If You Belonged Here

Alice Finds Diosa

 Alice: What’s your favorite color?

Diosa: Green.

Alice:  How old are you?

Diosa: 34.

Alice: Would you love it if I ask you a million questions like that?

Diosa: Not so much.

Alice: So you've been married to the same man, Blackstone, for a long time? 

Diosa: We've been married for over ten years, together for seventeen years; half my life.

Alice: And he’s your first husband, right? Impressive.

We've heard that Polly said “don't do it” on your wedding day, but what was going through your head?

Diosa: I wasn't ready to leave my future husband at the altar. Totally not my style. But I had rationally had a conversation with him the previous week stating that if things didn't get better soon, I'd divorce him.

Alice: I had that same conversation with my first husband. My situation turned out a little different than yours.

Diosa: The six months preceding and following my wedding were some of the worst of my life. We had been together a long time, and I knew I loved him. I trusted in the fact that it was a rough patch and we would get through it. Luckily, I seemed to be right.

Alice: Blackstone looks just like John Cusack. So I assume you think John Cusack is hot.

Diosa: I had quite a thing for John Cusack before I met Blackstone. It may have helped things along.

Alice: How many urinary tract infections did it take before your dad said "I have two words for you: Oral Sex”?

Diosa: I've had so many, it's hard to count let alone keep track of how many I'd had at one point or another. I was still living at home, so let's put the number at about ten or fifteen.

Alice: Were you mortified or was that normal banter around your house?

Diosa: I was mortified but that comment was not out of character for my house. I still remember coming home one night, kissing my dad good night and having him say, "You smell like sex." I'm sure he was right. Neither his being right, nor his consistency in making such blunt and direct comments made it less mortifying.

Alice: In the same post you said you had tried spraying vodka up your nose to cure a sinus infection. Have you ever heard of Sudafed?

Diosa: I have. I like Vodka better.

Alice: Me, too—me, too.

Diosa: The neti pot works best for me, though. And I prefer any possible method of handling my sinus infections over having my nose broken.

Alice: So your first career was as a high school English teacher?

Diosa: You must have gotten the common thread between me, Bookgirl and Polly by now.

Alice: You were all teachers?

Diosa: No, silly. Bookgirl's in publishing. Polly's an aspiring writer and sometimes copy editor. I was an English teacher. The common thread is love of reading and writing. Even if I did end up an IT Manager. At least, for now.

Alice: Tell us the craziest thing a student ever did, a time when you knew you should be pissed but all you could do was laugh.

Diosa: Um, usually all I could do was be pissed. It's why I quit.

But one time when I was student teaching, I made the mistake of asking two senior boys if they were going to the freshman dance. One answered, "Yes, fresh meat." The other, "Not me, Miss Diosa. I like older women."

Alice: Speaking of kids: yours run away from home, huh?

Diosa: Little Trouble (LT) escaped on several occasions at two and three, but I wouldn't call that running away.

Trouble actually ran away about a year ago. During the winter. Left a note on the fridge and everything. He was picked up by the police a few blocks away—eight years old, no hat or gloves, carrying a stuffed animal. I guess he looked pretty suspicious.

Alice: I like that kid. And the escapee.

Diosa: Trouble also recently told the principal that his father choked him. I had a very unpleasant conversation with her and she decided not to call in the social workers, this time.

Alice: Your boys are the real deal.

Diosa: Tom Sawyer had nothing on them.

Alice: You wrote in a post about teaching "Often as a teacher, once you meet a student's parents their kid's behavior becomes more understandable." What do you think Trouble’s teachers say when he pulls the "dad strangled me" act?

Diosa: I can't imagine. I hope they know him well enough to understand that he's spoiled rotten and a complete drama queen. I figure if they haven’t called the authorities, they must get that. But both boys are actually well behaved at school.

Alice: Okay, so you quit being a schoolteacher and went back to school yourself to become an IT whiz. If you get tired of that will you go back to school again?

Diosa: Maybe. I love school. I just hate paying for it.

There's nothing else I'm burning to learn, though. Reading, writing, technology—those are my passions. If there's another career in my future, it's something more physical: yoga instructor, personal trainer.

Alice: Are you a hacker? Could you break into a credit card companies computer system and rip them off pennies at a time?

Diosa: I'm no hacker. Though, to be honest, if I should I be so inclined, I could set up one of those fishing websites that lures less computer literate individuals into giving away their social security or credit card numbers. It's not really that hard.

Alice: I knew it.

Didn’t you get your old boss’s job?

Diosa: Yes, I did. I think I'm in way over my head.

Alice: You once wrote that you were "relentless, thorough, and intense" but trying to be better about change—accepting it, embracing it. How’s that going?

