(less)fluff(y): Newsweek magazine in general. Looks like the magazine is aspiring to be more like The Atlantic, if not in the way it leans than at least in the way it looks. However, just because it looks smarter, doesn't mean it is. Case in point: Fareed Zakaria's "The Capitalist Manifesto" in the June 22 issue. Sooooo close.
smut: the one too many employment ads I read this past week written by presumable managing editors who were "loking" for freelance writers and paying a stipend "commisirate" with experience trumps anything I saw on the tabloid rack while waiting in the checkout line. Grrrrr...
relevant: Maggie McGuane's "Reality Check" in the July Vogue. McGuane's unsentimental account of how she got over herself when her husband left her to raise her two young children and she couldn't get a line of credit above $500 by (gasp!) buying less stuff. Elitist magazine's first brush with reality without the usual smugness.
Do You Speak American? by Robert MacNeil and William Cran, those clever (if nerdy) coauthors of the The Story of English. Even if you don't closet a fetish for linguistics, you'll appreciate your new, cursory understanding of why when you say "black" you are referring to the color, but when your college roommate from Chicago says "black" she is referring to the block of houses along her street.
random: and finally, for anyone who is not pissed off enough about the state of the world, pick up Geraldine's Brooks' Nine Part of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and boom! You're ready to explode. Very incendiary. Very insightful. And, might I add, very timely, even 15 years later.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
summer school is for suckers...
...namely--me.
I taught summer school last year and even went to the trouble of writing in red marker a fairly large note to myself to UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES TEACH SUMMER SCHOOL EVER EVER AGAIN. I posted the note on my bathroom mirror and looked at every single morning and every single night for nearly 350 days.
Last year I knew knew knew! that come the following May when the sign up sheet was passed around at the faculty meeting, I would think: Oh, it wasn't that bad. It's quick money. It's two weeks. Who really needs to sleep in that much? Who really needs 2 months in a row off?
Well, the note was a premptive move that failed. Miserably. Why? Because while it is true that I saw it on the bathroom mirror as I washed my face every morning and every night for a year, I also saw the slightest-oh-just-the-very-slightest burgeoning of what the fine lines across my forehead (F#%&!!!!zzzz).
Which brings me to my next and not wholly unrelated point: A few days shy of my birthday I can say that 31 is the new 30. 30 does not seem different than 29, but my oh my by the time one reaches 31 things have undeniably begun to fall apart (or at least crease a bit).
Which brings me back to my first point. I, despite the clever note to self, signed up for summer school again this year. I realized that in only two days I could make enough money to cover my first vial of Botox. Now, some (mom!)may say that getting Botox at the age of 30 is premature. Others (liars!) may say that it is something they would never ever do. I, however, am neither "some" nor "others," and so I called my dermatologist thinking myself a very prescient* girl. Call it pre-corrective treatment. Spending 80 hours with the flunkees, the scoundrels and the general delinquents when I could be floating in the pool at Mandalay, I reasoned, would be a small price to pay.
I taught summer school last year and even went to the trouble of writing in red marker a fairly large note to myself to UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES TEACH SUMMER SCHOOL EVER EVER AGAIN. I posted the note on my bathroom mirror and looked at every single morning and every single night for nearly 350 days.
Last year I knew knew knew! that come the following May when the sign up sheet was passed around at the faculty meeting, I would think: Oh, it wasn't that bad. It's quick money. It's two weeks. Who really needs to sleep in that much? Who really needs 2 months in a row off?
Well, the note was a premptive move that failed. Miserably. Why? Because while it is true that I saw it on the bathroom mirror as I washed my face every morning and every night for a year, I also saw the slightest-oh-just-the-very-slightest burgeoning of what the fine lines across my forehead (F#%&!!!!zzzz).
Which brings me to my next and not wholly unrelated point: A few days shy of my birthday I can say that 31 is the new 30. 30 does not seem different than 29, but my oh my by the time one reaches 31 things have undeniably begun to fall apart (or at least crease a bit).
Which brings me back to my first point. I, despite the clever note to self, signed up for summer school again this year. I realized that in only two days I could make enough money to cover my first vial of Botox. Now, some (mom!)may say that getting Botox at the age of 30 is premature. Others (liars!) may say that it is something they would never ever do. I, however, am neither "some" nor "others," and so I called my dermatologist thinking myself a very prescient* girl. Call it pre-corrective treatment. Spending 80 hours with the flunkees, the scoundrels and the general delinquents when I could be floating in the pool at Mandalay, I reasoned, would be a small price to pay.
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