November 29, 2005

On Catering

Tonight Clara "Bag Lady" Jane was sorting through one of the many purses I have scattered about the house and she found one of the many old shopping lists contained in my many old purses. I love old shopping lists, mine or those that get left behind in shopping carts. I love those little glimpses into my past and other peoples' lives.

Anyway, this was a good list, taking up a full sheet of notebook paper. Veggie lasagna with eggplant, squash, mushrooms, potatoes and peppers; Thai beef salad; quiche; cassoulet; smoked chicken with cucumber salad; tomato soup; chicken risotto and some chicken and squash concoction I can't recall.

It was the shopping list from when I was bidding on a catering job in June, 2003, shortly after I got pregnant with Clara Jane. I won the bid. For two and a half years, once a week I have made dinners to-go for several businesses.

Earlier today, before my kid found the creased and fading list, I decided it was time to leave this very job, effectively ending my professional cooking career.

It wasn't a sudden decision. For months, my contempt for this job has been growing for a myriad of reasons that all boil down to one thing: I'm not getting enough out of the job compared to what I put into it. It doesn't bring in enough money to make daycare worthwhile, so I have to work around Clara Jane's schedule, which means what should be a one-day-a-week job gets drug out over Sunday, Monday and Tuesday every week. It's an exhausting hassle that's leading to something I swore I would never let happen: it's making me dislike cooking.

The professional foodie biz was actually my second career. In my previous life I spent five years working in educational video production with a brief forray into commercial broadcasting. About two years into that part of my life, I was 23 years old and at a bit of a crossroads. I was up for a promotion. While I enjoyed what I was doing, I was starting to realize that it wasn't exactly what I envisioned doing for the rest of my professional life. I made a deal with myself: if I got the promotion, I'd stay put. If I didn't get the promotion, I was off to the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute in Thibodaux, Louisiana (hi, Jules).

I got the promotion.

Cooking wasn't something I'd ever thought about doing professionally. I didn't actually learn to cook until I was a sophomore in college, living in my first hovel swinging pad. Neverminid that, when I was ten years old I spent an unusual amount of time reading and clipping recipes. The desire to cook was always there, but I just never considered it as a career. I was a smart girl destined for college and Great Things. Cooking seemed entirely too vocational.

But then I found myself cooking all the time for my roommates, and eventually for myself. I'd cook even if I wasn't hungry, which meant a lot of leftovers went into the trash or got pawned off on my co-workers. And then there were the wonderful dinners with Big Daddy B. He'd bring the wine, I'd do the cooking and we'd both wind up happily drunk and full. Great nights. This was around the time of the promotion and the realization that I was incredibly happy in the kitchen.

Fast forward three years. I left my video production job and moved to St. Louis to be with B. Clean slate. I could do anything I wanted with my life, and I had every kind of support necessary from my cute-as-a-button B. While it wasn't the Culinary Institute of America, it was still culinary school, and I loved it.

By fall, 2001, I was finished with school and had landed my dream job - I had a regular column with a food magazine. Just a little local start-up with shitty pay and no benefits, but I loved it. It was the perfect combination of the two things I enjoyed most - writing and food. If they'd let me write the occasional music review, I probably would have paid them to work there.

Eventually the exposure from the column lead to the occasional arts center culinary teaching gig, which led to the occasional catering gig. By the time I got pregnant in May, 2003, I found myself with a growing, multifaceted business on my hands. And I loved it. I had it all figured out: once the baby was born I'd just plop her on my hip and keep cooking. As soon as she was big enough to hold a spoon, I was putting her to work. Child labor laws don't apply when it's your kid.

While I'm not a religious person, there's a saying I absolutely love: Want to make God laugh? Make a plan. God laughed so hard at my plan that I think he wet Himself a little.

I taught my last class in October, 2003, with my rival chef in attendance. That was enough to make me decide that teaching was going to fall by the wayside in light of parenthood.

After Clara Jane's birth, I couldn't wait to get back to the magazine and catering. Returning to work (figuratively, since all my work was done at home with Clara Jane by my side) was a way for me to grasp some tiny bit of what my life had been before the birth, the depression, the anxiety and the utterly useless and hopeless feelings that dominated my life as a mother.

Things didn't really change until the beginning of this year. First, I left my magazine job in a huff, a move which I haven't even slightly regretted.

