your whining oppresses me.

A woman I know recently told me that she thinks, if she were a man, she would have a more prestigious job. She didn’t mean that as a man she would able to get a more powerful job, but that she would simply want one more. She thinks that men are under more pressure to be successful – to wear suits and make money and have blackberries – and are therefore more likely to succeed. Women, she thinks, are taught to focus more on their looks, and finding a husband. That’s why they aren’t as ambitious.

This idea reminds me of high school, where all of the incredibly lazy potheads were consistently described as “actually, really, really smart.” Were they, really? Did they really get rejected from Georgetown only because they refused to “play the game”? Or could it be true that not going to class and not doing any work is actually an indication of intelligence and ability to succeed in college? I was always bitter (and can you tell?) that the rest of us, who were both smart and hard-working, often got less recognition from our teachers and our peers.

Life is just so much more interesting when something is oppressing you, isn’t it? Either you are complacent at work because society never pushed you to succeed, or you end up failing P.E. in your senior year of high school because, it’s like, waaaay too stifling to conform to the fascist constraints of a high school gym class. Please. You failed P.E. because smoking pot in the woods behind school was more fun than playing badminton, and you didn’t get promoted at your job because all you do at work is update your blog. Just admit it.

Society did not program you to be less ambitious, or less successful, than your brother or your boyfriend. “The man” did not prevent you from attending Princeton. Jews do not actually control the government and media. George Bush and Dick Cheney did not kill your dog. That is not to say that shit doesn’t happen. Bad things happen to people who deserve better, and some of those problems are products of our government, our society, etc. I'm all for changing things that aren't fair. But, as a recent article in Slate put it: “No one in America can corner the market on suffering. Who the hell wants to spend their life in a corner, anyhow?”

The only answer I can come up with is: most people. Corners can be quite snuggly.

life is hard, #11

My apartment has been without hot water for two days.

I just took a shower using two pots of hot water and a cup.

This does not make me happy.

nowheresville, pa.

So, yesterday was Easter, in case anyone missed it. Family tradition states that if I'm somewhere between DC and Boston, I go to my Grandmother’s house for Easter. She lives about 20 minutes south of Philadelphia, so we usually drive for about two hours and then sit around her living room and listen to my Aunt and Uncle and cousins gossip while drinking large quantities of tea. At some point everyone goes to Church, while my Dad and I stay behind and read the newspaper.

This year was blissfully unlike the others. Instead of going to Nowheresville, PA, we managed to convince my Grandmother to come into Philadelphia for Easter. So instead of reading the Sunday Styles section while others went to Church, my Dad and I got to take a tour.

Despite having been born in Philadelphia, I have never really been to Philadelphia. At least not that I remember; I moved to Brooklyn when I was one and a half, and since then I’ve only really come back to the area to drink tea. I’ve decided, though, after reading Confederates in the Attic, that my American History Self-Improvement Project should have a travel component. Tony Horwitz spent months sleeping in muddy Civil War battlefields, getting beaten up in back country bars, and visiting the last confederate widow in Opp, Alabama (among other things). I am not cool enough to do all that, and I don’t have a publisher willing to pay for gas, but I can try my best.

In any case, I spent my Easter Sunday at Independence Hall. For those of you watching the John Adams mini-series on HBO, you’ll be happy to know it looks exactly the same in person, though maybe not exactly the same as it did in 1776. The tour was actually good, too. At least, unlike HBO, the tour guide had the sense to mention Thomas Paine.

I also got to see the site of Ben Franklin's privy! History is thrilling, isn't it?