the Diva Platform

Last night I saw “Rachel Getting Married,” which is about a drug/alcohol addict attending her sister’s wedding.  Not surprisingly, the movie did make me want to drink (and thank goodness I had a bottle of prosecco chilled, of which I took a big swig straight out of the bottle, causing the Boy to ask, “Did you just take a pull out of the bottle?”

“Well, I knew you weren’t going to drink any, so yeah,” I replied.  Drinkly bubbly straight from the bottle is one of my guilty pleasures.  Oh, yes, it’s civilized to drink it out of a glass, but swigging it from the bottle seems like you’re breaking a rule).

The movie also inspired how I’m writing this entry.

Hi.  I’m Jill, and I’m a renter.

Just as addicts have the stigma of addiction, I have the stigma of making it to my mid-30s without becoming a home owner.  This, of course, in America is wrong, because I should be pursuing the American Dream, which is not, as the Library of Congress documents, a rich and full life; rather, it is home ownership.

Yet, even as the government pushed for loans for lower-income people to buy houses, folks like me and the Boy, who earned too much money to qualify for government loans but not enough for us to feel comfortable taking out a mortgage in order to afford a place in a decent neighborhood, got screwed.  We could buy a house–a ticky-tacky McMansion next to the highway in an exurb of Chicago, or we could rent and have access to things that would enrich our lives.  We chose the latter.

Of course, we could’ve have made home ownership our main goal.  We could have curtailed going out, introduced more ramen and microwave burritos to our diet, and saved most of our paychecks.  Or we could’ve taken on a big mortgage(s) and/or Private Mortgage Insurance and/or had a place with rooms we couldn’t afford to furnish.  We thought it might be nicer to see Ireland, Germany, Japan, and Canada, maybe enjoy a nice cocktail now and again, and make sure we had no credit card debt.

Which is how I’ve made it to my mid-30s and still rent.

However, I don’t think that I should have to feel bad for not owning a home.  I still want a decent place to live.  I still want a nice community.  And I still want to own a home someday–though I don’t want us to get in over our heads because of the need to own a house.  So while I save some cash, I keep in mind the nicer parts about being a renter:

1.  If the place sucks (buyer, beware!), you can move out in a year.  Home owners have to find a buyer first–and oh, look, nobody’s buying homes right now.

2.  I don’t have to worry about finding a decent plumber, electrician, or handyman, or having them on my speed dial.

3.  If something big breaks, I call someone else to fix it, and I don’t have to pay anything (this came in handy once when in my last apartment, the refrigerator conked out, AND the entire kitchen floor had to be replaced.  I’m not talking about the linoleum, I mean the whole floor because it was sagging in the middle and threatened to collapse into the apartment below me.  I can’t imagine how much that would’ve cost me to fix).

4.  No associations I’m forced to join and pay fees to.

5.  Also, no special assessments and taxes.

6.  I can afford the rent.

7.  I’m not worried about the foreclosure crisis (which, if housing was a bit cheaper and money wasn’t so easy to get, might not be that much of an issue).

8.  No yardwork.

9.  I can try out different neighborhoods.

10. No worrying about the resale value of the place.

Oh, I understand there are plenty of drawbacks to renting too, but it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.  Paying rent isn’t necessarily “flushing money down the toilet,” as I’ve heard.  Yes, you have an asset when you want to sell, but it’s only worth what someone else is willing to pay.  We’re seeing now that people aren’t willing (or able) to pay as much as they would’ve in the past, so some homeowners are losing on their “investment.”

I may not own the roof over my head, but I still take comfort in feeling that I’m living the American Dream as it was originally intended, and I feel that’s what we should all strive to do.

I’m kind of racking my brain for a post….and then my buddy crandell at Carfree Chicago made a wonderful comment on yesterday’s entry regarding neighborhood groups.

