So Much to Say, and - Well, You Know the Drill

It’s a mishmash today, folks. I warn you now so you can click elsewhere if you so desire.



I watched the first two acts of When the Levees Broke last night, and I did not sleep well. It brought back all the fury, all the feelings of helplessness, all my agonized screaming at my TV: “Why isn’t anyone helping these people?”

On the family front: my grandmother is unwell and has had exploratory surgery and all kinds of tests. We haven’t been speaking to one another, but this is one of those situations where the family feud must be put on the back burner for a bit. I will probably go see her this weekend, but I’m leaving Viva and Sweet William at home.

In happier news, this morning I had a message from a small foundation who apparently has funded my agency before. The message basically amounted to this: “Hey! Why haven’t we heard from you guys? We want to give you some money!” I love funders like that.

In other happy news, a long-lost friend of mine wrote me a really long birthday letter recently, getting me up to speed on what she’s been up to. After focusing pretty much exclusively on her career for many years, and recently quitting her job, she is in love with what sounds like a fantastic guy and they are “talking seriously about the future,” by which I think she means their future together, and not “The Future! Where cars will fly, phones will be next-to-invisible and polar bears will live only in our imaginations!” At any rate, included in their future, she hopes, is a child of some sort, and she asked me how I balance the work/motherhood thing.

Balance? It really isn’t so much of a balance as it is integrating both parts together, I find. I think about work while I’m at home, and I think about home while I’m at work, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am fortunate that, when I first started back to work, Sweet W stepped up to the plate and proposed a schedule whereby we alternate cooking/picking up Viva/working out. This month, he has been on a crazy work schedule – for example, getting to work at 5 am and leaving at 2 pm, but answering calls about work on his cell phone until 9 pm – so that schedule has fallen away like so many, I don’t know, falling leaves or whatever image-based simile strikes your fancy. We do still alternate who gives Viva her bath/puts her to bed, so that helps, except when Viva is overly tired and wants it to be my night when it’s not.

I think it was also helpful to be very clear when I was searching for a job that I am not going to be the one who can stay late regularly, but I am amenable to working at home if need be. I check my e-mail when I’m at home, I bought a memory stick to transfer files back and forth from PC to laptop, and if I am in the middle of an intense project, I work through lunch so I can leave fairly close to my regular time to pick up Viva. I don’t think I would have been able to do this when Viva was a baby, because I had no clue how to manage it all. But with time and trial and error, I have found what works for me.

Of course, I didn’t say all this in my response to her, but yeah, that’s how I do it.