Inside Out

Written in the nebulous past of some time ago. 

It's not what you think. I don't feel inside out. I just feel inside and it's other people that seem out. It's not an 'and' and it's not an 'or' or even a 'versus'. It just is.

I feel all sorts of crazy all on my own, but I gotta tell you, other people's crazy makes me not feel any saner. It's an unexpected feeling to have someone over-share their instability, insecurities, and neurosis with you and have you walking away wanting to go sit in a dark room all by yourself and listen to some really depressing Cat Power.

F*#$k you! I got my own insanity!

It's probably just me (that gets that feeling). It usually is. Well, I should say, I assume it's just me. Fortunately, I get the luxury, being me and all, of making those assumptions. Anyway, there isn't really a point. I'm just feeling very inside and curiously, others seem very sharing. Get over it people, share is not caring.

Do I really know that many unstable people? Are these people friends? Do they have to be?

Ultimately, I wonder, how can they share these things? Why can't I share my own feelings, what makes it easy for them? Is it even a release? Sharing doesn't seem to help me. The meaning is lost. There's no place for the thoughts or the feelings to go. And then I just feel alone and crazy.

Cuba Libre!

Here we are back from Cuba. It's been a few weeks and I thought it best to write about the experience before specifics fade into revisionist history. In particular I want to focus on the logistics of traveling to Cuba with young children. There is still much I need to process regarding the country itself, the history, modern day Communism, etc. That will need to be another post.

We traveled to Cuba under the "Support for the Cuban People" visa. As someone else in our group procured the visa's I'm not sure the detailed process...what I do know is that we were 'required' to have an agenda/schedule that included 8 full hours a day of 'cultural exchange'.

Cultural exchange included historical, guided tours; museum visits; and musical shows (we went with a group of musicians that performed a few different nights whilst there). We also took a significant amount of material to donate to the people - everything from first aide items; coloring books; musical instruments; clothes; and athletic equipment (think baseball!).

The latter bit wasn't required but we wanted to be sure we had a lot to donate to the folks we knew we'd be interacting with.

In reality, the schedule came in very handy as we were entering Cuba. Due to all the donations, customs did stop us to ask what was in our bags (note the group was large and nearly all of us wear all black, are covered in tattoos, and have dyed hair in non-typical styles). After showing a print out of our accommodations list and schedule, they let us go without much trouble. Immigration on both sides was without any to do - no one asked to see proof of our sticking to our schedule, looked through our phones (as we were told might happen); or anything else of the sort. It was just like going in and out of Europe - in fact, I'm pretty sure I get harassed more coming/going from London.

That experience seemed to match the rest of what we read: overstated. It certainly wasn't like traveling to a first world country but the situation with regard to food and drinks wasn't nearly as dire as most books made it out to be.

That said, we did take a significant amount of snacks, plus some quick meals (think: instant oatmeal; top ramen; etc). We didn't eat everything we took but I chalk that up to us overestimating general food consumption more than anything. We did rely on these a lot - so TAKE SNACKS.

We took things like: Clif bars; granola bars; trail mix; crackers (like indy bags of goldfish and Chex mix); dried fruit; instant oatmeal; and top ramen. Due to tastes, adults mostly ate the Clif bars and kids mostly ate everything else. Store and hole in the wall food stands are aplenty - both in Santa Clara and in Havana - however, the food quality is low and mostly it's just ham and cheese sandwiches. When we were on long tours or on the bus, there weren't options to stop or buy things so having the snacks was essential. When walking around town, as noted, there were government run snack shops/'cafeterias' but the menu is limited and mostly just cheese, ham or cheese and ham together.







We stayed in Casa Particulares in both cities - though the one in Santa Clara was more of a hostel set up; and the one in Havana like a B&B. Breakfast was the best meal for the kids. Lots of bread and fruit. Fresh (really fresh!) blended fruit juices and some cheese and ham dishes were served. Sometimes eggs.

Usually, you need to tell the host the day before if you desire meals and which ones. This affords them time to shopping the day of. We only ate breakfasts in - they were CUC5 - 10 each person.

