Drunk on Haterade

Welcome to Fear and Loathing in Ashvegas. See how I did that? Prepared you to think how funny it will be when I deliver the subsequent self-deprecating remark? I should start with something simple and surface. I could comment rather cavalierly about the sad state of my waistline. But with more wit. Something like, "It's a good thing I have big boobs - they detract from how fat I'm getting." That one actually scores double points because I have called attention to my uncomfortably large chest in addition to to my chubbiness. You couldn't believe how many ways I've come up with to call myself fat - overweight, big-boned, rounding, tipping the scales, fleshy, hefty...you get the picture.

From the superficial, we could cross over into something slightly more personal. How about my unmarried status? There is some seriously fertile ground for Ash-bashing. We could have a few laughs - at my expense, of course - about the time lapsed since my last date. Like, "I haven't been on a date since Congress had a 50% approval rating." But after a few generalized chuckles, we have to dig deeper. To really pour on the haterade, you have to mock the heart of the matter.

You have to turn the guns on your current personal position and blow it to smithereens. Like a double agent, you have to expose yourself to the enemy and then take yoursellf out. Because, really, all you're doing is taking exactly what the enemy is thinking, dipping it twice in sarcasm, sprinkling it with a little clever wordplay and serving yourself a deceptively sticky sweet ball of venom.

And that's when you start to get drunk on the haterade. When the self-defense against what you think might be said and voicing all of the fears and doubts inside your head become a mantra that snakes through your brain until you really start to believe it. You really start to think that all those things you're saying to be funny are true. That you are fat. And that you will be alone forever. And, more than that, you will be alone because you're deficient. Because you're less than what anyone else would want. You start to see those fears and doubts and insecurities that existed in your mind become reality because you made them so...because you allowed your mockery to become who you are.

I presently have a haterade hangover. It makes my head ache sometimes, choosing between the easy, glib remark and responding in a more self-respecting manner. I mean, it's funny. The haterade makes people laugh. And despite my best efforts, I sometimes still take a shot. But other times, I'm trying give myself a fighting chance against the hair of the dog that bit me.

Fatty Fatty Two-by-Four

At first, I blamed it on the road. As in, being on the road. Not in an uber cool Kerouac kind of way. More of a semi-depressing Death of a Salesman way. Maybe something in between. I never thought I would need a Skymiles number, much less be applying enough flights to it to qualify for, like, discounts. But since April, I've found myself in Tennessee, Nevada, Utah, Alabama, D.C., Texas, Colorado and next month, Florida. Not to mention road trips - hello, live from Savannah.

The point is that it's easy to discount the calories consumed on the road - in airport terminals and from little snack bags on planes and from drive thrus and gas stations and in hotel rooms and at client dinners where you feel justified in ordering three drinks, half a cow and a piece of chocolate cake. Honestly, there's no such thing as real food when you're traveling. There is only the packaged, preserved and mass-produced or the food-coma-inducing indulgently rich fare.

After criss-crossing the country, it's little wonder that I started putting on pounds on pace with my frequent flyer miles. I'm working on the Mile High and Mile Wide Club.

But travel isn't totally to blame. Back at home, I've shunned my kitchen in favor of the Chick-fil-A not a mile from my house. I lunch, I brunch, I dine with friends - and every two or three meals, I make a restrained choice. The hummus plate. And then I counter that with how I deserve dessert in light of my reduced calorie meal. Brilliant. On top of that, I've made no attempts to prevent my egregious snacking habits, keeping cookies and chips and the like in the pantry. Nicking Gummi Bears from the dollar bin at Kroger and selecting movie-watching snacks to reward myself for choosing the Red Box over the actual pricey theater.

A few recent pictures, taken from the most unflattering side view, revealed my alarmingly inflated form. The unbecomingly rounding belly. The fleshy arms. The fat that's starting to gather around my face. I've assumed an overall doughy appearance - paunchy, soft, decadent. Pokable.

