Category: Columns

Sex, politics, fashion and everything else a Gen-X everygal loves to dish about.

Women Can’t Be Funny (Seriously)

Published on July 9, 2019

Study Shows Women Using Humor at Work Seen as ‘Disruptive’

More women are running for president right now than ever before in history. Harris, Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Gabbard, and even Marianne “I’m here for my own amusement” Williamson are keeping their male counterparts on the run, and I hope they’ll keep it up. They should be bold, speaking out whether they’re invited to or not. They should be fearless, calling out opponents on their hypocrisies.

But according to a recent study, there’s one thing they should not do: crack a joke.

While using humor in the workplace is likely to benefit men by boosting their professional status, a University of Arizona study has shown that it has the opposite effect on women. In fact, female humor — at least on first impression — was generally perceived as “disruptive” while male humor was seen as “functional.”

Ain’t that a laugh and a half.

Is GPS Rotting Our Brains?

Published on June 25, 2019

There’s a maxim I like: All technology invented before you’re 35 is genius and makes life worth living — and all technology invented thereafter is stupid and guaranteed to rot the brains of the bozos who rely on it. Now a study shows that when it comes to GPS, at least, the adage may be true.

Thanks to way-finding apps like Google Maps and Waze, paper maps have gone the way of the Dewey Decimal System, Wite-Out, and mixtapes — and it’s been a decade since anyone’s said, “If you pass the green fence, you’ve gone too far.” We count on our GPS-linked phones to tell us not only how to get where we’re going, but when to leave, which lane to be in, and what obstructions await us ahead. It’s mad handy, y’all. But what do we trade for this convenience?

A recent letter in the Washington Post by tech journalist M.R. O’Connor argues that relying solely on GPS to help you traverse your environs may actually shrink your hippocampus — the area of the brain responsible not just for spatial navigation but also for recalling the past and even imagining the future. Atrophy of the hippocampus is associated with Alzheimer’s disease, she points out, and the art of getting lost — and of getting oneself unlost — well, it’s lost.

Escape-Room Escapades

Published on June 11, 2019

Parents Prove Useless in Puzzling Through Real-Life Adventure Game

We’re almost out of time — but I think we’re gonna make it. We’ve got five minutes left to unlock the chest that holds the ingredients to the potion that will defeat the Dark Wizard.

And then maybe grab some Yogurtland on the way home.

My husband, our sons, and I are in an escape room, and the clock is ticking. There are thousands of these adventure games all over the world now: a room or series of rooms intricately appointed with inconspicuous clues and puzzles, each one leading to another. You must solve them all within one hour to accomplish the goal: “Lift the curse!” “Steal the jewels!” “Defuse the bomb!” Each room has a unique story and aesthetic, from pirate’s treasure to haunted house.

My family loves the things; we’ve done a dozen between us. The riddles are challenging, the time element exhilarating. And when our clear-headed, collaborative solutions cause a black light to click on, a hatch to spring open, or a secret code to be revealed, it’s immensely satisfying. In a world of fragmented attention, how could you not love immersive entertainment that demands your full focus and your best self? “It’s like virtual reality,” says my 13-year-old without irony, “but without the virtual.”

Dog People Are Happier Than Cat People

Published on May 28, 2019

Study Settles One Part of Age-Old Debate

You may not like it. Heck, you may not even contribute to it. But in today’s America, you simply can’t escape it: Most of our citizens shake out into two diametrically opposed camps and seem to be constantly squaring off — often neighbor against neighbor, even — squabbling through the same old debate with clenched fists, raised voices and closed minds, dismissing one another’s points of view as so much flapjaw hogwash.

I’m referring, of course, to our nation’s flawed but abiding two-pet system — and I ain’t talking donkeys and elephants.

For perhaps centuries, animal lovers have fought like cats and dogs over which is the better pet: the domesticated hound or the common housecat. Now, at long last (it’s been, like, millennia in dog years), a study finally settles one aspect of the quarrel: Dog owners are just happier than cat owners.

Uber for Junior?

Published on April 30, 2019

Ride-Hailing Companies Recognize Parents’ Need for Kid-Hauling Help

Here’s a little secret no one tells you about raising children but so help me it’s true: The job is 23 percent parenting and 77 percent schlepping.

From lugging the buggers around in utero to hauling them here and there in Bjorns, slings, wraps, bassinets, and strollers-that-ought-to-have-turn-signals to driving them back and forth to playdates, school, lessons, sporting events, camps, medical appointments, and emergency trips to In-N-Out Burger — being a modern mom or dad is less about shepherding your kids toward adulthood than shuttling them to activities.