Since then, I've been stewing (insert *snort* here) about catering. I haven't enjoyed it for a long. So much so that it's sucked a lot of the joy out of all the cooking I do. A few weeks ago, in a catering-related fit, I told B., "When I'm done with this shit, I'm never cooking again. From here on out this family eats nothing but frozen chicken enchiladas from Trader Joe's!" And I meant it.

For my birthday party last month I drove myself batshit trying to make the menu, a task I usually love. It was a miserable process. "Just serve frozen pizza!" Kara suggested. To which I said, "Um, hello. My name is Robin. You obviously have never met me before. I could have sworn we met in March of 2001. It was at the art museum, after I'd spent the entire morning cranking out homemade sausages."

(Really, Kara, did you know that? The day we met, I had spent the morning making homemade sausage. Spicy chicken sausage patties and bratwurst, if memory serves. They would have been tasty while we were waiting three hours in line.)

But I digress, as usual.

Cooking has given me so much pleasure of the years. It's comforted me. When I was hating my video production job, I'd go home and cook. When I moved to St. Louis and didn't know anyone but B. and honestly thought I might curl up and rot from lonliness, I found company in baking loaf afer loaf of homemade bread and teaching myself to can. When Clara Jane was a baby, I redeemed my breastfeeding failures by making all of her babyfood.

A few days before my thirtieth birthday, I catered a luncheon attended by a restaurant critic from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The same person who fired the previous caterer. I spent most of the luncheon outside, pacing and making nervous phone calls to B. and my mom, terrified of what I'd face when I re-entered the dining room.

Eventually, I had to slip back in to survey the wreckage of the buffet: smoked chicken served on warm biscuits speckled with fresh sage and spicy mayonnaise I made from scratch, a field green salad with fresh figs, Maytag blue cheese, Missouri black walnuts and a maple vinaigrette, and a curried apple-butternut squash soup. As I quietly began to clear the remains, the critic noticed my presence, stopped the meeting and stood.

"Excuse me," she announced. "We need to take a moment to recognize the chef. Brava." She began to clap. "Brava!"

I stood there, surely red-faced and stunned as each person applauded my work. Ever the cynic, my first thought was that it was sarcasm on a rather grand scale. But it wasn't.

Minutes later, as the meeting broke up, the critic approached me, "That soup was sublime," she said. "I can usually place every flavor in a dish, but you've stumped me. What's your secret?" I simply smiled and thanked her, divulging nothing.

That was my culinary triumph, the moment when I proved to myself that I could do what I had set out to do. I'm sure that will remain one of the proudest moments of my life, and I'm so glad to have had that experience. And while I know that won't be happening again, as I leave yet another chapter of my life, it's not even slightly bittersweet. I haven't thought about that catering job in a long time, or how amazing it felt to get that level of recognition. Especially since I did it all by myself. I never had any employees during my brief catering career. It was all me. And I did it.

For dinner tonight, I tossed some frozen Cajun chicken kebobs from Target into a pan, tore up a head of Boston lettuce and whipped up a pseudo-Caesar dressing of commercially-made mayo, white balsamic vinegar, garlic, Parmeasan cheese and olive oil. And for the first time in ages, I lingered in my kitchen, inhaling the pungency of my dressing as it spun in my blender, amazed that just last night, while doing what I didn't realize would be my last catering job, I was mentally begging the universe for a break from the kitchen. Little did I know that quitting would immediately give it back to me. I have missed it.

Posted by Robin at 07:44 PM | Comments (7)

October 13, 2005

Pluck You

As promised, I hauled my shaggy, shaggy eyebrows and my Fu-Manchuesque chin to the salon today and paid somebody to rip the hairs from the face part of my head.

Let me repeat...

I paid someone to rip the motherfucking hair from my face.

Let me tell you, that is some hurting shit.

I have the utmost respect for the people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to making us kinky-headed, hirsute, pasty-fleshed, dimpled-assed behemouths palatable for the general public. And to lie me down on a comfy massage table, blindfold me lay a warm lavender-scented cloth over my eyes, and tell me what a beautiful brow I have in the process? My God, you are an angel.

That having been said, I had a weird thought while I was lying on that table, having my face plucked clean like a fancy hairless cat. What leads someone to be a professional plucker? I know the obvious connection: perfect career for someone who couldn't quite cut it in the dominatrix/pain infliction field. But that's far too simple and demeaning.

