First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

Summer is Calling

Image: On Deck by Leah Giberson

Man-Eating Women. Really?

I’ve been on a rant since seeing the ad campaign for Horrible Bosses, a film opening next Friday. On billboards and bus shelters, I see posters of Jennifer Aniston, in a revealing black dress, with the giant-sized, all-capped, fuchsia letters, MANEATER. I hate that word. According to the Oxford Dictionary, man-eater was first used in print to describe a woman as sexual predator in 1906, at about the time of Teddy Roosevelt and trumpet-shaped corsets. Women weren’t supposed to have sexual desire, and any hint was perceived as carnivorous. How about if we toss that term into the dustbin of history, along with underwear that hampered our breathing?

Have You Taken a Chance Today?

Movies That Chill To the Bone

While chopping chili peppers for a great Asian slaw recipe, I got drawn into watching Picnic, the 1955 movie based on William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize winning play. Rosalind Russell’s character is a middle-aged school teacher, whose identity is glued to her being an old maid. Though the movie is dated and clearly from a bygone era, watching this scene still makes me cringe.

One Way of Letting Off Steam

What would you add to this list?

Image: from the journal of artist Amanda Ross-Ho as a teenager, 1991

Kicking Butt Like a Lady

Waiting forever in a checkout line today, I began to get agitated. The elderly lady in front of me said, “dear, you have to learn patience.” I don’t think so. I marched up to the manager, and suggested he bring another staffer to a register. And so he did. And the line moved much faster.

Illustration by Chow Hon Lam

The New Math

Image: Craig Damrauer

Highs and Lows of Summer

“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” Wallace Stevens

In San Francisco, where I lived for decades, summer nights were chilly. I’d bundle up in a turtleneck and wooly sweater, and on the occasion when I got invited to baseball games in the now-discarded Candlestick Park, I’d bring along gloves, a hat, and if I could withstand the ridicule, a down sleeping bag. Then, summer was a wistful season, as I pictured couples on romantic getaways at the sun-drenched beach, while I huddled in my apartment, watching old movies, by the heater.

Image: Two Kneeling Figures, 1966, by Wayne Thiebaud

When There’s No Easy Answer

Sometimes, it’s okay to stop asking the question.

Image: God Speaks in Riddles by Jeffrey Meyer

Closing the Gap

Image designed by Wesley Thomas