t know what it took to be the smartest person in my vocation, but I was hellbent on doing everything to make myself the smartest person in the room.

And somewhere about three years and three jobs ago, I lost that passion. At some point, the hamster wheel just kept spinning and I never really stepped off of it. I’d say it was somewhere around 2008, when I had to give up the hundredth personal commitment because there was too fucking much work to do, that my heart disconnected from a ventricle and, therefore, from my head.

And I’m a logic-ruled person. For as flighty and impulsive as I can be, the head always wins. Even if it’s merely the subconscious manifesting its own destiny, my heart’s vote is never the deciding one.

“And my heart told my head
Let love grow
And my head told my heart
This time no
This time no.”

— Mumford & Sons, “Winter Winds”

I just read a great article on “Is it me, or are all my bosses jerks?” The idea being, of course, that you may work for one dud but if you have three in a row, the common denominator is you.

Hrm.

OK, but when you get (or a friend gets) dumped for the umpteenth time, you don’t place the blame on yourself (or them). Oh, no. It’s the other person! And we just keep picking losers, right?

I do believe that, to some extent. Don’t get me wrong — there are some self-serving jerks out there. But I like to maintain hope that ultimately everyone is looking for the cheese to their macaroni. (Gratuitous “Juno” reference, since it was on today.)

But yeah, I went from two awesome bosses at Ye Olde Workplace Establishment, to another boss there and then two more jobs, and the article felt like it was saying, “Yo, Goddess … ever considered that you’re the problem?”

Alas, if I were someone counseling me from a relationship point of view,I would say to myself that I tried but that none of them were marriage material. Sure, you can live together fairly peacefully and have some common interests. But all in all, I wanted the toilet seat down and they left poop particles in the bowl. Or they wanted the place sparkling clean yet I befriended the dust bunnies. Whatever.

I’m in a really scary place right now, workwise. I have a job that mercifully paid me a retainer up front, and I haven’t had much time to give them. And on the other side of the scale, I have another that won’t pony up a penny and yet someone there has the cojones to imply that my immersion in research into their company history (including reading all the experts’ books) means that I shouldn’t be paid because I didn’t turn in my work FIVE DAYS EARLY.

Good God, I gave them a delivery schedule and adhered to it. Are they going to be the fourth employer I have to put behind me in just as many years?!?!

And don’t get me started on the other projects I said “yes” to that I haven’t even gotten started on. I am an idiot, I know. I just know that when times turn desperate, I shine.

I’m still counting on that to happen, BTW. Lord have mercy.

But the Goddess who happily (or, at least, compliantly) worked 80- to 100-hour workweeks is dead. Seriously, her mind is at the beach. I can fucking see the sand from my bedroom but I never go because I am parked at the damn computer all day.

I’m fine with that, for now. I’m A-OK with following up on all my commitments. But I am saying right now that I do NOT expect this to be a long-term situation.

Here’s the deal, and I’m afraid to say it but that’s never stopped me before. 🙂 I got accustomed to not working. I mean, I got up every morning, took a shower, made coffee and set about contacting everyone I know who could help me.

And then I settled in for a nice afternoon of “Ghost Whisperer” and taking a walk after dinner and then getting up and starting the process anew every weekday.

I didn’t spend my weekends worrying about deadlines. Sure, I wondered where the money was going to come from, but I spent more than two months just chillin’ on my own terms.

And now, to have a crazy person threatening me and changing the deliverables midstream (Fuck. That.) means that the squeaky wheel is getting the grease and I’m the dirty monkey with the banana in her tailpipe.

And I do think back to two jobs ago. I went in with such hope, such promise … such eagerness to break out and kick some ass. My initiatives were met with praise at first, some rewards afterward and, then, a complete 180 in the form of psychological torture.

So I went into the last gig, still a bit scarred, but eager to recover and regain some lost ground.

And now, I am dealing with people who have been burned before. They are hard on me because an hour without answering an e-mail means I’ve quit without telling them … because that’s what the last two people did.

I am committed to working through this, as after all we all know I love exceeding expectations or, at least, deconstructing human nature. But, really, do I have to say it out loud that I’ve been burned, too? That until I get an honest-to-goodness check, I don’t really trust anyone else, either?

