I was perusing the Internet the other day and happened upon a few “blogs.” “Hmmm,” I thought. “I should start one of those!” “Oh wait,” I then thought. “Don’t I have one? No. I used to. Er, wait, something is stirring in my mind . . .”
So it is. It’s been a month. No existential crises again, either. Just plain old work and plain old being the size of a bus and unable to accomplish as many things in a day as I am used to being able to accomplish.
However, I have once again moved from middle management back to lower level ignored employee. People ask me if I would want to stay a director, rather than, say, a person who directly documents feces in the shower. “Never!” I will always declare. I only have occasional feces to deal with; directors face it daily.
In other news, I have happily been ignoring my dissertation for months. Any day now, I anticipate getting back to that. I think if I am awake all night with an infant, my theology will be far more interesting to read.
Being nine months pregnant is interesting for a variety of reasons. But the one I’ve found oddest is that lately strangers come up and talk to me with alarming frequency. Some try to touch me, and I was warned about that, but others just seem to want to chat. About anything. Maybe I am the least threatening creature there is? I am, in fact, two people, so talking to me is like talking to a crowd? Where I am gathered, surely is the presence of the Holy Spirit? Who knows. The most recent incident of this was today on the train. A man looks me up and down.
“Yeah. So, you one of those Gloucester 17?”
“Pardon?”
“Ya’all are having a baby, right? Are you in high school?”
I was so taken aback my internal filter went all wonky.
“Uh, dude, I’m 30.”
The guy blinked. “Those girls need to be put on birth control. The school should give it to every girl. I bet your mama just hopes you graduate.” He clucked his tongue. The T pulled into a station, the door swished open, and he stepped out.” Through the window, he pointed at me and shook his head.
Truthfully, he’s right. My mother does hope I graduate. She is constantly inserting into conversation bits like, “Well, I know you have to go work on that paper!” Or, “Surely you have more than a chapter now, right?” Somehow though, I don’t think this is to what the gentlemen was referring.
So it is. What happened to just offering me your seat?
I came home and looked up the Gloucester 17. I had seen something about it on some message board, had been shocked, but hadn’t thought much more of it. Apparently 17 girls at a local high school made a pact to get pregnant. And now many are speculating how birth control in the schools would solve this issue. I don’t see how this could be true, though. As birth control would require people to not want to have babies and thus use it. And, if this were in the fact the case, shouldn’t medical professionals handle this sort of thing? Or parents?
And to think I’ll soon be having a daughter. In a world where teenagers make pacts to get pregnant. This is what will keep me up at night and keep the theology interesting, people. Not the infant screaming.
If I were in charge of an all-college function, be it commencement or perhaps the end of the year faculty/staff meeting, this is the speech I would give:
“‘Once there was a man, walking along the shore side. A storm had washed hundreds of starfish on to the beach overnight. The man bent down, picked one up and flung it far out into the ocean. He repeated this several more times.
A woman walked up beside him. “What are you doing?” She asked. “You’re throwing these things out one at a time. Surely you don’t think you’re making a difference.”
The man smiled and threw another starfish into the water. “Made a difference to that one.”
The woman, annoyed by the man’s smug self-satisfied little smirk, rolled her eyes. “They’re not whales, you idiot. They’re frickin’ starfish. They’re not going to dehydrate on a saturated sand bar. Just wait for the tide to come in and they’ll all go out together. Actually, you probably caused those few you self-righteously hurled into the sea to be eaten by sharks. Way to be inefficient and pernicious.” The woman walked away, shaking her head in disgust.’
I tell this story today, friends, in the hopes that we all realize less is more. We should not be the fool on the beach. We should always think, “Gee, maybe the starfish know what they’re doing. I should really think long and hard about whether my assistance is useful.” Motivational anecdotes are often thinly-veiled insipid self congratulation. Don’t form organizational strategy around them. Thank you.”
I think the speech would go over really well. If you would like to book me for your next engagement, feel free to email me. Ask for my discounted rate on my particularly moving presentation “Wednesdays with Adrienne.”
My house currently looks like someone set off a cute, pastel bomb in the middle of it. I sit on the couch, overwhelmed by the pink, both the cutesy and the shmutsey, and the sheer immensity of the belongings of my unborn child. Well done, Babies R Us, you have won this round.
The enormity of the clutter is exacerbated by the ambient clutter that up until now has kept the gravitational pull steady in our apartment. Boxes of books and papers and things that really ought to be put away orbit around our space, saying cheery hellos to the new clutter, welcoming it warmly.
Recently, however, my resident rodent friends have decided they really like the boxes. Since all of the students who helpfully left peanut butter and Cheerios on their floors all year have left, the mice have nowhere interesting to go but to my home. This, again, didn’t bother me so much before except these particular new mice are brazen city dwellers who view me as a predator less and less every day. Last night one figured out how to climb my coat (that was hanging on a chair) to get eye level with Peter.
“Hey!” He shouted.
“Fool.” Said the mouse. The others in the box of papers chortled and began talking rather loudly about how the giant creature-man was starting to get uppity.
Peter and I talked about the situation this morning. Clearly, we need another bookshelf (because 14 just aren’t enough for the living room). And a dresser for the progeny’s many clothes. And a door sweep to keep out the mice. And, some shelves and other storage solutions. Actually, while we’re at it, I need groceries because the cafeteria closed and we have no food.
So I went out to the store today and got the most logical item on the list: A Nintendo Wii.
“What?” You ask. “Wait, that wasn’t on the list! Shouldn’t you be putting the needs of your unborn ch . . .”
Oh hush. You and your “logic.”
There is no need for concern, though. My priorities are firmly established and my responsibilities clear. Dissertation writing, cleaning, and the millennia-old art, nay, sanctity of motherly preparation is foremost on my mind.
Which is why I also got an extra numchuck for Wii boxing and have sketched out how I want my avatar representation to look.
And added “Wii Rock Band” to the baby registry.
I figure, who needs a clean, mouse-free house? Who needs organization? Who needs another advanced degree? No one, really. But who needs to R-O-C-K?
Indeed.
I just act accordingly, for the good of my family.
Here’s a question for you, 20 readers.
Let’s say you work someplace where all information is managed by one system. All relevant files and notes and such each have their own “module” within the the system. There was one person trained to know how to use all of the modules. This person left and no one replaced her. Then there were a bunch of people who could use individual modules, but then they left, and now there are modules that no one knows how to use. At all. Not a soul.
Now let’s say you are in a job which requires the information in your own module. There’s no one to train you on it because there’s no one who knows how to use it. There might be someone in the world who knows and can train you, and you are given three choices about meeting this person:
A) Learn how to use the module, but you’ll be the only one trained.
B) Do not learn how to use the module because you’ll be on leave in a month and if you learn how to do it, it is unlikely your place of employment will train someone else because technically someone on the payroll (you) knows how to use the module and one day you will return and you can help the new person (that is, the person who will be your new boss).
C) Plot the imminent demise of all technology, thinking records were really best left to be edged in bark by stylus anyway. Carry out crazy scheme. Bring down society as we know it.
The benefits to choice C are obvious. Those of choice A include the productivity could come from the next few weeks. Choice B would give the new boss a fighting chance, a chance denied to you. But you’d be left in information purgatory.
What would you do?
You know, if I were to write this into a choose your own adventure story, it would be really lame. And boring. And it would never get printed because I wouldn’t be able to access the “adventure” module, since I am in the “choose” department.
And don’t even get me started on the people who manage the “your own” infrastructure. They’re drunk by noon.