For lunch, there were plenty of acceptable eating establishments to get food, or the tours we booked included lunch (or a pit stop at a recommended restaurant).

Keep in mind there are a range of food cuisines. We heard about privately run restaurants vs government - but were never really told how to distinguish between the two. We only knew after ordering/eating based on the quality of food and service.  Government places had rude service and very cheap (quality) food.






Dinner was much like lunch. There are folks who will try and solicit you to eat at their restaurant. Sometimes they are obvious and other times they sidle up to you like they are curious locals...only to end up suggesting, fairly aggressively, that you HAVE to go to X restaurant because it's just the best. We generally avoided the 'recommendations' and chose our own spots to eat based on guidebook info.

The quick meals we brought did come in hand though. There were two different situations when we were glad to have instant food: (1) when we were all just having a hard time getting out of the house. As happens when traveling with a group, the schedule of the group and your child's needs don't always align. So having something quick to put in their bellies while we waited to sort out what was actually happening, was necessary. (2) One of the last nights we were in Havana, there was a torrential rainstorm that lasted well beyond the typical tropical daily shower. In fact, it began late afternoon and didn't let up until 9-9:30p that night. During that time NO ONE is out on the streets. Barely any cars are driving and everyone is mostly just huddled together on a porch or at home not going anywhere. We made the mistake of trying to find a restaurant to eat at during this time and ended up driving around Old Havana with a "taxi driver" for 2 hours, just to end up back at the Casa. Ramen saved us that night. My only recommendation is that you bring a variety of meals that are add hot water only - the women at our Casa Particulares were very helpful and let us just use their kitchen (they were amazed by the ramen - "Es sopa?") - but it was kind of an ordeal and just adding water to something (or having MREs) would have been much more convenient.

 Water. Bottled water was actually a lot more available than we were made to believe. Most stores we went into had bottled water for sale. The Casa Familiares replenished bottled water every day for us to buy/have. However, we only used these to supplement our own supply. We took our own reusable bottles and a UV water purifying pen (https://goo.gl/RMZVJf). It's small and portable and great for when you don't have access to buy water somewhere. Though, fair warning, water pressure is non-existent so it may take a while to fill the bottle. Also, purifying doesn't change the taste, so there were times when the little one didn't want to drink the water due to smell/taste that lingered - nothing gross, just not "clean" like bottled water. Miraculously, everyone but the kids got sick. The adults had varying degrees of something but not the kids. We used the purified water for all things so it must have been something in one of the alcoholic beverages. Go figure.

Juice was typically only available at breakfast at the Casa Familiares and at full fledged restaurants. Otherwise it was just water or soda (clear or brown). Milk was also available but only at the Casas.



In terms of activities - most of the tours we were on were not tailored for kids. So my little one (4yo) wasn't amused by most of what we were doing. There were plenty of places to run around but the walking and history were a bore. We spent one day at the beach which was amazing both for the kids and us. However, this was by design of the group we were with. If I were to go on my own with my family, I would definitely plan the activities differently and I believe that there is a way to strike a balance of history/'boring' sites with kid-themed activities. If nothing else, the country really does seem to love their children, so there are playgrounds everywhere.

So just think about taking the time to allow your kid to have fun and be a kid. Regardless of your visa type, you have that flexibility since no one really checks up on what you really did hour by hour, day by day. It makes sense, Cuba wants the tourism and the US - once you're returning - just wants to be sure you didn't touch a cow or get Zika.

In the end, the conclusion was that traveling to Cuba with kids isn't very different than traveling with kids in EU; and similar to traveling with them in Mexico. Travel safely, be aware and know there will be the normal ups and downs - they are just kids after all.

Viva!

Note that this summary expounds on areas that I was most curious about before going, due to insufficient information I found in guidebooks and online. It is not meant to be comprehensive but a supplement to any other information you read. The bits about Cubans loving kids, grabbing and kissing them is true. The bits about currency, safety, etc are all important so read up in your guide books. 

Pronoun Paralysis

I am one of those people who thinks too much. Mostly introspection type stuff. Why I am the way I am. Why people are the way they are, that kind of thing. I have a lot of pretty strong opinions and just as many loosey goosey ones.