I probably weigh as much now as I ever have - I'm rather afraid of the scales, too horrified to know what I've done to myself. And as much as there's vanity, and believe me, there is, because, I'm being honest here. But there's also a great deal of shame in having let it go this far. The shame of failing to possess the willpower to shut my mouth. The shame of letting the depression about life to creep up on me and fuel this sorry sad appetite for destruction. Food won't make me happy - and whatever joy I normally take in eating good food is just perverted by this abuse. Even as I finished off the Double Stuf Oreos the other night, I wanted to cry. Because all that creamy goodness was headed straight for my already dimpled thighs. And because, well, I know better. I know I don't want to be on this one-way street to The Biggest Loser.

It's so much easier to remain prostrate under mounds of calories. To consume my feelings rather than deal with them. To viciously hate every new bulge while masochistically stuffing my face. But underneath all those calories and all that dissatisfaction, there's a part of me that is starting to claw against that soft fatty self and demand that we put an end to this.

So I finished the bag of Gummi Bears. And the Double Stuf Oreos. I bought some carrots. I bought some hummus. I'm keeping apples in the fridge. I'm on the road right now...I had McDonald's, and I know tomorrow is going to be some sort of artery-blowing dinner affair. I'm not going to make any ultimatums - no promises to myself that I can't keep. I'm not going to start some crash diet where I deny myself sugar and carbs and joy. But I am going to try to unshackle myself from helplessness...from cutting myself so much slack that I don't even participate in the choice. I'm going to reconnect that line between my mouth and my brain that The Sadsies unplugged.

And let's be honest: I want to be slimmer. I want my clothes to fit. I want to be more attractive for all the superficial reasons, to be one of the beautiful people. But as much as that, I want to respect myself enough not to let the heaviness in my heart be the heaviness on my hips.

Image via Christopher Boffoli's Disparity series

Let's Be Honest

The spiral started, well, how spirals start. At an infinitesimal point behind you that's hardly discernible once you recognize the endlessly loping curvature that looms above you. Round and round and round until the circular shape with its no-end-and-no-beginning ways keeps you from even trying to recall its origin.

That's me, now. Looking back at that spiral, not even trying to fathom how I got to this place at the bottom. And let's be honest - for awhile, I've been slipping and sliding down the spiral with reckless abandon. Acting like I was powerless against the sloping gravity of it all. Like an impertinent child sailing down the banister, I picked up terrible habits with an alacrity that was mind-blowing. The eating. The shopping. The sleeping. The self-deprecation. The self-loathing. The perpetual negativity.

That's me, now. Finally plopped rather decidedly on my arse at the bottom. My first impulse is to offer excuses. But I've been here before, and excuses get me nowhere. So I'm trying something new. In light of my present position, in light of the recognition of my free will to be somewhere besides here, I'm going to explore my choices with all honesty. I'm going to tell the whole truth - the whole ugly truth - and hopefully find my way away from the ugly something less hideous...something tolerable...something that resembles the fragile beauty of hope...

Image via Randall C. Page

TTLY Syndrome

I've always had a particularly pronounced sense memory. Smells, sounds, even a certain atmosphere, light - all provoke the return of sharp visceral memories for me. This little trick came in handy at times during acting classes when I was in college. But on a day to day basis, this sensitivity piles up into what I refer to as TTLY Syndrome or "This Time Last Year Syndrome" (TTLYS).

The oppressive heat and humidity of the last fews days have thrown me into last year's frame of mind. Indeed, the past few weeks have brought on a bewildering myriad of memories. This time last year, I was interviewing for The Job. I was feeling bereft and rootless. I was waiting.

And inside, away from the shimmering heat, in the cool darkness of my brain, the chemicals were sliding out of the proper equation. My stomach was burning, turning itself inside out almost every night. The Panic was coming.

This time last year was a tipping point, away from what was and toward what is. It was a precarious lean into the unknown. Everything was tossed into the air, floating down in a slow-motion freefall with no end in sight. Everything was all questions and no answers. The unknown was my only friend.

