I am 11′ Tall!
Category: Uncategorized
Happily Ever After?
I have been a little out of sorts this week, and couldn’t figure out why. I think it may be because a year ago on Friday, I was laid off from a job.
I had a spate of very bad career luck from 2006 until January of this year. Summer of 2006, merger restructure forced me back onto the market. I spent 3 months in this shack of an office, between a woman whose patterns of speech resembled Eric Cartman, if Eric Cartman had Tourette’s and a girl who was frequently crusted over with mouth consuming cold sores, then 9 months in a surreal environment requiring a 2 hour, one-way commute with a carsick infant (who would sometimes vomit 3 times before we could get to or from the daycare–he still gets carsick, but now he’s old enough to purge himself daintily, whereas before, it was projectile warfare.), and finally ended up as the Andy Sachs to a version of Miranda Priestly for 21 months til I was laid off (that’s 17 months longer than any other Andys lasted, and 3 months less than The Emily preceding me lasted. I wear that dubious honor with some kind of sick pride, and wish the current Andy buen suerte–may she take my crown and become the New Emily.) After that layoff sent me sprawling back onto the pavement, I had a brief stint with another company, where I was [information redacted per legal agreement.]
As you can see, I’ve had an interesting time of it. So has my salary.
From 2006 to 2007, I saw my salary increase by nearly 40%. From 2009 to now, my salary has decreased by 75%. Horrifying, isn’t it? Granted, if you’re going to work for Miranda Priestly, they’d better be paying you!
I always feel a little nervous when I consider my current rate of pay. Fortunately, my husband has been very smart with our finances, and we live debt free. We bought a house well under what we could afford and cars that were well within our budget, so that evens out the cell phone and internet fees. But we still feel a 75% cut.
You know what I am not feeling, though? Sick.
From mid-2007 through February of this year, I was having migraine headaches on a regular, weekly basis, severe jaw pain, and my bowels were bleeding. Since settling into this job, I have not had a single bleed, my jaw is in great shape, and I’ve only had a couple of migraines. I’ve also gained a few pounds of happy fat, which I am now trying to turn into happy healthy weight loss, so I can fit into my pants.
Once Thor is in school and out of daycare, we’ll feel some financial relief, and I hope that I’ll be able to promote in due time, but I am feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. Hopeful feels good.
I have had a few good managers, including the wonderful Charlcye, and a lot of brilliant coworkers, but this is the first time in my career that I can say I have a great boss and entirely great coworkers, and great executives in charge all at the same time. Small office or large, I have never worked with such a good group of people.
I shouldn’t be feeling out of sorts. I should be feeling happy. I guess after such a run of bad luck, I’m a little gunshy.
Don’t Make Me Wet My Pants
Kindergarten hasn’t even begun, and I am already that mother. But, as all of those mothers do, I feel completely justified!
I couldn’t find Thor for about 20 minutes after the parent part of the school open house was finished. 10 of those minutes, I was on a tour and looking for him idly as I was led around the school. 7 of those minutes I was looking for him with a low level of alarm that he might be worried about where I was. For 3 of those minutes, I was pants-wetting horrified, and ready to call 9-1-1 from inside the school.
Today I thought about it. What if something had happened? The administration needs to know that there was confusion, so they can make it better. Right? You don’t have to agree. Just pretend. Smile and nod. I sent my first mother-of-a-public-school-child-email and he hasn’t even stepped foot inside a classroom. I hope I set a kind tone.
Dear Ms. Personincharge,
We met briefly last night at the Kindergarten Round-Up. Thank you for taking the time to say hello, and tell us about the school. B and I are looking forward to our son’s education, and this was a lot of fun for me. I was happy to get a chance to tour the campus and see where our son, Thor, will be going to school. He was excited by his visit, and is looking forward to Kindergarten.
After my tour of the school, I went to find him and had a few minutes of panic. Upon arrival, we were told that Thor was going to go visit a Kindergarten classroom, and I would pick him up when I had finished all my paperwork. When I went to the Kindergarten classrooms, there were no children there. I walked the hallways twice, running across two tours of children, not finding mine in either group, meeting a few other parents with the same problem.
After ten minutes, all I could think was, “Oh no! One of the registered sex offenders from the neighborhood knew this was the Kindergarten Round Up, and… Oh no!” I was already surprisingly overwhelmed by the idea of “losing my baby” to school, and (being the dramatic sort) the idea of actually losing him made it a little hard to think clearly.
I realized that I had handed Thor over to a student, without showing ID, or in some way tagging myself as being his parent, and sent him on his way. In all the excitement, anyone could have walked out the door with him. Or, he might have walked out the door himself, trying to find me. That was irresponsible of me, and I should have insisted on more information before letting the process take over my instincts.
I finally found the student who had taken responsibility for him, and she said I would find Thor on the playground. There he was! He was swinging away, happy as a lark. I was happy, too.
I’m sure you can see how the process seemed a tad disorganized and disconcerting, especially as someone who doesn’t know the layout of the school very well and had to really search to find her child. I love the idea that kindergarteners got fifth-grade buddies to show them around. That made Thor feel very important. But I wonder if they wouldn’t also benefit from having an adult responsible for who belongs to whom? If there is interest, I’d be happy to collect some ideas of how other schools do their orientations and present the PTA with some strategies that might help everyone get a little more out of it next year, and save another parent the bladder-wrenching worry that their child has vanished.
