The Secret Life of An Office Mom

Every mom is a working mom.

There are moms who stay home with their kids as the primary caregiver, and that has got to be one of the hardest jobs there is. I wouldn't know, because I'm not brave enough to try it. There are moms who work outside their homes, but not in an office. And there are moms who work remotely from their homes.

I work in an office, and when 5:00 p.m. rolls around, I start to get a bit of a sinking, guilty feeling.

Even though I've been away from my kids all day, and have missed them, I've also had peace, quiet, and time to think in my own physical and mental space. Other than their photographs and drawings on the walls, there are no signs of my Number One Job here.

My things are the way I like them and left them. I've had adult conversation and the intellectual stimulation of my colleagues and my work. I've eaten my lunch, walked outside for coffee, and generally went about my daily business uninterrupted by fights, noise, and demands. My office work is often stressful in its own right, but it also provides an unlikely sanctuary.

In the late afternoon, I start to get a feeling that says something overwhelming is coming. A feeling that says from now until bedtime, it's on. It's only three hours, but it can feel like 30. And at the end of it, I still feel like I did a crappy job by losing it over homework, broccoli, or bedtime and ruining all the "quality moments" I tried so hard to cultivate in the last two hours and 59 minutes.

In my office job, accomplishment can be measured in finite metrics, like meeting deadlines or winning cases. I can actually be "done" with something there. But I am never "done" as a mom, and accomplishment is a subtle, prolonged, and elusive thing. I might not recognize it when I see it. And even if I do, I never know if I'm supposed to take credit for it.

My commute is mercifully short. Fifteen minutes door to door, and I'm home. In those fifteen minutes, I usually listen to music and zone out in my beat-up car. I remember my life before the vulnerability and crucible of motherhood, when the hardest thing I had to do after work was run on a treadmill and decide what kind of takeout to get for dinner.

When I pull into the driveway of my house, I shift into park and turn the key. I sit there for a few seconds in silence; thinking some more, staring off into space, and gathering up the energy to do this thing again.

After I hug and kiss my kids hello, I usually jump right into a searing hot shower. I've found I need those ten minutes to transition from one job to the next. To get out of my lawyer clothes. To wash the makeup off my face. To get into a new mindset. To feel physically and mentally ready to do my Number One Job.

I can hear my kids clamoring over the sound of running water. They're competing for my attention, and they need it--and deserve it--right now. I take one last glance at my iPhone and silently promise myself and my kids that it's the last one for awhile. 

As fast as I can, I grab my yoga pants and a faded old T shirt from another lifetime off the floor of my closet. 

I throw them on, and I get to work.

SCOTUS to Abercrombie & Fitch: "Guess What? You're a Huge Bag of Dicks!"

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations are people. So it stands to reason that each corporation has its own personality: Ben & Jerry's (chubby, lovable hippies); Patagonia (insufferable, fit hippie-yuppies); and Monsanto (evil masterminds)-- just to name a few.

Well, this week the Supreme Court officially decided the personality of clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, holding in an 8-1 opinion--issued from the bench and proclaimed "really easy" by Justice Antonin Scalia--that this company is a HUGE BAG OF DICKS!

You don't need a lawyer to explain that if Antonin Scalia finds it "really easy" to call you a huge bag of dicks, there is approximately zero doubt that you are one. 

But actually, the world has known for a long time that A&F was a bag of dicks that catered exclusively to other dicks. I mean, long before the company was scolded by 8 of 9 Supreme Court Justices for refusing to hire a Muslim teenager whose traditional hijab "clashed" with the company's "East Coast collegiate style."

Carlene Benz--an A&F spokeswoman presumably unrelated to the luxury German automobile--has assured us that change is already underway at the trendsetting (from 1999-2005) clothing chain for rich white frat boys and their girlfriends.

The store has abandoned its infamous "look policy" in favor of letting workers (previously known as "models") be "more individualistic," and also has "reduced the amount of cologne sprayed in stores to precisely 25 percent less than the original amount." Sweet! Now we can all finally shop at A&F without wearing a respirator, I guess?

If you need more evidence of A&F's monumental dickishness, look no further than what its CEO Mike Jeffries (who, in a classic dick move, also built an extremely obnoxious and ostentatious house almost on top of a good friend of mine's family home in Provincetown, Cape Cod) told Salon in 2006:

In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.

But wait! Don't go away, because it gets better.

Better, I mean, than one of the world's few openly-gay CEO's ironically promoting a ridiculous level of callous and superficial discrimination to the point that Out Magazine declared he "would not be missed" after he was finally forced to resign his post for being a ginormous asswad.