It's back again, like a second wave. I am waiting. Waiting for a movement away from this stalemate of grief. This terrible endgame, all the pieces on the board and nowhere to go. The Panic is rising. I waffle on the edge of nausea, try to push it down, pray through it. The unknown is siddling up next to me...it's reminding me that in a year, I haven't made very many strides. I haven't built the life I envisioned.

The heat lashes down on me when I walk out of work each day. I stumble through the evenings, fight the TTLYS washing through my veins. I remind myself that I have moved down the road, made progress. That I'm waiting and panicking and befriending the unknown because I had not choice when life jumped the rails in February.

Tonight, Dad said to me, "I feel like...we're never going to be normal again." And somehow, seeing the weight of it on his face, hearing the crushing reality in his words, I thought, "Not any time soon."

As I stare down the barrel of TTLYS right now, I rue the next season of it - the last season where everything was normal. And that season followed by the one where everything fell apart.

Emotional Pickpocketing

Yesterday was the Rockstar's last day. Last week, I went to his farewell outing - a bowling extravaganza filled with shouts and razzing and toasts and a definite sadness tinging the whole affair. A part of me absorbed it...felt sad because he is leaving, and after a year, I'd like to think I could call him a friend. But it was also the memory of all that I went through last year seeping from the corners of my mind. As the departure was unfolding, I could see little flashes of my own life layered over his. When he hugged me yesterday, and I wished him luck, I felt like I was talking to myself a little bit...a little bit letting go of that person I was then and wishing her luck as she tries to become the person she is now.

***
More and more lately, I've been feeling the quiet beginnings of the panic. The disrupted stomach. The irrational anxiety of anticipating "it." I went to the doctor last week who asked if I wanted to up my dosage. And I said no, I should try and do this. I should try and do this life thing without having to adjust my medication up and up and up. So I'm pushing through, pushing up the threshold of discomfort and willing myself to work through it, one deep breath at a time.

***
I turned 29 earlier this month. And while I flogged my coworkers for the lack of festivities surrounding my birthday, it was really me that caused the disappointment. It was really me who didn't celebrate myself. It was really me who let my birthday be a reminder of all the things I'm not, all the things I lack, instead of all the things I am and all the things I have. What an empty feeling to be consumed by absences on a day that should be spent building a totem of great memories and accomplishments.

***
My laptop has been a source of immense frustration of late. One of the hinges has cracked and the lid won't stay upright, falling instead into an almost horizontal position. On top of that, some part of Microsoft Office is malfunctioning, auto-launching, and utilizing 99% of my CPU capacity. And it's like, Really? Is everything in my life broken?

***
Yesterday, on the drive home, I felt restless. I shifted in the seat. I peered through the grubby windshield at the searing cerulean sky. I saw a few blue-black crows perched in the naked branches of a dying tree. It felt like someone might cue the classic Sergio Leone whistle in the background. It was a showdown between me and waiting. It's been so long on this precipice, me perched, angled forward, looking for what's next. And held back by the gravity of all that's happened. I'm waiting for something - something good and hopeful. Something that gives me an indication that there is a way out of this valley of the shadow of death and not just endless wandering.

***
We start looking at the weekends coming up through the end of the summer and the fall and planning out who has to do what when and where. I realize how scheduled we are with this and that family obligation - things I would normally look forward to, but now seem like just another outing that will perpetuate our togetherness. I could stay home, stay away, but even the thought of it starts the guilt to gnawing away at me. In my mind, coulds and shoulds and wants and needs get so tangled up that I don't know what to do. So I stay tied up in where I am right now, resenting all the hands on the other ends of the strings that are pulling me in every direction.

***
Despite my bravado, I realized the other day that there's almost no chance that I'll even be married before I'm 30. And that's okay. Really. It is. I know that. But sometimes - just sometimes - I want to let my guard down and say that's not how I imagined things.

***
Last week, I had a really, really super important client meeting with the client I landed awhile back. I thought everything went well. I was nervous leading up to it, felt pretty A-game in the midst of it, and relieved as soon as the meeting participants filed out the door. I headed from the office to have a beer with some friends. I missed a call from my boss while I was in the bar. I called him back to find that at least one of the participants was disappointed and felt like we didn't deliver. And that fragile euphoria came crashing down around me, and I felt 16 tons of disappointment fall upon my shoulders.

