Why do I blog? Do you care? Thanks! I knew it.

“Do you work?” the woman asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I work in the laundry room.”
She gave me her best patronizing smile, and clarified her question. “Do you have a job?”
Feeling generous, I threw her a slow-moving softball. “I’m a writer.”
“Really? What do you write?”
Zing! Outta the park!
I wanted to put my arm around her shoulder and whisper conspiratorially. “Listen,” I’d say, “here’s the deal. I do manual labor all day, except when I’m watching “The View.” Mostly I write checks, but now I write a blog, along with 12 million other people, and the .00007 percent of the U.S. population that reads my blog seems to like it. (Yes, I worked out that figure, though my math is undoubtedly faulty.)
Everybody seems pretty tired of hearing about how hard full-time mothers work. I’m a little sick of it myself. Frankly, I feel very fortunate that Visa, American Express and my Husband have all collaborated to make it possible for me to stay home with my children. Of course it’s hard work, even physically demanding at times. Just yesterday I had to throw the Pterodactyl over my right shoulder to drag him out of summer camp while holding the Tyrant with my left hand, which quickly went numb.
More taxing, though - at least for me - is coming to terms with who I am, redefined. I once won national awards for my writing, held the title of university professor, and helped launch a community-wide service organization that continues today.
Yesterday’s big accomplishments included pulling the rest of a coloring book out of my dog’s butt, stealing a 15-minute nap, and taking the Tums away from the 2-year-old before she ate more than one.
When I graduated from college, my dear friend Kay and I said tear-filled goodbyes on the steps of our dorm. “I’ll vote for you when you’re running to be the first woman president,” I sobbed.
“You go find your Arabian prince,” she sobbed back.
See, her dreams were a little loftier than mine. Kay has achieved something close to her goals. She’s not The President, but she’s a president - of a public relations firm. She constantly emails me from exotic locations. She travels the world doing glamorous things and looking fabulous.
I did marry a prince - a metaphorical one, and he doesn’t have a kingdom, and he’s not Arabian, though he has a nice olive complexion. But what I really wanted, even then, was to be a writer, the type of writer whose words rested on the tips of everyone’s tongues, who appeared on “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” and caused traffic jams at book readings.
Well, I’m not that kind of writer, at least not yet. But I am the kind of writer I should be - the kind who simply has to put words together in order to feel complete. Telling people I blog, I must tell you, is a little embarrassing at times, much like it’s embarrassing to tell people you’re a writer. For me, it’s tantamount to saying you’re unemployed.
But I’m moving past that perception because it just feels so good to do this. I love being a mom, except for the parts involving cleaning toilets, chopping raw chicken, little boys peeing in the flower garden in front of the preschool, poop in public pools, siblings hitting each other, and head lice.
And I love being a writer, except for the parts involving people asking me about being a writer. In other words, I know I have a pretty good life, having two jobs, both of which actually cost me money.
Husband once told me that I didn’t have to be extraordinary. Then he amended his statement before I jumped all over him for it. “What I mean is, some of the most ordinary people live the most extraordinary lives.”
I like that. So that’s what I’m aiming for. Nonetheless, the next person who asks me what I do will get no ammunition.
“I’m unemployed,” I’ll say. And reasonably proud of it.