And then I had another thought. I know someone - and I think we all know someone like this - who cannot keep her hands off the grossest, most awful things the human body produces. This person I know, I have seen her thrill in squeezing of blackheads that don't belong to her. Got a sunburn? Call her when you start peeling, because she really wants to be the one to grab that wrinkle of dead skin at your waist and carefully pull it until it reaches your neck in one full sheet.

While she has made a successful career for herself in a field that doesn't involve pus and plucking, I think she might have missed her calling, a line of work that would truly fulfill her. She could have made a fortune with a pair of tweezer and a vat of hot wax.

I think my plucker might have been able to read these thoughts while she worked. And while I didn't mean them in a malicious manner at all, I think she might have taken them as they weren't intended.

This is my newly-shaped brow:

Lovely, no?

Look closely at the far left edge of my brow.

Now, look at the far right edge of the right eyebrow:

My eyebrows, they are to the extreme. I rock the mike like a vandal. Light up the stage and wax my brow like a candle.

Posted by Robin at 11:06 PM | Comments (7)

July 01, 2005

No Responsibilities Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

Will tacking the words "electric boogaloo" onto a fake sequel ever cease to be funny? I think not.

Today's shopping excursion wasn't all I had hoped. For starters, I thought I was going to have to beat the driver of a Volvo (possibly the same driver FP encountered yesterday) in the parking garage at Crate & Barrel. A word to the wise: don't whip your tiny car into a tiny space, then decide at the last minute you'd rather have a much more luxurious space, leaving the tiny space - which happens to be the last available space on that level of the garage - for the driver of a truck (me) and the driver of a minivan to fight over. Just don't do that. It's stupid. Learn to park. Twit.

Most of my shopping wasn't for me. It was for three people who have birthdays in the next few weeks. For the record, if you have a birthday in July and want to be friends with me, I'm afraid I have no room for you in my life. Same goes for people born in February, March and December. I have met my birthday quotas for those months. If you really want to be my friend, I require that you change your birthday to a less populated month. April or August, perhaps.

My parents have insured me a lifetime of annoyance, simply by their birthdates. Mom's is two weeks before Christmas. Dad's is two weeks after Father's Day; and in an added bit of fun, three days after Kara's. Why do the people I love hate me?

So, I hit Crate & Barrel for two items I should have purchased when I was there last night. Then I went to the Galleria. Where I also went last night. Sort of takes the fun out of shopping when you keep going to the same places every 15 hours. I hit the new Urban Outfitters, because we all know how much my dad wants this shirt for his big 5-6 birthday. But I just can't quite bring myself to give my money to Urban Outfitters. On one hand, I don't like the politics and business practices of their owner, especially the owner's support of anti-gay senator Rick Santorum. But on the other hand, UO employs 1/2 of my favorite gay about-to-be committed couple. I love this couple (Yo! Big Daddy B!) and it makes me giggle that UO funds their gay, gay lifestyle. A conundrum, indeed. I wound up not buying anything.

While I thought shopping sans Clara "Pulls Clothes Off Racks" Jane would be easier, it wasn't. I missed her. I missed having her stroller to hold my bags. But mostly, I missed her. And her stroller, for holding my drink.

Posted by Robin at 04:18 PM | Comments (4)

June 30, 2005

What a day with no responsibilities really looks like

Several years ago, Kara and I made a whirlwind trip to Chicago to catch a massive Van Gogh and Gaugin exhibit. I will never forget waiting in the crowd gathered in front of "The Starry Night, and that first glimpse of the whirling swirls of indigo and gold. My breath caught in my throat and tears in my eyes, I thought, "This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Then, two years and a month later, I first laid eyes on my daughter and I thought, "'Starry Night' has been relegated to second place. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Now, we have a contender for the #3 spot on the big countdown of Most Beautiful Things I Have Ever Seen: a day with no responsibilities!

What I've done today:

-slept until 10 a.m.

-read lots and lots of blogs.

-cranked up the Buck Ownes/Jeff Tweedy/Bobby Bare Jr./Radney Foster version of "Take This Job and Shove It" and sang it at the top of my lungs.

-took a shower where I washed my hair, lathered my body and shaved my legs - all during the same shower!!

-ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast and jalapeno and cheddar sausage for lunch, and granola bars. Lots and lots of granola bars.

-knit. The first sleeve of the hoodie is almost finished, which means the end of the project is in sight.