***
This weekend, I woke up early to go to the salon with Anna, and when I got back home, I said, "I have to take a nap." And it was true. I was bankrupt.

With every passing day, it seems there's emotional thievery going on. These unexpected strains slip in and steal little pieces of me. There are those things that I face everyday that I know I'm going to spend my time and energy and willpower on - some that I even choose to exert some emotional funds for. But these stealthy hands that swipe my reserves are tearing me down a piece at a time, leaving me penniless. I'm utterly broke, with nothing left to give and not even enough for myself.

Audaciously Me - Should I Be?

I am loud.

It's true.

My voice is loud. My laugh is loud. And I'm coming to believe that my personality is just a little bit loud, too.

The first day that I worked at The New Job, I remember being able to hear the whir of the ceiling fans. But the other day, my boss mentioned something about my loudness. And then The Rockstar noted that I was the most likely to say something "wildly inappropriate." And the list goes on. (But, really, STGD, I used to be way worse - you really helped me with "that's a bite.")

Now, I hear my voice every time it breaks the quiet. My laugh sounds like a bark - and I find that I try to swallow it unless it's something really funny. (Am I just reflex laughing anyway?) And before I say something, I run it through a filter. I've stopped talking quite so much, requiring me to literally bite my tongue.

When I think about it, I realize that I talk - a lot. There's one girl in the office who's getting married in three months, and I had to ask what her last name is going to be the other day - because I don't know her fiance's name. But when it comes to me, I'm an open book. I guarantee you all of my coworkers could name my family members, several friends and likely my former coworkers (that's you, STGD).

And I wonder...is this a bad thing? This loud open way that I have? Should I be quieter, listen more, talk less? It's driving my insecurity up a notch or two - and it's rather like this pinup: like finding yourself with your undies around your ankles in the middle of the room. Vulnerable and uncertain, and measuring your steps carefully so you don't end up flat on your face and embarrassed even further.

I don't know if this is me - well, okay, I know it's me. But is it me, or is it a habit I've fallen into? Much like the question I posed in a previous post...should I be more mysterious? Is this an unattractive quality about me and thus something to be refined? Or at the very least, could I give people a reason to wonder what I'm going to say? Instead of just knowing they won't have to wait long for me to say something.

And can I do it? Can I curb this impulse to spit out witticisms and puns and laugh at my own jokes and everyone else's and say everything I'm thinking? I wonder...but I think, nature or nurture, I'm going to take it upon myself to work on shutting me up before someone else tells me to do it.

On My Sleeve

Even though one of my New Year's resolutions was to "blog it out", I wonder sometimes if I say too much. I've never been known for my poker face or my bluffs. Like ol' Geo Washington, I cannot tell a lie.

But there's a difference between telling a lie and telling everything you know. And sometimes, I wonder if I err on the side of showing my hand when it really isn't necessary. I wish I was more mysterious, more of the kind of person that intrigues. But the truth is, I tend to blurt out whatever's on my mind whether or not I'm asked to share it. I often say that I'm a teller - I'll tell you anything you want to know about me. I'm a walking Freedom of Information Act.

I suppose in some ways that's how I interpreted blogging it out - using the blog as a forum to sort through things "out loud." Puzzle through whatever is on my mind and come to some conclusion.

But sometimes, I think I've got my thoughts too much on my sleeve. I feel like Slim Goodbody - all my insides on the outside, exposed. Which is my own fault. No one's forcing me to tell what I tell...but is it too much? It was all good and well for Slim to have his spleen on the outside, but I wonder...does everyone wish I'd stop venting mine?

Four Eyes

I am now fairly recovered from The Yelch - which included a raging case of viral conjunctivitis. Or cold virus in the eye. Or weepy eyes all bloodshot and evil looking. This condition required me to wear my glasses to work on Friday.

