I’ve been hiding so much that the only way I could sort it out was with a list; a list of things I thought were too awful to write. Read more
Let’s time travel back to the pre-Internet days of 1975. Long-distance phone calls were $1 per minute, so people received most of their communications via US mail, and Christmas cards were so important that the average number of families on a list was 300. That year, two sociology professors from Brigham Young University sent 600 Christmas cards to random families and then monitored how many cards were sent back in return.
Approximately 20% of the recipients took the time to find a card, write a message and send it back to the experimenters. That is an astounding number of people who felt obliged to reply. To give you context, today’s digital marketers are thrilled with a 1% response rate.
The experiment studied the rule of reciprocity – the strong social pressure to return favors. In the context of women, of course, because women send the Christmas cards. The rule of reciprocity has persisted throughout human history because it has survival value for the human species. Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey said the essence of what makes us human is this system of reciprocity.
At the core of autism is a lack of social reciprocity. Autistic babies don’t reciprocate a parent’s smile. Autistic adults don’t reciprocate a friend’s Christmas card. Of course there are exceptions. Jewish people don’t send Christmas cards. People who don’t have enough money for food don’t send Christmas cards. But even those people reciprocate intuitively. Psychologist Amy Pearsons’s research shows that women with autism work hard to look normal, and they mimic the acts of reciprocity they see neurotypical women doing. Women with autism can pass for normal, but it exhausts them because passing involves constantly monitoring what is expected.
My son supposedly writes a story every day. We didn’t start this way. We started when he was supposed to write essays to practice for the European AP history test and instead, he wrote essays about how the topic is inherently racist and imperialist and we probably need another French Revolution. Read more
The number of high school seniors applying to MIT this year is 60% above last year. That means there are 12,000 more applicants. Harvard’s applications are up 30%. Duke is up 20%. Most Ivy League schools are up 20% at least. Read more
Our dog died. Well, we put him down. Put him to sleep is what the vet in Boston said. Maybe “to put down” is only for a goat or a pig. I’m not sure.
We knew Sparky would die soon because the vet wouldn’t operate on his cancer. His heart wasn’t good enough. He seemed so healthy so I told myself I’d get a second opinion. But he got unhealthy so fast. So I just thought I’d go back to the vet to see if he’s in pain. Then he bit the cancer spot and there was blood everywhere. Then I stayed up with him for two days. Holding him so he wouldn’t bite the spot more. I took him outside. I gave him water. Sometimes the boys pet him, when they weren’t grossed out. Then Sparky started snapping at us. Growling. It was clear he was in a lot of pain. Read more
Nino, my still-an-ex husband, got out of his really-just-a-mattress-on-the-floor bed for the first time two days ago, so that he could go get a test for Covid.
I thought my son would have the scoop on how to get a Covid test because he volunteers at a very busy needle exchange five blocks from our apartment. Read more
I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. Each year I write a post on 9/11. Here is the archive. Here is my post for today:
When Nino came back to live with us he came back in stages. We had been spending a few weekends together for a long time, but we hadn’t lived together in twelve years.
At dinnertime, we talk about when CD-ROMs were invented and there was no content to put on them. The kids ask us to tell the how-we-met story again. Read more
Over the past twenty years of writing this blog, many posts have been controversial. A controversial post begins with some people attacking my position and some people defending my position, then people debate each others’ opinions. My last post was not controversial. It was just bad. I knew it was really bad when the most mainstream readers and the most radical readers were both telling me the post was not making sense. No one was agreeing with my position.
Many times you ask me how I cope with haters—people who tell me I’m an idiot or wish I were dead. Actually, those are really easy comments to deal with because those comments don’t make me reconsider that I might be completely wrong in my thinking. Well-reasoned comments from thoughtful writers make me think deeply about myself. Those are the difficult comments to cope with. And I’ve read about 250 of those comments this week.
I kept trying to figure out why I would write a post about a topic I didn’t know enough about. I didn’t say anything new. Why did I do that? I think I wished that I knew more than I did. I guess I tricked myself so well that I thought I could trick you.
I hate writing that, so I will have to change topics.
I work a plot at the community garden. It’s two blocks from my apartment but it’s like a century away from my blog: almost everyone there grew up farming in the South and has been growing vegetables in this community garden for the last 40 years. I take care of a garden plot when someone is sick or busy. And I listen during breaks when people sit in the shade talking. They’ve known each other for so long.
At night everyone takes vegetables home. I stop and buy sugar. We haven’t had sugar in the house for three months. I bought a box of sugar and used it all up this week. I put it on everything. Because it’s hard to be wrong. It’s hard to be wrong and have people work so hard in such genuine ways to explain to me why I’m wrong. What helps is telling you what I learned from all of your comments. Here’s what I learned:
- A vote for Biden is a vote for an administration not for just a person.
