Suburban Goddess

There’s the answer to your immigration problems. Mexico needs money. We have money. Mexicans want to live here. We like cheap vacations in Mexico. (Think how much your airfare would go down! I’ll bet Southwest would set up some killer flight rates.)

I started thinking about this yesterday as I followed yet another landscaping trailer down the road. I honestly have not met a Mexican that I did not like. Mexican people work hard. They have strong family values. They just want an opportunity to better their life situation, and they currently have great difficulty doing that in Mexico.

Honestly, lets not fool ourselves here. What’s the major objection here? By opening up the border, Mexican drug cartels will have free rein to pour their stuff into the US. Well, guess what? They already do! Have you been to an upscale suburban neighborhood lately? I hate to point this out, but the teens have graduated from cigarettes…. or have you been too busy driving your BMW to be bothered with parenting?

Just a passing thought.

My husband likes to interview. He schedules interviews all the time. I think he enjoys the thrill associated with interviewing; can I convince this person that I”m the best person for the job & snowball him into giving me a 6-figure salary while I spend the majority of my days perusing the Internet? Apparently, he’s been pretty damn successful at it so far.

I have to admit, interviewing is fun when you don’t need the job. I make decent money for a designer, but hey, everyone could stand to do a little better, right? But I’ve been burned by the “grass is greener” syndrome a couple of times, which makes me inclined to stay with a job that has gone stale just for safety’s sake. I never planned to make phone books for a living… I just stumbled into it by accident. The post said “graphic designer.” I believed it. A great deal of production managers don’t understand what they’re asking for. They don’t realize they should be posting for “professional typesetter,” “production artist,” or “typing monkey.” Then they wouldn’t get so many overqualified applicants, and then people like myself wouldn’t complain about the lack of creativity in their jobs as much.

When I was growing up, I originally wanted to be a veterinarian, until a particularly sadistic cousin went into graphic detail about his sophmore biology project. After being haunted of visions of a peeled cat for a few years, I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer. But then, ironically, I looked in a phone book and realized there were a million lawyers. (Side note, if you look in my phone book, there are only 3 graphic designers listed, & I have the biggest ad. Another side note, I’ve had the ad for six months, and the only phone call I received was from my boss because I was late to work).

I originally went to school as a drama major. I loved being on a stage, but my favorite roles were the ones that moved people to laugh. I always auditioned for the comic relief role. There was a feeling of safety in those roles; it was okay for people to laugh at me because I was trying to make them laugh. Off stage, I was painfully shy, but on stage, I could be the outgoing, crazy person I always wanted to be. I still harbor that longing to be on stage. I would love to be a stand-up comedian. The only problem is, I’m just not funny.

Some people spend their lives stuck in a job they despise, in a field they never wanted to go into. I’m lucky that I found my calling with design. I love to design… I just wish I could find a happier place to do it.

Just when you think the absurdity can’t get any worse, Dubya has to say something like this. In a different day & age, this comment would be simply an honest opinion, a statement made between friends about the unsettling crisis emerging in the Middle East. Add a microphone & a bunch of AP journalists (using the term lightly), and now our own media is crucifying our president yet AGAIN. Look, picking on Dubya at this point is like picking on Britney Spears; give the guy a break, he’s “country.” And this is how country people talk, despite the crushing censorship of politcal correctness.

I agree with you Dubya. They DO need to stop that sh*t.

“She’s turned into a little monkey. It’s only a matter of time before she’s climbing out of that crib.”

“That’s what they make Vaseline for.”

Dooced

What would it take to get an unbiased media? A channel that exemplified pure and unbiased journalism? A news program that wasn’t secretly hiding some agenda? I wonder what that would look like…

The flow of the 10 o’clock news is maddening (or any news broadcast, for that matter), and it doesn’t matter which channel you’re watching. The ups & downs of stories of murder laced with sappy community interest stories drives me insane. Who cares if Sparky the Squirrel was rescued from certain car death by an 80-year-old woman? Will you PLEASE tell me how corporations are exploiting the common blue-collar worker. Or tell me how global warming is effecting our immediate climate. Or tell me what it is that religious fanatics are telling people to convince them that strapping a bomb on & blowing themselves up is going to get them into heaven. That’s the kind of stuff I want to know.

“Breaking news: a man is dead in South Houston. We have no details at the moment, but we will keep you informed as the details are revealed.”

No sh$t. Why didn’t you just wait until you HAD the details?

Whatever happened to the integrity that came with journalism? The credibility? Goes to show that ANYTHING is for sale.

Is biting someone considered assault? What if they are irritating the ever living sh@t out of you? Is it assault then? What about if they’re really, REALLY stupid, and continue to do the same annoying, irritating, aggrivating thing OVER & OVER EVERY SINGLE DAY until you JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE?

Maybe I’ll get a sympathetic jury.

It seems, in this day and age, that there is no such thing as merit. I first experienced the “Whine Factor” in college. I couldn’t believe how many people would argue for their grades. But more stunning than that, is the fact that they got their way. What ever happened to actually STUDYING? All you have to do is complain & whine that the test is too HARD, and you automatically get bumped up a letter grade???

Then came the workplace. My first job as a waitress was a reality wake-up call. Some people make a good living by whining. Don’t want to pay for dinner? Whine about it! POOF! Dinner for free! What??? I was raised on prinicples, so this was kind of hard to get my head around… I did everything EXACTLY as the customer asked. He cleaned his damn plate; how could he possibly be unhappy? And the manager didn’t care… just COMP it!

WHAT????

So I figured this was just restaurant behavior. So when I made the jump to the corporate environment, needless to say, my expectations were naively high. These people were PROFESSIONALS; surely they wouldn’t let me down! THIS is what my father told me to work for! People with high moral standards, people who did their job, people with PRINCIPLES.

Um, no.

Where did I go terribly, terribly wrong? Where did the conscience & work ethic come from???

How come when I whine, nothing happens????

My workout buddy is out of town this week, and her parting words to me were:

“Get your ass out of bed and go work out!”

But on Monday, my husband had to take the stepkid to the airport, and I couldn’t leave the baby alone in the house. I had Tuesday off, so I couldn’t possibly get up early on my day off. The alarm went off on Wednesday, but it was raining, and I can’t run in the rain. Thursday came and went (I’ll admit, Thursday, I was just lazy.) So when the alarm went off this morning, I struggled with the voices inside my head.

“Get up. You don’t lose baby fat this way.”

“I know, but I’m TIIIIIIRRREEEED.”

“Get up! You had M&M’s yesterday!”

“I know, but the bed feels so GOOOOODDDD…”

“Get up! Do you want to wear fat girl jeans today?”

“Fat girl jeans are COMFORTABLE.”

“Look, you constantly bitch about how you’re unhappy with the way you look. Get up & do something about it!”

“I bought some new face cream. See? Beautiful complexion this morning. I’m happy. Now shut up & go back to sleep or I’ll stop by McDonald’s for breakfast.”

“Mmmmm…McDonald’s……”

Since I was promoted, things have changed around the office. I have inherited a new nickname (Madame Widget), a lot more work, and a lot less appreciation. I do get the bonus of a salaried position, which means I no longer have to watch the minute hand on my lunch hour. But the air has changed. On occasion, I hear the minions making plans, and I am a little sad that I’m not included. Of course, I know it’s not intentional (at least, I hope not); they don’t have kids to contend with & eventually got tired of me turning them down because I can’t find a babysitter. But I understand, our lifestyles are different. At 5:00, I am a different person, with a different set of friends and a life outside of work. For the first time in my life, work is NOT my life. And I kind of like it that way.