If this were a first date, my ass would have been faking illness and hitting the bricks faster than you can say, “Cray-zeeeeeeeee!!!” Alas, when there will be money involved, logic HAS to win over. Mama just renewed her lease and cashish isn’t gonna rain out of the sky because I want it to.

Which somehow in its crazy way brings me to yesterday’s rally. I used to work for non-profits. I organized special events, I wrote grant proposals and talked to the media to get coverage. And on the northwest corner of Glades and St. Andrews yesterday, I was with two girls who were too busy taking photos and Facebooking than waving the damn signs. I was the one talking to drivers, waving, flipping my sign so they saw both sides and otherwise trying to do a good job.

Don’t get me wrong — there were people on all four corners of that crazy intersection, doing a great job. I’d say 50 of us showed up, altogether. There were college students, people my age, and husbands and wives well up into their ’80s. All hanging out for free on a gorgeous Saturday morning to raise awareness. Incredible, I say.

What I’m getting at here is that my perfectionist tendency isn’t so dormant after all. I was the second person to arrive (just after the organizer) She and I held the ends of the heaviest banner for 20 minutes till others showed up. I had to restrain myself from not being the welcome wagon and doing her job for her. 🙂

But that’s me. That’s the me who died. That’s the me who all these people hire before her joy absolutely evaporates and exhaustion kicks in.

I want to be great again. I was such a star at so many places. And now I get to Florida and all I want to do is melt into a puddle of goo on my couch and let the world keep turning without me. Why couldn’t I have been a trust-fund baby?

In any event, something has awakened in me again. Sure, I am looking at my work inbox with nothing but dread right now. But just like we all hope the great guy calls us (and soon), I am hoping that my contact at PP remembers that we talked about doing some marketing together.

And even though I know non-profits don’t pay their volunteers, and that staff members are barely at the poverty level, I’m OK with that. I have the beach. I drive a crappy car. For me, luxury comes in the form of technology and food. Give me Brie and an iPad over a Beemer and a Coach bag any day.

Just give me something, ANYTHING that makes me drop into bed at night, completely spent, knowing that I fucking DID something that moved the proverbial needle.

Don’t get me wrong — I will take others’ money in advance. I am damn good at what I do when people let me DO it. My track record wasn’t exactly advanced by listening to people and doing things on their terms. In fact, that’s what killed it, of late.

But yeah, the fire is back in the pit of mah belleh again. Thank you, Planned Parenthood, for being what it took to bring me alive again.

“We’ll be washed and buried one day, my girl
And the time we were given will be left for the world
The flesh that lived and loved will be eaten by plague
So let the memories be good for those who stay.”

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

It should come as no surprise that a certain lovely card-carrying liberal should take to the streets of Boca Raton today with banner in hand to support Planned Parenthood and raise awareness for the proposed federal funding cut.

Men and women of all ages came out to hang at the four corners of St. Andrews and Glades, and I had the best time in the world with all of them.

We got lots of honks and waves, a few honks and middle-finger showings, a handful of parents driving with their mortified-looking teenage daughters, and babes in backseats probably asking, “What’s a breast, daddy?”

Our signs were varied. Each had “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” on one side (that was also printed on our shirts). The other side of our posters asked people to “Save our breast exams, birth control and cancer screenings.”

I see debates on Facebook and blog pages everywhere, from moronic right-wingers who just assume PP provides those “a” words and nothing else. A dear friend did the research and found that there were only 191 federally funded procedures last year. Hah. So there, you whackjobs who don’t want preventive care and population control.

I hit it off with mostly everyone I talked to. And when I said I want PP to be there for their daughters and granddaughters, like it was for me, they were totally on board with that. They, too, agreed that PP was there for them when they needed it as well. And that’s what we told the guy who’s running for one of the local government seats who donned a shirt and talked to us and took a photo of me with my sign. 🙂 (Although he kinda made us mad when he said he’s a feminist; what, because you’re at a rally? Weirdo. My fellow rally-ers had to explain what feminism is … and it ain’t holding a sign.)