Sure, the most terrifying automobile ride you’ll ever take is the one home from the hospital with your firstborn child. It seems the entire world outside of your vehicle is both designed and determined to wreak calamity on the fragile human you’ve just labored to create.

New Target Doesn’t Hit the Bull’s Eye

Published on April 15, 2019

But It Scratches an Itch I’ve Been Trying to Reach for 17 Years

At this point, it would be hard to calculate which is greater: the number of words I’ve written about Target over the years, the number of purchases I’ve made at Target, or the number of hours I’ve spent pining for a Target right here in my hometown.

I’ve hosted a Target haiku contest and investigated the freaky phenomenon that compels some shoppers to relieve themselves in Target loos. But it all started 17 years ago when I wrote a column professing the unwholesome addiction my friends and I have to the retailer.

“Under the guise of hunting for Midol and a greeting card, we have been known to absent-mindedly knock toile throw pillows, sleek travel mugs, chunky-heeled boots, ceramic dog bowls, quick-dry nail polish, and purse-sized cartons of goldfish crackers into our carts—and then double back around to have another go,” I confessed. “Some of us are wearing three Target items as you read this.”

Are You a Lawnmower Parent?

Published on April 2, 2019

College Admissions Scandal Reveals Dangers of Clearing Smooth Path for Kids

You’re really not a parent of import anymore unless you’ve nabbed yourself a slick motor-vehicle label. First there were Helicopter Parents, hovering figuratively over their poor children’s heads, overseeing every miserable aspect of their orchestrated lives. I never fretted much over this classification, as it doesn’t apply to me; I lack the energy to be that controlling.

But the latest sobriquet intended to shame inept moms and dads hits a little closer to home. Like the front yard.

Have you heard of Lawnmower Parents? Known in chillier climes as Snowplow Parents and in less subtle neighborhoods as Bulldozer Parents, these are the well-meaning but misguided folks who continually clear a smooth path for their children, preempting any potential embarrassments, challenges and discomforts, and removing any obstacles that might impede Junior’s success. (Some call them Curling Parents, after the Olympic sport that involves shoving a toddler, sorry, a heavy stone toward a goal while someone sweeps the ice in front of it to decrease friction.)

Diving into Cuddle Parties

Published on November 27, 2018

Is Growing Trend Truly Soothing Comfort or Just Sanctioned Groping?

Apocalyptic fires. Mass shootings. An executive branch of government demonizing immigrants, sexual assault victims, and the press. Lately it feels like our nation gets scarier by the week.

So I wasn’t surprised to learn there’s a cuddling trend sweeping the nation; sometimes jammying up, burrowing into a blankie, and going full-frickin’-fetal is the only way to cope with reality. But some folks aren’t just curling up on the couch — they’re snuggling up to strangers at Cuddle Parties. And they’re paying for it.

Told you. Scarier, right?

Bliss by Pavement Pounding

Published on November 14, 2018

For two years, I’ve been suffering from a strange, specific feeling: I’m in a hole in the ground and steamy manure is being shoveled on top of me as I lie there holding my breath.

I’d been counting on the midterm elections to offer sweet relief from this slow-death-by-dung sensation. But donating $10 to distant campaigns and sharing social media posts about voter rights weren’t helping me shake that feeling of being powerless over my own fate — of having to shut my eyes tight and just … acclimate to the aroma of excrement.

So when a friend asked if I would canvass door-to-door for a Democratic candidate in a tight congressional race two days before the election, I jumped at the chance to do something that might actually have an impact. I’ve never canvassed before, and in fact I loathe anyone coming to my door uninvited. But if I’ve learned anything since Election Day 2016, it’s that democracy is a full-contact sport. So I suited up in sunscreen and sneakers and got out the gosh-dang vote.

Camping Sucks; There, I Said It

Published on August 22, 2018

Done Apologizing for Detesting the Great Outdoors

I’m sitting 5,400 feet high in the Sierra Nevada mountains at the edge of a glassy lake that’s rimmed with fluffy pines pointing emphatically at the sky. I’m keenly aware that I’m supposed to feel blissish and perspectivey. But my legs brandish 13 bug bites of various dimensions and shades, there is dirt in my nostrils, and I’m dreading another torturous night on a foam pad punctuated by the random swish-swish of my son flopping around in his nylon sleeping bag.

I loathe camping, and I’m sorry about that. I really am. I’m comfy admitting that I hate other things I’m supposed to like: Green drinks. Michael Moore. Black Mirror. When you say you detest camping, though, people look at you like you’re broken, like you’re missing a crucial piece (the way your tent always is).