I am twelve. Again.

Two incidents occurred last week that sent me right back to age 12. Both incidents could have been avoided had the people who instigated them put on their big girl panties and taken a less comfortable approach.

One of The Pinks had an "I am 12 Moment" last week, too, even though she's only 11. We pinky swore to both get over it quickly and focus on more important things. 

Because I work outside the home and outside of the leafy suburban bubble in which I live, I spend my days with a cross-section of people. Men don't ever seem to revert to age 12. Men, in a gross and broad generalization, care far less if people like them. Our culture rewards them for strong, leadership behavior. Women want to be liked. Sheryl Sandberg writes extensively about this in Lean In.

Many years ago Neeracha had a job in M&A. She told me that the first time she exited someone she ran into the bathroom afterwards and threw up. After six months of this she told me that she could literally be sitting at her desk eating a sandwich while telling someone that their job was eliminated. Progress.

Working more than 20 years in tech has given me a fairly thick skin. Still, I'm irritated when smart women don't have the hard conversations. If they aren't working for a paycheck, great, that's their personal choice.  I applaud them for their decision. However, use your brains, use your power for good, people! These are the same women who don't step up to leadership roles in their children's schools, their churches and their community at large because they are afraid of conflict. They leave the hard stuff to others. What a missed opportunity. What a waste of talent.

Wrapping Up

I begin my new gig in a week. Since deciding to change my work situation I've been frantic tying up loose ends because starting a new project is synonymous with a reduced amount of free time and an increased amount of mental exhaustion.

As everyone knows by now, in the Jacob vs. Edward drama Edward gets the girl. Seeing Breaking Dawn Part 2 was on my list. The movie was fine. I just needed closure on the whole dang thing. It feels like forever ago that I read the Twilight Series.

I baked for our next two NCL commitments. My current favorite cookie recipe is similar to risotto and soup in that you use whatever you have in the house for the top of these three-layer cookies.

The Steve Jobs book by Walter Isakson. Surely I'm the the last person in the Valley to read it. In technology circles its quoted as often as The Minority Report and The Social Network. My first clue was finding eight copies on the shelf in the Mountain View Library. Truth be told, it took me a long time to get through. Isakson is a gifted writer and I wanted to savor the words and also think about it, too. I began my tech career in 1989, toward the beginning of Apple's historic rise, and even worked on the short-lived NeXTWorld Magazine.

Deferred Tech Support. Off to the Apple Store I went with one ancient desktop and two laptops to migrate the data from the old one to the new two. I needed to straighten out Apple IDs and iTunes Libraries. I gave some TLC to my PC, which has seen little use this last year. It needed software upgrades and a good reorganization. A dusting too.

Filing. Recipes and travel articles and health insurance claim forms. Creating new files for 2013.

Framing. The kids' art and new black and white pictures we had taken in Mexico. Hanging all that stuff. Taking old stuff down. Deciding where to put old and new framed art. This takes time!

Alterations! I'll be in an office five days a week so I did a big drop off at the seamstress as well as parked myself in front of Pitch Perfect on demand to do simple fixes myself. You can skip Pitch Perfect.

Shopping. I hit the mall for some work wardrobe basics, essentially winter sweaters in fun colors to go with all those boring pants I just hemmed. Also foundations. Liberty, now 11 and who was with us, found this part as much fun as having a flu shot. Paris enjoyed it more and for the investment I made on her foundations, I should have let her go to Victoria's Secret like she wanted to in the first place.

My list is getting shorter and the daylight hours are getting longer. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Curse of the Good Girl

I was the very proud event organizer last night of 900 community members at our middle school. This event, hosting Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out and The Curse of the Good Girl, was the next step in my plan to rid the world of Mean Girls.

Rachel, who also founded the Girls Leadership Institute, spoke for about an hour then signed books. She is an engaging, funny speaker with great content. I guess you refine those skills when you've been on Oprah and the Today Show a few times! The interactive talk covered what a Good Girl looks like, No Joke Zones, I Statements, Emotions, The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody and My Little Pony. The picture at left is of me, Rachel Simmons and Simone Marean.

