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Love is grateful, day 5

by Mir on November 22, 2010 in Job? Huh?, What do I do all day?

Today I’m grateful for writing, even on days like today, when I don’t want to, I’m not “feeling” it, and I would rather be in bed with the covers over my head. And I’m grateful for all of the people who encouraged me along the way.

This is the (very worn) back cover of my 6th grade yearbook. (Thank you, Mrs. Simons—it took me a while to get around to it, but you can rest easy knowing you were right after all.) And thank you to every single one of you who stops by my little corner of the ‘net, too.

Comments { 19 }

My hair had a great time in Chicago

by Mir on November 15, 2010 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Job? Huh?

I totally meant to write something deep and meaningful for you yesterday, to make up for my absence, but it turned out that—it being my first day back home, and all—I was far too busy:

1) sleeping
2) playing with the dog
3) slurping vitamin C to ward off the cold I tried to bring home
4) wading through fifty gazillion emails
5) trying to catch up on work
6) whining about how much work I had to catch up on
7) inviting people to a party I haven’t started planning yet (oops!)
8) trying to advise my daughter on the politics of cookie dough
9) trying to tune out my son watching every Annoying Orange video in existence
10) eating frozen coconut milk ice cream analog.

Never let it be said that I don’t lead a varied and full life, right? Right.

Also, I appeared on the news while I was gone, and everyone who saw the clip basically responded with some variation of “YOUR HAIR LOOKS AWESOME!” Points for my stylist, but I’m not sure that bodes well for the whole “positioning myself as an expert” thing, unless I want to be an expert at shiny hair. Which, actually, I kind of do. (more…)

Comments { 40 }

Where have all the colors gone?

by Mir on November 2, 2010 in Job? Huh?, Retail Therapy

I’m going to a conference next week. As is my wont when I have a business event coming up, I carefully get all my ducks in a row: First I book my travel, then I organize the calendar to make sure the kids are covered while I’m away, next I make a hair appointment (lest you think I’m terribly girly, it’s generally only because I have 3+ inches of gray roots which need to be beaten into submission), and finally I commence freaking out about my clothes.

Sometimes I sort of want to punch myself in the face. That feeling generally comes on right after I either think or actually say, “I have nothing to wear.”

It is simultaneously aggravating and delightful to me that I work from home and only have to dress up a few times a year; on the one hand, I enjoy spending 95% of my life dressing like the sloth I am, and on the other, I really do kind of dig dressing up in my nicer clothes now and then. And heaven knows I love an excuse to shop. But lately I’m feeling like this just isn’t going the way it’s supposed to, dammit. (more…)

Comments { 41 }

Get. Off. My. LAWN.

by Mir on October 5, 2010 in Job? Huh?, My name is Grumplestiltskin

Hi there, and thank you for visiting Woulda Coulda Shoulda! I can’t come to the blog right now, because I am either away from my desk or struggling against being rendered completely incoherent with rage. If you leave me a message, I’ll get back to you just as soon as I’m done weeping for my industry and humanity as a whole.

If you are experiencing an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. Otherwise, kindly get off my lawn unless you’d like to hear a story about how back in my day, people worked hard and ate real food.

Hmph.

Comments { 17 }

And speaking of protective bubbles

by Mir on June 30, 2010 in Job? Huh?, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Yesterday I took Monkey to the post office with me to mail some packages. We frequent four different post offices, depending on where the errands of the day happen to take us, but yesterday we hit the one we go to most often, and the clerk recognized us. She chatted up Monkey (“How old are you now? What grade are you in?”) while I piled items on the counter.

She began going through the stack and stopped to look at the return address on one of the packages. “Now, what’s Want Not?” she asked, peering at my handwriting with a furrowed brow.

“It’s a bargain shopping website I run,” I responded, automatically, while digging for my wallet.

She nodded, but before she could respond, Monkey bounced into action. (more…)

Comments { 26 }

They’re all too long

by Mir on April 14, 2010 in Job? Huh?, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I’ve been thinking, lately, about putting a new category in here specifically to tag Asperger’s-related stuff. Of course—being me, and Monkey being Monkey—so far all of my category title ideas run to things like:
Planet Rigid and the Unbendable Rules of Doom
or
I Just Memorized This Entire Dictionary In Under An Hour And Don’t Understand Why You’re Upset That I Forgot To Put On Underwear Today
or
Everything is perfectly fine right up until it’s not
or
God either trusts me a whole bunch OR he has a wicked sense of humor

You see my dilemma. Maybe I’ll just go with Quirky is the new Black. Still thinking on this one.