I tried to be all chin-up about it, but I hate wearing glasses. The reasons are many - I don't see as well, tend to get eye strain, can't wear sunglasses. But the root of the problem is in the v-word. (Not that v-word.) Vanity.

I started wearing glasses around 2nd grade. Blue and amber shaded glasses with a tiny red strawberry on the arm for Strawberry Shortcake. The next pair of glasses were giant and pink, a la Sally Jesse Raphael (see photographic evidence). And then some over-sized gold frames, followed by a very studious pair of tobacco-colored wire rims. No matter the frames, how very cool or stylish they seemed when I picked them out, I was always four eyes.

It's my own hang-up, I know, for my glasses now are very lovely thin caramel rectangle frames that complement my face nicely. But I still hate them. Putting them on is like putting on an old identity - a Clark Kent persona of squareness. Being a nerd. Uncool. Overlooked. The smart girl, and never, ever the pretty girl.

Even when the coworkers told me I looked hip or writerly or smart...I just felt 13. Awkward and somehow shy. And like someone else. Not myself. I realize how silly it is to let some molded plastic change the way I feel about myself...but there it is. It does. I tried to tamp down the insecurity, swallow the feeling that everyone was looking at me differently (it was most likely the evil-veined eyes and not the glasses), but by the time I got home, I was ready to be rid of four eyes and go back to plain old two.

Fear of Failure: The Baseball Analogy

“Hank Aaron,” Dad says. “Hit a lot of homeruns. But think about how many times he struck out.”

“I know,” I mumble, tears hanging on the apples of my cheeks.

“You gotta learn to strike out, baby.”

“I know.”

“I ain’t saying you’ve got to be satisfied with it.” He pauses. “But you’ve got to get comfortable with it. And I’m not saying don’t try to hit the ball. Swing hard. But know that sometimes, you’re going to miss.”

Don't Panic

Thoughts pell-mell like so many colored kites jagging in storm winds...tugging to get free of their lines, giving slack and then straining, but all the time held tight by a single unyielding thread. Colored blurs flapping, the sound of a playing card on bicycle spokes. A loose thread unraveling, the reel coming free.

Lines tangle. Kites crash.

One singular sensation
It starts with...
...thrumming blood, right ear, so hard I press my finger in to make sure the drum won't burst
...sharp tightness, central chest, pinching beneath the bow of my sternum
...dull nausea, stomach pit, slick and threatening...

Pleasemakeitgoaway

Fight the pricking tears. Fight the gag reflex. Fight the breath coming so fast that is never enough. Fight the claustrophobia of mind.

AndIdon'tknowwhy

Wracking shivers but I am not cold. Or maybe I am. I am numb and feeling everything amplified - a sense of irrational imploding. Attempting sleep, but in the darkness, all I can think is

Pleasemakeitgoaway

If I fall asleep, it is to wrestle like David with an Angel, restless and overpowered. And when I wake, it is to purge.

Justtomakeitgoaway

AndIdon'tknowwhy

T-Minus

Nine hours from now, I will be on the way to the new job. I know where to park. I know where my office is. And I know the name of the girl who sits at the front desk. Everything else is a little fuzzy. Biggest concern: what will I do for lunch tomorrow?

Cause for Alarm

1) Perez Hilton is reporting that John Mayer is now dating Cameron Diaz.

2) I have been called in to the *new* office tomorrow to begin orientation, dispelling my sense of security about having three more days before finding out that I can't actually hack it.

3) I just found out that Jennifer Ehle, portrayer of the beloved Miss Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice, is from Winston-Salem, NC.

Working Girl

After several hints and allegations here on the blog, I'm going to come right out and say it: I got a job. Somewhere among the six interviews and the 90-minute writing test, I impressed someone enough to make me an offer. Plus, I was wearing a shirt that, according to Eva, said, "Give me a job and then take me disco dancing."

