Why Thurston Moore Is a Dick

Lately, I haven't had much to say.  OK, I can hear the guffaws of my family and friends over my shoulder, so let me amend: I have quite a bit to say about my work, my children, the doings around me, and even some things to say about the world, but I haven't had much of a desire to say them.  There's just too much noise these days.  Too many people blogging and tweeting and Facebooking and getting all up in arms and writing in circles and reading in circles.  Which makes me feel like there just isn't much of a point in saying anything, as so many people say so much, and nothing much  happens because of it, except more people saying more things.

Oh dear, is that paragraph too long for online writing?

Anyway, I'm trying to write again, though I'm not sure what, and then I came up with something to say.  I thought about saying it on Facebook, where I say lots of short things that aren't meant to accomplish anything except entertaining my friends, which they do, but it's a bit long for Facebook.  I tried to write it as maybe an essay, that might boil in the Huffington Post stew (Huffington Post standing here for places more official than a blog where you still write for free...ah, I should have said Medium, see, I keep up), but it went nowhere, and I was discouraged.  This, I thought, is something I used to bang out in 15 minutes in a blog post, and then I thought, hey, I could just write it on my blog, where probably nobody will see it anyway, so here I am. 

And I promise, it won't be worth that buildup.

It's about Thurston Moore.  It's the kind of thing that everyone is writing about: Jezebel and Pitchfork, all those places that didn't exist back in the day when we just blogged at each other to share our thoughts and craft some writing and blogs weren't businesses or the media or anything more than the place where we wrote.  And if I was really returning to the blogging world, I would link to those other people, and probably to Thurston Moore's website, if he has one, though he might not be the kind of guy who has a useful website. I could always link to Wikipedia, which also did not have much of a role in the world back when we blogged.  I could certainly link to the interview where he talked about how in love he is with the woman for whom he left Kim Gordon, the woman with whom he was having an affair for several years before he left, and I could link to Kim's comments, in Elle, and in the New Yorker, if those comments are on line.  But I'm not going to link.

I'm going to say the thing I have to say, which is: I feel the same way about middle-aged men who leave their wives for younger women as I do about working mothers who decide to stay home with their children.

Yes, I do.  Sure, I think those men are assholes, when they leave my friends, and those women are better women than me (in their capacity to do something I would not be capable of doing).  And I realize that those men usually hurt lots of people when they do what they do, and those women usually help people, at the very least their children, when they do what they do.  But what they have in common, usually, in general, yes, I know I'm generalizing, is that they insist that they are just doing what they want to do, and both tend to say they are doing it for love, when in fact what they are doing is deeply political.

When you leave your wife for a younger woman or you choose to stay home with with your children, you are following a cultural script that has political implications.  Or should we just call them implications for feminism, because they certainly aren't feminist implications.  To leave your wife for a younger woman is to participate in a cultural script that says older women are not attractive, are used up and useless, and younger women are the object of desire - even if you think your first wife is just dandy and are only leaving her because you fell madly in love with a woman whose age you never even considered.  And do I even need to work through the implications of choosing to staying home with your children?  Even if you did it because you couldn't bear to be away from these specific bundles of being whom you love so much, and you completely support your friends who are working mothers (work-away-from-home mothers, if you will).

And to be clear: I get why men leave their wives for younger women, and I get why mothers stay home with their children: you have to do what you have to do.  What I hate, what I can't stand, what makes me utterly disdainful of Thurston Moore, who spent half his life with Kim Gordon, for god's sake, and should know better, is when people insist their decisions are solely personal.  Because they're not.

And that's why, like Jezebel, I think Thurston Moore is a dick, not because he left his wife, but because he won't acknowledge what that means in the greater scheme of the world.

Four Years

I'm wondering who's been reading since the beginning of this blog. Libby and Dawn, I'm sure (Dawn, you haven't blogged since Tuesday--I'm the one who's supposed to be giving up on this, not you!). Maybe Jackie? Andi? Anyone else?

Who has been reading since we moved? Does anyone remember the four years?

Oh my goodness, it looks as if I did not blog the four years!! Well, does anyone who knows me in real life remember the four years?

A few months before we moved, when we had no idea where we'd be living or working, I applied the girls to the private school I attended, so that at least one thing could be certain. At their applicant visiting day, which was my first inkling of what it would be like to move back home, I met a woman who turned out to be the wife of the Deadhead who assistant-managed the fruit and vegetable store where I had my first job. They had moved back from California five years earlier, and she told me that when they moved, her step-mother-in-law told them it took four years to feel like you really had a life, and that was indeed how long it had taken.

Ever since, we have held to the mantra of four years.

Today, it has been four years since we moved.

This morning I lay in bed, basking in the recently-rare sight of blue sky and sun through my no-longer-quite-so-new skylights. I went for a run and moved the hostas I'd been thinking about moving for a year and a half. S went to work, and the rest of my day was pretty much about the driving--one bat mitzvah, two birthday parties (three, if you count the slumber party I picked E up at on my way back from driving M to temple), one bat mitzvah party--and then the chatting with my moms along the driving way (plus a general socializing at Lucy's daughter's birthday party). We hit the seventh grade scene, the second grade scene, the temple scene, and the family friends scene.

