karen rutherford, freelance writer

Every time I think of the word "squarespace",  the Square Pegs theme song starts up. Every time, every single time.

I dunno about this new look. Squarespace did a seamless job with the major-est of upgrades last night, but it forced me to upgrade my look as well. (If only they'd force an in-person makeover too!)

I can play around with the colors and fonts and things, so if you hit here and come back and it looks different, blame it on a mood swing.

I do recommend Squarespace to one and all! They're reliable and nice and customer-oriented and ambitious and just grand.

Every year on my birthday, I read my annual “Today’s Birthday” horoscope message. It predicts how the next year will be. I don’t know that it’s ever been that accurate, but I still do it every year. This year, I found some site that told me about who I am because of my July 17th birth date. Apparently, I should embrace individuality, social skills, and a happy disposition and avoid procrastination, judging others, and self-righteousness. I think I’m okay on the embracing part, but the things to avoid? Now I find this? A cruel, cruel joke. I think I’ll just put off thinking about all that. Oh, must go anyway, there’s someone to judge.

My last experience with a writing class was a bust. I hated the authors that the professor held up as the bar and in the second class, the prof told us that success in writing was “all bullshit”. He meant that writing is one thing, but being successful entirely another dependent upon someone else’s workload and mood. I get that. I didn’t need some guy who also used the F-word like I used to eat M&Ms to tell me that. I went back, but just once. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the properly placed F-word, but its ability to make a person appear different or bohemian has long passed.)

But I still love the feeling I get when I read about writing classes. Ami McKay, who wrote The Birth House, a good book full of detail I recently read, passed along something called The Ellie Poem. Supposedly, writing teachers use it as an exercise in class a lot. It is an inventory of self. I thought it was a neat thing and did one for myself. I am posting it here because it’s my birthday. So there. Me, me, me. Hopefully, I’ll get to do another one in 2028 and see if my inventory has moved.

How does it feel to be my age? This week, I've found myself humming the tune in the Activia commercials. And I seem to be the only one who actually drives the worker-zone speed limit. In the far right lane. Like the old woman I am. 

"I Don't Feel Like Dancin'"

Wake up in the morning with a head like ‘what ya done?’
This used to be the life but I don’t need another one.
You like cuttin’ up and carrying on, you wear them gowns.
So how come I feel so lonely when you’re up getting down?

So I'll play along when I hear that special song
I’m gonna be the one who gets it right.
You'd better move when you're swayin’ round the room
Looks like the magic's only ours tonight

But I don’t feel like dancin’
When the old Joanna plays
My heart could take a chance
But my two feet can’t find a way
You'd think that I could muster up a little soft-shoe gentle sway
But I don’t feel like dancin’
No sir, no dancin’ today.
Don’t feel like dancin’, dancin’
Even if i find nothin' better to do
Don’t feel like dancin’, dancin’
Why’d you pick a tune when I’m not in the mood?

Cities come and cities go just like the old empires
When all you do is change your clothes and call that versatile.
You got so many colours make a blind man so confused.
Then why can’t I keep up when you’re the only thing I lose?

So I’ll just pretend that I know which way to bend
And I’m gonna tell the whole world that you’re mine.
Just please understand, when I see you clap your hands
If you stick around I’m sure that I'll be fine

You can’t make me dance around
But your two-step makes my chest pound.
Just lay me down as you float away into the shimmer light.

Looking out over the crowd of enthralled kids….

I’m happy that my son is the Stage Manager of this wonderful production and that his bio made it in the program. I’m so proud.

But I’m so sad.

I’m happy for the many North Central opportunities that Austin has enjoyed. He found his niche and thoroughly enjoyed high school (something I never did). I’m so proud.

But I’m so sad.

I’m happy that I don’t have to come to school events anymore (school kids make me uncomfortable - they did then, they do now). His future is finally here. I’m so proud.

But I’m so sad.

