The long-anticipated Defense of Stuff

The piece I wrote recently for the New Republic about stuff vs. experiences seems to have gotten some interest. Elissa Strauss put the ideas into context helpfully in Slate, while Rebecca Schoenkoff had fun with the topic at Wonkette. The Atlantic included the piece in a "highlights" roundup. Miraculously I can still walk through the streets of Toronto unnoticed, but it's only a matter of time until we're talking sunglasses-and-autographs territory.

And there's now even a Bloggingheads on it! I got to debate materialism with Aryeh Cohen-Wade, who made the case for experiences. I was... meant to make the case for stuff, but never quite got there. What I did instead was make the point that much of what's often viewed as worse about 'stuff' applies no more to stuff than to experiences. The case, in other words, against being anti-stuff.

Because I ramble (slightly) less in writing, here's a second attempt at the positive argument for enjoyment of stuff:

For some people - for whichever mix of we-were-socialized-to and we're-just-like-that - it's fun to buy and/or make new things. This is a broad category that includes clothes-shopping and cooking, home decor and book accumulation. It doesn't mean enjoyment of all these categories, or indiscriminate enjoyment of any one of them. I can't speak to what it means for all, but for me, it means having a particular clothing item/recipe/book in mind (not quite at the home-decor life-stage, she types from her it'll-do IKEA couch) and being pleased to wear/use/read it.

But to simplify matters, I'll stick with the big one: clothes. That's the one with some shame attached. No one is judging me for owning condiments (with the possible exception of a broker my landlord hired to rent out our place, who passed along the not-false information that clear surfaces in the kitchen would make his job easier), or calling book-consumption shallow. But just saying I like clothes makes me sound cretinous. It demands disclaimers, apologies. But I'm going for positive here, so I'm going to save those for later.

Here's what 'liking clothes' involves, for me: I think of things I want to wear, inspired by women I know, or who I've seen on the street in Toronto, or on the street elsewhere when I have a chance to experience elsewhere, or on TV shows (female detectives!), or on fashion blogs (such as there still are), or because - and here I'm thinking specifically of the cherry-blossom sneakers; no other example is coming to mind - because I've seen something in a store window and thought how fantastic it is that this item even exists. I don't just go and buy all of it at once, both because $$$ and because that wouldn't be any fun. (How many times can I refer to Kei's brilliant concept of a "wanty list"?)

Because it's not about wanting white Birkenstocks since seeing a woman in Toronto with roughly my build and clothing color scheme wearing them. It's about sorting out which I'm looking for, in which material. And all that only after thinking about what, of what I already own, I'd wear them with. While I don't quite still view my wardrobe in terms of different fashion personalities, there's nearly always a vision for what will be worn how. What look it's all going for. And I'm not really an impulse-shopper. If I go to a store without a specific item in mind, or with only a vague plan ('I will buy a summer dress'), I wander around with... exactly the attitude of someone who hates shopping, and leave without buying anything.

But I got the sandals, and wearing them is great. I feel more myself in an outfit that I like, more together. And conveniently for me, I'm not so fickle as to require constant changing-it-up in the clothing department. If anything, I make the #KonMari mistake of hanging onto clothes (shoes) beyond repair, simply because I totally would still wear them if they hadn't fallen apart (red patent ballet flats), and sometimes do because... red patent ballet flats! Yes, that's what 'liking clothes' can mean - liking what you own so much that when it falls apart or no longer fits, this is a disappointment, so you keep wearing things a little too long. How oddly... not-wasteful.

For me - and who else would I have the authority to speak for on my very own Weblog? - putting in effort in this area is a matter of self-confidence, or something along those lines. At times when I've felt sort of ugh, I haven't felt I deserved either new clothes, or, on some level, even to wear the nicer things I already own. For others, who knows? If you're someone whose "ugh" leads to purchasing the entire contents of the nearest mall, this is not your experience, and maybe liking clothes is not, for you, a positive force in your life. For me, it is.

In a sense, the positive case for stuff is very straightforward. People like it! I don't need to explain why shopping can be fun, nor that in the history of humanity, people have acquired objects without falling into a sea of debt and hoarding. Thus why the anti-stuff tirades are always framed as, you only think you like stuff, but it's a mirage. What if it's just... not a mirage? What if the things in life that seem nice - new shoes, catching a glimpse of Justin Trudeau at the Pride parade - actually are?

And now the handwringing:

To like clothes isn't to like all clothes. Nor is it necessarily to like status clothes, or the clothes of the moment, although I see nothing wrong with either of these factors trickling into the great unknowable that is why we like the things we do. Nor does it mean spending a lot, or too much relative to income, on clothes. Nor, indeed, does it mean owning more clothes than people who just wear whatever. It means getting enjoyment out of deciding what to purchase and, once you own it, how to style it. It's that simple. No great sin has occurred.

Or, put another way: Those who go out of their way to make sure everything they wear is either used or (definitively) ethically produced (as in, not just expensive and marketed as an 'investment') get to hold a moral high ground. Those who simply don't care what they wear and have closets full of clothes they're indifferent to don't get any good-person points for non-enjoyment of the mall.

Oh, and if this needs stating: To like clothes isn't to get tremendous joy in one's own reflection in the mirror. I'm 20 years past losing sleep over questions of whether I'm stunning or hideous, having too many years' worth of accumulated knowledge that I - like nearly all of us - am neither. I fall into the same category as most, which is to say that if dressed reasonably nicely, I look quite a bit better than I do in sweats.

I'm not clear where the line exists between stuff and experiences. Yes, a plane ticket is in one category, and a knick-knack ordered online, another. But rarely is it that straightforward. (Or nor even there: maybe the flight is to a shopping trip, and maybe knick-knack-browsing online is a wonderful experience!) In a sense, maybe that's where my beef with the experiences-are-better-than-stuff brigade comes from. So, so, so often, the things praised as "experiences" and therefore noble sound awfully... stuff-y, while the things derided as "stuff" are basically about the experiences involved in acquiring the stuff, or that the stuff reminds someone of.

As came up on the Bloggingheads... while lots of stuff-acquisition is about keeping up with the Joneses, so, too, is plenty experience-having. Why does "stuff" suggest debt, while "experiences," which can be at least as expensive and ostentatious, get a pass? Indeed, given that everything gets photographed and shared these days, it's incredibly difficult for me to see how the mountain vista on a vacation that someone surely paid for is any different than a handbag.

In other words, insofar as there is a dichotomy, but it's not stuff vs. experiences. It's between the things (material or not) you actually get some sort of pleasure out of, and the ones you're under the impression you ought to consume, and consume reluctantly but out of a fear of what would happen if you did not. (There's a name for the latter category: kale.) If you find you're spending too much money and time on things you only think you should like, then... that's probably the place to cut back. As in, sure, the money I put towards new sandals could have gone towards one of those exercise classes that women of my demographics supposedly enjoy. But having once dipped a toe into the world of paying to exercise, I get the sense that it's not for me, not now, at least. I'd rather have the sandals, so I chose correctly.

