Red trees in the courtyard shedding their leaves,
Blue sentiments of a nation electing its first black president,
White rings of cow’s milk drying on the mantle top.
While everyone does the chameleon jig, I’ll drag my risk-averse middle class ass to my cube because it’s so much easier whining into my half-empty glass. After all,
The falling leaves warn of harsh winter days.
New leaders need to resusciate a nation long dead.
Nothing can replace the warmth of a nursing child.
The CoHo donned her habitual scowl as she made herself some milkless tea. Why was it that all those e-mails related to organizing food for a group event had to be sent by women? And no, these weren’t the (exclusively) female admins on the floor – these were women on her team. Tech chicks.
So this is probably why those feminists of yesteryear that had to choose career over family are so pissed off (hot flushes can’t help either). Here she was, consciously trying to mute her nurturing instincts and put on her best ass-kickin’ programmer face, and there was Miss Banana Republic, diligently surveying downtown lunch specials while the boys attacked nasty system bugs. And no, she’s really not interested in the “women are much better communicators and managers” argument. What self-respecting programmer would work for someone that can’t dive into a quicksand of code? (Ok, what self-respecting person would work for someone else – but what is a CoHo, if not a Corporate Whore?)
The CoHo had to leave her Nibbles at backup daycare for the second time today and running away to her cube in the midst of his heart-crunching separation anxiety episode better be justified. You know, the guilt trip of how the working mom decision was not just The CoHo’s to make - she was essentially deciding the fate of rest of her doubly Xed chromosomed colleagues? Really, this whole feminist cause can be a pimple on life’s butt (TM an old pal).
So geek sister, until that glorious day when women do not need to be twice as good to prove that they are half as good, you’ve made my battle in this testosteroned space akin to lifelong abstinence from chocolate i.e. hopeless.
Q. What kind of atheist fasts during Karvachauth?
A. The kind that polishes down a glass of wine at the first mention of a moon rise, followed by a tray of spicy tilapia fish.
Nibbles has turned into quite the Georgie Porgie of late, kissing the girls and making them cry; a charming turn from his earlier ear fetish that was satisfied with a firm twist of the gentle appendage till turned a pretty crimson. I’m proud to say that he’s taken quite a pansexual approach to this slobbery habit, which is often preceded by a friendly, non-Zidanish headbutt.
Speaking of pansexuality, I do hope I don’t pigeonhole him into any gendered or sexual stereotype. Perhaps I should dismiss it as cute when he’s chasing girls and cars and the adults cheer him on. I too am guilty of encouraging popular stereotypes by always dressing him in clothes from the boys section and refusing to buy the shiny pink “girls” shoes, even though they were the only pair in his size (and he desperately needs a new pair).
Right through my stormy teens I’ve always dressed in oversized boys clothes, so perhaps I may be excused from the fashion department. Books, then? Besides the list of sexist prince-saves-fair-maiden fairytales, I ought to sing of beautiful gay princes that lived happily ever after. Should my stories be uniformly distributed across sexual preferences and even race or ecominic status? Or should it reflect the (questionable) demographics of the community we live in? I wouldn’t want to bias him either way, but I’m too hopelessly human to be rigorous about that.
Ok, so I don’t think that sexual identity issues are something Nibbles needs to worry about – not today anyway. The jigsaw of one’s identity may take a lifetime to piece together and the exercise in itself can be exhausting if the constructed image keeps evolving. I don’t know what color his rainbow will be, but today it is a brilliant, transparent light that bounces off his beaming face and dances in his bright eyes when he sees someone he likes. He doesn’t think to question the source of that feeling for a second, but chooses to fling that affection carelessly with no fear of it being shunned.
What would it take to be so recklessly free again? From what I remember, a stiff martini (or five) might do the trick.
I’d be lying if I said family always comes first. On days like today, I’ve totally ignored all wants and most needs of my boys in an effort to do justice to my work. It was almost like my first day back from my maternity leave, where I got so engrossed in a nasty production issue that I’d forgotten Nibbles was away from me for the first time. Heck, I went on to have a memory glitch that made me forget that Nibbles even existed. By lunchtime, the mommyness rushed back like a sneeze, in an unappetizing mix of nausea, shock and guilt.
I never forgot again. But yes, there are days like today, when I didn’t realize that Big Byte fell asleep hungry and Nibbles exhausted himself to sleep on my boob while I ran meaningless scripts. It’s not like anything I was doing held a fraction of importance compared to making sure they were doing ok after I abandoned them for my weekly escape cubicle sentence. I should’ve jumped straight down that chute when I trashed the remnants of their day – an empty box of Yo Baby yogurt stuffed with bottles of Miller Lite.
