In current news:

These are the goings on in my life.

1) I have switched from the Masters of Arts in Divinity (MA) program to the Masters of Divinity (M.Div.). What does this mean? I will spend another year in school, for a total of three. I have to play a little catch-up on getting the requirements for the degree. I will have to do some practical work in a parish. I am okay with really all of this.

2) My doctor has AGAIN called to reschedule the same appointment. This is more than a little obnoxious.

3) I have a ten dollar gift certificate for Starbucks coming to me for using my debit card more. This makes me a happy girl, as it means I get free coffee.

4) My roomie broke our coffee maker's pot, which will cost roughly as a much as the device itself to replace. It was her pot, so I am not really annoyed, but it means I am seeing more of Starbucks these days.

5) The Boy broke his replacement teapot. This is a sad state of affairs.

Lori Gottlieb

So, Lori Gottlieb has written a book called MARRY HIM! THE CASE FOR SETTLING FOR MR. GOOD ENOUGH, based off the article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry

For obvious and fairly sound reasons, Ms. Gottlieb has garnered a lot of criticism from Feministing.com, of which I am an avid reader. Most of the criticism boils down to the fact that Ms. Gottlieb's experience as a single woman is not representative of single women, and that it represents a backlash against the higher standards feminism set for women's goals. Excerpts from her books cement in my mind her writing as more representative of her own unhappiness than as a viable goal for other women to follow in romance and marriage. (There's also a case to be made that Ms. Gottlieb fails to adequately separate the two concepts, but having not read her book, I will leave that to your own judgement.)

So, overall, I was prepared to dislike Ms. Gottlieb a great deal, and not having anything positive about her in my brain whatsoever, until she popped up telling anecdotes on THIS AMERICAN LIFE. And that's a bit of a problem for me. Because her story, featured in the episode "Mind Games", is fairly creepy. Ms. Gottlieb wrote a fan letter to a writer based on his picture, in which she claims to have met him in an airport years before. This is a lie, but months later he calls and meets her, claiming to remember having met her at the airport and recollecting parts of a conversation that never happened. When she confesses, freaked out by him, he claims to really remember the first encounter.

Now, on listening to this episode, I was not really paying attention to Ms. Gottlieb's name, but by the end of the story, when this was revealed, I was rather shocked. Based on her writing samples posted on Feministing.com, I had not expected Ms. Gottlieb to be funny at all. I had a brief moment of doubt- did I just assume, because her book is rather depressing, that Ms. Gottlieb had nothing worth listening to?

But on second thought, I keep considering these examples, and I wonder if they are not of a piece. They both seem to indicate a really unhappy woman seeking connection. It renders what was just an oddly funny story into a facet of a weird and creepy desperation. I really had not wanted that as part of the background of this tale, but there it is. It's more than a little sad, really.

Good girlfriend! have a cookie!

I got The Boy a replacement teapot. It is much cuter than either of his previous teapots. May it live long and boil well.