-saw some real nutso parents on Dr. Phil. Parents who raise their son to be the next Barry Manilow need to be imprisoned, because the world does not need one Barry Manilow, nevermind a second generation of Barry Manilow. Feeling vindicated for not being That Parent. You know the one. The one whose child shows interest in the family piano at 18 months and says, "She's gifted! She's a musician!" instead of, "Oh great. Another way for her to make noise."

-watched my stupid little dog Murphy stay in the same chair for over six hours. It's not healthy for dogs to stay in the same chair for six hours. It cuts off the circulation to their tiny, tiny brains, and Murphy just can't afford that.

-did a full routine of exercises to fix the sliced n' diced C-section muscles. During yesterday's doctor's visit I learned that I'm 28 pounds lighter than I was when I got pregnant (and 11 pounds lighter than I was six months ago), but I wear a size larger than I did two years ago. Because I have no muscles. Clara Jane ate them.

-realized that I sell myself short on everything I do on a day-to-day basis as a parent. I convince myself that I'm being lazy and not doing anything when I'm taking care of the kiddo. Now that I'm having a day where I really am being lazy and not doing anything, I realize that I'm so, so, so wrong in thinking that I'm phoning it in with Clara Jane. And that knowledge makes me feel much better about myself and what I'm doing.

Posted by Robin at 03:01 PM | Comments (8)

June 29, 2005

Looking towards the future

Now that I'm officially free of one of my jobs, and my child is off visiting her grandparents for a few days, I'm able to look ahead at the next few days of my life, the first days in four years that my official title is once again Unemployed Writer.

I had planned to spend Thursday and Friday writing the article that was due on Friday. Oh, did I not mention that I up and quit two days before deadline? Well, I did. And do you think I passed along the stuff I'd researched for the piece, so another writer could finish it? Why no, I did not.

"Do you realize that you have absolutely nothing to do tomorrow?" B. said before he walked out the door to fetch some Taco Bell therapy. Because when one quits ones job as a food writer, one must celebrate by eating the worst food possible. "You will tell me what it's like, this day with no responsibilities, yes?"

To which I replied, "Shut the hell up and go get me one of those new foldy-uppy things they keep advertising. And two MexiMelts. Bitch." Not because I'm angry with him. I'm not. I just have lots of extra testosterone coursing through my body, what with today's Massive Testicular Workout.

So while he was out getting me the requested suet and chemicals, I put some thought into what I'm going to do over the next few days. I've got plans, People. I've got big, big plans.

Thursday:

Sleep until dogs decide that I must be dead and begin to nibble on my toes for fear that they will never get fed again.

Dig through dirty clothes and find oldest, smelliest pajamas. Wear pajamas to get used to the feel of unwashed desperation that comes with being an Unemployed Writer.

Eat box of granola bars and nothing else, for I am Unemployed Food Writer! The search for obscure gourmet goodies has officially ended! Bring on the Ding-Dongs and Moonpies! And maybe a one-gallon can of Costco nacho cheese!

Friday

Go to mall. Spend equivilent of last paycheck on body gems and Star Jones-brand shoes.

Go to drive-in. Make B. ride in the bed of the truck, under a tarp, because we can't be spending superflous money anymore.

Saturday

Do extensive research to decifer what combination of Thai food and martinis makes for the most colorful vomit.

Don't ever say that I don't plan for the future.

Posted by Robin at 08:50 PM | Comments (6)

Effefctive immediately.

The job situation has been resolved. Today, I quit. Effective immediately.

Overall, I'm relieved. Shaky, but relieved. Wanting to cry, but relieved.

I talked to B. this morning and told him I had written my letter of resignation and then deleted it. It felt good just to write it. And let's face it, if writing a resignation letter feels good, there's a reason.

There were nagging "what ifs". What if the loss of the paycheck - meager as it was - hurts us? What if I'm skewering my writing career? What if I regret the decision down the road?

Honestly, though, has anyone ever felt really good about writing a letter of resignation, and then regretted sending it?

B. pointed out the aggrivation factor, which I wasn't even seeing. Every month, while working on my column, I'm perpetually aggrivated. Usually from having to chase people for interviews. As he put it, I could benefit by losing the aggrivation. He and Clara Jane definitely could do without it, too.

A few hours after that conversation, I finally got an email from my editor. In it, she went into detail with every column I've submitted since November. That's seven columns, all of which she published with no complaints. There was one column that she later said wasn't the best fit, but it didn't stop her from publishing it, did it?

Today, I found myself with an email that contained a grocery list of problems with almost every column I've submitted and she's published over the past seven months.

