Thank God I Was Born In The Last Quarter Of The 20th Century

Since moving here, I have basically reverted into a '50s housewife. Every day I do the dishes by hand, since we are sans dishwasher. I make the bed. I dust and sweep and scrub the bathtub and hang the laundry up to dry. I have dinner ready when Mickey gets home from work. All that's missing is a frilly apron, a string of pearls, and the fear that Khrushchev will annihilate me via nuclear missile.

Some ladies love this sort of thing. I recently became Facebook friends with someone whose page says she "loves everything that goes along with being a wife -- cooking and cleaning!" And hey, more power to her, if that's what floats her boat. Feminism is about choice, after all, even though reading that makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

It's just not for me, this whole housewife thing. Sure, there are good parts about it -- I'm becoming a better cook, for one thing, which has been a long-standing goal of mine. Recently I made a delicious vegetable lasagna, tonight I'm doing chicken fingers, and tomorrow I'm attempting eggplant parmesan. (I know none of those are exactly challenging for the master chef, but come on. Baby steps.) And I really don't mind cleaning, since I don't enjoy living in filth and I'm not going to ask Mickey to clean when he gets home from work after I've been lying about all day. Besides, he did the cooking and cleaning when I was working and he wasn't. It's only fair. 

On the up side, I've been making the 30-mile trek to town at least once a week for pilates class, which has been great. It's a good workout, and it makes me feel a little more in tune with civilization and a little less like Thoreau up here in the woods by myself.

But for the most part, I'm just bored. I spend a lot of time alone, which is mostly okay. Mickey loves these mountains so much that he should enjoy them in the limited time we're here, instead of feeling like he has to entertain me. He keeps telling me to go on solo hikes while he's at work, but for me, hiking is only fun when it's a group activity. I like to enjoy nature when I can share it with someone, not plodding along in silence and contemplating what a tasty morsel I'd be for a bear. I have taken a book and a camp chair to one of the lakes for an afternoon reading session, and I do enjoy that.

Yeah, so maybe I'm going a little stir-crazy here in Wyoming. I am slowly formulating a plan, though, to remove myself from June Cleaver status and back into the ranks of modern working women. I'm considering taking a two-day class in Salt Lake City (about a five-hour drive from here) that would give me the basics on the new career direction I'm considering. The problem: It's really expensive for just two days, and I'm not exactly swimming in cash. The gamble: It may be worth it to have some continuing education on my resume. The possible upshot: I'd be more competitive when I apply for these jobs, not to mention it would get me out of this valley for a couple days. I've still got some research to do before I make a decision, but right now I'm leaning toward going.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go curl my hair and put on my red lipstick so I'll look my best when my man gets home. Say, have you heard about this Kennedy guy? And look, now they're saying cigarettes are bad for you! Goodness gracious!

Wordless Wednesdays: Phelps Lake Edition

Now With Unprecedented Levels of High School Loserdom

You know how there are some moments in life where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry? I’ve had many of those. For example, I once fell off the stage during a dance competition. Oh sure, it’s funny now, but when I was 13? HORRIBLY EMBARRASSING.

Well, kids, sit back and grab some popcorn, because I’ve got a good one for you.

The other day I reconnected with a high school friend on Facebook, and we’ve been exchanging e-mails about what we’ve been up to since we last saw each other in 1998. (By the way, remember what I said about not being all that impressed with the reconnective powers of Facebook? I take that back. I’ve found some people that I’m really glad to be back in touch with. I apologize, gods of Facebook.) Anyway, in one of these e-mails, I casually wondered what happened to our 10-year reunion, which should have been last year. I never heard anything about it, so I figured someone dropped the ball and didn’t organize one.

Oh, no, no, says my friend. It turns out we did have a high school reunion. I WAS JUST NOT INVITED TO IT.

Now, in the great debate over whether to laugh or cry, I’m coming down firmly on the side of laughing. I mean, REALLY. How much of a loser must I have been in high school to not be invited to the reunion? I know I wasn’t exactly popular, but is it so tough to look in the yearbook? Everyone in our class is in there, including me. And it’s not like I’m hard to track down; my parents have lived in the same house since 1981. Tons of people from my graduating class have my e-mail address. THERE IS NO EXCUSE, HIGH SCHOOL BITCHES.

It makes me feel a bit better to hear that according to my friend, the reunion sucked anyway. Apparently it cost $75 per person and there was a cash bar on top of that. Who knows, I’m not sure I would have attended even if I had been invited.