This is a comedy, yet every time I laugh, I cry.

I have lived a more solitary unassuming life, I think mostly due to being a single parent with a non-existent support system (for the last decade or so). Not overly conducive to socializing with other adults and just plain ol' having fun. I also operated during my thirties and early forties mostly from financial fear. Paralyzing in many, many ways.

I’m coming around now, and I don’t mean to sound pitiful, because I’m not, but I do have to deliberately adjust even the simplest of thought processes about myself now.

I am also one of those people who believes that everyone I meet is sent my way for a reason. Some are merely floaters and flashes, but some are teachers and even friends of varying durations.

And then there are the blessings.

Part of the day, I share office space with one of the most genuine and most kind women I have met in a long time. She is just a joy, and so refreshing after a long stretch of projects around a pretty depressing lot.

But lengthy conversation with a female five feet from me is new and sometimes uncomfortable. I often struggle in my contribution. I fight for the right words and anecdotes to share. Age? Maybe. But I think it mostly comes from being rusty. And years of being disrespectful to myself. I find myself weighing everything I say not wanting to come across as though I have or am anything as a result of anything I have done. I have operated for so long on the philosophy of only Luck.

When discussing a consultant in the office I have worked with in the past and keep running into, we talked about our mutual admiration for her ambition. She is starting a new business and having some recent fantastic successes with it.

ME: “It’s nice to see how well she’s doing and how much she’s loving it.”

KIND GAL: “It’s funny that you two keep running into each other.”

ME: “I know! We have to figure out why. I’m thinking she has something to teach me, because it certainly isn’t the other way around.”

Pulling her chair close to mine to get my full attention, speaking directly into my eyes, KIND GAL: “KAREN. You are smart. You are interesting and fun and funny. You have done so well in your career. You are a beautiful person. You have raised a good human being all by yourself. There is wisdom in that alone. You have more to offer than most people do. You have to respect that as much as the people who know you do.”

Being maladjusted to support like that, especially from someone I’ve known such a short time (although some discussions have lasted longer than I should admit here), I had to secretly go to the bathroom to cry. I can’t tell you the last time someone has spoken so highly of me.

To my face anyway. Right? Heh heh.

I’ve been mostly and accidentally working in and around IT since the late 1987. I majored in Journalism in college, and Information Technology (IT) was never a thought. Besides, when I started college in 1981, COBOL programming was the extent of IT.

However, I learned quickly in the 80’s that IT jobs paid more, so I leaned as far as I could in that direction. They also didn’t typically require a college degree (I didn’t graduate the first time around).

And I got lucky/was blessed. I started out doing software training for corporations in Atlanta, steadily built up to a development position (at which I thought I failed miserably, but had a ball), earned a CIS bachelor’s degree, and have ended up doing contract and freelance technical writing for a variety of large and small businesses and non-profit organizations.

The development position was my first exposure to working with IT folks from India. I didn’t especially like it then, and I really, really don’t like it now, almost ten years later. It has gone from a mere adjustment to a more diverse college-educated candidate pool to a moral issue for me.

It’s different now. It’s unequivocal and unabashed greed now. And it is affecting everyone. The middle class, who depend on corporations for financial survival and who provide the working poor and poor with most of their financial assistance, are finding it more difficult with each passing year to get jobs, much less minimal cost-of-living raises. Being one small step above office supplies, IT contractors simply can’t compete with whoever offers the cheapest rates, when rate is often, the only consideration.

I’m not in IT development roles anymore, but my rates are directly affected. It can be hard to justify paying me, as the Technical Writer on a project, more than the Indian developer. What company wouldn’t wonder what lowest rate they could propose?

The Software Configuration Management (SCM) managers at my current client recently refused to hire a well-qualified, stable, local candidate for a position they desperately needed to fill, because his salary requirement was $90,000 (average for this position). Instead, the company hired two Indians who are still being trained by this client and one of whom still struggles with English.