In the meantime, we’re doing a series of interviews over at BlogHer as part of Autism Awareness Month. I had the extreme privilege of picking Sharon daVanport’s brain for today’s post about being an adult Aspie, and not only was she gracious and forthcoming, she was just so genuinely sweet and warm I wanted to braid her hair and ask her to be my new BFF. I know it might sound silly, but for the first time, talking to her, I could see Monkey as a happy, fulfilled adult in the future. She gave me an incredible gift there without even knowing it.

I hope you’ll check out the interview.

Comments { 25 }

Shhh, I’m working

by Mir on February 19, 2010 in Growing, Job? Huh?

I’m not here right now; I’m at Mom 2.0, about to go sit on a panel about Business Strategy. (I know, I know… I’m not sure how that happened, either.)

In the meantime, I’ve finally unveiled the key to my success over at Five Full Plates, and you might be surprised to find out what it is. I know I was. But hey, I’m not arguing. Yesterday I took off my jeans without unbuttoning them—hard to not love THAT.

Comments { 3 }

My business plan

by Mir on February 17, 2010 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Job? Huh?, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Otto and I were discussing work, and somehow the conversation worked around to the sorts of things I talk about when I go give guest lectures or speak on a panel or whatever. My darling daughter—who probably wonders why anyone would VOLUNTARILY subject themselves to me droning on and on—asked what people usually want from me when I’m asked to speak somewhere.

“Well,” I said, “it usually boils down to them wanting to know how to start a blog that people will actually want to read.”

“That’s EASY!” she said, throwing her hands in the air with the absurdity of it all. “You just tell them to get divorced, make their kids miserable, and go get on the Internet. Right?”

(I’m revamping all of my PowerPoint presentations now.)

Comments { 32 }

The wind beneath my things

by Mir on January 26, 2010 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Job? Huh?

After a week of having a bookcase sitting squarely in the middle of my office (don’t ask), yesterday the Grand Office Redesign of 2010 was completed. Basically I spent half the day wallowing and the other half realizing that my aversion to the work of getting reorganized was steadily being outweighed by the annoyance of HAVING A BOOKCASE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM OH MY GOD.

Plus, you know, it was really stressing out the dog. The bookcase was creating a wall between the futon where she likes to snooze all day and the chair at my new desk, so she couldn’t BOTH be a slug AND keep watch over me, so she was spending the day bouncing back and forth between the futon (comfort! but lack of watchdog capability!) and trying to sleep directly under my feet (cramped! and with accompanying cranky human!).

Anyway, it’s all done. I mean, it’s mostly done. Look, if you walk into the room, it totally looks like we set it up this way on purpose, and there aren’t any extraneous pieces of furniture hulking aimlessly in the middle of the floor for no apparent reason. That has to count for something. (more…)

Comments { 17 }

This too shall pass

by Mir on January 25, 2010 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Job? Huh?, My name is Grumplestiltskin

I spent much of the weekend licking my wounds, except it was figurative, of course, which was a good thing, because if I’d been trying to LITERALLY lick anything on my body I might’ve screwed up my neck more than it was already screwed up.

[Typical conversation with my chiropractor over the last few days:
Her: Does this hurt?
Me: IT ALL HURTS.
Her: But does it hurt MORE?
Me: Maybe. Can you make it hurt LESS? Or could you maybe just KILL ME?]

So my neck was hurting and my ego was hurting and my everything-is-going-to-be-fine meter was freaking out and I figured I would just sulk for a few days and then come back and tell you a funny story about the dog, because HEY! Everyone loves funny stories about the dog!

It was such a good plan, too. (more…)

Comments { 43 }

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Love is grateful, day 5

My hair had a great time in Chicago

Where have all the colors gone?

Get. Off. My. LAWN.

And speaking of protective bubbles

They’re all too long

Shhh, I’m working

My business plan

The wind beneath my things

This too shall pass

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