In all honestly, I find this pretty hilarious. I mean, not invited to my own high school reunion. There’s a good story for the grandkids.

Wordless Wednesdays: Evil Marmot Edition

Surrender, Surrender, But Don't Give Yourself Away

A few weeks ago, when I was getting some career advice from a former boss, she was telling me about all the times she’d been in my career situation – feeling directionless, unaccomplished, lost – and how she’d learned that although it may not always seem like it, being smart and working hard does get you somewhere in the end.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, and then she paused. “I’m sorry I said that.”

“Why?” I asked, curious. It seemed a perfectly normal thing to say.

“I used to hate it when people said that to me,” she said. “I used to think, ‘How do you know I’ll be fine?’ It’s not like telling someone they’ll be fine is actually going to make it happen.”

I laughed, even though that’s a pretty bleak thing to say to someone in the midst of a career crisis. I laughed because she gets it. For those of us who didn’t graduate college and immediately begin the career that would see us through to retirement, the prospect of being “fine” is not so easily grasped. There’s a lot of uphill climbing, a lot of starting over, a lot of disappointment and defeat that must be endured before one can be considered “fine.”

It’s not that I don’t appreciate all the support and encouragement that people like you, my dear Internet friends, have given me since this shitstorm started. It’s made me feel a lot better to have such wonderful friends, and when I have a friend in need, I usually tell them they’ll be fine too. It’s the nice thing to do, and it’s only natural to offer some comforting words rather than “Yup, that sucks. Good luck with that.”

But here’s the thing: I’m not so sure I’ll be “fine.” As I sit in this little cabin every day, I feel like I’m on hiatus from the world. I’ve only been unemployed for a little over a month, but even now, the prospect of getting up, putting on makeup and nice clothes, driving or catching a train to the office, working for eight hours, and getting home in time for dinner seems a foreign concept. I know I’ll be back in that routine in a few short months, and I’ll be more than ready to vacate this little cabin by then, but to what will I be returning? More unfulfilling days spent staring at an impersonal computer, counting down the hours until I’m free? More daydreaming about what I could be doing, what I’m capable of doing, while I earn a paycheck for things that will always feel like a stopgap? Or does this stint in Wyoming mark my passage into something great, something of which I can finally be proud?

I have hope. Hope is a valuable thing. I even have a direction, which is the first step in establishing confidence that I’ll eventually get somewhere. But even though I have loads of free time, I’m still hesitating a bit on taking the online classes I need to take and applying for the jobs I need to apply for. Like I said, hope is valuable. It’s like the toy you loved as a child but didn’t play with too much for fear of breaking it. And I know that if I hit more roadblocks, that hope and that direction that I so preciously possess now will be smashed like so much shattered glass, and I’m not sure I can take any more rejection.

But if this new direction doesn’t work out? I’ll mope for a while, then I’ll slowly pick up the pieces and soldier on. Because that’s what we do in life; we have no other choice. I don’t believe in “human nature,” per se, but I do know that struggle and misfortune are things every person on this planet has endured, to varying degrees. No one goes through life without a few lemons; it’s those who make lemonade that come out on top.

“I have confidence in you,” my former boss corrected herself. “That’s what I meant to say.”

It’s exactly what I needed to hear.

We Can Only Assume He Stopped Because He Got Enough

Sad day for children of the '80s everywhere: Michael Jackson, King of Pop, Master of the Moonwalk, General of the Glittered Glove, Baron of Beat It, Lieutenant of the Lighted Sidewalk Panels, Prince of the Patent Leather Jazz Shoes, Our Man in the Mirror, Non-Father of Billie Jean's Son ... has shuffled off this mortal coil.

I'm not even going to talk about the child molestation accusations or the plastic surgery or the all-kinds-of-wrong marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. The simple truth is this: When I was a kid, Michael Jackson was THE SHIT. I can't tell you how many hours I spent trying to perfect the moonwalk or wondering how he could lean so far to one side without falling over. My parents played Thriller on a boombox outside our front door every Halloween for the trick-or-treaters, and I always ran to the bathroom at the end of the song because that evil cackling scared me. Not to mention the end of the Thriller video when he turns around and his eyes are all yellow and cat-like. (That's still the greatest music video ever, by the way, hands down.) I memorized the dances to Billie Jean, Bad, Beat It and Thriller, and though I never could quite mimic MJ's moves, I still remember them all.

So RIP, Michael. You defined the decade that was my childhood, and although you may have been a tad loony in ... well, since the '80s, I never stopped thinking you were awesome. 

Wordless Wednesday: Flowers and Mountains Edition