Throw-pillows

Allow me an unpopular opinion: There's nothing wrong with buying your dog a Halloween costume. Note: I have no plans to do so - it's not for personal reasons that I say this. (Bisou only wears couture; if she can't have that, which she can't, it's a rain/snow coat or nothing at all.) But... how exactly is it ethically different to put money towards a pet's costume than towards, say, home decor? We're not meant to be outraged at the throw-pillow industry. Why do pet outfits inspire such furor? Why do they inspire the whole that-money-could-be-spent-on-something-noble narrative?

Presumably it's for a few different reasons. One being the tremendous (and, I suspect, largely baseless) fear that people are confusing their pets for human children. This behavior is meant to represent the ultimate in decadence. While - to repeat - I don't think there are too many pet owners who sincerely view their pets as human beings, the notion that we would do so taps into various anxieties. The birthrate! Narcissism! Facebook-employee moms defrosting their eggs as a retirement present!

Another is, paradoxically, the same as the outrage inspired by parents who put their babies or toddlers in designer clothing. As if that's somehow spoiling the kid, when it's clearly about what the parents want to see. (Again: the throw-pillow analogy. Not that the child is a throw-pillow. But the choice of attire for the child too young to have an opinion... The Baby Versace jumpsuit or whatever is the throw-pillow.) As if certain outfits are somehow too fancy for a dog, as if they are, you know, for the dog.

But then there's the really obvious objection, which points to the dogs-are-roll-in-the-mud-animals vs. dogs-are-domesticated-pets divide. There are people under the impression that it's dog abuse to interfere with a dog's... dogginess, or something. That even interventions that in no way harm a dog - i.e. putting a silly-looking outfit on said dog - will somehow humiliate the creature. This is the attitude that would shudder at the hyperstylized photos that make up much (but not all) of Japanese poodle Instagram. When, I mean... why can't the very same dog be both? Why not a run in the woods and then some posing for a photo? One of the things you're supposed to do with a dog is train him/her/it to sit on command.

In defense of not identifying as bisexual (if you don't happen to be bisexual)

There's the nice article about male bisexuality, but then, oh, is the discussion. There are some in the comments who believe bisexuality doesn't exist (silly! gratuitously offensive!), or who (quite rightly) point to the many instances of gay men claiming to also be attracted to women, for reasons other than also being attracted to women, to say not that there are no bisexual men, but that of the men so identifying, many are not that. There are others who think women can be / definitely are sexually fluid, but not men, oh no, not that there's anything wrong with that. (Ugh.)

But the popular view, to which one must smugly nod along, seems to be that we are are bisexual, or that if we're not feeling particularly bisexual, we should apologize. Bisexuals see the person. Whereas straight and gay sorts see... their partner's resemblance to their favorite celebrity crush? I have no idea. (OK, I do have some idea, but with modern understandings of gender, one no longer conflates it with anything anatomical.) Never mind that one could be bisexual and shallow - if you're attracted to Kim Kardashian and Ryan Gosling, say, and would settle for no less. (Note the desperate attempt to keep celebrity references current, and not make it that obvious that my mind for such things lives in 1996.)

Obviously, obviously, obviously, but a disclaimer all the same: At this point, there's obviously more pressure on bisexual people to be straight than on straight people to be bisexual. I'm agnostic on whether the pressure is greater for bisexuals to be gay than on gay people to be bisexual - sort of depends on the context. But one can see a tide turning, as if we're somehow, as a society, skipping over an affirmation of bisexuality as valid and to be respected, and jumping ahead to a condemnation of anyone who'd dare place him- or her- or any other pronoun's self in any sort of sexual-orientation box.

I suppose there's nothing to be lost by assuming everyone's bisexual, or that you yourself are bisexual, in the sense that the possibility you'll be attracted to someone of the gender you didn't expect is non-zero. It's all constructs, right? In a society where same-sex attraction was encouraged, maybe those of us who've never experienced it would have more thoroughly considered the possibility, and have managed to summon something for someone of the same sex, and would consequently feel something other than lowered self-esteem when confronted with a Natalia Vodianova billboard. Could be! We don't live in that society, so what do we know?

If we've decided that it's as offensive to rule out an entire gender as it would be to do the same regarding an entire race, then fine, we are all bisexual, even if not all of us have yet met people of both genders we're attracted to. This is, after all, the only accurate way to discuss race and attraction - those who grow up in homogenous environments very often (or so I've heard; I grew up in NYC!) experience their first interracial attraction only once in a more diverse setting. If it's now the thing to extend this to gender, so what if common sense suggests otherwise, i.e. that gender isn't like race, but a far bigger distinction? What's the harm?

But in terms of making sense of the world, there are many people (most?) for whom an attractive person of one gender means something really different than an attractive person of the other. How straight or gay (i.e. not-bi) people interact with men will differ from how they interact with women. (I refer you to the official WWPD definition of sexual orientation, from 2006, which I stand by as much as I do anything from that long ago.) It's something beyond having a type. It's how you understand who you are, who your partner is/partners are. It matters - as comes up in the article - if you're gay and trying to explain why you can't just fall in love with someone of the opposite gender.

Again, while everything's a construct, while "sexual orientation" is a modern invention and so forth, we do live in the society we live in, and for many people, that's going to mean noticing the best-looking person of one gender but not the other in a room. It does meaningfully describe some people's lived experience. Maybe there's a spectrum, a Kinsey scale, what have you. But people who are, for all practical purposes, into just men or just women may not be as rare as all that, and at any rate do appear to exist. What I mean is, it's not, day-to-day, as if every straight and gay person is struggling to repress attraction to the same/opposite gender. Those who are should absolutely, if conditions permit, and if they so choose, come out as bisexual. Those who are not are justified in continuing to identify in that dreaded binary way.

In defense of posting photos of your food

Setting aside the question of why photographing one's food would be a "food selfie," here's what I want to know: why is it such a thing to denounce the taking and sharing of photos of food? Some Guardian commenters liken it to posting photos of the scatological result of food consumption, but even those less viscerally repulsed seem to object for a great many reasons. If you photograph your food, you're apparently doing so rather than eating it. (Not sure I follow the logic - assuming a smartphone, chances are, your food hasn't gotten cold. There seems to be a mistaken belief that once someone takes the photo, they must immediately go onto whichever social media site to post the photo and browse others.) If it's interesting food you're photographing, you're a braggart and a snob; if it's just the usual, it's 'who cares?', so basically you can't win.

