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Shop Til You Shop

Researchers have determined that women are innately better at shopping than men, leading to the conclusion that shopping is the modern-day gathering, which refers to “the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.”

While I normally adore research that explains away our behavior with evolution, I am loath to equate foraging for nuts and berries with the consumeristic frenzy that pervades our every waking moment. However, it does explain the pleasing brain buzz that I get from rummaging through a bin of clothes at Filene’s Basement. (To my great dismay, the original Filene’s Basement is closed for 2 years for renovation).

Our males, the descendants of the hunters, are typically better at navigation, but this study found that women’s navigation skills were comparable if the end goal was a high-caloric food. Yes, it’s true. We will work for chocolate.

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By Meredith – September 14, 2007

Meet The Neighbors

Our neighbors seem like such nice people. I can’t understand why their wireless networks are named such vulgar things (see screenshot below).

I mean, “Selene.” How disgusting. Like I want to be reminded of the Greek goddess of the moon – that pagan whore – every time I look at the wireless.

wireless

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By Meredith – September 13, 2007

Age Rage

The issue is so hot, it’s scorching the glue off of Post-It easel pads in meetings of highly-developed Human Resource departments across the country. Savvy, slothful, and sloppy Generation Y is entering the workplace and clashing with the staid, stolid, solid Boomers. “What we’re finding is a lot of differences between the culture of the established company and this new crop of workers,” says one keen-eyed, brilliant HR professional. Differences lead to conflict, conflict leads to violence, and the next thing you know, you got sobbing 60-year olds trying to strangle near-naked 22-year olds with their antiquated mouse cords. And there goes the HR director’s annual bonus.

Manpower experts have determined key points of contention include appropriate dress, working habits, and general attitude. “Boomers respect authority; millennials question it,” says the article. Wait, didn’t boomers once define themselves by their youthful questioning of authority? Could this conflict simply be the normal result of old people and young people being placed in the same room? Isn’t the real problem that boomers no longer have relevant knowledge and skills for today’s marketplace, and hence lord their seniority over everyone’s heads while fiercely guarding their ignorance in order to preserve their livelihood?

I mean, come on. Everyone knows that the boomers created flex time in order to spend more time with their children, and the millennials are merely demanding their fair share of it so that they’re not stuck having to do all their Facebooking at the office while their manager is “working at home,” which really means buying a vacation home on Cape Cod.

(The article scarcely mentions Generation Xers like myself, but we’re the ones who are actually working.)

Posted in The 9 to 5.

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By Meredith – September 13, 2007

Putin’s Surprise

Given the hurried pace of my new job, there is little time for leisurely web surfing breaks. To quell my raging inner newshound, I regularly scan the Google News front page, just to make sure I’m not missing the story of the century.

Today I pinged Google News and saw the headline “Putin Picks Surprise Nominee for PM” accompanied by a picture of Vladimir Putin and GW Bush shaking hands (see screenshot below). It suggested a wholly insane scenario: Putin asked Bush to be the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation!

And Bush accepted!

Well, why not? Is there anything specific in the US constitution that prohibits the US President from serving as the Russian Prime Minister?

Suddenly, everything is becoming clear. The Kennedy Assassination. Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev’s chumminess. The dissolution of the USSR. The poisoning of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko. The ill-fated invasion of Iraq and subsequent impotency of the executive branch. Karl Rove’s resignation. It’s all been one big conspiracy theory to throw the United States under Communist control!

(I know… get back to work, Green…)

putinsurprise

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By Meredith – September 12, 2007

9/11 Forbidden Thoughts

After the September 11 attacks, the entire country grabbed a flag and waved it around in a profound display of shock and grief. But some people secretly had inappropriate reactions of selfishness, annoyance, indifference, excitement, even happiness. 5 years ago, on the first anniversary of 9/11, Salon.com published a fascinating compilation of people’s “forbidden thoughts”.

(Doesn’t “forbidden thoughts” sound so naughty? Like “Ohh, I couldn’t stop thinking how sexy Guiliani looked standing in the rubble, on all those dead bodies!”)

