Bangin' Banana Bread

If you want to be cool like me and bake some awesome banana bread then this is what you should do:

Bangin' Banana Bread

Ingredients:

2 large or 3 not-so-large just overripe bananas

1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine

2 eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2+ cup all-purpose flour

cinnamon

1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Soften margarine and combine with both sugars in a large mixing bowl. Stir until smooth.

2. Add eggs and banana. It's helpful to cut the banana into smaller pieces if mixing by hand. Stir until smooth.

3. Add vanilla and baking powder to the top of the mixture. Begin adding flour, half a cup at a time. You'll need just over 1 1/2 cups. Mix until smooth.

4. Add walnuts now if you want them.

5. When the mixture is smooth, sprinkle cinnamon evenly over the top. Fold the mixture over the cinnamon. Repeat once.

6. Pour into prepared loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 50 or 55 minutes.

BANGIN'!

(this is not a joke)

I loved this article about the potency of teen creativity! I came across one of my old sketchbooks recently. I used it in high school as my creative writing journal (a class my friends and I relentlessly discredited... we were super disrespectful to the teacher, too, sorry Mrs. Dowd). But most of my time was spent drawing instead of listening to Dowd or actually writing, and I thought to myself: I was so much more creative in high school! Here is one I made in 2004, I was trying to merge an eye and a landscape, the iris being a lake and eyelashes as flowers.

Kate Spade Bangles

Obsessed with these. Both of my brothers are musicians, and growing up I would listen to The Clash CONSTANTLY through the walls that separated our bedrooms. And who wouldn't want a preppy bangle that quotes Beastie Boys? Kate Spade. www.katespade.com.

Back in Starbucks. I've mastered the art of pretending I belong here; I approach the barista and tell her I'm not ready to order yet, I'd like to get "set up" first. Code for, "I don't drink coffee; I'm using your establishment to get out of my tiny apartment and feel more connected to the world." But I'm instantly annoyed that at at noon on a Monday, every prime computer location is taken. Does no one else work? It's by chance I have today off. I like to sit facing the street because I can watch cars at stop lights and see people walking around with intention. However, there is a perfect window spot: the corner. I'm on one end, but the wrong end. Everyone can see my computer screen and I'm right by the door. I know they aren't looking, but still it isn't a prime situation for someone like me. 

I want to revisit my previous post. My aggravation with Jonathon Haidt's decision to feminize pronouns seems borderline uncalled for, considering I withheld information that would have damaged my argument: I know that most therapy patients in fact are female. Why would I keep this tidbit of knowledge secret? Because I believe that the reasons why most therapy patients are female are influenced by gender biases from society. (And also because my inner lawyer was looking to support a specific argument, pp. 63-66 of The Happiness Hypothesis).

In America and in many other societies around the world, females are commonly viewed as being the emotional gender while males tend to be viewed as strong and deserving of respect. I can only report on what I know, and since I grew up in America this is where my thoughts are based. We grow up watching cartoon and television sitcoms portraying women as emotional. In cartoons, women are shown with fleeting thoughts, as floozies, or as being argumentative. In sitcoms and in movies that are not intended to be particularly influential, women cry after a break up while men go out and party. Women sort out problems in relationships while men ignore them, and women "snap" under pressure into either a fit or tears or fit of rage. It is not surprising then that women seek therapy more readily than men in a society that has preconditioned them to believe they need more help, and for men to be less likely to seek therapy in a society that has preconditioned them to believe that they do not need help. For women and girls, crying is a socially accepted coping mechanism. It is acceptable for women to display an array of emotions from glee to satisfaction to anger to sadness. It is different for men. The most (I'm very inclined to say the only) socially acceptable coping mechanism for men and boys is anger. For other emotions, the "strong and silent" route is taken quite a bit. This is why anger management courses consist predominantly of men, and most therapy patients are female. Not rocket science, right?