Diosa: I had a review with my new boss, the CEO. His one criticism was that I should lighten up and smile more. Obviously, I'm doing great at being less intense.

Alice: You have some good posts on your blog about women, their roles, abilities, and such. Do you consider yourself a feminist?

Diosa: When men I work with call me "sweetheart" or "darlin'," I have mental visions of slugging them. If that makes me a feminist, then so be it.

More often, though, it seems I get accused of behaving like a man rather than a feminist. I think that’s a bit different. A feminist is still considered as acting and thinking like woman. When you act like a man, you're not trying to make people behave differently or change the world. You just do what you want and fuck anyone who doesn't agree.

People can call me anything they want but at the end of the day, I'm not going to care enough about what they think to change the way I behave.

Alice: You live in a really old house, right?

Diosa: In New England, if your house was built this century, it's not all that old. Ours was built in the 1950's, so it’s just old enough to need a new roof, heating system, windows, drainage….

Alice:  It seems like you've been working on it for a long time, if you could do it over would you buy a new build so you didn't have to deal with all the renovations and problems?

Diosa: Every house is eventually going to require maintenance. The grass is always greener. Didn't that come up in Chance's interview? Yeah, grass is just plain grass.

Alice: Well, maybe different shades?

Diosa: I'm one of those rare birds that have always been quite satisfied with my own brand of grass, thank you very much. Life is never going to be perfect. And if it was, I'd be bored, and I hate being bored.

Alice: Things I’ve picked up form your blog: aluminum-free deodorant and Weeds. Do you have any other wisdom to offer?

Diosa: I was really very disappointed to learn that Uno's has done away with their Uno's Amber Ale recently. That's not really wisdom, but it's what's on my mind to share.

Alice: Noted. Are you sure you don't want to do a pet interview?

Diosa: Quite sure. But you reminded me I have to go feed Flame his worms and crickets. Trouble isn't home tonight.

Alice: What is Flame again?

Diosa: Leopard Gecko.

Diosa, Trouble, and the Holiday Spirit

Trouble--that's how I refer to my oldest--is eight going on fifteen. Really, he'll be nine in April, but he has all the sass of a tween, all the angst of a tortured adolescent, and all the whine of a sick two-year-old. He has a girlfriend now.

She wants to kiss, he tells us.

I told him he can't kiss until he's fifteen. Blackstone, my husband, told him he can't kiss until he's thirty. Slightly harsh in my opinion. Trouble was nonplussed.

"You're just jealous," he responded, "because no one wanted to kiss you when you were eight."

Um. Burnnnnnnnn!

Have to hand it to him, kid's got style. And timing. It's seriously impressive. There's a part of me that can't help bursting with pride. It may or may not be the same part of me that wants to cut out his tongue with a carving knife on occasion.

No, seriously, I'm joking. And since DCYF is likely just one more pumpkin carving mishap away, let's keep it close to the vest. Especially since that last complaint from Trouble to his teacher about how abusive his parents are.

True story.

My point is, Trouble's already at that age. You know the one. The one where all innocence is about to be lost forever? Right now, he is still very much a wide-eyed, completely trusting, little boy. But while Trouble is still a goofy hair-free kid, I can already smell the stench that is puberty approaching on some of his friends.

This is Trouble's crucial Christmas year. He still believes, but it's tenuous, tainted with rising doubts, pockmarked with reality.

We brought the boys on the Polar Express ride this year. The Newport Dinner Train puts it on. It's about a 30-minute ride to the North Pole. Then Santa gets on the train and rides back to Newport with you, because who doesn't want to go to Newport?

Hot cocoa and cookies are part of the fare. You can order dinner off a limited, but reasonably priced, menu. And they do serve beer and wine, because let's admit it, the whole experience for parents is a little more enjoyable with a glass of Merlot.

The trip is nothing earth shattering, and certainly nothing as impressive as the movie. If you're expecting the waiters to dance on the ceilings and create tables out of table cloths, you'll be sorely disappointed. However, there are Christmas tattoos for the kids, activity books, a sing-a-long with maracas, and a visit from Santa himself.

And of course every kid gets a bell from Santa's sleigh to wear around their necks.

 

I wasn't sure how Trouble was going to respond, in all honesty. But he loved it. He's been telling everyone about how he took the Polar Express to the North Pole. It definitely helped reaffirm his belief. It was truly heart warming. I overheard Trouble asking his best friend if he still believed in Santa. Trouble rang his bell for him to see if he could hear it.

I know that as a kid, I kept believing in Santa until I was about twelve, way past the time when my subconscious knew the truth, but I was loath to let it go. I wasn't at all worried about not getting presents or anything like that, but somehow not believing in Santa was giving up on all magic, almost on hope itself. I couldn't let it go.

