Hey – you never know! All you need is a dollar and a dream! You gotta be in it to win it! I guess you know what I’m writing about ---those huge, juicy lottery jackpots with Broadway marquee numbers that seem to suck you right in – as well as your dollar or five or ten.
OK. I know gambling is addictive. And probably foolish. What are the odds for winning the latest $340 million Powerball jackpot? One in 146,107,962? As the TV anchors are fond of saying – you’re more likely to be hit by a tornado. Or see three albino deer!
But actually winning isn’t why most of us buy those big-payoff lottery tickets. It’s the dream. It’s leaving your work-a-day life behind – even for just a few moments – and slipping into some other dimension. Ask the people in line for tickets about their dreams ---- and they’re usually modest. A new car for Mom. A better house in a better neighborhood. A cruise. Money for a favorite charity. Maybe quitting a boring job. Seldom does anyone talk about buying the Yankees and – finally – putting George Steinbrenner out to pasture. Or even buying that tropical island and the ocean-going yacht to get there.
Most of us don’t really know how to dream that big. We wouldn’t even be comfortable in that gothic castle in Scotland – shouting “Heathcliff!” as we slog through the heather on the hill. We just want a step up from our current lives. A little sparkle to sprinkle on dull normality. And $340 mil could certainly buy enough sparkle to last a little while…..
But big or little --- everyone has some kind of a dream. And hey – you never know.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Sunday, October 02, 2005
What Do Women Want?
I recently got an e-mail from a high school friend whom I thought did it all right. Still married to the same guy, four grown kids, a successful small business, active in her community. She was our Senior Prom Queen too. What could be better?
So imagine my surprise when she wrote she sometimes feels like an alien among the women in her world -- the ladies who lunch. When she both lunches and manages.
Which just goes to show no one’s life is as good – or as bad – as we imagine.
My friend said it’s not only the women in her world who don’t understand her – but the men as well. Men who are more comfortable with the stereotypical and predictable.
So where does that leave me? The one who has always been different? Oh sure – I too was once a teenager-lemming- wanna-be. But I never quite fit in – and eventually I grew up and learned to be comfortable just being “me”.
I probably could have been a lot more successful if I had been more like other women -- with an “I’m no threat to anyone” attitude. What is that old saying – you catch more flies with honey? Ah well. I was more into red hot chili peppers. So I and others like me fought hard for the rights of all women to be equal to men socially and professionally. And for awhile it seemed to be working for all of us. There were even men comfortable enough with themselves to be comfortable with us. I am still married to one of them.
But unfortunately today's educated younger women don’t seem to care at all about their rights – except for the one that lets them chuck it all and stay home with their kids while their husbands work 16 hour days. Deja vue all over again. 50’s redux.
A recent New York Times article was eye-opening. It quoted the best and the brightest Yalies talking about their goals: working for a few years, having kids and then staying home. Probably permanently.
Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
Someone ought to warn them that doors tend to close if someone doesn't prop them open. Someone ought to warn them that husbands sometimes lose their jobs and marriages sometimes shatter into divorce, abuse, illness or death. Leaving the wife and mom to make her way as best she can in the real world she so cavalierly left behind.
Strangely – it was my mother who told me all these things. My pampered mother – who somehow found a way to survive in a man’s world and was determined her daughter would be able to do it better.
So imagine my surprise when she wrote she sometimes feels like an alien among the women in her world -- the ladies who lunch. When she both lunches and manages.
Which just goes to show no one’s life is as good – or as bad – as we imagine.
My friend said it’s not only the women in her world who don’t understand her – but the men as well. Men who are more comfortable with the stereotypical and predictable.
So where does that leave me? The one who has always been different? Oh sure – I too was once a teenager-lemming- wanna-be. But I never quite fit in – and eventually I grew up and learned to be comfortable just being “me”.
I probably could have been a lot more successful if I had been more like other women -- with an “I’m no threat to anyone” attitude. What is that old saying – you catch more flies with honey? Ah well. I was more into red hot chili peppers. So I and others like me fought hard for the rights of all women to be equal to men socially and professionally. And for awhile it seemed to be working for all of us. There were even men comfortable enough with themselves to be comfortable with us. I am still married to one of them.
But unfortunately today's educated younger women don’t seem to care at all about their rights – except for the one that lets them chuck it all and stay home with their kids while their husbands work 16 hour days. Deja vue all over again. 50’s redux.
A recent New York Times article was eye-opening. It quoted the best and the brightest Yalies talking about their goals: working for a few years, having kids and then staying home. Probably permanently.
Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
Someone ought to warn them that doors tend to close if someone doesn't prop them open. Someone ought to warn them that husbands sometimes lose their jobs and marriages sometimes shatter into divorce, abuse, illness or death. Leaving the wife and mom to make her way as best she can in the real world she so cavalierly left behind.
Strangely – it was my mother who told me all these things. My pampered mother – who somehow found a way to survive in a man’s world and was determined her daughter would be able to do it better.
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