“A nice clean house to come home to”

I cannot believe it: for the first time ever, I actually uttered the words “I really want him to come home to a nice clean house.” Weird.  I’m getting old or something.

Enough already. No, really, I’m full.

I am so tired of other people’s criticizing my dietary choices.  It’s not my fault that you can’t show up to the table without your emotional baggage and shoddy self-discipline.  I eat what I like, when I want.  And I’m a very satisfied size two, so spread that on your toast and eat it. 

Since when did what I shove down my gullet become other people’s business?! I’m a healthy, intelligent 27-year-old who is perfectly capable of making wise nutritional decisions.  

Yes, that means that a caesar salad and pita chips counts as lunch.  And no, I don’t need Paul Newman’s company–the food tastes fine without dressing.  

Yes, that means I’d rather have a turkey sandwich.  I’m sure that you think corned beef is great, but I’ve tried it and simply prefer poultry.  Different people like different things, so get over it.  I’m not you.  

Nor do I have your oversized ass. Maybe you, too, should have turkey instead of corned beef, before I have to start footing the bill for your medical bills.  And yes, people, it is a reality that my health insurance gets more expensive when the health insurance companies have to ante up for your heart attacks and blood pressure medicine and diabetes supplies.  I pay for your poor choices.  

And really, what does it cost you?  Let’s think: 

1. Extra expenses for more food at the grocery store (not only because you eat larger portions– junk food is less filling and therefore requires you to eat more to feel full)
2. Higher medical bills, both as a residual of the nation’s collective obesity and as a result of your increased medical needs down the road
3. Money to replace your wardrobe as items get too small and have to be replaced, plus other incidentals (like more money for gas for the car to carry a greater load)
4. Possible lost income–it has been demonstrated countless times that more attractive people (who are generally thinner/healthier) are more likely to get jobs, raises, and promotions.  So the money lost here is not even quantifiable, because it represents lost opportunities.  
5. Lost opportunities to invest all the money lost due to the above four categories.  Accuse me of stretching on this one–I dare you.  That shit adds up.  And not in that awesome compound interest way.

So not only are you costing me (and yourself) lots of money with your crappy choices, but then you have to audacity to bitch about the consequences.  And you expect me to offer platitudes and apologize for being thin.  Idiotic.  I refuse to validate your poor choices.

Note this emphasis on choice.  If you are an adult, what goes into your mouth is your choice (and save the sarcastic lines, gentlemen).  Food is not your friend, and it is not a psychiatrist.  It is fuel. That’s it: fuel.  It makes your body work.  

We are lucky that we have to luxury of making our food taste good, but that’s what it is, a luxury.  And quite frankly, every meal need not be a culinary experience.  It need only to fill your stomach and make your body run efficiently.  If it also tastes, good, awesome.  I certainly strive to eat only things that taste good.  But not at the expense of my body’s functioning properly.  

So get over yourself, and keep your fingers out of my food.  Especially because, according to you, there’s not enough on my plate in the first place.

Of Presents and Penguins

So, per Iowa’s suggestion, I’ve been reading Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, an interesting look at people’s habits and tendencies from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.  

According to the authors, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” and women love getting flowers because these gifts have no intrinsic value.  In other words, although diamonds and flowers may be expensive, they don’t do anything, especially for the man.  Sure, they’re pretty, or shiny, or expensive, but they serve no real purpose, aside from showing that the man is willing to spend money on his lady.  The authors argue that women need to see this willingness to invest resources, even when the investment does not yield any direct return for the man. 

Apparently these authors have never received a seven iron–or a pebble–as a gift.  Granted, they are both men, but we’ll ignore that.  And I must clarify the pebble comment: I am NOT talking about all those times that Israel got down on one knee in Algebra II class, extended a piece of broken sidewalk, and proposed marriage to the lucky lady of the week.  Definitely not that.  (Although Israel is now married, so it worked on someone…and my rock-rejecting ass is still single!)  I’m talking about penguins. 