I still don't agree with the use of feminine pronouns to describe therapy patients. Even if most therapy patients are female, they are not all female, and this is implied when such pronouns are used consistently in a book on psychology. This type of repeated descriptive language will only further the societal imbalance that men and women already feel; consider a male therapy patient reads a few books in hopes to better himself and finds that every reference to therapy patients uses "she," "her," and "hers" as pronouns. How is that man going to feel? He will probably feel even more uncomfortable about seeking therapy than he likely already did. Defending male therapy patients may sound silly. But that's the problem! All I'm trying to say is that in an effort to lessen the gap between gender expectations one should not change the common use of "he," "him" and "his" to "she," "her" and "hers;" this will only flip flop the sexism, not help it! I would prefer to read "his or her" or "theirs" any day.

I just got really turned off by page 28 of The Happiness Hypothesis... I've recommended this book to so many friends and have already read most of it in excerpts or jumping around chapters, but in my attempt to read it beginning to end I ran into the sentence,

...for every patient seeking help in becoming more organized, self-controlled, and responsible about her future, there is a waiting room full of people hoping to loosen up, lighten up, and worry less about the stupid thing they said at yesterday's staff meeting or about the rejection they are sure will follow tomorrow's lunch date.

Really? I can't believe the words I see on the page. So all therapy patients are female?

Update on February 28: Haidt uses feminine pronouns throughout The Happiness Hypothesis. I'm not sure why. Does anyone have any insight as to why a writer would use feminine pronouns instead of using gender-neutral options like "his or her" or "their"? I see why writing "his or her" could be slightly annoying to both the writer and the reader if this type of factual statement is used often (as it is in this book). But why not use "they" and "their," and furthermore why use feminine over masculine? It's just nontraditional, and can actually be offensive (as it was to me the first time I came across it). The only good reason I've come up with is that the prediction was that most readers of The Happiness Hypothesis would be female. This is probably true; most psychology students are female, as a professor of psychology Haidt knew that. But I'm still not sure I'm sold on changing all the pronouns of an entire book to the feminine. Anyway, this has gone too far, it's not bothering me so much anymore and I still love the book.

An excerpt from Jonathan Haidt just clarified why my class painting critiques in college seemed so phony I caught myself rolling my eyes at times. Sorry to the classmates who may have caught me. The quote is from The Happiness Hypothesis which everyone should read. I plan on reading it multiple times and I'm not even an overachiever.

Things I've learned about myself...

I've been dying to express how completely unfit I am for the atmosphere in Starbucks. First of all, I do not drink coffee... or tea, or hot cocoa, or anything else that might be considered "grande," "latte," etc. I do indulge in a low-fat raspberry sunshine muffin once in a while, but they didn't offer that treat today. So I'm here with my homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I ordered an apple juice to be polite. I'm pretty sure this isn't the pattern of a typical Starbucks customer, but whatever. I thought I'd try doing no-brainer tasks like downloading music, organizing files (I only mention that one because it sounds important), g-chatting, habitually checking my email, and writing the longest to-do list possible (one that in the past has shamelessly included lines like "buy a headband," and "tweeze eyebrows") away from the confinement of my quiet, microscopic studio apartment. I thought this might make me feel like I had "done something" with my day off. The others are quietly studying from textbooks or probably booking vacations on their laptops. I had immense anxiety over finding an outlet for mine. I am unfit for this-- I've gotten up twice to get a napkin, once to throw away a cup, and I've changed my seat twice since I arrived. But as I write wittingly about the awkwardness that is me inside Starbucks, National Grid has just plopped themselves into a hole outside the front door to this money-sucking caffienator. They are jackhammering the side of the road closest to us and a yellow Deere dirt-pick-up-thing with Ludacris (the rapper not the adjective)-style hydraulics is banging repeatedly against the ground. I don't know much about utilities or operating heavy machinery but it seems as though banging the ground isn't even the intended use for that vehicle. The irony. Now all of those intensely concentrated people I envied as I walked in merely fifteen minutes ago seem upset and shifty, and I feel comfortable.