- Black people don’t need me to protect them by complaining about Biden.
- I don’t understand enough about socialism to forfeit my vote in the name of socialism.
- I can hate Biden and still vote for him.
- I can understand that our democracy is near a breaking point and still participate in it to try to save it.
Being a good writer is being honest, constantly, about what we know. And then checking again. To make sure. What I know is that I’m trying really hard to be part of this community garden and I’m gentrifying it and I don’t want you to see that. And I love the people in it so much and instead of just being with them and loving them I have this urge to write an academic paper or something because they are history. I want to tell you about each of the people I love but I worry writing about them on this blog will turn them to stone.
I want to do good. I thought I was doing good by telling you that voting for Biden is scummy. But one of the most popular topics at the garden is how important it is to vote. The community at the garden is vibrant. They are activists. They talk about getting relatives in other states to vote. I am ashamed that I told people not to vote. The truth is that my blog community and my garden community are aligned and they are not two blocks away or a century away. My blog community and my garden community are both in my heart, and I have to keep them there by writing honestly and being open and not being a poser and a jerk. That is hard for me. Thank you for helping me by taking the time to tell me when I’m wrong.
Addendum: After reading 250 of your comments in response to this post (below), I have had a change of heart. I still hate Biden. But I think I also hate this post. So I’ve written a new post, over here.
The Democratic Party’s strategy is Trump is so bad that the DNC can win with anyone. That’s why the DNC didn’t care when Hilary didn’t bother campaigning in Michigan or Wisconsin. That’s why the DNC doesn’t care that younger democrats hate Biden. The DNC is a club that meets to protect their own power. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes reminds us of that all the time.
The DNC wants you to believe you are a virtuous person for voting for Biden because even if he’s not perfect you have to get Trump out of office. I think Biden is not nearly enough of an improvement to vote for him. And I think you throw away your vote if you let someone tell you the anyone-but-Trump rule means you vote for whatever is in front of you. That’s not choice.
Here’s why I’d never vote for Biden:
1. Biden has always been the conservative wing of the democrats. He has always been part of the conservative guard. It’s why Obama chose him as a running mate. It’s hard for racist white people to look at a Black candidate –– Obama picked him to counterbalance Obama’s Blackness. Biden as a VP made the ticket look ok. After all, what other Democrat was still in Congress in the 90s who had a track record for opposing busing?
2. Biden is the anti-#metoo candidate. He was the centerpiece of the congressional attack on Anita Hill. And he has been unable to apologize for his universally panned behavior. More recently he is accused of rape and he has been pictured violating the personal space of many women. While the #metoo movement has forced men to stop pushing aside these accusations, Democrats tell us that it’s so important to get Trump out of office that we have to push aside the accusations against Biden. If Trump is that bad, then the DNC surely could find a candidate who wouldn’t require us to brush aside rape accusations in order to vote for the candidate.
3. Biden is the anti-Black Lives Matter candidate. He is a moderate who was lifted up from his racist past by a black man. Biden did not get more liberal. He’s the same guy. Electing him is shifting the party to the right. At a time when the party is visibly shifting to the left. Additionally, Biden picked Kamala Harris without regard to the fact that Black people don’t trust her.
Tirkhakah writes, “The party’s leadership tells us to hold our noses and vote — a hollow, greater-good argument which is exactly why Black men don’t head to the polls.”
4. Biden wants things to stay the same. That’s why he picked Kamala Harris. She has an absolutely terrible record on criminal justice reform that in similar to Biden and Trump — those masters of refusing to apologize — she has refused to apologize for her bafflingly terrible record. So of course Biden hopes she will appeal to some Trump voters. Ironically, Obama picking Biden to appeal to racist voters is like Biden picking Harris to appeal to the Trump voters.
5. Biden and the DNC assume we’re trapped. The DNC thinks we hate Trump so much that we will support an unpopular, neo-liberal candidate with a history of very public racism and sexism. Biden hears goodwill toward Obama and he mistakes it for himself. I hate Biden so much because he’s been taking swipes at women and Black people for as long as I’ve been following politics. And I’m completely insulted that the Democratic Party thinks I believe Biden is an improvement over Trump.
We are not trapped. But we have to act like we have power. Our vote counts when we refuse to vote for Biden. We can refuse to support neo-liberalism because it could destroy our lives, our communities, and our earth.
Addendum: After reading 250 of your comments (below), I have had a change of heart. I still hate Biden. But I think I also hate this post. So I’ve written a new post, over here.
I am in between one son practicing his cello and one son writing his college essays. After ten years of homeschooling while being the breadwinner, my parent intuition tells me one kid is only going through the motions. Read more