I had an interesting conversation with a good friend today about how as wives and mothers we feel compelled to ask permission to do – well, anything.
Even in this age of the enlightened husband/father, we still have our unhealthy doses of mother/wife guilt that somehow seep into everything we do.
And we do a lot. A helluva a lot.
There has never been so much pressure on women to do it all and be it all. With a smile. With time to spare. And yet we feel guilty when we have a night meeting. Or when we have a volunteer responsibility (often undertaken for the benefit of our children and their peers). Or when we go to a movie or for supper with a friend. Or when we don’t balance the books. Or when we get a shower.
Wait now – guilt over a shower?
We all need to shower, right? Isn’t the world a better place when you don’t stank up the joint like a rotting cowpatty?
So why do I feel the need to check that it’s “ok” for me to get a shower before I do it? I can’t remember the last time my husband asked me if it was ok for him to get in the shower.
Oh yah – that’s because it’s never frikkin’ happened.
It’s not really asking permission directly, as in “May I get a shower?” It’s more like “I’m going to hop in the shower, ok?” It’s the ok that I tack on the end. It seems like an afterthought but it is, essentially, asking permission.
And that makes me throw up a little on my twin set and poodle skirt.
Now, granted, we put a lot of this pressure on ourselves. Sure our worser halves can be jerks about stuff like this, but I believe that we (ok, I) can be paranoid about reprimands and reproachful glances that sometimes don’t exist. (Sometimes. Not all the time.)
How did we end up with this guilt and need to get sign-off before we do things? What would happen if we did as our husbands do most of the time and just said “I’m doing this right now.” The “Deal with it” would be implied. We deal with it. We may grumble, but that’s what we do. (That’s usually what they do too, but the grumbles are more whiny – at least at my house.)
But seriously – would the world fall apart without female guilt? Would shit just not get done without it?
Ugh – this topic makes me feel dirty. I’m getting a shower.
OK?
P.S. RIP Peter Falk... As you wish.
Showing posts with label litany of complaints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label litany of complaints. Show all posts
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Enough already!
As I was fishing socks out of the kitty litter, it hit me: I really need to get my shit together.1
There’s a delicately teetering balance in my life. Most days it works out just fine. Slide out a jenga block or two and, sure, the structure looks precarious, but it’s still solid. Then someone comes along and removes that piece—you know, the bottom end piece—and I’m suddenly overtaken by a thousand blocks of wood.3 And because I’m so disorganized, I can’t find the plastic guide-y thing to help me rebuild my tower.
It might start when my friend calls to ask if her daughter can hang at our place before walking to school with us. I might say, “Sure—I’ll clear a path to the living room. She’s up to date on her tetanus shots, right?” I’m only partially joking.4 She might laugh.6
It might start when I realize I’m late to pick up my daughter after school and I must, therefore, change out of my pyjamas,7 so I might run upstairs and grab my jeans off the floor,8 run back downstairs and snatch my keys and coat, and then I might reach down for my scarf, which might have fallen to the floor,9 which might unleash a cloud of dust and cat hair, which might prompt a huge MF sneeze, which, if you’ve been following this blog at all, can only mean one thing: time to change my jeans.10 I might then rush downstairs and try to liberate the pair-two jeans from the piles atop the jerry-rigged laundry shelves, on the floor under which11 I, in all my infinite wisdom, might have placed my three kitty litter boxes.12
What the fuck did I think was going to happen?
I’m guessing we all have these days when everything seems so out of control that you end up spending 95% of your time whining about about what a mess everything is, or about not being able to get anything done, or about not being able to find anything amongst the detritus of your life, which has somehow exploded in such a spectacular fashion that it’s left socks and underwear in the cat pooper.
And that, my friends, is what spurs me into action: it’s not the cat poop, or sneeze pee, or the biohazard in the kitchen sink, or the need for a tetanus booster. No, it’s me whining incessantly about how out of control everything is. Eventually I will get sick of it and say ENOUGH ALREADY! Time to stop whining and get moving—unearth the child and pet, create a clean environment, put those clothes away, update that to do list14 and ACT.
I was tired of listening to my own pathetic excuses, so this was the day I vowed to GET THINGS DONE.
So that’s what I did.
Errr... well, actually, what I did was write this blog post.
Hmmm. Never mind.
OK. TODAY is the day I GET THINGS DONE!
Wish me luck!
