Relay for Strife

Today as I walked into work, I noticed a woman a few yards ahead collecting donations for Relay For Life. She donned the full-throttle anti-cancer regalia–shirt, cap and flair–though I’m not sure what pro-cancer regalia would be, maybe a big tumor, smoking a cigarette and wearing a shirt reading “ALL UR ORGANZ R BELONG TO US“?

As I neared her, I entered the zone where the petitioner has to scope out potential donations or signatures and make the move. Our eyes met and I wasn’t sure if I could really say, “No, I’m in a hurry,” because by saying I’m too busy for cancer is just asking for a huge cheek carbuncle to grow and stretch my facial features so much that I’ll have the profile of the Jack in the Box guy. But before I could mumble an excuse, she gave me the nano-second size up and turned around like I wasn’t even there.

Dissed! Again! Then I realized why she didn’t want to ask me for a donation. She saw me and figured, she’s too fat. How could she even walk in the Relay for Life when just thinking about walking makes her tired. She probably has to iron her clothes on a hot boat.

But am I really too fat to help fight against cancer?

I’ll probably have to get signatures for my own cause: Race for a Cured Ham.

January 31, 2007 | Filed Under ha, me, ugh | 6 Comments 

So you better treat (me) right

Until I took my maternity leave last April, which turned out to be the day I maternity left, I had been working consistently since I was 19. I’ve been a front desk manager, grassroots organizer, small newspaper editor, etc. I’ve been thinking a lot about the almost-jobs I’ve had, too, the places where I had been hired but had to politely (and sometimes not so politely) refuse.

There’s a scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when right before a gun battle, Butch admits that he’s never shot anyone and Sundance instructs him to “aim for the middle ’cause you’re bound to hit something.” That line sums up how I’ve applied for jobs, especially when I don’t have a job and need that crazy thing called money.

There was a dry-cleaning place run by an attractive Asian woman (Asians and dry cleaners? Surely you jest!) and right after the interview she said, “I just want you to take this IQ test, here’s some scratch paper.” I had never heard of a dry cleaner wanting an applicant to figure out if John and Matt carpooled and Matt lived thirty minutes away from John at what speed would a train from Topeka have to be to reach Kansas City at five o’clock. I thought I would just be estimating how much it would cost to get raspberries stains out of ascots, not balancing equations. But for fifteen minutes, I was a math genius and the chemicals inside the building uncovered the seventh grade algebra lessons lodged in the bowels of my brain.

When I received the voicemail asking when I would start, I had to tell her no, I had already accepted a job elsewhere even thought that was a lie, I didn’t want to smell like I had been huffing aerosol cans all day and I don’t like doing laundry. (Tangent: And speaking of smells, I am utterly disgusted by Febreeze commercials. I mean, instead of washing and disinfecting your nasty, bacteria-laden sweaty sports gear, why not spritz it with some chemicals? That’s nastier than wearing Bea Arthur’s underwear as a face mask. Whenever I get a whiff of Febreeze, I think, “Something nearby must be really dirty.”)

This stretch of motherhood has been the longest time I have gone without working for pay and has given me time to think about what ifs. What if I had taken that job at the literary agency? What if I moonlighted as a “phone actress” for guys into shemuscles? What if I did work from 9 to 5 (pm to am) shaking what my mama gave me?

And the point of this boring, what-is-your-point-Mona entry is to say that I am no longer a stay-at-home mom. I got a job! A paying job! With benefits! Break out the exclamation points, who’s expressing strong feelings now, playa!

I decided to go back to work for several reasons. It was partly financially motivated because of small things like the car accident last month that didn’t magically pay for itself and disappear into the field where bad decisions go to die (RIP stirrup pants). There were other reasons less cogent like, I think I could really lose weight this time because I will not be within seconds of the fridge and the pint of cookies and cream inside. Truth is, I want a career. In twenty years I am supposed to be at my maximum earning potential and that is not going to happen if I continue memorizing lines from Little House on the Prairie (not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just I can’t make a living telling you what Pa Ingalls is going to say next). I want to go to grad school and use what I’ve learned for something other than owning the Victorian Literature category on Jeopardy.

My friend calls the first months the “cloud of motherhood,” that you’re stuck in a fog of baby demands and mothering and that’s great because it’s exactly what your child needs, but when your baby grows and eases up, you start to notice your own needs, too. And as she waxed hippie philosophic about discovering womanhood, wombs and the moon, I should have chimed in with something more eloquent than, “Yah, I’m just looking forward to wearing pants without elastic around the middle.”

January 29, 2007 | Filed Under me, motherhood | 8 Comments 

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