I just started reading A Thousand Names for Joy, a self-help book by a woman named Byron Katie. I think ol’ By and I are off to a bad start because I’m already turned off by her name. She says everyone calls her Katie, which I assumed was her last name. Odd, I thought, but not too bad considering how everyone currently names their daughters Madison or Morgan or some other last name of a dead president or industrial tycoon from the early 1900s. But then I noticed the copyright page lists her full name as Byron Kathleen Mitchell. So Katie is short for Kathleen? Which means this bitch is insisting everyone call her by her first name (the last name of a dead male poet) and an abbreviation of her middle name? As though these two names create an acceptable substitute for a normal first name and a surname? I wasn’t past the copyright page and I was already exhausted.

Katie is known for an earlier book called Loving What Is. In that book, she encouraged readers to let go of negative thinking by asking themselves a series of questions when negative thoughts arise:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

She calls this process of asking and responding to these questions “The Work.” I was totally into these questions for a hot minute. I was even willing to see past the fact that she gave a four-question process a pretentious title and even capitalized it as though it was some ancient, mystic ritual. I was ready to sign up for her next workshop and have some kind of breakthrough while weeping on her shoulder about my broken relationship with my biological father. Then I went to her website and noticed that tuition at her nine day workshop in L.A. costs $3,000. Three thousand dollars? So I can sit in a room with 50 other people who can’t get over their ridiculous, depressing fixations and listen to them blubber and cry? “Well, it is nine whole days of that,” I thought. “Certainly she gets points for quantity.” But then I’d have to pay another $1500 for accommodations, and I don’t think the Hotel Byron will accept my Hampton Inn Rewards Club points. The registration page doesn’t even clarify whether or not $1500 includes a complimentary breakfast with make-your-own-Belgian-waffle station.

I made it to page seven this morning before wanting to slap Katie in the face with sock full of litter-encrusted cat poo. Here, she talks about how some people prefer Mozart over rap music and vice versa, and how this is indicative of a mind that can’t embrace the wonders of the universe in all their diverse forms. She states, “I don’t hear anything as noise. To me, a car alarm is as beautiful as a bird singing.”

This is precisely the problem with all of the self help books on the market that I’ve ever read. They emphasize that we can all end our own suffering by no longer labeling anything as good or bad and by realizing that we’re all connected. I’m you, you’re me, we’re all eternal, nothing is serious, the world as we know it is a fantasy cooked up by our bored, negative brains, and even terminal illness is a wondrous adventure to be savored and cherished. That’s great for Katie, who apparently loves to back that thang up as much as she loves a good concerto composed by the Viper’s full line of vehicle theft deterrents. But what about the rest of us?

Where is the book full of folksy wisdom and intelligent, practical counter arguments to the common thoughts we all have when we’re feeling blue? Am I just too low-brow for all these highfalutin’ self-help books? Is my real flaw that I haven’t accepted Chicken Soup for the Soul as my Lord and personal savior? Surely there’s a middle ground. There has to be a book that reminds me not to sweat the money I’ve lost on my condo because my future will be filled with opportunities to make money in ways I haven’t even thought of yet, right? Surely there’s something out there that emphasizes the value of looking on the bright side without expecting me to smile every time a car alarm goes off outside my window. But until I find it, it looks like I’m stuck with Lord Byron Kathleen “Katie” Mitchell and The Work. I guess it could be worse. I could be Jenny McCarthy and believe vaccinations make kids autistic and a few years of picking my nose on MTV’s Singled Out make me qualified to “produce” Katie Byron’s latest money-grabbing enterprise, Turn It Around. (Katie Byron would like to emphasize that her Turn It Around inspirational video is in no way affiliated with Megan Mullally, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, or the “Turn the Tub Around” ad campaign.)

When I was in high school, all the cool kids studied French, so I did, too. Spanish was far too ordinary, and for years I had little interest in learning it. But now I find myself longing to travel to exotic Latin locales. So, I’ve decided that before I try to order a prime cut of beef in Buenos Aires or save sea turtles in Costa Rica, I should learn a bit of Spanish. And of course, there’s no better way to learn basic, cliché phrases than by listening to pop music. Here are a few of my favorites for those of you interested in joining my study group.

First, there’s Marta Sanchez from Spain. In the video for “Soy Yo” (below), Marta pays homage (read: rips off) a particular American diva right down to her awkward dancing and persistent hair flinging. If it takes you more than 15 seconds to figure it out, you’re either not paying attention or you’re a straight man.