The most awesome moment of my day was when a good-looking guy stopped his car to ask me what we were standing for. We had a good three-minute conversation. People behind him were honking in anger (ever been in Boca? MADNESS on the roads), but I just took it as a supportive honk. I was just happy to educate someone … one more person making an informed vote means the whole thing was worthwhile, in my humble little opinion.

I miss this stuff. I did attend rallies from time to time in D.C. and even Pittsburgh. But in D.C., every cause just got lost among the noise of all the other causes. I got to a point, like all the other denizens, that all rallies meant were transportation snarls that could mean the difference between a half-hour commute and a seven-hour commute.

Down here, nobody gives much thought to politics. Most people are registered to vote elsewhere or just don’t care. I liked being on the political bandwagon again today. This is what I have been sorely lacking for the past two years. I feel downright exhilarated.

The gal who organized this found out that I have a marketing background, and I have a funny feeling I’ll be volunteering for her pretty regularly. Shit, I’d love to work there. I did apply to work in the D.C. office (which the daughter of one of my fellow sign-wavers does) but it didn’t pan out. I think I was a little too passionate (read: I came off like a batshit zealot) in my cover letter. 🙂

In any case, we’re all convening next weekend for Pride Fest. I look very much forward to seeing our “Pro-Choice Pooch” again, who was wearing a pro-choice T-shirt of his own.

We had to leave promptly at noon today because another rally was set to start to protest the ongoing U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Guess where I could be found for the next hour. 🙂

And I’ve never felt happier to know that I did something that actually made a difference today. I’d like to feel this way much more often. …

I ripped down my last post almost as quickly as I put it up. I liked it — it contained many themes that bug the hell out of me — but I had to draw the line at calling someone an “asshole” a baker’s dozen times in one blog post. The person IS still an asshole, though. *Not* calling them one doesn’t change that fact.

Enough about assholes in my business. Let’s talk about the ones on Capitol Hill. Because that’s fodder for seven thousand blog entries, at least!

In any case, I found a social cause to support locally. Which is great. I’m going to a rally on Saturday and I agreed to march with the group in a Pride Fest parade a week from now.

It’s Planned Parenthood, which shouldn’t shock anyone. Hey, I’m 36 and kid-free — I kiss the ground in gratitude for all forms of birth control. I also commend any place where you can go to get quality health care (and birth control!) for free or practically nothing. I’m pissed that federal funding is in danger of going away for PP, and I want to do my part to save a SAFE place that was there for me.

Everyone associates PP with the “a” word. I’m not writing it because I don’t need the search traffic for it. And while, yes, there is that, there’s just so much more to the mission.

The problem with this country is all the right-wingnuts is that their definition of pro-life is that your right to life ends before birth. God forbid you are gay, transgender, intersex, any color than white or, curses!, born female.

I mean, holy shit, PP does cancer screenings! But all the old white men who sit on legislatures state- and nationwide don’t care about our preventive care. It’s not like they’ll pay for our treatments when the disease spreads and robs us of the latter half of our lives.

Anyway, clearly I’ve found an issue I can get behind. 🙂

I am doing OK in my freelance business. I have two big projects (one of which I’m not sure I will last with) and a smattering of smaller ones that, combined, could make a nice living for me if I can just get back on the “work 80 hours a week” bandwagon. But I want to do something I LOVE, you know?

So maybe the whole volunteer thing will be a nice distraction. I don’t need fighting for causes to be my life’s work, but it’s a welcome change to be fighting for something that actually means something in the greater scheme of life.

Anyway, if you drive by and see me waving my sign, smile and honk. And if you throw beads, well, I’ll flash ya. Save the boobies, yo, by saving PP in your neighborhood!!!

Two small victories yesterday:

1. A guy at Irish Fest walked up to me and gave me his number and asked me to call. I didn’t. I swear he couldn’t be any older than 22. I’m not old enough to be a cougar, but does this make me a bobcat? Either way, since you’re asking yourself, no he wasn’t drunk. 🙂

2. I am working on a project with a former boss. God bless him, I remember why I love him. He came up with the name of our project, and after I thought about it, I came up with a better name. On a conference call Saturday morning, he told everyone the new name and gave me the credit for it. Credit! For my idea! And not being told it sucked at first and then hearing that same person pass it off as their own. WOW! Thank you, Lord, for renewing my faith.

