28 Days Later

In every sense of the word, February was a success.

I PR'ed the living day lights out of the Kaiser Half, I ran over 30 miles on trails, and Kara Gourcher is totally my new friend.

New chums - dcc and KG

Now I am facing March head on and I hope I'm able to have another epic training month as I get ready for my Marathon in Tacoma on May 5th.  But it doesn't look so good.

The Power of Egg Salad

1. Boil eggs
2. Peel eggs
3. Place eggs in vessel 
4. Add mayo and Dijon mustard until right
5. Salt, pepper, and paprika, to taste
6. Paprika on top for color

This simple recipe dominated our pre-Yom Kippur preparation for years.  More or less since I left the URJ to move into the private sector, Abby and I have hosted the break-the-fast for our Jewish friend who were stuck far away from family on the holiday. It started small, with about 10 people (a dozen eggs) we collected at services who had no where to go and ballooned to about 35 people (four and half dozen eggs) in our 550 square foot apartment in New York, with the smoked fish sponsored by the CC parental units.  

It was a big deal. We had kuggel and bagels.  We had fish for about 300 people and fruit and cookies and challah, juice, coffee, soda, and every once in a while a few shots of booze.  But for our friend Anna, the egg salad was reason enough to move heaven and earth.  Her break-the-fast was not complete without the consumption of copious amounts of the above listed egg salad. 

This year, we did not make it nor did Anna eat it. And that was strange.

Why No One Can Have it All

Or Why Anne-Marie Slaughter is wrong.

While a number of very smart women have chimed in and written great articles about why this interminable essay was bad, missed the point, is dangerous, or simply stupid, there aren't a lot of men who have or will.  I grew up in a household were my mom went to work and climbed the corporate ladder.  My dad stayed home, ran his own business, and waited until both kids were in or done with college to have what you could call a traditional career.

Arguably you could say, my home life was very much a product of the feminist revolution. I have been called on occasion a feminist.

But before going on to my thoughts on The Atlantic article, I asked two people who also lived in my house to comment on the article:

“Jesus, I got to the end of the first page and saw there were six more pages. No wonder she couldn't get her work done. Fucking academics -- they don't know when to shut up. – Mother, 58, Senior Executive at a Fortune 50 Company

“Ugh. This has been floating around all day and I've been avoiding it, because I don't give a shit why The Atlantic thinks I'm going to be barefoot in the kitchen.

“I just think [the concept of the article is] so stupid. Men make the same choices, it's just that they don't care as much -- or maybe they do! And then they step down too! Like, cool the fuck out; life is full of compromises…obviously you have to make compromises. I just think this is so dumb and backward ...  You can't be a traditional stay-at-home mom and a high powered executive in the same way you can't be a high-powered executive male and coach all your kids’ sports teams. There are 24 hours in a day, regardless of your sex.” – Sister, 25, Ivy League Graduate and Third-Year Medical Student at a Top 10 Medical School

My mother went on to say that the unbelievably long essay was a "six page cop-out" of the ideals that the author allegedly still supports and was riddled with hypocrisy and contradictions. 

And I agree.  The issue at the heart of this essay should be what do you value you more, not finding a way to have everything at once.  Feminism, as I understand it, was (and is) a fight for choices, not a fight for women have the same life as men.

Everyone, as my sister notes, must make choices in life.  This does not mean that society couldn't shift slightly to help make those choices easier.  And there is no doubt that because of women (and men) who came before my sister, she is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate and is well on her way to earning her M.D. at one of the best medical schools in the world.

The only thing she has to thank them for is opening the door.

And while that door was a real pain to open, she had to learn, study, lose sleep, sacrifice health, and make many other CHOICES to make it to where she is today. You cannot take away the fact that my sister -- not some conceptual fem-ubermench -- worked hard.  There were real sacrifices that were and continue to be made. 

The entire concept of work-life balance is a myth.  You either work more or you "life" more. There is never a perfect mix if you are racing to the top. Something has got to give.  And the sooner you realize that, the sooner "having it all" becomes just as meaningless as an essay written by an academic who had to live through two years of what every female executive at a large or growth company deals with everyday.

Generational Swings

A little over a month ago, I put down the Dustbuster in our New York apartment after cleaning up what seemed like the millionth dust bunny we had found while getting ready to move, and I tweaked my back.  This was problematic for a number of reasons -- chief among them was the fact that our movers were coming in an hour.

I had been running a lot, trying the 100 pushup challenge (I was up to 45ish pushups) and flying all over the country for work.  Oh yeah, and moving.  There was a lot of pent up stress and I suppose the Dustbuster was the straw that broke my back.

Anyway, after about three weeks of letting it get better, I was on the bus coming to work and the bus stopped very short.  The entire bus load of Financial District Bound San Franciscans whipped forward, and hard. I called a chiropractor when I got to the office.

Over the past week, I have been stretched and cracked and such, and I am feeling much better thank you for asking.  But the really wonderful part of this story is that today I was given homework.

True, homework is never fun. But this homework has some history.