One thing I grouse about regarding the couple of neighborhood groups around me is their disdain for renters.  I’m sorry.  I wasn’t around in the 1980’s, when the neighborhood was a massive drug zone and you were afraid to leave your house [True--one meeting I went to, a woman shared how she learned it was safe to take a certain way to go to the library, and that's about the only place she could go].  That was apparently the time to buy in.  Since then–if you haven’t noticed–there’s been a real estate boom and a penchant for real estate developers to put up only luxury condos.  Let me remind you that luxury = expensive, and even though getting a huge mortgage was insanely easy for many years, I decided I didn’t really want to get in over my head and be saddled with an enormous mortgage that would prevent me from enjoying the city (or eventually quitting my job to pursue my passion).  And now everything is both overpriced and unobtainable.  Heck, even when I had a job with a decent salary, the Boy and I felt housing in our neighborhood was out of our reach.

So that makes me an awful, awful renter.  An undesireable, so it would seem.  And yes, there are a bunch of crappy renters, but I’m sure there are a few people out there who don’t take care of the property they’re renting from the bank.  I mean, the folks in the mansion down the street from me have a really hard time keeping the walk shoveled [walk shoveling is a different rant though, and I don't think I have the strength today for the asininity that goes along with that one].

What I loved about crandell’s comment though is that a lot of owners who show up for these meetings (and I have to say that a chunk of them are these old-timers in the neighborhood who don’t seem to understand how out-of-whack housing prices are compared to incomes), not only seem to dislike renters, but they also loathe affordable housing.  I’m sorry, but to me “affordable housing” is a place at a price where our hefty house fund can be a 20% down payment.  Yes, I understand that nowadays you don’t have to put down 20%, but when you don’t, you pay extra in some form, whether it be PMI or closing costs on a second mortgage.  I don’t really see myself being so desperate to own a place that I have hardly no money to put down on it, so your standard 1 BR luxury condo in Lakeview that costs around $200,000 is of no use to us, seeing as how we’d grow out of that quickly.  A 3 BR for over $400,000 is totally out of the question.

But those prices are considered “good” and “healthy for the neighborhood.”  We want to attract the kinds of people who can afford those places.  We don’t want somebody who wants a 3 BR  for say, $200,000 (and forget about ever owning a single-family house around here.  That’s a total pipedream.  I doubt you could get anything for less than $500,000-600,000).  Because personally?  I don’t need fancy kitchen countertops, a master bedroom suite, or whirlpool bathtubs.  I’ll take formica and upgrade later.  Just give me an affordable option.

Apparently that kind of attitude isn’t valued though, and every time I go to a meeting and get confronted by that, the Boy asks me why I get so upset.  Maybe it’s the realization that if things stay on a similar track, I will never really be able to put down roots here, even though it’d be nice to.  I’m forced to be transient–or rent for the rest of my life.  It’s the realization that I’m being discriminated against, even though I know that if I pointed out the discrimination, the reply would be, Well, we didn’t mean you.

But you did.  Because I like the concept of affordable housing–maybe it means young, middle-class people will stay in the neighborhood.  It doesn’t have to mean you’re dirt poor (not to mention that not all dirt poor people are horrible and evil and will bring down the value of your house).  It’s the concept that people get a chance to help foster their community, and when you take away that chance, you take away hope for the future of your neighborhood.

In civics class I remember learning that even though being the President is a pretty high-powered gig, the real power is having local office.  That’s where you really affect people’s everyday lives (thanks, Cook County President Todd Stroger for our fabulous 10% sales tax!).  Every time I go to a community meeting, I’m more convinced that that’s true.

Last night, the Boy and I went to back-to-back meetings about some public art that will be commissioned for our neighborhood.  The Chicago Public Art Program is in charge of these–they’re the agency responsible for getting and maintaining all the new public art in the city.  By “new,” I mean post-1978 (so some of the big warrior-on-horse statues aren’t included), and by “public art,” I mean big artwork (sculptures, mosaics, mobiles) in airports, train stations, libraries, police stations, etc.

The first meeting sought neighborhood input for the artwork that will go up in the Belmont L Station.  It’s undergoing renovations, and something like 1.33% of the construction budget for public buildings needs to go toward artwork.  Personally, I think that’s pretty cool, and it certainly makes enjoying public transportation a little easier.   Anyway, CPA had solicited some artists to create concepts for a large mural along the back wall of the station and two cement poles that you walk past after going through the turnstile.  Now they presented the six and took in our thoughts, and then they’ll decide which artist gets the commission.

