Taking shortcuts through the forest of life...
And now, the award for most pandering phrase in our current lexicon goes to:
“I don’t know how you do it! Juggling work and family and life!?”
It sounds like an innocent enough comment, even one that may be masquerading as a compliment, but y’know what I hear when someone says it? “And all this time I thought you were a disorganized idiot!”
It’s a rhetorical question that has no proper response. Do you dissemble? “Aw shucks, it was nothing.” I think I last uttered that phalse little phrase in my 20s. Then I got over it. Permanently.
Do you brag? Not the path to social acceptance. Learn from Martha.
Do you joke? Of course! My pat answer is “I just don’t do any of it well.”
Because over-busy women know the real answer, don’t we gals? And it’s not juggling.
I don’t juggle. Juggling is for women in their thirties who still have energy. I’m in my forties.
I cut.
The first thing to cut is of course, sleep. Since I don’t drive very often, sleep is optional. 6 hours, maybe 6 and half, tops, with allowances for 3 am nightmare wakeups, gets me through the week with minimal caffeine abuse. Heck, when my daughter was born she didn’t (And therefore I didn’t) sleep longer than 45 minutes at a time for the first six months of her life. I’d like to see David Blaine survive that.
So there’s a lot you can manage without reaching REM. And, when you are sleep deprived, our culture provides a plethora of handy substitutes! Sugar is a great one, the ever-popular caffeine is never more than an office coffee cart away… and then there’s nodding off mid-email. Thanks to my high school touch-typing class, I can keep my fingers moving on the keyboard in case someone walks in, and nap at the same time! It’s great! Try it at your job!
What other shortcuts? Here’s a beauty fave; liquid eyeliner. A nice dark line across your top lid and you can skip mascara. And sun hats! Hats are great – when you’re wearing it, it covers all sins, of course, and even better, once you take it off, everyone assumes it’s the hat’s fault your hair looks like crap. They never think it’s because you spent all of 90 seconds at the mirror and walked out of the house half-wet. I’m currently experimenting with hot-rolling my hair while it’s still wet so I get the drying and the curling done at the same time.
So that’s how I do it. Some of it. Of course the real answer to “how do you do it?” is
“What’s my other choice?”
“I don’t know how you do it! Juggling work and family and life!?”
It sounds like an innocent enough comment, even one that may be masquerading as a compliment, but y’know what I hear when someone says it? “And all this time I thought you were a disorganized idiot!”
It’s a rhetorical question that has no proper response. Do you dissemble? “Aw shucks, it was nothing.” I think I last uttered that phalse little phrase in my 20s. Then I got over it. Permanently.
Do you brag? Not the path to social acceptance. Learn from Martha.
Do you joke? Of course! My pat answer is “I just don’t do any of it well.”
Because over-busy women know the real answer, don’t we gals? And it’s not juggling.
I don’t juggle. Juggling is for women in their thirties who still have energy. I’m in my forties.
I cut.
The first thing to cut is of course, sleep. Since I don’t drive very often, sleep is optional. 6 hours, maybe 6 and half, tops, with allowances for 3 am nightmare wakeups, gets me through the week with minimal caffeine abuse. Heck, when my daughter was born she didn’t (And therefore I didn’t) sleep longer than 45 minutes at a time for the first six months of her life. I’d like to see David Blaine survive that.
So there’s a lot you can manage without reaching REM. And, when you are sleep deprived, our culture provides a plethora of handy substitutes! Sugar is a great one, the ever-popular caffeine is never more than an office coffee cart away… and then there’s nodding off mid-email. Thanks to my high school touch-typing class, I can keep my fingers moving on the keyboard in case someone walks in, and nap at the same time! It’s great! Try it at your job!
What other shortcuts? Here’s a beauty fave; liquid eyeliner. A nice dark line across your top lid and you can skip mascara. And sun hats! Hats are great – when you’re wearing it, it covers all sins, of course, and even better, once you take it off, everyone assumes it’s the hat’s fault your hair looks like crap. They never think it’s because you spent all of 90 seconds at the mirror and walked out of the house half-wet. I’m currently experimenting with hot-rolling my hair while it’s still wet so I get the drying and the curling done at the same time.
So that’s how I do it. Some of it. Of course the real answer to “how do you do it?” is
“What’s my other choice?”
posted by Whoopla at
7:30 AM
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