In what is an appropriate transition in my mind, tomorrow would have been my one-year anniversary with my last job. I should have known it would end the way it did by the cluster that day one turned out to be. I was scheduled to start on a Tuesday but then an all-staff memo went out that I was starting Monday. So, to make a good impression and cover up the innocent mistake, I went in Monday. The guy who hired me disappeared for the afternoon, when I assumed we would have at least had a welcome lunch. I spent the next week taking all of my junior staff members out to lunch on my own dime. I also took most other new employees out to lunch as they joined the company, if someone else wasn’t doing it already. As far as I know, they’re all still there. Clearly, getting off on the right foot makes all the difference.

In not-so-victorious (yet) times, though, I’m already behind in my freelance work. It’s a combination of confidence and laziness. I know I took on too much. But I also know I can do it. So the challenge is going to be the standard “beat the clock” until we get into the more-creative endeavors.

I just don’t want to muck this up. I seriously cannot go back to the rat race. I know I’ll come through on everything. It’s just hard to get motivated again. Like with my eating habits — I know I’m unhealthy. I know that in the past 12 months I’ve packed on 30 pounds. I know I am capable of losing it and that I need to lose it. But the urgency hasn’t been there.

But alas, it’s Lent, and I’ve monitored everything that’s gone in my mouth. I’m also watching what’s coming out of it, as I’ve been trying to curb my cussing, too. Baby steps, yo. I have to learn how to come out from under the “urgency” veil and just work at a pace a normal person can handle. But when have I ever been normal, and how am I going to start now?

Lady in Orange

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

I love this photo. I took it at Lake Eola in Downtown Orlando. This woman looked like she was just waiting for someone to roll along with a camera and capture her moment in the park.

I feel like her, these days. Just watching the world pass by, yet completely oblivious to what’s going on beyond my little radius. It’s lovely.

Speaking of my radius or, more appropriately, my radar, I have a half-hour to kill before I sit in on what promises to be another time-wasting webinar. I’m sure that it will be nothing but a sales pitch, but for the 10 minutes worth of real education, it will be worthwhile.

I’m kind of scratching my head over the fact that I spent the morning negotiating my fourth freelance contract. Four! All told, I will have a 60-hour workweek for the next two months. In other words, that’s normal for me, so I’m going with it. 🙂

I like that I can switch gears when I get sick of something. Right now I am immersed in research on a varying number of topics, so it’s good for my brain to go at my own pace with minimal interruption. I’m also doing completely different things — management at one place, editorial at another, marketing at the third, and it looks like social media at the fourth — so it’s like a “real” job but without committing to one (or one set of) asshole(s) for the duration of my workweek.

Not to imply I’m working with assholes. We all know I have mad respect for anyone willing to pay me! But overall, they realize I have strengths outside of the scope of duty, and respect them accordingly. I may not be the fastest researcher, say, but I come back with a sack of goodies that nobody expected when I do arrive. That sort of thing.

I was having a moment today when I was thinking about one of my new boss’ jobs, and how well I could do it, had I known about the opening first. 😉

And then I realized, you know what? They need someone like me, but I don’t have to be in charge.

I hate reporting to people. I will just throw that out there.

BUT ….

I make a great second-in-command. I do. I know someone who may not think so, but then we’d have to debate the merits of them in a top spot, and we don’t want to go there. 🙂

Anyhoodle, while I loathe authority with every fiber of my being, I rock the support role. I am one of those people who is always thinking, always learning, always going “out there” into the field and absorbing facts and figures and details that pass others by.

Most places put zero premium on that. Oh, they say they like it. They claim they care about the competition. They want to say that they have a direct line to potential collaborators. But they don’t. They want to hide inside their little silos where they rule over their kingdoms and their directives go unchallenged.

So the guy whose job I wanted for a moment, well, he isn’t like that. Now, time will tell whether my ideas/connections actually have MY name attached to them. But I respect that he’s like, hey, let’s explore every avenue you want to take us down.

And in that, he takes over the role I’ve always been in — the champion. The one who wants to see what the staff can do. The one who lobbies for the autonomy or at least the experimentation time. The one who deals with the red tape while I go skipping merrily along.