I'd say we have a life.

Really, we were well on our way to a life by a year. (One year was our other mantra, because I promised M that if she did not have a friend by one year, we would move back to No Longer Red State. Even M laughed about that one on the first anniversary of our move.)

But it still seems like an appropriate moment to assess the results of our move, and I'd say the step-mother-in-law was right, and I'd say that after four years, I'm feeling pretty good about our life.

House: Renovated and almost perfect (still miss outdoor space, but have plans).

Community: Very much so: temple, family friends, school moms, kids' friends everywhere we turn, boards, volunteer work, and so forth.

Kids: Absolutely thriving. I'm sure they would be fabulous kids if we lived in No Longer Red State, but they have flourished here in so many ways--from children's theater to urban independence--that simply weren't available for us there.

S's work: He's a rock star, in kitchen and community.

My work: I thought, for a long time, that this was the rub, because my work situation has been a rocky path. There were some disasters and some triumphs, and though what I was aiming for after four years was a great job I loved, I've ended up with this freelance/consulting path, which has me doing a lot of different things with a lot of different people (and making as much money as I would in a real job, if not more). It's sometimes too easy for me to see this as failure, i.e. to think of it as not having achieved what I was aiming for. But I am doing great work with great people; I am well-known, well-connected, and sought after (hmm, why did I put a hyphen in the first two and not the third? can that be right?); I have the flexibility I want; I am very much working in the fields I want to be in; and, the fact of the matter is, I am here as a result of choices I have made, at every step of the way. Although I am not infrequently dissatisfied, I have been in some way dissatisfied at every stage of my working life. In other words, in four years, I have achieved a work life, but I remain myself, and perhaps that's a project for the next four years.

Edited to add: I believe there is no hyphen because, unlike "well," "sought" is not an adverb modifying "after."

I Had a Very Nice Day Today

Life has been quite crazed around here. There is the usually childrenly crazedness of the end of the school year, augmented by the overlapping of the end of E's soccer season and the start of her summer play rehearsals, not to mention the bat mitzvahs and birthday parties. Then S and I have been beset by events and meetings, which everyone seems to think are good to schedule in June. Finally, I have (very happily) finished up with one of my long-term clients and started with another, but the two overlapped, and at the same time I have had several quick jobs to complete, which has left me working pretty much all the time when I am not at meetings or driving to bat mitzvahs.

One of the (many) nice things about this work transition is that I am shifting from two days a week on site, to work at home (with potentially some very glamorous travel). So I had envisioned peace and tranquility, only it had not happened yet because of various meetings and events. But today I hit the platonic ideal of consultant working motherhood.

After I took E to school, I worked at home pretty much straight through the school day, completing three projects. Did not clean, did not even run, which would usually be a sad thing, but today was ok, because I have been fighting something which has had me in bed at 9:30 every night and feeling a little wobbly every time I walk up the stairs.

I finished my work in time to go to the bank and library, picked E up from school and went to the Verizon store where they fixed my BlackBerry, picked M up from school. I will insert here that I did no work for the rest of the day--ok, a few emails when we got home, but nothing substantive--which was highly unusual and very delightful, and what I would like to aspire to, though I know it will be an aspiration infrequently achieved.

Then we went to City and shopped for presents. We were three bat mitzvahs behind, and this weekend has one bat mitzvah and four birthdays, so I knew if we didn't shop, it would be hopeless, so we shopped, and it was a wild success, and not only that, but everything was purchased at local stores which were a pleasure to patronize. Craft store, new bookstore, used bookstore, toy store, stationery store, Tibetan store. And delicious pizza with butternut squash sauce!

We came home. I fed M and E sushi rice and edamame, cleaned the kitchen, and picked up the living room--all the housework that needed to be done. M and I took E to rehearsal and went to our favorite cafe for a Girls Reading Party, then to the library because the book I got this afternoon made me feel compelled to get another book, both of which I expect I'll be reporting on soon enough. We also had pleasant conversation, and it was thoroughly delightful.

So that was my day, and now I am happy, and getting into bed to read my book, and hopefully will do it all again tomorrow, except for the shopping--mainly what I hope to do is work productively during school and then be a relaxed mom. Except, oh dear, I have to go to E's play at 9, and I have a conference call at 3:30 and...well, at least it was nice to have one day of life under control.

Old School Becca Blogging

Julia Roberts is adorable. Kate Gosselin is horrifying. And Letterman discussing Palin is quite funny.

Today

I think all there is to say about today's Times is this.

Speaking of Shakespeare

My first Shakespeare, or at least the first Shakespeare I remember, was a televised production of Much Ado About Nothing set just after World War I which I absolutely adored (could it be this? the hair looks right), though I did wonder for an embarassingly long time how a turn-of-the-17th-century writer could have set a play in the early 20th century (I really did). I was perhaps 9 or 12 or some such age.

M's first Shakespeare was the Northern Ballet Theatre's Midsummer Night's Dream at Sadler Wells, which set an impossibly high standard for both Shakespeare and ballet--it was her first ballet as well, and it was sublime. She was 7, and she prepared by reading the play, and I believe it was the actual play, not a children's version, though I may be wrong about that. I do recall that she would read it aloud on the Tube, which was quite darling, though it could have been pretentious in the wrong hands.

