Which way do I go?

I am an old hand with my job. I have actually been in the business for 20 years now. I have to sort it out .. sift it out.. I am even thinking -- after years of pooh pooh ing it -- PhD.  This latest job I have will terminate at the end of the summer and I have  choices I guess:

1.) start looking for something else as a staffer
2.) go back to school myself
3.) do some teaching.  I have one offer could seek more
4.) consulting
5.) early retirement

I have real concerns that work is getting folded up.  That everyone time someone walks away from a job it gets trimmed and downsized and abdicated, until employers are not offering any regular positions any-more!  But I am tired and I have often said that the 9-5 is a killer with the kids primary school schedules never to mention needs.

It will not be a simple choice but maybe someone will just make it for me.  Is that what surveymonkey was invented for?

Who does she think she is?

Does anyone know what my 52 reasons campaign was? It was because I was not going to be... A. WORKING. MOTHER. (Or was i? A temp maybe..?) Working motherhood. I am NOT. A. BELIEVER. (Or am i?)

Blog killing disbelief.

What is it? Am I embarrassed to blog, from my desk. Who does that? You blog at naptimes. You don't blog when you have lost your whole sense of place in the parents blogosphere. We barely even nap anymore? What am I doing? Seriously, there is something that made me think this was a 'baby blog' and as the kids were no longer babies .. 'done and done'. But tell me then.. why is it called MotherWoman...? I know, and you know, it is all about me me me!

What can I tell you? There are really three reasons I stopped writing to you.
1. I was never writing TO you in the first place anyway?
2. I was sucking so hard, considering, on the writing quality. (enough already with the lyricism and intellect bon, clara, l., nora. You're killing me over here!)
3. I was in triage. My kids needed me IRL and blog x work, bye bye blog.

... but I spent 5 years of my total 6.25 years of parenting -- in here so much, part of my kids are in here. Can I really do well ... on. my. own? Without my diary? This diary that I am thinking will cap out at a tidy 800 posts, 36 posts from now.

But call this one of my patented half-posts.. and read this right now!

Ps. This blog post title is not to be confused with the excellent film of the same name

This blog sucks

I was reading crib chronicles with mouth agape, as usual. Bon can really, really write, eh? The post was as charming as many found there but annoying no end in its closing inquiry. "What do you do when the words don't come?"

Well. You know... I write anyway.

I would estimate that the words stopped coming about a year and half ago. What did I say, twice the children, half the blog?? p-man has been good to the change but me, well obviously, not. I publish, and perish, weekly. I can crank out some'how mommy blogger can I get??' post just to burn a few pixels that I, what?, feel I'm entitled to at my advanced age of bloggery.

I don't know how to stop.

But on the other hand. Who cares? It's just an eency-weency blog. I need to keep my launch pad to the blogroll of worth-whiles. I need to keep only a very tiny persona alive enough to give meaning to the real work to be done, commenting. Just a bit of texture when the comment is labeled, mo-wo.

And, on the third hand it's the nature of the thing maybe? The mother-woman in it all? Look at my kids, they're big. We are milestone-less. The good times are gone, when to wean? the wonderment of the aquarium, the charms of mocking my own blogging have all passed me by. Poignancy is OVER. And, while the dimming might fell greater blogs than this I persist.

Many times I've thought, what if my mother knew I had this blog? Would she be proud? Inside, all the while, I know what... she'd laugh. Well not to my face, but behind my back. She would look at all the typing and fury and scoff. It's my mom. That's where I come from, no? "What makes her think it's worth talking about??", my mom would think, I think. Parenting? You just do it. Make it up as best you can. Put yourself out there. Let the buck stop with you and, then, let it stop there. Too abstract.

For now I keep thinking of Gore Vidal. Did you see him on US Election night? The BBC used him as a pundit. At closing the panel just laughed their asses off. What was up with Gore Vidal?? Who booked him? Did he know what he was talking about, at all? Was it the dementia? I want to be Gore Vidal. I want to still show up, in a really fantastic cravat and everything. Show up and not care if I suck. I know it's Barack's night.

When I was having my words I didn't know bon. The wonder that is the cheesefairy eluded me. Relatively it was bleak. I had no Mad Hatter and we spent too much time thinking about the sweetjuniper people. Now is a good time; no matter how badly I write, nor how often. I know I have my moments, and I still get those random comments from complete fly-by's that I know might make it worth it, some 'you tell it like it is' endearments. But, they don't make the persistence of unexpurgated drek at this url worth it. The only thing that makes it worth it is the trip to all of you to see good work now. You know who you are.