Everyone knows that male penguins court their intended mates.  And they do it with rocks.  The penguin who brings the best pebble gets the lady.  But the pebbles serve a purpose, because penguins build their nests out of rocks and pebbles.  Clearly, the gift is a cornerstone of penguin courtship.  She only knows the dude is interested if he shows up with a stone.  Furthermore, this gift has a clear message: take this bloody rock, and I’ll help you build a nest and have a kid.  The pebble represents a promise to invest time, in addition to resources. 

And time, these days, is  a valuable commodity.  Everyone works, usually too long , too hard, or both.  This means that 1) people generally have their own financial resources, or at least know how to get them; and 2) someone’s gift of time is a pretty special thing. 

Hence, I am quite pleased with my 99-cent seven iron, courtesy of Iowa. 

Iowa plays golf as often as possible, not in that “every now and again on a Saturday” way, but in that “at the driving range several times a week and watching the PGA Tour during dinner” way.  Furthermore, I have always wanted to play.  I spent summers in high school chauffering my dad around the golf course, eating Snicker’s bars and guzzling cokes.  Dad would not have been a good teacher, though; he swore and threw clubs and had terrible form. 

Iowa, however, would be a great teacher.  He’s level headed, patient, and actually knowledgeable about the sport.  So I asked him to teach me.  Iowa gave the typical (and usually wise) non-commital response designed to protect oneself from getting roped into unpleasant situations, like teaching the most awkward woman to ever hold a club how to drive a tiny ball in a straight line. 

But something amazing happened.  Iowa dropped me off at the doctor and came back with a 99-cent seven iron.  For me.  So that I could go to the driving range with him.  Iowa even had the club shortened and got me a training grip.

Now, our illustrious WDBPHMD authors would argue that he gets something out of this.  Now Iowa can go to the driving range whenever he wants, and I can choose to come or not, but he still gets to devote time to his activity. I choose to interpret the gift with less cynicism.  I choose to interpret the gift as “I want to spend time with you. I want to share my talent with you.”  And time is pretty valuable stuff, my friend.  Last I checked, our lives are just vast expanses of time.  Being in a relationship is about choosing to share that time.  Like a penguin’s pebble, my golf club represents a commitment to sharing time. 

I would argue that the same is true of engagement rings.  The ring has become a symbol of a desire to spend a (LONG ASS) lifetime together.  So yeah, a woman would get pumped over that–it means never taking the trash out again, and other, more important things, like having someone around to fetch Ben and Jerry’s while you’re on bedrest and as big as a barn.

The Projects Smell Like Popeye’s, Part Two

 I agree that a cultural shift needs to occur, and it has to occur more or less from the top down.  If we effectively applied behavioral economics, we could, in essence “teach” self control.  In Nudge, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein discuss ways that providing “just a little push” toward a certain action will yield the desired action with great consistency.  Savvy marketers use these strategies all the time.  But policy makers don’t.  Case in point:

In 1990, The University of Greensboro in Greensboro, NC piloted a program from girls under 16 who had already had a child.  The program paid these girls a dollar every day they were not pregnant.  Although the research sample was small (65 girls), only 15% of them got pregnant again in the next five years.  Furthermore, the program featured educational opportunities for the girls about goal setting, parenting skills, or other topics the members needed.  Researchers deemed the program a great success, and the model has been adopted in several other cities since then, with similarly promising results. 

While a dollar a day seems like little incentive to control sexual impulses, it was just the nudge these mothers needed.  With it, they got relevant education, an occasional free meal, and membership in a positive community of like-minded young mothers. 

So why don’t more cities adopt the Dollar-a-Day program? 

Many people may balk at funding this sort of program, as it seems like a quantity that would rapidly add up over time.  This price for taxpayers, however, is still considerably lower than that of paying to raise the child through programs like WIC and Medicaid.  Let’s say a girl had her first child on her fourteenth birthday, and were enrolled in this program for the next four years (leaving the “dollar-a-day dole” at 18).  She would get $1,460 from the government for proverbial womb rental.  Factor in another $5,000 a year to run those educational programs she attends.  That brings the grand total to $21,460 for four years of prevention and education. 