I know I’m a damn good leader. Shit, I found myself giving management advice to one of my old managers yesterday. She has a problem employee and I gave her the questions for the inevitable “Come to Jesus” meeting she’s planning. How cool is that?

But I like doing so from my little lily pad by the ocean. I’m not HAVING the “Come to Jesus” discussion. I’ve done that. Not always successfully, but I have the scars to prove that it’s on my mental resume.

Anyway, who’s to say where and for whom I will be working in 60 days. But it’s kind of exciting that, if or when I decide I want a job like the one my new boss has, I can do that. I have the experience.

But if I don’t want it, and I don’t want to renew my contract (assuming I perform up to par, of course), I DON’T HAVE TO.

God, it feels good to be a gangsta of the financial mafia. 🙂

As part of the “child-free” set, it’s a wonder I clicked on the link to read My Blog Got my Daughter Kicked Out of Preschool.

But I’m glad I read it — it reminds me that whistleblowers (like me) are the ones who get in trouble for questionable behavior and actions on the part of people who should know better than to act that way. Yet, it’s us who blog who are faulted for putting our lives online. As though talking openly and honestly with friends were a crime.

Read it if you wish. I’m not going to talk about it. It just made me mad and it makes me wonder whether I lost yet another job because of something I put online. (That is, when I finally got sick of being belittled for how I ran meetings, I put a note up here that I am not measuring my career by meetings.)

As the author of the preschool post noted, this is our coffee klatch. And to some degree, for the people who are interested in our lives, we almost owe folks an update on where we find ourselves. I almost feel that I need to integrate the occasional snark so that folks know I haven’t gone all “goodness and light” on them — that the Goddess they subscribed to, perhaps as early as 2001, is still here.

But our coffee klatch is an international one. It’s not like everyone is in my area of Florida and can attach names to people and organizations … not the way they could were all my friends local. That’s the real danger — when, say, a mom has a shitty experience with a daycare and tells all her local girlfriends about it. Then people pull their kids out of school and spread the gossip to people who can and do send their kids elsewhere.

I have a friend up north who pulled her two kids out of their private school because the math teacher was bullying her son. No amount of complaining made any difference. Then she found out that another little boy was being bullied even harder by this same guy.

Long story short, she pulled her two kids out of the school AND the other mom pulled her kid out of the school. Even worse, my friend’s husband coached soccer and served as a substitute teacher at the offending academy. Because the school refused to do anything about the bully teacher, the school lost three students AND a faculty member.

I wonder whether the power of the blog would have gotten the situation some well-deserved attention, or whether my friend would have just been branded a troublemaker instead of being begged to keep her kids/husband right where they were, in an overpriced private school with a “zero tolerance” policy for complaints.

Now, I don’t take the power of the blog lightly. I don’t use names, companies or job titles for a reason. I try to skew the city name where possible. And again, it’s so that I can kvetch to my far-away friends while NOT starting a revolution on local soil. Quite simply, anyone can start up a blog and I’m certain that, if they had, my name would be quite happily smeared on their Web space. The hypothetical knife cuts both ways.

Anyway, this story just made me so mad, that if people can’t take out their frustration with you ON you, then they do it on your kid or someone you love. And that’s just bullshit.

There was a wonderful comment that you would think more people would want to do their jobs brilliantly, what with the risk of your shortcomings appearing on the Internet for the world to see and mock. But oh God no, let’s blame the bloggers instead.

I know I personally get under the skin of a lot of people who keep me around as a guilty pleasure — scanning the metaphors for their likeness. I don’t mean to. This isn’t for their eyes and I don’t expect them to understand where I’m coming from. I don’t desire retaliation toward them, and certainly not FROM them if their widdle fee-fees get hurt.

I just need to make sense of things so I can move on from them. Other people pay thousands to therapists for the same result that costs me a whopping $11 in Web hosting fees every month.

What I’m saying, I guess, is that if people get their dander up about honest, heartfelt and confused sentiments tacked cryptically on their constituents’ blog pages, they should be quicker to try to figure out how they contributed to the situation and how they can rectify it.