How many people weighed in on this, a project that will run, oh, I believe a good $100,000?  Maybe 75-100, and I probably counted the CPA staffers as well. [My favorite? A funky train designed by David Lee Csicsko, and his was popular, along with a cool abstract mosaic of a skyline made with tiles that were imprinted with fish to symbolize water, leaves for grass, butterflies for sky, and gears for buildings.]  That’s it.  A handful of us helped decide what a good 10,000 people will look at every day. And they thought that was a really good turnout.

Even fewer people stuck around for the second meeting, which was the initial discussion for art to be installed at the new police station by Addison and Halsted.  Granted, no big decisions had to be made, but it was interesting to hear the process and talk through where the art should be located–in the building lobby? the community room? on the parking structure?

Going to both of these proved to me that if you’re willing to make the effort to participate in the decisions being made about your neighborhood, town, or city, you can actually have a big effect on a lot of people’s worlds.  They may seem small–like whether or not a restaurant gets to open a sidewalk cafe in the summer–but a lot of small things really do add up.

Do you ever find yourself fearing food you haven’t eaten in a while?  I’m not talking about a Thanksgiving turkey or Grandama’s infamous meatloaf (or maybe you are afraid of the meatloaf).  I mean packaged food from the grocery store.  Let me explain.

I will sometimes get specific food cravings, and recently I’ve had a craving for a particular kind of chocolate cake.  I don’t exactly know what it’s called, but it’s a single-serving, two-layer chocolate bar cake, with white cream/frosting inbetween the layers and also piped down the center on the top of the bar.  This is then coated with a thin layer of hard chocolate icing.  You know what I’m talking about?  You also know how difficult it is to find this, say at midnight when you could really use some cake and all the bakeries are closed?  And all you want is just this one piece and then you’ll be fine?

Several weeks later, I’m still trying to find said cake, mainly because I haven’t made a pilgrimage to some local bakeries to try to track it down.  Even though I haven’t mentioned this current obsession to anyone until now, I’m still slightly embarrassed by wanting it.  I mean, I couldn’t tell you the last time I had this cake.  Why I want it now is beyond me.  But I’ll continue to think about it.

What doesn’t work is trying to substitute another food for said food that you want.  I was at a CVS around midnight during the height of this craving, and they had nothing that would help.  The closest thing would probably be certain Little Debbie treats, but this CVS didn’t have Little Debbie.  They had Hostess, and they had Oreo Cakesters.

I can’t tell you the last time I ate a Hostess product, and frankly, I’m afraid to do it now.  I remember how good they used to taste, but my palate’s changed over time, and I worry that if I eat another Hostess product, it won’t taste nearly as good, and I’ll just be disappointed for wasting money and calories on something that’s lousy (not to mention chemicalriffic).

I hadn’t had a Cakester yet, even though I was both intrigued and scared by them.  An Oreo in cake form?  How does that work?  And what does it taste like?  Desperate, I grabbed a package.  And despite the Boy’s, “Eww, gross,” reaction, proceeded to dig into it when I got home.

The verdict?  Not so great.  First off, the cakes are tiny, and come in packs of three, which is clearly marked as being more than one serving (the twin pack is one serving, and at 250 calories, it’s a hefty snack).  I guess Nabisco assumes you have massive willpower or that you’re sharing with your buddies.  Me?  I managed to hold off after one, and I worked my way through the package over a few days.  Still, it didn’t taste good, and I won’t be trying them again.

I wonder if I didn’t take to them because I’m used to eating fresher bakery products or if because I’m trying to keep off the preservatives and other chemcials that seem to be in so many more foods today.  But would I have liked these as a kid?  I’m almost afraid to think about it.