E's first Shakespeare was Much Ado About Nothing last night. Or rather, Much Ado About Nothing last night was her first live Shakespeare. She has been quite entranced with this children's Shakespeare for a long time now, and on Friday afternoon, she and G were taking turns reading Romeo and Juliet aloud to each other, inspired, I believe, by Taylor Swift (the song that will forever remind me of bar mitzvahs, Hebrew school carpool, H, and second grade girls in the back seat).

Unfortunately, the book does not include Much Ado About Nothing, so we hied to the library, where we discovered there is not much in the way of accessible Much Ado About Nothing, which strikes me as odd, because, confusing as Much Ado About Nothing may be, it is no more confusing than, say, The Tempest, which is the most outrageously confusing Shakespeare there is (and, dare I say, overrated?). Anyway, we ended up with this, which had a serviceable plot summary that we read together, and then we read the plot summary in the program together too, and by the time the play began, she was enormously excited, spurred on, no doubt, by my own Much Ado About Nothing excitement.

The production was incredibly fabulous--creative, inspired, brilliantly-acted, funny, and so linguistically sensitive as to make you feel the genius of Shakespeare. I know, that sounds like too much of a cliche to even write, except that it is a different thing to read Shakespeare and to watch Shakespeare. To make an audience at once feel that they are watching real people with real emotions--which is surely the goal of naturalistic theater, broadly speaking, of which Shakespeare is surely a progenitor--while at the same time highlighting the thematic richness of the language, well, let's just say it is not always done well, but last night it was.

Except for poor E, who was lost pretty much as soon as they opened their mouths, because, rich as Shakespeare's language may be, it is also decisively turn-of-the-17th century, which, for a second grader--and even, sometimes, for a seventh grader--is rough. She worked hard to follow what was going on, as I whispered a rapid-fire translation/explanation in her ear, and she loved the physical comedy, but it was a lot of work, and eventually she put her head in my lap and went to sleep (it was also kind of late).

So this got me thinking about the essence of Shakespeare. Despite the importance of Shakespeare's language, he is probably the most bowdlerized, abridged, revised, summarized author we've got, and in all those forms he has always been popular. As a reader, I've gotten most of my Shakespeare from the page, and it's been largely about language, probably more than plot. E, too, has gotten her Shakespeare from the page, but it's been about story, with hardly anything to do with language. Perhaps that's the point: what makes Shakespeare such a permanently powerful presence is that both language and story hold their own, and together, in a production like the one we saw last night, there is pretty much nothing better.

Television 2 (Sorry, No Tom Verlaine Here Either)

On the other hand...

M has been sick since Sunday (she seems finally to be getting better, thanks), which means pretty much constant television, much of it in my presence, since sick in our house seems to entail Advil, blankets, pillows, a glass of water, and Mommy, not to mention any and all food and drink you desire, especially when you are starting to get better, and lack of nutrients seems to have become an impediment rather than a side effect. But I digress.

There's been a lot of Zack and Cody and Hannah Montana and Food Network, which we're used to. Then there's been The Ellen Show, which is just a total delight, only to be enjoyed on sick days, given timing issues (if loving Ellen makes me banal and mainstream, I'll take it). Then there's reality TV.

Oh. My. God.

What Not to Wear is fine--stupid and hegemonic, but at least the protagonist gets some clothes out of the shame. Ditto with Ace of Cakes, and the like, which at least involve people doing things which are of interest to some other people. But have you watched reality TV on MTV lately? Here I betray my sheltered television ignorance, and I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, by the likes of Parental Control, where the parents who hate the kid's boyfriend or girlfriend send the kid out on dates with people of their choice, while they sit home with the hated boy/girlfriend and watch the date by video, fighting all the time in the trashiest of manners, and then the kid chooses between the boy/girlfriend and the parentally-selected dates.

Hello? These are real people?! I mean, obviously it's scripted and people behave according to the norms they've learned from other reality shows, but, my God, this is Rome fiddling while Nero burns, the extreme sign of decadence and degradation, the antithesis of Gilmore Girls. I tell you, we are doomed, and television is at once the engine and the representation of our doom!

And, no, I have nothing to say about Jon and Kate!

Television (Not a Post About Tom Verlaine)

The two things people are most surprised to learn about me are that I don't eat meat and I don't watch TV. They are surprised because we are such a food family and I am such a pop culture maven, but they are also surprised because I keep these facts pretty quiet. See, people who don't eat meat or watch TV can tend toward the sanctimonious, and you should know by now how I feel about the sanctimonious. Plus I am truly not sanctimonious about either of these things.

I don't eat meat because I haven't eaten it in 30 years and I'm just not interested, but I'm fine with you eating meat (except for veal--those poor baby calves...). I haven't watched TV--except for the Red Sox, the occasional awards show, and a lot of background Hannah Montana and Zack and Cody--for about a dozen years, first because I didn't like the way baby M's eyes strayed to the TV, and then because I haven't had time. Or rather, I have chosen not to make time, given the competing pull of work, books, magazines, and WordTwist. And then, of course, there is my completion compulsion: I can't bear the thought of missing an episode, so I prefer not to watch at all. I know I've missed a lot of good TV--Sopranos, Weeds, Gray's Anatomy, yeah, yeah, yeah--but that's been fine with me. And, as with the meat, I'm totally fine with you watching TV.