These are knee-jerk reactions to the attacks in the following hours and days. One woman was relieved to get out of work. Another hoped that enough Manhattanites had perished to snag a 212 phone number. Many felt racist or xenophobic thoughts, while others were thrilled to witness an event of historic proportions. “It was the most exciting day of my career in journalism,” said one reporter. A few people revealed themselves as heartless realists, like a woman who read memorial profiles of all the deceased and thought “Yeah right. Was everyone in the WTC a super amazing person? Someone who worked there must have been an asshole.”

My prevailing emotion at the time was panic for my own personal safety. (I watched way too much hysterical cable news.) Certainly millions of Americans felt terrified, but since I lived and worked in Boston, I reasoned that my fears were more justified than the Midwestern crazies who imagined fanatical Jihadists blowing up the local mall. And I never admitted this, but this fear for my life was exhilarating. Is that forbidden, or is that human?

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By Meredith – September 11, 2007

Bernice Bobs Her Hair

“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1922 in his first collection Flappers and Philosophers (though I recall reading it in a Best-Of anthology during a particularly solitary summer vacation many years ago.)

The catchy title is a clue: The story is not superbly crafted, expertly worded, or sublimely meaningful. It’s just deliciously entertaining and one of my favorite short stories of all time.

Fitzgerald’s enduring power comes from his talent for rendering characters that transcend his Roaring Twenties milieu. In “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” awkward Bernice and her mean-girl cousin Marjorie are timeless teenagers, instantly recognizable in their preoccupations with dancing, boys, hairstyles, and conniving vengeance.

So, if you’re in the mood for some light literature, or if you want to prepare for the next resurgence of Flapper fashion, I recommend “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”, which can be read online here.

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By Meredith – September 10, 2007

The Gridiron’s Hot…

The New England Patriots crashed the New York Jets 38-14 this afternoon at the Meadowlands. As you can imagine, my head almost exploded in jubilation at seeing preppy Chad Pennington vanquished on the field with an injured ankle. Poor, poor Chadwick.

It was the season opener for the Patriots as well as my television, which has sat dormant for the past 6 months except for some tennis matches and the occasional episode of Absolutely Fabulous (“My name is Patsy Stone, and I’m wearing thick pants.”)

Oh, Television, I profess to loath you and want you smashed, but you’re not that bad. It’s those beastly tagalongs, those commercials that I find morally noisome. Those blaring nuggets of pop culture that appeal to our most primitive instincts: Sex, status, high-caloric energy intake, inebriation, and hilarity over things like Oreo dessert pizza mustaches.

Yes, Oreo dessert pizza mustaches, the “hook” of a Dominos Pizza commercial that initially caught my attention because one of the characters is named Meredith. Which is grosser: The commercial, which features two characters (not Meredith) with mustaches of Oreo cookies… or the product itself, which is essentially chopped Oreos sealed onto a pizza crust by high fructose corn syrup? I’m glad someone found a way to restore Oreos to their demonic nutritional values since Nabisco scrubbed them of trans fats. And coming after a meal of sausage and pepperoni-packed pizza that you are encouraged to dip into sauce! I can actually hear America’s blood sugar spiking underneath all the uproarious laughter over the Oreo dessert pizza mustache.

See what I mean? Commercials are so distracting. Back to the football: Tom Brady is still my foxy Lord of the Pigskin. Randy Moss is a preternatural talent. Ellis Hobbs set a NFL record with a 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. And Coach Belichick got a new sweatshirt. The Patriots are so in the Super Bowl this year.

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By Meredith – September 9, 2007

Have a Mall: The Natick Collection

After many months of anticipation, yesterday was the grand opening of (drumroll) the Natick Collection!

The Natick Collection is a grouping of upscale stores within a large indoor building that has walkways to enable shoppers to move from one store to another. In other, less-opulent words, the Natick Collection is… a mall.

