I had a dream...

This isn’t how I envisioned it.

In my dream, she has enough experience to have earned the job fair and square. She’s paid her dues. Learned from her mistakes. Watched other people do the same. And, most importantly, come to know what she doesn’t know.

In my dream, it’s not enough that she is a woman. It doesn’t matter whether she knows how to juggle it all or can take on the big boys. In fact, no one would dare ask her whether she can do either. Her reputation and her experience put that stuff to rest long ago.

In my dream, she’s not only a woman, she is good for women. She knows that what is right for her may not be right for me, and she respects my need to have that validated in a meaningful way.

In my dream, she isn’t surprised and delighted to be invited to the party. She threw the damn party. And people are damn glad to be there.

In my dream, “Who?” isn’t the first word out of my mouth when I hear the news.

“Huh?” isn’t the second.

And “Crap.” isn’t the third.

In my dream, she doesn’t talk about the glass ceiling because she doesn’t think about the glass ceiling. It’s never been her style, and it’s not going to be now.

In my dream, she whips the naysayers into a frenzy because they don’t know what to do now.

In my dream, I am not one of the naysayers.

God, I wanted for this to happen. But I wanted it to happen to the right woman, at the right time, for the right reason.

Regardless of which way you look at this, there is only one conclusion to draw. This woman was chosen because she’s a woman – because choosing her would steal the headlines today and maybe steal an election in November.

She wasn’t chosen for what she brings to the office or what she brings to the country because, frankly, she brings nothing to either. She doesn’t know the players. She doesn’t know the protocol. She doesn’t speak the language. She’s had zero minutes in the game.

She’s been running PTA meetings and town council debates and governing more reindeer than people for a grand total of two years.

They say she’s smart. I sure hope she is. She’s governor of Alaska.

They she’s driven and ambitious and feisty. She’d better be, she wants to be President.

They say she’s a doer and a changer and she suffers no fools. Well, my mother is all those things and I don’t want her in charge of my country either.

Truth is, she’s on the ticket because he needed a gimmick. He saw the writing on the wall and went for shock and awe.

He sure got it.

Along the way, he took a most significant step for women and reduced it to a tabloid headline. He picked a woman rather than picking a running mate. He did us all one step worse than not picking a woman at all.

Here’s my question: If she’s so damn smart, why didn’t she say no? She can’t honestly believe that Mr. “My-Opponent-Doesn’t-Have-Enough-Experience-To-Lead-This-Country” thinks that SHE has enough experience to lead this country.

Can she?

In my dream, she answered the door, thanked him politely for asking, basked in the sunlight for a couple of minutes before suggesting he find someone more prepared for the job. As she closed the door, she whispered to herself, “Come back in 15 years.”

And then I woke up.

I have a dream...

I have never before understood what it means to be on the side of the angels.

Now I get it.

Dear God, please let him win.

Please. Let. Him. Win.

Amen.

And speaking of Jobs...

In case you missed it, Bloomberg News pronounced Apple CEO Steve Jobs dead today. Of course, the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated and the story was quickly retracted.

I’m sure heads rolled, Bloomberg being notorious for the brutality of its newsroom culture. I did my best not to giggle because, like reveling in someone else’s typographical error — especially when it’s in a headline — that would be bad karma.

Wouldn’t it now?

Wanted

Looking for a job sucks for a lot of reasons. Beside the fact that you’re usually broke and desperate, you’re also forced to read really bad copy written by people who clearly don’t understand — or don’t remember — that a classified ad is, well, an ad. And ads are designed to SELL something. In this case, a job. To you. Or someone like you.

I’ve hired a whole bunch of really good people in my time. I can’t remember more than a handful of times when I had to sift through hundreds of resumes looking for my needle in a haystack, my diamond in the rough. In fact, I rarely got more than about 10 resumes from my ads.

Typically every candidate was worth talking to. I like to think it was because of my ads.

I learned early on that you get what you ask for. If you want someone stiff and formal, write your ad stiff and formal. If you want someone creative and bright, be creative and bright in how you reach out them. Don’t be afraid to be honest. Don’t be afraid to show them who you really are and who you’re really looking for.