Then we started watching Project Runway. M and E had actually been renting episodes for a while, without me really noticing, and then one day I got drawn in, and, you know, it was totally fun. But what was really fun was watching with M and E. The watching was fun, and then the discussing, and the speculating, and the joking...really it was just an all-round family entertainment experience. So we watched an episode a night of two full seasons of Project Runway (the one with Laura and the one with Christian), and then a friend came to visit and said we should watch Gilmore Girls.

Since now I was all open to the familial TV experience, we rented the first disc of the first season of Gilmore Girls, and of course we loved Gilmore Girls! Mom and daughter, grandparents, romance, quirky neighbors, Austen and Kafka references...what's not to love and discuss and speculate and joke about? (I took the What Gilmore Girls Character Are You? quiz, protesting the whole way that none of the answers applied to me, and I came out as Luke. Luke! I am not Luke! But M was Rory, and she is so totally Rory.) So now we watch a Gilmore Girls episode every night, and we're kind of bummed we can't just start in with the new season next week, but, you know, there's still that completion compulsion and all.

So, yeah, TV! Or at least, TV on DVD!

(And speaking of pop culture, is Kate Hudson truly so desperate for publicity that she needs to fake a relationship with A-Rod? Kate, you're a hippie chick. Chris Robinson, Owen Wilson...and A-Rod? Something is not right.)

To Gardasil or Not To Gardasil

I have been in a bit of a tizzy about Gardasil, the HPV vaccine. As anyone who knows me knows, I am generally pro-modern medicine from a personal standpoint (hooray for successful emergency appendectomies!), and pro-vaccines from an ideological standpoint (the only reason you can get away with not vaccinating your precious little Artemis is because all the rest of us are vaccinating, so Artemis is unlikely to be exposed to any of the diseases we are vaccinating against) (i.e. herd effect).

So I was all set and good to go with the HPV vaccine, and then one of M's good friends had the vaccine in November and has been terribly ill ever since, with no other diagnosis or cause. Then the physician parents of another of her friends said they were not vaccinating their daughters, because they've heard of a few such cases. And, really, I do not usually go for this kind of anecdotal anxiety, but I just felt, in my gut, that I did not want to vaccinate her. But that feeling was very odd in itself, because it was so counter to my usual position.

Luckily, today I was saved by our fabulous pediatrician. She said that there is no reason to consider the vaccine until a girl is sexually active, which means we can--and should--wait (the reason the public health recommendation is to vaccinate at 10-11 is because many girls do become sexually active at that age--which I know is true--but that recommendation is moot when it comes to individual girls) (that was really hard to phrase, but I hope it's clear what I mean). Since the vaccine is only five years old, a few more years will generate significantly more data. So we are definitely waiting on this one, and I am shelving my tizzy, for now.

June 1, 2009: Cars

Here's a political litmus test: What are you most upset about today, Dr. Tiller or GM? Here's an...intellectual? ideological? oh, let's just call it another litmus test: What are you blogging about today?

My automotive history:

Toyota Starlet
Honda Civic
Ford Escort wagon
(Honda M5)
(Jeep)
(Mazda 3)
Subaru Outback wagon

S's cars are in parentheses, everything was bought used except the Escort, and this list pretty much tells you everything you need to know about us, demographically speaking.

I never in my life considered buying a GM car. (I had to look up GM even to know what they are. And I had to look up Jeep too, which turns out to be Chrysler.)

I did love my Ford, once I got over my status issues and decided it was a cool indie car. I would have bought another, when repairing the first was no longer justifiable, but by then they had stopped making Escorts, and though I thought the Focus was pretty cute, my mechanic was strongly against it.

I totally get the horror of GM's bankruptcy for workers. Totally. But it's hard for me to mourn the brand. I'm of the "American automakers should have heard the music and read the writing on the wall a long time ago" school. Capitalist though I'm not, I think a company has to make viable product to survive. As far as I can tell, they didn't, and now their workers are paying the price.

Really, though, it all seems very far away, which tells you even more about me, demographically speaking.

I'm upset about Dr. Tiller too, though I must admit that too seems very far away. But mostly, I have lost any interest or faith in the viability of blogging as political action, and I've lost most of my interest in the sound of my own voice, especially when it simply parrots my demographic.

Hug? Hug!

I do not intend this blog to become all NY Times all the time, but the hugging teens article is irresistible! And I'm not going to go where you probably think I'm going. No sirree, Bob, this one is right on the mark! Seriously.

We first noticed the hugging teens at M's summer camp, where a two-minute walk across the lawn invariably takes 15 minutes, as M throws her arms around every young female she encounters. However, we chalked this up to the camp, which is a super-huggy kind of place.

Then she started middle school. Oh my god, all those girls do is hug! They hug when they say hello, when they say goodbye, when they pass each other in the halls--I am not kidding! Just the other day, BEFORE the article came out, M was telling us how she hugs her friend whenever they pass each other on their way to class! It's ridiculous. But it makes them happy, so fine. Hugs are nice.

