Bad Poetry

Mine. Not someone else's.

TRAFFIC 

Here I go Here I go Here I go going

South.

There you go There you go There you go

North.

Elvis C sing Miracle Man

To me as I drive my blue Civic

South.

What do you hear in your car

As you steer through your paces driving

North?

Roadside toy truck teddy bear

little sock pillow and shoe Tears

South.

What do you see as you make

Your own breeze and drive past me going

North?

Chick fil A titty bars el mercado means Market billboards of my view going

South.

What do you see as you cruise

Through pavement grooves making your way

North?

I compose at speed and revise

As I steer distracted and bored driving

South.

What do you think as we pass in a blink

And. You. Go.

North?

So this is why I don’t write novels

Too much to memorize driving

South.

What is it that you don’t do as worn

Paths you pursue and continue driving

North?

Good-bye Stay-At-Home-Mom Fridays . . . .

Hello, Work From Home Wednesday!

For about the past 10 months, I have had what is described in my office as a "compressed work schedule."  I work eight nine-hour days and one eight hour day (for a total of 40 hours), and the nI get every other Friday off:  Stay-at-Home-Mom Fridays.  But tomorrow is the last of those days off and, as of Monday, I am back to an eight hour work day.

There has been a lot that I like about SHAM Fridays.  Mainly, I've liked the not-going-to-work part.  In seriousness, those Fridays off have allowed me to have some scheduled time off at a time when I had zero to little leave built up.  I'm not sure I could have maintained my sanity without the time off.  I was able to run errands, schedule appointments, hang out with The Boy and, sometimes, just generally chill out and do my own thing on those Fridays.

But the compressed schedule -- those nine-hour days -- that was the trade-off for the day off had become untenable.  Honestly, nine-hour work days are looooong days, and I frequently come home more tired than I would have imagined one extra hour of work a day would make me.  And that makes the evenings with The Boy and The Working Dad less enjoyable.  It also makes it difficult, if not impossible to get regular exercise in.  I'm still 22 pounds heavier than I was when I got married -- still carrying lots of baby and infertility treatment weight -- and I would like to drop those pounds for myself, my husband, and my child.  I want to be a fit and healthy mom and I'm not.

Too, those nine-hour days, when combined with the daycare's schedule, allowed very little wiggle room.  If I arrived late at the office for some reason or another, I would often have to take an hour or so of leave so that I could be sure to leave the office with time enough to spare to pick The Boy up from School.  With the School's schedule, there is really no option of working late if I get in late.  Similarly, if The Boy is sick and I have to stay home with him, I have to take nine hours of leave, instead of eight, which makes a difference when your leave balance is tiny.  Then there's the fact that the rest of the world continued to transact business on my SAHM Fridays, so the Monday's after, I find myself playing catch up for half the day.

So even though SAHM Friday started out seeming like a great solution to the working mom's constant struggle to be all things to all persons, including herself, it really was not working out personally or professionally.  So I'm giving them up.  In their place, I am taking advantage of another alternate work schedule offered by my employer:  teleworking.  Essentially, one day a week (Wednesdays) I will log into work from my laptop and work from my desk upstairs.  So for one day a week, I save the commute time and I save to morning primp time.  I can just roll out of bed, pull on some yoga pants, grab a cup of coffee, fire up the computer, and I'm on the job.  (P.S.  Yes, The Boy goes to School on Work from Home Wednesdays.)  I am hopeful that this new schedule of regular 8 hour days and teleworking once a week will give me the flexibility to exercise more often.  I also hope that it will make me less tired at the end of work day (most days), and will help me keep on top of my caseload.

I feel really grateful that I have these sorts of flexible work options and am cognizant that many American workers don't.  And even if employers do offer flexible work schedules or part time schedules, they seem farcically cruel.  I was recently told by a fellow mom of a toddler, who is also a lawyer, that her firm lets her work part-time, 80% time.  Her schedule:  8 to 4.  My schedule working full time at my job (with a 30 minute lunch):  8 to 4:30.  What's wrong with this picture?  It's not just a woman thing.  It's a worker thing.  We spend too much time at work and not enough time at play and home.  I think our Puritan work ethic may be killing us.  But that's for another blog post.

