Man Skills

I’m on vacation in North Dakota at my parents, it’s beautiful and snowing. I’m sitting on the couch reading a book The Unicorn Project. I’m 10 pages in and my mom comes into the room and says, “What are you reading?”. I start explaining what I know thus far. A woman is taking the fall for a mistake in a male-dominated corporate world, she is a developer and is being shoveled off to The Phoenix Project which is another book I’ll be reading immediately following this one. Her inner dialogue is about how she knows she is very direct in this male-dominated world and it’s not winning her any points but she will always stand up for herself. I can relate.

My mom starts walking out of the room to get some coffee and says, you know who you remind me of? I ask who, and she jokes, I’m not telling you. I ask Hillary Clinton? She says, no, why would you say that? I said, she is the first really direct woman I could think of, and I think she is admirable. She says, now I’m not going to tell you because your standards are so high, you will be disappointed.

Now I’m a bit nervous, but I hate mysteries so, I ask who anyway. She says, Sandra Bullock in a bunch of different movies. I say that isn’t bad. I may have spoken too soon. I ask, which movies mom? Is this Miss Congeniality or Speed? She laughs and says mainly Two Weeks Notice. I laugh and tell her she isn’t the first person to make a comparison of Ms. Bullock’s characters and myself. I ask why.

She says you have no man skills. We both laugh because it’s true. She says, you know she really doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her, is intelligent, is a terrible dresser, has no idea when someone likes her, doesn’t know how to flirt, and is really sensitive. She goes on to explain that her character can’t tell how other people feel but she is still really sensitive anyway.

Lol, I may need a new blog section: Adventures in having no man skills.

— The fug.