tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57195122011-04-21T11:28:20.567-07:00Gone SuburbanA writer retreats to suburbia to comment on what's left of the affluent society.laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comBlogger101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1064974526146633492003-09-30T19:07:00.000-07:002003-09-30T19:15:26.136-07:00So it seems I am soon to be a tutor, for over-privileged suburban kids, to the tune of $30/hour (except, of course, at one local high school, where the going tutoring rate is $50/hour, which is what my mother used to make at her moonlighting job during her residency--yikes!).
I have various objections to being a tutor, although I'm afraid that the money means that none of them are going to laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1063243526805718842003-09-10T18:21:00.000-07:002003-09-10T18:25:26.826-07:00Tonight I feel like an ad for something: drinking my brand-name microbrewery beer (but not too micro, mind you--we want it to be recognizable to the American viewer), watching a rerun of The West Wing, playing on my laptop computer. Frightening, I tell you.
It seems that Rob Lowe (not settling for top billing in The West Wing), will now be starring in his own NBC sitcom, about (of all things) laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1062877118400561182003-09-06T12:38:00.000-07:002003-09-06T12:38:38.423-07:00The nice thing about doing the dishes is that it always works.
This may not seem to have anything to do with the suburbs (other, of course, than those many cleaning product commercials featuring the prototype of the soccer mom and her mother), and it doesn't, except that, what with the number of technological and electronic and mechanical innovations and improvements we've been doing around herelaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1062450885465407262003-09-01T14:14:00.000-07:002003-09-01T14:14:45.500-07:00Corporate coffee experience No. 2: While walking by Starbucks the other day (a different one from the aforementioned Star$$$$$), noted large group of junior high aged kids. Said one to another, "So, like, who are your friends going to be _now_?"laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1062039269300073582003-08-27T19:54:00.000-07:002003-08-27T19:54:29.136-07:00In the words (as close as I can recall) of that venerable if short-lived TV series "My So-Called Life:"
"People are always asking how school was today. It's like asking 'How was that drive-by shooting today?' You don't ask how it _was_; you're lucky to get out alive."
Today's _Suburban Life_ announced that area high schools will be instituting new security measures, in the wake of Columbine, laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1061952692669445582003-08-26T19:51:00.000-07:002003-08-26T19:51:32.526-07:00Today I read in the New York Times magazine (from last year) about the year in ideas (again, that would be last year in ideas--we're a little out of date in this household) that S-M-L (not to mention XS and XL) as sizes were going out of style. Tailored clothing is the way to go. According to the author of this little blurb, tailored clothing was once considered unAmerican (after all, who has laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1061872339061433462003-08-25T21:32:00.000-07:002003-08-25T21:32:19.010-07:00Blogger, the folks who supply the stuff that makes it possible for me to write these things and then have them appear on a website, have a slogan: "Push-Button Publishing for the People." It's a slogan of the sort I'm inclined to like--a 'zine published in my old home town always said it was "Free for the People." (To give fair mention, it's called The Garlic Press (http://www.garlicpress.org/)laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1061836319991444582003-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:002003-08-25T11:32:00.030-07:00This morning I bought vacuum cleaner bags from the hardware store and summer sausage, eggs, lettuce, apples, tomatoes, and something else I can't remember from the grocery store, all without laying out a dime. How, you ask?
"Charge it, please!"
The suburbs hardly compare to the Plaza, where Eloise so famously got to order up for room service and "charge it please!" every few pages, but you canlaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-1061785836275150142003-08-24T21:30:00.000-07:002003-08-24T21:30:36.250-07:00Today I went to Utah. Or rather, my friend thought I had gone to Utah (based on a garbled message) and was surprised when I called her back so quickly. Actually, I went to a meeting of the Illinois Task Force for Utah Wilderness, which sounds a lot like a student organization back when I was in grad school that called itself the Iowa Society for Virginia People. They seemed to be very good at laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5719512.post-106170784439009012003-08-23T23:50:00.000-07:002003-08-23T23:50:44.280-07:00I used to live in a city, but I've gone suburban. That's what I tell everyone, anyway--it lends a hipster sound to an otherwise bald and dreary situation. Or I tell people, "This is what the new economy hath wrought," although this is an incorrect assertion, as I had no part in the new ecomony, except as a minor consumer--a book or two from Amazon, an ISP, e-mail, a new computer from time to laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05893550834832658123noreply@blogger.com