As a parent, this over analytical, introspective personality type has left me running in circles around parenthood, driving myself into exhaustion thinking of all the possibilities of just about every scenario. Generally with all of them leading to me influencing my son into being a deranged sociopath. 

When I was pregnant and found out that I was going to have a son, I wiped the proverbial sweat off my brow and sighed a big sigh. "Thank goodness I won't have to deal with raising a girl/woman in this shitty misogynistic society," I thought to myself - or plausibly said out loud.  

About a day and a half into the boy being on the outside of my uterus, after I got over the whole, "I'mma straight up break this thing!" phase, I realized to great dismay that my brow was once again sweaty...Not only was I not off the hook, I felt MORE on the hook with having to raise a conscientious male who would not, will not, become a cog in the misogynistic wheel of our currently mostly-shitty-to-women society. UGH - and - Fuuuuh!

All those thoughts I had about having to protect my daughter from all the sexist advertising; horrible body image defacing dolls/toys; objectifying magazines; innately subconscious belittling of worth [fill in the blank] system - all still apply, and in fact, become an almost harder lesson to teach since layered on top of that is a need for my son to know, learn and feel sympathy, empathy, with the women of this world. 

So now that I have come to terms with my mountainous task, in part I'm glad - glad that I'm not off the hook (it's in my nature after all to be this way, having an 'easy' path wouldn't suit me) - but also now hyper-sensitive to a whole other side of the story that I wasn't even conscious of myself until now. 

For instance, most storybooks perpetuate sexist tendencies. Some more than others, with 99% of stories including humans playing into some gender role assignment. And don't get me wrong, this is detrimental for males also - but that's a whole other blog post.

In one story in particular, a little boy who is playing soccer breaks his leg and has to go to the hospital. At the hospital, the nurse - a woman - does all the work (weight, heart rate, x-rays etc), then the doctor - a man - comes in to diagnose the boy. Well, so, in the version I tell, the Dr. is a woman, with all the he's turned into she's. 

It's small but worthwhile, I feel. It's comforting to know that all the Dr.'s at his pediatrician's practice are women - at least the idea and imagery in this specific scenario are substantiated by real life. 

I go to great pains to always say 'police office' or 'fire fighter'. But it's SO very hard. It's crazy to me how ingrained in our culture it is to default to male pronouns. For instance, I'm always calling a group of people "guys"; all my son's toys are 'he's'; shit, I even referred to the cows (any cows, ALL cows) as 'him' and they had UDDERS!

You may laugh, as I have, and think:  it's so harmless; everyone does it; it doesn't mean anything; I'm not oppressing women...on purpose...And that's the thing, it IS harmful and demeaning and if it wasn't such a big deal, then let's all start walking into rooms full of mixed company call out, "Hey girls! What's the haps?"

It's no big deal, right? 

Butter Both Sides of the Toast

This morning I watched in horror and fascination as my son ate a piece of buttered toast.

At two and half years old he has, what I imagine, is a normal but healthy (read: near obscene) appreciation for butter.

When I gave him the toast, there was a meltdown - no pun intended - because he couldn't actually see the butter on the toast. I realized at this point, much too late, that my husband makes a concerted effort to put the toast in front of our son immediately after the butter is spread and therefor avoiding such breakdown. Proof of butterdom. Now I know.

After the butter toast boycott ended, the eating commenced. Toast held upright, shoved flat against the face, so that the boy could, I don't know, chomp directly on the broad part of the toast to get only as much bread as he had to in order to consume the butter.

Did you know that there are layers to a single slice of bread?

The kid is skilled, is all I can say. He was able to essentially eat half the bread - by thickness. And this is when I thought - well shit, I could just butter both sides of the toast.

The epiphany: Life is kind of like trying to eat all the butter off of the toast without actually having to eat the bread. You just want the good stuff - all the cholesterol, none of the carbs - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. So, why not add more good stuff? Put butter on both sides and it doesn't matter how you eat it, or how much of the other stuff you end up with because it's so saturated it has become the goodness.

Just a thought.

