Fashionistas you have arrived 3-25-03 - 10-3-03

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I know. Face it, Dude. You ARE bridge & Tunnel people.

Are you confusing me with someone else?

Thurgreed(lived in brooklyn for a couple of years, now I'm back in Manhattan for good)Marshall

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Uh, wouldn't you be at the wrong angle to see most of the gore?

Isn't that why they do you the courtesy of setting up a mirror, so you can see it all?

[NotFromHere]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Anyone read the piece on happiness in the NYTimes mag this past week? Basically, the piece said that people are horrible predictors of what will make them happy in the future, so they stupidly spend on material and keep the consumption merry-go-round going. I felt a good bit vindicated by the piece's subtle gibes at the "conspicuous consumers" among us. I've always spent wildly on pleasure, but not wildly on material, and it was refreshing to see the writer of the piece basically support a theory I've always had - spend your money and time with friends and family, not on stuff. This article should be required reading for everyone chasing his tail in the current economy.

S(you can't go out to dinner and laugh your ass off with your Jaguar)D

Funny, I was ecstatic when I bought the cutest pair of Gucci shoes and Chanel sunglasses this weekend. ARe you trying to harsh my buzz?

Not gonna happen. Shoes arrive tomorrow!!! Yaaaayyyy!!!

[dtb]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Uh, wouldn't you be at the wrong angle to see most of the gore?

Not to get too graphic or anything, but when it was the moment of truth during the delivery of my second child (the pushing phase was about to start), the doctor started to wheel over this big mirror. I looked at her in horror and said, "Uh, if that mirror is meant to be for my benefit, you can put it away!!" I saw one of those really graphic birth videos and decided I really didn't need to see the live action. Gross. The surprising thing was that the doctor seemed nonplussed -- do people really want to see that? EEw.

With the birth of my first, when the delivery nurse said to my husband -- "look, the head is coming out," despite my utter exhaustion, I bolted upright (22 hours of labor can really take a toll on your energy level) and said "NO!! He's not allowed to look!!!" Even if I hadn't done that, hubby had been schooled on the prohibition against looking, so he was saying, "uh, I'm not allowed" just as I was bolting upright.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Are you confusing me with someone else?

Thurgreed(lived in brooklyn for a couple of years, now I'm back in Manhattan for good)Marshall

I guess so. I could have sworn it was you moaning about home ownership having forced you off to Red Bank. My bad. Maybe it's just the lameass insults you've been handing out lately had me thinking you'd lost that Big Apple edge.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Since we're talking about it, an interesting review of the Warren book.

Choice grafs:

[T]hey point to the entry of women into the paid labor force as a major contributing factor. One result of women going to work was that families lost their safety net. When there’s no stay-at-home parent to provide care, the hardship of having a sick child or an aging parent takes on a new, financial dimension. It used to be that in a pinch, the wife could go out and get a job to tide the family over. That’s obviously not an option if she’s already employed. With 75 percent of their earnings consumed by fixed expenses (leaving little margin for error), middle-class families need that safety net more than ever—and it’s not there.

When women entered the workforce en masse, "they ratcheted up the price of a middle-class life for everyone" by making it more difficult to subsist on a single income. You would think that a family’s financial muscle would be doubled with both parents working, but that’s not the case. Indeed, while today’s double-income family takes in 75 percent more than a single-breadwinner family a generation ago, it has 25 percent less discretionary income at its disposal. This steep decline in discretionary income is largely due to a sharp rise in fixed costs. Access to the very things that define the middle class, such as good education and owning a home, has become more expensive. Indeed, the crisis, as Ms. Warren and Ms. Tyagi portray it, has sprung from good intentions: the fundamental desire of parents to do well by their children, to provide them with the trappings of the middle class. Not long ago, for example, preschool and college (the bookends of a child’s education, and both paid for out of pocket), were seen as "extras." Today, doing without is widely viewed as a handicap. And tuition has soared: In-state college costs have almost doubled in less than 25 years. Even public education—what the authors identify as "the heart of the problem"—is not free. Fierce bidding wars have erupted over the limited supply of housing within good school districts. Fanning the fire is the two-earner family, which, with its extra earning power, has helped to push housing prices off the charts.