The Oscar noms came out last week, which helps dictate the movies I go to see over the next month, and since I have to see pretty much everything, I started my movie viewing on Saturday.  I met a couple of friends at a local multiplex and was immediately freaked out by the mobs of people streaming into the theater and/or standing in line at the box office/online ticket kiosks.  While one friend and I waited for our third to show up, we saw the signs posted with regularity:  Sold out.  Sold out.  Sold out.

Still, the swarms of people crowded all around us, and then I realized why:  In the space of fifteen minutes, four of the six films on tap were starting.  FOUR.  That meant hundreds of people were showing up to try to get their tickets, snacks, and seats in a giant mob.  Once the last movie started, things were pretty peaceful, and by the time our friend showed up, we didn’t have to wait in line at all.

Why would you schedule your movies so closely to one another?  I understand running times are different, and you have to maximize the number of showings you have every day, but how much are you losing in sales?  How many people look at the line for popcorn and say, “Forget it.  I’m not waiting in that!”?  How many people can’t get parking in your facility and forget the show altogether (that actually happened–a woman’s husband couldn’t get into the parking garage, and she sold her tickets to someone else)?  If that happened too much to me, I’d just stop going to your theater.  The hassle wouldn’t be worth it.  It’s time management–why have a massive rush (on probably the busiest night of the week) and then have workers standing around for an hour or so?  Wouldn’t a steady stream of customers make more sense for them?  Do you want the customers stuck in long lines, getting frustrated at your employees for not moving faster?  That just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Of course, I complained mightily about this to my friends, and then we proceeded to buy tickets for the late showing of “Slumdog Millionaire,” a rags-to-riches story about a kid who grew up in slums in India and wins millions of rupees on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”  If watching kids scramble over garbage, get their eyes burned out to earn more money as beggars, and jump into holes full of shit won’t make you feel like an absolute moron for complaining about a crowded multiplex, I don’t know what will.  Still.  Landmark Theater manager?  Really.  Time management.  I’m sure it can be done.

So what did I think of the Oprah-recommended “Slumdog Millionaire”?  [possible spoiler alerts follow!] It was decent.  Three stars.  Maybe a little more if I wasn’t in the second row, but to me it wasn’t the best thing since sliced naan.  It is a one of those feel-good movies that American audiences eat up (yours truly included), but I wondered how much of it was designed to tug at my heartstrings, with the whole slum depictions.  Yes, I know that there’s massive amounts of poverty in India, but I read something like this article talking about how Indians are tired of the slum stereotype, and I wonder what’s accurate.  Yes, there’s still poverty (hell, there’s poverty here too), but what’s realistic and what’s designed to play on your emotions?

My other beef with the movie in that in a city of tens of millions of people, the main character (who seemed a bit dazed by any sort of attention throughout his life, which made him an underwhelming personality) kept managing to find the girl he loved, even after many years, and he basically only had her name to go on.  The reality of the situation seemed so far-fetched that I stopped caring because of course he’s going to find her!  How couldn’t he?  Another friend whose opinion I respect said the message of the movie seemed to be that if you love someone hard enough, everything will work out.  The boy loves the girl hard enough, and he gets both the girl and the money.  Isn’t that something?

You might think I’m being a bit hard on it, but when you’re nominated as one of the best movies of the year, I’ll judge you a little harder.  This is a feel-good, fun movie, but I don’t really think it’s best-picture worthy, especially when you compare it to “Milk,” which was excellent.

Oh, what to write, what to write.  Here are the parts that make up today’s half-assedry of a blog:

1.  I have been drinking.  Fine. Whatever. People drink. But we went out on someone else’s work dime, and let me tell you that it’s been SO long since I’ve been able to do that!  The prime rib?  Why, yes, that sounds delicious! And, yes, I’ll take dessert!  And you want to have one bottle of wine with appetizers and another with dinner? Don’t mind if I do!

