growing pains – learning to give a tweet

I was watching the Desperate Housewives finale earlier this week and there was this absolutely hilarious exchange between Tom and Lynette about Twitter. For the two people out there who don’t watch the show, Tom and Lynette are a middle-aged, married couple who are both working to get back into the advertising industry after taking a prolonged hiatus to raise their children. In this scene, Tom is telling his wife about a recent job interview, and she asked him how it went.

T: Ok, until the 30 year old interviewing me asked if I’d ever used twittering as a part of a marketing campaign.

L: What’d you say?

T: Nothing. Because I don’t know what twittering is.

L: It’s a social networking tool where you send instant updates to anyone who signs up for them.

T: So you knew about this? And you kept it from me?

L: I didn’t keep it from you. It’s just one of those tech things that you don’t care about. It’s for young people…

You can watch a clip of the scene here. I’m not middle-aged or in advertising and I know what Twitter is. But I can also totally relate to Tom’s character. I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I have a blog. I’m apparently, pretty connected to the online world. But, like Tom, Twitter is one of those tech things I don’t actually really care a whole lot about. Gasp. I said it. Don’t judge yet. Let me explain.

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the single girl pendulum

Dear Lord, please help me understand why I feel like I’m going to be single until I die. I don’t want to settle, but I feel like there’s probably no one out there for me. Blah, blah, blah.

It’s a sad and depressing little prayer isn’t it? It’d been mine off and on for the past couple of months now. The cheese and whine sort of prayer that you know would tempt anyone other than the almighty God to throw lightning bolts at me and fry my pathetic, crybaby tail.

It’s the same story, played out repeatedly. I’ll spare you the boring details. I’ll just say that no matter how confident a single woman is, at some point there’s bound to be some fear or worry. Maybe it doesn’t render itself in such a fantastically whiney way, but its there.

I’ve been on this sort of single-girl pendulum for the past couple of years. And, while I tend to stray towards the normalcy point in the middle, I’ve been swinging between absolute fear and utter contentment for the past couple of months. Some days I worry that I’ll be that 40 year old with 3 million cats (which is doubly scary to me given how much I dislike satan cats). Other days, I’ll think about how I used to live…a life with dirty socks scattered on living room tables and bathrooms decorated with outdated issues of Car and Driver and Sports Illustrated…and I’m blissfully aware of how nice it is to be single. I guess, coupled or not, the grass is always greener on the other side.

I think the past day or two have been responsible for slowing the sway of my pendulum and leaving me in a happy stasis between normal and content. I think this has a lot to do with pancakes (which, I’m sorry, is an inside joke that only a very small handful of you will understand) and a couple of guy-conversations that have reminded me of everything I don’t want….things like overconfidence used to mask insecurity and so-huge-let-me-suffocate-all-living-creatures-in-the-state egos that are probably also used to mask insecurity.

Recent events have made me pause and wonder if all I have to choose from at this stage of the game are the insecure, socially inept, and self-absorbed crazies. I’ve decided that this probably isn’t the case, and that God is likely protecting me from myself and using these incidents to teach me more about who I am in him. For example, I’m learning to rely on him and not my speedo for social skills (juuuuust kidding!). In all seriousness, though, I’m learning more about what I want versus what I need and what that looks like in the wild.

Moreover, if I want a 1 Corinthians type of love, I have to work harder on a Romans 12 type of self-sacrifice so that when the time comes, I’ll be able to use that to be a good steward of a godly relationship. At least, that’s where my quiet time this morning led me.

if only i had social skills in my speedo

I promised myself that I wasn’t going to blog about this. It’s too embarrassing, I thought. I’ll look like an idiot, I worried. But then, I thought, when it comes to some things, I *am* an idiot. And it’s a funny story. And, as my friend Becky suggested, alliteration always makes things more funny, thus the cute title, which was aptly thought of by yours truly when telling the story for the first time. Seriously, if you were me, would you let this title go to waste? I think not.