On the contrary, let’s say she decides to have another child.   Since she would then have a household of three, she could receive up to $32,560 from WIC.   In one year.  One can imagine how this price tag would compound, even if the girl remains dependent on government services for only five years. I am an English teacher, but even my math skills are sharp enough to choose the more economical option.   

But the Dollar-a-Day program hasn’t caught on like wildfire.  Probably because it isn’t a quick fix.  We taxpayers like Band-Aid programs and throwing so-called education at social problems.  The primary reason these “solutions” fail is that the targeted parties generally have no incentive to receive that education/information.  Everyone is willing to pay for the education, but not for the educational incentive.  That’s because they don’t realize that the incentive itself is psychologically more important than the program. How many of those Greensboro teens would have shown up without that meager financial incentive? I have a guess… 

And policymakers—elected officials who shape their proposals to please their constituents—have no incentive to suggest anything like Greensboro’s Dollar-a-Day program.  They might not get reelected.  Programs that take years to prove fund-worthy can be a tough sell.

It is also important to note that Mischel (the marshmallow experiment man) attempted to get several school districts to adopt a program based on his research.  No one was interested.  Self control is, supposedly, difficult to measure in the classroom (this stupid argument, despite the fact that Mischel did it so well with a bag of Jet Puffed!). 

The bottom line is that self control can be taught–with the proper incentives.  But no one realizes this.  As behavioral economics gains recognition as its own explicit field of study, and its principles trickle into the vernacular, our society will be more receptive to programs like the one in Greensboro.  This process will certainly take generations, but at least the catalyst for change is in sight.

The Projects Smell Like Popeye’s

Why is it that the alluring smell of Popeye’s fried chicken only wafts through the low-income parts of town?  I contemplated this question as I drove home from school yesterday.  The windows were down, and the air was saturated with the scent of crispy, breaded poultry.  

And as I drove, I passed an Amscot, then another.  I started to realize that there was a significantly higher proportion of check-cashing joints and pawn shops, than there is in, say, my middle-income neighborhood, and definitely higher than in Yuppieland (aka New Tampa).  

Clearly an area’s socioeconomics dictate the types of businesses that thrive there.  That’s a no brainer.  What’s interesting, though, is what businesses in economically depressed neighborhoods have in common.  It’s not just their low prices.  The kinds of businesses that move in to stay are those that sell immediacy: fast food, quick cash, whatever.  Basic needs are met with easy fixes. 

Note that these are not the best fixes.  The proliferation of fast food restaurants doesn’t really do much for the neighborhood kids’ nutrition.  The pawn shops don’t help people learn how to make a budget or save money.  But the businesses are there because people patronize them. 

When’s the last time you saw a Huntington Learning Center or a Princeton Review in the projects?  Never, huh? Some people might argue that these are expensive services, and that no one in poor neighborhoods could afford them.  I’d argue that people in the neighborhood would not pay for these services because they require time.  They require the ability to improve one’s circumstances later, by taking action now.  They require the ability to delay gratification.

Countless studies have demonstrated that the ability to delay gratification strongly correlates with socioeconomic status. Children of lower socioeconomic status consistently demonstrate lower selc control and ability to delay gratification than do their middle-class peers. 

 Mischel’s classic marshmallow experiment illustrated the significance of that self control.  He tracked his subjects for for 25 years, and found that impulse was a stronger indicator of success than intellect or money.  Children who exhibited self control at four years old went on to enjoy higher SAT scores, higher salaries, and lower rates of arrest.  Meanwhile, children who lacked impulse control, even at such an early age, were more likely to become bullies, earned more negative feedback from teachers, and had a higher incidence of drug use. 

Controlling one’s impulses, then, is vital to success in adulthood.  And that is simply not a skill that kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds learn.  What do they see around them? Teen pregnancy (can’t wait for that lovin’), drug use (can’t wait for that high, or that money), violence (can’t wait to talk it out), etc , etc, etc. 

