Geeky Mom

I’m nearing the one-year mark in this blog. My first post was about finishing the week of training that I’m in the middle of right now. I switched to posting on my professional blog (now on hiatus) for a bit and then in late August/early September really began keeping up with both of them in earnest. July pretty much disappeared from both. The kids were with the grandparents for much of the month and Mr. Geeky and I made a trip to New York and generally kicked back and enjoyed ourselves–no time for blogging (though I blogged about the trip later).

It’s been really fun keeping up with this. It’s a great place to write without worrying too much about how it comes out. It seems like I even have to craft e-mail these days. It really helps me to write down some of my frustrations and thoughts. Sometimes I can see them more clearly for what they are. I read back over what I’ve written and reflect on what I’m really getting at–what do I really want out of x? why is y bothering me? And it’s fun to see some of the interesting things I’ve shared and mused about.

And what’s even better about it is that people actually read it! I admit that I went into this hoping for a small audience. I enjoyed reading other blogs before I started this one and I saw the small community of folks that had developed around some of them. Everyone seemed interesting and friendly. It really did feel like a grand dinner parter/cocktail hour. I miss that in my real life. It’s just difficult to put a group of folks together and arrange for time to spend together. This way, we do it whenever we want. When I read someone’s blog post, I feel like they’re present even if it was posted hours ago. I can have a conversation with someone at 7 a.m. at 12 a.m and I can pick up said conversation again at 7 a.m or 5 p.m. or noon the next day.

Here are just some moments that have really affected me:

-sharing the election with everyone
-the commenting pixie party/spontaneous poem that resulted in 200+ comments
-celebrating when people get tenure
-Bitch, Ph.D’s PK stories
-Scriveners’ pics of his kids and his green and then blue hair
-commenting pixies in general, wherever they are
-Julie’s always patient and wonderful advice
-Hedgical Trevor and his namesake
-Profgrrrrl’s pink hair
-Phantom Scribbler’s icon–it makes me smile every time I see her holding up that baby like in the Lion King
-even getting into arguments with people over the Lawrence Summers’ fiasco
-reading so many touching, funny, poignant, inspiring, and well-written posts everywhere (I really should keep track of these more because often when something is particularly moving, I don’t comment; I don’t know why; I just don’t).

The above list doesn’t even begin to express all the daily little things that make me feel human again. I’m looking forward to another year. I have no idea what it will bring. I’m not sure where my life is going in a year. I’m not entirely sure what I want to be when I grow up. We’ll see where the road takes me.

So I added a little sidebar item to track my writing. I put down 2 pages so far, though I wrote 5. Only 1 is actually useable so I gave myself 2. I’d love a better way of tracking this than editing my blog template every day. There’s probably some simple javascripty thing I can do, but I’m pretty clueless about such things. My geekiness has its limits I’m afraid.

I stole the whole idea of tracking from What Now? I know 1000 pages is somewhat ambitious, especially at the rate I’m going. But I want to write every day–at least something. Hopefully some days, I’ll be up to 5 or even 6 pages. Okay, wait, the math isn’t working out for me (I need to take Becki’s classes maybe). I’ve got about 76 days to work with. At 5 pages a day, I’ll end up at only 380 pages. So I think I’d better cut that down a bit. Let’s do 500. That’s respectable. That gives me some days of low output hopefully balanced with some really stellar output. Because keep in mind, I’m doing this in my spare time!

Danica Patrick came in 4th in the Indy 500 yesterday. I was literally on the edge of my seat because she almost won the damn thing. It was really interesting. What’s been even more interesting is what some bloggers are saying about the thing. I’m not a sports nut, so I don’t read the sports blogs, but it’s been a sort of backhanded anti-feminist rant.

“Good for you, but it’s because you weigh less than everyone else.” (Actually Robby Gordon, a nascar driver said this, but many agree with him.)

“I’m just sick that all the commentators talked about was this stupid woman driver.”

“She’s too cute to be in that jumpsuit; she should be in a tight sweater and a skirt.”

