Almostgotit.com

What would you do if you had no fear? 
Living your dreams
while quakin’ in your boots

By Diane Conway,
with foreword by Anne Lamott

One of the things I’d do is be the first to comment on Powell Books’ website on a book I hadn’t even actually read yet. (they give random prizes for first-persons-to-comment, and ever since I won Door Prize #3 that one time, I’ve grown a bit cocky.)

I keep googling this book. I’ve been wanting to buy it for about a year now but keep running out of book money (I’m a little bad).  But look: it’s got about the world’s best title. And it has a foreword by Anne Lamott, how cool and irresistible is that? Because that’s enough reason to buy the book right there. And another reason is because I wish I had written it. Do you think I could use the same title, and get Anne Lamott to write my foreword, too?

I did submit a review for Powell’s, and even rated the book. I give it a “4,” not because it’s not worth a full “5″ but because giving it a 5 at this point may have been getting a little ahead of myself.  I would have edged up to a 4.5 had Powell Books given that option, but it didn’t.  

Maybe you could read this book yourself and then you can give it a five on Powell Books, and that would pull the average up to where it belongs.   Or have you read it already?  If you have, please let us know what you thought of it!

Here is what the publisher says about the book (which appears on the product page on both Powell Books and Amazon)

For this book, author Diane Conway approached a police officer, a waitress, a politician, a lawyer, a cab driver, and many others, and asked them each the same question: “What would you do if you had no fear?” The results, chronicled in this book, were both surprising and enlightening. Her respondents told her their secrets, their long-hidden dreams, and their fears. Their dreams included quitting mind-numbing jobs, applying to medical school, buying tickets to South America, finding true love, quitting drinking, or having an affair. The distance between dreaming and doing, according to Conway, is surprisingly short. In What Would You Do If You Had No Fear? her fresh voice and “Studs Terkel in drag persona” challenge readers to stop, open their hearts, and truly live. Included are self-tests, quizzes, growth exercises, and inspiring quotes for realizing one’s fear-free potential.

The author, calling herself our “slightly neurotic, frequently shaky guide” (channelling Lamott for sure) adds on Amazon that

When I saw the profound effect [asking this question] had on people, I started asking people everywhere I went. I had to overcome the fear that people would think that I’m: a) delusional or b) trying to pick them up for kinky sex.

Now doesn’t that sound like a fun read? 

Today I went and got my hair done.  You know, that thing I swore I’d never do, ten years ago?  When I decided to be the only woman left in my city with undyed hair?

Well, Forget THAT!  

So anyway, for the rest of the day I get to go around smelling beautifully of coconut and bananas, with accents of ammonia, which is just one of those little ways I remind myself I’m special.

Much sweeter, though, is the support of my friends.  Which also, by the way, costs a  heck of a lot less than my hair appointment did.   :)

Emily brought me a gorgeous present today and also paid me a most wonderful compliment about my employability (which she called “advice”).  My own husband spent a fair amount of time yesterday ignoring his other important email so he could answer mine instead.  (He said, re the toad people, that he’s got my back.  And I said he can have other sides of me too if he wants, just for that!)

And then this lovely note (which I use with permission) arrived from one of those serendipitous people who appear in one’s life sometimes and make more difference than they know:

Dear Almost,

I read your posting on turning down the IT job – and decided to offer a private reply/encouragement.

The choices one is faced with as a working/would-be-working mom are so tough!  Through my 20+ years of parenting, I have – in turn – been at home (multiple times), started a business (multiple times), been an independent contractor (multiple times), been a part-time employee (multiple times) and worked full-time (multiple times).  Navigating through each step involved hard decisions, trying to take into account where I was, where my spouse was and where our kids were at that particular stage and doing the best I could by everyone.  Some choices I would repeat, others not – but that’s the benefit of hindsight.

It sounds like you followed your instincts and made the best choice – so hopefully you can move past the toads and vinegar faced ladies (and any second guessing of your own) and look ahead to the next opportunity.  It can be so tempting to sell ourselves short just to get everybody off our back – but not worth it in the longer haul, as we have so much to contribute!

Hang in there!

I will, and thanks to all y’all. 

———-

Related Posts:
How (not) to interview for a job (the story begins)
Confusion Cookies (the story continues)
Nope (the story concludes)

I said no to the IT job.

Maybe I’ll blog about it later, but first, I have to hold my fingers in my ears for a while.  See,  the toad people and vinegar-faced ladies are massing on my borders, ready to launch a major attack.  The people under the house are muttering obscenities.  The thugs on my bus are beginning to shift in their seats, stealthily reaching for their weapons.

