I am a quasi-married woman. I have 3 kids. I am 47. I drive a Volvo wagon. I have also found myself questioning the need for society and women to immolate themselves on the altar of motherhood.
BUT.
I find this woman loathsome. NOT because she’s a “bad” mother. I find her awful because she can’t find it in herself to get her shit together and yet she gets paid for spewing her hysteria (and I use that term deliberately). She is incredibly narcissistic and shallow.
It is possible for a middle aged woman to be an adequate mother and a “good” person to her kids, her husband (or ex), and in general, AND still be true to herself. At bottom, I find myself questioning her intelligence, or perhaps I should say insight. She has none. I hope her car breaks down.*
*that was mean, but this woman truly gets on my last nerve.
You’re assuming “marriage is not working” because of the divorce rate. With due respect, that’s like syaing medicine isn’t working because the death rate’s holding steady at 100%, or that employment doesn’t work because most people don’t work the same job their whole lives. Perhaps the institution of marriage is still a huge benefit to society, and even most of its participants, even if half of all marriages end in divorce.
I think this is off point. Maybe all this is true, but nobody’s saying someone doesn’t deserve a voice. What we’re saying is that Sandra Tsing Lo is a horrible twat.
I continued to subscribe to the Atlantic even after the Puzzler was confined to web+printer-only, but now that it is gone totally, so am I. Giving STL so many pages each issue really does add insult to injury.
Also, the sometimes interesting “Word Watch” by Barbara Wallraff has been replaced by a never funny, more suitable for Maxim, what, ask the answer man-type thing. It has been sad to watch what’s happened over the past few years.
Reading these articles made my skin crawl. I think most of what Ms. Tsing Loh wrote about was pretentious, upper-middle-class, narcissistic, neurotic bullshit. Her whole life seems to be about “stuff she has to have” and her family seems to be included in that category. I don’t think it’s ever occurred to her that a husband and kids are not like things you buy at Williams-Sonoma or Pottery Barn; you can’t return people like you can cookware.
Hell, if I wanted to expose myself voluntarily to this horseshit, I’d go watch a Woody Allen movie. At least no actual families were harmed when he made them.
Really? I get the impression she hasn’t been ridden much lately.
In one of her previous Atlantic articles, she was talking about how married women preferred chocolate and a good book to sex. Then, in her first article on her infidelity, she talked about how exceptional it was for her because she really didn’t even like men that much. In her latest article, she claims she was crazy in love because otherwise, how could she have risked divorce.
I’m thinking, if I was her husband, I would have packed her shit and put it in the driveway years ago.
So, if she’s getting money from book residuals, Atlantic articles, comedy club appearances, regular NPR commentaries, and so on, how is it that she’s homeless?
Elmwood: Well, stringers don’t necessarily pull down high salaries…
But you don’t understand. If she didn’t fall in love, that would make her a slut. And she’s not that. She only sleeps with men that she’s emotionally invested in. So if she fools around, she takes care to cultivate emotional attachments, rather than fencing them off. So whatever else she is, she’s not a slut. And that makes her ok.
That’s a fucked up POV of course. Sexual promiscuity is problematic (highly), but it’s a way milder moral transgression than evading your responsibilities to your spouse and kids. (Many argue that properly conducted, promiscuity isn’t immoral at all.) Papering over your conduct with hystronics isn’t especially desirable either.
as MfM noted, she may not be getting big paydays. Her work, like that of many writers, probably involves a string of freelance gigs. She works enough on KPCC to be considered a full time employee, but public radio is notoriously low paying. I would assume that she has health insurance from them. I sure hope she does.
It appears that she’s been able to maintain a freelancer’s lifestyle, and avoid taking a steady gig teaching high school science, for example, because of her husband’s income. That may be the real story: she got caught creeping, and lost her place to stay. Which brings to mind the old joke: What do you call a ____________ (deadhead, musician, actor, performance artist, writer) who broke up with his girlfriend? Homeless.
When it happens to a guy, it’s funny. Loser should have been paying his own way from the get go, is what people usually say. When it happens to Sandra, writer and performance artist, it’s a minor tragedy.
I know people who teach in LA public schools and practice their art on the side. It’s a tough way to go, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask artists to do something useful to society in return for their food and rent. If their art doesn’t pay, and let’s face it, most don’t, then it’s waiting on tables, driving cab, teaching, retail, etc. It’s tough, but it’s not tragic.
She may not actually be living out of her car. She mentions a housesitting arrangement. If that’s the case, then she’s exaggerating for sympathy or attention or who knows what.
She probably doesn’t have the lump sum for a down payment on a fine new home or condo; or the correct credit rating. She’s not sleeping in the car; she’s been doing “house sitting”–in other people’s fine homes. With gourmet kitchens, redone bathrooms, media rooms & all the other high ticket decor featured in the fine magazines.
Should she just look for an apartment she can afford & pay rent like some peasant?
(I’d say yes. But I’m a renter, too. In a cute little house, actually–without the high-end trimmings. But in Houston Fracking Texas.)
As I said earlier, there’s a market for this stuff. Over at DoubleX, several women pundits comment on her divorce piece. Some like Loh’s POV, others don’t. None find the article to be objectionably incoherent, anecdotal, lightweight or self-absorbed.
DoubleX, incidentally, is a project of Slate magazine. Slate magazine also hosts the recommended Explainer column.
Good lord, what a completely self-indulgent semi-literate attention whoring twat waffle. Couldn’t get through the first page of either article. If I had wanted to know that much about her, I would’ve let her waz poetically while I fucked her like every other young(er) buck apparantly has rather than read her book review. My granddaughter had more interesting reading shat into her Huggies this evening.
Wow. I think we have a new nominee for Worst Person in the Universe. Usually I can find some measure of sympathy with a person in a bad situation, even if it is of their own making. But I hate this person. The worst part is that not once, not even for the tiniest millisecond does she consider that her problems may be, even in part, her own fault. It is sickening. It is as if I made a list of everything that disgusts me about people, and she found that list and then purposed her life to check things off.
As for it being published, I have mixed feelings. It is terrible writing. Just getting through that stupid list of things in the first paragraph was a struggle. On the other hand, I never read that publication, but I just read through a multi-page article, and now I’m commenting on it. Maybe they can market the magazine to literary masochists.