It’s weird how the very same wild hair, torn jeans and faded T that made me feel like a maverick *sic* pre-Nibbles makes me feel downright frumpy and aunty-like these days. In fact, the same do that made me look 16 pre-Nibbles, makes me look at least a decade older that I am now (and no, I don’t look 26).
In a rare break from inertia, I figured it’s best I do something about it. My pledge to not let pyjamas become a second skin has decidedly been chucked. But today, my fat ass found itself planted on a revolving salon chair (what was that satellite music video?) because Big Byte could not take another refrain of how “I haaate my hair!”.
I don’t deal well with folks in the service industry. I can’t talk to waiters, kaamwalis or any human who is providing me a service without turning red and apologetic for not doing the task myself. So I’m not too surprised that I surrendered my mangled mane to the excited hands of a hairstylist with nothing more than a sheepish nod to do as he pleased. Should I have been afraid , considering how bald he was? I suppose it’s not as bad as a dentist with horrible teeth.
A few snips and heavy duty blowdrying later, I looked like a classic after picture. Big Byte and Nibbles chimed all the appropriate oohs, and I was beginning to remember what it felt like to be sexy. That was, of course, until I let the cruel chlorinated jersey city showers rain down my tresses till I was left with a curly mop that looks like a poodle’s butt. Won’t be a shocker then if somebody is a tad bitchy tomorrow. Woof!
Dragged Nibbles and Big Byte to The City to checkout a daycare that’s set to open early 2009. The open house crowd was small and Nibbles was the oldest kid in the room. Too exhausted to rant about it. Nibbles got sick on the way back; perhaps due to the very bumpy stroller ride and smoky aromas clouding the air.
In any case, it seemed like an awful idea to think of enrolling him in The City; extremely stupid of me to presume that if he gets shuttled around in a stroller, the commute won’t drain him out.
But it does scare me to imagine him in the care of strangers across the Hudson, with a moody PATH train service between us . It scares me to imagine him in the care of strangers, period. Does it seem silly to explicitly type out “period” when it is in fact followed by one? Whatever.
This is a sour topic at home and at work – daycare, I mean. And all my arguments, convictions and needs seem to fizzle away when questioned by Big Byte or my boss. And it’s not like they’re asking for more than for me to make up my mind. Oh, hello! Is that a crack on the earth waiting to swallow me whole?
Responding to Priya’s post regarding resentment towards Wall Street bankers; let me start off by saying that I do not applaud the demise of entire firms on the Street. I have friends at Lehman with mortgages and kids, and know too well that it could’ve been me.
Like any production issue in the corporate IT world, we need a goat. Who’s to blame? Accountability is a toughie. It’s not like all the toxic paper built up overnight. Being part of the Street ecosystem, albeit on the fungal ranks, I do feel the need to swallow my share of the blame. Yeah, yeah, enough with the hysterical laughing already – a lowly CoHo, an IT CoHo, thinks she can take credit (cheap pun intended) for any for this.
After all, when I pocketed a fat bonus for what could only be considered mediocre code at a software firm, I tried to justify it by saying that my project helped improve performance so that the traders could get more trades in faster and hence rake in more $$$ faster. I wasn’t aware of the nature of those trades, but perhaps I should’ve been (blissful ignorance and all).
It doesn’t mean that I’m going to step forward and say, “Sorry, you can take back X portion of my bonus because we screwed up”. Besides the fact that I’m not that magnanimous, I have no clue how to calculate X. And I’m not sure exactly whom to return the money to. Uncle Sam? Uncle Hank?
Ironically enough, for all the people that rejoice in the fact the laid-off Streeters will know what it feels like to be one of them, they too will know how it feels to be part of a high risk game, thanks to the bailout. Again, not a juvenilie stick-my-tongue-right-back-at-you moment.
Honestly, I don’t really know what’s going on and my crystal ball’s looking mighty foggy of late. No points for stating the obvious, eh? Instead of being responsible, educating myself and doing something about it, I’m just going to sit back and toss the problem at the country’s taxpayers because something’s gotta be done before everybody gets fucked. Oh, what’s that? Everybody’s already fucked, you say? Ah, then, time to stock up on cheap vodka and nutella. It’s a long, cold winter ahead.
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.
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This spring, we were trying to recruit women from top universities into Dream Company and a common response was, “No thanks; you guys are evil”. This was before the crisis. It was also my response fresh out of school, at my anti-capitalist best. Of course, it’s a toss between evil corporations and doing research funded by the military so…So for the first time in a long time, this makes sense to me:
A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die
It seems selfish, foolish even, to think of quitting a coveted job in Dream Company when the shitty economy seems doomed for the long haul.
Why can’t I have that blasted cake and lick the icing off it too?
