Giant Iceballs of Wisdom

I am feeling like I need more than one blog. I have such wonderful Pearls of Wisdom^TM to share with you, yet I don't want you, My Public, My People, to get burned out with my excessive posting.

Oh well, screw it. I can't help myself. If this compulsion replaces my Shoveling Food in My Mouth compulsion, it's a win-win for me.

FIRST UP - let me offer my most hearty congratulations to Tony Sossong, a friend who just got accepted into medical school. Go check out his website. He is cute, smart, talented - listen to his opera clips, check out his clever site design (he did it himself) - and nice, nice, nice. A good cook to boot. I hate to tell you, ladies, the lovely Sarah has already snagged him.

I wish him much success. Would I trust him operating on me? Get out the scalpel. He doesn't even have to finish med school.

Second - WHAT IS GOING ON WITH all these California iceballs??

Tell me, please - do I need to wear a helmet when I go outside? It may seem silly to you, but just wait until a giant ice ball traveling 90 mph lands on YOUR tennis court. You'll be heading down to the bike shop, too.

There's even a technical term: "Megacryometeors!" What is going on? Some say that it is global warming...but duh, these are ICE BALLS. I don't understand. But I guess no one else does, either.

THEN we get to the meat of my post. Or should I say the crap? You decide:

As much as I hate to give this book more publicity, I just can't stop myself...here goes.

The publication of "To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife" just proves that you can get still get about any feminist-bashing book published in the U.S., even if the writer is patently unqualified to write on the subject at hand.

Caitlin Flanagan, a mother of twins, is as unqualified to write a book on stay-at-home motherhood as I am ( and I have zero children, one fabulous dog).

Her premise is that, if all you uppity womens out there would just quit your jobs and attend to your husbands, you, too, could be sexy and have a lovely home and spend time with your children.

There's only one gaping crater in this theory.

You see, Mrs. Flanagan, who is so eager to dish parenting and housewifely advice to you poor, unwashed masses (in the New Yorker fergodssake), has both a full-time nanny AND a maid.

Ah, ladies, you are so foolish. You thought you needed feminism to make you happy. What you actually need is to abandon feminism...and to get some good domestic help.

Pardon me while I toss her book on the floor and stomp all over it.

I have neither a house, nor am I a wife. Why am I so pissed off when I don't have a dog in this fight?

Because (you have to read that because with the tone of a patient four-year-old explaining something) because this book is just another example of how we as women are taught that everything we attempt to do is wrong. Of why we should feel guilty and bad and stupid about our lives.

If we have children early we are neglecting our own education and development. If we have them late our eggs are getting stale and we are risking infertility or birth defects. If we don't have kids at all, there is something terribly wrong with us.

If we are working mothers, we are selfish and cruel. If we are stay-at-home moms, we are missing out or can't hack it.

And then we are supposed to be at war with each other over these differences.

I want to plug my ears and say "lay-der lay-der lay-der" (my childish noise-blocking noise) and then scream "SHUUUUUT UUUUUUUP!!!!!!" (Exclamation point, exclamation point).

For the record: if you are making your best attempt to take care of yourself, your family, your friends and the world, I don't give a lick how you do it. You're all right in my book. You can stay home, you can go to work. (Or hopefully you can write brilliantly and make a six-figure income with highly successful blogads).

You can start your family early, late, or not at all. You can even have a full-time nanny and maid. It isn't my business.

But if you go around telling everyone else how to live their lives and how great yours is and why everyone should be just like you, you don't get to play in my yard. You don't get to talk to me anymore. And you certainly do not get half of my cupcake.

You just have go away and play by yourself until you learn to be nice. Go, Caitlin, go.