Now, if you were someone's boss, and you thought that person's work was slipping, would you wait eight months to say a goddamn thing about it? I didn't think so.

And that's why, if you're in the St. Louis area, you will no longer see my byline in the print edition of Sauce Magazine*.

I've had my cry over it. And yes, there's some disappointment. This isn't how I expected it to go. I didn't expect to spend four years writing the exact same column for a freebie newspaper. I expected it to be a stepping stone, and so far, it hasn't been. It's been good for my writing portfolio, at least. I do wonder if my comfort with this job prevented me from pursuing more freelance work. I guess we'll find out.

This is so corny, and I know you're all going to gag when you read it. But yesterday, when I was in a total anxious fret over what to do with this situation, I had to rock Clara Jane to sleep for her nap. I was holding her, my mind completely filled with magazine crap, when she suddenly laid her face against mine. I absent-mindedly gave her a kiss on the forehead. She pulled back and looked at me with the most beautiful grin. Then she giggled and leaned in for another kiss. And another. And another, until she giggled herself to sleep.

No editor is going to give me that feeling. No byline is going to give me that feeling. No reader is going to give me that feeling. I don't want to waste anymore of my time and Clara Jane's, chasing people for interviews about salad dressing. Or being distracted because an editor has decided to whack me with seven months of my failings all at once.

I always thought I would work and be a mom but the more entrenched I become in being a mom, the less I care about work. The less it fulfills me. I know I made the right decision today. I'm 100% sure of it and those "what ifs" are long gone.

But that doesn't mean I'm not sad that yet another part of my life has come to a close. This was the job I always dreamed of having, from the time I was a little girl. I fulfilled it. I can mark it off the to-do list of my life, which also means saying goodbye.

*Do you honestly think I'm going to link to them? No way. If you want to pay them a visit, they're easy enough to find.

Posted by Robin at 01:10 PM | Comments (14)

June 27, 2005

Not Working

As you might have noticed, I've been doing a bit of whining about my work situation. And really, I'm tired of whining about it. I really am. But it's still pressing on my mind.

I'm bracing myself for the next communication from my editor, and you know I'm going to jump out of my damn skin every time the phone rings or my email notification jingles. And I don't know why, exactly. Logically, I know that all of this will work in the long run, whether I keep my column or not. It's just the confrontation that I dread.

I can't seem to get past this idea that anyone who employs me is doing me a huge favor, especially when it's a job I truly enjoy. Or worse, when it's a job I absolutely hate.

And I've put up with some jobs I hate, let me tell you. When I was fifteen I worked at my hometown's Western Sizzlin', where I was thought to be hard of hearing and "slow" because in my first days I had to stop and ask, "What?" many, many times. Not because I'm hard of hearing or slow, but because I couldn't understand a word my hillbilly co-workers said.

And that's how I was treated for the year and a half I worked there. Not once did I stand up and say, "Hey, you pack of ignorant high school drop-out welfare moms - you may be a wunderkind at taking steak orders and avoiding the rush at the free clinic, but I've got an IQ over 130. I may not fill iced tea glasses to your exacting specifications, but you're going to be working here until the health department kicks you out while I'm off to bigger and better things." I just took what they dished out. In the time I worked there, my school life involved maintaining a B average, winning speech and debate awards, founding and presiding over the school's creative writer's group, editing the school newspaper and acting as vice-president of the anti-drug group. And yet, my feelings of worth were dictating by the morons at that job.

Because I was lucky to have someone giving me money, and I needed to do everything in my power to make sure they didn't stop giving me money.

I eventually left that job when my boss wouldn't give me a week off to attend Girl's State, where this hard of hearing and slow kid held office, thankyouverymuch. When I returned I got a job working at a little mom and pop pizza place. Wonderful job with great bosses. And the whole time I worked for them, I wondered why in the hell I'd spent all that time at Western Sizzlin', taking abuse and being treated like less of a person when, just a mile down the road, there was a place that would pay me and treat me with respect. What a concept.

Unfortunately, that little pizza place was the exception, not the rule, in my working life. From there I went on to working at a plus-size clothing store with a bulemic district manager who once told me I looked like a "streetwalker". Then it was an art gallery/upscale clothing store with the manager who called me a fucking bitch when I put in my notice.