We’re not all troublemakers. We’re just analytical people with audiences who clearly come to us for our way of looking at the world. And that frightens people whose only audiences are those who are compensated to listen to them — the rest of us, to whom people willingly come in their free time, are the ones with the real power. And we’re not dumb enough to abuse it.

You’d think the school director in the linked article, and everyone like her, would be smart enough to use their power for positive means so that people like us don’t have anything to write about!

Balcony at the Eo Inn

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

I don’t actually have a reason to blog today, other than that I’ve been researching all morning and I need a break.

I had one of those lightbulb moments this weekend, and I don’t know what to do with it. I mean, really, what can I do but dream about launching a missile over two cities that are now my own personal Hiroshima and Nagasakis?

I’ve been feeling professionally wounded. I mean, duh. (NOT winning!) But when I think about it, it wasn’t business. It WAS personal. Each and every time, it was a stab in the heart and again in the back for good measure.

Silly rabbits.

In a way, it makes me feel really good right now. Not the near-mortal wounding and the bleeding out and all the gore that goes with it. But the fact that I’m OK … I’ve always been OK … and no amount of the cliched “stepping up one’s game” was ever going to compensate for simply not being whatever people wanted me to be personally.

Like I have always said, I’ve been insulted by better people in my day. You know, those whose opinions might actually mean something.

I’m starting three freelance jobs today. Lord knows when I’ll actually see a paycheck. But I’m so excited. I’ve got a webinar in an hour and a conference call after that. And I’ve got some contracts to affix my digital signature to and we’re off to the races.

Someone told me I’d thank them someday. I usually thank people for help and for nice things, not for smothering me with a “You Can’t Do That on Television”-esque bucket of green slop. And I’m sure as hell not busting out the good stationery just yet. But when I do get paid for my upcoming performance, I may just utter that magic phrase after all.

Even if it’s done through gritted teeth, because I really didn’t deserve the way this all happened without even a real reason, I am so happy that I’ve gotten to pick the people who get to benefit from having me around. It’s taken longer than I expected, but good things really are worth waiting for.

It’s just like finding the right man. You both have to be in a good place (emotionally available and financially secure) for the magic to work. Well, I’ve met some financially secure people. But I wasn’t “there” emotionally.

I’m ready now. Just two days ago, I didn’t think I was. But that was when I was wondering whether I were “good enough and smart enough” when, really, it was the fact that “doggone it, people DIDN’T like me.”

And I ain’t changing me for an “ideal” that doesn’t appeal.

I was fine as I was. And it will be nice to not feel like who I am is anything BUT an asset.

For someone whose life is a veritable mess, I’m actually quite organized. No, you won’t know that by looking at my apartment, which has crap everywhere due to lack of, oh, closets. (WTF was I thinking? Oh, right, the view…)

I wouldn’t necessarily say I have OCD, because doing anything more than once makes me want to fling myself off my sixth-floor balcony. But I do have lists … specificially, of what I want in the perfect soulmate, the perfect job and, yes, the perfect life.

Mostly I have the list in a “this or that” format. Do I want Cabernet or formula in my house? Scandalous skivvies or diapers? Scallops or burgers? Twelve-hundred threadcount sheets versus Tarzhay specials?

You get the idea. I’ve tried to frame my mindset for luxury.

So for all those worrying about me on the employment front, thank you for your prayers. I have come up with a plan for the next two months, maybe three. So, we will worry about that when the time comes. But for now, I’m gonna be OK.

(Thank you, God, and everyone who contacted Him!)

I had a blinding flash of the obvious this week. I realized I want to be wooed.

What girl doesn’t? I know, I know. But when you spend your life tap-dancing to impress interviewers and trying not to show your dates your “secret single behavior” (hat-tip to “Sex and the City”), at some point you have to wonder, “What’s in it for me?”

Don’t get me wrong. I know I have to perform once I’m hired (by someone providing a paycheck or pleasure). But I’ve walked away from too many events feeling, frankly, unfulfilled.

It’s like everybody’s getting off and never looking around to see whether you got yours, too. And it takes a whole lot more than a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, either intellectually or physically, to keep me engaged.

