Hearing the other side

Remember when I said that I just wanted to hear from one of the people who got us in this mess? Well, here it is--a terrific article that gives us just a tiny window into the thinking of a Wall Street money man. The part that made me draw in my breath just a bit too sharply:

After he was forced to fire his 60-person staff eary this year, shortly before he was fired himself, he played with his toys for a couple of months--his cars, his boat, his collection of 10 Les Paul guitars. "I just bought Slash's signature Les Paul guitar," he says excitedly. "Look, I lost 50 grand at Lehman. I'm not going to deny myself a $3000 guitar." In fact, he also recently bought a Piper plane. "The day after I was fired, I was like, 'F--- it, I'm going to get a plane,'" he says.

I've said--and I mean--that I have no problem with people making lots of money, especially if they have taken risks or made investments or invented something really useful or somehow added value to the world. I still, though, don't understand why the executives of these failed companies "deserve" their obscene salaries--they aren't inventors, they aren't entrepreneurs, they are employees hired to do a job. Why does the CEO of Lehman Brothers deserve $22 million this year? Why does the CEO of Goldman Sachs get $54 million? The CEO of Boeing--which made a $4 billion profit this year, by the way--gets "only" $13 million. Meanwhile, the earnings of the middle class have dropped every year for the last seven. How does any of this make sense? And why are we not madder?

Tim, we really miss you.

How are we supposed to have an election without Tim Russert? We need him and his marker board to tell us about the results.

Is it a full moon?

Maybe it's Halloween. I don't know. Tuesday, one client no-showed. Wednesday, two clients no-showed and one showed up at the wrong time. Today, one client no-showed and then I no-showed! I'm thinking maybe we should all go back to bed.

In case you were wondering . . .

. . . the lunch went fine. The icky parts were that the other minister talked too much and that he introduced me as "a licensed professional counselor gal." But there was an upside: I had the best spinach salad I've ever had and I met a nice woman who I'll probably never see again. But no, the project isn't going to go forward and I've decided that there are some people I probably just shouldn't work with.

Happy Fall

Isn't this an incredible picture of fall? I found this photo on another favorite blog www.messythrillinglife.blogspot.com and wanted to share it. Brin, the blogger, lives in East Texas and I'm assuming that's where this photo was taken. Water, and streams and rivers in particular, have been a powerful spiritual symbol for me for years. I want to step into this photo and follow the stream and see where it takes me.

Making things more complicated than they have to be

I got a phone call earlier this week from the counseling minster at a big-steeple church in our part of town. He told me about a project he was working on and an upcoming lunch meeting with a woman in our area who may be able to take the project to the next level. I thought he was about to say, "I know from our conversation at the Marriage Summit that you are interested in this project so I'd love for you to join us." What he actually said was, "Our church has a policy that we don't meet with women alone and so I was hoping you would come to the meeting to be the third person at the table."

I'm vibrating with frustration. I'm frustrated that I said yes. I'm frustrated that he couldn't just talk to me like a professional colleague (his subsequent email said, "Thanks for helping me stay above reproach"). I'm frustrated that I'm not going to call him out on it.

Sarah Palin's emergence on the political stage has held up a fascinating mirror to our culture and to women. I have shuddered when foreign dignitaries from countries unfriendly to women leer at her during photo ops. I was repulsed when a gross old man in Alaska said to a reporter, "If she wasn't married, I'd definitely bang her." I get irritated when young men talk about how they will vote for her because "she's hot." I've been encouraged by conservative women's willingness to embrace her as a working mom and I've been disheartened by liberal women questioning the same.

I've also been intrigued by the nation's response to her overt femininity. Hillary Clinton is derided sometimes as a "strident" feminist and ridiculed for her wrinkles and her pantsuits and other reminders that she is an "older" (meaning, post-feminine) woman (although I think she also garners respect from women for the same thing.) Condoleeza Rice is widely respected but is portrayed as asexual, which seems to put everyone at ease. (Last winter, when she was photographed wearing high-heel knee boots, you would have thought she had taken up pole dancing!)

So here is a woman who is young, beautiful and knows how to use her feminine power. Men all over America think she winked directly at them during the debates. As Amy Poehler observed, when she is backed into a political corner, she becomes "even more adorable." Being a PTA mom (a form of community leader, by the way) is suddenly taken seriously by many. I think that's an improvement. I'm interested to see where this all takes us.

So, back to my lunch today with a secular professional woman in business and a well-intentioned ministry guy. If I get there and realize that I'm part of the team and that the project will go forward, it will be a win for everyone. If I realize, though, that I'm just there as a chaperone, I'll cut my losses and move on.

I'm working to get the chip off my shoulder. As a wife and as a Christian protecting my own integrity, I appreciate his commitment to avoiding temptation and/or avoiding compromising appearances. I just wish that these guys didn't bring it up every time--and I do mean every time--we have a conversation, especially since we have only met in public conference rooms and lobbies. It implies that there is something illicit about our working together and reactivates the archaic Christian view of women as "temptresses." Surely we can do better from both ends. And, I really do believe that if I'm not willing to talk with him directly about it, I'm not allowed to hold on to all this resentment. That's passive-aggressive and unfair. I'll keep you posted.

I've been waiting forever for Emily Giffin's new book Love the One You're With--got it from the library yesterday and just now finished it. I have thoroughly enjoyed all her books and am mostly sad now that there won't be another one for awhile. Like Elizabeth Berg, Giffin has an uncanny way of describing how normal people feel but don't know they feel until they read it in a sentence.

Now, this is not literary fiction, since literary fiction is mostly about tortured, neurotic people. But it's not "chick lit" either (well, especially Berg)--just real writing about real women (or women that seem real and make you wish they were real). This is the hardback printed version of comfort food--fried chicken and mashed potatoes and watermelon--eaten with friends, laughing in somebody's den . . .