Growing up in a family of five boys and three girls, I have never been very sold on the academic theory that all behavioral differences between the genders are learned, not innate. The sociologists and behaviorists who actually hold to this belief must seriously have never had many opportunities to observe children from 0-8, but hey, that’s just my opinion (I certainly have no scientific study to confirm my bias on this, just years of observation, babysitting, nannying, and teaching). So I have to say that this little clip of comedians acting like college girls is really funny. No matter [...] Read more »
31 Proven Ways to Misunderstand a Perfectly Good Article
Recently I noticed that most people are posting their comments about my blog posts to my personal Facebook page instead of my actual website. Although this is definitely not a problem one way or another, I happened to mention it in passing to my tech-guru husband, who promptly and enthusiastically directed me to a recent LifeHack article here, titled “31 Proven Ways to Get More Comments on Your Blog.” Now the article itself wasn’t exactly relevant to my question (having comments be directed to the website posts themselves as opposed to my Facebook page), but it was all very interesting. [...] Read more »
On Toleration and My Lack of It
I sometimes think we are fast becoming hopelessly confused in this country about the terribly important distinction between the concept of toleration versus the idea of approval. Just because something is legally permissible in this country, which means I’m legally required to tolerate it, doesn’t mean that I’m required to approve of it, and it doesn’t mean that I’m a hatemonger or an intolerant bigot if I find something to be morally reprehensible even if it is indeed legal. Part of living in a free country such as ours is learning to clearly understand those distinctions. If I tolerate something [...] Read more »
One of the funniest skits I’ve ever seen in my life…
Years ago, when I first saw this skit with Chris Farley as Matt Foley, motivational speaker, I remember laughing so hard I cried. Every time I’ve seen it since, I’ve still laughed until I cried, including this morning. As this is an embed from Hulu, please bear with the opening 30-second commercial~~I promise you it’s worth it! Enjoy the inimitable Chris Farley and company~~ Read more »
On the Misfortune of Equal Rights when Applied to Men’s Restrooms
Yes, I believe in women’s emancipation and equal rights for all (wo)mankind. I particularly believe this when the only restroom within reach of my biological holding capacity is for men, and I have only 30 seconds to do my business and get into whatever line I am supposed to be in. I am convinced that the original motivation behind the Equal Rights Amendment was exactly that: enterprising, bladder-challenged women saw the opportunity to ensure that not only would the whole world be their oyster, but that no bathroom would be off-limits to them ever again. I call that breaking the [...] Read more »
On the Keeping of (Technological) Secrets
Not long ago I was given a rude little surprise. As many of you with blogs already know, the back end of some website content management systems allows you to see the types of searches that readers have made in order to find your website or blog. Nothing unusual about that, and since web-hosting companies refuse to reveal the identities (only the intentionally-unidentified searches) of the readers who make their way through these searches to your blog, no one’s privacy is compromised. On occasion this has provided me with unintentional moments of hilarity, as when I realized that due to [...] Read more »
On the Difficulty of Keeping One’s Behind Covered
The other day someone told me that if I could just manage to keep my behind to myself, I wouldn’t run the risk of being identified and held responsible for a truly unfortunate and thoroughly unintended incident which may or may not have involved indecent exposure in public. I say “may or may not” because 1) my oldest brother is a lawyer, and 2) I have watched enough Law and Order: SVU to know that I should admit to nothing. Therefore this entire monologue should be understood as thoroughly theoretical…nothing but an exercise in mental contemplation, if you will. There. [...] Read more »
People are funny sometimes…
My Grandma Sally often said this when I was growing up, and the older I get, the more I realize how right she was. People are indeed funny. And I don’t mean “funny” in the sense of humorous (although this is certainly true as well), but rather that their behavior is funny in the inexplicable sense—their choices simply can’t be readily explained. I published a couple posts this last March that spoke of my husband’s mental and physical challenges prior to and after being diagnosed and treated for some medical issues. The outpouring of support, genuine appreciation that he is [...] Read more »
On Perceptions
Lately I’ve been thinking of a series of events that occurred in my life starting clear back in college. In reflecting on these events, I’ve been thinking about the actual events (objectivity) versus an emotional perception (subjectivity) of what the events meant. In watching and listening over the years, it has been fascinating for me to realize that much of the time, actual events or statements aren’t being disputed or discussed; what’s on the table is often someone’s subjective perception of those objective events. First case in point: not long ago I was on the metro. I happened to have [...] Read more »
Things I Learned While Trying to Get Work Done in Coffee Shops
1) God is apparently speaking to people an awful lot. In person. 2) If one of something is good, two is even better, or so thought the man sitting next to me who had not one, but two of my favorite pastries. I think wistfully about the numerous wasted years where it never even occurred to me to order two luscious chocolate croissants instead of one. I’ll be making up for those wasted years immediately. 3) It is an art form to eyescan the patrons of a coffee shop without ever making eye contact. I truly suck at this. This [...] Read more »
How Ingenuity Can Equal New Underwear
My sister-in-law sent me the following link. She suspected that due to my history of being home-schooled and the fact that I love knitting, I would find the following blog post particularly entertaining. She was so right. I am still picking myself up off the floor. Without further ado, here’s the first paragraph of the post: “Wanna bet? Mrs. G. has a friend, another homeschooling mother, whose twelve-year-old daughter announced one afternoon that she was too old for lifeless, white cotton underwear. As a matter of fact, she stated, she was ready… “ Don’t miss the rest of the article [...] Read more »
The Road Not Taken
I’ve always loved that famous poem by Robert Frost. You know, the one that speaks of how he took the road less traveled, and how “that has made all the difference.” Lately I’ve been thinking not about roads less traveled, but rather about roads never traveled at all. Several times over the last year, I’ve been suddenly confronted with situations both good and bad that might have been my life had just one thing gone differently. And there has been an oddness, a sense of looking and seeing something off-kilter, something not quite right. Recently, I identified part of what [...] Read more »
On the Rise (but Mostly Fall) of the Art of Seduction
It is truly a brave new world out there. Oh, I know every generation sincerely tells their kids that they walked to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, and that they should be very grateful for all the things they have that the prior generation didn’t. And I know every generation which hears this secretly thinks their parents or caregivers are archaic beyond their powers to express. And then, years down the road, the younger generation not only find themselves increasingly viewing their parents as quite the progressives…they have begun telling the next-younger generation the “uphill in the [...] Read more »
An Attitude of Gratitude
This phrase was something my dad often spoke of during my growing-up years. He talked about how important it was to cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”…about how just learning to be thankful for all the good things we take for granted can make such an impact in our day-to-day life. As an adult I find once again (quite usual these days) that he was right. I, for one, am really tired of hearing about how the American people in general are impoverished, hungry, naked, and homeless with no medical care of any kind (save for the aftershave bottles we all [...] Read more »
On Accidental Peeping Toms, Good Neighbors, and Voyeurism
I must confess that there have been some household difficulties in mi casa lately. It so happens that our house curtains were recalled due to child safety concerns, and since I am very opposed to the idea that any of our friends’ children would accidentally hang themselves on afore-mentioned Roman shades, we promptly returned them. In theory, the return was a laudable action, and I found fabric on a 50%-off sale and thought I’d whip up some replacement curtains in no time. (To be fair, I have been sewing since I was 4, so depending on the project, sewing some [...] Read more »