I was blown away by all the familiar faces in the audience, people from as far south as Pleasanton, as far west as Moraga, as far east as Brentwood. This message resonates with us all. One of the things I enjoy most about these events is watching the dots connect. I'd forgotten that Amy and Lori were college sorority sisters, and that Lori's cousin is friends with Bridgit. I didn't know that Amy and Ellen's daughters played softball together two years ago and so on.

We could not have pulled of an event of this magnitude without an army of volunteers from the middle school PTA and my own posse: Ellen, Sarah, Coleen and Megan, MelissaS and Hannah, Andrea and Nina, MelissaB. I enjoyed working with our school principal, whose support was invaluable, and the vice principal, who is a great logistics front man and whose daughter, it turns out, goes to preschool with my niece. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And because I am a Real Girl, I have a confession to make: when Simone, GLI's Executive Director, asked me to speak for a few minutes on our experience with the GLI workshops, I lost it. I don't do public speaking. I write. I edit. I plan. I do behind the scenes. But of course I agreed then practiced my two-minute talk for the better part of an hour before going on. I have to admit, I was quite proud of myself. And they called me a force! This stuff is hard for introverts. I have to admit, though, that once I got up there I just ran with it and spoke from my heart. It really is easier to do this when you are passionate about the cause. One less thing to fear in life.

The funniest part of the evening took place at the very end as Rachel was signing my book. Thing 1 had an extended conversation with her about her own personal drama in elementary school with her friend and her friend's boyfriend. Yes, the kids are eight. I had to walk away before I peed my pants. Not surprisingly, Rachel handled it very well.

In a fantasy world, this event will have generated enough attention for the workshops to roll out at other local schools, and for the message to be spread even further. I look forward to helping make that reality. Please leave a comment on my blog if you would like me to help facilitate that at your school or in your community.

Dave, who is my biggest champion, had a little fete pulled together at home when we got back. Everything is better with chocolate cake and chocolate dipped strawberries. He is my angel.

I am twelve.

I just finished The Curse of the Good Girl in preparation for the author's talk here Monday. It was not as all-out scary as Odd Girl Out but it riled me up just the same.

The thing is, American girls are raised to keep the peace. We avoid conflict. We smooth things over. If we voice our opinions with candor and conviction we are called bitches. I am so done with this.

Have you ever heard a girl say something along the lines of, "No offense but that shirt doesn't match those shorts." No offense means that the recipient of this barb shouldn't be mad at the nasty girl whose mouth it came out of even though it clearly is an insult.

One Saturday night last fall I was at a party. The previous night many of the same people, myself included, were at another party. Of course the antics from the former came up at the latter. I should have spoken up and said, "Hey. Let's not relive this in front of people who weren't there." But I didn't. And I've regretted it ever since.

On my Febmom list this topic recently came up. Tory, so sage from her expat vantage point in Hong Kong, said it well: inside each of us is a 12-year-old girl.

I recently ran into a woman I have known since my teens. She is professionally successful and tall and blond and smart and thin and has lovely children and a nice husband. She is twelve, too. And she did the right thing in the situation she faced: she confronted the Mean Mommy in the most textbook perfect of ways. It didn't work and she is still hurt by it. Still she did the right thing and I applaud her for it. This stuff is hard.

I think about the friend I confronted a year ago over a Part-Time Friend Situation between our daughters. I would never have looked at the woman the same again had I not brought it up. I had nothing to lose: our relationship never would have recovered otherwise.

Today I met with Simone Marean and the team at our middle school who will welcome Rachel Simmons. During the course of the event walk through, which I took control of in my usual let's-be-efficient-and-decisive-style, I briefly paused and said, "Am I being too bossy?" Simone looked at me and said, "Curse of the Good Girl." I laughed. She was right.

Why does this 12-year-old emerge from time to time? Will putting on our big girl panties and doing hard things like speaking our minds with confidence banish her?