So you got into an Ivy League school? Congratulations!

You’ll want to fit in, so to get you up to speed, here is a list of things you are not allowed to say during your time in school:

– I feel that my years of experience living as a woman or minority qualify me to discuss women and minority issues with at least as much authority as a white male.

– This student activity happens to be a feeder for many prestigious jobs after graduation, and all of the people in the club happen to be men. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?

– If everyone knows that this Computer Science class requires 50 hours a week of homework, then why can’t they break it into two semesters with only 25 hours a week of homework?

– Since I do not have 2 wealthy parents — including one who stays at home full time — as my support system, I was wondering if you might have any sort of institutional supports for students?

– It’s my second year. Shouldn’t I at least meet my academic advisor?

..and finally, never under any circumstances speak the following words:

– I don’t know.

– I need help.

Nowadays, it is often strongly implied that women who go to work and leave their children for 8 whole hours a day are quite possibly scarring the children for life, just because the mothers want to “work,” “get educated,” or “eat.” The thinking goes that while some women work outside of the home by necessity, and a few strange oddballs do it by extreme conviction, the majority of working mothers are heedlessly depriving their children. Deep down (we are told) we all know that life was so much better in The Olden Days, when mothers had absolutely nothing to do but sit and gaze lovingly at their adorable offspring.

So, I would like to point something out. The average woman these days has 2 children, plus electricity, heat, and running water.

No matter what she does, her kids are coming out way, way ahead.

100 years ago, most women were pregnant or with a babe in arms – if they managed to survive childbirth — for Twenty. Years. Straight. Families of 10 or even 15 kids were not uncommon. This is because there was no birth control except abstinence…and abstinence, as it turns out, does not seem to work very well.

“Ah,” you say, “But even though the mothers had 10 children, they were at least home all day with the kids, right?”

Well, sort of.

The women were up with the sun to tend the chickens and milk the cows. Then they had to stoke the fire and tend the stove and cook for 12 people, then clean up and do the whole thing again for lunch and dinner. In the copious free time they had left over, there were chores like Washing 12 People’s Clothes By Hand in Boiling Water, Blacking the Stove With Caustic (non-child-friendly!) Chemicals, Churning Butter, Bringing the Eggs to Market, Nursing the Baby, Taking Care of Children with Life-Threatening Diseases, Sewing Muslin Together to Make Sheets, Knitting Sweaters for the Entire Family, Carding Wool, Canning, Quilting, Darning, and so on and so forth.

Because it was literally impossible for the average farmwife to do the allotted 100 hours of weekly housework while also supervising 10 kids, childcare consisted of putting your toddler into the care of your 8-year-old, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best.

If you think that a modern woman with a job – plus a dishwasher, plus a washing machine, plus electricity and running water, plus a microwave and frozen foods, plus a refrigerator, plus a way to heat the house without having to chop wood first, plus vaccines that keep her children from coming down with horrible diseases, plus an automobile…

…If you think a woman with all these conveniences, taking care of only two children, is giving less individual time, care and attention to her children than a woman in the olden days…then you are out of your fucking mind.

Just sayin’.

Sometimes people ask me what Harvard was like. I struggle to explain the sheer superciliousness of the student body. Here’s an example:

We had a cellist in our class, Matt Haimovitz. Prodigy, recordings with Deutsche Gramophone, the whole bit. Were we proud? Oh no. The orchestra geeks made up a little song about him, to the tune of the Shostakovich cello concerto:

“I’m Yo-Yo Ma…”
“–No-you’re-not-no-you’re-not.”

That’s what it’s like. It’s a school where you’re a freshman in the top of the world in your field, and people jeer and mock you for not being number one in the world in your field.

Just wanted to share.

(Here’s what the cello concerto sounds like, so you too can sing along like the second-rate musicians in the Bach Society Orchestra making fun of a world-class musician.)

The other day a new “West Elm” furniture store opened in downtown Boise.

