God Gave Us Advil Cold & Sinus Because He Loves Us.

Sure, there's that business about "his only begotten Son," but he really showed he loved us by giving us almost instantaneous relief from severe sinus congestion. If you don't believe in God, you've never had a sinus infection relieved by the miracle of pseudoephedrine and whatever-the-hell-else is in that stuff.

Why can't people do things exactly the way I like?

Example:
Good: My mom took Madeline to sit for a portrait for holiday cards. Bad: she dressed her like a girl who might work for the telephone company or do lumberjacking, with hair brushed forward like Little Dutch Boy.

In Search of Things Past

No one I know particularly enjoys using public restrooms. Everything about it is distasteful: waiting for your turn, for example, broadcasts to the world that you have to use the toilet. Sometimes you're just waiting to spot-clean the coffee stain from your shirt, but it doesn't matter. People still look at you knowingly. Add to this unpleasantness the adjunct activity of exiting the restroom and meeting - or, in my case, avoiding - the gaze of the person next in line. This is why I tend to limit my visits to these facilities to two minutes or less. If the patron outside is already feeling self-conscious or annoyed, my taking forever will only increase her irritation and make the inevitable walk-by awkward. I like to think that I am a pretty considerate person in this respect. My feeling is that, if you have to attend to something that requires more than five minutes in a public lavatory, you're better off just going home, and I am diligent in applying this standard to myself. But today I was reminded that many people are quite unbothered by the bathroom visit, to the extent that they lounge around inside as if they were preparing a decadent Saturday night bubble bath. I waited so long today that I expected the woman to emerge in a negligee holding a pair of champagne flutes. When she finally did reappear, I couldn't help but notice that she was not wearing a negligee and didn't look refreshed; instead, she scurried past me and shinnied up against the wall, her eyes averted and her face a mask of terror and shame. I stepped into the restroom and discovered the reason for her furtive escape. The air was heavy with stench, and I think the temperature in the tiny room was ten degrees hotter than outside in the hallway. I tend to avoid inhalation in every public restroom, but the miasma was so pernicious that even the cessation of breathing couldn't mask it. My instinct was to flee, but I'd drunk too much coffee, and so resigned myself to a minute of torture. I became consumed with the desire to run out into the busy coffee shop to find that woman, put my finger in her face and, in my best Marat impression, shout, "J'accuse!" Really, I wanted to go right up and ask her what the matter was with her, who did she think she was, and explain the proper etiquette. Once I was out of the bathroom, I avoided scanning the room so that I could look pointedly in her direction, which was all I'd be able to muster. And anyway, I forgot about the whole thing pretty quickly. But still. I mean, come on.

DailyFail

Last evening, I was dining out with my family at a local all-you-can eat buffet (one might consider this to be its own kind of failure). As we enjoyed our dinner, I let slip a spoonful of mashed potato down my shirt.

The appropriate thing to do would have been to excuse myself and retrieve the errant food in the privacy of a bathroom stall. Instead, I thought that I could reach down my shirt and grab the potato in a way that would escape the notice of 30 or so other diners. Perhaps if I had dropped a carrot or a french fry down there, I could have pulled this off. But mashed potato is a tricky customer, refusing to remain in a tidy mound; I ended up smearing most of it around my sternum and inside placket of my shirt, while a few knavish bits settled into other areas.
And, of course, it was a family of four with two young children who passed my table at the time. The smaller boy looked to his mother in confusion, simply pointing and asking, "What's that lady doing?"

Counter-Reproduction

As I was poking about on a social networking site the other day, I came across the profile of an acquaintance whose status breathlessly announced, "I'm so excited!!! I am two weeks pregnant!!!" Beside her exclamation was a photo , taken at what looked to be arm's length, of her stomach. It took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at, because I thought at first that she had taken a picture of wallpaper.

I don't usually react with cynicism to these kinds of announcements, but the up-close belly pic irked me. First of all, I could detect no discernible difference in the photo between her abdomen in the picture and what it looked like in the image taken three weeks earlier. Maybe it's just my monitor. I was likewise bothered by the feeling of obligation that the announcement demanded: "Be equally thrilled for me!"

It is exciting that this person is welcoming a second child into the family, I suppose. Parenthood is good - I happen to be a parent. But it is also a personal joy, one that I am glad to hear of, but perhaps without the intimate detail. During her pregnancy, another acquaintance was apt to posting her sonogram photos on her page, from nascent cannelini bean-stage through the last trimester. What ever happened to pleasant profile shots of family pets or, even better, the profile owner's face?

I daresay that the general public will soon be privvy to photos of this girl in the hospital waiting to be be admitted, and probably some in the delivery room during the birth. In fact, she intimated that these scenes are treats we can perhaps look forward to. For myself, I prefer to see the resulting child, rather than to witness something that my cat can accomplish quietly in just under twenty minutes behind the television set.

How to Be a Failure, Part I

People want to believe that the word "failure" carries with it a certain foreboding, a final pronouncement of hopelessness. In fact, it takes a special kind of person to welcome failure; in order to be okay with the idea, one need only envision the possibilities that open up when things don't work out. With a little bit of effort, any of us can become comfortable with the idea of failing, or of being called a Failure.

Consider for a moment a few of the great failures of history. Who comes to mind? Here's a little list that I came up with in the fifteen seconds that I devoted to the question:

• Gen. George Armstrong Custer
• Benedict Arnold
• Ferdinand Von Zeppelin
• John DeLorean
• Napoleon Bonaparte

See? What do all of these men have in common? You might say that they were all delusional, maybe even insane. But the other quality they share is their fame! These men are all famous for failing at the endeavors to which they devoted their lives. Perhaps you feel that this kind of large-scale failure is beyond the grasp of the average person, and you may be right. What we can learn, however, is how to embrace failure gracefully and fearlessly. In the posts that follow, I hope to provide some guidance into such quagmires as: how to respond when others accuse you of failure; dealing with public humiliation; finding ways to exploit your own failure.

Success is easy. Failure is hard. And what do we learn from success? I wouldn't know, but probably not very much.

On Relaxation

A student told me today, "Whatever it is you do to relax, Mrs. Anderson, please do it." I gave a flip response, but his comment has been bugging me. I just finished watching The Devil Wears Prada, a film I've resisted watching because, frankly, I've lived it. I used to live a life that lent itself to relaxation: go to a coffee shop, read the NYT Magazine, then cocktails, then dinner at the "now" NYC or SF spot, then more cocktails and pithy exchanges... Those days are gone, and I can't decide whether or not I miss them. I made a conscious choice to give them up in favor of the life that I have now - a life with meaning, no doubt - but there are some evenings, after a glass of wine and the announcement of a former Columbia floormate having won the Booker prize or the Pulitzer, that I wonder what meaning is really most significant?

Hatin' on Orphans

You think you're better than me.