I know I glossed over that writing test part until now. I confess, I lived in absolute fear that I would suffer the greatest humiliation of my life in holding an MFA and failing a potential employer's writing test. Although, I'll tell you kids, it wasn't anything to thumb your nose at. My disco shirt was wringing with sweat at the end of 90 minutes.

But I was offered The Job, I accepted The Job, and I start The Job on Monday. I'm still a little vague on what The Job is. And whether I can do it. But I prefer not to dwell on those things for now. For now, let's merely celebrate that I don't have to write any more heinous cover letters.

Eight-Legged Freakout

Last night, I had the most vivid dream that my scalp was covered with tiny little black spiders no bigger than the end of your finger. In the dream, I kept putting my hands in my hair and leaning forward to flick the spiders from my head. And then at some point, I realized the spiders were literally coming out of my head, from this bump above my forehead at my hairline. Spiders upon spiders. I started awake and lay very still as chills descended on me from head to toe. So real was the dream that I was afraid to touch my head, and so I tried to ignore the creepy crawling feeling on my skin and go back to sleep. I couldn't shake the sensation of tickling legs for the rest of the morning and even checked my pillowcases to rule out actual spiders.

When dreams are this vivid, I feel like they must mean something - something my brain can't quite work out when I'm awake and thinking and so must consider while I'm asleep. I looked up spiders in several dream dictionaries, and their appearance in dreams can be sinister or an omen of good luck (for, like, getting a job?). One source suggested that spiders represent irrational fears and anxieties, but ones that are more complex, hence their representation by eight-legged creatures. And that they also can signify a feeling of oppression or stagnation. Other sources indicated that spiders are symbolic of the creative spirit, and that they simple indicate that you have a creative itch you need to scratch.

But in truth, the dream felt more like a little arachnid army of anxieties marching around my head followed by the realization that I was the source of the madness. Perhaps it was a combination of things: a laundry list of insecurities and doubts surging to the surface, a niggling sense that I've let my writing lay dormant for too long, and all this heat that has everything slow-roasting in its tracks. Whatever the case, I may sleep with Raid under my pillow tonight.

Today's Cover Letter

To Whom It May Concern:
I am looking for a job, and, while you are a place that could hire me, you may or may not have a job opening. If you do, it probably requires some skill or level of experience that I do not possess. For example, I am unable to properly draw or illustrate anything. For confirmation, please consult my reference, STGD. If you don't have an opening, you are probably annoyed that you received an email from someone you don't know who's looking for a job you don't have when you have other more important things to do. It's okay. I understand. I used to be a very busy and important person. Now, my only job is to feed the cats each night. I am very handy with the pop-tops on Fancy Feast catfood. For confirmation, please consult my reference, Kudzu.

If you are at all considering me, despite my lack of skill and your lack of openings, you should know that my confidence in the skills I actually have is plummeting at an alarming rate. Perhaps this indicates why today, I gave up in the midst of writing a more traditional cover letter and left my dutiful post at the computer to deliver my sister-in-law's vaccum cleaner to the repair shop. (A task I completed most satisfactorily, by the way, so perhaps if you have an errand-girl type position, I could handle it. For confirmation, please consult my vaccum-breaking sister-in-law.)

Are you still reading? Well, let me just cut to the chase. At this point, I feel like we're on a bad date. I don't know if you want me to be funny or straightforward. Do you find me charming? Do you hate me before you've even met me? Just tell me what you want, because all this confusion? There are men for that. The silence following the delivery of this cover letter is likely to be almost deafening (if the others are any indication). All the same, for formality's sake, please find attached my resume listing out all my education (I can read) and my work experience (See? Someone else hired me).

If you would like to talk to me further, just call. Because I'll be here. I don't have anything else to do. Except take out the trash - you know, a girl's got to earn her keep.

Sincerely,
Ashley

Fears Du Jour

* That Dillon, now getting to the point of being able to recognize and distinguish people, will not like me because he will know that I am not good with children.

* That I am a terrible conversationalist. It seems that every time I talk to someone and then reiterate my conversation to my mother, she will ask a very obvious question that I don't know the answer to and didn't think to ask myself.

