AND ALSO, TOO, IN THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING ELSE: So I've been looking for a job. Like, a real job. A proper full-time, non-freelance job. My timing, as always, is beyond impeccable. I quit my last full-time office job when Noah was six months old. At the time, I hoped I could cobble a few writing gigs together for a few years, maybe until he started kindergarten. That was 14 full years ago, this month. Instead, I rode the mommyblogging boom and the display advertising bust. I wrote about parenting and blogs and blogs about parenting for whatever site that would have me and pay me. After a few years, I pivoted to corporate copywriting and marketing. I wrote proposals, email campaigns, website copy, user documentation, case studies, you name it. I taught myself code and data analytics and website accessibility and content management and probably talked my way into a few gigs that I technically wasn't qualified for but hey, that's just good hustle. I always came "highly recommended" by a friend of a friend of an old coworker with a boss who read my blog. I charged $100 an hour. Sometimes I had so much work I had... Read more →

I recently had to pass a drug screen and background check for work -- for a contract job I've had for over two years now and successfully not done while coked out of my mind and/or while committing various felonies, not even once, but I guess you can never be too careful with us shifty freelance types. I did not fail the drug screen, though I did initially fail the TAKING of the drug screen. Because I didn't pee enough. The ONE thing I needed to do that entire day was to pee in a cup and I couldn't pee enough in the cup. (This is what happens when you successfully medicate my anxiety, people. One time I showed up for a 20-week ultrasound with a bladder so full I burst into hysterical tears while signing in at the front desk and then spent a terrible 10 minutes in the restroom trying to pee just some of it out, but not all of it, because then we wouldn't be able to see the babyyyyyyy and find out the sex and everything in the entire universe would be ruined. RUINED I SAY.) I was directed to a water cooler in the... Read more →

Hello! It's been a bit. I have been quite the diligent little worker bee this past week, as one of my part-time freelancing clients suddenly morphed into a full-time 40+ hours stress monster. On the one hand, it always feels good to be extra productive (and hey, I'm paid hourly so MAKE IT RAIN OVERTIME), but on the other hand, weeks like that always serve as a reminder that I am so wired for freelancing and much prefer jumping from project to project throughout the day. (I didn't have any time to write about poop or in-laws all week! ) Otherwise my brain goes numb and I sort of slither off my chair from the mental exhaustion of Actual Grown-up Human Work at the end of the day. I am such a baby. They should probably not be feeding me so much coffee. Anyway, things are much calmer this week, except that we're hosting Friendsgiving this weekend and my anxiety is up to ELEVENSIES because either no one will come and it will be a disaster, or everyone will come and it will be a disaster. There is no in-between, obviously, also we didn't get the hardwood floor project started... Read more →

Hours spent in Philadelphia, total: 27, ish Hours spent on trains: Three Hours spent waiting for trains that were late: One Hours spent in meetings: 12 Hours spent in meetings thinking about when we get food: Nine Hours spent in meetings resisting urge to slide dramatically off chair and under the table every time someone said, "hold up let's revisit that last slide for a sec": At least four Number of times I felt irrationally important and grown-up like because I was wearing an ID badge I had to swipe to go to the bathroom: 11 Number of nostalgic favorite snacks from my Pennsylvania childhood consumed and frankly disappointed by: One Number of cheesesteaks consumed with tremendous enthusiasm: Two Number of salad portions politely accepted on plate: Three Number of salad portions discreetly hidden under a napkin and thrown away: Two Point Seven Five Number of inexplicably tiny hotel room hair dryers used: One Number of times I ordered business cards to bring to meetings: Two Number of typos I made on the first order: One Number of actual business cards distributed: Zero Number of work things to do as result of meetings: 4,20583u70q303q55uj7 Number of children who greeted me... Read more →

It's been two full days since school ended approximately 84 years ago. Getting work done has been...challenging. Every morning I lay out a schedule for everyone -- exactly what chores need done, spaced in between blocks of outside time, reading/writing time, instrument practice -- that must be completed before I will even consider any screen time requests. Then I head to my office and close my door, hunker down on a task for exactly 30 seconds before the someone barges in to tattle on someone else or ask where something from the dishwasher goes. (IT'S A SPOON, CHILD.) Also, can I go on my screen? Mom? Mooooom. Mooooommmmmmm. I feel like I've been snappy and scoldy and super easily annoyed; even perfectly valid questions and complaints are being met with a built-in WHAT NOWWWWW level of irritation. Camps start up next week, which no one is all that excited about, but I'm sending them anyway because I believe it will be a enriching and positive experience for my children to be around adults who aren't ready to bite their heads off in a Pavlovian reaction to the sound of a door opening. I was writing a column for AlphaMom this... Read more →