Once you’re tired of watching Marta point at herself and frame her face with her hands, you can shake your bon-bon to “Superstar” and revel in a whole new kind of pointing mixed with pelvic thrusting and moaning in “High Energy.”

Although Marta gets points for being really good at spinning around in chairs without throwing up, my heart currently belongs to Mexican pop sensation Belanova. Their lyrics are very easy to learn and I love their electro-pop sound and the slightly squeaky voice of their lead singer. For beginners, check out “Me Pregunto“. Once you’ve mastered that, you can move on to “Baila Mi Corazón“, “Bye Bye” and “One, Two, Three, Go!” (shown below).

It’s easy to find song lyrics online, but it’s often hard to find English translations written by real people. One site that offers some help on this front is trdream.com. The site includes useful translations of several Belanova songs. Also, if you’re looking for some very affordable learning materials to help you round out your new gay-pop vocabulary, I recommend the following:

1001 Most Useful Spanish Words - $2

Easy Spanish Phrasebook - $2

Quick-Study Spanish Vocabulary Cards - $5.95

If you happen to order any of the items above from Amazon, check to see if they’re included in Amazon’s 4-for-3 promotion. (They all were when I ordered.) If you order four items that are eligible, the cheapest one is free. It’s not a huge savings when you’re ordering $2 books, but it can be a nice way to grab an extra copy for a friend.

Once upon a time, I used to find it almost impossible to stop reading an awful book. Like an alcoholic spouse I just can’t bring myself to abandon until the kids go to college, bad books have a way of guilting me into sticking it out until all I’m left with is a dried-up womb and a sense that life would have been better if only I’d moved to Sante Fe and started that catering business. Or perhaps bad books are more like a traffic jam. I keep swearing I’m going to take the next available exit, but by the time it rolls around, I tell myself I’ve waited too long to give up now.

A few months ago, I decided I should finally read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and see what all the fuss is about. From everything I’d read, I couldn’t wait for Rand and her no-holds-barred objectivism to turn my world view upside down. I was about 50 pages in when I started to have that tingle of doubt—that feeling that I should at least care a little about the characters by now. One hundred pages later, I knew Aynnie and I were on shaky ground. I still didn’t know who I was supposed to be rooting for and I hadn’t had any existential epiphanies. On the plus side, I heard anyone who makes it past page 100 is considered an honorary level-two Scientologist, so that saved me at least $40,000.

After I kicked Ayn Rand out of bed, I decided to fool around with the chubby old guy who wrote How Starbucks Saved My Life. The dust jacket promised a gripping tale of a man who “had it all, then lost it all—and was finally redeemed by his new job, and his twenty-eight-year-old boss, at Starbucks.” The author had a great story to tell: rich white guy loses his high-powered job, cheats on his wife, and finds himself broke and uninsured shortly after discovering he has a brain tumor. Unfortunately, the book’s summary ruined any possible surprise the book might have in store. I kept waiting for something un-cliché to happen, but the author insisted on rubbing my nose in the obvious. He’s a sheltered white man working at a Starbucks in Harlem. I get it. You’re white and the staff is black. I don’t need to hear for the fourth time how your black boss was so nice and pretty and well-spoken (and did I mention she’s black?). However, the worst part was that the whole book just felt like a giant Starbucks commercial. His boss continually recites gag-inducing words of encouragement about the “Starbucks family” that sound like they were read directly from a management training handbook, and the author gobbles them up like a homeless man who just found a half-eaten cherry scone in a garbage can.

Lately I feel liberated by my newfound book-whorishness—like a 40-something divorcée riding high on the delusion that she can have any man she wants and that her catering business will flourish despite the fact that the mini quiche she prepared for the Taylor-Newton wedding reception tasted like menopause and broken dreams. I stuck with How Starbucks Saved My Life until the end, only to realize my road trip would have been better spent reading an old copy of Entertainment Weekly or the nutritional label on a Hostess apple pie. From here on out, I’m dumping a book the minute it starts to feel like a chore to read another page. Life’s too short and the library is too big to waste time on boring reads.