For those of you who don’t know, West Elm is what you buy when you’ve grown out of Ikea. It’s got a sort of mid-century modern aesthetic, but it’s still cheaper than some other furniture brands.

Like many fashionable stores these days, the national chain is trying to look as rustic as possibly. In the case of this store, that means that the floors and outside display appear to be covered with unfinished reclaimed wood, possibly from a barn.

I say “possibly from a barn” for one very specific reason: when I walk into this expensive furniture store, it smells…very faintly…of manure.

Now, I’m old enough to remember when expensive stores did not smell like manure. In fact, I would say that, if you had asked a designer, “How shall we appeal to wealthy customers?” their first thought would have been, “Do not smell like manure.”

But times have changed, and now all of your fancy furniture comes pre-impregnated with dessiccated cow poo dust.

Progress.

Advantages to Living in Spain

– Streets are paved with tortilla de patata

– Constant stream of snacks, sandwiches and tapas == Hobbit Life

…Overall, Spain wins of course, but only if I’m not looking for a bathroom.

I’m on a gluten-free diet, which is a special kind of torture, and so whenever I hear someone mention The Forbidden Foods, I notice.

This ad, that manages to say the word “bread” 6 times in only 30 seconds, hits me with all the force of a Pavlovian experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSOtcyK3hF8

So. Let’s talk about this ad. Ostensibly, the goal of it is to get you to “become inspired to lose weight.” But it’s actually a craving-trigger in slow-mo.  And a lot of Weight Watchers ads do the same thing. Descriptions of cakes..pies…pizzas. Then: Weight Watchers.

So this is how it goes: You watch the Weight Watchers ad. You feel suddenly very hungry ( I wonder why?). Then you have shame/guilt/whatever over the cravings they just awoke in you. You decide you “have a problem.” Then you call Weight Watchers.

Weight Watchers doesn’t want you to lose weight. It wants you to lose self-control, and then try (and fail) to get back on the wagon.

This is a cruel and duplicitous strategy. It’s as if AA advertised:

Mmmmmm….Isn’t scotch delicious? Couldn’t you just drink a smooth, velvety aged scotch all daaaaaay?….Alcoholics Anonymous. For when you have a Problem. 

Now, it’s possible Weight Watchers does good for some people. Hey, if that’s true for you, great. But the advertising is downright evil. Don’t fall for it.

The very definition of inequality is that in an unequal society, some people don’t suffer any consequences for their bad decisions, while others suffer not only for their own mistakes, but for the mistakes of people above them.

So asking us to fix climate change without fixing inequality is impossible, because those who are making the worst decisions are those whose unequal status is protecting them from the consequences.

The science is clear. We don’t need more data, we need more equality.

We’re currently using technology to “improve” / “disrupt”:

– Cat video dissemination
– Stealing music, movies, and books
– Removing pesky “put on clothes, go outside” aspect from buying stuff

As he explained the features of his completely unnecessary product with all the zeal of a missionary, I was struck by how utterly little any of these products matter. We have, at this moment, arguably the most minds in history and the most technology in history focused on solving problems . . . but, for the most part, they’re the wrong problems.

The Silicon Valley spin machine is busy working full time, touting each product as “amazing.” But it’s conflating “this product stands to make me billions in the IPO” with “this product fundamentally improves the world.”

They are not the same thing.

If only this man, with his massive intellect and great salesmanship, had been working on getting new and disruptive vaccines to poor villages without refrigeration! If only he were trying to ensure every American had a decent roof over her head. That, my friends, would truly be deserving of the word “amazing.”

I have good news. After several years of experiencing mysterious dizzy spells whenever I tried to drive, I’ve finally gotten a diagnosis: my eyes don’t track well together. This may be related to a concussion I received in my 20’s.

I’m starting a very intensive course of Vision Training, which is like physical therapy for the eyes and also a retraining process for the brain. I’m very excited.

The only downside is that I have to rest my eyes. A lot. So not much blogging for now. But I’m still thinking of you, World.