So I’ve been working on re-vamping my workouts lately because I realized that after skipping consistent pool workouts and replacing them with entirely too many spin classes over the past four months has posed an interesting conundrum. Half of me is fit, the other half is not.I started this genius plan to add laps to my workout rotation a week ago today.

So I swam my laps. I felt so, I guess, uneven. I had no trouble breathing, my legs felt like they could go for miles, but my arms felt like thousand-pound jello. By the end of my last 500, I felt like they were just smacking the water. Like belly flops, but not. Arm flops? I guess? Either way, I finished my laps with sore arms and shoulders that felt like balled-up, wound-up rubber bands. It wasn’t pretty. P-a-i-n.

Obviously, there was no way I could go back to the locker room; I don’t think I had the strength left in my arms to even wash my hair. I stretched out really good and then decided to go sit in the hot tub for a while and stretch some more. I mosey on over and pick out a bench on the far end of the tub, as far away as I could get from this old guy who kept staring at me. I’m sitting there, sort of spacing out, looking around, trying to entertain myself while my muscles relaxed. Also, I was trying to avoid making eye contact with scary old guy.

Some guy walks out of the guys locker room. Normally I wouldn’t have thought twice about it or even noticed, but this guy had this tattoo. Some sort of cursive script on his chest. It was small, almost like a name tag or something. And immediately I think what’s that say? Maybe its his wife’s name or something, I look, no ring. Or not, really, dude, come on, stretch facing the other direction, I can’t see it. Omg, what if it says mommy? Does it?  No, I don’t think so. Whew. That’d be weird. What’s it say…

He must have felt me staring at him because he looked over right at that moment. Busted. So I just sort of half smiled at him and went back to looking around. I’m sure my face turned beet red though. Terrific. Pair the blush with the indentations left in my face from goggles and a swim cap, and the little bit of mascara that was no doubt smudged around my eyes, and….just…wow. I’m positive I looked like something out of a horror flick.

Anyway, so while I was vainly thinking about how fantastically gruesome I must have looked, I noticed that tattoo guy had picked a lane, settled his water bottle and goggles by the lane, and was stretching before his swim. Nice. Some things a girl just has to appreciate. His abs were one of them. He was a swimmer, I could tell. Granted, he obviously was no Michael Phelps, but the boy clearly wasn’t a newbie.

Uh oh, I started to feel someone’s eyes on me, so I tried to inconspicuously look over and see if it was him or the creepy old dude. It was him. And as he finished up stretching he walked straight over to the hot tub. The whole time I’m sitting there pretty much glued in place wishing and praying and hoping that I had some sort of social skills in my speedo to draw from. Small talk definitely isn’t my forte, especially not when I’m sporting goggle marks, runny mascara, and tangled hair. Confidence is hard for me when I don’t have, like, clothes to hide behind.

So despite setting up for a swim, tattoo guy gets in the hot tub and comes and sits right next to me at the far end. Seriously, the place he sat was the most difficult seat out of all of them for him to get to. Either creepy old dude who wouldn’t stop staring at me gave him the willies too, or he sat down next to me on purpose. Anyone who knows me well is probably dying of laughter because they know – and have experienced this on multiple occasions – I really, genuinely have no clue when a guy goes out of his way to talk to me. After hearing this story, one friend said, “he was totally trying to mac on you.” We should probably take her word for it over mine, because I am, apparently, clueless.

So anyway, he sits down and I immediately notice that he’s got this gorgeously cute crooked smile. Swoon. And then he starts talking to me. Small talk (remember, that thing I suck at). Fantastic. While I did manage to respond in a way that didn’t make me look like a spastic mute, I definitely wasn’t as chatty or cute or witty or charming or any of those things that I wish I was. And the whole time, the little devil on my shoulder kept whispering mean things in my ear about how as soon as I got out of the hot tub and the guy saw me in my suit, it’d all be over.