If your attitude puts someone off, they wouldn’t fit in your shop anyway. Right?

So all of this is to say, I ran across this today. The ad is available in pdf format on the left side of the screen about half-way down. If you don’t have time for both, skip the story and just read the ad.

And remember it the next time you go looking for some help.

Dare I say it?

Today, I feel hopeful.

As I look around, I see a charismatic, honorable man about to accept his party’s nomination for President. And I am hopeful he will win.

I see the woman he bested to ascend to this position, and I am hopeful she will not give up the good fight.

I see bitter, angry people still trying, and often failing, to fan the flames of hatred and fear, and I am hopeful their day is done.

I see young, energetic people ready to carry the torch, and I am hopeful they will not lose their way.

I see athletes who’ve done the incredible, the near-impossible, using hard work and determination as their only tools, and I’m hopeful we will all follow their lead.

I see a beautiful love and marriage reflected in the pages of People magazine, and throughout the state of California, and I am hopeful the rest of the country will see the light.

I see groups of people who disagree finally sitting down to listen to — and hear — each other’s points of view. And though they may agree to disagree, I am hopeful an age of thoughtful discourse is upon us.

I see the seeds of discontent that have been spread all over this land starting to flower into movement. I am hopeful they will blossom into real and honest change.

It’s so easy these days to despair. To worry that the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket. Look close enough, though, and you can see bright things starting to emerge from the dark.

In them, I see my daughter’s chance for a bright and peaceful future, filled with tolerance and compassion and opportunity for all.

And I feel hopeful.

The leap from here to there

One of my favorite web sites is passiveaggressivenotes.com.

One of my favorite genres of writing is the short story.

This combines these two faves quite nicely, especially for a rainy day.

Happy Tuesday.

The whole day through

She stood there, all 32 inches of her, in her Little Mermaid heels, purse on her shoulder, “coffee” cup in hand.

“I’m not going to school today. I’m going to work,” she said.

“Oh?” I replied. “Where do you work?”

“At work,” she said.

“Ah,” I said. “What do you do?”

“Work,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “Well, let’s go.”

So she, her purse, her cup, her blanket and her Nemo doll, piled into her car seat and off we went.

To work.

90-day trial

I love my job. No question. I love, love, love it.

Still, if someone walked into my office tomorrow and said, “Hey, want to take three months off and come back when you’re done?” I’d gather up my things and be gone.

Even without pay.

I’m not burned out. Not even close. But 90 days to spend on me and the things I want to do would be glorious. Don’t you think?

Anyway, a conversation I had today got me to thinking. And here’s what I'd do with three months off …

Exercise for an hour most days.

Learn to make pastry.

Study for and take the GRE.

Clean out and organize every closet in my house.

Get on a regular massage schedule.

Paint a new mural on my daughter's bedroom walls.

Sleep enough every day.

Learn enough yoga poses to do a class without feeling self-conscious.

Find a good butcher.

Figure out what's next for me.

Reorganize my kitchen.

Read for an hour every day.

Search for a good international market.

Visit my friends Gloria and Beth.

Write most days.

Apply to graduate school.

Become a regular at the farmer’s market.

What would you do?

Tagged, part deux

Frequent commenter KayBailey has tagged me. I'm it. Again. This time with different rules.
Here's how it goes:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules to your blog.
3. Write 6 random things about yourself.

• I’ve been on a date with Dana Carvey. (Well, at least I thought it was a date.)

• My friends who know about such things tell me I’m a Leo through and through, and I have no idea why that matters to anyone.

• Since college, my shoe size has grown from 5.5 to 6 to 6.5, and then shrunk back to 6 again.

• Cold pizza, cold Diet Coke over ice and a great newspaper are my favorite breakfast.

• I love Miss Spider, Thomas the Tank Engine, Nemo and Simba. Barney, however, creeps me out.

• I was named after a character in Little Women — the wrong character. My name really should be Josephine, or Jo.

