We have all been asked of this quiz question before:
What Super Power do you wish you had?
I still don’t know what my answer should be.
Flying?
Mind control?
Teleporting?
“The ability to eat as much as I want without gaining any weight”. Yeah. That’s what I am thinking right at this moment.
You all know The Bloggess. She of the power of turning everything into a hilarious nature. Really. We should send her to the frontline, protected inside an armor car of course, and give her a microphone. She has the Super Power of turning people into a howling, thigh-slapping, LMAOROTF, Dionysian mass. And believe me: I normally do not like touching my own thighs. Except one thigh would always inadvertently touching the other, but that cannot be helped. I sometimes would get mind-clarifying, “Come to Jesus” moments when I read her blog. It ain’t all fluff.
A line I heard from the video embedded in one of her posts still haunts me till this day:
“I have the intellectual confidence to appear stupid sometimes.”
THIS is one of the best quotes I have learned in my whole life. Now, please repeat it with me:
“I have the intellectual confidence to appear stupid sometimes.”
I believe, by internalizing this line, we can all be liberated from self-consciousness and self-censorship. I believe this will be especially helpful for women climbing the corporate ladder, especially if the work place is predominantly male.
At first I thought that men are so good at “chiming in” and “making their points” at any meeting because they somehow were privy to this secret. Nah. Based on my years of ethnographic study of the male species in the corporate jungle, I believe that they are so good at “speaking up” because, unlike women who are often self-reflexive, most men never even consider the possibility that what comes out of their mouth may just be flat out the stupidest thing someone has ever heard of. See, they never apologize before they speak. The strength of not giving a damn. THAT is the Super Power I would like to have.
Today’s BOGO special:
In addition to the quote above that can serve as an awesomely witty throw-away remark when someone suggests that you are intelligence-challenged, AFTER you sucker punch them of course, here is another motto for you to use in your role as Truth Seeker:
We are entitled to our own opinions; we’re not entitled to our own facts. - Al Franken
Tagged as:
i am a fan,
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working while female
I was reading the article about the so-called Craigslist Killer, Philip Markoff, in Vanity Fair, and like almost everybody, I wanted to find out, perchance through this detailed article, WHY?! Stories like this, a bright young man from a well-to-do family with a seemingly normal upbringing make people especially anxious. If you cannot explain WHY, if the answer turns out to be a shrug of the shoulders, Well, something just snapped and he just did, then the world becomes too random for us to feel reassured.
The reporter set out to find the answers. To reassure the readers.
Markoff’s parents were divorced. That of course does not set him apart in this day and age. But… how about what follows next?
“No one I spoke to in the small community remembered Markoff’s parents or step-parents participating in activities at his school or showing up very often at the local Community Activity Center, where he excelled in youth bowling leagues.”
When I read this, I was all like, WTF?!
It is not enough that I am constantly neurotic about providing my kids with as “normal” environment as I could possibly muster, being a full-time working train-commuting mother with a 9-to-5-only-if-I-say-I-give-up-of-ever-being-taken-seriously-and-why-don’t-you-just-quit-then-what-about-my-own-person-and-my-own-identity job, so now I have to worry about them growing up and becoming a crazed killer because I cannot attend their activities at school??!!
Thank you indeed for sending me off to the grandest guilt trip a mother could have ever taken. I may never come back from this one.
Tagged as:
guilt is the trip mothers take often,
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what keeps me awake,
working while female
This is an age-old debate and for sure I am opening an ancient can of worms. And for some, this is probably opening up some disappearing scabs from long-since-forgotten battle wounds as well…
But I don’t know why something this trivial bothers me. It leaves my working-mother-core shaking. It makes me question myself whether my being a working mother is truly ruining my children’s childhood.
Guilt is a bitch.
It all started when my 11 yo was invited to a friend’s house for a “playdate”.
(They are probably too old to have something called “Playdate”… For lack of a universally understandable term to describe an event when a child goes to another child’s house, usually against the latter child’s mother’s quiet wish while granting the mother of the former child, if she otherwise stays home with the child, some much needed respite, I will use this term for now).
… and the earliest train I can take does not allow me to be there in time to pick him up at the said end of playdate.
The problem with being a working mom with regarding to playdates is that: it is next to impossible for me to reciprocate. And I do feel guilty about it. I do. And I let the mothers who are kind enough to invite my non-reciprocating child to their houses know how much I appreciate it, and how guilty I feel.
You know that I work, DOWNTOWN. My kids go to a childcare facility. I am sorry. I cannot come home during lunch hour to do that. I cannot take off from work just so I can drop off my child at your house to play with your child.
I did that once already: I took a day off from work once just so I could drive my kid, in less than 5 minutes, from the daycare to your house. I know I should not expect you to offer to pick up my kids from where he is and bring him to your house. You do not owe me that. And I am totally sounding like an ungrateful bitch to some, if there is anyone out there reading this, actually.
I contemplated hiring and PAYING someone to drive that 5-minute stretch so he can have the playdate with your child. I did. Would you be terribly insulted if I asked to pay you? You would, I guess. I know the point is not the money, or how easy it is. The point is “the principle” right? That we working mothers are so used to being granted all these special treatments and considerations. We should not take it for granted. I should not even be writing about this on my blog right now.
So I guess our children will never have playdates again.
It is a shame. They apparently played quite well together and that’s why you invited him back. Thank you. And sorry that we had to cancel the playdate scheduled for today.
p.s. The irony with this whole crazy shit incident is that I am so shaken with guilt, doubt and undeserved self-righteousness that I may as well go home early. Calling in sick.
Tagged as:
guilt is the trip mothers take often,
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