Photo by Yodi Ann

Drat it all.  I already know everything they want to tell me. 

It may be my last chance, it may mean major financial hardship.  People may think badly of me.  I can already think of several who will think I’m making a mistake.  Let them. 

Yes.  Statistically, women who have stayed home with their children can’t expect to be paid better than this or treated more professionally than this when they go back to work, particularly if they aren’t willing to play the game by starting from rock bottom.

Statistically, women must settle.  In real life, there is no beautiful soundtrack that plays when you make difficult, brave decisions.  There is no audience that gasps with admiration.  There’s not even a guaranteed happy ending.  In real life, bills need to be paid, obligations must be met, and compromises made.  Life plods on.  Very few people would keep working at their current jobs if they won the lottery.

And in real life, you never win the lottery. 

Instead, you learn that the difference between the right and wrong choices is rarely crystal clear.  Usually there are several options, all of them problematic, and all of them with great potential. 

Usually, you just have to do your best and choose.  And this chick chooses not to settle.

——–
Related Posts:
How (not) to interview for a job (this story begins)
Confusion Cookies (this story continues)
Woman vs. Rabbit Hole
Toad People

Have moved from cookies to olives.  Really strong, salty ones, right out of the jar.  How is it that I survived the first three decades of my life without liking olives? 

However, I am even more grateful for friends.  Some of whom I’ve not even met in person yet, but whose words, both public and private, (Thanks Ann, thanks Peggy) have been very helpful indeed.  Nor will I entertain any silly idea that the ongoing weirdness of my (almost) life is a sign of terminal uniqueness, because I know it is not. 

So.  Millenial career guru Penelope Trunk insists that one of the keys to success is taking long lunch hours, and I agree with her. 

For one thing, meeting for lunch doesn’t take nearly as long as meeting for golf, and I can’t play golf anyway.  Sharing a meal is one of those sacramentally human things for which there is really no substitute.  Call it “networking” in a career context if you want, but it’s so much more than that.

A friend asked to meet today and I happily said “yes.”  We’ve both been so busy with our own lives and all they contain that we don’t see each other as much as we would like.  Across the table, our eyes meet and we smile as we talk. 

This is the good stuff.

She just finished her classes for the term, her first as a Ph.D candidate, (hurray!)  Her life this summer will be filled with trips and beaches, dancing and driving lessons, and getting a child ready for a semester abroad.   We laughed at how this mothering just keeps going on, no matter how long it’s been since we actually had these babies.  At least we can identify, in advance, that summer will be hectic for us, a balancing act between the still-insatiable demands of our tall children and the need to carve out our own space in the midst of them, even as the tall folk inevitably object.  Which, just as inevitably, will make us feel bad, and we’ll have to persevere through that as well. 

It seems too early to call this stage a “mid-life” anything, nor are we empty-nesters just yet.  So we’ve been calling this stage “Chapter Two.”  The most demanding part of our childraising is over (except during vacations!) and we are coming up for air and to take a look around at what comes next.  Several of us (my friend included) are looking at a life without the life-and-financial partner we’d assumed would live it with us.  That’s more than a little rough.

Nor has the world waited for us. Often, weirdly, we’re less employable now than we were straight out of college, even though most of us have had several additional years of gainful employment since then. 

Go figure.

But here is something Penelope Trunk doesn’t know, because she’s not been here.  We’ve been around.  We already know how to be counter-cultural.  We’re tough, and we’ve still got lots of game. 

Watch us. 

And just for you, my friends: one of my very nice Cesar #2 Montesinos, by Tabacalera Fuente.

My little (almost) interview dilemma  continued today.  I guess one ought not to blog about such things until they’re resolved (lest one get dooced).  But suffice it to say that it’s probably not a good idea to get a phone call from one’s daughter’s elementary school right in the middle of a job interview, which of course one has to take due to one’s suspicions (which turn out to be correct) that one’s spouse has neglected to pick up said daughter from said school. 

Furthermore?  It’s also probably not done, in the best circles, to arrive at a job interview without a car, niavely assuming both (a) that said spouse will pick up said daughter and (b) that it will not rain torrentially. 

And finally, it is much preferred that one not end a job interview mid-stream by bumming a ride from one’s interviewers to go rescue one’s daughter.

