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travel stress

I'm getting stressed about travelling. I can't help it. My last trip featured the worse diar*rhea I've had in my life (I know, TMI). Not fun on a plane. Of course, this is a short, no layovers, so it should be very different. Still, it's been a stressful week. Normally taking a day off would be no big deal, but I've been working on a high-priority project, and my backup person is on vacation as well, so trying to arrange someone to handle things has been stressful. Also, I've just been overloaded this week. To top it off, B has a crazy schedule right now, so he's stressed out, too.

8:45 a.m. - May. 21, 2009

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truly awful

Extremely disturbing. I saw a movie on this subject which was truly one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen.

11:30 a.m. - May. 20, 2009

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this and that

I overheard two male co-workers joking that pregnancy and insanity are the same thing. This bugs me. I know I will not be excited about going to work while obviously pregnant. I guess that has a lot to do with the fact that I try to blend in with everyone else (despite being the only female most of the time) and that's completely visually while pregnant. What made it out of the ordinary is that the two guys joking around are in the small group I'm part of. There are plenty of remarks with varying levels of "old-boyness" around my company, but my group has always been immune. It's always been stellar in terms of never, ever making sexist remarks of any kind. Lately, however, we lost our lead who really set the tone. (He once, for example, dressed down a vendor for making a sexist joke in a meeting with 5 or 6 men.) We've also gains two men (one of whom was the one joking around) who have 3 or more children and stay-at-home wives. Their attitude is really that women are different, and, I feel, not in a favorable way. Don't get me wrong. All the guys in my group joke around about their girlfriends - but they do so in a fun and positive way, and about silly stuff. The guys with the stay-at-home-wives are different. It's clear to me that they see their wives as having different roles. I don't think any or all men with stay-at-home wives would think that way, but I think the fact these women have in one case 3 children 3 or younger and in the other case 6 children is a contributing factor.

Most of B's friends and relatives have stay-at-home wives. Their wives are all highly accomplished women. Examples are women with law degrees, Harvard MBAs, and so on. For whatever reason, they've chosen to stay at home. (I'm sure part of it is due to the fact that their husbands are big earners so there is zero financial reason to work.) They're all out of town, and I haven't had much chance to observe them, with one exception, but he has said to me more than once that he doesn't think I should quit work, because he just doesn't think it's good for his friend's wives. I have gotten to see his sister, who is lovely. She has an MBA from some top school and is an Ivy League grad. She's a huge overachiever, currently channeling most of her energy into her kids, as they do about a million activities and are very demanding. (She has recently started a fairly demanding volunteer job, so after more than 5 years of "staying at home" she's back out there.) In any event, I *know* I absolutely could not do what she did. Even if I was a stay-at-home parent, I could not deal with the screaming and crying and the endless activities. I think I would have a meltdown. Just thinking about it makes me feel ill. (I'm not sure I'm going to make a very good parent, to be honest.) Whether it's best for the kids or not, I'm going to have to have a job to keep my sanity. Fortunately, B is incredibly flexible on this. He's willing to go along with basically anything (including him staying home) except moving to Europe to take advantage of their more flexible work - family situation. I actually think B would be better with kids than me. But then, he is better at work than me, too. I excel at hobbies. *sigh*

6:28 p.m. - May. 18, 2009