Mid-Week Reads: "Homemaker of Tomorrow" And Other Cool Women

This is such a lovely interview: Interview with a One-Time "Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow". The author interviews her mother, who got her high school’s "Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow" Award... but who had no interest in ever actually being a homemaker.

I've never seen Mindy Kaling act, but I loved this piece by her in the New Yorker, about kissing and monogamous relationships.

And from the mad hatter (Blogger messed up the link, but she'd commented in a recent Mid-Week Reads), this lovely review of a book about desire by a feminist.

Worried

He's my second cousin.

He took me to my first movie, because my parents couldn't be bothered. (I'm not sure whether this was a good thing for him to do, seeing that the movie was Raja Babu.)

He's my mother's relative, the son of her cousin.

When my father was ill, he was there. He traveled with him all the way to Chennai, stayed there for two whole months, spending every night in the hospital, shielding my mother from some of the stress and bad news. He was a rock we could all depend on. He traveled with him on subsequent visits, accompanied him for follow-up treatment, visited often when he was ill at home. In spite of the fact that the two of them had a somewhat contentious relationship. In spite of the fact that we had no claim on him, and there was no reason why he would do so much for us.

Mid-Week Reads... and Views: Disney Movie Posters and Other Fun Movie/Literary Stuff

Love these "honest Disney movie" posters. Especially Beauty and the Beast (but then that and Aladin are the only ones I've watched). Here are a few more, though arguably less funny.

If you didn't like Judi Dench before, here's another reason: she uses her free time on set to work on her embroidery... of swear words.

Loved this compilation of beloved literary kids and their deadbeat or absent dads, though I've only read four of these books.

Why aren't you doing what really makes you happy? This is shaming me for my procrastination, the times I play games on the iPad or read a novel because I'm too lazy (or think I'm too tired) to work.

I found this silly story strangely intriguing and funny: My Boss's Wife Asked Me to Spy on Him.

Um, sorry. That's all I have today. Have you been reading anything fun?

(Brief, IM) Conversation with the Guy

So we're working in our separate rooms and Nilesh IMs me about something work-related.

him: wanna meet now?

me:  ten mins?

trying to get that blog post done

him:  ok

ok

me:  it's a block post right now.

him:  :-)
 

me:  B-)

so much i've progressed under your guidance, o guru.

Because he's the original punster.

Two (Very Different) Books I've Been Reading

I've been reading a lot of books since the last time, but these two I heartily recommend.

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

I found the first chapter boring (and weirdly fatphobic, with Sandberg repeatedly referring to her pregnant self as a whale), but the book seemed to change dramatically a little way in. I loved it and finished it over two days, and it read as easy as good fiction.

What I was surprised at is how feminist the book is. Sandberg has received flak for not being feminist enough, for implying women have only to work harder and be ambitious to break the glass ceiling. But in this book, she quotes study after study about how women are consistently short-changed.

Whether you're a woman or a man, read it to feel angry at the patriarchy, and for some motivation to bring to work.

Home is Here

All the recent travel has given me a new-found appreciation for home. I'd always liked this house: it's filled with things we want, and it's comfortable for me in a way nowhere else can be.

But I hadn't appreciated, so much, the area we live in, our colony. I had cribbed about being on the outskirts of town, about living in a gaon with bad traffic and no good restaurants.

It's partly being away and partly the weather, which is much less sunny and hot than it was before our trip.

I appreciate living in a nice gated colony but just a few hundred meters from a main road, and with well-built (though narrow in parts) roads leading up to it.

I like how our colony looks: mostly cream with some green and yellow. Looks lovely on a cloudy afternoon.