Terrific timing for the self esteem issues to come back, huh? I guess they aren’t dead and ground up and sitting in some landfill after all. In fact, little shoulder devil got to me so bad that I literally ended up just getting out of the hot tub and going to the locker room. I was a coward. And now I officially have no right to whine about being single after an episode like that. I just sort of stood in the middle of the showers for five minutes asking myself if I really just did that. I couldn’t believe it. Who does that?! I do, apparently.

career development

The goal of my little blog series is to write about things I’ve learned since I’ve become a full-time technical writer. One of the most important things I’ve learned is how to learn from other writers. It seems like a simple concept…I mean people have been apprenticing trades since ancient times, but I think there’s a tendency – especially in my generation – to ignore or neglect the importance of mentoring.

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the anti-granny’s guide to diet and weight loss

For those of you who don’t know about the Anti-Granny (AG), you can reference back to my introduction of her in my AG’s guide to dating and marriage post.

People are always surprised to hear me say that I don’t really get along with my grandmother. I mean, she’s grandma, and grandmas are supposed to be cute and sweet, right? Yeah, not so much. The thing is, with my granny, she just seems to go out of her way to try to make me into something I’m not. And she does that with my other cousins too. I’m not special there, but I seem to be getting the brunt of her opinions – first because I’m unmarried, and secondly because I’m apparently not Olsen-twin skinny. Well duh. They’re a combined 83lbs soaking wet, of course I weigh more than them. My dog weighs more than them.

I could save myself the pain and just quit calling AG, but regardless of the insults, she’s still my grandma, and I know she looks forward to the phone calls. And I don’t think she means to be mean. I think people have just enabled her or ignored her for so many years that she thinks its ok to say some of the things she says. Most of the time I ignore her, but sometimes – like with the whole marriage thing – it’s harder to let the comments slide.

So one of my…I guess….combative issues…for lack of a better phrase…with her is my weight. She’s been harping on me for it since I was in elementary school. She’d make little comments about how I needed bigger sizes and maybe I should eat more fruit and exercise. Fantastic, I’m all of 8 years old and ready to cry because she’s telling me that I’m not supposed to read my babysitter’s club books anymore because I’m too fat. Nice. Things like that really do wonders for a kid’s self-esteem. Maybe I was too fat and that’s why NKOTB didn’t stop by my house and pick me up to live on their tour bus.

It’s been the same argument with her since then. 8 years old, 18, and probably 28 too. It’s constant. I will never be skinny enough to please her. I know it’s not about pleasing her, but I’m tired of listening to the constant criticism. And her helpful advice…sigh….is more of a combo deal of the ridiculously obvious and the ridiculous.

First off, if I lived on fruit and broccoli, like she suggests, I’d lose weight, sure. I’d also tear up my stomach and lose all the strength in my body. Cuz, you know, that apple and two bites of broccoli will really power me through that spin class.

She advises me to drink lots of water. Well duh. So this one time I told her how much water I drink and she gave me a hard time for drinking too much. Rock, meet hard place.

She also thinks I should exercise. But not too much because guys don’t like muscular girls. Whoa. Back up the truck here. I’m not a body builder but I don’t work out for guys. I work out for ME. And if I want to lift weights, I will. If I want to hit five spin classes a week. I will. In fact, it took me a few spin classes to work off the aggression after my last AG encounter.

So let me get this straight, I’m supposed to eat like a bird and workout a lot, and base all of my weight loss/work out efforts on pleasing some guy? She backed up her theory with this fun quote: you really need to work on your appearance so you can find a husband.

Can we take a moment of silence to appreciate the delivery of that insult? Well played, AG, well played. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to be with some random tool who only likes me because of my pants or bra size. I’d rather be single. I’d rather be a nun.

And for the record, I look better now than I ever have before.

Sigh. She wasn’t done there. Why quit when you’re ahead, right?

She asked me how much weight I’ve lost overall. I patiently tell her 47lbs. (ok, time out…that’s flipping awesome! Go me!) And, of course, in AG fashion, she replies…well, that’s very good, but I’d be really happy if you’d lose more weight. Because, naturally, I’m doing this to please her.

It’s a good thing I have thick skin or that comment would have made me want to drive myself off a bridge, highway overpass, something. Last time, I made the mistake of trying to reason with her. This time, I made the smart move and just got off the phone.