Not so fast, says commenter #18 at the bottom of this page (framed as commentary on the hugs, but hardly so) (go read it, seriously, even if you never click through, especially you, Phantom, and you, my sister). Yes, it's the attachment moms, once again blaming us daycare mothers for EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER GONE WRONG WITH ANY CHILD ANYWHERE. (Yup, here comes the snark.) You see, these teens must hug each other because, stuck in daycare as tiny babies, they were denied the millenia-proven years of maternal physical contact and constant nursing which would have enabled them to grow up healthy and happy (I'm not joking, I tell you, go read it, those are words she uses [rearranged to avoid plagiarism and the necessity of painful quotations]).

Assumption alert! Assumption alert! In other words, the fact that teens are hugging each other is bad? A sign of developmental deficiency? A blight and a pox upon our civilization? Uh, maybe not? Maybe they just like to hug each other? Sorry Attachment Parent Mom, you're going to have to look elsewhere to support your fine-tuned anthropohistorical theories.

But of course this is the best theoretical statement on hugs, not to mention the source of this post's title. (And, no, the maternal thematics thereof do not in any way support Attachment Parent Mom's theories of teenage behavior.)

NY Times Post-Mortem

How much pause do you think the Bernie Madoff scandal gave the production team for the Lower East Side American Girl doll? Because you know the reason we're getting a second Jewish American Girl, rather than a first Muslim American Girl, is the deep pockets of those Jewish American grandmas. (For a romantic feminist, I'm certainly heavy on the materialist analysis these days.)

The "look, we're all nice now" article? The lamest in (non-)trend journalism. Remember how irony was over after 9/11? Uh, not. And, uh, advertising agency folk are not exactly unbiased experts--their job is to create such "trends," no? So don't you think they might have a vested interested in...eh, whatever...

Another "sell-a-relative-up-the-river" Modern Love, and they still make me queasy, even when said relative is heading up the river anyway, of his own volition.

On the other hand, I loved the People covers article, being the hard-core materialist that I seem to be these days. Facts! Stats! Interviews with the people who matter! Show us how base we really are! (Kirstie Alley is fat again?! No!!)

Turning to the Magazine, I have never watched Conan, have no interest in watching Conan, and this article did nothing to stimulate my interest, but man, he sure has a lot of guitars.

Going by the pictures, I think I'd rather go to the black prom than the white prom (snark aside, I thought this was a complicated, interesting, and sad piece).

Re: The Romanticization of Manual Labor, otherwise known as "The Case for Working With Your Hands": Yes, school is unnatural and does not serve many of our students, especially our boys. Yes, the "everyone needs to go to college" movement is fundamentally wrongheaded. Yes, there is an incredible satisfaction inherent in working with your hands. And yet...the idea that manual labor is fundamentally ethical is belied by the incredible amount of crap manual labor that is perpetrated everywhere all the time (I'm thinking Big Dig, for those of you who know what I'm talking about). And if manual labor is all that, why aren't you satisfied with it? Why the need to write A BOOK about it? Started out nodding my head on this one, and ended up pissed off, as usual.

Hmm, when I started thinking about this post, I thought I was reserving my main vitriol for the Book Review, only now I am out of steam. So I will simply say that I do not know why the NY Times Book Review garners such esteem, in certain circles, because their modus reviewandi is simply dumb. This book sounds like it could totally be my kind of book, except that I have no idea if it is any good, because the review is simply background and plot summary. Which is ridiculous and the reason I rarely actually read the Book Review.

Edited to add: I take it back: this is an exemplary review. Then again, this is quintessential Brooksian blowhardiness, though it does have an opinion. Maybe the issue is that the Book Review is stylistically incoherent (which could be a virtue), but tends toward plot summary (which is not).

What Recession?

One of E's great dreams is to have a lemonade stand. She and M did it once--with a babysitter, of course--right after Katrina, and, as I recall, they raised $9 for Katrina victims. She's been asking to do it ever since (yes, that long), and it's not that I've been resisting (really), but there's always been some obstacle (like, we've had no lemons, or some such).

Today E's friend C came over after school, and they were poking around, eating snack and not doing much, in that slightly bored, slightly anxious way of the first play date with someone you play with constantly at school, but have never had over to your house, and all of a sudden E asked if they could have a cookie stand. She had made chocolate chip cookies last night with S, which meant there were no lemons to worry about, so I said sure.

They brought down the table, made the sign, set up the cookies on a plate, decided to include the brownies M had made last week (still good! our brownie recipe lasts a long time), and opened for business. They spent a lot of time practicing hawking their wares to passersby, and they lost a potential first customer to shyness, but then they got going, and if they'd had a cash register, it would have gone kaching! kaching! kaching!

I'm guessing it was partly because they were so cute, and partly because it was a beautiful day, and partly because a cookie stand is so unusual, but just about everyone who passed by bought a cookie, one woman bought four, and one man driving down the street even pulled his car up to see what they were selling and bought a brownie.

The most amazing thing was that just about everyone overpaid. They'd wanted to sell the cookies for fifty cents, but that seemed a bit much to me, so I suggested a quarter. Then almost everyone insisted on paying a dollar, even when they had change. They made six dollars and twenty-five cents: each girl took three dollars, and they gave the quarter to C's little brother.