I'm afraid I don't see the problem with taking pictures of your food and posting those pictures on social media. Of all the things one can post, it strikes me as among the least offensive. You're not sharing secrets, or whining. You're not letting all who weren't invited to whichever party know what they'd missed out on. You're sharing an experience - solitary, as far as everyone else is concerned, if it's just a photo of the food. You're recommending a recipe idea or establishment - you're providing a service!

Smartphones and the like have introduced so many frightening things - the family that opted to watch "Mean Girls" without headphones on NJ Transit being just one; the impossibility of being a teenager at a party outside the potential view of your parents and future employers being another. Is "food porn" really such a concern?

The only ways I could see food-posting going wrong are a) if the food photos are truly nauseating, like some kind of stew that may taste great but looks like vomit, b)  if they're accompanied by 'my life is so wonderful' text, or c) if the photos are only of upscale establishments in exotic locales, for months on end, with text about how such places are overrated. And yet it's rarely along those lines. You ate an excellent croissant? By all means, post a picture - the worst that happens is I'll be inspired to seek out a croissant.

Maybe, then, the objection is fundamentally to phones, camera-having or otherwise, being out in restaurants. That much I could understand. The whole dynamic of a phone out changes a dinner. It gives the impression that the person whose phone is out would rather be somewhere else, or is so important that headquarters will summon them at any time. If you're the one whose phone is stowed away (or - but I've gotten better about this! - forgotten at home), it seems as if you're more invested in the dinner than your companion. If someone else's phone is out, I tend to feel (or used to - I think I stopped caring about this) that mine should be as well.

Say Yes to the Lamborghini

"Say Yes to the Dress" recently made the absolute perfect appearance in The Onion. As this is the treadmill show that replaced "What Not to Wear," I could maybe slightly identify.

But! I actually don't think it's a terrible show with an evil message. Because:

-It's from the perspective of the retail workers, a very Old New York bunch, even the young ones. (Remember that Miss Fine on "The Nanny" got her start at a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens.) Not the owners, and definitely not - as you'd expect if you hadn't seen the show - that of the women shopping for expensive gowns. (Women who need to stay under "three" - code for $3,000 - are considered frugal.) The show follows the saleswomen around and is completely on their side. Even when the things that annoy them are customers doing things anyone but their Kleinfeld's consultant would deem reasonable - bringing friends and family, needing a moment to think about a $10,000 purchase, not seeing anything they like and leaving without a dress, etc. The last of those is called "playing dress-up" and is, in this recreated premodern shopping experience (consider the history of the department store - this type of shopping, where you can't just browse, supposedly went out in the late 19th century), unacceptable. It's all about how hard they work, how skilled they are at their jobs, how put-upon by the customers, behind the smiles. It's clearly not a normal retail job, but because of this perspective, it implicitly asks the viewer to be less bratty in retail situations.

-It's a show about sales. If it were set in an expensive car dealership, say, and the cast was made up of men, we'd think it was the reality-TV "Glengarry Glen Ross." But it's about dresses, and so, a big joke. Not so! It's fascinating even if you don't care about wedding dresses. And I say this because... I don't care about wedding dresses. Are there other frivolous things I could see spending far too much on? Yes. Are there vaguely bridal dresses I do like, but that would never be sold in a wedding-gown store? Yes, like the one I got married in. Or the one the tragic Caroline Bessette did. But I have trouble seeing the difference between one proper wedding gown and the next. Sometimes a customer will say that a particular dress looks too costumey, and from what I can tell, at least out of any context (like, say, a wedding) they all look like Renaissance Faire outfits. The best of the bunch tend to be the least expensive, with the possible exception of the Pnina Tornays, which look like high-end fetish lingerie, which does seem odd for a wedding dress, but isn't necessarily unattractive.

-It's a show about family drama. Not waaaah, daddy will only spend $15k on my dress. That's occasionally it, but rarely. The women getting crazy expensive dresses are generally doing this because it's expected for the kind of wedding they're having out of deference to their relatives. Families go through all manner of tragedies and neuroses along the way, and it all comes out in something as symbolically loaded as wedding-dress-shopping. Body image! Sibling rivalry! Because the people who spend $5,000 on a wedding dress do not appear to be the same ones who spend that on everything, the viewer doesn't end up resenting them for being 1%-ish or even, necessarily, poor decision-makers.

-Once 2008 or so rolls around, it becomes a show about the economy. The interviews with the staff reveal some recognition that times are tough, but there's also a sense in which the entire endeavor becomes more cutthroat. Brides are urged to just invite fewer people, to spend less on the food, because it's all about the dress. Meanwhile, where it does get ethically dubious is when women come in, announce they've just been laid off and have no money, so they're going to keep their budget to, say, "four." And it'll be like, noooo, why are you doing this? That's four thousand dollars! Is it right to push a super-expensive dress on someone who's as good as announced they can't afford it?

From Paris to Gristedes

-It's another day, so there are yet more instructions on how to look French. It's the usual, though - Frenchwomen don't go to the gym, don't use much makeup, do use a lot of moisturizers, and get medical pedicures. (I remember seeing those places all over Paris - had I been there as a beauty writer and not, you know, a grad student with a croissants-and-discounted-t-shirts budget, I might have had to investigate.) Frenchwomen look "natural," although what this means is that whatever they do, they call "natural," even if it involves injections of something that isn't Botox, but is instead "natural." (Isn't botulism natural? Isn't injecting anything into your face reasonably high up on the artifice spectrum?) And there's once again the French-hair recommendation, which those of us without the "French" hair texture can go on ignoring.

-The latest twist in YPIS: insufferable Thought Catalog essays on how terrible it is to be hated for one's privilege. What I suspect, but couldn't prove, is that what's brought this merry band of poor-little-rich-girls* to this topic - to this spiral of guilt and defensiveness - isn't, as they claim, that those who have less are making them feel bad. Rather, it's that there's a whole lot of YPIS being hurled among those of comparable levels of privilege, and a certain number of rich kids fail to catch on. While it's not impossible that a cashier at Gristedes is judging her for having shopped at a sample sale, my guess is that this young woman (who lives in a "West Village Apartment" [sic], because she's so rich, "apartment" must be capitalized?) has learned just how fancy and schmancy she is from peers who are just a bit more discreet. Peers who know it's not socially acceptable (in the UK maybe, but not here) to condemn someone for seeming gauche and nouveau-riche, and who then channel that sentiment into sanctimonious claims about how terrible the Gristedes cashiers must feel when ringing up some college kid with a discounted but likely still expensive handbag.

My theory, then, is that somehow all that YPIS gets unfairly projected onto the actual not-so-privileged, who are likely far more interested in when their shift at Gristedes ends than in whether the woman whose Diet Coke they're ringing up has student loans and if so, whether her parents are helping her pay them back. Which... I'm not sure what to conclude. There have always been ostentatious types who self-present as unashamed rich girls, in a Real Housewife-type way. But now, at least in some circles, the message has gotten through that there should be some embarrassment at unearned advantage. Which, I guess, why not? But as much as it's fun to mock the rich and oblivious, it seems as though the fight against obliviousness ends up subsuming whichever fight against inequality. Reduced obliviousness among the Gristedes customer base doesn't do much to help Gristedes workers. Whether it does anything is its own discussion.