Are you still there? Oh, good. For a moment I thought I might have crossed a threshold of irony and failed to realize I was encouraging you to ignore me. Now get your dried-up womb to the library and check out one of the books I’m currently reading so we can praise and/or trash it together. Next up, I’ll be reading Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

I’ve always been drawn to books with dramatic and suspenseful storylines that also provide an accurate, insider view of a foreign culture. I love how The Good Earth follows a Chinese peasant farmer as he struggles to pull himself and his family out of abject poverty and goes on to amass incredible wealth. There’s plenty to keep the reader engaged, from famine and foot binding to concubines and opium abuse. But what I really love is how the book provides a fly-on-the-wall view of Chinese culture, economics, and politics in the early 1900s. When I read The Poisonwood Bible several months ago, I loved it for similar reasons. The story reveals how the Congo transitioned from a Belgian colony exploited by the West for natural resources like cobalt and diamonds to an independent nation exploited by its own corrupt and ruthless dictators. It’s full of conflict and danger, and along the way I happened to learn a lot about the nation that is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

My interest in riveting narratives with a healthy dose of history and sociology led me to my most recent read, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked the book up while browsing a random shelf at my local library, but I was quickly sucked in by the first-hand account of the author’s experience growing up in conservative Muslim countries like Somalia and Saudi Arabia. Although Ali spent much of her childhood in predominantly Christian Kenya, her family’s fundamentalist Muslim beliefs leave her trapped in a world where women are subservient above all else. Eventually, Ali becomes a refugee in the Netherlands and is later elected to the Dutch parliament. (This fact is mentioned on the dust jacket for the book, so I don’t think I’m spoiling the book for anyone.) She quickly becomes an outspoken advocate for Muslim women and children’s rights and opposes the Dutch government’s laissez-fair attitude toward Muslim immigrants in the name of religious tolerance. Her career in Dutch politics is short-lived, however, as death threats begin pouring in from Muslims in the Netherlands and around the world. (The shit really hits the fan when she calls the prophet Mohammed a pervert and makes a short film in which half-naked women are shown with sexist verses of the Koran written on their bodies.)

Today, Ali is living in the U.S. and her website asks for donations to pay for the 24-hour bodyguards who prevent Muslims from killing her in the name of Allah. She’d seem completely paranoid if it wasn’t for the fact that the man who directed her film had his throat slit in broad daylight on a crowded street in Amsterdam. The fact that he also had a note stabbed into his chest warning Ali that she was next also probably justifies her concern.

Many of Ali’s critics claim she is a Muslim Uncle Tom, an opportunist who is now selling out her people by making sweeping generalizations about Muslim culture and fanning the flames of “Islamophobia.” However, after reading her story, she definitely made me reconsider how much we should compromise in the name of religious tolerance and how much we should try to change people and cultures in the name of human rights. At some point in the next few months, I’m planning to read Who Speaks for Islam in an effort to get a more well-rounded perspective on the issue.

I’ve been on a spirituality book kick for a while, and I just finished Why Is God Laughing? The Path to Joy and Spiritual Optimism by Deepak Chopra. I was getting a little tired of the dry, non-fiction format that so many self-help books employ, so I thought I’d like Deepak’s use of a fictitious narrative to reveal the secrets of the universe. The plot revolves around a famous comedian named Mickey who questions the meaning of life after his father dies. The comedian meets a mysterious, tan stranger named Francisco who serves as his spiritual guide and stalker. He teaches Mickey a variety of lessons by encouraging him to step into moving traffic on a highway, eating a fancy dinner while wearing high heels, and deciphering a lot of riddles that come in the form of really awful poetry.

The book contains a forward by Mike Meyers, and I suspect that he and Deepak had some kind of agreement that Mike would endorse his book if Deepak endorsed The Love Guru. Now, I’m all for a creative mixing of eastern and western culture. Lord knows I always wanted to be one of those twitching Japanese extras in the “Nothing Really Matters” video. I’m also one of the few people who believes every Mariah Carey video should include Godzilla, a personal dressing robot, and a room full of Japanese computer programmers who work in Mariah’s penthouse, as demonstrated in “Boy (I Need You).” However, I have to draw the line somewhere, and it might as well be here.

Instead of a sophisticated allegory full of quote-worthy pearls of wisdom and epiphany-inducing insights, Deepak offers up a trite collection of clichés that support the underlying thesis that we all worry too much. The entire book reads like a bedtime story designed to explain the secret of happiness to a fifth grader. (It turns out the secret is—and I hope you’re sitting down—not caring what happens.)