4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.

www.theschellcafe.com (she never updates, so we’ll see if she’ll play our little reindeer game...)
http://erinkillian.com/
http://hammerandtong.blogspot.com/(ditto)

(I have only three. The rest were lovingly lifted by my friend citymousecountry, because she got there faster.)

5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog. (Like citymouse, I am cheating a bit by email e-mailing you instead.)

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

Correction: I was wrong. My friend bzzzzgrrrl didn't tag me. Her friend Kay did (as did alongstory). I've fixed the links. I've let Kay and along know. And I've apologized to bzzzzgrrrl. 20 lashes for me.

On guilt and pleasure

One of the qualities my mother’s never much admired in me is my ability to indulge in life’s guilty pleasures without feeling a single drop of guilt. It’s one of the clearest ways to tell that she and I do not share the same DNA.

I call them guilty pleasures for lack of a better term. Without the guilt, I’m not sure that fits. But whatever.

They’re the things we do, I do, that really have little redeeming value other than the pleasure they bring — which I happen to believe is redeeming value enough.

At one time, not so awfully long ago, I was so enamored with celebrity that I’d have traded the final year of my life to live one year as Britney Spears.

Seriously.

It was before she became a train wreck, of course. When she was sleeping with JT, living large, stopping traffic and making even me blush.

I’ve always been star-struck. But for a couple of years, I ventured into the frightening world of the star-obssessed. Today I’m mostly over the celebrity game (though I still believe that stardom somehow forgot to stop when it passed over my life.) That guilty pleasure — like Danielle Steele, Backstreet Boys and My Big, Fat Obnoxious Fiancé — lost its appeal as I, uh, matured.

These days, my guilty pleasures are more refined. Swedish massage. National Geographic television. Spa pedicures. Gourmet cooking.

And the most delicious of all: Peeking in on high society.

New York society. Palm Beach society. London society. Vienna society. From the gowns and the names, to the “committees” and the importance of lineage, I’m completely smitten with all of it. My mind is filled with champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

I’m fascinated to know that a woman named Tinsley Mortimer — yes, really — is The Next Big Thing in New York.

And that Denise Rich (the socialite songwriter whose ex-husband was pardoned by President Clinton) is among the most sought-after dinner guests in New York.

And that Palm Beach is thrilled to have a new owner at Mar-a-Lago, having long-ago tired of that Trump fellow?

And that every person on the Social Register of any major city must be able to trace his or her lineage — and money — to someone important and rich and dead for generations. (New money, no matter how big the pile, need not apply.)

They travel in seasons, spending summer here and winter there and Christmas skiing and Mother's Day in the Turks and Caicos. They walk the red carpets at Cannes, subscribe to the Met, open fashionable boutiques for their friends and lend their names to media jobs some of us would kill for.

(One recent Christmas party hostess had the three balconies of her triplex overlooking Central Park flooded and frozen so that revelers could look out the windows to see ice skaters twirling around.)

It’s easy to think all of this frivolous and wasteful. Certainly some of it is. But much of it takes from the rich and gives to the poor. Think of it as an alternate stream of cash flow.

Galas raise money for needy children. Auctions raise funds for medical research and the Disease of the Month. Dinner parties introduce funders to other funders, and everyone sits around talking about who should receive their largesse next.

It’s an important part of the food chain. Besides, it’s yummy to watch.

I used to wonder whether my interest was driven by jealousy. Do I secretly wish my name was Bitsy or Topsy? Do I want to be married to a man named Chappy, who was born to take over his great-great-great grandfather’s investment bank and drinks too much single-malt scotch? Am I, at heart, a social climber?

Then I remember that I when I held positions where I was invited to all the best parties to hob-nob with all the best people, I chose instead to stay home and work a jigsaw puzzle.

Rather, I think my interest is purely voyeuristic. I like peeking in at how the other half lives. I’m taken with their designer clothes, their pet causes, their seemingly warped values. I travel with them vicariously without ever having to leave the comfort of my non-label jammies or our Early Fisher Price-decorated living room. I sit at their dinner parties without having to know which fork to use next. And I attend their galas without having to starve myself into a new Badgley Mischka.