*The gender angle here is huge, too huge to properly get to in this post, although it's kind of like what I was saying here.

The fit myth UPDATED

Maureen O'Connor - NYMag writer and former bra-saleswoman - tells it like it is, in response to "that irritating statistic that appears at least once in every issue of every womens' magazine: '85 percent of women are wearing the wrong bra size'":

[T]here is only one universal truth when it comes to fit, and it equally applies to bras, shoes, pants, socks, and wedding bands: If you put it on and like how it looks and feels, then it fits just fine. Your bra is not wrong. Your bra cannot be wrong. Your bra is underwear, a value-neutral object to be worn, replaced, stuffed, discarded, celebrated, hidden, or exposed however you want. 

As the kids say, or said five minutes ago: this.

But I'd take it further. The bra-fitting gimmick is to tell you that you take a cup size larger and band size smaller than you'd thought. Given that we'd all look more conventionally attractive with larger breasts and smaller waists, we try on this miracle product and lo and behold, an hourglass physique. Or, more likely, we're just flattered by the notion that we're simultaneously thinner and bustier than we'd thought. It's a more 3D version of vanity sizing. Then we get home and realize that even if it's possible to squeeze into a $60-plus contraption in the right-but-wrong size, having circulation is even nicer. Or so I've heard.

And the idea underlying this is, if you think about it, incredibly sexist. The idea that women are just too dumb to figure out for themselves whether their clothing fits properly, or that they're too lacking in confidence not to just go along with it when someone in a position of authority tells them that an item that they know fits actually does not. Because it really is possible to go into a dressing room with a range of sizes and styles, and see for yourself what fits. It's not like with running shoes, where someone will examine your stride and, in theory, impart information you couldn't have easily gotten yourself. The bra-seller may tell you - or so they say - that you should discard the bra you wore to the store, not because it's worn out, but because it hasn't been approved by (sold to you by) this establishment. Don't do this.

On a related note, that Prudie letter from the college senior who, though not flat-chested, doesn't like wearing a bra. Yes, yes, the usual Prudie titillation, but I found it telling that this woman (assuming this is a real person's complaint) mentions having been fitted for a bra. That could well be where her problems began. I'm also having trouble picturing the line of office-work for which a bra-like camisole under other clothing (blazer, button-down) wouldn't suffice, which makes me think this letter really just was about how a braless coed was braless.

UPDATED

My entirely sensible female commenters are chiming in to say that on the contrary, bra-fit is a real thing. Which is making me think that my problem might have been having too much confidence in a particular saleswoman at the Town Shop who estimated and didn't measure, and who may well have just wanted to sell that particular bra. (I may have had a choice of two.) There's no obvious distinction between reputable bra fitters and bra-sellers posing as such to dupe the suggestible. At the time, I took the limited selection to mean this woman had so much experience making such assessments that she just looked at me and knew.

Or it might be that these things are subjective - even among women with the build for which this is even an issue. (Without getting too technical, I can assure that I don't have a gamine physique). My sense is that it's possible to own some spectacularly fitting bras that make clothing look amazing, as well as some now-I'm-decent-to-go-out ones that don't. What fits best might be the most comfortable, but... it depends. I like the idea that these two traits could be found in the same garment, but... who knows. Comfort is subjective.

Chop vs. bob, in three acts

I was recently describing my latest haircut to someone over the phone, who referred to the style as a "bob." I was taken aback. Even though yes, I totally went and got a bob - technically went and got another bob, after various others had grown out. But a bob, to me, sounded so outdated. A helmet style. I don't want to look like Louise Brooks!

Shortly thereafter, I saw this "Into The Gloss" post, where Emily Weiss insists that her haircut (an earlier version of which is, sigh, the look I was going for - I have now twice shown this photo to my hairdresser) is a "chop" and not a "bob." It's the it style of the moment, this "chop," although I get to be one of those people who are like, I've been getting (or self-inflicting!) this haircut since forever. Well, on and off since a party in college, at which time Karlie "The Chop" Kloss was probably a fetus with no haircut to speak of.

The difference between a chop and a bob, as I understand it, is that a chop looks like (or is) what one is left with when someone with long hair just chops it off to chin-length or thereabouts. No layers, no hairstyle. This would be a bob. This, a chop. The chop is so-very-now because it's the inevitable response to the previous it-look: ombré. The chop is the haircut you kind of know you'll eventually need, once you bleach the tips of your hair.

The chop, then, is effectively a bob that has not been meticulously styled.

******

Which brings us to a challenge: all hair textures can be forced into a bob, but a natural-looking chop, not so much. The chop is thus an incredibly undemocratic hairstyle - a celebration of wash-and-go.

But women of all hair textures are seeking - and getting! - the chop. It just takes some effort to look effortless. Garance Doré could only join in the fun with the help of one of those keratin treatments. "Into The Gloss," meanwhile, in a post with the misleading title, "How to Work the Curl," profiles another woman who went down that same formaldehyde-strewn path.

The two women a) emerge with chic hairstyles, and b) really defend their choice, in a way that suggests curl-flattening is embarrassing, an admission of self-hatred. And this is not only politicized for African-American women but also, apparently, for some who are ethnically Italian-Algerian or Cuban-American. Both women don't merely describe how they got their hair just so, but preemptively address those who would call them traitors. But traitors to what, exactly? Is this spillover of black women's hair politics onto other populations? Is the reason so many non-black women want straight hair related, on some level, to anti-black racism? Just how sinister is all this?

My sense is that (Ashkenazi, American) Jewish women may see going blonde as political, but less so straightening. This may have something to do with how often Jews have naturally straight vs. blond hair... or it may not. (In my own family, straight hair is fairly common, but I'm not aware of any Jewish relatives with hair lighter than light brown. But there are plenty of blond Jews, so.) Or - more likely - it's because when we learn about the Holocaust, the dumbed-down version we get as kids is that Jews were hated for not being blond.

At the same time, some Jewish women are wary of straightening because the flatironed look, esp. with long hair, is considered "JAPpy." And... there are too many levels to analyze there for this blog post not to become a dissertation in its own right. Is the"JAP" with straightened hair more self-hating than the Jewish woman who fears being thought a "JAP" and leaves her hair wavy/curly so as to avoid fitting a Jewish stereotype?

