35

So today I turn 35. Interesting. I don't feel any different than I did when I was 11 or 12. Maybe a little more tired and definitely more clueless. I remember thinking 26 was old and that I'd somehow know what I was doing. I don't feel rudderless or anything, just a lot more like the village idiot than I used to.

I can pinpoint exactly when I realized that I could never possibly know everything about any one thing. It took a long time - I was in grad school, in the middle of an Eastern European History class and writing a paper on "The Albanian Question" (for the curious, the question(s) is, is Albania a country? Does it exist? Who lives there? Caught between Serbia and Bosnia, it's a little like Kashmir, but more ambiguous. In case you want to know, the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no to the first two and to the second, it depends on whether you ask Albanians (when it exists), Bosnians or Serbians or other Eastern Europeans.). Anyway, I was wishing I hadn't picked something so darn complicated. Maybe if I chose something else it'd be easier.

So I sat in class and thought about looking into something else, then the professor started talking about the significance of economic theory and its role in various countries and suddenly I was thinking, "Holy crap! The sum total of everything I know isn't even a drop in the bucket." I was in grad school, had traveled and lived in other countries and suddenly I felt like I knew absolutely nothing. Even worse, I didn't know squat about what I didn't know.

It's kind of nice, knowing nothing - it makes me want to know more.

Other than feeling more clueless, I just have a few more visible lines, but at least they're laugh lines. Oh, and my butt is bigger, my stomach headed slightly south thanks to children, but it's better than it was two years ago (I'm leaving out last year since I was pregnant). So that's progress. And tomorrow I celebrate the birth of my second, the best birthday present ever.

But for today, I have the day off work, though I'm technically on call. My sister is coming from Charlotte, so I pick her up in a couple of hours. The kids are in preschool and daycare for part of the day - Rags has a field trip he didn't want to miss and Evelyn gets cranky when her schedule is messed with. So the plan today is eat, spend time with the kids, probably eat more, then take a walk after they're asleep tonight. All in all, more than I could've hoped for for a good birthday.

Who's hiring?

No, I'm not out of a job. Well, not yet anyway. If you know me, you know my boss is a douchebag. A big one. After a few months of relative quiet (well, except that particularly disgusting comment about white shirts, band-aids, women in our department and the fact that it was raining), I got the smackdown today. I used to call it the Friday night smackdowns because I tended to get some sort of talking to every Friday until he apparently became afraid I'd leave when I got pregnant.

You'd think that getting insulted would be upsetting. But the thing is, when it happens so frequently for so many stupid reasons, it really starts to roll of your back. I wonder what would happen if he actually had a good reason for giving me the smackdown. Would it even make a dent?

Anyway, the last time I got a talking to it was because I left my computer on. I thought I was in Office Space. The cause of today's smackdown was... Wait for it... I had the unmitigated gall to e-mail his boss and ask her a question about a product. The issue wasn't the product I recommended we develop. It wasn't the price I recommended. And it had nothing to do with the policy behind the development of the product. Nope - the problem was that I hadn't followed the "chain of command," even though his boss had asked me to go direct to her. So, the very fact that I had e-mailed her was the problem. The horrors!

So, I'm done. Just done. I'm going to work there as long as it takes me to find a job unless I go postal one day. Then I'm leaving. I hate it there. It's soul sucking and actually makes me miss my previous job where they wanted to give me a Blackberry to take with me on maternity leave.

This might actually be pretty decent timing. Unless healthcare reform gets repealed, I know something about the changes that are supposed to take effect. Anyone need a senior product manager for government entitlement programs? A regulatory affairs manager perhaps? An editor? Writer? Anybody?