For me, there’s something about people who make a life following a list of rules the rest of us mostly don’t even know exist. And I want, however distantly, to be a part of it.

P.S. Another of my favorite sites is here. Tee-hee.

Poetry in motion

I don’t read much poetry, unless you count Dr. Seuss. It isn’t that I don’t like poetry. I do. I just rarely think to read it given everything else on my list.

Sometimes, though, I run across bits of poems that stick for me. That happened yesterday, on a blog I sometimes read, though rarely grasp.

It’s by Mary Oliver, who’s quite prolific and, it turns out, writes poetry that speaks to me. This one in particular.

Peace to you.

*************************

“Uses of Sorrow”
(from Thirst)

Someone I loved once gave me a
box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

The women in my life

When I was preparing to marry the Bonehead, lo these long years ago, I got two pieces of advice from strangers along the way.

The first was in a hair salon, while I bantered with stylists as we waited for my natural blonde to process. During a lull in the conversation, a woman I didn’t recall seeing until she approached me leaned over and said in a raspy voice: “I couldn’t help but overhear you’re getting married.”

“Oh, I am,” I said, with the glee of a 26-year-old in love with love.

She leaned in a little closer.

“Get a puppy and a vibrator,” she said, “You’ll be much happier.”

I was, of course, stunned. When I came to, she was gone. When I mentioned the incident to my stylist, she shrugged.

“I didn’t see her,” she said. “Oh well.”

Oh well, indeed. We all know her advice was spot-on when it came to that marriage (though I never did get that, ahem, puppy.) The second piece of advice has been spot-on, period.

I was in a fabric store buying, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? As I approached the wrap stand, a grandmotherly sort came to ring up my purchase.

“This is lovely,” she said as she ran it across the scanner.

“It’s for my wedding reception,” I told her.

“Been married 45 years… and to the same man!” she said, with giggle.

Then she stopped, held my gaze and added: “Don’t lose yourself in your marriage. Make time for yourself and make time for your girlfriends.”

Melodramatic as it may sound, I wonder sometimes whether my guardian angel sent that woman to me. Her advice has carried me through some of the most painful and lonely times in my life. It’s also sustained me through good times, times when I could easily have lost myself in someone else.

Like many other women I know, I gain much of my inner strength from the strong relationships I have with smart women. Spending time with them, individually or in groups, is critical to my mental health. I can count on one finger the number of men whom I’ve allowed into my heart. The number of women who roam around in there with him is much higher.

And the company is quite distinguished.

For example, there's Glo, who saved — and saves — me from myself.

There’s Luce, who taught me the power of redemption and has redefined the term “kindred spirit.”

Lex not only loves me unconditionally, she reminds me to love myself.

JillyBean and Bethtoo are my roots.

LR shows me where I want to go.

Nyczoo reminds me the wonder of serendipity.

There are a few from earlier times — e., kp and kks come to mind — who’ve taught me the power of reconnection. And a couple of new faces — sw, drb and dw — with whom I’m just getting started.

And there are others, you know who you are, whose contributions to my life can’t be put into words.

As you can see, I’m feeling the love these days. It comes after several recent opportunities to fill up my bucket. Those opportunities don’t come along near often enough.

So what are we going to do about that?

Feral cries

This is one of the best pieces of journalism I've ever read. An amazing story of the best and worst in human nature.

Peace to you.

Hell freezes over.

If Obama wasn’t behind this, he should have been.

And to Paris, whom I once said would garner a mention in these pages when, well, see post title, my apologies. At least in this instance, you're hot.

Muse-ical

Methinks my Muse is on a beach somewhere, with a good book, a fruity drink and a cute boy to slather her in sunscreen. It is August, after all.

Though they don’t happen often, I find that in times like this, when the words won’t come, ’tis wiser to leave things unsaid than to force them.

No worries. I’ll be back when she’s had enough of the good life.

Until then, feel free to post your own words beneath these. Perhaps it’ll stir something in me.

xoxo.