My own hair, if I let it air-dry, with the chop haircut, emerges something like this. Very 1930s. To those (with stick-straight hair) who'd say, 'that's awesome!', let me just point out that it's not a style that even remotely goes with anything I wear, anything anyone these days wears. (Much like how the celebration of curves is supposed to require embracing a late-1950s silhouette.) Because of the particularities of hair texture, I can easily achieve the "chop" styling without exposing hairdressers - or myself for that matter - to toxic chemicals. Which means that as much as I'm thinking, formaldehyde, really?, I'm not really in a position to judge. Also, I have no idea what's in tsubaki oil-meets-hair-iron fumes, nor do I want to know.

******

And now, the defending of the indefensible: on women who do not (or do not every day) embrace their natural hair texture. Let me be clear, I also defend women who do so (as in, every day), and understand why it would likely be better if more of us did. So:

1) Often enough, for us women with shall we say textured hair, an attractive straightened look is much easier to achieve than an equally or more attractive one that embraces the essence, but not the often frizzy and inconsistent reality, of a natural hair texture. Lots of women with naturally curly hair who wear their hair curly have actually straightened and then curled their hair. Or they've partially straightened it - done a partial blowdry or partial relaxing. Either way, the curls you're seeing have little to do with the curls that come naturally to the woman in question. Others have undergone complicated rituals involving diffusers and all manner of expensive curly-hair-specific products - products that may not straighten, but definitely smooth. We cannot assume that curly=less effort, or that curly=true to one's natural texture.

2) And when do we even see what "natural" hair texture looks like? The idea that shampooing hair daily is "natural" is - and this should be obvious if you think about it - a construction. As is the idea that this approach is "low-maintenance." There's a fairly consistent societal notion of what constitutes "good" hair, and it requires plenty of artifice for those with fine-and-grease-prone "white" hair, depending how one defines artifice. Daily shampooing isn't (for most routines) some kind of hygiene essential, but merely a way to bring volume and gloss to certain hair textures. If you have a style you can do and then forget about for days on end (which was convenient during Hurricane Sandy, when the hot water went out for a week!), you may well be putting less product and time to the cause.

Pulverization

-Sometimes vows of positive thinking aren't enough. There's a pill - legal! - that will take a person from Rhoda to Mary. I suppose I had heard of such a thing. If it also expedites dissertation-completion and preempts sunscreen-induced breakouts, and comes with Mary's wardrobe from the "Dick Van Dyke Show" days, and helps with learning how to merge onto the highway, I'm interested.

-Speaking of negativity, teacher-rants are so-very-now. Re: the second one, the consensus is that the prof is right, but I'm going to say he isn't entirely. Yes, it's irritating when students meander in and out of class as is convenient for them. Yes, the student email is of the sort that sets off instructors' uh-oh-another-entitled-one alarm bells. But this "course shopping" period - at least for the undergrads - is something they seem to think they're supposed to partake in, while instructors are instructed not to allow it. Because it clearly wouldn't work - the course has already started once it's started. There is no wishy-washy month of discussing what the course will be. The prof's substantive beef might actually be with whoever it was at the university who gave students the impression that the beginning of the semester is come-and-go-as-you-please. That, and as much as we-the-teachers wish it were so, I'm not sure that the kids who don't give a damn in school are equally apathetic at work. There are a lot of young adults in school because that's what one does, but who'd be thrilled to be at some job.

-The problem with scrapping negativity is, sometimes it really is called for. For instance, this new (or not?) emphasis on "clean eating." It's on the one hand a positive development - no longer are people assumed to be unhealthy for being overweight. "Health," we must agree, is independent of weight. So take that, thin privilege! On the other, now even those who are normal-weight and who eat plenty of vegetables are apparently poisoning themselves if they also consume sugar, refined flour, or very blended wheat flour (and that includes whole-wheat pasta, Petey), or wheat of any kind, or dairy, or any animal products, or anything cavemen didn't eat, or who on earth knows. What "clean" consists of varies in all kinds of contradictory ways - either everything must be pulverized, or nothing. 

The only constant is that not worrying about it - not obsessing over meals - isn't an option for anyone. Real food - as in, foods not engineered by Doritos scientists - is not enough. Healthy eating and a healthy attitude about eating are incompatible. But, well, consider the source. There are beauty and personal-style bloggers who, after some caveats about how they're not experts, give "health" advice that is, let's face it, advice on how to go from thin to thinner. But you're not even allowed to say that, because what they're doing is noble and pure. And according to Science, the GOOPitariat is kind of... right. Perhaps I'm the one with the problem, gambling with my health every time I open a box of DeCecco. Perhaps my defiant, feminist, but unglamorous not-worrying-about-it places me in the same category as those who really, truly don't worry about it, and who go down with whichever chain-smoking, fake-tanning, motorcycle-riding ship. 

"How could anybody not like you?" - Helen Seinfeld

At the intersection of parental overshare and the window-of-opportunity problem: the Princeton University mom who wrote a letter to a Princeton publication about her Princeton sons' eligibility, or something, and caused the internet to explode, or at any rate the website with her letter on it to crash. Then New York Magazine interviewed her. The internet exploded some more. I'm not sure if I've read the entire letter, because as I said, the original is unavailable, but as it was apparently quite short, it could be that the NYMag excerpt is the thing in its entirety. In any case, as a self-proclaimed expert in related areas, and a resident of the town of Princeton but not for reasons related to that university, my very important thoughts on this are below.

First, some defending-the-indefensible:

-According to the official WWPD definition, embarrassing parent-writing is not parental overshare if the child is an adult. It's always awkward to write about living family members, but if they're old enough to give consent, or to write their own tirade without fearing being grounded/getting cut off/worse, it's not quite the same. Nevertheless, the first example I ever gave of the phenomenon, before delving into its nuances, involved a mother writing about her 19-year-old son. And if the "child" is an adult as in over 18, but a financially dependent young college student...

In this case, we don't actually learn anything much about this woman's own two sons. Only that she thinks highly of them, in that very specific way the mothers of sons often do:

I am the mother of two sons who are both Princetonians. My older son had the good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate of his, but he could have married anyone. My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless.

Are we all now cringing on behalf of these two golden boys? Yes. But the only controversial thing we've learned about them is that their mother is quite something, which is actually something about her. And parents are under no ethical obligation not to be ridiculous, lest that ridiculousness be off-putting to would-be dates, employers, etc. While the letter could be read as an attempt to get her younger son a girlfriend, I'm not sure anyone interpreted it as evidence that he needed this help.

-The Princeton mom made a bunch of outrageous assumptions, but assuming that women will one day want to marry men wasn't one of them. Yet one response I've seen to this letter has been that not everyone is straight. Which... fair enough, but most people are indeed heterosexual. Full legal and social acceptance of LGBT individuals will not bring about a time in which the bulk of men don't want to marry women, the bulk of women don't want to marry men. (Even if we call it something other than "marry" in that progressive utopia.) Along the same lines, it is harder to meet someone once you're out of school, and women's romantic options do decrease with age relative to those of men.