And in some ways, I've never stopped.

I still believe that beneath all the commercialism, toys, candy and food, there's something special about Christmas. Every year while I'm racing around decorating, baking, shopping, wrapping, writing out cards--I remind myself that this is all worth it. Sometimes--most of the time--I have my doubts. It just feels like another job. And the stresses of paying for all the presents, of how I'm going to get it all done, can induce a level of anxiety just this side of a heart attack.

And they're getting harder to shop for. They mark things in the Toys-R-Us catalog like X-boxes, iPods, DVD players, laptops, dozens of video games, motorized vehicles...

They're not getting all that.

Santa is generous. He's not a rich, immoral uncle with an endless bank account devoted to spoiling little boys to the point of  inducing brain damage, while most certainly degrading moral fiber and work ethic.

But I try to remember that it's not about all that at all. It's really about the gift of magic and hope you're giving to your kids. And if they're getting so big that nothing's going to do that short of a Lamborghini or some bling, well, you might as well realize that your little kid is not so little anymore.

So, I feel I better make the most of this Christmas with Trouble, while he's still full of hope and belief. Even if that hope and belief is almost lost in his constant complaining and sarcasm.

And there's always LT, Little Trouble, who's five. I've still got a couple of good years left in him. You know, if his older, wiser, and corrupted older brother doesn't spoil it for him early.

Ah, the joys of Christmas. I can hear the angels singing now.

(And, no, you don't need to point out where he gets it from.)

Diosa is Hot for Geeks

I am a web programmer. Don't get all nervous and let your eyes gloss over yet. I'm not going to bore you with too many details. I have one of those jobs people don't like to hear much about.

It's fine. I'm over it. 

Last Friday, I spent at the RIA (Rich Internet Applications) Conference in Boston. It's the first time I've been to a professional conference like that in my career. Honestly, it took me long enough. I've been so busy just trying to balance my day-to-day job and raising my kids, not to mention having a husband who's self employed and works all day and sometimes all night, professional development has kind of gone out the window. And the time and money I've had to spend on my career, I spent taking classes.

I may have been a bit misguided there. I'm starting to think professional certifications and conferences are where it's at.

A programming conference may not sound all that enticing to you,  but I had an absolute blast. First, I met two of my ColdFusion programming icons. Whenever I research how to accomplish something in CF online,  these are the two guys that come up. They have been my mentors for years. And I finally got to meet them.

In person.

It must be a bit weird having some woman come up to you and introduce herself, telling you what a fan she is of your blog. It was a bit weird for me, anyway. It's like I'm a groupie or something. I've never been the groupie type before. Leave it to me to become a groupie of the ColdFusion Jedi and Obsessively Thorough Web Application Development.

The latter used to be called Kinky Solutions, but Ben has gotten a little more mature and professional over the years. And he's totally cute. He lives in NY (Bookgirl, maybe you should look him up. He's single as far as I know. I really should have asked when I met him, but I was slightly awe struck). The Jedi told me his degree is actually in English too. I can't tell you how thrilling that is for me. Perhaps I will one day find the force within me too.

One can hope.

One of the coolest things about programmers is their terrific sense of humor. These are some quick and dirty replications of some of the more entertaining ways of making a point.

To let your audience know how you really feel about your programming language of choice:

 

To exemplify how you're not that impressed by all the trendy web services in the websphere:

 

To reiterate how you put this presentation together in your baby's delivery room this week:

 

And a lesson on string concatenation wouldn't be complete without a quote by George Bush.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on --shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

I also had a great conversation about jQuery with a couple of guys that do web development for one of the colleges at Harvard. There are few things in life that impress me - not your money, not your BMW, but Harvard, as long as your not some conceited a*hole, that's impressive. And if you're a really cool guy covered in tattoos, even better. Of course the guy not covered in tattoos was cool, too.

But you get my point.

And it never hurts being in a room where the ratio of men to women is about 4 to 1. I may be married and loyal and all that, but the attention is still nice. Because I've never had anyone ask me if they could follow me on Twitter before. That would entail me actually signing on to Twitter, though, not just having that account I opened two or three years ago.

The Jedi was the one who used the photo of Paris. He confessed that he follows her on Twitter. Not because he's really a fan, but because she's exactly what you would expect. Not everything works that way in programming or in life, so getting exactly what you expect, well, that's often the best possible outcome.

In programming it's the only acceptable outcome, and you can spend days getting there. 

In life, it can be nice to get more than you expected.

As for me, I suppose I'd be thrilled winning the lottery, finding out my portfolio was worth more than I thought, realizing my phone can do cool tricks I didn't even know about.

But honestly, most of the time, I'm quite content just getting exactly what I expect.