Possible that I’ve been spending some time watching John Adams and was thus moved to declare my actual career independence rather than simply stating that I’d quit my job.

So, in plain English, I’ve quit my job.  And will be back to the corporate communications grindstone May 5, far away from the wretched conditions here.  Which hardly warrant re-hashing more than to say they have been painful.

And in this particular slice of time, I am quite happy.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one woman to dissolve the employment bands which have connected her with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that she should declare the causes which impel her to the separation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, employers are instituted among men and women, deriving their just powers from the consent of the employed, — That whenever any Employer becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new employment laying its foundation on such principles and organizing powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that employment circumstances long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such employer, and to provide new Guards for the future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of this Woman; and such is now the necessity which constrains her to alter her former Employment. The history of the directors of The *** is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over this Woman. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

For luring me to your institution with false promises of Web 2.0 development and redesign opportunities.
For failing to conduct a 90-day review.
For expecting me to edit dense and difficult material in an open-air cubicle adjacent to a printing room.
For watching my hours hawkishly despite my never working less than 40 hours each week.
For compelling my attendance at monthly company-wide “Town Hall Meetings.”
For loudly and obnoxiously supporting Hillary Clinton.
For gossiping so maliciously about other colleagues it made me — the queen of non-discretion — uncomfortable.
For making me doubt my abilities as an editor.
For excluding me from your office coterie.
For demoting me without cause or warning.
For holding an out-of-touch retiree as the gold standard of editing and making it clear I would never fill her shoes.
For an abject disregard for my personal or professional development.

In every stage of these Oppressions I have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: My repeated Petitions have been answered only be repeated injury. A Director, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the employer of a free people.

Nor have I been wanting in attentions to my colleagues. I have warned them from time to time of attempts by their employer to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. I have reminded them of the circumstances of our at-will employment here. I have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and I have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to teh voice of justice and consanguinity. I must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as I hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

I, therefore, Writer and Contributing Editor of The *** Journal, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of my sanity and self respect, solemnly publish and declare that this Woman is, and of Right out to be Free and Independent, that she is Absolved from all Allegiance to the ***, and that all political and employment connection between me and The *** is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent Woman, I have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, secure other Employment ,and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Women may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, I pledge to myself to always uphold my Life, my Fortune, and my sacred Honor.

My favorite line, from my favorite poem, oft excerpted here yet somehow still not often enough.

Because this morning I woke up singing oldies and drinking songs and missed Ireland, but would rather be here.

Calling Card

Lisa Shields

Too wedded to winter,
not expecting the warm
one breath of wind
from your quarter,
and I could hear
the first solid crack,
knew the river would flow
not today,
not tomorrow,
but ah—soon.

Just a day or two
from pussywillow down,
crocus crouched
with johnny jump up impatience,
I did not beckon for Spring,
did not reckon she would come
despite the need for her,
certain she would dally in Paris,
romp in Rome,
anything but arrive
sans fanfare and flounce,
no thought to her missing baggage.

I had no welcome,
no fancy tea laid on,
so tired inside
that simply raising my arms
seemed too huge a thing.
But Madame Equinox
simply arrived,
put on the kettle,
and blew her breath
through my house,
making herself at home
as if she knew
how much I wished
for an end to cold bitter,
dusting the last leaves
of a forgotten fall
with pollen confetti,
to leave her card,
the sort of RSVP
I can never ignore.

If there is anything satisfying about making a comeback, it is the exact moment when you close the door on misery, and stride confidently into the day.  I like to imagine “Good Day Sunshine” strumming in the background.  You smile, and put it all in the past.  A  new beginning.

It’s a good forumla for emotional victory when there is a finite end date in sight.

(more…)

Nine dollars can do a lot of things. And I don’t even mean feeding-a-kid-on-a-quarter-a-day things.

I mean, it can buy really good hummus and some cucumber, tomato, and pita. It can buy a shirt on sale at the Gap outlet on Chestnut. It can buy a Belgian beer with change to tip. It can buy the Juno soundtrack on iTunes. But Sunday night, I used my nine clams to cry.

(more…)

It’s more than a day and a dollar late and short, but I’m newly fired up about La Clinton’s momentary emoting.

I can’t pinpoint why, but my inability to pinpoint exactly why I so dislike HC’s campaign has brought me a lot of angst lately.  Like so many women, I’m torn, and feeling a little like a traitor for not blithely supporting another vadge.  Maybe, as some feminists have suggested, it’s because I’m having trouble seeing myself in her campaign.  Maybe I want to be able to connect with her, and her pandering and robot veneer are in the way.

But this crying thing has given new life to my dislike of the campaign.  I’m willing to accept that politics is an elaborate huckster act, keeping all the balls in the air for all the people, all the time.  But for the love of god, at least try to make it seem like it’s authentic.  That’s the whispered contract between the electorate and the candidates, isn’t it?  You pretend like you’re a real person not entirely made of fabrication, and I’ll pretend to feel like I matter to D.C.

