Hi, friends!
I’ve never been accused of flip-flopping on the issues. Or stiffing my workers. Or being in the pocket of Wall Street. Or treason. Or (sadly) having small hands.
So if you’re in the mood to cast a ballot for someone you can feel good about, vote for your favorite Columnist in the Media section of the Independent’s annual Best of Santa Barbara Readers’ Poll! (You have to fill in at least 20 categories for your vote to count.) Poll closes August 17.
Still deciding who to vote for? Check out my latest columns while you mull it over …
Pokemon GO Is the Balm: In a world where innocents are mowed down while dancing, and black fathers and sons are senselessly murdered by peace officers, and peace officers are senselessly murdered by military veterans, and voters roiling with toxic resentments threaten to put a hollow shell of a human in charge of the most powerful nation on Earth — well, in that world, sometimes the only thing that makes sense is to wander the streets for hours in search of imaginary cartoon animals.
Globe-Trotting Kids Are Being ‘World Schooled’: I’m spending the week with three charming gentlemen who regale me with tales of their epic world travels. They describe the sheep on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, the vegetarian sharks in Belize, the sugar in Costa Rica, and the beaches in Cannes. From grown men, it might be braggy, but because these are my nephews — a 14-year-old and twin 10-year-olds — it’s sort of astonishing.
Dress Codes Unzipped: Are School Policies Sexist? In a nation locked like longhorns in contentious battles over abortion, immigration, and assault weapons … can anyone really still be bickering over spaghetti straps? Mais, oui, my friends. The struggle is real.
A Shrine to Splitsville: The Flotsam of Ill-Fated Flings: White opera gloves. Orange underpants. One pair of crutches. The objects on display are unrelated in almost every way. The only quality they share is heartbreak. Lock of hair. Shards of glass. Penguin cuff links. Some are outright funny, some are gut-stabbingly sad, and some border on heebie-jeebie creepy. But no matter their size, condition, or origin, all are fraught with a feeling that’s familiar to most any adult, in any country: the ache of a fizzled affair.
Maxxed Out: Is System Rigged Against Working Moms? I have an ugly secret: For 18 years, I’ve felt like a fraud both at home and at work. From the moment I became pregnant with my first child, who graduates high school next week, I’ve had the unshakable sensation that I’m faking big chunks of my life, playing the part of a competent and confident mother and professional — but in fact always shortchanging someone their due: arriving late to work after delivering a forgotten lunchbox to school, darting out of a too-long meeting to arrive at the school awards ceremony 30 seconds after they call my kid’s name, emailing with the college counselor when I’m supposed to be watching that IT training, or grinning robotically through my son’s trumpet-lesson story at the dinner table when my mind is on that proposal I need to finish by morning.
Feeling the Pay Gap—Personally: [Yes, we know there are words missing in this column. That’s what it feels like to get stiffed on a regular basis.]
Picture this: You’re 10 years old, and there’s just enough cake left for two delicious. Dad cuts a big piece for your twin brother and a small one for you, hands you your plate and smiles as if. You take the meager slice and say thanks, but you feel. What could his reasoning? Are you not as? Does Dad not? The idea’s absurd, of course, but.
This is the reality of working women throughout the U.S.: a frustrating daily, dollarly injustice that affords them less than what. That falls maddeningly short of what they. That takes them almost to where they deserve to go and then.
Irritating as hell, isn’t? Welcome to our.
It’s a terrific honor to me to have readers who find value in my musings, and who share them with friends, and who write to tell me so.
So thanks for reading — and VOTING!
Best —
Starshine