Last week Skylar had to go to Chicago to attend a conference with 1,000 dermatologists so they could all taking turns looking at each other's rashes before renewing their agreements with Satan to never age in exchange for giving him free botox and filler. (Did you think that queen looked so good naturally?)

West and I insisted on going with Skylar on this trip in order to monitor him for business trip affairs. We've seen tv and movies. We know what happens when men travel for work. If he's going to find a new hot young mom for West, we'd like to at least vet her and make sure she's rich.

Tagging along with Skylar to various Work Things has been a wild ride for me over the years, and has honestly forced me to grapple with the fact that I am a man of great ego in a way I had not previously realized.

I am a middle-aged father of three who is nearly two decades into a robust legal career with a hundred side-quests to boot. Here I am, generally feeling accomplished and proud of the little area of the world I've carved out for myself and decorated with great art and flattering lighting.

And then, suddenly, there I'll be, sitting at a dinner with a dermatologist who is young enough to be my house plant, listening to her ask me such questions as, "so what's it like to be a stay-at-home parent" or "I hear you have a little job--that's so great that you still find a way to work."

One minute I'm a curmudgeonly middle-aged man yelling at my husband for not shutting cupboard doors, and the next minutes I'm sitting at a dinner table in a banquet hall being treated like a trophy wife while implicitly wondering if my last boob job was too obvious.

And there's a rational, laid-back side of me that doesn't care at all about this. A cool and collected version of myself that couldn't give two shits that one of Skylar's coworkers fully misunderstands my background or what I'm up to in my life. After all, even if I was truly a stay-at-home parent, that's a perfectly good thing to be. Many of us would be so lucky to have that as an option.

But then there's a much worse version of me that feels my professional and creative self has been slighted. A version that has the impulse to turn into Erin Brockovich, pass a file of plaintiff paperwork across the table to this young woman who is assuming I'm living the life of Lucy Ricardo, and shout, "which phone number do you need."

I'm aware that's a very specific reference that not everyone is going to understand but I don't have time to explain to you why it's perfect.

BECAUSE I'M SO BUSY AND IMPORTANT.

In those moments I want to say, "Do you know who I am?! I could get a dozen United States senators on the phone right this second."

Which isn't true. I don't know any senators at all. And Mitt Romney rage-tweeted about me last month for writing something about him that I actually did not write about him. It made international news and I'm still getting scolded by local politicians who have not bothered to read the column I wrote that did not say the thing they are mad at me for saying.

But instead, I smile a little creepy smile at the dermatologist and say, "yes, it is nice that I'm able to have a little job. And sometimes Skylar buys me shoes."

And look. I know. I KNOW ALREADY.

This is something women have had to deal with since the first cave man took his wife to the first cave man sales meeting where he was recognized for hocking the most rocks and then Mrs. Cave Man was asked if she enjoyed sweeping the cave in a tone like no one thought her contributions were genuinely valuable. Even though, and I guess these men never thought about this, Mrs. Cave Man was doing all of this well before the invention of the broom AND she had a pretty incredible side-hustle writing sexy Flintstones fanfic on the sides of cliffs near the watering hole (for which she is of course severely underpaid because we don't value art the way we should). But no one ever asks her about THAT.

Skylar will usually jump in during these conversations and say, "Eli is actually a really accomplished attorney and writer," and I'm like, [whispering and humble] "Skylar, stop! Don't embarrass me." But under the table I'm patting his knee in a physical command to keep going for I love praise and attention.

It's odd, truly, that this is something I'm now experiencing. And it's genuinely something I don't like about myself. None of it comes from a place of competition with Skylar. My actual hope is that he finds a way to be far more successful than I've ever dreamed of. I find I am more excited and proud when he accomplishes something than when I do.

And yet, there I am, off in my own quiet corner, coming face-to-face with an insecurity I didn't even know I had, fighting the impulse to whisper, "but . . . but . . . but . . ."

"Did you see my sexy Flintstones fanfic?"

~It Just Gets Stranger