Rice, Beans, Relish, and Entrée: A Guide to Women’s Wardrobe Decisions

In the wake of the popular clamor over my decision guide to hair, I offer companion advice about dressing in the modern world. . .

The food pyramid is a healthy, back-to-basics, and inexpensive model for eating. Briefly put: eat a lot of carbohydrates, then a good amount of vegetables, and fewer fats and proteins. In effect the USDA food pyramid is an endorsement of the staple diet the world over: a lot of rice, a good amount of beans and vegetables, then a relish. The regular consumption of a separate entrée of meat, poultry or fish is a phenomenon of privilege that has become common in the industrialized north and among post-colonial elites. Recommended USDA practice is to keep it small (sometimes stated as the size of the palm of your hand). Rich people hear this: make meat a niche at the top of your food pyramid.

I think about the pyramid when I dress. The bottom of the pyramid is the most important item. Comparable to a smothering of rice are pants. Pants are critical and simple -- a staple. There’s not much reason to get excited about pants, however. Next, appearing as the beans, is the shirt. A shirt is more interesting than pants, a bit more of an opportunity to show flair, to play with color, cut and texture. Shirts carry seasoning the way a good stew does. Together, pants and a shirt can be a hearty, satisfying, simple, yet spicy combination. Attention must be paid to the appropriateness of the pants-shirt combination just as with rice and beans. Would you eat black beans with sticky rice? Nor would you wear a broadcloth shirt with knit pants.

All around the world, people complement their rice and beans with a relish, salsa in Mexico, lasary in Madagascar, a sambal in South Asia. The condiment is the scarf. It lends additional flavor to a plate of rice and beans. A scarf, like mango pickle, punches above its weight to make a simple combination distinctive.

The entrée: a jacket. It brings the peasant rice-and-beans, working mom pants-and-blouse combination to a higher bourgeois level. This is the top of the pyramid. You spend more on jackets, but you need fewer of them and you can exercise restraint about wearing them. Once again, texture matters. No structured wool blazers with those comfy knit pants. Felt is a great choice for a jacket to justify comfortable pants!

Shoes, on the other hand, are as water to the food pyramid. Don’t get any more sentimental about your shoes than you are about your tires. They hit the road, they get you where you need to go. Ankles turn and fortunes are squandered on inappropriate footwear. Don’t buy the European imported fancy stuff. A simple choice keeps you alive and active. . .

Time is short, money is scarce, the world is crazy. In eating and dressing, think Rigoberta Menchú before Martha Stewart. Both were persecuted, but only one of them deserved it.

It Takes A Village of Black Moms

Yesterday I had two interesting encounters with mothers.

First, I was talking with a black mother, who was concerned about her younger sister. The girl had been acting up. Visiting her parents over Easter, this woman noticed a friend of the sister had been spending a lot of time at the house. Not impressed with the friend or her influence on the sister, the woman asked, "I see you around here a lot; what's your story?" Clearly, the story didn't move her, because at the end of the day, she said to the friend, "Now it's time for you to go home. You've got to get cleaned up and get ready for school tomorrow. Plus, you've got to leave here before my mother gets tired of you." She drove the girl to her own house and said to the mother (whom she knew a bit), "Your daughter is not being serious. You are her mother. She needs to spend more time at home with you."

"How did the mother take that?" I asked, a little bit nervous.

"She was fine," I was told. "She thanked me for watching out for her daughter."

Later that day, I was with a group of white mothers for a play date. One little boy whose mother was absent was being rough. He purposely stepped on fingers and kicked another boy in the face. The mothers were not sure what to do. We clucked to each other along the lines of "What should we do with him? Should we say something to his mother?" We did, of course, tell him not to hurt his playmates, but then we reevaluated, "I hope I wasn't too mean. . ." "No, you weren't too mean! You were fine!" I'm not sure if anyone did say anything to the mother. I certainly didn't.

Anyone who's not blind can see where I'm going with this. Long ago I noticed how African American mothers take charge of random children. I was really impressed once to see a woman stop her car, roll down the window, and scold a group of boys who were playing too close to traffic. This seemed like a good public service. Once I tried it when I was driving and boys were horsing around on the side of the road. I pulled over and rolled down the window, "You kids need to watch out, because if you fall in front of a car, it won't be able to stop in time." They were dumbstruck and appalled. No "Yes ma'ams." No "Sorry, ma'ams." They stared at me as if I was a big crabby grump. Mortified, I drove away. I didn't intend to be mean.

