My husband is out of town at a trade convention in Las Vegas; he left this morning and will return Wednesday afternoon. For these next few days Baby J and I are on our own.

Even though I’ve been taking care of Baby J alone for the past four weeks, this is the first time I’m alone in the house with Baby J. I started feeling lonely in the evenings, especially when the weather in Southern California has been rainy and windy. Something about the harsh swishing sounds of the trees outside that makes the house seem even quieter.

Earlier in the evening Baby J seemed to fuss more than usual. Or maybe he fussed the same amount, but my husband has been “relieving me” for a few hours by wearing Baby J and feeding him, and I wasn’t aware of it. Or maybe Baby J is missing his daddy the way I’m missing his daddy! (I’m wearing him in my moby wrap right now, and he’s sleeping, which is how I can type this up.)

I actually turned the TV on this afternoon and set it on the Superbowl channel even though I never watch football. I just wanted some noise in the house.

For most of the day, as much as I can between feeding Baby J and changing him and playing with him and soothing him, I’d been cleaning out our office. Specifically, getting rid of a lot of “stuff” that I’d procured over the years that I had wanted to read/get to/convert to a business project. As you can guess, this big pile of stuff never got read or converted into anything other than piles of stuff. And there’s a lot of piles of stuff from my years as a corporate professional. It’s part of this other big “project” that I’m doing for 2008, a personal one, and requires me to shed myself of what I now consider work history baggage.

There are the scores of multi-inch-thick binders of conference documentation and training materials.

There are the piles of industry magazines that had published my articles or in which I had appeared as an interviewee. I debated for a few seconds whether I should keep these as souvenirs, but I figured, I know what I’ve written and published, and that’s enough for me.

There are the stacks of magazines and pages of magazines I’d torn out, that I was supposed to “read and take notes and help generate new business ideas or product ideas”.

All. Gone. to. the. Trash.

Then – I found some good stuff.

Creative writing I’d done. I even found the pages of my only attempt to write a trashy erotic story. I don’t remember what I wrote and only glanced the pages quickly, but one minute he was making her tea and the next minute “Allen” and “Victoria” were on the couch, getting it on. Ya, I know. I’ll keep my day job. Oh wait, I don’t have one. Guess we’re in trouble

Thoughts I’d written down while I traveled in my old jobs, detailing how much I hated doing what I was doing. Fantasies of the future that I thought at the time were my escape (a new job) that I later found out, once I attained them, to remain empty.

I found some funny stuff I’d saved from when I was an undergraduate student – nerd humor, you can call it. For example, a parody of the metabolic pathways of a “graduate student”. Top 10 list of why it would suck if I’d won the Nobel prize (back when it meant something to me). A hilarious write-up of an impossible prelim (what my alma mater called exams) spanning twenty academic subjects. Even a fake memo that our university’s microbiology chairman had distributed on how we should save the department money when traveling due to budget cuts. A one-page photocopy of Matt Groenig’s “school is hell”.

At first I was going to throw the funny stuff in the trash. But then I remembered one of my buddies in Princeton New Jersey can use a dose of the funnies ( you know who you are )! So won’t you email me your address and I’ll mail these over to ya and put a smile on your face while you play battle of the wits with coworkers whose most important goals in life are to acquire the newest model of SUV

I even found a letter I had written in 2003, addressed to my future self. Eerie. I basically told myself that I was chasing after goals, one after another, and that I’d eventually realize that being outwardly directed and externally driven will land me back in emptiness. Man, I wish I’m a hot shot author with book deals up the wazoo. Then I can demand that my publisher print stuff like this letter so I can reach all those people out there who are still chasing their phantom happiness, the way I used to chase after it. The way I sometimes do.

Anyway, I’ve effectively transplanted big piles of accumulated intellectual crap into small piles of paper that I still wanted to keep. These small piles now take up space on my desk. I’ll probably shove these into a cardboard box for safekeeping… for a few more years.

It’s soon time to feed Baby J. Before I sign off, I’ve been thinking… should I continue blogging here anonymously? Or should I “come out of the closet”? Does it really matter if I remain anonymous? I do wonder. There are pros and cons of anonymity, of course.

Unrelated Note: Below is one of the reason I want to avoid daycare as much as possible…………… (from PostSecret)