* That there is truth in the look that some people give me when I confirm that I am childless, unmarried, unemployed and living at home that indicates there is something wrong with me.

* That something will happen to my mother before I learn all the things I need to know. Being here all the time, I see the questions she gets about everything - cooking, shopping, sewing, childcare, health, happiness...she's like Dumbledore. And they both really love socks.

* That nothing, not even Secret Clinical Strength, can stem the flow of my sweaty, sweaty armpit. STGD, are you with me?

* That I am boring

* That I will be forced to take a job that I don't love

Gimme

I just sent out three cover letters and resumes. Somebody give me a cookie. Or a beer. I need a nap.

In the Still of the Night

Dillon and I didn't sleep well.

In the crib: Dillon has learned to turn himself over from stomach to back. Unfortunately for all parties, the reverse is proving a bit more complicated. Set to sleep on his stomach, he flips and wakes and cannot go back to sleep.

In the guest bed: I crawl into the bed in the guest room certain that sleep will come swiftly after an early morning and a long day. I read until I am quite sure my eyelids will droop closed before the next word and turn off the light. Immediately, my eyes open wide in the inky darkness.

In the crib: Dillon draws his knees up under him and then shoves his feet back, twists on his side and rolls against that left arm that is never quite in the right position to turn. He wobbles against it until he is on his back.

In the guest bed: I fight the sheets and blankets, alternating between hot and cold. This bed used to be my brother's bed. I used to seek refuge there when the dark of night and all the monsters lurking there struck fear in me. And now, all the anxieties are swirling around in my brain, a persistent hum against the black.

In the crib: Dillon can put the pacifier in his mouth, but he forgets to let go and jerks it out again. We call it the Paci-Monster.

In the guest bed: I see plastic stars stuck to the ceiling by the previous owner's kid. Without my glasses, I can only make out the faint smudge of flourescent above me. In a trick of poor eyesight and darkness, it looks a little like the night sky until all of the light in them recedes to nothingness.

In the crib: Sometimes, Dillon just wants to know someone is there.

In the guest bed: I try not to think about the hours passing. I breathe deeply. I try to imagine somewhere peaceful. But the serenity fades and I end up counting my anxieties, fluffy little insecurities herding through my mind.

In the crib: Dillon cries loudly and I am up and in the hallway before I'm really concious of moving. I hope to save Eva from a trip to the nursery. He's all twisted up in the blanket, and I'm working to untangle him when she arrives. In mere seconds, she scoops and flips him like a baby pancake and has the pacifier in his mouth before he hits the crib again.

After four and before seven, we drift in and out, finding the edge of dreams but always jerked back by the insecurity of being flat on our back, anxious that we are alone and unable to pacify ourselves long enough to fall back asleep.

Them's Fightin' Words

When I arrived at Eva & Justin's house last week, I interrupted play group. This means that I walked into the kitchen filled with four mothers and six children. Eva had warned me, knowing that there's no love lost between me and other people's children.

I was handling it pretty well, seeking refuge at one end of the kitchen table and trying to make polite conversation and keep up with talk of Exersaucers and Johnny Jump Ups. Eva had just finished feeding Dillon and handed him off to me to take one of the other mothers to see a project she'd been working on. He fussed, and I checked his diaper and confirmed that it was wet. I said as much aloud.

That's when one of the mommies totally overstepped bounds. In this voice one would use to speak to a child, she said, "Since Auntie Ashley is holding Dillon, will she change the diaper?"

In my head, I turned to her and said, "Don't patronize me or I will cut you." But in real life, I simply gathered Dillon up and headed off to change him. And she followed me. Standing over my shoulder, she cooed to her own infant, as though giving her approval, "Look at Auntie Ashley go!"

I held my temper in check, but I was so enraged that I couldn't quite get over it. What was it about this woman's ridiculous behavior that had me itching to lash out at her? Perhaps it was due in part to facing one of those moments when I felt more Bridget Jones-esque than ever, surrounded by the Mom Squad with their infants and toddlers, and me wondering if they were feeling sorry for me or thinking "tick tock, tick tock." But more than that - because I didn't feel this Hulkish rage toward anyone else - I think it was her condescension to insinuate that I would be too squeamish or too inept to change a diaper. And no disrespect to the moms out there, but rocket science it ain't.

