Not knowing what's going to happen

I think the pause in the blog is indicative of something. Two of the bloggers are pregnant and two of us are not (as far as I know). For the two who are, not only are they pregnant, they have existing children to care for, marriages to maintain, houses to run and jobs to do. Maybe in that order? For the two of us that aren't pregnant, thinking about when to get pregnant, what to do for work, how to plan it properly by money considerations, travel, work, etc. it's all very mind boggling yet so big it's actually out of our control.

This blog is a public thing and probably too open of a forum to talk about these issues here in any great detail. Our colleagues, friends and strangers read it and take away some sort of perception about who we are or what we mean. I for one know that most of what I've been thinking about lately has not exactly been good advice - how can I give any when I feel rather adrift?

Anyway, just wanted to check in. Register that life is in flux and it's as it should be. this is right for our age but bad for the blog. If any bright good-advice ideas come to me, i will be sure to post.

A couple things for those who work and produce documents: don't email a document that's not formatted to print. always number your slides in powerpoint. be sure your font is consistent through out your whole document and save each version of your excel docs with a date or version number so you can keep track.

separately, right now my favorite obsession is to do haiku on twitter, but that's so obscure and techie, I can't see many of my mom friends getting what I'm talking about. my advice would be to join in and see what's going on on twitter. I suppose I like it because it seems like a ticker of the collective unconscious, but maybe it's all just crap. Follow me: www.twitter.com/emilybee

I have the privilege of working with a guy who (though pretty young) is quite clever and very wise.

As a tribute to his "mad" life skills and quick wit, I feel compelled to share some of his wisdom (his good advice) here on the blog.





Carter Thomas, b. 1983


Top 10 Lessons I've learned from Carter Thomas:

10 - No pun is too corny when writing a beer column.
Describing an expensive beer, "price may be hard to swallow" or blonde ales, "Rumor is true, blonde ales have more fun" - these beer articles are worth reading just to see how over the top he can go.

9 - The phrase "sick" can actually be used in complete seriousness to describe something one thinks is really great.
In context: "The big spike in the sales results we saw yesterday was sick!"

8 - When engaging in a bet, the exact meaning of the word "snow" is open for interpretation.
Just because the air outside is filled with white colored precipitation, it may not actually qualify as "snowing". There's the does-it-stick factor, the density of snowflakes in the air - many possible important variations.

7 - Facebook only has a two year cool period from initiation point, after that it's out.

6 - 80's music is cool and ironic in the way disco was for my age group.
Today it was "Gloria, I think I got your number." Tomorrow, "Mr. Roboto"?

5 - When the world's gotten on your last nerve, go throw rocks at the ocean.

4 - With respect to work bribes, nothing much tops a free sandwich.

3 - With respect to working out, nothing even comes close to trumping a push-up.

2 - Most things in life can be turned into an over/under bet.

1 - Top ten lists are sick.

Life

Choose Life
only that and always,
and at whatever risk.
To let life leak out, to let it wear away by
the mere passage of time, to withhold
giving it and spreading it
is to choose
nothing.
-Sister Helen Kelley

I wrestled with whether or not to go to yoga class this morning, given my work load, then decided I would do a short home practice as a compromise. Did a half-hour sequence, got showered & dressed prior to the time class would have been done and felt good about the choice and balanced as I started the day. Then I opened our local paper. A former colleague's 16 year old son was in a car accident on his way to a soccer game. The paper described my friend clutching her son's phone and the text messages streaming in, which she will not read, as she says they now belong to him. I sat down at my computer, and received the above quote in a weekly newsletter I receive from our local zen center.

Do I have advice today? Not sure. But I took the above as a message from my deceased father, who always stated a condensed version, which is "Life is for the living."

I include the yoga practice as part of this post because it is something I found a commitment to while I was out of work, and now that I am working again, feels threatened. I work from home and I only get paid for the hours I spend literally working. But it has become something that represents a true part of life to me - and something that shouldn't be shoved aside. I will write more on this subject another day, but the kernel of a point I am trying to make is to not shove aside our personal truths, to not give up on the things that we love, however impractical they may seem.

My advice, then, I suppose, is something that keeps coming back to me again and again in the two years since my father died. Be present. Do what you love. Be TRULY present with everyone you love. Don't wait to say the things you need to say - and to do the things you need to do. It's over in a flash - and this is both the most incredibly freeing and simultaneously terrifying truth there is.

For a mom fix

My sister sent me this link today to Postcards from Yo Momma. it was featured on the very clever Very Short List, website today.

I found myself laughing out loud to some of the posts on there and the hilarious things that moms say to their grown children. It's been a long time since I got a note from my mom, but this little site reminds me how funny and precious moms can be.

Keeping good baby records

True confession is I've not written word one in my son's baby book. I have a cute one, baby book that is. it is on a shelf with stacks of mementos I'm meaning to paste into the book. this is not unlike my honeymoon book that is packed in a box with photos and all kinds of crafty things to be pasted in someday when I take a month long vacation and don't leave home and have paid help around. ahem, like, never.

So, a scrapbooker I am not but I am a damn fast typer. So, here's the good advice of the day - and something I actually do - not just preaching here, friends.

Get your child his/her own email address. Advantages:
a) get a good email name before the next kid with your kid's name snatches it up
b) you can charm grandma and grandpa with emails from your kid to them. even though everyone knows you beloved child can't type or spell yet, it warms their hearts to see their grandchild's name in their "from" list
c) you can freak your husband/baby-daddy out when you send him an email from your child's email address. (note: key to the surprise, don't tell him you're setting up the email address.)
c) as you think of things you'd want to tell him someday, you can just send an email to him and it will be there someday when he can actually read. it will already be chronological and it will capture the tone of how you actually would tell the story.

Caveat - occasionally you will have to do some maintenance on the inbox to purge the pervy spam mail you won't want her to see