(Yes, I may be stereotyping.  And yes, a student told me this week that “you don’t need to get married to have kids.  My momma has seven kids and she’s never been married.  She just gets food stamps.” So get over my stereotyping. )

These kids simply don’t see adults who practice impulse control.  Moreover, they don’t see adults who value impulse control.  Rap stars spend money like it’s going out of style and sing about all the ladies they love and leave.  Older siblings encourage kids to resolve problems with fights, despite the long-term consequences that can ensue.  Parents often spend their food stamps and “first of the month checks” in a similar fashion.  You have no idea how sad it is to have a kid ask for half your banana because the food stamps are gone, and there’s no food at home for another week. 

If we want these hungry kids to grow into adults who buy their own friggin’ bananas, we don’t need to teach them to read.  We need to teach them to control themselves.  We need to show them how to delay gratification. 

All the healthy habits that these kids need require patience and self control.  Healthy eating habits are predicated on the ability to take the time to shop wisely or prepare one’s own food.  Saving money requires the ability to say “no” to frivolous desires.  Learning useful skills requires patience and persistence, even in the face of minor failures. 

Learning, after all, is a process.  If one cannot discipline oneself to endure the process, once cannot learn.  These kids don’t endure the process. So they remain illiterate, or close to it.  So they remain in poverty, or close to it.

If we really wanted to make a difference, we’d explicitly teach these skills to our children and students.

My Neurosis (A Fragment)

The sensual slide of words on words…

I write constantly, nothing fantastic really, but the language emerges, demanding record.  Words, phrases come at all hours, rattling in my head until, engulfed in linguistic urgency, I resign to the demands and take pen in hand.  

Until pen hits paper, the words hurtle through my brain.  It’s like being in a Gravitron with an OED: ceaseless language, both real and neologistic.  Gems like “zaftig,” “postprandial,” and “harridan” force themselves out…once the flow begins, it cannot be quelled.  I am Pandora’s sister, unleashing linguistic potpourri.

A solid six with a problem

I have a problem: I hate pumping gas, but it’s a painfully repetitive necessity.  My hatred for the pump has nothing to do with the dirt or even the odor (which I admittedly enjoy).  Instead, it stems from having to subject myself to the other customers at the gas station.

Other female friends have complained of the same affliction: some asinine dude decides that the gas station is the best place for his personal episode of “Love Connection.” Fuck eHarmony: this dude can pick up Bud Light and a broad on the same trip! 

One can well imagine the caliber of men who see fit to harass, I mean, flirt with women at the Citgo.  We’re talking the finest rednecks and dirt-rockers around. Mullets, sleeveless shirts, and a little snuff are the uniform of the day.  These guys seem to believe that whistling and saying, “I’d like to ride that bronco” will actually work.  

A woman can generally spot the impending encounter before even exiting her vehicle, and plan accordingly.  Occasionally, however, a woman can walk straight into a gas-station ambush.  Alas.  

Last week I stopped for gas in the “good” part of town.  I’d gone from school to happy hour, so I was feeling g-reat.  A couple of dudes pulled up at the next pump and climbed out of their Pinto.  They looked like scruffy college kids: unshaven, sporting flannel and swoopy bangs.  One of them went inside to pay, but the other just stood there in the middle of the parking lot.  

As I went inside, the loiterer called out, “Hey! How YOU doin’?!” I summarily refuse to respond to strangers who say this, so I kept walking.

What a silly decision. I had just rejected the world’s most desirable bachelor, who was disguised as a greasy dude in a Pinto. I soon learned that he also lacked a few teeth.

I stepped outside after buying my gas, only to be aurally assaulted.  ”Hey! You shoulda talked to me.  You’re a solid six! What’s your problem?!”

Here, I must note he whistled “solid six” through his dental gap.  And spit on himself a little.  Okay, perhaps he didn’t spit on himself; those droplets could have been the charm dripping from his pores.  An easy mistake to make.  

So here I sit, a “solid six with a problem.” And my problem is dudes like that.

Dropping the L-Bomb

**Warning: This gets a little heavy.**

I recently unearthed an old photo of myself from a family vacation to the Grand Canyon.  In the photo, I am sitting at the edge of the canyon, feet dangling over the edge, blond braid hanging down my back.  I am nineteen, and totally at ease with the world.  I am willing to sit in that precarious spot, simply because of the view it provides.  I am willing to take a physical risk, poised at the edge of the world, to experience that endless sky and canyon stretched out before me, eloquent with the natural beauty of a gathering sunset.  