This of course, led to an early end to the evening, one that the Boy and I weren’t quite ready to let go. So we went to Nacional 27 for a cocktail (and even though “ONE cocktail” usually means two, we stuck with one).  I can’t tell you how much I love Nacional.  The head mixologist is phenominal, the bartenders are great, and it is a mighty fine way to enjoy some alcohol.  It’s been forever since we’ve been there (when we both earned steady paychecks, we went every week or two.  But now I can’t tell you the last time we’ve been there.  However, it didn’t feel that way–the bartender remembered us, and I felt like quite the Prodigal Son).  Being back last night made me really happy.  And also made me want to work harder to earn more money.  Funny how that works.

2.  Astrochick opened up another rant-o-worms by mentioning the concept of the storage unit in yesterday’s comments.  I understand renting a storage unit if you’re moving overseas for a set period of time, and you’ve got to put your stuff away for a few months.  But when I talk to people who have moved overseas, they don’t remember the stuff that was so important to store, or they get it out of storage, discover it was crappy, and are stuck with it.

I also get short-term storage.  It’s similar to overseas, except that you don’t really go anywhere.  You’re in transition and need to store your stuff for a little bit.

What I don’t understand is people who have so much crap that they rent storage space just to house it all.  Why?  Why is it so difficult to keep the amount of possessions you own to within your own four walls?  That’s one of the reasons I like living in a smallish apartment–we can only have so much stuff.  I marvel at people who have 20 pairs of jeans or an extra couch.  Why?

When writing the city essays I’ve been working on over the last week, I marveled at how in some of them, there didn’t seem to be much to do besides shop.  Sometimes I wonder if because I don’t have kids, it’s easier to not be in shopping mode (I also have a small closet, so I can’t really stuff it).  Kids grow out of clothes all the time, so you’re shopping a lot more often than someone like me, who doesn’t change size that often.  If all there is to do is shop, then no wonder you need a storage space!  Let’s work on some more hobbies!

3.  Wow, do I need to see a lot of Oscar-nominated movies!

4.  I SO want to talk about “American Idol” from last week.  Yes, it’s back on the air, but I’ve only seen one episode so far.  This happened to be the audition in Kansas City, and near the end, some poor kid with a lousy voice tried out and got made fun of.  When this kid walked in, you could tell he was going to be bad–he had social misfit written all over him.  And while that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t grow out of it and come into his own, it does make for a difficult school life.  Trying out for “Idol” probably didn’t help, even if he did make it on TV.

Anyway, kid couldn’t sing, even though he thought he could.  He even wore a medal he won in music class for “best vocalization.”  What???!

So this “best vocalization” medal gave the kid a lot of self-esteem to try out for the show and humiliate himself on national television.  The kid’s mom even told him he really couldn’t sing, but he didn’t really believe that.  The medal told him otherwise.

This medal obviously was given to him to make him feel special, a part of the whole self-esteem movement that’s totally messed up an entire generation’s mental health, and made it harder for the rest of us to get stuff done, since we have to spend more time coddling a good chunk of these kids.

I’m not saying it’s bad to give children good self-esteem, but it’s bad to delude them into thinking they can do something they can’t or to make them think that life isn’t hard and they don’t have to work at it.  And it’s even worse when we take said children and humiliate them.

Is the self-esteem movement over?  Is it safe to tell kids that everything they do isn’t golden? That sometimes you have to put in work, that you’re not going to be good at everything?  Because I want to live in that world, where I can criticize when criticism is warrented, without having to worry about baby-like feelings.

And with that, my friends, it’s time for the weekend. Sweet, eh?

Astrochick’s comment from yesterday inspired me to write for today–and it has nothing to do with the inauguration or Oprah.  Well, it does have to do with Oprah, actually, but not in terms of the show.  It has more to do with reading.

Her comment ended with, “I have other reading to do.”  Boy, do I have other reading to do!  A range of bookshelves with unread books, magazines stacked up, and a daily newspaper.  With the magazines and newspaper, I’m supposed to spend even more time with their publications online.  I get it–you’re hurting for eyeballs, and the internet allows a publication to publish a lot of things that would be too expensive to put on paper.  But I only have so much time, and there’s nothing worse that thinking, Hey, I’m done with the paper! or I’m done with this magazine! only to find an interesting story that’s only partially in print.  If you want the full scoop, you’ll have to check it out online. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have hours and hours to read more stuff–especially when I have to wade through umpteen links, videos, and slow-downloading ads to do so.