Wait for it, because A&F literally offered to pay Jersey Shore reality TV star Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino to STOP wearing its boring-ass clothes for fear that "Mr. Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image." 

Translation: only thin, preppy Aryan dick-holes and stuck-up bitches from the suburbs with the highest property taxes can wear our clothes while driving around in the brand new forest green Jeep Grand Cherokees they each got for their 16th birthdays. Not greasy Guido douchebags and skanks with frosted tips and polyester tube-tops cruising in an I-Roc Z on rims! Can't you see the difference? So just hustle those little 5"3 spray-tanned buns out of our dockers now, thanks."  (Naturally, this dispute between two enormous fuckwits ended as all disputes between fuckwits end in America: with a lawsuit).

Finally, no more will A&F be staging displays like this to lure customers to its stores. You'll have to go to a bachelorette party at Chip N' Dales for abs like that. Sorry boys and ladies!



Bottom line:  It took a formal reprimand from Antonin Scalia to legally cement A&F's corporate personality as a huge bag of dicks, and I for one couldn't be happier about it. 

Now all I need is for someone--anyone--to get apoplectic in defense of A&F and launch into an ad hominem screed on Facebook against my "giddy and profane" schadenfreude, as happened not long ago with respect to Josh Duggar.

Please, please, PLEASE let this happen with A&F! Then my whole week will be made in the shade, and it's only Wednesday.

The Seasons of Southeast Alaska as Told by O.H.M.

Bad News/Good News

According to a recent radio report, the “bad news” from the City and Borough of Juneau is that our water and sewer rates are going up by 6.5%. The “good news” is that the City and Borough of Juneau now has a Facebook page!

Seriously, the story was framed exactly like that in the report: as “bad news” and “good news.” I get why increased utility rates are bad news. But how is the fact that Juneau now has an official Facebook page “good news,” or even “news" period? And how are those two things even related?

This made me think of similar, random, brief non-sequitur bad news/good news reports I could make about my own life (if I had a radio show, that is):

Bad News: I have a tiny growth inside my left ear that I'm supposed to be "watching."
Good News: Costco has these new 70-calorie mozzarella cheese ball snacks right now.

Bad News: I feel bored at least 40% of the time on any given day of my life.
Good News: A newly-discovered marsupial will literally have sex until it disintegrates.

Bad News: I'm allergic to lawn clippings.
Good News: My old boss just gave me her extra dry-erase sticker-board for my office.

Bad News: I feel obese whenever I wear jeans that just came out of the dryer.
Good News: I've got several new episodes of Key & Peele DVR'd right now.

Bad News: Toothpaste in your eyeball hurts a lot.

Good News: Porcupines are cute.

Bad News: When a recording says "your call is very important to us," it's lying.

Good News: My second grader is already better at math than I am.

Bad News: Frampton Comes Alive is a terrible album. 

Good News: Dyed armpit hair, acupuncture for owls, and edible chocolate anuses are all actually things.

Bad News: The Smurfs have failed to stand the test of time.
Good News: I've never had a root canal.

Bad News: Cigars are disgusting.

Good News: There's a fine line between pajamas and real clothing these days.

Bad News: Someone recently called me a "piece of shit," an "asshole," AND an "idiot" on Facebook JUST for making fun of Josh Duggar!
Good News: Someone recently called me a "piece of shit," an "asshole," AND an "idiot" on Facebook JUST for making fun of Josh Duggar!

Some Not-So-Shocking News About Security Theater

I can't say I was surprised when I saw this article from CNN today, reporting that acting TSA director Melvin Carraway has been "reassigned" after TSA screeners "failed to detect explosives and weapons in nearly every test that an undercover team conducted at dozens of airports," specifically 67 out of 70, or 96%.

That's OK though. 

Once Melvin Carraway is safely "reassigned" to his new job as head baker at Hogwarts, The Department of Homeland Security plans to take a long, hard look at how these "layers" of security can be improved, because "the numbers in these reports never look good out of context, but they are a critical element in the continual evolution of our aviation security."

Oh yes. Context is just what's needed here. 

We know it LOOKS bad that a random internal audit revealed that security theater is less than four percent effective, but that's misleading. See, we civilians are dumb and ignorant. We just don't understand that letting grandma keep her light jacket on as she stutter-steps through airport screening is all a very "critical element" of our country's "evolution" into a dystopian yet ineffective police state that tries to ferret out "bad guys" like we live in a back-issue of a Marvel Comics book.

I assume TSA is referring to the specific "layer" that involves taking off my flip-flops, getting a titty massage, and watching as the same guy I'm pretty sure was operating the plastic apple spinning ride at this weekend's traveling carnival closely scrutinizes a child's stuffed giraffe and waves a little plastic wand over a bottle of breast milk.