No moral here, just a cute story of dreams coming true.

A Work Insecurity Post (But Not the One You Think)

I try to avoid Penelope Trunk, because she is mad annoying, but she seems to always show up. Most recently, she showed up here, not that I read Guy Kawasaki's blog--I don't even know who Guy Kawasaki is, except that he always seems to show up too, especially around Penelope Trunk--but something linked, and I clicked, and there she was, doing her usual "let me tell you how it is based on nothing but how I think it should be because I'm Penelope Trunk" schtick.

Let's not even talk about the "The glass ceiling is over" thing (especially if you're a professional WOMAN who feels compelled to tweet her SEX LIFE). But I was struck, as I always am, by this: "Only ten percent of jobs come from sending a blind resume. Most people get jobs by leveraging their network."

Here's where we get to the difference between me and Penelope Trunk. OK, just one difference, another being that I don't tweet my sex life, and a third being that, despite what I am about to say about my anxiety versus her chutzpah, I am not the one in therapy.

I've heard this a lot: all the career books and blogs and experts say that the way you get jobs is by networking, not by responding to ads. It's certainly been true for me. Have I ever gotten a job through an ad? Mmm, I did get one consulting gig completely blind. My job in No Longer Red State was advertised, hence my application, but I knew two people there, which surely helped get me the job.

Other than that: Camp counselor? Boyfriend's sister. College internship? (Same) boyfriend's friend. First job out of college? Former boss at college internship. Second job out of college? Semi-boyfriend's old friend whom I met at a dinner party. Oh, I did get a part-time job in grad school from an ad. Fast forward to East Coast Big City. First job? College professor. Second job? Friend of my mom's. Current employment? Main consulting gig #1 came from someone I met at second job. Main consulting gig #2 sort of came through an ad, but I think I had a name to drop. Just started a big chunk of work for D, and probably heading into another big chunk via a friend who has been insisting for months that I do some work for her company.

Now, if I were Penelope Trunk, I would say "Go me! Look how I worked those networks to make myself successful! Rah, rah, I am a poster child for the actual workings of the workplace economy."

But I am me, so I think "The only people who want to hire me are my friends, and that's just because they like me and take pity on me, so clearly I am a total fraud."

Hmm, maybe I would be better off as Penelope Trunk...

Edited to add: S, on the other hand, has gotten dozens of jobs from blind resumes in response to ads, though his current job, which is his Best Job Ever, was total connections, the main connection, of course, being me.

Edited again to add: Dawn just made me realize that the other piece of this is that I do occasionally apply to jobs that are advertised, including jobs that seem perfect for me, and just about nothing ever happens, which is probably one reason that I read my networking history as evidence of pathetic failure, rather than professional efficacy.

Elizabeth Edwards

I started an Elizabeth Edwards post several days ago, complete with copious links, and then I deleted it, because it all seemed so boring and obvious. But now I am wondering, once again, whether I'm on a different planet from the rest of the world. You can find the links yourself, and if you're one of my blog readers, you've probably read them all already, but basically the going wisdom (a la Maureen Dowd) is that she wrote the book and excerpted it in Time (or was it Newsweek--I am determined not to link) and went on Oprah to punish her husband--kids and privacy be damned. And then various people weigh in on the ethics, etc. of this decision, and on whether it fits with the Elizabeth Edwards we already know.

Whatever.

Am I the only person who thinks that it's perfectly obvious that she did this for the money? She's dying, she's got little kids, she doesn't trust her husband as far as she can throw him, plus he's being investigated and doesn't have much of a career path anyway, so his financial viability is surely in doubt. Doesn't it make sense that at this point, with not much to lose, the one thing she knows she can do is put away a couple of million dollars (book advance + excerpt and appearance fees + potential royalties) in her own name, to make sure her kids are OK?

Or is that just too simplistic?

Nice Job, NY TImes

I truly loved this week's Modern Love. I know that mom, and I know those girls--I mean, I don't know the author and her daughters, but I know people who have been in those positions, including on top of that train, and she just grabbed my heart, though I was glad to be feeling sympathy, rather than empathy.

Spot-on review of Ayelet Waldman's new book, about which I have been staying quiet over here, but let me just say this and this, and you'll know that obsession dies hard.

I usually can't bear Walter Kirn, whom I find a thematic and stylistic blowhard, but this essay on the emotional effects of losing your job hits the mark, though the gendering, explicit and implicit, seemed unnecessary.

More mixed feelings on Daphne Merkin's depression article. A compelling read, but more in a "Daphne Merkin was in a mental hospital?!" kind of way, than a "wow, this is a whole new take on the subject" kind of way, which is to say I'm not sure she took the fundamental insights beyond The Bell Jar, Styron, Sullivan, et al, though the piece is beautifully written, powerfully evoked, etc. I do tend to read such articles as thermometers of a sort, measuring my own mental and emotional tendencies--hmm, I do have that feeling, but, no, not that one--which I'm not quite sure is good for me or a positive comment on the literary function therof, though, then again, the comparative is surely one huge function of the literary.