This is only part of today’s rant though.  You may know that I had a collection of every issue of Oprah’s magazine.  I was a subscriber from the beginning, and because I was strapped for time (and got a few other magazines), I didn’t always read most of the issue.  I put it on a shelf “for later.”  Those magazines slowly built up until I had over 100 issues in my house.

Last year I started an attempt to read every issue, and I tried blogging about the experience, but that proved to take even more time than I thought it would, and reading the magazine became a chore.  I put the project on indefinite hold and decided that I needed to get rid of the magazines.  They’d become an albatross around my neck.  I wanted a more organized house, and would watch shows/read articles, most of which said you didn’t need to hold onto every issue of National Geographic.  I got it.  The O’s had to go.  Especially if I wasn’t using them.

The magazines are slowly making their way out of my house, but it’s almost a battle to get them out–the Boy, with all good intentions, keeps questioning my desire to get rid of them.  OK, I get that he wants to make sure I’m fine with my decision, that I won’t regret losing them once they’re gone, but it’s a lousy magazine that I didn’t even regard highly enough to read as it showed up in my mailbox.  Why hang onto it?  We’ve spent a fair amount of time discussing this issue and what to do with the collection.  Recycle it?  Try to sell it?  No, I’m slowly giving the issues to a local womens’ shelter in hopes that they’ll help–or at least give theses women something to read.

However, they’re getting out of my house a little bit at a time.  I’d wanted to get rid of a bunch, but the Boy thought I should at least read them, like I originally meant to.  And I’ve tried.  I started by reading 2008, and I found that I actually really enjoyed the magazine.  The articles are interesting, and I like a lot of the columnists and regular contributors.  Even though I just received the last issue in my subscription, I’m already considering restarting it.

Now I’m on older issues, like say January 2004, when Oprah interviewed Madonna, and Madonna went on at great length about how Guy Ritchie is her soulmate.  Fast-forward to today, when the soulmates are getting divorced.  That was the straw that broke this camel’s back.  When I have so many other books I want to read, it almost seems silly to try to read magazine articles that are so old, they won’t help me [of course, I have a little guilt about passing them on--I have to hope they're useful to this shelter].  There’s a funny kitsch factor, I know, but I realized that it’s not worth my time.  If I had nothing to do, or if I was a true scholar who’d find reading them fascinating research, that’s another story.  But I’m just a girl who has a magazine problem, and I’d like to solve it.  Quickly.

Therefore, I’m packing up my O’s and saying good-bye to them–or maybe it’s good riddance.  It’s been so easy to amass the collection, but I don’t want it or need it anymore.  Now that I’m at that point, I just want them gone so that I can have back the part of my life that I thought they could fill.

So it’s a new day, and I’m a little caught up on work.  Not caught up on life, however.  I, having a big deadline, was not a “part of history” either at the Inauguration or watching it.  Oh, I tried to watch the Inauguration, but it was slowing me down workwise, so I had to turn off the TV.

I did spend some time reading about the day’s events, and I’ll be digging into this morning’s paper to get the full scoop (both yesterday and today, historic editions!  Buy them now!  Buy them!).  Still, I’ve already read some stuff that drives me nuts, mainly the comments from people who went in order to make history.  I hate to tell them that they watched history–they didn’t really do anything–and to cut the narcissistic behavior.  When you do do something (now would be a good time, since we’re all going to have to change), get back to me.  I don’t want to deny that it was cool being there–I’m still watching the concerts, etc., and with all the crowds, it does look like it was an amazing experience.  But still.

Along with the regular people who didn’t do anything, I was also bothered by the people who tried too hard.  Did you see this song on Oprah?  The Boy mentioned it to me (I know–he knew the Oprah news before I did.  He definitely needs a new job), so we dialed it up.  Boy, is this a case of “trying too hard to be momentous”!  Listen, I know this event has touched a lot of people, and it’s incredibly moving, but let’s not force it.  Don’t set out to create something “grand” or “deep,” or you’ll look like you’re trying too hard, and the message is lost.