I was finishing the book on a flight home to Chicago, and when I got off the plane, I noticed a pre-teen girl sobbing and whining about something completely inconsequential. It was one of those classic 9-year-old crises that hardly merited discussion, let alone gasping for breath while sobbing and wailing. I don’t remember the exact problem. I think her sister wouldn’t share her hairbrush or stole her last chicken mcnugget or just left the terminal with a strange man. You know, the usual, ridiculous drama every parent learns to tune out. As I walked by, I sighed in disgust and thought, “Why can’t kids learn to properly evaluate the seriousness of a problem and respond calmly and rationally? All that overreacting is so annoying.”

Then I thought, “What if God sees me the same way I see this girl? What if every time I freak out about something, God thinks, ‘Sweet Jesus! Is this really necessary? Sometimes I just want to slap humanity right in the mouth and send them all to hell. That’ll give ‘em something to cry about!’” Then I thought it was unlikely that God would ever say, “Sweet Jesus!” Then I wondered what a slap from God would feel like. I imagine it would be a lot like that scene in Blankman when Damon Wayans says, “Well, slap me around and call me Susan,” then squeals like a woman when he gets slapped. But I digress. The point is, although Why Is God Laughing was about as intellectually stimulating as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, it put me in the right mindset to realize that if we’re all children of God, I really don’t want to be the kind of kid who cries over spilled milk.

I probably should have read The Audacity of Hope BEFORE giving Barack my vote in the Illinois primaries, but I figured better late than never. On the negative side, the book is a bit dry in places. Barack does plenty of political name dropping and never misses an opportunity to show off his familiarity with the Constitution and America’s political history. Also, I wish he would have included a few more specific examples on how he plans to fix our biggest problems as a nation. (He does provide examples, just not as many as I would have liked.)

With that said, I felt really great about the prospect of Obama leading the country after making it through just the first few chapters. He comes off as incredibly intelligent, sincere, and reasonable. I also got the impression that he’s humble enough (or at least was when he wrote the book) to surround himself with smart people who won’t just tell him what he wants to hear. He also seems incredibly passionate about seeing every argument from both sides. He avoids vilifying conservatives and frequently acknowledges that it has become harder and harder to be a successful politician if you’re not comfortable giving simple, yes-or-no answers to complicated questions. He notes that it’s hard to be a pro-choice Democrat who opposes late-term abortion or an NRA-loving Republican who opposes the war in Iraq. He stresses that voters (with a little encouragement from the media) want every issue and every position distilled down to a recognizable label that fits on a button and clearly identifies everyone as friend or foe. It’s nice to imagine Obama shedding some light on the political machine and how it manufactures consent and manipulates public opinion with clever editing and a big advertising budget. I’m not sure if he’ll make it to the White House with that strategy, but it’ll be interesting to watch.

I feel obligated to mention that I love Hillary and I think she would also make an excellent President. I’m elated to have two great candidates and I’m trying to enjoy the excitement of the competition between now and the convention without obsessing too much about the outcome. (Although I am concerned that they’re both wasting a lot of money fighting for the nomination.) I’ll be happy to support Hillary, but now that I’ve read up on Barack, I feel more confident that my primary vote wasn’t a mistake.

I started Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth about a week ago. I almost bought it back when all the true Oprah fanatics did, but I didn’t want to get that look from the Barnes and Noble cashier. You know the one. Their mouths say, “That’ll be $15.40,” but their eyes say, “Will you be charging this on your husband’s credit card, or has he finally let you have one of your own?” I’m also just too cheap to pay for books—unless you count those coupon books that cost $20 and promise to save your hundreds on fine dining and entertainment. So, I got on the wait list at my local library where the staff already know I do whatever Oprah tells me and I have little dignity left to maintain.

I have no idea how Oprah convinced everyone—from Minnesota soccer moms to Mississippi Baptist grannies—to read this book. It’s a slightly alarming testament to her power that so many of her fans made it past chapter one, “The Flowering of Human Consciousness,” which is full of hackneyed self-help pearls of wisdom like this:

“Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings’ perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves.”

Mr. Tolle wastes no time pushing the very modern notion that the world’s major religions provide the same basic roadmap to enlightenment, and that human beings have screwed everything up by misinterpreting the teachings of Jesus, Buddah, and the like. He even gives Kaballah a plug and praises the mystical sects of major religions for stripping away all the excess baggage that more controlling, exclusionary denominations have added over the years. All this sounded just fine to me, but it’s hardly the sort of mind-blowing epiphany I expect for $14 plus tax.

