Remembrance of Things Past - for Memorial Day

Proust, as a writer, rambled. In his six-volume opus, he took pages and pages to describe a room or an outdoor scene. He got his timelines mixed up, and often had someone talking to his main character in book four that had died in book two. He was clearly an insufferable snob. But, he is [...]

Does Spoiling Your Kids Heal Your Own Childhood Scars?

Now that I’m in my 30s, most of my friends have at least one child. Most have more than one. I, however, remain on the fence with my biological clock ready to push me firmly into either camp. I remain decidedly undecided about the prospect of having my own, for several reasons.
When I was younger, [...]

Hooray! Someone else hates the so-called “Millennial” Generation, too!

OK, Radar magazine. You had me at one glance. I, most definitely, am not a Millennial. Thank GOD, or else everything in this blog would either be misspelled, ungrammatical, or punctuated with ‘like’.
Sign me up for the X revolution!
This is important enough to post in full:
Generation Slap
They’re naive, self-important, and perpetually plugged in. This is [...]

Not drinking alcohol, and what I’ve discovered.

1. I’ve discovered that I want a drink. Badly. Especially when I’m having a horrible day. I never thought of myself as one to self-medicate, but there it is. This begins to make me realize that a month off from all booze is maybe a good thing.
2. I’ve learned that almost EVERY social engagement has [...]

Procrastination: I’m supposed to be working, but instead, I’m wasting more of my potential.

Alas, it is a beautiful day here in Berkeley, California.
The sun is shining. I can hear the bells of the ice cream truck outside my window. The kids that live next door are enjoying their plastic pool. It’s 75° and a cool breeze is blowing.
I am inside.
Why?
Because I’m supposed to be writing my first field [...]

In honor of the new baseball season, an old favorite.

I don’t know - third base!
That’s right!
I don’t even know what I’m talking about!
(The forerunners of academese - the language of the anti-masses.)

Paris Hilton is boring, and I’m not going to take it anymore. . . .

I used to frequent gossip sites. You know, those nasty, vituperative sites that catalogue absolutely everything that a celebrity, or quasi-celebrity, does, then mocks it? (For those of you who do not frequent, here is a sample.)
Now, I’m no stranger to judgment. It’s my favorite game. Especially when it comes to women.
Except that recently, I’ve [...]

Finally, some sanity about eggs, drinking 8 glasses of water per day, and other health fears that our grandparents never thought twice about . . .

One of the things that boggles my mind is the fact that some people will do anything to be “healthier”, where “healthier” is a stand-in for one or all of the following:

1. Look younger.

2. Stave off aging in all forms. Haven’t you heard that 50 is the new 30? (Or so people who are 50 [...]

Stuff White People Hate: #2 Paying Taxes

Upper and middle-class white people hate paying taxes. Due to the fact that most of them owe money to the government, despite all the sneaky write-offs they do. (Come on, do you really have a “home office”? If we could write off over-filled garages, spare rooms, and attics, we’d be all set.)
Worry about “filling out [...]

Stuff White People Hate: #1 Traffic

White people hate traffic.
In fact, they hate it so much that they obsess about it. Especially in California, where you must talk about what route you will take to your destination (i.e. Driver: “Let’s take the 405.” Passenger: “That’ll be too crowded, let’s take the 5.” Driver: “Cool.”).
White people pay taxes, at least in part, [...]