****************************************
1. I mean that figuratively—yes, I had dropped laundry in the kitty litter, but, miracle of miracles, I had actually scooped the kitty poop just prior to the sock incident. Small victories.2
2. But still—ewww.
3. Lazy writing alert! I feel the need to point out again that this a metaphor—not because I doubt your intelligence, but because I doubt my ability to pull off said metaphors.
4. True: I need to literally clear a path from the back door to the living room. Oddly, kids seem to take this in stride. Joke: Tetanus query. Most kids get tetanus shots at some point that are good for about 10 years, so we’re safe till they’re, like, 15. It still elicits a laugh though, so I keep it in my repertoire. However, I stopped making jokes about allergies to dust and cat hair/dander because, well, it’s not a joke here. As you will soon see.5
5. Foreshadowing. Just sayin'.
6. Homer knows.
7. Frigg off—I work at home. What would you wear?
8. I shift between two pairs of jeans, wearing one pair till they get to the point where they walk themselves to the laundry room. This pair, while on the floor, had still not made the laundry dash and could thus be considered the “clean” pair. Everything being relative and all.
9. I know, you’re shocked.
10. ‘Cause we’re not talking a few drops of pee here. It was like one of those fem hy commercials, without the blue dye. Or the fem hy. Which, really, could have made this whole post irrelevant.
11. With apologies to Winston Churchill.
12. I only have one cat, but whenever we go away and have friends looking after her, I put out three litterboxes so my kitty-sitters don’t have to change the litter while we’re gone and Snowdrop doesn’t have to claw her way into the crawl space to find a fresh place to take a poo. Hey—I may be a slob, but I’m a considerate slob. I just haven’t gotten around to consolidating the boxes since our recent trip,13 so my laundry-dropping target range is still vast.
13. I know, you’re shocked.
14. My to do list requires it’s own dedicated blog.15
15. Hell, my to do list requires its own bloody postal code.
There’s a delicately teetering balance in my life. Most days it works out just fine. Slide out a jenga block or two and, sure, the structure looks precarious, but it’s still solid. Then someone comes along and removes that piece—you know, the bottom end piece—and I’m suddenly overtaken by a thousand blocks of wood.3 And because I’m so disorganized, I can’t find the plastic guide-y thing to help me rebuild my tower.
It might start when my friend calls to ask if her daughter can hang at our place before walking to school with us. I might say, “Sure—I’ll clear a path to the living room. She’s up to date on her tetanus shots, right?” I’m only partially joking.4 She might laugh.6
It might start when I realize I’m late to pick up my daughter after school and I must, therefore, change out of my pyjamas,7 so I might run upstairs and grab my jeans off the floor,8 run back downstairs and snatch my keys and coat, and then I might reach down for my scarf, which might have fallen to the floor,9 which might unleash a cloud of dust and cat hair, which might prompt a huge MF sneeze, which, if you’ve been following this blog at all, can only mean one thing: time to change my jeans.10 I might then rush downstairs and try to liberate the pair-two jeans from the piles atop the jerry-rigged laundry shelves, on the floor under which11 I, in all my infinite wisdom, might have placed my three kitty litter boxes.12
What the fuck did I think was going to happen?
I’m guessing we all have these days when everything seems so out of control that you end up spending 95% of your time whining about about what a mess everything is, or about not being able to get anything done, or about not being able to find anything amongst the detritus of your life, which has somehow exploded in such a spectacular fashion that it’s left socks and underwear in the cat pooper.
And that, my friends, is what spurs me into action: it’s not the cat poop, or sneeze pee, or the biohazard in the kitchen sink, or the need for a tetanus booster. No, it’s me whining incessantly about how out of control everything is. Eventually I will get sick of it and say ENOUGH ALREADY! Time to stop whining and get moving—unearth the child and pet, create a clean environment, put those clothes away, update that to do list14 and ACT.
I was tired of listening to my own pathetic excuses, so this was the day I vowed to GET THINGS DONE.
So that’s what I did.
Errr... well, actually, what I did was write this blog post.
Hmmm. Never mind.
OK. TODAY is the day I GET THINGS DONE!
Wish me luck!
****************************************
1. I mean that figuratively—yes, I had dropped laundry in the kitty litter, but, miracle of miracles, I had actually scooped the kitty poop just prior to the sock incident. Small victories.2
2. But still—ewww.
3. Lazy writing alert! I feel the need to point out again that this a metaphor—not because I doubt your intelligence, but because I doubt my ability to pull off said metaphors.