I've been working from/in my actual "office" every day for the first time in awhile, to better bounce back and forth between laptops (three) and email addresses (four), and to have room to spread out piles of documents and keep everything separated by client (five) and basically not rely on keeping everything straight in my head, oh god no, let's not do that, that's how things end up forgotten about and/or on fire. I haven't worked down here in awhile because one time, not long after we adopted them, the cats hid in the closet and got accidentally trapped overnight, and both of them panic-peed on the carpet. And unlike the Lego bins, getting cat pee odors out of carpet is basically impossible. We've managed it PRETTY well, with both professional cleanings and buying our own carpet deep cleaner and using it regularly (like pretty much every time we vacuum), along with throwing just about every pet stain/odor related product on earth at the problem. So it usually smells just fine (though I think vaguely carpet-cleaner-ish), but other times the smell starts emanating from the padding below and I'm just like, I'm out, I'll be working from the couch again... Read more →

Plot twist: Jason has uveitis, not pinkeye. Because clearly regular ol' pinkeye is far too pedestrian for our tastes around here. We prefer the rarer, more obscure forms of eyeball discomfort. The more underground diagnoses, if you will. Epidemic Keratoconjunctitis? You've probably never heard of it. Now pass me the artisanal steroid eye drops. Uveitis is not contagious, although that didn't stop me from getting soap in my eye in the shower yesterday and spending the next hour or so convinced I was dying of pinkeye. (Spoiler alert: I'm fine, just dumb.) Also feeling a touch overwhelmed on the work front. I've been solidly in the "ebb" stage of the freelancing flow for the last few months, popping in occasionally with clients like "need anything? no? not yet? how about now?" while networking my ass off in hopes of landing something new. Which I did! And it's a big one! Like with a fancy badge and a giant laptop and lots of cool shit to do. And then LITERALLY on my FIRST DAY of the gig, I came home to a flurry of emails from three other clients all HELP HELP WE NEED YOU TO WRITE ALL THE THINGS HERE... Read more →

This morning I had my first big kick-off meeting with my newest freelancing gig, which once again highlighted that after a decade of working from home, there is nothing harder in the world than waking up, showering, putting on actual proper clothing, and getting my ass out the door on time anytime before noon. Which, I know is exactly what literal bajillions of people manage to do just fine every morning, and really: Color me genuinely impressed. Like serious props, guys. I don't know how you do it, because I'm terrible at it. The main issue this morning was the completely self-inflicted crisis of not having much in the way of a Professional Wardrobe anymore. I have one nice black suit, a couple okay dresses, a bunch of really, reallllllllly old separates that scream "business casual circa early 2000s" and absolutely zero office-appropriate shoes to pair with any of it. And yet I never, ever remember how limited my options are until I have a meeting to be at in like, an hour. The office I was visiting is business casual so the suit felt like overkill (not to mention my black footwear choices are either sandals/flip flops or stilettos/fuck-me... Read more →

So I quit my job. I mean, I quit A job. I always have more than just one, technically. But it was the Big Job, the Main Job, the one I was traveling all the time for and spending most of my waking hours on and most of my sleeping hours quietly having panic attacks over. At some point it dawned on me: The worst thing in the world would not be losing this job. The worst thing in the world would be continuing to do this job. And it wasn't really the job's fault. I was not cut out for it, for what it ended up being (which to be fair, was different than what I thought it would be when I accepted it), for the demands of a small start-up that did not operate on a 9-5, Monday through Friday schedule and needed me online and working nights and weekends and lots (and LOTS) of travel. And other issues were entirely of my own making: I never said no, I would never admit I was in over my head, and I destroyed my own carefully cultivated work-from-home-and-life balance my own damn self. I felt guilty about leaving meetings... Read more →

My Internet is getting fixed today! At some point between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., anyway. Thanks for that super-helpful service window, Verizon. I'll just sit here and wait for the inevitable, which is that you will not arrive during any of the many hours I am here sitting and waiting, but will of course arrive during the 15 minutes that I absolutely have leave the house to pick Ike up from school. And you'll get all huffy and impatient and I'll be all apologetic and flustered and we'll get off on the wrong foot, all because my three year old can't "drive" or "cross major intersections by himself." Yet, anyway. Let's not get off on the wrong foot, Imaginary Huffy Verizon Authority Figure. *** Speaking of Ike, he has decided that he is done with preschool, and the fact that he is not allowed to attend kindergarten at his brothers' school has taken over as the latest Three Year Old Worst Injustice In The World, At Least Since This Morning When He Was Served Milk In The Wrong Cup. (Yes. STILL with the wrong cup. And the dark blue plate. We've also added: Non-Ninja-Turtle Underwear is... Read more →