Suburban Goddess

On this day, six years ago, I was working for a company in Gretna, Louisiana. I worked in a cinderblock closet, the remanent of an old slaughterhouse turned print shop. My friend Dylan came in late, with a shocked expression of disbelief.

“Did you see the news?”

“No.”

“A plane just flew into the World Trade Center!”

I remember thinking he was just kidding with me, but he pulled me to the front of the building where our co-workers had started to congregate. Someone pulled out a TV, and we all watched in horror as the second plane flew into the second tower.

I remember it vividly, because Chip & I were on the verge of breaking up (if I knew then, what I knew now… sigh). All I wanted to do was talk to him to make sure he was okay, but the jerk wouldn’t answer his phone. So I sat with my co-workers as more reports came in… the plane in the Pentagon, Flight 93 in Pennsylvania…. I called all of my loved ones, just to touch base. It was a surreal day; you had no reason to be afraid, yet you were. My heart cried out for all those with loved ones they couldn’t reach… we watched in fascinated horror as the people jumped from the building to escape a fiery death.

It was the only time I ever saw that print shop shut down. After almost five hours, the production manager shooed us back to our posts. Dylan and I sat in our cinderblock prison, trying to figure out when the world got so f#$#ed up.

This post is for all those that lost someone or survived those horrible attacks.  I can’t imagine your pain.  I can’t begin to fathom what you lived through.  Just know, some of us will never forget.

There is an assumption that comes with being a single mom; it’s the assumption that you’re a slut. I, myself, am guilty of the assumption. When a woman tells me she’s a single mom, I ask her how old her kid is, then I start doing the math. If she had the kid before she was 21, she’s a raging slut. If she had the kid before 25, she’s a careless slut. If she had the kid before 30, then she’s just a plain old slut.

That was BEFORE I became a single mom. Now, my first question is; what did the asshole do, and when did he leave?

Because honestly, I don’t know any woman who assumes she’s going to raise her kid alone. You believe the bull that the guy feeds you… only to find that in the end, he isn’t man enough to hold his family together. There are exceptions to this rule; some of those women really ARE raging sluts, and the poor guy left holding the letter from the attorney general gets screwed. I’m not talking about those women; I’m talking about the women like me who assumed they were married to a fatihful, loyal person who would uphold the promises he made. Then you find out the truth.

So now, we’re on our own, trying to juggle a job & motherhood while still looking for the REAL men in the world.

I’m discovering that two types of men date single mothers; 1) men who assume you put out because you have a kid or 2) men who have a genuine interest in you as a person and just deal with the kid thing. I really don’t know a single man that would admit he wanted to date a single mom; once you hit my age, it just seems that most of us are. Weeding out the good ones is a time-consuming, painstaking, and often disappointing process.

It sucks that we’re judged so harshly at times. I wish I could have been a widow instead.

I have an uneasy, unsettling feeling that I can’t seem to shake right now. There are things happening in my life that I am helpless to control, and being the control freak that I am, I’m having a hard time accepting that.

Perhaps it’s the convergence of certain dates, certain financial situations, certain people and certain circumstances that have collided in perfect unison to leave me in the situation that I hate the most:

Waiting.

Waiting for answers. Waiting for a check. Waiting for a revelation. Waiting for a sign. I’m at a crossroads right now, and I’m not really sure which way to go. But I know it’s crucial to take my time with these decisions because somehow, I have the sense that my future is depending on it.

The karma train is coming…

I’m popping my popcorn now, and pulling up a chair to watch a really great show.

“Why do you keep changing your song on your profile?”

“Because it matches my mood.”

“Man, you’ve been in a bitchy mood then….”

I was inspired by a cartoon I received recently to write about the types of critics I encounter in my career field. I’m not saying that all clients are difficult; I have quite a few who communicate very effectively, realizing that the job is best left in the hands of a true creative professional. To those people, I say THANK YOU.

If you recognize yourself in one of the following situations, you are NOT one of those people.

#1 – THE AMALGAMATOR
When faced with three distinct design choices, the response is:
“Can we just mix them all together?”

#2 – THE ENIGMA
The first response of The Enigma is to point out that the focus of the ad is not directed where the company feels it should be. When you try to determine the direction they had in mind, it becomes obvious that you didn’t read your job description close enough. Somewhere in Appendix 232, Paragraph 127, line 1264, it clearly states: Must be able to read minds.

Designer: “Well, what would you prefer the focus to be?”

Enigma: “You’ll just have to guess.”

#3 – THE MIRCO MANAGER
The Micro-Manager is the one I hate to encounter the most. When presented with a draft of the project, the response is usually something like: “Change the font to Times New Roman, 8 point.”

#4 – MR. AMBIGUOUS
After encountering the fifteenth round of changes, Mr. Ambiguous will look carefully at the proof with a furrowed brow, his hand placed thoughtfully across his lips before nodding resolutely.

“Yeah, let’s go with the one you did the day before yesterday four proofs back… you know, the one with the monkey!”