-The answer to a what-year-is-this? demand that female college freshmen husband-hunt so as to avoid being single, haggard 22-year-olds is not to say that college is too young to find a spouse. As came up here recently, to marry at a 'sensible' age, and after getting to know your future spouse a sensible amount, you need to have gotten together with that person while still too young to have possibly been thinking about marriage. (Or you can meet at the 'right' age and marry 'too late' - thus why these categories themselves are the problem.) That's where the window-of-opportunity issue occurs - women of 22 are told that it would be insane for them to look for husbands... but come 25, and it's a disaster they haven't already found The One. It's certainly reactionary to shift the window-of-opportunity down in age to freshman year of college, but the answer isn't to keep the window as elusive but place it at 29.

Now, I join the chorus:

-That a man has gone to a top-three Ivy most certainly does not mean his romantic options are "limitless." Some men do think this, which makes it all the more fun for the women who get to disabuse them of that notion.

-"Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated." The first, kinda-sorta, but the second two, not so much. That may have once been the case, but no more. Fancy-college (what Princeton Mom is using as a proxy for intelligence) is now a gender-neutral class signifier, and there's not much socioeconomic intermingling. A cashier at Wawa might be stunning, but a Princeton undergrad dude isn't going to even notice that (or, at least, isn't going to bring her home for Thanksgiving), because that's how it goes in class-less America.

-Do 18-year-old women have the most romantic options? On paper, it seems like they might, but in reality? If we're talking marriage, very young women probably don't have as many options as women further into their 20s, because the bulk of the romantic interest they attract (or seek out!) tends to be of a more casual variety. (Older men interested in very young women tend to have that interest in part because they're trying to avoid settling down.)

-Straight women who are college seniors do indeed have fewer options at college, unless they're prepared to date freshman, which, as a rule, they're not. And at colleges on the whole, it can be difficult to meet people who aren't fellow undergraduates. But! In this particular case! Hello! There are so many slightly-older single men in Princeton, most with a Princeton affiliation, who will happily date 21-22-year-old Princeton women. Graduate students! Postdocs! I find it hilarious that there's a man shortage down the road, given the profound woman shortage in this neck of the woods.

SAHH

Slate has a story from a man who's a stay-at-home husband. Not dad, just husband. His now-wife got her PhD and (it can happen! though I wonder in what field, but could not find out in the requisite ten seconds of Googling so, so much for that) got a high-paid job elsewhere, so he came with, and kind of fell into house-husband-ness.

And, the response from commenters is... not so positive. Either dude is looking to be dumped (because every woman needs a man at least as ambitious as she is), or he's living the dream (which must also involve pot and video games), or he's simply not a man, or he's unemployed and pretending like there's more to it. Or - alas - he's taken to task for not devoting himself to charity. (We don't know that he doesn't volunteer, but it's not in the article.)

As for me, I think it's great. There are super-driven women, and things will go far more smoothly if there are male partners-of-women prepared to be the less ambitious party, rather than if every ambitious woman demands a still more professionally successful man. Granted, for income as well as sanity, less-ambitious partners-of-both-sexes are generally going to have some kind of job outside the home (which might well be from home, which is something else). We've reached a day and age in which it's considered bizarre for a woman to not work on account of being married, unless there are kids. But arrangements like these basically need to happen for women to have better representation in any number of fields, particularly those requiring frequent relocation. If more such couples existed, if we got that 'the less ambitious one' didn't always have to be the woman... yes, that seems like the way to go. Even if most often that person is likely to be the woman, due to whichever social conventions, difficult pregnancies, etc. But the idea is it shouldn't have to be the woman.

My only caveat would be that clearly dude isn't so entirely lacking in get-up-and-go, so content with just being a stay-at-home spouse, given that he's gone and written an article about this for a major publication.

The NYT endorses your cappuccino habit

As you certainly know, I believe you should drink as many lattes as you can stomach. More accurately: I find cheapness-advice that urges you, Young Person, to cut out macchiatos to be condescending and ridiculous. If you want/need to spend less, the first luxury to skip is whatever isn't giving you much pleasure. If that's getting coffee out, fair enough, but you probably like getting coffee out, thus why you wait in line to do so.*

Well! Via Facebook, there's an op-ed by Helaine Olen providing a sound economic explanation (i.e. not what you were getting from WWPD) for why "expensive cappuccinos" will not be your economic downfall. More accurately: for why you are in such a sink-hole that these are merely expensive caffeinated drops in the bucket.

*I have, as you also know, a theory that coffee and food, but especially coffee, tastes better if prepared by a what-is-the-PC-term-for-hipster-when-you-don't-mean-anything-negative-by-it. My life's ambition is to get a flat white from this man.

Insufficiently-critical shopper

Oh happy day, Princeton now has an Urban Outfitters.

A sentence like this needs context: until the arrival of said Outfitters, if you wanted low-end, there was, what, J. Crew? Which, especially these days... kind of mid-to-high-end. New additions in town include a deck-shoe store and a Brooks Brothers, but there's also Ralph Lauren, J. McLaughlin, Kate Spade, I think a Lilly Pulitzer. Oh, and the Princeton-sweatpants store. What am I forgetting? The lacrosse shop. In other words, although I'm not averse to clothes-shopping, I had managed to live here, what, a year and a half, most of it time without many trips into the city or a car, without buying any clothing whatsoever in town.*

Say what you will about Urban Outfitters - that it's vintage-knock-off, poor-quality, overpriced junk aimed at those too square for real vintage-shopping; that it's mall-clothing for 12-year-olds; that it's a subliminal plot to turn young people into Republicans; or that it's generally obnoxious. Say it - you're not telling me anything I don't know. But when it comes to town, I'm not what would be called a "critical shopper." There is now a store I could walk (OK, bike) to that sells normal clothing. $40 jeans. $15 (U.S. union-made, apparently) hats. Actually, really gorgeous $15 hats (we will look past the fact that a similar hat is cheaper in Japan, even though I think they're made in Pennsylvania or possibly even New Jersey - Princeton is Princeton, and if a hamburger's $14...). I broke my no-garments-purchased-in-town policy to buy the absolute perfect gray hat, one I can't find a photo of online, but that's basically the acrylic version of this. It's just so cool, so Acne, so A.P.C., so Gwyneth-on-a-good-day, this thing that I bought in Princeton.

*While I've come to accept online shopping as a fact-of-living-in-the-woods, online clothes-shopping, not so much. Meanwhile, to give town its due, there is also a consignment store where the less-exciting Talbots goes to be subtly reduced, as well as an out-of-the-way, barely-counts-as-in-town, has-some-potential thrift shop where they make you check your bag, which, if you want this to be a dissertation-break, means you end up holding your computer as you browse, which is not necessarily worth it.