Just awful. It’s like “Good for you, but get back in the kitchen please.”

racing

But I can’t help it. I was writing this morning, the fourth draft of a chapter of my book and it’s driving me nuts. I’m writing about the two years we spent in a house and neighborhood that I loved. We moved because it wasn’t upwardly mobile enough. Anyway, I was writing the scene, just elucidating all the ways that this place and time were so idyllic, but what I really want to write is about a couple of semi-tragic, very non-idyllic moments. I want it to contrast with the idyllic parts, but I’m having a hard time transitioning from the idyllic background to the non-idyllic moments. But, however, in contrast–not doing it for me. And I can’t just launch into it because I think it will seem like such a dramatic shift. Damn, this is hard. I mean the contrast is the important part, I think, because if I write just the tragic parts, then it might seem that that’s what my life was about. And there’s the complete absence of my mother so far. Partly this is because I honestly don’t remember her presence that much during this time, except as the instigator of one of the more tragic parts. Where the heck was she?

I’m planning another round of this later this afternoon, so we’ll see if I get anywhere. I feel like I have to get through this chapter before moving on to the next. Okay, I’m going to shower now and hit the drug store, grocery store, etc.

I spent last night drinking with a bunch of friends. Towards the end of the evening, somewhere around 11, we started planning a history film festival, taking us from depictions of the Roman Empire to World War II. We wrote down names of films on the paper menus. It was quite amusing. Maybe this film festival will take place, maybe it won’t, but it was fun coming up with possibilities.

I didn’t get home until 1 a.m., an unusually late night for me. Now I’m feeling tired. But it’s a beautiful day outside and I’m taking the kids to see Madagascar today. I think I will pause the blog for the weekend and get some much-needed rest and accomplish some other things.

from Profgrrrrl

Place I was born:

Place I grew up:

My name:

My grandmother’s name:

Favorite food:

Favorite drink:

Favorite song:

Favorite smell:

These thoughts are cyclical I realize but I’ve been thinking again about working vs. staying at home. When I have angst over working, it’s more often not because of the actual work that I’m doing, but because of working at all. I enjoy my work despite some really frustrating moments, but increasingly, I often realize that my kids are not getting any younger and though I certainly don’t feel like I’m doing them any harm by working, I sometimes feel like I’m missing something. The summer often brings these thoughts upon me because if I weren’t working, I could be doing things with them. We could go to museums and parks. They could run around the neighborhood. I might get to know other moms in the area. All that jazz.

Mother-in-Chief writes all the time about the desire to find fulfilling part-time work. I want to work, for all kinds of reasons: financial rewards, intellectual stimulation, a feeling of contributing. Fulfilling part-time work would be a good solution to the problem. Another solution for me might be to rearrange my work schedule. I might, a couple of times a week, come in at 7:30 and leave at 4:00. Or I might squeeze 35 hours into 4 days, giving me one day a week to be a mom, perhaps giving me time to pursue my other interests: writing, blogging, just keeping the chaos in the house at bay, exercising.

It’s those other interests really that are causing me angst right now, because they’re the first to go when the kids need to be tended to. If it’s 9:30 at night by the time the kids have been fed, bathed, homeworked, reassured, then there’s very little time and much less energy to do much else. I do usually blog from about 9:30-11:00 and certainly I could give some of that time to other writing and I might. It often takes me some time just to get geared up and then it might be 10 and then I’m even tireder. You know the routine.

Then there’s morning. I think morning could work better. If I gave up my morning blogging, I could use that time to write. I can also do some weekend hours–preferably away from the chaos of my house.

Something’s going to give, though. It’s either going to be the house, the kids, the exercise. I just feel like this is all hard to balance. It seems utterly impossible to have a full time job, children and anything resembling a life for yourself without feeling like you’re doing a half-assed job as all of them. Maybe half-assed is just going to have to be good enough.

—-

Then there’s my actual work. To my colleagues who read this: I’m not on the verge of quitting or even truly dissatisfied. I often focus on the negative aspects of my job to figure out a way to turn them into positives. Yes, there are problems, some of them big, but despite my tension between working or not working, I see myself in this job for a really long time. As I often tell people, if I quit, it’s going to be to stop working altogether, not to move on to another job. At least that’s where I am now. Now if I get lured away by something, that might be another story.