Important lesson: It may take a village, but only if you're part of it. I'm not sure I'm in a village at all.

Five Years On

Not much to say about today's anniversary. Five years ago during the shock and awe it was anguishing: "This is a lie." "Those poor people." "We're going to make even more enemies," and "We can't afford this." Now, we live with it, at a distance. It's a subject for political debate, always with caution taken with proper patriotic language. Great as they may be, this war really isn't about our troops, folks. A moment of silence on the costs our leaders have inflicted on Americans and Iraqis.

Hair and Its Costs: A Decision Guide for Women

Hair needs to be considered in terms of its drain on energy and resources from other areas of life. By this I mean hair on a woman’s head, the sort of hair that is tended to flatter the wearer and communicate something about her nature. All that is possible, but only at a cost, similar to the energy tropical birds – male in that case – channel into non-functional plumage.

But, we women of modern America are smarter than tropical male birds and we have the ability to make choices. The following guide is intended to help you make appropriate decisions about the sort of resources you are able to invest in your coiffure. The X axis represents the types of hair by length. The Y axis indicates the level of required investments in different areas. A minus sign (-) represents the absence of significant investment, an equals sign (=) represents a modest level of investment, a plus sign (+) represents that the resource requirement is significant.

A Note on chemical treatments: The chart assumes that the choice of hair length is independent of decisions about color and permanent waving, which represent a uniform increase in money, some initial investment in time, but have the potential to reduce the required level of tolerance. Risk rises significantly with chemical applications.

So, here’s the breakdown. If you’re young and have sufficient money, cut it off! Wear your own cute face without the hassle of hair! Of course, the shorter the cut, the greater the risk of complete failure. Before taking it too short, consider your tolerance for going completely bald if that’s what necessary to salvage a bad cut.

If you’re a bit older and have adequate time and financial resources, it might be wise for you to grow it out a bit to a medium length. Increase the length and go for dignity.

If you have no money and no time, whether you’re old or young, you should wear it long. (Be advised that actual styling norms for long hair are dependent on age; the young can wear wispy clips, the older might consider buns.) But, long hair requires tolerance. You have to live with it. It will just hang there, it will pull when you’re sleeping, it will require engineering to keep it out of your face when you read or exercise. It requires self control: under no condition should you play with it in public, even if you are 18 years old.

The Top Ten Things You Should Never Say To Your Professor

I finally thought of the 10th comment, inserted between the mildly clueless (6-10) and the patently rude (1-4).

10. Sometimes I sort of forget that I’m taking your class.
9. Is this going to be on the exam?
8. Are we responsible for all this detail, or just the general drift?
7. I had a busy week with my other courses. Can I have an extension?
6. I was going to ask Professor X for a recommendation, but he’s so busy.
5. Sorry my paper's late, but I think you'll like it.
4. What's new about your analysis?
3. I don’t see what good your course can do me.
2. There’s nothing you can teach me.
1. I’m really only interested in learning about myself right now.

Pencil Me In

What is it about mid-middle-age or the falling dollar that suddenly I only write in pencil? I always was a Bic Girl, with that medium-to-fine point more-royal-than-navy blue. I had no use for pencils. I didn't like the look of my scrawl, messy as it is, smudged in graphite.

But somehow, in the past six months or so, I've given up ink. I realize that pencil becomes indistinct, with thick gray letters stumbling over a dullish textured page. But I don't mind. I can sharpen my point when I think it's important. I like to erase. I don't mind so much that my writing might fade.

Every few weeks or so, Owen (who has perfect penmanship and ever-sharp points) gathers up all the pencils around our place to sharpen them. He's noticed he does it more frequently than he used to. Other than that, he hasn't noticed a change in my convictions or presentations. When I start to mutter and equivocate, we'll know empire is over and I'm past my prime. For now it's just in my notes, in books and on student papers, on grocery lists. Right now, I take satisfaction in knowing I can change what I write.