Almostgotit.com

Here it finally is, as requested, for my two sisters, who bought me a pedicure several months ago when I had a family member in the hospital.  I couldn’t do it until yesterday, but it was quite fun getting my feet all sanded and varnished.  And glued.  There were no magazines to read, but you can’t read anyway because the lights are really low. So instead your mind just wanders.

For instance. Have you ever seriously considered how really weird toes are?

I also couldn’t help but wonder about all the other women who were also getting spa-ish things done to themselves in the middle of a week-day, and about what interesting choices we first-worlders make with our disposable income.  My “nail technician” asked if I’d come from work, and I told her that no, I’d been home chopping wood.

That made me feel really interesting and different from all of those other shallow women, until my technician told me she’d grown up on her Asian family’s local dairy farm.  And also that she is dyslexic, wants to be a famous scientist, and has an ex-boyfriend who is probably going to go to film school.

I wonder if my dairy-farming nail technician had shown a particular talent for prying foreign objects from cow hoofs, and so made the logical career decision.  And do you think she may have trimmed one of my big toe nails a tiny-bit-crookedly?

Not that I’m calling anyone’s wrongs to mind or remembering them this week with any obsessive particularity, especially while a person I want to hug is ministering so carefully to my hooves.  But here’s a new set of gospel verses I wrote while I sat there without reading material.  The first one is called “it is easiest to forgive other people for calling you names if you are first allowed to dismiss them as wee, snotty little dweebs.”  One of the verses that follows a little further down on the same page is ”It’s also good to remember the many advantages that can accrue for those who really are, at least occasionally, (1) nasty (2) lazy (3) uppity (4) a princess (!!) and (5) even capable of “having hissy fits all over the web.”  

Uppity Royal Pedicures, for instance.  And also, *bonus feature!*  the little pink foam-core sandals they gave me when I left are already being redeemed into wonderful new things by my 11-yr old artist daughter.

My new website  is already up and running, thanks to my brilliant brother, so stay tuned for the new URL sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I’m nobody! Who are you?

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Photos by Almostgotit

Poem by Emily Dickinson

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