I just don’t understand it. As for the weight issue, I’ve lost almost fifty pounds in a healthy and responsible way. I don’t even wear plus-size clothes anymore. But on top of that…I have an advanced degree, a great job, I focus on my career, I volunteer, I’m active in professional development, I work hard. None of that seems to matter, though. Apparently, to AG, I’m a failure because I’m not a size 2 and I’m not married. And all those other good qualities…she’s informed me that they make me too intimidating. I’ll never find a man if I’m constantly showing him up. To that, I calmly replied with a simple ok.

AG may think I should starve myself and dumb myself down to find a husband, but I won’t. The sad thing is, so many women do. I wonder how many of them have family members telling them they’re not worth holding out for quality. Our culture emphasizes the wrong things too often, and the last thing smart, beautiful, single women need is their own family telling them to forego who they are to land some guy. I don’t want some guy…I wish they didn’t either.

growing in humility

It doesn’t really matter who you are, what position you have, or where you work. It’s inevitable. Somewhere along the line someone, probably your supervisor, is going to ask you to do something (or even a series of somethings) that you feel is well below your education and/or experience.

I feel like the tendency to get assignments off-par with our job descriptions is even more prevalent in our field because so few people seem to understand what technical communication actually is (and some of them are technical communicators themselves…gotta love the irony). And there are so many subfields that it muddies the water even further. Before you realize it, you’re treated like a glorified secretary. Sure, boss, I’ll transcribe those meeting notes for you. Let me just poke myself in the eyes first.

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growing pains

You know all that whiny rhetoric about how difficult it is to find a job after college because of that chicken/egg phenomenon that exists with the whole required experience thing? Don’t worry, this isn’t a post about that. But the truth is, after leaving the safe little cocoon of our college dorms, the professional world can be really tough. We might think we’re ready, but when we get here, it’s inevitable: at some point we stop and wistfully remember that one class or professor or (if you’re a geek like me) that one desk in the basement of the library. Sigh. Memories.

In fact, some of us opted to just stay in school and get a master’s degree. You know, so we could put off the inevitable for a little while longer. After all, the most difficult part of it, beyond the occasional all-nighter, was Aunt Millie pestering us at every family get together. Are you still going to school? When will you finally graduate, dear?

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s.n.o.w.

I love snow. Flakey snow, wet snow, slushy snow, any kind of snow, I love it all. I especially love that heavy wet snow that makes killer snow balls. It’s the best. It also happens to be what God blessed Greenville with tonight. And He blessed us with a ton of it.

I’d heard that we might get snow. But really, it’s March. In South Carolina. And the weathermen lie…a lot. Snow. Riiight. Imagine my surprise when, half hour after I get to church, people are coming in telling me its snowing. Yeah, I was one of those loons who ran outside with my cell phone to take a picture of it. (Remember, it’s South Carolina. Sometimes it’ll “snow” here and five minutes later its pouring and the only proof you had that there was actually snow was that one cell phone pic that someone posted on twitter of the 2 flakes that hit their backyard. I had to have proof. It could be the only snow I’d see this year.)

But because God is awesome, I walked outside into a winter wonderland after the service. There were a couple of snowball fights, cars PILED high with snow. Awesome. Talk about a brilliant display of God’s glory. It was beautiful…well the snow-covered trees more so than the slush-covered parking lot…but you get the drift (pun not intended, lol).

By the time I trudged across the parking lot to my car, my feet were completely wet, my toes were numb, and my pants were wet up to the knees. I have one of those handy dandy snow scraper/brush things to clean off my car. But, it’s March, in SC, so I kept it in the best place I could think of…the storage closet at home. By the time I used my hands to clean off my car, I was soaked. I even thought I might lose a pinkie or something to frost bite. It was touch-and-go for a while there. Just kidding. But it was cold and wet. I know, that’s sort of part and parcel with snow, but I’ve got a point. I’m getting to it. I swear.