For now, I sit on my sofa on a Thursday night, The Boy already in bed, The Working Dad at piano lessons, and I type this post, thinking of all the things I will do tomorrow on my last SAHM Friday.  (Hair cut, pedicure, house organizing . . . .)  I will miss these days off, but I do look forward to my new schedule that, I hope, will give me more "me time" every day, even as I will no longer have my occasional "me days."  I think I may go to the gym after work on Monday, and sign on with a personal trainer and see if I can get someone to help me use a few of those extra one-hours a day to shed these extra pounds . . . .  (Guess I'd better put this bag of Sun Chips I've been munching on back in the pantry, huh?)  Night, friends!

I miss taking the train.

When I was single, and before I met my husband, I had a house in Dallas.  It was built in 1963.  It was on an enormous third-of-an-acre lot with a gorgeous oak tree in the back yard and crepe myrtles so large you could climb them. (I did.)  It was a fixer-upper with a mish-mash of floor coverings and a foundation problem.  (After over 40 years, the load bearing wall wasn't bearing the load so well anymore.)  It was too much for me.  I never fixed it up.  I did a few cosmetic things:  painting, mainly.  And my mom, dad, and I converted a screened porch with a sauna (seriously) into a screened porch with bar and a sink.  It wasn't perfect.  But it was mine, my little third-of-an-acre.

And when I lived in Dallas, before I became a suburban wife and mom, I took the train to work.  And it was awesome.  Dallas has light rail.  I have always been enamored of urban rail lines.  Maybe it's because I'm from a small town in East Texas that commuter trains seem very glamorous and modern to me.  Maybe, though, it's simply because I hate to drive.

So, even though it sort of smells, I love The Tube in London.  DC's Metro is so slick.  Chicago's El makes you feel nostalgic for a life you never knew, as you wind around the buildings at mid-level.  And the subway in New York?  Well, even though I've visited the city more times than I can count on my hand, I've never actually been on the New York Subway . . . but I love the idea of it . . . and Grand Central Station is cool.  (My husband, who did live in New York for several years, swears that he damaged his hearing on the Subway, but I digress.)

I like everything else about my life in the suburbs:  the fact that the city is small enough to walk just about anywhere, the parks, the running trails, the school district, our house.  And, of course, my family.  Even the fact that my home is far away from my office downtown makes me happy.

But we're not on a DART Rail line. So when I moved to the 'burbs, I gave up my rail pass and, with it, an hour or more of my day in which I would read books.  I would read one or two books a month on the train.  It was my decompression time.  It was my time to explore the paper world.  I felt smarter and more well rounded.  I am sure I was more interesting to talk to.

I also liked that I wasn't clogging the freeway with one more tin can, that I wasn't burning all that fossil fuel, and that I was participating in Dallas's urban-ness.  Taking the train makes you feel differently about the city you live in.  Dallas seemed smaller and easier when I took the train.  Need to get downtown?  Just hop the rail line, and you're there in less than 30 minutes with no traffic snarls or hassels with parking.  You're less likely to head downtown if getting to your destination involves a long drive on a hot and crowded freeway followed by a frustrating search for a $10 parking space.

Now, I drive to work.  I've tried books on CD to fill the dead time in the car.  It's not the same.  I'm not nearly as engaged in the text when I'm listening to a book on CD for all the obvious reasons, not the least of which is that I'm paying attention to traffic.  In fact, often, I'm not listening at all.  The book is just a sound to cover up the road noise . . . might as well listen to the radio.  And the 45 minutes to an hour I spend at the end of each day trying not to die on Interstate 35 exhausts me so much that I am less likely to do the things I need to do to be a healthy human:  cook meals, exercise, read books.  And it makes me less fun for my husband and son too.  I also feel badly about the gas, the pollution.  That's the air my boy will breath for the next, let's hope, 100 years or more.

There's a new rail line that extends to a neighboring suburb.  I would still have to drive to get there, maybe 15 minutes or so.  And then the train ride would be another 40ish minutes.  Is it worth it?  It might be.  Maybe, one week, I will try it . . . .

I miss taking the train.