Once you make it past the intro, with its minefield of new-agey witticisms and mild blasphemy, the book takes a sort of neo-Freudian turn. Tolle presents his theory that most human minds are controlled by the ego, which wants more than anything to be right while making others wrong. As a result, people do horrible things to each other. (If you’re hoping the author might make it through this section of the book without trite references to Hitler or the Holocaust, you’ll be disappointed.) Tolle also spends a lot of time pointing out that the ego has an unhealthy obsession with material possessions. He offers up a revolutionary hypothesis that people use cars, clothes, homes, and so forth as extensions of their own identities, but that this is only a temporary fix for a lack of greater self-awareness.

I keep waiting for Oprah to announce that Tolle has inspired her to stop wearing $500 shoes and stop giving her rich friends $30,000 earrings. Then again, I guess the Legends Ball wouldn’t have been as exciting if the finale included Della Reese and Phylicia Rashad opening $25 Applebee’s gift certificates. (Although I totally would have tuned in to see Maya Angelou accept a practical gift basket composed of FiberCon caplets, control-top pantyhose, and a blouse from K-Mart’s Jaclyn Smith collection.)

I’m far from done with A New Earth and, all joking aside, I’m trying to keep an open mind. I do like Tolle’s notion that I am not my thoughts or the voice inside my head. Tolle claims we are the awareness that is aware of that voice and those thoughts. He also states that Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” philosophy fails to acknowledge that there has to be a higher consciousness inside of all of us—one that is capable of observing and analyzing the ego, which seems to control our thoughts even when we don’t want it to.

It’s comforting to imagine that if I can just become more aware of how my ego operates, I can render it powerless and find myself on an entirely new plane of existence. The big question is, once I get there, will my higher consciousness fantasize about a penthouse with concrete countertops and first-class flights to Europe? Tolle says material success and enlightenment aren’t mutually exclusive, but I have to wonder if that caveat is just a convenient way to sell lots and lots of books without coming off like an anti-consumerist hypocrite.

I’m currently finishing up House Lust: America’s Obsession with Our Homes. I was really excited when I first heard about the book around New Year’s, but it hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations. It’s mostly a loose collection of anecdotes about people who’ve gotten caught up in the housing boom of the last seven years or so and the professionals and companies that keep the wheels of the market turning. The author makes a few interesting points here and there, but overall, he keeps referring to the same handful of trends people have already been pointing out for years. He talks about the rise of home-valuation site zillow.com, the emergence of HGTV as a major cable network, the unexpected success of relatively uneventful shows like House Hunters, huge jumps in the number of licensed real estate agents nationwide, dramatic increases in the square footage of the average American home over the last 50 years or so, and the nation’s growing obsession with renovation and new construction.

The only issue addressed in House Lust that gave me pause was a section early in the book that mentions how ridiculously large American homes have become and how so many of us fantasize about having a home filled with the latest conveniences. The average American home was 983 square feet in 1950. By 2005, the average home had grown to 2,434 square feet. Of course, that leaves a lot of people with homes over 2500 square feet, which I find deeply disturbing. I always see people on House Hunters moving out of 3 bedroom, 2 bath “starter homes” because they’re about to have a second child and claim they need more space. These buyers usually move into giant mcmansions, presumably to spare their kids the horror of sharing a bathroom with a sibling. Good ol’ Suzanne Wong checks back in three months later, and the happy couple always sings the praises of their new sparkly granite countertops, durable laminate flooring, supersized playroom, and mammoth walk-in closets. They never seem even remotely concerned about all the burdens that come with a larger home—from higher property taxes and utility bills to more time-consuming cleaning and costly maintenance.

Of course, it’s easy for me to wag my finger at these folks while my boyfriend and I live the simple life in our cozy, 700-square foot love nest. But I do dream of a day when my vacuum cleaner can be removed from my guest-room closet without causing an avalanche of luggage and linens, and I think about how nice it would be to have my own secluded bathroom in which to take a private, soundproof poo. (In my daydream, the toilet emits soothing white noise and converts foul odors into hazelnut truffles.) I fantasize about having a basement retreat complete with ping-pong table and a Dance Dance Revolution nook where I can stomp around as hard as I like, and I know eventually I’ll live in a home that studio-apartment dwellers could decry as an act of real estate gluttony.