And as I was cleaning my car off, I was looking around the lot and saw SO many cars just stuck in the snow, rolling down the small hills at each of the lot’s two exits. And then I saw something more amazing, the volunteers on the Newspring Parking Crew. Some of these guys were wearing nothing more than jeans and a light jacket. And in teams of 3 and 4, they were pushing car, after car, after SUV, after car up those hills and out of the parking lot. I saw a couple of the guys fall while they were pushing cars. They were all totally soaked from head to foot. Not complaining. Smiling the whole time.

I’ve never in my life personally experienced a more brilliant display of Christ working through people like I did tonight. It taught me a lesson I don’t think I’ll ever forget. At least, it’s my prayer tonight that I’m consistently reminded of their great example every time I try to think the world is about Jen.

I made my way through the line of cars waiting to exit. There was a Rav-4 in front of me. Four guys were pushing it up the hill. And then, when the coast was clear, I began to inch up the hill. The parking guys flanked my car; two on either side, just waiting to jump behind me and push me out of the lot if I needed the help. Fortunately, my car is a beast and I made it just fine. When I got to the top of the hill, the same four guys, who’d followed me up the hill all smiled, waved good-bye, and wished me a good night. Wow.

And as I slowly made my way home, I thought about the actions of those volunteers and I felt about an inch tall. I’ve been struggling with pride, unrest, dissatisfaction, and maybe a little bit of anger too. I think I learned more from the parking guys than I did Perry tonight (and the sermon was amazing, so this is saying something).

I drove home and thought about:

• How many times have we felt like we were stuck in a pit, trying to claw our way out, when all we needed was a little push? A little help, without expectation or judgment or condemnation. It’s hard to get support like that. I’d argue that it’s even harder to give support like that. It can be really, really difficult to push someone up, especially when we want so badly to give our input, whether it’s wanted or not. I thought about some of the times recently when I’ve been faced with an opportunity to give my two cents or shut up. Some of those times I was successful, other times, well, not so much. I thought I had it under control on Friday, yet today, I was failing miserably again. I have to keep remembering that it’s not about me.
• I’ve been struggling some with my own volunteer position. I want to come to church every Sunday SO excited to do whatever it takes…like push cars and SUVs uphill in the slushy snow with a light coat on and smile the whole way through it. I want to show people how excited I am to serve them. I’ve been lacking enthusiasm for a long time now, and I realized tonight how not ok that is. And to add insult to injury, the whole thing just amplified this bad exchange I had with one of my own volunteers this morning. I’ve got so much to learn.
• All the time at Newspring they tell us how our roles make a difference to the people who come in the doors, how we’ll never really realize our full impact to the people we’re serving. Tonight was the first time I was so profoundly impacted by the actions of a volunteer (or seven). I was quickly reminded that if I’m going to represent my church as a volunteer, I need to be far more conscious of the simple things, like a smile or hello. I learned a major lesson in humility.

I learned a lot from the snow tonight…like how much I still have to learn. And, to the Newspring parking guys, thank you for being and amazing example of what I need to work towards. I hope someone blessed you all with dry socks and hot cocoa.

i’ll scream for ice cream

Anyone who has been in a homegroup/bible study with me over the past couple of years has learned that I grew up Catholic and as an adult, I’ve had some pretty negative feelings towards the religion. Most of these were rooted in a combo deal of lack of understanding purpose and reason for the many ceremonial facets of the religion and a series of poor experiences with catholic/Christian hypocrisy. Regardless, as soon as I was old enough, I rejected every part of the religion.

I really don’t intend on using this post as a venue to harp on all the reasons I’m thankful that I was freed of Catholicism. Rather, I wanted to talk about one small part of the religion that I was reminded of this morning. I have a coworker who is catholic and she was telling me how she and her kids are giving something up for Lent this year. (You can learn about lent here.)

When I was a kid, lent was something my family always recognized. We’d all give something up during lent, the period from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Usually it’d be some sort of food item or maybe a video game or favorite toy or something. As a kid, I never really understood why I was giving something up…other than the obvious peer and parental pressure to concede with the crowd. I never took it seriously. I’d give up something really specific so I could have something similar (ie: I’ll give up this specific brand of chocolate chip cookies but I’ll still be able to eat thin mints because I didn’t give up cookies in general). I thought I was so smart. Trying to outwit God and all.  Yeah, that never works out well, does it?