It was an accident (or not)

Something I wrote for a 'Women In Technology' brown bag at work.

Hello everyone. My name is --- and I am Sr. Manager of Business Strategy  - a position I've held since April of this year. The majority of my career - over 7 years - I've worked as a Product Manager.

When I first started thinking about answering "How I got to where I am in my career", I came up with what I thought was a witty little opener, which went something like, "By accident!" 

Only to immediately recognize the irony in saying something so self-deprecating in a situation that is meant to embrace and support courage and confidence of women in the workplace. 

For me, the sentiment comes from a feeling of not fitting the "tech" (or career) mold. I started working service jobs from the time I was 13 - restaurants and cafe's; a grocery store; hospitality; front office staff. I dropped out of 3 different colleges and never got a degree. 

I was living in a warehouse with 14 other people, putting on underground punk shows when a roommate convinced me to interview for a job at --- where he worked as a backend software developer. 

And this is usually the part in the story where I say, "...and the rest is history." In reality, the getting there was easy and the hard part was making it work. 

I remember the first time I ever entered a meeting room. It was a Product Roadmap update meeting and I had NO idea what anyone was talking about. It was beyond being unfamiliar with company specific nomenclature and a matter of having no background in tech at all. I'm not even sure I knew what a roadmap was.

So I began listening. Intently. And asking lots of questions. For me it was a matter of survival. I couldn't afford to pretend, so I found out as much as I could beforehand, then asked explicit and pertinent questions at relevant times. I asked questions to individuals, I asked questions in meetings, I turned in to a sponge – and soon, it became muscle memory. I think what surprised me most was how much respect asking questions got. Some people had the same questions but didn’t feel comfortable asking them. Sometimes the questions instigated looking at the product in a new way.

I walked in to each meeting knowing I was not the smartest person in the room but appreciating the opportunity to be there at all and wanting to prove (to myself and others) that I was a valuable part of the team. What I found with Product is that I did have several of the skills needed to do a good job: organization, empathy for the consumer, passion for the product - and what I didn't know I was eager to learn. 

But I also struggled with who I was, where I was from, and the formal education I didn’t have. On some days it felt like I was from Mars – and I was terribly homesick. On other days it felt like I had finally found my calling. What helped the most was finding mentors. People who wanted to help me - be my mentor - and I grabbed that opportunity as quickly as it was proffered.

These people helped show me that not only was there potential but that most of it was latent within me – covered with layers of doubt and lack of confidence. In looking back, it’s amazing to me all the ways that a person can (that I DID) put themselves down. How much doubt you can cast on yourself: whether it’s skillset, education, physical looks – whatever it might be to justify not getting that raise, asking for the promotion, not pushing for the title you deserve, taking a lower salary at a new job.

If it hadn't been for the tireless efforts of these mentors to support me and help build my confidence, as well as career knowledge, I would have quit, failed or both many years ago. But here I am today, still a far cry from a super confident women in technology but much more comfortable in my skin, in my abilities, in my place in this world.

So, what I take away from that time, from "accidentally" finding my way into Tech and learning to survive within it, is: 

1.    Listen. Well. 

What you don’t know, you might learn. In most cases I didn’t know what I thought I did until after I listened. Communication is key in technology – heck probably most jobs. It’s often a few small words shuffled in between many others that make the biggest differences.

2.    Ask the right questions, so that you can become the expert - or at least know how to talk to the experts

Although there aren’t any ‘stupid’ questions, there are ill-timed ones. I found that although asking questions is a good thing, like listening, it needs to be done well. A well thought out question at the right time can be more powerful than a statement.

3.    Mentors are invaluable and often lead to strong, long-lasting friendships

The mentors in my life showed me the ropes - in Product, in Dev, in Managing - and consistently had more confidence in me than I held in myself. Throughout my career they have provided guidance and assistance: as career advice; a resume review; as a reference; how to negotiate the right salary; or even just a quick kick in the butt as needed. It's run the gamut but it’s always good advice. Find someone you can be honest and transparent with and who you think can offer you a perspective you couldn’t get on your own – whether it’s a different position, tenure, industry experience…and buy them lunch.  