——
Related Posts:
Confusion Cookies (the story continues)
Nope (the story concludes)
Hanging in, and blonder too (reflection)

Still thinking about Marilee Jones.  A lot.  I’ve been reading lots of good commentary on the situation (some of the best to which I’ve posted links, right column) 

Our world, most especially the academic part of it, is still astonished at (and extremely resistant to) the idea that anyone can be so good at something without a degree.  Even in cases when they can produce two pages of (verifiable) publications and achievements. 

We can huff and puff all we want to about how a degree is a useful standardized measure of dependability or capability.  Or whatever.  We may even be right, most of the time.   But all our noise flies out the window when we have an exception right in front of us, proof in hand, and we turn the other way.  That is the point at which our myth is exposed.  We don’t care about the “dependability and capability” after all – our true fealty is to the degree!

Most of human chauvinism, of course, is based on self-interest, e.g.:  I worked hard on my own degree, and I need it to mean something.  I don’t WANT people without degrees to be as qualified as I am.  (Personally? I also permanently damaged my career in order to hand-raise my children, and thus don’t WANT the children of working parents to be as wonderful and well-adjusted as mine are!)  

Life is about exceptions, though.  And ah, confession is good for the soul. 

I don’t know Marilee Jones personally of course, but any accusation that she was a greedy “opportunist”  I dismiss out of hand.  We all are all of us that, and in this country it’s considered a virtue.

However, I do agree with other commentators that much depends upon whether she is a pathological liar.  I strongly suspect she is not.  I believe, instead, that much of the great good that she has contributed came from an interior acknowledgement of her own mistake.  As penance for it, even.  I think she has been truly sorry for much of the last 28 years. 

I also think it is absolutely wrong, even in the slightest degree, to look backwards now and recast her whole working history in light of this new information (that she had no degree.  And that she lied.)  To do so is fraudulent on our part, and only exposes our own grave disingenuity and chauvinism:

“She didn’t have a degree, so turns out she doesn’t know what she is talking about.”

“She lied, so therefore can say nothing to us at all about how to tell the truth.”

Garbage.

One of the things Marilee wrote about (and yes, we’re on first name basis now) was the importance of integrity.  In a book she co-authored last fall, Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond,  she writes:

Holding integrity is sometimes very hard to do because the temptation may be to cheat or cut corners.  But just remember that ‘what goes around come around,’ meaning that life has a funny way of giving back what you put out.

This is what I tell my kids, too.  But reading those words now makes me ache.  Just listen to her confession, her fear, even her contrition.  Thing is?  People who cheat quite often do get away with it, and people who don’t cheat quite often get shafted.  Sometimes, unfortunately, ‘virtue has to be its own reward.’  And often a pretty damned shabby one, at that.

Moreover, it’s just cheap for those who “have” to admonish those who “haven’t” for being greedy and ungrateful.

I’ve been hanging around the academy for over 20 years now.  Guys, academics do really ugly things, all of the time.  (as humans do in general, I imagine.)  They plagarize.  Have terrible, exploitative affairs. Torpedo the careers of each other’s Ph.D students out of sheer spite. 

And yes, quite often, they lie. 

According to the New York Times article on the subject of Marilee Jones’ “resignation”, Phillip L. Clay, M.I.T.’s chancellor declared:

There are some mistakes people can make for which ‘I’m sorry’ can be accepted, but this is one of those matters where the lack of integrity is sufficient all by itself.  This is a very sad situation for her and for the institution. We have obviously placed a lot of trust in her.

(The aptly-academic Latin to respond with here would be ”res ipsa loquitur“)

Dr. Clay is probably correct that there is no conceivable way that MIT or any other university could re-absorb Marilee Jones back into its ranks, but “integrity” has very little to do with it.  Jones is now a public embarrassment to them and worse, an irreducible iconoclast.   (as in, literally: “a breaker or destroyer of images, esp. those set up for religious veneration. a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition.”)

She’s gotta go. 

In a fair world, though?  Half the rest of ‘em would go with her.

—-
Related Posts: 
MIT really blew it
Marilee Jones joke
How to (Almost) get Marilee
Coming Out: I’m a closet academical

Well…It took almost exactly a year, but guess who is now officially billable at approximately 9 (That’s N-I-N-E) times her previous hourly wage as paid by The Institution Which Shall Not Be Named? And guess who is also a little horrified, given all the existential stuff that’s been going on around my house lately, by how much it even MATTERS?  (But. You know what? It DOES.)