The wikipedia article I linked above describes the 40 days of lent (sans Sundays) as a parallel between the 40 days Moses spent on the mountain, the 40 days/nights of rain Noah had on the ark, and a whole lot of other “40″ parallels. I’m not sure that I buy into any of that because I firmly believe that it’s about relationship and not religion.

So why am I blogging about lent if I really don’t give a hoot? Well, when my coworker mentioned it this morning, something in me just screamed “ice cream!” I’ve been trying so hard to lose weight and after losing 45lbs, I’ve just hit a wall. Not a physical plateau like the one I struggled with around Christmas. This is more of a “I’m being selfish and reckless and over-indulgent and I’m tired of depriving myself because I think I’m so great that I should be able to eat without ramifications” sort of thing.

I started weight watchers in the first place because I wanted to try real hard to eradicate the overindulgent lifestyle I was living. I gave up tanning, manis, pedis, got on a budget, joined weight watchers, and even got a second job. Somewhere along the line, I’ve started to regress. This is typical for me, I’ve grown comfortable in the success and now I think I’m above it. Like, I don’t need the help and structure anymore. It reminds me of this discussion I had with my brother when he was telling me how part of his last relapse was because he just didn’t invest the time in his recovery so he’d start messing up with small things and get away with them and then started moving towards bigger things. No, I’m not using drugs, but I moved from one bad meal a week to two, to three, to…well, now I’m not even counting points. The horror.

So I figured, why not go with the childhood familiarity of giving something up for lent? What do I have to lose besides a couple of pounds? I’m not doing it for religion. I’m just doing it because I know that I need to focus on discipline and I think this is a good structure for me to start. So, I’m giving up ice cream during the time of lent.

And, let’s be real, success for me on this one will come only through Christ…and maybe the spontaneous combustion of every cold stone in the area.

let them eat cake

Every month or so, I’m forced to wage a great battle in the office against birthday cake.

There’s a lot of things about office life I simply don’t understand. Maybe my ever-dieting nature influences me. Maybe it’s my youth. Maybe it’s the fact that I absolutely hate frosting on store-bought cakes. But, regardless, one thing I really hate about working in an office is the ever-dreaded cake day.

Every office does them differently. Some places have one cake a month for all the b-days in that month, some smaller offices celebrate everyone’s aging day independently. It all depends I guess. One thing seems to be consistent, though. More often than not, one of the birthday-ers gets stuck having to celebrate with a cake he/she doesn’t even like. I got stuck with a pink lemonade cake once. Gross. Nothing ruins a good cake more than fruit. Another year I got stuck with some kind of peanut butter pie. Which would have been great. If I liked pie. Or abnormal amounts of peanut butter.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I’d rather my own birthday be celebrated without all of the pomp and circumstance. I mean, if everyone else wants to do the office bday thing because they enjoy the camaraderie and enhanced morale, terrific! I surely don’t want to rain on their parade. But, not everyone benefits from or enjoys these sugar-fests. I know that every time I turn down cake, at least five or six people ask me why I’m not having cake. Then I feel like I have to justify it because I feel like I’m getting some sort of guilt trip for shunning the party because I didn’t feel like forcing down that marble cake with the sugar-coma-inducing frosting at 10am. I think, I’d rather actually just eat my oatmeal.

Does anyone else think it’s amazing that people will eat all sorts of weird things at work, just because someone, usually some unidentified person from the cube jungle, brought something in and tossed it by the coffee pot?

But now I’m getting off track. Point is, if they want cake, let them eat cake. But don’t force me to partake too. I’m not able to participate in the stuff-your-face-with-cake festivities every single time they come around. Either I just don’t want any or I really want some but don’t have the will power to stare at everyone else stuffing their face.

Sometimes it’s really hard to be on a diet when you get all this peer-pressure to eat and eat and eat some more.

My workplace did something amazing though. I came back from vacation today and learned that there will be no more office cake due to budget cuts. I think I just found my silver lining.