Again, thank you so much for your time! The 5th Grade students were delightful, and gave a great tour. I think Thor is going to be very happy at [the school], and I hope B and I can be helpful.
Best Regards,
Lane
Mirror Image
But first…
Isn’t it funny how differently we see ourselves, compared to how others see us? I spent years hating how fat I was–er, and I wasn’t fat. In fact, Karen once told me how I had hurt her self-image by being so obsessed with my own. Our weights weren’t much different, but because I was always so upset about mine, it made her wonder how enormous I thought she was. Never even occurred to me to think she was anything other than fit, by the way.
My self-image was largely colored by having spent some formative years in the entertainment industry, where the standard is 20lbs underweight. I was usually only 5lbs underweight, thus a moose. I was in my 20s before I started feeling okay with my body, and in my 30s and 25lbs overweight before I could enjoy it. You know what started me on the journey?
My mother and I were Christmas shopping at a very busy mall. We were in Macy’s, and it was teeming with shoppers. We got separated (when I stopped in the shoe department), and I set out to find her. As I walked, looking for Mom, I was checking out everyone. Cute haircut here, adorable skirt there, good looking guy, pretty girl. All kinds of things to see.
I noticed a really cute girl through the crowd and was craning to see her better. I couldn’t get a clear look, but her hair was freaking adorable, and I liked what I could see of her sweater. The closer I got, the cuter I thought she was, until I decided that when I passed her, I was going to say so. I like complimenting people. I know it makes my day to be complimented–might make someone elses.
I was still looking out for my mother, but keeping Cute Girl in sight. Little glimpses of her came through the bodies, and I smiled. She smiled back. So cute! Maybe I was going to make a friend? Then, I realized, through the crowd, that we were on a collision course and my attitude toward her changed. She was going to need to step out of the way. I don’t know why I got my back up over it, but I did.
Still couldn’t see her clearly because I was dodging Christmas shoppers, but I could tell we were going to collide if she didn’t step out of the–CRASH!
I didn’t know what hit me. I was stunned. I saw stars. It was like a car accident. My nose hurt so bad!
But where was Cute Girl?
It took me a couple of seconds to shake my head clear. Took me a split second longer to realize that I had walked right into a mirrored column.
Another second, I realized that the cute girl with the sweater and the adorbs hair was…me.
I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, and was happy to see that the other shoppers were engrossed in trying to snatch things out of one another’s hands, and I took off, found my mother, and explained why I suddenly had a splitting headache and couldn’t stop laughing.
See, I had no idea what I looked like. None. You’d think that a girl who spent as much time inspecting her reflection as I did would have a pretty good idea of her own image. Nope. I was clueless. I thought of myself as Little Dull Dumpy.
Presented with my image as someone outside of myself, I had thought I had a great smile, a cute figure, and wanted to meet me. And, presented with that reality came the understanding that my self-image was crap. I had some work to do. I had a lot of work to do.
A couple of years later, Renae and I were sitting in a cafe in New Orleans. I was moaning about never being able to get the exact haircut I wanted. I hated my hair and my crazy cowlicks, and was gesticulating (probably wildly) about how awful it was.
“See that?” I pointed to the back of a girl’s head in a mirror. “That is how it should look! That right there! That is the haircut I want.”
You know where this is going, don’t you?
Renae tilted her head at me, blinking. “Uh, Lane?”
Yes. It was a reflection of the back of my own head. The back of my perfectly coiffed head.
Body dysmorphia is real. I’m very fortunate to have had the embarrassing luck of seeing myself through the eyes of a stranger twice. It’s forced me to really consider how I feel about myself, and forced me to take true stock of what makes me who I am.
What makes me who I am is not what I look like, what I wear, or how awesome my hair looks. What makes me who I am is that I can recognize beauty in other people and appreciate them. What makes me who I am is that I am not jealous when I see another cute girl, but I want to tell her how pretty I think she is. What makes me who I am is that I want to be around people kinder, smarter, funnier, better looking than I. That’s worth a lot more than my hips, thighs, or crooked nostrils.
Updates
I was making some changes to the blog this morning and realized how dependent I have become on Excel. How am I supposed to alphabetize without Excel?! I am expected to move these things manually? Well, it just can’t be done right now. I will wait until I get home to my beloved spreadsheet.
Changes include: I created a WWK archive with links to all the profiles. Should be easier to navigate that way. Will be much easier once I can alphabetize the list.
I also dropped the link to the blog about Thor. He shouldn’t be that easy to find, right?
The gracious links to this blog from Julie-Anne Rhodes, Martha Brockenbrough, and Pamela Ribon have increased site traffic, and I am feeling the pressure to be entertaining. Those of you who know me best know what that means.
I’m going to have to tell the homeless man story.
No. I’m going to have to tell the whole story, start to finish, of how I ended up sitting, sobbing curbside of a porno boutique in NYC, with a homeless man offering me his last three dollars. Including how I became briefly involved with a mafia run ticket scalping ring, was chased by police twice, and was asked for my autograph for just looking famous.
This could take a while.
The Outside Lane 