And don’t be afraid to be a mentor yourself. Pay it forward – it’s easier than you think (especially if lunch is provided).

4.    There is no "mold"

If there is any proof to this it’s me. As a kid, I certainly didn’t say to mom, “I want to be a Product Manager when I grow up!” I was not on a path to where I am 8 years ago but once I made it onto that path, I owned it. Well, ok, sometimes I owned it. What held me back for a really long time was comparing myself in so many ways to my peers but hardly ever in the way of skillset and productivity. In the end a piece of code needs to get written and if you can write that code, then what you’re wearing, what color your hair is, what music you listen to, where you went to school – or didn’t – won’t make the least bit of difference.

I will concede here that there are some environments and some companies that how you look, how you dress, the college degree and in some cases the school will change your career trajectory. For me, finding out that there is “no mold” was also a coming to terms with how I want to manage my own career, what my limits are and what I am willing to give up and not for advancement. Everyone has their own limits and their own aspirations and what is most important is knowing what that list is to you. And then owning it. 

Roots

I can't sleep. I'm thinking about roots. The kind that keep you in one place. The kind that you might not realize are there until you try and move. Literally, move.

I'll have been in this town for 15 years come October. That's one hell of a stay.

I remember distinctly what I said to him when we decided to move here. "Can we just commit to staying at least 1 year?" One year. What did I know? I was a fucking kid. I thought that going from one place to another at that point was being a gypsy. I was just being a fucking kid. Finding where to lay down my roots. And here they are. 15 years deep in this place I couldn't think to call anything else other than home.

So why even think about moving? Why leave? I have at least a hundred reasons to stay. And maybe three to leave. There isn't enough room or patience to count the stays, so let's list the go's.

1)  ...
2)  ...
3)  ...

 Yeah.

The thing is, an idea latches on. An idea is like a burr. You're not sure where you picked it up from but there it is. Stuck to your clothes. And now you have to deal with it. Sometimes it's more like a tick. It really has a hold of you and even after it's gone, you still think about it, unable to get rid of the essence of the thing.

It doesn't have to be bloodthirsty. It doesn't have to be a parasite. Ugh. These are horrible analogies. It's just that once you realize how embedded you are in a place, how do you go to another place? What is the feeling you should have when you leave to go somewhere else? How much does the hurt and aching and weirdness and anxiety and insecurity have to overwhelm you in order for you to know it's the wrong decision vs. the right one? If you're so rooted in a place, isn't it going to hurt no matter what? How do you know if you're making the right choice?

Sometimes I think, "If only I were younger." Which is promptly followed with, "What a bullshit excuse." (Gotta love these internal monologues)

Sometimes I think, "What a great opportunity. How cool is this story going to be when D is older?" And that's it - the draw is the story. The adventure. The "fuck it all" attitude. The "who knows what will happen? I can't wait." attitude.

And so:

1) Who knows?
2) This is going to be fun!
3) If it doesn't work out? So be it.

Unfortunately, curling of the toes does not equal up-rooting and then the question is, how hard do you pull? What is the easiest, most humane way to transplant this human and her family? There probably is no way and the only way is just close your eyes and do it.

The duality of dichotomy

There is this beautiful space in between reality and reality that I realize only once in a while is the existence that I try and embrace on an every day basis.

It's this thing. Really. A thing. I wish it were less hipster than that, but it isn't. It is just a thing. A feeling. Almost an aberration of a feeling that is the embodiment of two things that juxtapose each other in a way that makes each one beautiful and on their own ridiculous. Or maybe not.

It's the essence of an expensive dinner of indulgence, just to end up staring at the stars and appreciating a meteor shower. It is the appreciation of a beautifully made old fashioned then enjoying a ride home via public transit.

It's about the connections. The ability to talk to a cab driver about the wonders of traveling to a foreign land as a young adult from a foreign land. The beauty of the human essence that connect each one of us on any given moment. It's living with the horror that in the end, we are still who we are and maybe I'll still be depressed in the morning. This horrible feeling that no matter what glimpse of, and appreciation for, humanity I experience one moment, it is only, always, fleeting.

FML. FWP.