And I find myself absolutely SCREAMING inside, although I may calmly announce that it’s time to share the wealth. But really, once everyone else has gotten what they want out of you, what use are you to them … at least, until they need you again?

In any case, I’ve decided to reclaim my virginity. No, I’m not getting sewn up. (Lord, no.) But I’ve been giving it away for free for too long, vocationally or otherwise. Even if I didn’t speak up, I was quietly doing my part to make sure everyone had a stress-free bath with rose petals and candles, while my hands were pruned up from scrubbing the tub.

Now, I don’t want to get too selfish here, sitting on my high horse and waiting for the world to service me. But I do think it’s fair to claim my own space, set up boundaries that can’t be blown over by the slightest breeze, and not fake it (too much). Sure, there’s some amount of required theatrics involved in everything. But as we all know, once you start, there’s no stopping.

Anyhoodle, I’ve done my auditions. I got cast in the part I wanted. I don’t know whether I’ll hate it, love it, or feel completely indifferent toward it once we host the production. But I will tell you this, if I’m carrying the show, I simply won’t audition for the next part. If I find an ensemble cast I like better in 60 days, I’m going to sing my heart out for them and see what happens. And anyone who thinks they’ve got me because I happen to be standing right there, can either start studying up on how to keep me or else I’m out the door and on to the next conquest.

The “nice” part of me re-reads that last graf and wonders whether another cup of coffee will make me less grouchy. (It won’t, but I will try anyway!) But the rest of me goes all Charlie Sheen and says, “Bring it!”

In my own words, “Woo me, damn it!”

I’ve had the same e-mail address for years. And I mean YEARS. To the point that I had 11,000 unreads and it was time to either shut down the inbox or clean it out.

Upon cleaning it out yesterday (as I had missed a VERY important e-mail over the weekend and I decided I couldn’t stand the clutter anymore), I found a gem of an e-mail that had once pissed me off seven ways to Sunday. But I remember why I kept it.

I won’t give it a year, a city or even a hairstyle or jean size, but the e-mail chain goes a little something like this.

I was pretty much told to run absolutely every thought, question or idea past someone above me. In my own rebellious little mind, I wrote imaginary e-mails that entailed asking whether I could use the restroom or get another cup of coffee, if that would be OK. (Yes, I am inherently 5 years old.)

At the time, I was formulating my plan to document what a good minion I really was. (Because I WAS. Sure, I could have been better, but I wasn’t a slouch, either.)

I was kind of suspecting that this person was looking for reasons to give me the boot. And hoo boy, does my diary have some fascinating transcripts. But alas, an entry for another year. 😉

Anyhoodle, even though I knew exactly who could answer a question I had, I put on my little halo and dutifully typed a note to, not the person who requested my obedience, but their designee while they were AWOL.

The response was a hilarious and sarcastic, “Let me introduce you to ____.”

In other words, I was directed to the one I knew could answer the question. Someone I had known a LONG time, and pretty well, actually. The request wasn’t forwarded to the right person but, instead, replied to me and cc’d to the usual recipient.

That was one of those pivotal career moments I will never forget. One I will NEVER employ myself. I’d rather put a gun to my head than intentionally make a subordinate feel small or stupid for trying to do the “right” thing.

Look, I felt dumb even asking the question when I knew who could answer it. Shit, I even knew the answer to it. But I had an idea how to change it to make it more effective.

And I also knew that, if I took the question above instead of across the hierarchy, I could also get the blessing to *change* the status quo. That if we had some discourse, as I admit I prefer to “apologize later” than “get permission,” I could freely go about my day and everyone would know what I was up to and, thus, order would be restored in the magical kingdom.

In the end, someone else was left feeling smug, and probably feeling that I was pretty damn stupid. And I was feeling that way. Because I fucking knew better and there was a reason why I didn’t engage in discussion with things I could identify and fix without an iota of fanfare.

In retrospect, I do get it. I get when people can’t give up control. They get paranoid that everyone is against them and plotting their demise. Shit, I don’t have that much energy OR creativity. I just wanted to make things easier so that we could have the capacity to take on more-challenging projects without having to expand the staff size.

And perhaps I should have said all that stuff. But I didn’t. I just put my head down and never really picked it back up after that.