—

Reading: I finally got a shipment of books I’ve been waiting for for three weeks–sheesh. I just finished reading and discussing Flawless Consulting, a book I didn’t really like at the start because it felt really corporate (flashbacks to my corporate life). But after discussing it with the likes of Eric B. and Megan (who was awfully quiet ), I saw some good things in it. It really made me think about my ever-shifting roles–from expert consultant, to tech support, to client. I think it would be a worthwhile book for the organization as a whole to read. I was discussing the book and the discussion with one of my colleagues and he said something I thought quite astute: “You just have to be confident in your skills, convey that confidence and things usually go much more smoothly.” I think that’s where I falter. Not in every situation, but when I think about the ones that trouble me, it’s often because I wasn’t confident. The discussion we had really gave me a lot to think about in how I manage those troubled situations.

I just started reading The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez to the kids. Geeky Boy really likes it so far even though he’s a little on the young side for its content. Geeky Girl played with her stuffed animals while we read. And I started reading Laws of the Web–looks interesting so far. I think part of why I like blogging so much is that I like reading. I probably read the equivalent of a book every night.

IM-ing: I’ve recently gotten back into IM-ing. I had an ICQ account eons ago, but when I got my mac 3 years ago, I did the iChat thing (thegeekymom). I did a video chat the other day and it was really cool. So here’s my dilemma: do I stick with iChat–which doesn’t seem to have all the same features that AIM does? or do I go with regular AIM? or something else?

Writing: When do I write, morning or night or in a weekend chunk? Why am I writing this now and not working on my book? Why can’t I bring myself to launch the word processor?

The writing dilemma always leads to the bigger dilemma: work or not work? A successful writing project might lead to a more flexible work life. Thus, putting off the writing begs the question, What am I afraid of? What am I avoiding? Would I miss the stability? The excitement? The companionship?

I think I must sound crazy right now. I promise to return to semi-normal on June 14th.

I wish I could. I love the Cavalier poets for their examination of disorder and what it meant in their extremely ordered society. Disorder is often highly gendered in their work. One of my favorite poems is “Delight in Disorder” by Robert Herrick, a poem about the wantonness of clothes. Ironically, the “slightly tousled” look was carefully constructed much the way distressed jeans are today. And there is both a delight in the thought the the wantonness of a woman’s clothes might mean a similar wantonness in bed, but also there is a fear of it, of the “wild civility” of it all.

Another favorite is Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden.” In the poem, the speaker retreats into the beauties of the garden to find solitude from society and all its ills. The garden is figured as female with men trying in vain to tame it. It is too fertile, too beautiful. The following stanza exemplifies the tug between reveling in the beauty of the garden’s fruits and the danger of it.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

The speaker is literally tripped by the garden. Later, the speaker laments that Eden has to be sullied with the presence of women.

So what’s the connection? I’ve been thinking about my own disorder, which is not constructed the way the object in Herrick’s poem is, but runs more to the garden in Marvell’s poem. I think in some ways, I am both speaker and garden. I’m tripping myself in my own abundance.

I’ve also been thinking about disorder more generally and how we (Americans at least) really value order–organization, efficiency, etc. Why? I have never been particularly organized. Oh, sure, I make my to-do lists. I have my schedule in my Palm, but my desk is always in a state of disarray. Though my house is no candidate for one of those “Clean House” or “Organization” shows, it’s also no candidate for Martha Stewart’s Living or Better Homes and Gardens. Is being organized and neat really better? I realized that this was the root of some of my stress. It’s not I have that much to do that I can’t handle it, but that I’m not entirely organized in my approach and that stresses me out. I feel like someone’s going to say, “Wow, she’s really disorganized.” But if it gets done, does it matter if had everything in neat folders or in semi-organized piles on my desk? No. Then why, why do I feel bad about it?! And I do think there’s a gender issue here. The cost for women who aren’t organized is higher than for men. If my house is a mess, does Mr. Geeky get blamed? Not usually. If something falls through the cracks in a project because I missed something, do I get scrutinized more than if it happened on a man’s watch? Possibly. And is there an element of fear of the “disordered” woman in the workplace? Quite possibly.

I guess my own philosophy is that yes, you need to have some modicum of order. You can’t just let everything go, but you don’t have to keep your pencils in a straight line. I certainly admire people who are more organized than me, but I don’t begrudge those who are less so. And I wish people would recognize the delight that can be found in disorder.