So I finally succumbed to Facebook. It’s really your fault. You kept friending me. All your friend requests were starting to clog my Gmail account. It felt rude not to accept. Like I was refusing your friendship. Like I’m all that. So far I’ve been friended by TIME colleagues and former workmates, sources and old [...]
Remember all the hullabaloo about a year ago on the mess that was the U.S. passport application process? I applied a week ago last Saturday, April 19, for a renewal. I downloaded the application online at the surprisingly easy-to-use website of the U.S. State Department; then I popped it in the mail along with a [...]
If I wrote motivational posters for a living, that’s what mine would say. Actually, I didn’t write that line; I found it in a fortune cookie from my buddy Greg’s wedding. They’ve since divorced. Another friend of mine, Rob Walker, wrote this terrific piece in his Consumed column in The New York Times Magazine. It’s [...]
12:01 a.m.: Lie awake fretting over childcare and work. Baby sitter has selfishly selected friend’s funeral over feeding my child chicken cutlets. Weekly newsmagazine selfishly refuses to move publication date in order to accommodate childcare implosion. Husband selfishly unavailable to pinch hit, due to existence of own career. What to do…what to do. 12:14 a.m.: [...]
Did you? It was April 24, last Thursday. I totally forgot about it, even after Cathy, our head of Time.com operations, reminded me to post that day on the topic. In my defense, taking my daughter to work requires a) securing a spot for her in the company’s on-site daycare; b) planning my commute around [...]
Meant to post about this last night, but my wee brain was still awhirl with singing horses. I took my little one to see My Little Pony Live yesterday. For those of you without three-year-old girls living in your households, I refer to a Hasbro brand involving pastel-colored, talking equines with long-lashed manga eyes. There [...]
The outcome of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (see post below) yesterday: killed. By filibuster. From AHN: Republicans in the Senate successfully prevented Democratic colleagues on Wednesday from considering a bill that would have overturned a Supreme Court decision giving employees only 180 days to make pay discrimination complaints. The filibuster by Republicans stood with [...]
A few weeks ago, I got an invitation from the president of my company to a breakfast meeting. Ann Moore asked me, as well as a handful of top women editors at our other magazines, to meet a woman I’d never heard of: Lilly Ledbetter. Oh, and Anita Hill. Hill came to lend her support [...]
1. Office chairs laughably ill-designed to accommodate enormous rear. 2. Vending machines promote increased enormity of rear. 3. Bathroom is far, far away. Even when it’s not. 4. Maternity office wear designed by mean, skinny people. 5. Glass office doors prevent 3 p.m. naps. 6. Three p.m. meetings prevent 3 p.m. naps. 7. Unsuspecting colleagues [...]
I had lunch the other day with a colleague who told me something totally alarming: that after age 40, the chances of a woman conceiving using natural methods is 5%. Five percent! Her point is that women suffer a great disservice when we’re told, over and over, that motherhood can wait. Go ahead, grind out [...]
Just got this release from the ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the Peace Corps today demanding that it change its policy of barring people with HIV from serving as volunteers. The ACLU sent the letter on behalf of a Denver volunteer who was sent home from his post in the [...]