Then it was on to my job as a personal assistant for a family that owned hotels, with my office in their home. That was fine for awhile, but eventually I think they began to view me as family, which means they began to view me as slave labor. I was in college at the time, and eventually found myself devoting more of my time and energy to keeping the peace at my job instead of concentrating on my studies. Anything for a job at the cost of everything else. Even my education.

My next job was as a receptionist for a video production job at a large university, where I had been interning for a year. After six months my boss left and I moved into her position ... sort of. Since I didn't have all of her experience and education, I moved into her position, with about 50 percent of her pay. Oh, and with a list of new responsibilities. They created a new position for me - I think the original title was Kick the Fuck Out of Me and Pay Me a Poverty Wage. Instead of putting this position under the manager of the video production department, they put it under the manager of the film library. Of course! The manager of the film library knows all about producing interactive video classes for live broadcast over the university system's T1 network, right? Of course.

Or not.

My immediate manager had no idea how to do my job, and he assumed I didn't know, either. He would go for weeks without saying one word to me for no reason. Literally, he would walk into our communal office in the morning, say hello to everyone else, and not say one damn word to me. His boss would routinely scream his head off at me for mistakes I didn't make.

I was routinely told that I was young and without a degree, and I should be thankful to have the job at all. Nevermind that I was good at what I was doing. That didn't matter. I put up with this for four years.

I don't mean for this to sound like, "Woe is me; I've been mistreated by everyone I've worked for." I now realize that I was as much, if not more, at fault than my bosses, because I allowed them to treat me this way. By keeping my mouth shut and just working harder after each brow-beating, I sent the message that what they were doing was not only ok, but it was working. The more they yelled, the harder I worked, at the expense of everything else in my life. Because I never really thought I deserved better.

When I moved to St. Louis I was lucky enough to marry someone whose salary could support both of us. Not in the lap of luxury, but we could get by while I tried to figure out what to do next. I went to culinary school, determined to never, ever again get stuck in a job that I hated because I didn't think I could do better. I wanted to do something I loved, and I have been so, so lucky since then.

But old habits ... is it any wonder that now, when faced with a possible confrontation with a good boss, one who has always treated me with respect and regular raises, I'm a ball of knots? Realistically, I know that we'll talk things out, maybe make some changes, and all will be well. But in my mind, I'm still the hard of hearing and slow kid, and the boss won't see me as anything but that, no matter how completely wrong his interpretation of me is.

Posted by Robin at 09:58 AM | Comments (2)

May 31, 2005

It's a tidbit kind of day

I'm tired, so stringing together something thoughtful and pithy probably isn't going to happen. Here's some chunks from my day:

Clara "Ambien" Jane woke up before 7 a.m. this morning. Now, I know those of you with early-rising children are going to hate me for this, and I totally encourage you to hurl heavy items and obscenities at me. But dammit, it's soooooooooo hard when she wakes up that early. She usually sleeps until 8-8:30. I'm spoiled. Slap me.

But the good news: we were able to make our weekly Target pilgrimage early, before all the good parking spaces by the cart corrals were taken. While we were there, we had the type of encounter that leads to me drawing conclusions about the lack of friendliness in this city.

There was another mom that we kept seeing in the store. She had an infant and a little boy, about two years old. Granted, it was before 10 a.m. and she was carting around a couple of kids, which gives her every right to be surly. I would be, too. I smiled every time I saw her, and every time she glared at me.

But her little boy ... oh, he had eyes for Clara Jane. Whenever we'd pass he'd just gaze at her and grin. Around the fifth time we saw them, he paused, smiled, and said hi to her.

Clara Jane looked at him, looked at me, pointed at him and announced, "Mama! He's a baby!" The poor little guy looked absolutely crushed, not realizing that in Clara Jane's vernacular, everyone is a baby. His mother glared at me extra-hard for that one.

Clara Jane asked to take a nap when we got home. Parents with poor sleepers, you're welcome to kick me in the shins and my husband in the groin for that one. If you could see how Clara Jane presses her hand to the side of her face (the sign for "sleep") and sighs, "Seeeeep," you'd probably want to kick her, too. Or maybe just startle her. It's adorable and it makes me absurdly thankful that for the most part, I have the easiest child in the world.

She napped. I knitted. I've finally started working on my first sweater project. It's a darling little pink and pink varigated striped hoodie from the beautiful Nursery Knits. I finished the baby blanket I was knitting; now I just need to learn how to block it.