#5 – THE ANGRY MAN
No matter what you do, you will not make this person happy. No matter how many changes you make, the design will still suck. They know what is best, and you are so far beneath their vision that it pains them to even speak to you,

Angry Man: “I hate that color.”

Designer: “But that’s your brand!”

Angry Man: “I don’t care. Change it!”

#6 – THE WANNABE
Thanks to the emergence of online schooling, there are a plethora of graphic designers flooding the market. About four times a week, I encounter these “professionals.”

Wannabe: “How about this? I worked up something here I had in mind. I created it in Microsoft Word, and it looks exactly how I want it to look, so DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING.”

When you receive the CD, it’s blank.

#7 – THE SULKER
Quite possibly the most difficult of all the critics, the Sulker is just generally a mean person who doesn’t want to be involved in the project, but has no other choice, so they have decided to spread the misery like butter….

Sulker: “It sucks.”

Designer: “Could you be a little more specific about what you don’t like?”

Sulker: “No.”

#8 – THE CRAMMER
When faced with a 4 inch by 6 inch space, the Crammer will pull out a 212 page dissertation, the company’s annual report, every brochure created for the product since 1972, and a personal notebook.

“We need to add this!”

If you work with creative professionals, you need to ask yourself, “Am I a good critic?” If you can’t answer that with a resounding “YES!” then you need to print this out and hand it to your favorite designer. They will tell you which one you are immediately. Trust me.

When you turn out the light, she glows in the dark…

I have a paralyzing fear of roaches…not the little ones, the non-threatening crawlies that fit easily beneath your big toe…. no, I’m talking about the mammoth, flying, man-eating palmetto monsters that always seem to find their way indoors when it’s raining outside.

It started a long time ago at my best friend’s home in Pearlington, Mississippi. The tiny town was nestled on the bank of the Pearl River, and the marshy wetlands were prime breeding ground for these bug monstrosities; I was used to seeing them everywhere. But on this particular night, we were having a slumber party. Beds were limited, so we would all crash in our sleeping bags on the living room floor. One morning, we were violently awoke with the shrill screaming of one of the girls… the roach had climbed across her face, and in her sleepy stupor, she had swatted at it unknowingly. Being a roach, it exhibited typical roach behavior and looked for the first place to run and hide.

Which happened to be her ear.

I can’t think about it without getting freaked out to this day. So anytime I see one of these things, I give it a wide berth. There’s a reason for that as well; I used to be brave, finding the biggest shoe I could, and I would squash those suckers with a satisfying crunch and a pirate’s swagger.

Ha HAAAAA, Roach! Off with your head! (CRUNCH)

However, one day I was swinging to gleefully smush one of the monsters when he turned on his six heels like Emmett Smith (pivot and cut left!) and he promptly jumped past the shoe right onto my hand and proceeded to run up my arm…

Right toward my ear!

I’m surprised that the sheer decibel level of my scream didn’t disintegrate him on contact, but then, they always say that the only thing that will survive a nuclear attack is a roach. Luckily, I was able to flick him off before he found his way into my head… but I still have nightmares that one will get in there overnight, lay eggs, and eventually eat my brain from the inside out.

So this weekend, I’m in my bathroom, which has a large mirror in front of me and a set of mirrored glass doors behind me. I’m going about my normal daily routine, brushing my teeth, fluffing the hair, inspecting the wrinkles appearing on my forehead and contemplating how much I would look like Joan Rivers with a face-lift…. when I see the reflection in the mirror behind me….

It had to be the biggest freaking roach I have ever seen. I am not exaggerating; it was at least three inches long. Moving very slowly, I backed away from the mirror and shifted my eyes upward…. he was directly over my head, his whiskers pointed down as if he were sniffing me…

“Mmmmm…. brains!”

I immediately shrieked and ran from the bathroom, heading straight for the kitchen. I grabbed the first spray bottle I could find with a “STREAM” option, dialed it in, and reached my hand around the door, taking careful aim before letting loose a volley of “DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE’S!” The roach clung to the wall for a moment, stunned… until I saw him start to fall backwards, almost in slow motion….. when he hit the ground, he hit it running. Straight at me.

I swear, I danced better than Joey Fatone as I continued to spray, all the while continuing my tirade of “DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!” Eventually, the monster slowed… Godzilla at it’s end…. until he finally stopped moving, a final twitch of the whisker marking his final buggy breath. I held up my bottle in triumph, when I realized I probably could have made a better decision for pest control…

Death by Febreze.

There is a line that should not be crossed. You both know the line is there, because you have not only pointed it out, you have walked the length of it carefully…. explicitly setting the boundaries so that there is NO QUESTION as to where you stand. You stand on that side, I will stand on this one.

What do you do when someone keeps stepping over that line, crossing into your personal space without regard to your feelings? Actually, it’s under the guise that “you don’t know what your feelings ARE.” Excuse me, but I believe that I do. I believe I have stated them in said line-drawing-ceremony described above. I guess you weren’t paying attention.

Perhaps, this time, you should pay attention.