I'm also posting it because I think the author is the little sister of my best friend in the 8th grade, though I can't tell.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by ThrashersFan
Well, since you are talking "birth control" and not contraception I would add that the ultimate form of birth control is still legal so nobody can say that they are "stuck" with having a kid because the rubber broke. I suppose that is the final test of how badly you do not want to have a child.

In fact, we still threaten the oldest with this regularly. Don't we have that right until he's eighteen?

[robustpuppy]

paigowprincess

Thats it. You are cut off from leery/pervy comments for the rest of the day.

You wouldn't say this if they were directed at you, diva.

But really, I think you're right, let's save bandwidth for the umpteenth fucking discussion about whether and when to have kids, because I am sure that I am not alone in finding it to be a perfect FB diversion, light and amusing, the feel-good discussion of the year!

Maybe next we could talk about overweight people! Yay!

[purse junkie]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Uh, wouldn't you be at the wrong angle to see most of the gore?

Yeah, but they seem to hand the kid to you pretty fast afterwards. I don't think it would be an auspicious start to mother-child bonding if I were to pass out in horror at my first sight of it.

[NotFromHere]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Thank God for Harvard. I mean, I never would have figured out that (1) raising kids is expensive and (2) raising kids reduces the amount of time you have available to do extra work to make ends meet.

Next up: Harvard med school research team determines that having Thurgreed's momma sit on you increases the likelihood that you'll have difficulty breathing.

Yeah, I left that in purposely. Mainly because it's so pretentious and partly because starting the article off with "I'm a Harvard grad" gives the article more cred than if the author said "Based on my research conducted at Hayward Community College..."

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by bilmore
Yet another reason for you not to have rugrats. I don't think that most people who have kids could economically or strategically defend that choice, given the criteria that seem to be accepted as germane here. There are other reasons, though.

Don't argue with her. When PJ says she doesn't want to have kids, no matter what the reason is, she's absolutely right. God forbid she creates another little her.

TM

[greatwhitenorthchick]

Originally posted by robustpuppy

Maybe next we could talk about overweight people! Yay!

My thoughts exactly. But although I sometimes hate these kind of emails, to pre-empt that discussion, I offer the following sort of humorous email.

It's a relief to know the truth after all those
conflicting medical studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer
fewer heart attacks than the Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the Americans.

3. The Japanese drink very little red wine and
suffer fewer heart attacks than the Americans

4. The French drink excessive amounts of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than the Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of
sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks
than the Americans.

Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking
English is apparently what kills you.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
{aunt upset because her unmarried niece did not notify her that she was giving her child up for adoption.}

Sure, I got comments.

This bitch who wrote to Miss Manners has to be the most uptight, self-centered cunt on the face of the planet. For Christ's sake, can you imagine how difficult it would be to give up your child for adoption? To carry the child to term when you're unmarried, to have the baby, to commit to keep it, to have a baby shower .... and then to confront the reality that you simply cannot manage, and need to give your child to someone else?

So the niece's first thought was not "gee, I just have to send a follow-up card to my distant relatives to say "thanks for the gift, but I've given the kid up. You want the gift back?"" Big fucking deal. Is it so difficult to imagine that maybe she doesn't want to keep raking herself over the coals, and reliving the fact that she had to give away her baby?

That the aunt even thought of that -- instead of having some sympathy or thinking that her niece's problems might just be sufficiently dire to excuse a breach of etiquette -- is repugnant.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Wellll... there is some primordial instinct thing that gives us some supreme pleasure at having a child and watching it grow up. Hell, every single person with kids rambles about how its "a miracle", and the reaction is so similar and predictable among every parent regardless of circumstances that the pleasure is clearly chemically induced in the brain.

Which of course reminds me of the Onion article titled "Miracle of Birth Occurs for 8 Billionth Time."

[bilmore]

Originally posted by robustpuppy
But really, I think you're right, let's save bandwidth for the umpteenth fucking discussion about whether and when to have kids, because I am sure that I am not alone in finding it to be a perfect FB diversion, light and amusing, the feel-good discussion of the year!

Reality TV! Yeah!

(Umpteenth is in the eyes of the observer, I think.)