In a delightful way, it was back to the regular today, and for the first time in weeks, I was alone in my house for a few hours. I scoured the kitchen and put away the remaining holiday items that never have a dedicated place and, thus, linger about forever. I returned a number of emails to which I'd been delinquent in responding and managed to plan an entire, multi-city family vacation for June. The dog got walked, the thank you notes did not get written, I kind of exercised, I did blow dry my hair. It was so lovely to see other parents milling about at school pick-up today, women (and men) who've become dear friends that I never quite realize how much I've missed until I joyfully lay eyes on them once more. J was thrilled to head back to his teachers and pals, and inspired by a conversation about James Bond he had with my mom over break, he dressed up this morning, a dashing outfit that included a brown corduroy sports coat, a red and white polka dot bow tie, a snazzy black belt (the buckle contained a hidden camera of course) and a glen plaid cap. It was slightly vaudeville but 100% darling, and even though another second grader mocked his bow tie (what is up with the attitude in second grade?!), J shook it off and remained proud of his duds. Good boy!

Can I just tell you what annoys the bejesus out of me? When drivers do NOT turn on their blinker until they've actually started turning. Really? This is not helpful folks, not helpful at all. Give me ten feet?

Reading any given book since having kids seems to take me three days or six months. I'm either obsessed with the work or manage to put it down too regularly to make any sort of speedy progress. I'm not ashamed to shelve a book unfinished -life is just too short- but those I want to read yet do so as if they're a slight slog linger about like those damn holiday decorations or the last two boxes after a move.

In any case, I picked up How To Be a Woman today (it's been a few months I believe) and was again rewarded for doing so. I have to say that more than once now, Moran has, whilst cracking me up, made me think about an issue in a new light or honed the opinion I already held in a nascent yet inarticulated form. Today's gem was found during Moran's rant against strip clubs. She's noting that in recent years, "it has behooved modish magazines to print interviews with young women who explain that their career as strippers is paying their way through university. This is thought to pretty much end any objections against strip clubs, on the basis that -look!- clever girls are doing it" to secure a degree and career. Presuming that most women aren't doing so with a wild sense of empowerment, having decided against other options, Moran goes on to argue that "If women are having to strip to get an education -in a way that male teenage students are really notably not- then that's a gigantic political issue, not a reason to keep strip clubs going. Are we really saying that strip clubs are just wonderful charities that allow women -well, the pretty, thin ones, anyway: presumably the fatter, plainer ones have to do whatever it is all the male students are also doing- to get degrees? I can't believe women supposedly in higher education are that stupid."

She then goes on to say that strip clubs denigrate and diminish not only women but also men: "No man who ever cared for or wanted to impress a woman made her stand in front of him and take her knickers off to earn her cab fare home."

The bottom line is that, by and large, she sees stripping as an imbalanced act that comes from desperation, unhappiness ("between 60 and 80% of strippers come from a background of sexual abuse"), the "bastard child of misogyny and commerce." The women aren't doing it for fun or because they like it.

Food for thought. I liked her comments on the subject!