If I can't travel from Minneapolis to Chicago without undergoing a radiated scan of my vagina, it would be nice to know that these measures successfully keep objects off the plane that could actually kill people, instead of unearthing open cans of diet coke and a tube of Crest that's two ounces over the five ounce limit.

But the "let's pretend it's all OK" power of self-delusion is strong, and nowhere is it stronger than in the security theater that's been a hallmark of 'Murica for nearly fifteen years. So let's just keep pretending it's all OK--even in the face of statistics gathered by the very agency whose job it is to make us believe it's all OK--that it's actually very much not OK at all.

As of this writing, Melvin Carraway was last seen making a tasty "layer" cake with breast milk-buttercream frosting for the residents of Gryffindor House.

Studies in Humiliation Vol. 2: That Time I Was Rejected by An Orthodox Jewish Ginger Whom I Later Concluded Was Possibly Gay

Most people would rather forget their most humiliating and demoralizing experiences. I prefer to recall mine vividly and preserve them for posterity by announcing them to the world. 

I consider it a form of community service.

As a sequel (technically a prequel) to Studies in Humiliation Vol. 1: That Time I Threw My Undies on Stage at The Jersey Shore, and landing squarely in category #1 of the Five Categories of Rejection, I now present Studies in Humiliation Vol. 2: That Time I Was Rejected by An Orthodox Jewish Ginger Whom I Later Concluded Was Possibly Gay.

During a six-week break between semesters my sophomore year of college, I had an unpaid, make-work internship helping graduate students in something shuffle papers somewhere (as college kids are wont to do). One of these grad students was an adorable, red-headed, Orthodox Jewish late twenties-something whom I will call "Sam."

Sam took a shine to me and vice-versa. We spent tons of time together. I was often at his apartment, where he lived with several roommates, at least two of whom were in rabbinical school. There was the whole separate sink and dishwasher deal going on there for Kosher compliance purposes. Sometimes I'd eat dinner with him and his roommates, and we'd discuss theology and the relative merits of the secular versus the religious life. It was like A Stranger Among Us minus Melanie Griffith and the police procedural intrigue. 

I was pretty fascinated by Sam's scene. Although I'm Jewish, my parents are secular Jews who reject all forms of organized religion, including their own. So it was a bit of an anthropological experience and an education for me to fake-date an Orthodox Jewish guy. 

I use the term "fake-date" very deliberately here, because that is exactly what it was. We walked around every afternoon engrossed in Deep Conversation About Life. He could (and did) play all of Neil Young's Harvest Moon on acoustic guitar. (It's not fake-dating without some Neil Young).

I even slept on his couch a few nights, and that is where the wheels came off the bus to Sam-town.

I've had friends recount bizarre relationship situations to me before. I have women friends worry aloud to me that they might be "deformed" because the guy they are dating appears to be suffering from significant sexual hangups. I also have women friends who automatically assume that any man who isn't interested in them must be gay, and I envy that assumption and the bullet-proof self-esteem it represents. Because my first conclusion upon hearing that I did not exactly do it for Sam was a bit of a blow to my ego, and despite having many gay friends and family members, the possibility that Sam could be gay had never crossed my mind. 

The exact way he put the "I'm just not that into you" sentiment to me was a bit explicit, but suffice it to say it was something I had never heard before, and haven't heard since. It wasn't my lack of religiosity (as he seemed to be questioning his life's course in this respect anyway) or at least he didn't say it was. He also did not say he was gay, of course. But nor did he offer a credible, non-anatomical explanation for The Problem with me, him, and the couch. 

After my third (non-consecutive) night of couch-duty, I decided it was all too weird and I needed to get the fuck up out of Dodge. It was toward the end of my internship and I knew I wouldn't be seeing Sam anymore. I gathered my things, left quietly in the middle of the night, and never spoke to Sam again. I cast him in my memory as just another ambivalent dude in a long string of ambivalent dudes to waltz (or do the Horah) in and out of my life.

Years later, my Jewish ginger husband tried to convince me that there is no way a heterosexual man would bench (couch?) a 20 year-old woman like that, no matter what she looked like. Granted he is biased, because the couch is the last place he wants me to sleep. So maybe he suffers from the opposite problem. 

But the fact of the matter is that sometimes people just aren't that into you, and it doesn't really matter why. It helps to imagine that it's something immutable, like you're the wrong religion or the wrong gender, and in this case, it could have been one, both, or neither.

One of the things most women realize a little bit too late for their own good is that sometimes a guy just isn't that into you, at least not in the way or at the level you would like or expect him to be. 

It doesn't make you hideous, and it doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes it what it is, and that's OK.

1990's First World Teenager Bingo