More and more, I'm feeling about the media that I've read all this before, which makes me sad. And I also have to say that in the last month, I feel myself moving away from the print newspaper in a significant way. I've had less time for the newspaper this year, because I leave early in the morning so often, then some breaking news a month or so ago brought me to our local paper's website, which I've started visiting more. Ironically, the person who reads the paper most assiduously around here is M. I can't imagine we would ever stop buying it, because, well, because we just wouldn't, but these days I do feel myself more actively culpable in the inevitable decline of print.

Jew Fishing

I had never heard of Jew fishing until Friday, when my sister told me it was the latest manifestation of a recent bout of anti-semitism that has struck my nephew's sixth grade class.

That night, we went to the seventh grade service at Temple. The seventh grade studies the Holocaust in Hebrew School, and at the end of the year they run the Yom HaShoah service, during which they make presentations. M and her friend H did a presentation about the culpability of the pope (Pius XII) during the Holocaust. Another friend, J, did her presentation, the final one of the evening, on anti-semitism today. In it, she told the story of a friend of hers who was tormented by anti-semitic taunts and harassment in middle school, to the point that she started to hate being Jewish. One low point of her experience was when the kids started...Jew fishing.

My friend S was sitting next to me, and I said to her, "That is so weird, I never heard of Jew fishing until this afternoon, and here it is again." She said that when her older son was in middle school, the middle school where M and her younger son are currently in seventh grade, there was all sorts of anti-semitic activity...including Jew fishing.

I'm not distraught or aghast or even shocked. I know this kind of stuff goes on, even if I don't know the specifics. I am struck by the fact that I have actually never been the target of, or even been near, such direct, stereotyped harassment. My (very little) experience has been more along the lines of being the only Jew in the room and having people not know what to do with me, or having to intervene to protest generalized anti-semitic comments, at which point people are usually embarassed and backtrack and say things like "I had no idea you were Jewish," or "but I didn't mean you."

There is definitely anti-semitism in Town, both personal and political. I believe there was anti-semitic graffiti in the bathroom at M's school this year. But I asked her what she thought of S's description of her older son's experience, and she confidently scoffed it off. That wouldn't happen now, she said, because there are so many Jewish kids.

This is, in fact, only relatively true. There were three or four Jewish kids per grade in the classes that are now in high school. M's seventh grade, in contrast, has, by her account, maybe 15 or 20. This, for the girl who was the only Jew in her school through most of elementary school, is a lot. I pointed out, though, that if she were in Jewish Suburb, or Other Jewish Suburb, it would be more like 60% (I pulled that number out of my head, but you can imagine, if I call the place Jewish Suburb, how Jewish it might be).

Nevertheless, small though they may seem, numbers bespeak power. M also pointed out that two boys in her Hebrew school carpool are among the most popular boys in her grade. While she and these boys have their issues, when push comes to shove, they are her homies. If she told them that anyone had messed with her about being Jewish, she said, they would go after the kids, and I think she's right.

Still, it makes me sad that we even need to have the conversation.

Who Does She Think She Is?

Oh, I would so like not to be cranky and cynical. I wish I could turn off my critical eye. But it's hard.

I went to see Who Does She Think She Is? at the local arts center. It's a lovely arts center. I went with my friends. I love my friends. Lots of nice women I know were there. I'm sure the women I didn't know were nice too.

Who Does She Think She Is? is a documentary about women who are artists and mothers. That's a lovely topic. And at first I was all into it. Mothers! Challenges! Supportive children! Art! And not just art, but interesting and beautiful art!

Only, after a bit, I started to wonder: who is funding this art? Do these women not need to make money? Children, yes, children get in the way of women's autonomy, but, especially in this day and age, don't women also need to support themselves and their families, or at least help support themselves and their families? I sure do. In a full-length movie, approximately 90 seconds were about money. Who was talking about money? The divorced women. I'll let you figure out the underlying assumption about women and money, but I also think to not talk about money underscores another powerful set of assumptions about art and money, that is, the idea that the life of the artist is above and beyond material things.

Except, you know, there's health insurance and shoes and mortgages and food, and those things take on even more importance once you have children. Art-children-money: you can't not triangulate them. Well, I guess you can, since the movie does, but to refuse to triangulate, to insist on a binary art-children relationship, is to profoundly obfuscate contemporary reality.

And then even the art-children binary eroded, as the film slipped into a pretty standard feminist critique of the art world, complete with Guerilla Girls, Judy Chicago, and the paucity of women at the Guggenheim and MOMA. Yeah, yeah, yeah, important, appalling, etc. But haven't we heard it before? And what does it have to do with mothers? (Then the talking heads started talking about goddesses and my good will, well, it started to seriously erode.)

But the actual mother-artists were really interesting. And their art was interesting too, and quite wonderful. And they were truly diverse: Black woman from the Caribbean, African American woman, Japanese woman, Latina woman, and Mormon white woman. Oh, I just couldn't have borne it if they had all been white middle-class artist moms, so huge kudos to the filmmaker for walking that walk. And most importantly, the movie made me think.

So overall, a positive experience, even though I missed the discussion and any post-mortem with my friends, because I had to come home to my KIDS. But I do wish I could just say, "I loved it!" Only then there would probably be no blog post...

(Caroline was more wholeheartedly enthusiastic.)