I don’t even recall having registered the danger of perching on the edge of a rocky chasm.  I just did it without thinking, because the view was spectacular, and it made me feel free.  

But I have outgrown that ability to overlook the risk and simply relish the experience.  Some time in the ensuing seven years since that snapshot, my tolerance for risk has significantly diminished.  Now, the scars–both seen and unseen–dictate my actions to a far greater extent that I’d like.  

After internal and external stitches on my ankle, for instance, two-wheeled vehicles like motorcycles and mopeds are pretty well off limits.  Crashing into a wall on a moped will do that to you.

Meanwhile, the scars on my knees belie my weakness, my inability to withstand that infernal hatred and despair, to rise above the four-letter R-word.  Sometimes the outside just needs to match the inside.  

In some respects, the unseen wounds wreak much greater havoc than the visible ones.  I constantly labor under the burden of my own brokenness.  What takes the greatest effort is tearing down my own walls, accepting that vulnerability is a necessary part of any relationship.  

The burden feels greatest as I approach that “point of no return,” where you have to lay your feelings on the line and risk everything.  I would rather dangle my feet over that canyon than be the first to drop the L-Bomb any day.  

I’m obviously not the only one.  Everyone I talk to about this seems to have his or her own idiosyncratic rules about when, where, and how the L-Bomb delivery should happen.  

Several people have self-imposed timelines.  One guy said “three to six months. And if the girl says it sooner, she’s probably either psycho or on the rebound.” Others say that sometimes it’s been mere days with someone, while a few claim to wait a year or more.  

One of my female friends is emphatic, adamant, passionate, that she will NEVER be the first to say it.  She believes that she already makes herself vulnerable enough in other ways, without being the first to take this step.  However, like me, she always plans to hold out, and folds.  We’re no good at keeping secrets.

I used to think that the best time to drop the L-Bomb for the first time was during sex.  There’s less emotional risk involved because you can always pretend it didn’t happen, that you were simply caught up in the moment.  The caveat here: you also don’t know if it was genuine or reciprocated, and therefore don’t know if it’s safe to repeat with your clothes on.  

It seems that we get overly caught up in the reciprocity of love.  I do not want to give it, without getting it in return.  Some people would argue that this, then, is not truly love, because it is conditional.  I’d argue that it’s self preservation.  Giving love without receiving it in return simply doesn’t make sense, even from an evolutionary standpoint; it means that both people are not equally vested in the  survival and success of the relationship, and will therefore not be equally invested in the success of any progeny that might result.

Thus it makes sense that we’d place such high stakes on dropping the L-Bomb.  BUT, is there ever “the right” time? Or place? And how does one know when it’s worth the risk, when the risk will be met with emotional equivalent of a bird’s-eye view of a sunset over the Grand Canyon?

And that is the sticking point: opening up to even the possibility of love is a breathtaking, amazing, electrifying sensation.  But I still loathe admission of vulnerability, and the greatest of those is acknowledging love.  How do I get the courage to look over that edge?

Could someone please invent this?

The bane of my existence: repeating myself countless times, to apparently deaf pre-pubescents.  In the first five minutes of seventh period, I repeated the phrase “Unit Ten KIM Chart” seventeen times.  This was also written on the board, and appeared on the hand-out I had read aloud to students. 

 

We have been doing KIM charts since the beginning of the school year, and even the kids who come once a week know how to do them, so it wasn’t that my students didn’t understand what was expected of them.  It’s that they simply fail to listen. With all the cackling and cawing, I often feel like I have fallen into some sort of anthropomorphic chicken coop.  Then I realize I’m at work.

 

Rather than wasting my precious vocal cords– much better used for belting out Tori Amos songs as my boyfriend listens in abject stupefaction at my musical talent—I’d like to be able to press a button, and have an automated voice, or perhaps a recording of my own voice, repeat these oft-uttered phrases.