I may even forgive my previous employer for dismantling half my portfolio (by taking down the website I’d built for them, one which was getting national attention – the whole unpleasant email discussion about which was then forwarded to me by the webmaster) (A few days before I found out I’d also not been invited to my own retirement party.) (On my birthday.)  (Just as the professional theatre I’d applied to was finally rejecting me after several sets of interviews.) (And not long after someone, who should have known better,  helpfully told me that my previous employer and board all found me “inflammatory”)

(Oh, my God, the woe…..) 

It’s still hardly any hours.  It’s still not a salary.  It may not be what I want to do with the rest of my life.  

But I will so definitely TAKE IT!  Here, have a cigar.  And guess what?  You’re next!

(and, um, that “inflammatory” thing? That’s just me, with my lighter.  And the fattest cigar you’ve ever seen.  Flaming.)

The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?
by Leslie Bennetts
Publisher: Voice  (April 3, 2007)

From Booklist:
Many well-educated American women are giving up the struggle to balance career and motherhood and making the “willfully retrograde choice” of relying on men to support them and their children, Bennetts maintains. Financial dependency can jeopardize women’s futures and those of their children, she warns. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of women as well as sociologists, economists, legal scholars, and other experts, Bennetts lays out the dangers of giving up careers. She looks at how new divorce laws have altered alimony, reducing the likelihood of a lifetime guarantee of support for stay-at-home mothers after divorce. She details the impact of a loss of income on medical and retirement benefits and weighs it against lifelong financial needs. Bennetts encourages women to consider a “fifteen-year paradigm,” viewing their lives beyond the years of motherhood and asking themselves what they want from life when their children are grown and gone. Allowing women to tell their own stories of economic abandonment, Bennetts presents a cautionary tale for women pondering giving up economic independence.  (Vanessa Bush)

Ordinarily, I have no interest in participating in “The Mommy Wars.”  I think women (working at home or not) need all the support we can get, and therefore it is particularly tragic when those who should be the greatest of allies feel the need to turn on each other, instead.

This book, however, has been brought to my attention several times lately, and the things I’ve read about it seem particularly compelling as I reflect on my own current situation and that of several other women I know.  Current alimony laws are, indeed, atrocious (a perversion, no doubt, of the feminist idea that women should now find such patronization unnecessary); women who stay home with children are demonstrably much less able (ever) to catch up financially; and in today’s society, anyone who isn’t heeding the dual American gods of “I am what I do” and “I am what I am paid,” will almost certainly take a major psychological hit somewhere down the line. 

But I also think that this apparently insurmountable conflict of interest between mothers and children need not be as dire as pure statistics (and this book) might make it seem.  For instance, two members of my own family are stay-at-home fathers at the moment (though keeping hands on their respective careers as they do it.)  I also know (because I’ve done it) that it is possible to live well on much less money than the status quo would generally have us believe.  And finally, current statistics indicate that most Americans now will work at more than one career in their lives, starting over at least once,  whether or not they’ve had children in-between. 

So maybe the real story here is about something else, e.g., the mystery of why, in 21st century America, there still are so many women who still are falling down so many holes (?)

I was wrong. It is really important to know the color of your parachute, especially when you are looking for a job! And advice isn’t always a bad thing, either. Also, normally?  It is probably not a good idea to tell other people to shut up.

This is still an experiment. Viral communication is the next big thing, as Seth Godin and others have convinced me, and blogs are at the vanguard. The good news is that the threshold is very low, so it’s very easy to get started. Keeping on, though, is a lot harder than it looks.

My sister once ran a marathon with Joan Benoit. In what other sport can beginning athletes compete with Olympic gold medallists? Blogging is like that. It’s definitely a mixed bag, drawing the exhibitionists and bores right along with the experts and professionals. I have to admit my own first impressions of blogs were pretty dismissive. But as I’ve immersed myself further in the past month, I’ve been floored by the quality of writing, the gorgeous immediacy of the medium, and all the emergent possibilities for its use. Like any other kind of writing, it’s very easy to put words on a (web) page, but very difficult to do it well.

I’d like to do it well. It’s very helpful to read what many successful bloggers have written about the process.

Sort of like, oh, I don’t know, finding a new job?

Both take a lot of time, particularly at the front end, and it usually takes a while to establish the right tone (= parachute) and audience (= employer). Most of the best blogs, like careers, are those which have been heavily and repeatedly reworked, even to the point of starting over. Have you seen all the orphan blogs out there? There’s a reason for that.