Like that old Irish blessing, it’s either one or the other with Clinton’s fraction of a muffled tear.  Either it was genuine, or it was calculated.  If it was genuine, it might say worse things about the feminine mystique than any of the other gender stereotypes the troglodytes have thrown her way.  John Edwards perverted and cut short the debate on the meaning behind Hillary’s tears when he wondered if we want a leader who cries.  The truth is, I do want a leader who cries when it’s necessary.  I wouldn’t elect a leader who didn’t cry on September 11th.  What I can’t bear to stand (vadge or not) is a leader who cries during a campaign.  Yes, they’re levying ad hominem attacks.  That’s how the election cycle rolls.  Which is why I’m more prone to believe that the quasi-tears were contrived.  Here is a woman who held herself with grace and composure while her husband made a fool of her from the White House and while her only child was being ridiculed through puberty on the late night circuit.  Here’s a woman who managed to not shed a tear during those real, emotional quagmires.  Here is a woman often chided for her emotionless exterior.  Is it very likely that one woman’s question at a coffee shop unlocked some secret, special tear duct in Hillary’s heart?

And if it was contrived, then she’s no more than the tramp who cries her way out of a ticket, making the road that much harder for any other woman who follows behind her.  My vote is Obama’s to lose.

I happily hold forth on my pet subjects for hours.  Wii, coffee, the merits of fall vs. spring, the disastrous effects of broadcast journalism, this city of supposed brotherly love, and the downfall of modern grammar. These all elicit almost immediate and well-worn monologues.  But let someone dare ask for further clarification when I beg out of plans for “not feeling well,” and all I hear are the messy mechanical noises of a factory shutting down.  Nope.  Just don’t feel well.

Not feeling well, of course, is codespeak for feeling more like lying in my bed with a book than facing anything the outside world might have to offer.  Even alcohol, even boys.  Not feeling well is the same as being “tired.”  Or “out of it” or “exhausted.”  It means I might well more quickly into tears than conversation.  It’s become my neat capsule phrase that really means, I’m not OK.  I’m not fit for public consumption right now, because the scab that is my heart seems to have torn open again (or feels as though it might at any moment), and I’m trying to give myself a wide berth in case I turn fully back into that old, simpering wreck. 

An ex-boyfriend called me out once, years ago, on disingenuously using the phrase, “I’m fine.”  At the time, I felt unlocked.  That someone saw through that cheery veneer was a powerful aphrodisiac.  I used to take in the chaos around me to unburden the people closest to me, believing I had some preternatural threshold for stress.  A boy who stopped to know me well enough to know that that was impossible seemed like a dream.

Eight years later, I’ve evolved into at least saying I’m fine with a voice belying my disdain.  Progress, no?

 Eight years later, though, and I find myself fantasizing about decking a man who told me I’m not fine.  How am I a communications “professional” again?  (See entry below re: being more direct.  Not bloody likely.) 

Despite believing that people are better off for continual self improvement, and despite the fact that I generally feel more reflective on birthdays, I can’t seem to dodge the sense that this ought to be some new beginning.  Trouble is, it’s difficult to begin something without a plan.

I’ve given myself a pass on the whole “life plan” thing for last few years.  Rolling around the calendar aimlessly seemed achievement enough.  But now, somehow, there is pressure again.  To be productive, to have a linear plan, to get with the program.  To partner off, to stop bitching about work like I’m in Reality Bites, and to function.  To stop overdrawing my bank account, work on a budget, clean up my room, get a real doctor, and grocery shop instead of eating out.  To swear less, bitch less, and drink less, and to be sweeter, more open, and  more direct.  To stop overbooking myself, go to the gym more, and finally take up yoga or some manner of meditation.

These are the things I should do in 2008.  I remember living by some theory in the Mezz that  I probably read in some horrible book.  Something about your life fitting into a triangle.  With an angle for platonic relationships,  one for romantic relationships, and another for work.  Or something.  When one angle was acute, the other two compensated.  A fine theory until your triangle collapses to a straight line (what, with no beginning or end, to boot).   When you’ve got a line, you have to build from scratch, and you’ve got to figure out where to start first.  Job searching is good, but lacks the immediate satisfaction I crave.  So I send applications into the ether and wait to be picked.  Sounds a lot like dating.

*

(more…)

I was putting on makeup a few days ago, and noticed my eyes.  The fine lines are deeper, the coloring under my bottom lid darker than I’d like.

I swear right now I can feel the heavy skin droop down.  Full with something I haven’t yet let escape, maybe.

Seriously. How can someone’s face feel like this?  Like the weight of everything is squarely under my eyes.  Lovely.

I miss him very much.  In a raw way that lays cruelly dormant and surfaces later without warning just to remind me I can’t stray too far from the hurt.

Writing seems again so novel.  It used to be my bread and butter and now I remember why.  It’s healthy but selfish in all the best ways.  Whither all the old journals now?

We were cooking so much that December.  Essentially living together, and happily resigned to the otherwise mundane routine.  Still happy to grocery shop together.  We walked to Superfresh one night.  Or I think  it was Superfresh.  I suppose it doesn’t matter.  We were in the grocery store, and he was quiet.  Was I naive or was I in denial?  Or was I merely stupid?  He was quiet, and his explanation was that he was fearful that this would be our only Christmas together.

I think I genuinely believed him to be crazy at that moment.  I knew things were grave, but for one moment I never thought that we’d only get one Christmas.

I don’t remember anymore what we were cooking.  It might have been the night we had omelets and cereal while playing video games.  It might have been the  night we made chili.   I guess what I ought to cling tightly to is that he was afraid of being without me.  Of bastard time, which would eventually prove him right.

I tell myself that the details to these stories don’t matter. The emotions and consequences do.  But there’s something separately heartbreaking about letting loose those inconsequentials.   I no longer remember my grandmother’s phone number either.