4. True: I need to literally clear a path from the back door to the living room. Oddly, kids seem to take this in stride. Joke: Tetanus query. Most kids get tetanus shots at some point that are good for about 10 years, so we’re safe till they’re, like, 15. It still elicits a laugh though, so I keep it in my repertoire. However, I stopped making jokes about allergies to dust and cat hair/dander because, well, it’s not a joke here. As you will soon see.5
5. Foreshadowing. Just sayin'.
6. Homer knows.
7. Frigg off—I work at home. What would you wear?
8. I shift between two pairs of jeans, wearing one pair till they get to the point where they walk themselves to the laundry room. This pair, while on the floor, had still not made the laundry dash and could thus be considered the “clean” pair. Everything being relative and all.
9. I know, you’re shocked.
10. ‘Cause we’re not talking a few drops of pee here. It was like one of those fem hy commercials, without the blue dye. Or the fem hy. Which, really, could have made this whole post irrelevant.
11. With apologies to Winston Churchill.
12. I only have one cat, but whenever we go away and have friends looking after her, I put out three litterboxes so my kitty-sitters don’t have to change the litter while we’re gone and Snowdrop doesn’t have to claw her way into the crawl space to find a fresh place to take a poo. Hey—I may be a slob, but I’m a considerate slob. I just haven’t gotten around to consolidating the boxes since our recent trip,13 so my laundry-dropping target range is still vast.
13. I know, you’re shocked.
14. My to do list requires it’s own dedicated blog.15
15. Hell, my to do list requires its own bloody postal code.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Release the hounds!
I promise to have at least one pop culture reference in every blog I post. Pinky swear. Not a day goes by that I don’t think, if not utter aloud, a Seinfeld reference that’s applicable to my current state of affairs. Does that say my life is really about nothing? I don’t know. Does that matter? Not so much.
Is it possible to digress before you even start? I believe I just did!
So, this blog. I used to think it was just me—that I was the only loser doing the Red Green version of life held together with duct tape and fishing line. But the more I talk to my friends, even acquaintances, it becomes apparent pdq that most women feel like this sometimes. (Some of us all the time!)
You just have to ask the right question to trigger an avalanche of laments, which pick up speed as the narrator warms to her topic.
Nine times out of ten it starts with “TELL me about it!” in response to my complaint, followed quickly with her telling me all about her thoughts on the topic. It could be about anything—cleaning, behavioural problems in kids (or husbands), boredom at work, gaining weight, etc. Almost every woman I know has at least one trigger that releases the hounds.
Whilst listening empathetically and nodding till my head threatens to bobble right off my neck, I wait, patiently, for the inevitable intake of breath (damn those synchronized swimmers though) so I can jump in with my own litany of complaints. Then we go back and forth trying to outdo each other with tales of woe and injustice like a real-life Monty Python sketch:
Serve: “The in-laws are descending like locusts this weekend so, of course, my cleaning lady chooses this particular juncture to get appendicitis and, just as I’m elbow deep in toilet cleaner, Missy hands me—at 9:45 pm—the list of materials she needs for her science project, due tomorrow!”
Volley: “Oh yah? Well my in-laws have been here for three weeks feeding Millicent a steady diet of candy and new toys, making backhanded comments about the successes of my husband’s ex-girlfriends, while my barracuda boss—single, of course—wants me to work morning, noon and night on the Stupid Co. campaign that we’ll likely lose anyway because of her incompetence. Oh, and my cleaning lady died three weeks ago—how rude!—so my toilet has been pink for ten days already!”
My wish is to extend the funny, sincere, poignant conversations we have on the playgrounds, at work, at lunch, at Chippendales (do they even still exist?). You get to listen to me bitch (lucky you), but you can complain too. You can even say something obnoxious like, “Well, Jodi, if you got up ten minutes earlier, your entire life would change. You lazy ho’.” (My inner editor is convulsing right now over the correct way to punctuate "ho" inside the quotation marks and all. Shudder.)
This could be our own modern-day red tent. (Without the polygamy, of course. Unless that’s your thing. Who am I to judge?) We can share our woes and frustrations and, hopefully, the odd bit of wisdom and advice. We may only have one worthwhile trick a piece, but hey, if we put them all together, that’s a lot of frikkin’ tips! First and foremost though, let’s have a good laugh. (That’s my special trick...)
Whaddya think?
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