IT organizations intently hiring and marketing to Indians because of their cheaper rates is comparable to my shopping at Wal-Mart (which I don’t do anymore, except for an occasional ermergency trip for Newman’s Own Mango Salsa). The only people who benefit from Wal-Mart are the small percentage of customer service employees and distributors, when the people who could be employed making products at plants in this country would be thousand-fold. I’d bet a year’s salary that if you asked any shopper if he would rather have a bag o’ cereal for a dollar less or a full-time-with-decent-pay-and-benefits job making the cereal, the answer would be the job every time. But, since the job option doesn’t exist, his need for the cheaper cereal is understandable.

I recently met with an online education company with great vision and a hopeful cause. They develop online training classes for manufacturing employees – those who want promotions or just a foot in the plant door. What an admirable goal to help to the working people in this country trying to earn more for their families! Problem is: plants close every day, and manufacturing employees are being laid off every day - and by the thousands.

Where are we middle-class Americans to go? Should we start training and specializing in new fields? Great, how do we pay $50,000 for college for an entry-level job probably paying less?

And what are we supposed to say? We’re not supposed to be maddened by this. We’re supposed to be politically correct – the last term I heard for this was “internationally aware”. The media make us feel guilty for thinking negatively about immigration and NAFTA and the temporary Visa/guest worker program.

I love being exposed to and learning about other cultures, and I’d love to work with people from all over the world, but I just can’t play on the same financial field with the people here from developing countries. If that makes me politically incorrect or internationally unaware, give me the badge, because I’ll wear it proudly.

I wish I were smart enough to recognize a good solution to this problem before my son has to face the workforce. I don’t think a repeal of Clinton’s NAFTA will do it. I don’t think new immigration laws alone will do it. I think there has to be some sort of government-imposed returned incentive for (or penalties upon) companies to hire here and make things here. I think.

It’s beyond political; it’s really just the right thing to do for a class of people who contribute the most to this country. But who do we trust with “right things to do”?

Whatever presidential candidate addresses this with a non-partisan and non-political solution is the one for me, and I haven’t quite found him yet.

Mike Huckabee (who has a history of taxation) has a Fair Tax Plan on his website stating that American companies would be far less likely to move overseas and foreign companies far more likely to come here if a fair tax was implemented.

According to the explanation on his website: “A recent study by MIT found that our tax system deprives us of about $1 billion in exports annually. When you export over-priced goods as we have, you inevitably end up exporting jobs and industries as we now are. We are the square peg trying to fit into the round hole of international trade. The rest of the world isn't going to change, it's time that we do.” And according to Wiki: “Because the U.S. tax system has a hidden effect on prices, moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs.”

So, are taxes the key to repairing NAFTA and immigration and the Visa program? Does that mean that the greed is shared by both corporations and our government?

I’m officially a student. I’ll study and try to remember the bigger, critical picture, while I temporarily work in an office heated to 90 degrees (because, come to find out, Indians are “allergic to the cold”), listen to Hindi all day long (which I now hear in my sleep), and polish my incorrect and unaware badge.

It’s scary to think that this time next year, things will be so different. I’ve lived with someone for the last twenty years, seventeen of those being just with my son.

We’ve had our problems this year. Since he turned seventeen, it’s been a little like living with someone you want to divorce. It sounds harsh until you hear that he feels the same way. In fact, I’ve been told recently that the happiest day in his life will be the day he no longer has to live with me.

Yea, I’m an ogre, whatever, been there, done that.

Still, it feels lonely already. No sound of a key in the door at midnight on weekend nights. No nightly conversations about what happened that day. No noise or lights or flickering screens coming from his room each night. No constant ringing of his telephone. No truck in the garage every morning. No 6am alarm to fix breakfast. No “I’m home from school” phone calls.

I’ll be the mother of an adult. That means motherhood no longer defines me. I’m just going to be me. Scary!