This afternoon, after making catering deliveries, I sat myself down and watched a rerun of "Oprah" regarding how women should release their inner sexpot. I've got some issues with this. And of course, you're going to hear them:

1. One week, Oprah is whole-heartedly agreeing with Trinny and Susannah that us gals need to give up the flimsy support-nothing underdrawers and go for the supportive granny garments that are ugly on the inside but pretty on the outside. Now Oprah's whole-heartedly agreeing with Kim Catrall that we need to ditch the granny panties and go with the thongs. Which one is it, Oprah? And why are you so interested in my underdrawers, anyway?

2. Don't tell me that I have an inner sexpot who's dying to get out. I had an inner sexpot, once, way back when. I killed her. She was crushed to death under the mounds of belly flab after the support system of my abdominals muscles was destroyed to retrieve the human being that was created by that inner sexpot. Ever see a front porch collapse with a hound dog under it? That's what happened to her. And just to make really sure she's dead, I suffocate her every day with my granny panties.

3. Frumpy, balding men who are still wearing their circa 1983 Member's Only jackets in a non-ironic way who complain that their wives are no longer the slutty little dreamboats who wooed them into marriage need to be crushed under a porch. Or they need to experience first-hand the inner-thigh chafing that happens when you wear a G-string and hump a pole to your Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease DVDs.

I'm not feeling very empowered right now, Oprah.

I'm supposed to go to the zoo tomorrow, but I'm thinking about cancelling. I'm going to call in fat and frumpy. You know you're feeling fat and frumpy when you don't feel glam enough to go to the zoo.

Posted by Robin at 08:15 PM | Comments (8)

May 17, 2005

Another magazine without my name on the byline

Comments closed because of motherfucking spammers who are getting around MT Blacklist.

Yeah, I know I said I was going to quit looking for work so I can deal with what I've got on my plate. Shut up. I'm weak and unstable; we established that long, long ago.

Yesterday I was perusing a local website and found a job listing for a writing position with a new local magazine. I won't be mentioning the website, magazine, or publisher by name because quite frankly, I don't want this person Googling all over me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I sent an email reply to the ad. I should have known things weren't quite right when I got a reply around midnight last night from the publisher, asking me to call him today.

Clara "I Woke My Mom Up Before 7 A.M. and She's Too Tired to Think of a Nickname" Jane crashed for her morning nap. Now, I cherish morning naptime. Most days, that's the only solo time I get. Any opportunity for breakfasting, blogging, knitting, reading, work or basic hygiene occurs during that precious time (anywhere from two hours to twenty minutes) when she's sawing baby-logs. I don't part with that time for much, but I thought this magazine position might be worth sacrificing a bit of my "special time".

He answered the phone, and I introduced myself. He asked what I do. I told him that I've been a regular columnist for another local publication for almost four years.

"How much they pay you?" he blurted. "Or do they pay you at all?"

Hm. We're off to a professional start, don't you think?

The publication he's starting sounds all well and good. The copy isn't ad-driven (meaning, the articles aren't just long advertisements pretending to be articles), so that's good. He's focusing on things I think are important, and I definitely think there's a market for his magazine.

"But this isn't my true passion," he told me, just as I was starting to overlook the money question and think this might be a good opportunity. "This magazine will just fund what I really want to write about."

Uh oh.

When someone tells you that they want to write about their passion, and it requires funding, it usually means either one of two things. Either:

1) His passion involves erotica for the karaoke community (or fill in whatever obscure fetish you like).

-or-

2) His passion involves being a wing-nut.

In this case, we're going with option #2.

"Things just aren't right in the world. You got kids?"

"Uh, yeah. A daughter."

"She in school?"

"No. She's only 15 months."

"Did you know anyone can walk into a public school and take your kid?"

"Why no, I didn't know that. I figured the security guards who man the metal detectors at the entrance might stop them. I enjoy my naivity."

(Ok, that's not really what I said. I can't remember what I said. I think I might have just grunted.)

"I got a gun pulled on me a few nights ago. Things aren't right in this city. Things the press won't touch. I'm going to piss people off with the things I've got to say. People are going to be pissed. Jordan, put that down! Jordan! Jordan!!! Leave your brother alone! Sorry. I have four sons. Anyway, I've got things to say that will piss people off, but that's for my next magazine, after I get this one up and running. Can I call you in a few days and we can set up a time to meet?"

Something tells me that I'm not going to be home and my voicemail is going to be on the fritz should he follow through with that plan.

Posted by Robin at 11:55 AM | Comments (3)