I couldn't help thinking about the book I blogged about recently that called women on the carpet for being stay-at-home moms. In that moment, I found myself faced with the complete opposite opinion - someone who thought that they could talk down to me, treat me like a child, because I am unmarried and childless. I was angry at the woman, and I was angry at myself because, what does her judgment matter to me? She isn't someone I know, and certainly (after this) someone I respect. Why should I allow her to make me feel so inadequate about myself? It was dispicable, really.

But there, with her cooing her baby-talk commentary, I seriously considered punching her in the mouth. And I'm pretty sure I'd have been sent to timeout.

A Mistake in Judgment

I came across an article on Yahoo last night about a new book called The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. I couldn't find the same article this morning, but I did find this insightful piece about the book on Salon.

In the book Bennetts makes a call to arms for young women not to sacrifice career in order to stay at home with children. Her argument is rooted in staying self-sufficient, maintaining earning power (which drops 37% after just three years out of the workplace) and being prepared for a husband or partner who loses his job, develops a drug, alcohol or gambling problem, or skips out on the marriage for a newer model (usually one, according to Bennetts, who is more career-minded).

Bennetts' arguments are not new. In fact, this debate has been going on since women entered the workplace, and I suspect it will go on for generations to come. In my view, the stay-at-home or stay-at-work choice is intensely personal. I have close friends who come down on both sides of the fence for reasons that are personal and economic. So that is not why I call attention to this article.

Instead, I call attention to the crux of the first paragraph of Joan Walsh's review: If female fear and self-doubt were ever eradicated, the publishing industry would collapse....no matter the issue, the premise is pretty much the same: We're doing something wrong. And in the article I read last night, Bennett was quoted as saying, "Women are so defensive about their choices." Well, no wonder. We're under attack from all sides for what we did or didn't do.

Look at me. I'm 27-going-on-28, unmarried and childless. For every person who thinks I'm living the life, there's someone to judge me as inept, incomplete, or just plain sad. A career may be completion to some, and for others, I simply haven't found my purpose until I have a baby. There's judgment for all of our choices, and most of the time, they come from other women.

We have so many choices today - which is a blessing and a curse. Believe me, I'm thankful for that - if I ever needed further convincing, I could revisit my Women's Lit text or rent HBO's Iron-Jawed Angels to reaffirm that we've got the long end of the stick. But because our place isn't dictated by society anymore, it's dictated by us. Which puts an enormous amount of pressure on choosing a direction.

The freedom to choose has also given birth to some sort of inherent insecurity about those choices. Instead of banding together and supporting each other and embracing the classic viewpoint that it takes all kinds, we spend our time defending ourselves to each other in case anyone should think we've failed womankind by taking a certain path.

All this to say that I find people like Bennetts distasteful. Her need to push her lifestyle choice to the front, to suggest that anyone who doesn't go that way is damning herself to a life of misery, points to insecurity rather than certainty. I know several stay-at-home moms who are very happy, in healthy, stable relationships and very fulfilled by the time they spend with their children. I also know a number of women who work every day and love and support their children just as much as the stay-at-homers.

Beyond the Mommy Wars, the pressure to have the right career, choose the right husband, be the right kind of homemaker is overwhelming. The Have It All Agenda is still out there, providing the illusion that we can have it all with no sacrifice - and that anything short of the sum total of all the facets of wife, mother, career woman, and individual - doesn't add up.

Yet, I think of the women I know and the choices they've made - my mother who gave up an excellent job to stay home. Pen, who stays at home and Andi, who is a working mom. Niki, who's pursuing law, and Jenn, who's pursuing social work. All of the women who read this blog and are career women, students, writers, mothers, wives, friends. And I'm proud of them all for making the decision that was right for them. No judgment. Other than I think you're all amazing women.