Of Sentimentality and Smugitude, or Why I Haven't Written About the Bat Mitzvah

On the day after the bat mitzvah, at some point in our daylong houseful of brunchers, who became lunchers, and then late afternoon snackers, my step-nephew picked up a copy of Anna Karenina, which was being used to prop up a sign for the arts-and-crafts store next to the dining room table, and remarked upon what a great first line it has.

I thought, for most of the week, that this was why I felt unable to write about M's bat mitzvah. The weekend of M's bat mitzvah was pretty much straight-out joy, occasionally to the point of bliss, and, you know, the happy thing just isn't particularly interesting. Then there's the fact of the Anna Karenina comment itself: I love my step-nephew a lot, but, you know, to remark upon the first line of Anna Karenina? We're not talking originality; in fact, we're pretty much in the realm of sentimentality.

To write about how meaningful it is to honor an adolescent, just at the moment when they are capable of so much, yet so often so annoying (don't worry, M, you're not that annoying); to revel in the spirit of conciliation that pervaded the event (remember those kids who were M's friends and then turned mean? they're nice again); to kvell over the music, and the weeping grandparents, and the loving, supportive friends...oh my god, could we be any more sentimental?

Then again, I realized, perhaps on Thursday, I'm all about the sentimental! (Speaking of which, last night we finally watched the movie version of Ballet Shoes, with Emma Watson, and it is thoroughly delightful, in all its hardboiled sentimentality, and quite close to the book--it does conjure up a romance unnecessary to literature, but clearly essential to film, albeit in quite a reasonable way, but it lets both Pauline and Posy be as bratty as they really are, and it's a wonderful portrait of sisters.) Noel Streatfeild aside, Susan Warner? Harriet Beecher Stowe? High School Musical 3? Bring it on! (But please leave the Hannah Montana movie behind.)

Still, it is one thing to revel in the consumption of sentiment; to produce it, when attempting to document true feeling, is quite another.

Yesterday, however, I realized that there was something much worse than sentimentality at stake . Yesterday, I had several encounters, in person, print, and pixel, with what can only be characterized as smugitude, because smugness simply isn't sufficiently weighty to be the appropriate nominal form of smug. You know smug: when people are convinced that they are the best, and are unabashedly proud of it, to the point that they can magnanimously praise others, so those others can illustrate, yet again, their own bestness. Smugitude is thoroughly revolting, and smugitude, like sentimentality, is something to which I fear I may have my own revolting tendencies. But where one can embrace sentimentality, on grounds of kitsch, or even roots of true feeling (see: cliches, which become so because they work so well), there is simply no excuse for smugitude. And to write arias of joy over the bliss that was M's bat mitzvah? So potentially close to smug, that I just can't go there.

So, you'll have to take my word for it: from the flowers coming into bloom the day before; to M and her friend A, whose bat mitzvah was the afternoon of M's, leading the Friday night service together; to the rabbi's insightful Friday night sermon; to all of us beautiful in our bat mitzvah dresses; to M's impeccable service-leading, Torah-reading, haftarah-reading, AND dvar-producing; to E falling off her chair in the middle of the service and sending the whole room into gales of laughter; to delicious food; to loud music; to socializing adults, dancing tweens, and adorable five-year-old girls in party dresses; to the end of the party when M's posse and my high school friends rocked out on the dance floor; to Chinese food in sweatpants with hilarious out-of-town guests...it was a smug and sentimental event of joy and bliss, the likes of which I wish for everyone, in whatever form it comes to you.

A Few Cultural Notes

Last night we were at the restaurant, and T was bartending, which means T was DJing, which means happiness all around. "Shut Up and Drive" came on, and we were all shaking our heads and bopping our shoulders, because what else can you do when you hear "Shut Up and Drive"? I mean, that is one irresistible song (and, frankly, I have no interest in resisting Rihanna).

Then suddenly Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" came to mind (can you say summer of '87?). If I were more musically knowledgeable, I would try to make an argument about the difference 20 years or so makes for pop music, Black women, and cars, but I don't think I can manage it, at least on any kind of generalizable terms. One song looks back, the other forward; one yearns on an acoustic guitar, the other bounces on a drum machine loop; one's about love, the other is about sex; both evoke the all-American car/escape thing, but Rihanna's the one who's in charge--or at least the one who's made to seem in charge, even though Chapman was the one who was in charge of her career, even though look what good that did her. So, have we made progress, or not, and on what terms? Or is it just the difference between Tracy Chapman and Rihanna, which is a difference in so many dimensions: economic, geographic, relation to music business? I'll go with my usual conclusion, and say Yes.

On the book front, I so do not get the fuss being made over Caitlin Macy's new book. The first story is compelling, the next two are unreadable, then there's one that's OK, then I think I stopped. It's fine to write about unpleasant characters, but there's got to be a place to hook in, and I sure haven't found it.

On the other hand, Zoe Heller's new novel had me hooked from the first sentence. The woman can write, whether you like it or not: she's got power of phrasing, power of observation, power of characterization. I probably shouldn't be writing about the book, as I've only read a few chapters, and I could just as easily end up hating it, but I was so struck by the difference between Heller's essential readability, even with unpleasant characters, and Macy's fundamental unreadability, at least for me.

Tune in soon, when I'll be able to tell you all about the Hannah Montana movie...