At the same time, it feels freeing and exciting. I can go places. I can do things I want to do, without weighing his enjoyment. I can take some time off. I can get my graduate degree. I have options I don’t even know about yet.

Frankly, I’m a little grateful for the dog and the college bills to come. Because of them, I can only take baby steps into this new life full of just me. ACK.

Today would be Clay McKemie’s birthday. He would be a Senior this year and enjoying his last birthday lunch with his high school buddies in the cafeteria, probably talking about the weekend and college applications. Plus, this year, his birthday falls on a Friday, which would make it perfect for celebrating along with after-school games, events, and parties.

If only.

In honor of his (and Sean Wilkinson’s) memory, I want to post this note to encourage any parent who stumbles upon my blog (and I thank you) to be vigilant and diligent about information.

Obviously, we shouldn’t make decisions without information. But when information isn’t available, how can we, as parents, make responsible decisions - decisions about things that would never even cross our minds?

Please, please, please read and search and TALK, TALK, TALK to each other. We can speak our minds, voice our opinions, and communicate our thoughts. We can ask our questions loudly and boldly. We can tell people about our own experiences. We can tell people what we’ve read, what we know, what we’ve heard, what we’ve seen. We can offer to them what we would and wouldn’t do and why.

Just imagine what might be different. Of course, nothing changes for Clay and Sean’s families, but we might change the future for another family. Clay (and Sean, and the families, of course) would really like that, I think.

I can’t even express how happy that would make me. This, my blog/diary/column/opinion/editorial/voice, has never been intended to be negative or controversial, but to be used for freelance marketing and original expression. I think both are apparent to the reasonable reader. And if God’s plan is that any of my beliefs, opinions, or unanswered questions (I’m known for those!) about any of the hodgepodge of topics here resonate with a visitor and possibly spark a connection for conversation, I am grateful.

But, supremely, I am grateful for Clay and Sean telling me their stories from 500 miles away. I think of them always and I know I always will.

Today, I remember and celebrate both boys’ birthdays. Today, from now on, and in nothing but Love.

The Last Four Days

Moved.
Came down with a nasty cold.
Went on two interviews.
Worked 24 out of 40 hours at day job.
Fixed ICE Pay Pal HTML code.
Taught class.
Arranged cable guy, gas guy, garage door guy – all of whom were EARLY!
Dealt with four plumbers and two working (one new) toilets.
Made insurance changes and filled out and faxed in forms.
Found fax machine.
Sewed a vinyl window curtain for the shower.
Lined shelves.
Got brake light and turn signal fixed on car.
Made trips to Wal-Mart and stores.
Cleaned two houses – old and new.
Adjusted to 6am alarms and start of senior year of high school.
Avoided fist fight about work boundaries.

And stayed current on Big Brother drama.

The Next Four Days

…zzzzz.......zzzzz......zzzzz......

(The Secret principles have been applied to title and the next four days.)

I started working for a new client Friday. First days are hectic and awkward, but they went out of their way to make it a comfortable and nice day for me. Computer accounts were set up and ready to use, a whole desk was provided (no cube share, no corner of Bob’s desk “until we find a place for you”), and an unexpected and guided tour of the building was given.

It’s impossible to appreciate everything in just one day, but, looking at going back on Monday morning, I’m a little excited. This client is right on Monument Circle, the center of downtown Indianapolis, and it’s a special experience to work in such an historic area and building.

It was also fun to walk around at lunchtime in the 75-degree sunshine and see all the people scurrying about, talking, visiting, and eating their lunches on the monument steps.

I've never felt so much like Mary Richards in my life and if you know me, you know how happy that makes me. :)

Once I’m settled and a little more comfortable with folks, I want to take pictures from the roof of the building, which they have set up with tables and chairs and call the “deck”.

Indianapolis really is the perfect little downtown. Tomorrow, when I walk around the circle, I'll be looking up and mentally throwing my fuzzy blue beret in the air.