In the last thirty days I’ve been quoted in two major news outlets and published in a fancy blog.
This makes me feel very grown up.
I am not.
I’ve been quoted a fair amount in newspapers and magazines over the years, and I’ve learned, as have the journalists who’ve interviewed me, that it’s a mistake to let me talk.
The problem is I get relaxed.
“We’re pretty sure everyone is going to be wrong,” was my encouraging statement in one Washington Post article a few years ago, talking about a study we were asking the public to participate in, guessing the breeds in mutts. “None of us have been right about anything.”
Oddly, we still got over ten thousand people to sign up.
“If you really want to have fun,” I once told an international publication, “Transcribe what Cesar Milan is saying with your back to the TV. Don’t watch his theater, just listen to what he’s saying, or try to. The blithering idiotness of him becomes so clear!”
I’d barely finished giggling when his cease and desist landed in my mailbox. Bullies can dish it out, but they can never take it.
I got better at being diplomatic. When The Guardian wanted to know what I thought about pet psychics, I had this to say:
“...While we understand that belief-based practices inspire passion and conviction in some people, there is no scientifically verified evidence that these methods are based on anything more than faith.”
Which sounded better than, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Katherine J. Wu of the Atlantic is one of my favorite people to be interviewed by, and that’s a problem, because I tend to drone on and start babbling sentences like “How much of how breeds behave is how we behave toward breeds?”
That article was one of my favorites, though, because she did such a great job talking about my previous beagle, Nellie.
In an article last month she let me go on too long, letting it slip that I think people calling their pets “fur babies” is a little gross. “As Alonso put it to me: “I don’t call my human children ‘skin babies.”
Though maybe I should.
Marlene Cimons of the Washington Post may have had a heads up from her colleagues. For her article yesterday she’d originally asked for a phone call, but then asked if I’d write my thoughts out instead.
“Pets tend to be always the same, even on good and bad days, reliably who they are and reliably ours in our relationship with them,” Alonso says. “Their own needs and wants are fixed around food, enrichment and care, focusing on us, rather than ‘Is my promotion going to come through?’ ‘You forgot our anniversary,’ or, ‘What do you want for dinner?’”
My God - I sound downright august! Relatively speaking, of course.
While I was busy being accurately quoted, I was also busy writing, and Brevity Blog, home to many of my literary heroes, accepted and published a piece I wrote on—and this will shock you—bitchy story policing that goes on sometimes on the internet.
The Sto Po: A Hypothetical Rant Against the Knee Jerk Content Constabulary | The Brevity Blog
If you ask me, not enough people understand the many solid ways to employ the Premack Principle in daily life. I thought it might be helpful to offer an example.
Tl;dr Life is short. Eat more M&Ms.
Morning Teaistisms
Two days ago in Boston it approached sixty degrees Fahrenheit, a little over fifty where I was on Cape Cod, so obviously the city is shutting down tonight in preparation for a snow storm.
As Mark Twain once said, “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.”
We’re absolutely maybe going to get somewhere between one and fourteen inches of snow almost certainly. That many egg, milk, and bread buyers can’t be wrong.
Continuing my annual Purging of the Tea Drawer (that is such a lie, by the way—I never actually purge it, I just make a dent sometimes), the settling cold calls for Bengal Spice tea. With milk and honey, it’s an enduring treat that’s got a gentle bite suitable for any time of the day or night.
Yes! I love it.
But pet psychics......years ago I had a booth at a Pet Fair of some sort which was next to the pet psychic's booth....It's as if those who wanted her opinion never thought that it might be better *not* to give her every piece of information about their pet before asking for a "psychic" communication....and then they listened in awe as they were told all sorts of things about their pet ...."How did she know that???"
Loved this, Marjie! You really should have said "You've got to be fucking kidding me." to The Guardian and then just popped a couple of M&Ms!! Keep up your fabulous writing!!!!!