“Let me introduce you to _____.” Heh. That’s the kind of thing I think in a day but would never dare SAY. Bravo on that one, old friend. Bravo.

I never figured out whether they were crazy enough to have the balls to say that and still expect loyalty in return. Maybe it was to incite a reaction in me other than defeat. I don’t mind tough love and, in fact, sometimes I truly welcome it. But there has to be love somewhere in there for it to be effective.

Oh well. Water under the bridge that I didn’t manage to jump off of. Huzzah.

I’m deleting that e-mail now.

I’ve been doing some thinking about my life. Like, the fact that when it all goes to shit, there’s no Plan B. I mean, really, when the savings run out and the job offers don’t come through, who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters ain’t gonna pick up, yo.

I’ve also been doing a lot of reading about this generation of men. The Atlantic has a (loooooong) great article on The End of Men. And, really, would my life be any different if the species went extinct? *looks around* Nope, not really.

A lesser article, but with more sound bites, was in Slate last week: Sex is Cheap: Why young men have the upper hand in bed, even when they’re failing in life.

The subtitle of the article reeled me in, as one of those girls who never really had much in the way of standards. Of course, back in the day, I could at least fool myself that the guy without a job but who managed to somehow fund his pot habit was going to find his way and be a powerful, highly paid executive someday.

In some cases, it was probably true. Shit, I found out that one of the biggest man-whores alive has now settled in with his wife and two daughters in Japan. Him! With daughters! He used to say he was bi, and I said it was more like “first available” — whoever strolled into the restaurant was seated (and humped) immediately!

In other cases, not so much. (I love Facebook.) If I had met Mr. First Available (as he was then) today, I wouldn’t be thinking about how awesome he was going to turn out. I’d probably have a heart attack from how far and fast I’d be running to get away from him. Much harder to find the potential at this age. It was way easier to dream back then. Everyone has become who they were supposed to be. Including us girls. Reality is way harder to overcome at this stage.

Ahem. Back to the article.

There was a line in there from a college senior who referred to men as “the new ball and chain.”

WOW.

Going back to the sex part, I admit those of us in the female set who might be referred to as a “catch” at some point have settled for far less than we deserve. I remember when foreplay was fun. And when it existed. Shit, these days, not only is a man buying his own dinner the only foreplay I’ll get, but that’s on a GOOD night. If he buys mine too, fuck, I’ll get off right at the damn table. Lord knows men over 30 (or 40 … or 50 …) don’t last like they used to!

TMI? Well, isn’t it better than me whining about the workforce? 😉

What I found most interesting from the article in The Atlantic was that cougars are no longer being looked at as preying upon younger men. Instead, they (and, soon, “we” — *sob*) are actually super-desirable by the younger men who are, say, less-eligible than gals their own age would like.

What a change, and a good one at that. Funny how we go from dating older guys to find people on our maturity level, to dating younger guys to take advantage of dual sexual peaks that never before had the opportunity to overlap.

I overheard a guy the other day outside of Starbucks bragging that his girlfriend is 25. I whipped around to see him sitting on a moped (not a Harley or any of those snazzy Japanese imports), with a black ballcap covering his white hair. He wasn’t even cute. No sparkle or anything remotely “Ah, I get the attraction!” about him.

I felt sorry for him. For middle-aged white men in general, actually. That he had to announce his girlfriend’s age to the entirety of Thornton Park. That he had to announce having a girlfriend because no one would think he had one otherwise. I mean, if women really do have the pick of the litter, his girl had to be missing a frontal lobe or close-up vision.

In any case, I think I’ve always acted like a man around men because that’s how I was “brought up,” so to speak. I’ve always had guy friends and I know what they want. But you know what? Not only have I not been overly happy, but they settle down with the girls who are clear that they are the marrying type.

Don’t get me wrong — I really haven’t wanted to get married to anyone I’ve known. So I’m OK with the arrangements that I’ve been a part of. But if I put it out into the universe that I’m looking for marriage material, I wonder how different the men who come into my life will be from their predecessors.

Of course, I’d have to put it out there that I would now want to BE marriage material myself. And that’s a whole ‘nother article that ain’t been written yet.