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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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Which Pixies song are you? Last night by the time I got home from work LT had made dinner and opened a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, which was a pleasant surprise. Then I answered e-mail and read my book while he watched Big Cat Diary. We decided there should be another show called Small Cat Diary, focusing on the lives of indoor housecats. I like the idea of a film crew hunkered down behind my couch, with big night vision cameras and boom mikes, making a documentary about my cat sleeping on a chair. CHECK IT OUT AS I STEAL WORDS WHOLESALE FROM THE NPR WEBSITE, AS THEIR LINK STRUCTURE WAS ENTIRELY TOO ANNOYING FOR ME (or: WHAT IF THEY GAVE A BACKLASH AND NOBODY CAME?) Intro: It's not like the book didn't get media coverage. Sylvia Ann Hewlett's book arguing why career women can't have it all captured the attention of reviewers and those who cover workplace issues. But apparently it has not captured the attention of readers. And therein lies a story from Stephen Henn at the Marketplace Work and Family desk.
Henn: "The buzz has been deafening: a story on 60 Minutes; a sit down with Oprah; the cover of Time Magazine; even Saturday Night Live has weighed in...all for a book that told professional women they better watch out, or they could wake up one morning infertile and without that kid they always wanted. But despite the hype sales, Sylvia Ann Hewlett's book have fallen flat. Only 8,000 to 10,000 copies have sold." Stephanie Coontz: "I'm not surprised." Henn: "Stephanie Coontz is a historian who studies women and families." Coontz: "The fact that women have to make choices is pretty old news to the women involved. What's interesting to me as a historian, is that fewer women are having to make these hard choices than in the past. In the early 1900, a much higher proportion of educated women remained single all their lives, or didn't have kids." Henn: "Readers have greeted Hewlett's book with a collective yawn. That might not be so bad, says Rosalind Barnett of Brandeis University's Center on Communities, Families & Work. Maybe, she says, most American's have finally decided that stories about stark choices between work and family no longer ring true." ******* There's more, but that's the funny part. Of course it begs the question of why this "getting married and having kids" is any kind of yardstick for "happiness" whatsoever. And what were this Hewlett's research methods, I wonder? Were they at all scientific? Or did she just survey some of her single working friends and discover that they were not as happy as they thought they should be? (Who the hell is?) And what are you supposed to do about this anyway? Quit your job and wait for that man to come along and take care of everything? (All right, Mimi, enough with the questions, you are not Socrates.) MIMI! USES! PUNCTUATION! When you see! A phallic tree! Call the police! (Come on, sing it with me!) Ask Raymond Carver! SOME OBSERVATIONS There are times when you could not possibly be in less of a mood for Godspeed You Black Emperor(!). Here is a picture of my office building, taken from the street with my crazy little plastic camera.
The brown building that is kind of getting in the way is the Medinah Temple, which is not long for this world in its current format, so come see it while you can. A lot of people hate my office building. A lot of people also ask, "What's with the hole?" I don't know what's with the (four-story) hole, you'd have to ask Kenzo Tange, who designed the thing, but I like it: it's all unapologetically modernist and triangular and fronts onto the Windswept Plaza (which is a perfect place to sit and blow bubbles and eat falafel when you just can't be indoors anymore). So what's not to like? SUCH A GIRLY GIRL 1. Someone who I occasionally see in a work context, but not very often because he lives in Spain, was unexpectedly in the elevator this morning, and I don't often get flustered but he is a heart-stoppingly handsome man and I could barely look at him while we made small talk. I am not very flirtatious before my tea, I guess. 2. This afternoon I am getting an Unnecessary Haircut. Meaning one of those haircuts that you schedule weeks in advance, thinking that you are starting to need a haircut, and then your hair sort of stabilizes itself and it turns out you don't need a haircut after all by the time the day comes around, but you go ahead and keep the appointment anyway because it's really too much trouble to call and cancel and you are a Lazy Ho. You are an Idle Ho. You are YOUR OWN PRIVATE IDLE HO! (Oh, I crack myself up.) ---mimi smartypants was lying in the grass, and she could hear the highway breathing. back/forward |
