A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep

I don't expect any member of the working poor to cry for me. I'm a white collar worker with a job that pays better than minimum wage, with a reliable schedule, with paid sick leave and vacation, with the ability to leave early for school conferences when necessary, with a job that isn't physically demanding and still leaves me some number of evenings and weekends to run a microbusiness. I have parents and family members who can (and do) help me instead of the other way around . In comparison to the millions of people in this country who are being crushed by our Dickensian society, I'm lucky. I'm trying to temper my self-pity today by reminding myself of that. But then I think: that says more about the current state of society than about my sense of claustrophobia.   ++++ I haven't grown up. I don't mean that as some kind of humble brag, the way people do. I mean I feel the deep and burning resentment of youth at not having three months of summer vaca

As those of you who had to listen to me crying at my desk every day for six months know, 2013 was not a banner year for me, mental health-wise. So in 2014 I was prescribed anti-anxiety medication -- or as Siri just transcribed it, "anti-exciting medication," which is appropriate since it made me less excitable (volatile). It was life-changing. I could function again, I could think rationally (and empathetically) again, I was happy. The only downside is that I gained 30 poun ds in nine months. Having been both skinny/sad and fat/happy, I can say definitively that I would rather be fat/happy. (Also, one of the anxieties that anti-anxiety medication alleviates, I've discovered, is anxiety about being fat.) But when the psych suggested that I might not be anxious, just crazy, she switched me to a different medication that did not have the weight-gain side effect. The jury's still out on how well this new drug is working (I might be both anxious AND crazy, after al

I don't know what Barack Obama or Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi are going to do. They've surprised me time and again—for better and worse. But John Boehner? I'm the Michael Jordan and Yo-Yo Ma and Bill Gates of Boehner predictions. If there was a Nobel Prize for Boehner prediction, I'd win it. If there were championship rings for Boehner prediction, I'd have ten. So it's interesting to see Dan Pfeiffer commenting publicly on what I told my boss for years: I’ve always believed that the fundamental, driving strategic ethos of the Republican House leadership has been, What do we do to get through the next caucus or conference without getting yelled at? We should never assume they have a long game. We used to spend a lot of time thinking that maybe Boehner is saying this to get himself some more room. And it’s like, no, that’s not actually the case. Usually he’s just saying it because he just said it or it’s the easiest thing to solve his immediate prob