So, how do we know when enough is enough and when are we entitled to an upgrade? As much as I complain about the lack of storage space in my current condo, I’ve lived here for almost two years and I still haven’t installed closet organizers to maximize the space I already have. I have piles of clothes I haven’t worn in over a year and a junk drawer full of expired coupons. What if a bigger space only forces me to buy more furniture I don’t really need and takes my pack-rat tendencies to the next level? Are we all just like goldfish, expanding to fill whatever size bowl we’re in? (If that’s the case, goldfish are probably still a step ahead of us since they don’t accuse the new bowl of becoming too small or complain that it’s not close enough to a good Thai restaurant.)

I worry that my next move will only leave me with a new kind of buyer’s remorse and a new set of fantasies about a bigger, better home. But, I also think a lot of the things I’m looking forward to in my next place are legitimate wish-list items that I’ll definitely appreciate long after I’ve settled in. I also think I know myself well enough to know that I need lofty goals to keep me from obsessing too much about where my life is going and what it all means. Climbing the property ladder seems like a a good fit for goal-oriented people, since the rewards are tangible and there’s always another rung to reach for. Of course, I’m not sure where you go once you find yourself living in a 3/4-size replica of the White House in Atlanta. Perhaps you just have to run for President once your existing digs start to feel stale.

I’m currently reading The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again and it’s just brilliant. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I didn’t write it. I’m thinking about buying copies and leaving them in hotel nightstands to help spread the Wharhol gospel.

The great thing about the book is that it’s incredibly easy to read in short bursts. Each chapter deals with a hot philosophical topic, from love and beauty to work and death. Within each chapter, Andy rants for however long he deems necessary to express his thoughts on a subject. It has a very stream-of-consciousness feel, with the rants running anywhere form a few sentences to several paragraphs.

Here are a few of my favorite revelations:

Andy advocated doing things to keep people’s expectations low so that your average traits and performance suddenly seem exceptional. For instance, he started dying his hair gray in his 20s so that people would think he was older than he really was, but think he looked really good for his age. (I’m now convinced Anderson Cooper has read this book.)

He felt sex was basically a big disappointment, and that looking forward to having sex for the first time is far better than actually doing it. Because kids are learning about sex earlier in life than they used to and people are living much longer, he suggested we should all remain babies longer and not have sex until 40—to ensure we have plenty of time to look forward to it.

He claimed funny people were the only people who interested him, but that being funny isn’t sexy, which meant he could never have sex that was truly engaging. He claimed that if he ever spent time with a “lady of the night,” he’d pay her to tell him jokes.

He believed you should immediately point out all your physical flaws to anyone you’re romantically interested in so they can’t claim you didn’t warn them later in the relationship.

He loved money, mainly because it allowed him to buy a lot of candy. And by candy, I don’t mean nose candy or some other kind of “metaphorical” candy. I mean Hershey bars and Russel Stover’s chocolates.

I’ve been a bit neglectful of the blog as of late, largely because I’m preparing for my very first day as a college professor. Yes, you read correctly. The state of affairs in American higher education is finally so desperate that even I have been entrusted with the power to shape our most impressionable young minds. When I picture my first day in the classroom, I imagine it being a lot like that Simpsons episode in which Homer teaches a class at the Springfield Education Annex. (I searched all over for a short clip of him running red lights and shouting “Can’t talk now, I have a CLASS to teach!” Alas, I could only find this longer clip that takes a while to get to the good part.)

I don’t have the time or the patience to actually write multiple paragraphs about any one topic at the moment. So, I thought I’d just provide a completely random assortment of updates and talking points.

What I’m Reading

I’m currently reading Stumbling Upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. One of the early chapters includes a fascinating look at frontal lobotomies. Apparently they used to be a popular way of treating people with anxiety disorders because the frontal lobe is the portion of the brain that allows us to think about the future. I was surprised to find that many people who lose the use of their frontal lobes can actually still function quite well in society. (I always thought they just became drooling zombies who needed constant care…although I guess that would mean the only reason someone would get a lobotomy would be to make them less of a hassle for the psych ward workers who have to take care of them.) In any event, the book had me hooked for several riveting pages, but the tone of the writing took a very bombastic, scholarly turn by Chapter 2 and I’m already searching for a new read.

What I’m Watching

I’m currently in love with Damages on FX. This show has taught me that being a lawyer isn’t about helping people and finding justice…it’s about killing witnesses’ dogs to keep them from snitching (the witnesses, not the dogs) and using the legal system to bend people to your will. At the end of every episode I wonder, “Did I miss my calling?”