Brands of nonsense

Black Friday. You wouldn't join a stampede for a flat-screen TV, right? If you're reading this, if you're someone I know on-blog or in-life or both, it's a fair bet, and I think Charles Murray might have something to say about this. Personally, I spent the day doing a mix of laundry, test-writing, and parallel-parking-practice (getting there, but my three-point turns are exquisite). No malls.

Yes, Black Friday is gross. It evidently sucks for retail workers (see also: the Walmart picket line), and makes for some unfortunate visuals - this is the season of thankfulness (one that started early, with Sandy), and look, all these fools who can't just be happy with what they've already got. Even if the horde is buying gifts - you know, giving - it looks awfully greedy. And isn't the problem the American consumer's sense of entitlement? It's not like we even need any of this crap. After all, as the great storm showed, we're all slaves to our refrigerators.

But what's also meh - and yes, I'm repeating myself - is anti-Black-Friday smug indignation. Before you stare down your nose at the hordes, figure out what it is, exactly, that bothers you. If it's the unnecessary danger, the minimum-wage workers called in for nonsense on the one day a year all Americans are meant to spend with their families, fair enough. If it's consumer debt, I don't know, maybe remember that some of this is stuff people would buy anyway, but now they're doing so on sale? But if you shudder at all the materialism, while not minding a good sale one bit if it's on the higher-end stuff that interests you, that's something else. A flat-screen TV does nothing for me, but when that special Berlin nail polish was going for $9 a bottle, I was all over it. When I stumbled upon a sample sale in Chelsea Market featuring the best (and US-made, if you're into that) underwear brand, it's entirely possible that I took advantage. I can be smug about not having stomped on anyone in pursuit of my own brand(s) of nonsense, but that's about it.

In defense of: bus riders

Am I missing something? Or wouldn't it seem that people who take the bus because they don't have/drive a car are overall travelling around less than those with cars? And that this might mitigate buses' relative inefficiency ride per ride? Because it's, you know, a lot easier and more pleasant to go places by car than by bus. So one way, you're restricting yourself to essentials - a weekly grocery trip, a commute - whereas the other, it's 11pm and you could go for a jumbo pint of Haagen Daaz...

13.1

We have already discussed at great length, here at WWPD, the overlap between Hurricane Sandy and YPIS. More specifically, the almost instinctive response of right-thinking people inconvenienced (in some cases arguably more than inconvenienced) by the storm, to express gratitude. Otherwise, particularly if your woe involves an Apple product not functioning, you come across as clueless. If you're alive, if your loved ones are alive, and if there's a roof over your head, it could be worse. Whether this is supposed to make you feel better when commuting using trains whose "schedule" changes day-to-day, that stop existing entirely, that connect to shuttle-buses still on a schedule assuming the pre-Sandy train schedule, is another story. (Maybe slightly? I do feel lucky to be on the Northeast Corridor line. If you commute in from somewhere in NJ not on the way to Trenton, you've been pretty much screwed.)

The latest mini-controversy related to complaining and the storm relates to the recent cancellation of the Princeton Half-Marathon. Now, if anything would seem to merit "first-world problems," it would be something like "the Princeton Half-Marathon was cancelled." And the most I've ever run consecutively in my life was maybe nine miles, and that was in college, so this did not, needless to say, impact me personally. When I first saw that this event had been cancelled, I believe it was before the NYC Marathon had been, and I thought, well done, Princeton Half-Marathon, in acknowledging that our region's a big ol' mess.

But then there's this little detail: “'As the 2012 event was cancelled due to conditions beyond our control, registration fees will not be refunded and will be treated as tax-deductible contributions to support HiTOPS’ vital programs and services for youth and their families.'” This from what Planet Princeton reports was the email sent to the would-be runners.

What the email apparently didn't say, but what does seem relevant, is that runners evidently signed some small-print about how if the event was cancelled for a reason such as this, they wouldn't get their money back. Which solves (?) the legal question, but perhaps not the ethical one. Those who sign up to run a race would presumably not do so if they altogether opposed the cause it benefitted, but it's a fair guess that most were interested in running 13.1 miles competitively, not in this particular charity. If they were simply choosing where to donate, it seems unlikely all or most would have gone with this. From what I can tell from the Planet Princeton Facebook coverage, runners don't especially want their money back, more to have that option. One, however, won't have it:

Amazing to me that any of you would complain about donating the money to this horrible catastrophe. Who cares whether it was done the right way or wrong way, just care that it is going to the right place. Complain about something else!!

OK, so this individual is a better person than everyone else, and has creatively opted to demonstrate this by being sanctimonious on the Internet. First off, I see nothing about the "donation" going to anything whatsoever to do with the hurricane. It appears to be something else entirely. Next, even if it did, one doesn't have to be all that cynical about charities to understand that not everyone agrees with how each allots funds. There's no such thing as giving "to this horrible catastrophe" end of story. (Thus the folks warning others not, under any circumstances, to give to the Red Cross.) Moreover, even if such a thing did exist, something's a bit off about compelling people to donate to charity. Even if, again, we know that these people a) had $X to spare, and b) didn't actively disapprove of the organization.

Why am I highlighting this one random comment on something that doesn't even have anything to do with me? Because I think it offers a very good sense of the mood of the moment - the way that YPIS-infused be-grateful is being used to stifle complaints that, if small, are still legitimate.

Let them eat genetically-modified cake

So California won't be labeling its GMOs. I've been slightly following this, and it's a funny issue. On the one hand, those against the labeling come across as very Evil Corporation. On the other, there are some very good reasons not to label things with info that's arguably of no consequence.

Because it isn't just that there will be those who for some actual reason care and are happy things are labeled, and those who don't care and no-harm-done. There will also be others - perhaps the majority of consumers - who do uninformed risk-assessment, and who assume if a product is labeled "without X," surely some expert found conclusively that X is basically distilled ebola virus. Remember Ms. "Everything really needs to be paraben-free for me. I mean, because if I’m going to smoke cigarettes, then I need to be aware of all the other bullshit I’m putting into my body."? That's how actual people think. People assume scientists, bureaucrats, someone knows what what's what, and inasmuch as they know where their food (or moisturizer) comes from, they've outsourced this investigation to others.

As I've mentioned here before, I'm not crazy about efforts to put the responsibility for knowing what's dangerous on individual consumers. But it seems especially problematic for there to be state-mandated labeling. If it's voluntary, it's presumably only impacting some limited sector of the economy, where the consumers are kinda-sorta informed on whichever issue. (Only kinda-sorta - see the people who would prefer to get produce from farms big enough to pay for organic certification than from small local farms.) But if everyone's getting these labels, there will - I promise - be people who think no-GMO means low-fat, or high fiber, or makes your hair shiny, or who knows. (See: the people who think kosher is organic.)

Where the government could be involved, I suppose, is in a) standardizing what whichever voluntary labels mean, b) banning labels that are misleading or inaccurate, and c) investigating whether whichever thing (organic, GMO'd-ness) actually means anything, and if so, actually going and taking whichever problematic stuff off shelves.