Change comes about a little bit at a time, and sometimes the grandest things come out of a little movement, so don’t worry about making a huge, grand spectacle.  Just let it evolve from your heart.

A couple of hours ago I realized I hadn’t blogged for today.  Some weeks I do all my entries for the week on Sunday (unless something big pops up in the news) so that I don’t have to think about writing them during the week, but this week I’m taking it day by day, partly because I’ve been working on a fairly big project writing about various cities in California, and it’s taken up a lot more time than I originally anticipated.  I just haven’t had one long chunk of time to write blogs.

Back in the day I was a bit of a Stephen Sondheim geek.  One of my favorite musicals of his is “Sunday in the Park With George” because it’s all about the artistic experience–what it’s like to create art. The show is based on the Georges Seurat painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte.“  Act 1 deals with the creation of that painting, and Georges has to try to balance his art creation and a romantic relationship.  Needless to say, the art wins, and she walks out on him.

The last few days have been like that for me.  I’ve drowned myself in work–and it’s work I’m enjoying–but I’ll be immersed in the world of, let’s say, Visalia, CA, and the phone will ring and drag me out of it.  I remember to stop for a quick meal, but as soon as I can, I jump right back into the work because I’ve got some really tight deadlines, and I’m paranoid about missing them.

This is when I feel a bit sorry for the Boy, because he has to put up with me being right there, yet 2,000 miles away in a world that I just don’t want to get sucked out of.  Not until I’m done, at least.  My behavior over the past couple of days has reminded me of the song “Color and Light,” which pits a painting Georges up against a girlfriend who’s getting ready for their date that night.  The Boy’s had to put up with me glued to my desk chair, not knowing what day it is or what we’re having for dinner.  Luckily, he understands deadlines, so he’s been pretty good about it.  Still, the situation is best explained by the song “Finishing the Hat,” which partially tries to explain the difficulties on how art (or whatever project you’re working on) demands your undivided attention.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of what work will be like in the future and I can see that disappearing into another world happening more and more often.  I pray I can balance life a bit better and still make a career work, but I fear getting so sucked in.  Because although I do love being able to concentrate and focus and lose track of time while I work, I don’t want to lose track of the rest of my life, which is also so very important to me.

Thanks, Astrochick, for prompting a blog entry that’s been on my list:  Who has to count the Yoplait labels?  In our conversation last week about disease awareness, we touched on all the pink products in the market.  Back in October when the whole “send in your Yoplait yogurt lids, and for each one we receive, we’ll donate a dime to breast cancer research (up to a certain amount),” I couldn’t help but wonder who gets stuck with that job?  Who has to open up the envelopes and count the lids?  Who has to ask the webmaster to update the website to include the FAQ, “Do I have to wash the lids?”?  Because you know if it made it to the FAQs, somebody has had to deal with a lot of lids that stink because well-meaning people with zero common sense sent them in (to which my imagination further thinks, What if you worked in an office building infested by roaches–they do exist–and the mailroom guys were slow, and the roaches got to the dirty lids first?  GAHHH!).

I think this would be a lousy job.  And not just because you have to deal with unwashed yogurt lids.  It’s because you’d (or maybe this is just me) would have the guilt for growing to hate a project that’s meant to be for good.  There’s nothing like resenting charity, whether it’s a “special project” you’ve been assigned; a fundraising drive at work that encourages you to sit through multiple presentations and a whole season full of messages reminding you to give (to which I have to add a personal note that said presentations are much more fun when the audience is a room full of support staff who just heard a vice president proudly announce he just wrote a $10,000 check to said charity in the hopes it encourages them to dig deep); or the aforementioned telemarketing calls and mail solicitations.

So my question is, What’s the crappy side of charitable causes?  Readers, do you or someone you know have any stories on the downside of good works?  Are these tasks that could be avoided, or is it “just part of the job”?  I’m curious to know if “great ideas” aren’t so great when it comes to executing them, or if a minor inconvenience doesn’t matter when the outcome is really fantastic.