What I’m Buying

It’s probably a bit un-PC to say that I’ve finally decided to “buy” a maid, but I couldn’t think of a more fitting verb to use in the title for this section. (”What I’m Employing” sounded even more clunky and equally dehumanizing.) If you don’t already have a maid, you simply MUST get one, dahling. And if you can, find a delightfully thorough Eastern European gal with a strong back and a keen eye. Mine could scrub graffiti off a Soviet tank with a bit of spit and a Taco Bell napkin.

The best thing about commuting via public transit is that it encourages me to read. Reading on the train offers two key benefits: it makes me sound smarter at parties and it reduces hobo-related harassment (especially since I started covering my book du jour with a homemade jacket that reads The Perfect Crime: Why No One Misses a Dead Bum.)

Since my big move to Chicago, I’ve been obsessed with career-guidance books. Here’s an overview of my latest reads:

Title: What Should I Do with My Life: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question
Author: Po Bronson
Summary: This book provides a ton of personal accounts from people who are desperately trying to find their callings. Some of them don’t have very happy endings (or endings at all), but most of them are neatly tied up and somewhat comforting. There seemed to be a lot of stories of people fumbling through professional purgatory, going to school for the wrong thing, realizing their dreams late in life, etc. So, if you’re looking to add a little schadenfreude to your career-crisis reading list, I give it two thumbs up.

Title: Grindhopping: Building a Rewarding Career Without Paying Your Dues
Author: Laura Vanderkam
Summary: This book reminds me of that episode of Will and Grace in which Jack keeps repeating his workout catch phrase, “Stake it.” The author seems a bit desperate to be credited for coining the term grindhopper, and she promotes it through constant, merciless repetition. For those of you who aren’t already using in your everyday speech, a grindhopper is someone who refuses to be tied down by a traditional 9 to 5. They quit their day jobs to make bedazzled guitar straps for rocker chicks. They start multi-million-dollar candy manufacturing companies with two dollars, no knowledge of candy manufacturing, and a lot of tenacity. In short, they’re young and they’re more successful than you, and it’s all because they don’t let the man and his old-school rules determine how they should define work.

This book showed me that all I need to do to have the career of my dreams is to stop making excuses and get out of my own way—which I would totally do, but I just have so much going on right now. There’s those six episodes of Star Trek: Voyager on the Tivo that must be watched before they’re deleted to make room for some house-flipping show. And, let’s face it, my new granite countertops aren’t going to seal and polish themselves. But seriously, once those things are done, I’m definitely going to learn how to make croissants and open a bakery called Sticky, Tender Buns…or perhaps I’ll call it Don’t Bring Your Brats in Here You Damn Hippies Who Don’t Beat Your Kids or I’ll Punch Them in Their Chubby Little Throats.

Title: I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It
Author: Barbara Sher
Summary: When I stumbled upon this book at my local library, I wanted to cry. ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘Someone wrote a book that speaks to both my inflated sense of self-worth and my constant fear that every decision I make is wrong.’ There was even a chapter in which Babs promised to show people with too many interests how they could pursue all of them in a single lifetime. First, she told me to make a list of all the things I wanted to be BEFORE reading any further. I was intrigued. I hastily wrote down my greatest ambitions and turned the page, expecting something revolutionary—like a recipe for that elixir of life Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn drink in Death Becomes Her. Sadly, there was no recipe. She just told me to identify all the things I could do as a hobby or as a temporary vacation from my day job and—poof—now I could magically do them all. I suppose the book did help me prune a few interests that don’t merit full-time pursuit. But it’s clear to me now that if I want self-improvement claptrap with a hint of the supernatural, I’ll have to join Tom Cruise’s book club.

Title: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Author: Timothy Ferris
Summary: I really liked this book at first. The author makes some good points about how younger workers are more interested in flexibility and stimulation than salary and stability (although he’s hardly the first person to document the phenomenon). He’s traveled the world doing bizarre, glamorous things that read like a straight bachelor’s fantasy resume. At 29, he’s skied the slopes of the Andes, won a Chinese kickboxing championship, raced motorcycles in Europe, acted in a hit TV show in Hong Kong, and danced in tango competitions in Argentina. Throughout the book, he points out that you don’t need millions of dollars to do the things you’ve always dreamed of doing. More than anything, you need the flexibility to work when and where you like. Things were going great until the book recommended that, in order to determine what I should do with my life, I should make a list. I haven’t opened it since.