In defense of: complaining about inconvenience

With the storm, there's been this immense outpouring of gratitude. Everyone on Facebook (my main contact with the outside world) is incredibly grateful. Due to the particularities of modern technology, I can occasionally check email/Facebook, can get on wireless for snippets of the day, but I can't take a warm shower, wash dishes in hot water, turn on a light, plug anything in, keep anything refrigerated, cook anything in the oven, or be anything but freezing in the apartment. (On the bright side, this may eliminate the need for a refrigerator, at least for all-but-dairy.) Things like a dishwasher and wireless internet will be truly above-and-beyond if/when restored.

I too have expressed thankfulness, including online, and will go on doing so. I'm grateful for an intact roof, for running water, for a husband who knows how to set up a fireplace, for a warm, furry lap dog, and, of course, for the luck thus far wrt falling tree limbs. But I'm not sure about the hyper-gratitude approach. I know that people mean well, but I'm not sure it's any great comfort to those who are screwed over (seriously, or just seriously inconvenienced) by this storm to get onto Facebook and learn how grateful some friend-of-a-friend is that he only lost power for five minutes, and how it really made him think.

For the people who were made to think, and then went out and volunteered somewhere, and are telling others how to join, that's something else. But there's a great deal of... I'm not sure what the right term for this is. On the site I'm using to check local news, there are all these people (no one I know personally) patting themselves on the back for having been nice to their baristas or power-company workers, and it's like, by all means, be appreciative, don't throw a hissy fit, Serenity Now. People explaining that one must use this time to teach children to be grateful and not to complain. And yeah, whining is poor form.

But at the same time, there are times when complaining is kind of the natural human response. I haven't had power since Monday evening, and it's unclear when it'll be restored. While that's certainly not the worst thing to happen to anyone, or even to me personally, it pretty much sucks. Assuming that complaining is in proportion to the problem, that you keep a sense of perspective, is this really so terrible? And are there really people out there not complaining, or is non-complaining a behavior smugly referred to online, but almost never practiced in real life?

Are you being served?

-The tipping wars have been rekindled, with a horde of commenters furious at a stingy blogger who had the gall to confess to only tipping a meager 20% at a restaurant. "There’s a word for anyone who tips 1.52. It’s ‘douchebag’."

Not to defend douchebaggery, but maybe this depends on the bill? Like, maybe this tip would be unacceptable if the meal were $15, but would be a lot for a cup of coffee? Or does the fact that food-service has happened mean anything short of transferring the contents of your bank account to the server makes you unfit for human interaction? Is it so hard to imagine that someone who can once-in-a-blue-moon afford $9 for a meal out might earn less than a server? Or is the simple fact of being served in this one instance evidence that you are a fur-and-diamond-encrusted villain from an 1980s movie? Whatever the case, apparently if you fail to tip at least $1 per coffee at a place where you order at the counter and get a drink to go/bus your own table, you're asking for bodily waste in your cappuccino. Noted. Thrilled with my newish thermos, by the way. Bringing us to...

-Let's give another suggestion to NJ Transit: eliminate the quiet car, and instead institute a loud car, the default being quiet. There are rarely enough loud people to fill one car (being that most everyone is a sleepy solo commuter), and the current state of affairs only means that businessmen (never women who do this - is this a macho thing about the size of one's inbox?) keep their phones on the setting where they beep every time an email comes in. Let the ding-new-email folks, the occasional tourists, and those who feel alone in the world if they don't cellphone-chat for an entire 90-minute ride all sit together, and let the rest of us nap in peace. (Will not overanalyze what it means that a travel article about the place I live includes mentions of not one but two naps.)

-No transition from the previous item, but anyway. I liked Alessandra Stanley's article about the new female protagonists who shun weight-think. I'm mystified, though, by the Jezebel critique. If it's unacceptable to mention the size of actresses, why a post doing just that? And isn't it clear that Lena Dunham and Mindy Kaling are "larger" as in larger than the usual TV waifs, not as in larger than the average American woman? Not sure whether they are or aren't larger than the typical women of their characters' age/education level, in the urban environments depicted, but it's likely that they would not be considered unusually slim in hipster/doctor circles, respectively. So here, too, "larger" holds without either woman being, well, large.

Given that the TV default had long been, skinny actress portrays "fat" character with weight neuroses, I'd say we're at least headed in the right direction. Heading in that direction, I suspect, because when women themselves are creating these shows, the shows end up depicting women who are more active than passive, not necessarily assertive, but who are doing things rather than being looked at. (Still only seen the first episode of "Girls," but that plus the "The Mindy Project"* give that impression.) And there's no way to comment on this development with no mention of Dunham or Kaling's physiques.

Kaling and Dunham are both women who are where they are for reasons other than what they look like. That doesn't make them unattractive, certainly not. But officially, unanimously-agreed-upon "beautiful" isn't the main thing every young woman needs to be in life. I suspect most of us women are where we are professionally primarily for reasons other than our looks. That's a good thing, and all the better if women who star in TV shows have that option. So yes, what these new stars look like matters, and if we insist that they're super skinny and gorgeous, we're missing the point.

*I mean, kind of? From the show's website: "Mindy is determined to be more punctual, spend less money, lose weight and read more books - all in pursuit of becoming a well-rounded perfect woman...who can meet and date the perfect guy." A feminist anthem for our age. Sounds familiar.

On running shoes

Alice Waters wouldn't approve, but the wisest purchase I've made in a long time was a pair of... Nike sneakers. They're gorgeous (Europeans, don't judge), combining neon yellow-green (like the Cambridge satchel) with reflective-tape-material. 

There's this thing with running shoes, where you're supposed to consult an expert and get the very shoe that is the only one you could possibly run in without injuring yourself such that you will never walk again. These will inevitably be the ugliest marshmallows ever made, but if you're a serious runner, you wouldn't concern yourself with aesthetics. (Sure, you may run on average two to four miles at a time, and not every day or close, but who doesn't want to be serious?) You must not be cynical and consider that maybe the salesperson has been instructed to direct gullible customers like you away from the more attractive, better-selling pairs. (Does anyone not learn that the puffiest white ones with lilac details are the way to go?) Never mind that the science of running sneakers a) changes daily and b) is more relevant to athletes than to occasional joggers. This is science, and continued walking ability isn't something to sneeze at.

Whatever the case, this time around, I took the usual approach to shoes, adding a bit of jogging-in-place, and lo and behold, the sneakers that looked the best also fit if anything more comfortably than the monstrosities I'd once been told were all I could wear, and have allowed me to jog for 25 consecutive minutes without complaint. What stopped me from going further was my own desire to come back to the apartment and eat an Austrian soft pretzel, or maybe that the small dog alongside me had had enough. Not the sneakers.