 

I would love to have a miniature keyboard, with one of these statements on every key.  Some would always stay the same, like, “No bathroom passes first or last ten minutes” and “I don’t work at Office Depot!” (and therefore it is not my job to provide them school supplies).  Another key would say, “Hands, feet, and belongings to yourself,” or “If it’s not yours, don’t touch it.” I may as well tattoo that last one on my forehead. 

 

Other keys should be recordable, so that they could be changed for different circumstances.  I’d have one for KIM chart day: ‘”K” stands for “Key,” “I “stands for “Information,” and “M” stands for “Memory Cue,” or “The words are on page 120.” For test day, “No, you don’t need to copy the question,” and so forth. .  I could save my voice and patience for more important tasks. 

 

The person who patents and markets this idea to teachers would be swimming in money,even after splitting the profits equably with me.  Furthermore, this person would be a hero to educators worldwide.  I would go so far as to advocate a national holiday for this person, because this invention would revolutionize education, doing for educators what the cotton gin did for farmers.

 

Furthermore, a “spoof” keyboard, with the things that teachers actually want to say, would be a runaway hit.  “Shut it,” “Quit acting like a crack-addicted howler monkey,” and “No one wants to see your back fat” would elicit roars of uncontrollable laughter in faculty lounges across America. 

 

A “Parent Conference” Edition could include such useful expressions as “Your kid is just dumb, so accept it and move on” and “Discipline your child already.” I’d also like a key for the parents who come in just to hear how great their children are: “Your kid is just as wonderful as the last time we talked.  Now I need to get back to people who actually have problems.”

Feel my Teflon, bitch!

I am a generally untidy person.  At one point in college, the door to my dorm room would not close.  My green Civic is also known as the Rolling Dumpster.  Everyone who enters my apartment leaves with more than a little dog hair.  Dirty dishes could double as school science projects.

I do, however,  admit to a handful of orderly neuroses: keeping my books in Dewey-decimal like order, storing my shoes just so, sorting pens based on what task they’re best suited for…One of these happens to be loading the dishwasher a certain way.  

My dad inculcated in me the unwavering belief that items should be arranged a certain way, if they can go into the dishwasher in the first place.  And certain items should never even cross to the dishwasher-side of the counter.  This includes sharp knives, pots, and pans.  Especially Teflon pans.  The Teflon pan and dishwashing detergent simply do not mingle well: the detergent is too harsh, and ruins the Teflon finish. 

I lived with two dudes for a year.  They did not heed my warnings about the Teflon pan, and guess what? They got to buy me new ones when they ruined them.  I got three new pans in eight months.  

So my friend came over for dinner the other night, and offered to wash the dishes after.  I gratefully accepted, and he set to washing.  But, alas, horror of horrors! I watched in abject disgust as he put EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING into the dishwasher.  My dismay had nothing to do with the fact that my dishwasher is horrifically inefficient.  Rather, it arose from having to watch him cavalierly place my Teflon pan in the dishwasher.  

I then made the mistake of telling him, “Oh, that’s a hand-wash item. I’ll get it later.” Instead of just saying, “Okay, cool,” he launched into an explanation of how it’s chemically impossible to separate the Teflon from the metal and all this stuff that I didn’t understand because  I had Mr. Bailey for Chemistry.  I started to freak out, and told him about my three pans in eight months.  He remained incredulous.  I permitted him to go ahead and stick the pan in the dishwasher, figuring I’d just remove it after he left.

But he thwarted my pan-saving maneuver, starting the wash cycle while I let the dog out.  I detected the dishwasher’s low rumble, and cried inside.  Damn, damn, damn, damn.

A week later (when I finally emptied the dishwasher), I pulled out the pan to put it away.  It had dog hair stuck to the inside.  Because the Teflon was all sticky.  Intent on getting the last word–since for once I was right–I called my friend to set him straight.  I did not want a new pan.  I wanted vindication from the Great Chemist.  

He responded to my allegations with incredulity.  ”That’s impossible!” he exclaimed.  ”It’s chemically impossible.” His smug refusal even to entertain the possibility that I wasn’t hallucinating about tacky Teflon drove me crazy.  After five minutes of arguing, I finally screamed, “Just get over here, and feel my Teflon, bitch!”

He did, and I have a new pan.