In fact, it used to be called the Natick Mall. But the soon-to-be 12th largest indoor amassing of fabulous exquisite chain stores like Burberry, Coach, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Juicy Couture, Tiffany, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus can’t be called a mall, lest it be confused with a wasteland of Old Navy, Gap, and Cinnabon.

As one who watches the increasing luxurification of America with dismay, the couture clothes and high-end merchandise that are for sale down my suburban street is alarming. And as a current Natick resident fed up living with the construction eyesores and traffic snares, I can’t help but to use the sneering nickname that the locals have given it: the Natick Erection.

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By Meredith – September 8, 2007

Tales from the Rails

The Friday evening express is running 15 minutes late, and is stopped on a bridge hovering over Route 128, where we can watch automobiles speeding under us on wide-open highway. It is 90 degrees and the air-conditioner doesn’t work. It is rush hour but the train is a single-decker. Sweaty passengers throng the aisles. A child’s voice occasionally rears up in a scream. Every two minutes, the conductor comes on the loudspeaker and apologizes: “We will be moving momentarily.”

A man is on his cell phone with an aggrieved loved one: “We’re running late… I don’t know, the train’s not moving… Like I can do something about it… Ok, sure, I’ll just get out and push the train to Worcester.” Nobody within earshot of his nastiness can blame him. Indeed, we are sympathetic.

It’s one of those homebound commutes that provokes all sorts of longings. For a glass of ice water. For a solitary patch of grass on a breezy hill under a blue sky. For a hulking SUV with all the leisurely creature comforts to make a traffic jam a desirable break. For gainful employment opportunities across the street from my home. For a book, a bed, and a beer. For the head of MBTA General Manager Daniel Grabauskas on a platter of ice cream.

People are fidgeting, bristling, sweating, sighing. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. Then, the train moves. Relief. Joy. We are moving. We are moving. The man next to me starts to whistle. Holy christ, he’s whistling “I Dream of Jeannie.” Damn that tune is catchy. We are moving. We are moving.

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By Meredith – September 7, 2007

Freakin’ Kate Couric

Katie Couric’s one-year anniversary as the first female news anchor of any network weekday evening news show is approaching. Based on weak ratings and tepid reviews, the media is roundly declaring her tenure thus far a failure. Is it because she’s a woman held to a double standard by a society conditioned to equate hard news with a man’s voice? Or is it because she’s giggly?

Couric is currently on a heavily-publicized trip in Iraq, a war-torn country that is due for a surge of Couric effervescene. Her CBS-sanctioned blog oscillates between boring descriptive reporting and yellow-ribboned gushing: “All U.S. and Iraqi soldiers patrolling the streets have my renewed respect and appreciation. One-hundred-and-ten degrees with full-body armor and heavy uniforms. I don’t know how they do it. But they do, and we should be grateful.” (I really doubt that the troops need little convincing to wear the body armor.)

While at the Al Asad Air Base, Couric nabbed a one-on-one interview with Prez’ Bush, who just happened to be in the neighborhood. As the NYT points out, “The Bush administration clearly hopes that CBS’s in-depth coverage will lend credence to its claim of progress on the ground since Mr. Bush announced a troop increase in January“. Still, Couric isn’t completely playing along. She offers reports of “signs of life that seem to be normal,” but adds “That’s what the military wants me to see, so you have to keep that in mind as well.”

Bush obviously relished being interviewed by gentle, pliable, curious Katie, up until the last moments when they discussed General Petraeus’s impending progress report to Congress:

Couric: And if Congress isn’t receptive to General Petraeus’s message….
Bush: What do you mean if Congress, are you…
Couric: I don’t know….
Bush: Well I don’t know either.
Couric: But… What are your options?
Bush: I would hope that Congress would pay attention to what General Petraeus has to say.

Sigh. Yeah, I don’t know what she’s doing there. Who made her the CBS news anchor? I don’t know what Bush is doing there. Who made him President? Frankly, the whole scene is a bit surreal.

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By Meredith – September 6, 2007