snoburbia, the blog

nincompoopery*

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In overachiever snoburbia we relish our ability to stay awake. It's the subject of discussion at parties. "I sleep only four hours a night..." (subtext: "...because the global economy would collapse without my efforts," or "...because the Scouts would cease to exist without my selfless toil.") The counter to this is: "Yeah, I know, I only slept three hours last night."

I, however, do not engage in this competition. I am a sleeper. If I don't get enough sleep - and I mean at least seven hours - I become:

a.) grouchy

b.) a total nincompoop

There have been many sleep studies in recent years. And they generally show that a person who doesn't get enough sleep has increased depression and stress levels, as well as reduced cognitive function. In other words, he becomes:

a.) grouchy

b.) a total nincompoop

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* This is a real word, and it sounds especially funny when you haven't had enough sleep.

cheese snob

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Oh no. I dread this feeling that is coming on. It's the feeling of having crossed a line from which I now can never retreat: I think I am becoming a cheese snob.

I have bought cheese from the artisanal cheese man at the local snoburban farmers' market every Saturday for about a month now. And now I can never eat ordinary cheese again. I didn't plan on this. It's the very kind of thing I would tease one of my friends about. But the other day my husband brought home some cheese from the Safeway - a cheese I normally like, and... it did not taste good.

So this morning I walked to the farmers' market for my cheese fix. I stood next to the French woman who was arguing with the cheese man that, "This cheese was made in France." He seemed to delight in telling her it was made in Appalachia (Washington, Va. - not exactly typical Appalachia). 

I bought some semi-hard, rosemary-rind cheese and some chevre. I may even try a piece of the aged Stilton he is going to bring next weekend.

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i hate thanksgiving

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I feel a little uncomfortable saying this, because it's not very snoburban of me, but... I don't like Thanksgiving. Not at all. Don't get me wrong - it's not in that Thanksgiving-as-metaphor-for-family-dysfunction way. I love seeing my family, who come in from out of town. I also love the long weekend.

It's just that Thanksgiving is a massing of all those things I don't care about, all on one day:

• Food

• Rituals

• Finery

Maybe it stems from my mother making me clean the wax off the candelabra or iron the tablecloths every year. The good china, the crystal, the turkey that has to cook all day. All that pressure, culminating in... one meal.

I'd rather we just hang out. Can't we just order a pizza?

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P.S. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

carnies, pirates and screenprinters

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I am starting to think of screenprinters as carnies, or maybe pirates. In the last couple of weeks, I have sold quite a few snoburbia t-shirts because of the Washington Post article. Great, right? Well, not so fast.

I placed my order with my screenprinter, and after a reasonable number of days, called to see when they would be ready. Well, the dreadlocked Jamaican guy who does the printing, "has disappeared for four days and no one has seen him." Okay? But they found a temp who could do it. Okay.

So I called on Friday to find out about picking up my shirts, and the really nice, apologetic guy who answered the phone explained that if they weren't printed by the end of that day, I wasn't getting them at all. "Um, why?" I asked. Because they were going out of business and the bank was coming any minute to padlock the warehouse - with my shirts inside.

So now, I am trying a new screenprinter, who seems professional and good. One of my snoburbia Facebook page friends sent him to me. So I checked out his Facebook page - it shows a photo of him wearing a t-shirt that says, "Eat, f**k, kill."

Aargh.

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the science fair project

 

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I have just spent four hours helping my son with his science fair project - mostly through motivational speaking, with occasional bouts of sighing. In this quadrant of snoburbia, science fair projects are a serious affair - for parents. Some of my son's classmates' parents are scientists at National Institutes of Health or at one of the genetics companies in the area. Or they're just lawyers.

Even in fifth grade, you should see the projects these kids come up with.

Then there's high school. Here were the titles of a few of the Science Montgomery high school contest winners from last year: "Validation Of Parabolic Ion Trap Geometries For Application Within Quantum Computing," "Decycling Densities Of Tessellations," and "Investigation Of Nano-structured Super-hydrophobic Coating On Structural Substrates."

My kid's project: "Comparing the bounciness of balls of different materials."

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early decision

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I want to talk to you about... ED. No, no - not that ED, not the one in those creepy ads where silver-haired couples are holding hands and smiling knowingly.

It's the other ED: Early Decision. Early Decision is what you do when you have been groomed your whole life to attend a particular college, Williams, say, or Stanford. (There is a whole hierarchy of decisions to confuse you: Early Action, Restrictive Early Action, Early Decision, or Early Notification. But it's okay - your parents will hire a college admissions counselor to figure it all out. Or you will camp out on College Confidential.)

Before I lived in the snoburbs, I thought college applications had to be in by January sometime. But that is so regular admissions, so public university.

The deadline is nigh. Now it's a nail-biter until you hear the news. If you get in, you're golden. If not, you are stuck with your reach school, which is devastating.

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locabore

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Around here, in the snoburbs, you mustn't just eat your food. You must do a statistical and cultural analysis of it. Food is political. It is not to be taken lightly - and certainly not to be enjoyed. That is, unless you know it was harvested sustainably or grown locally and organically (and purchased at the local farmers' market).

If you do not follow the above rules, you deserve to be flogged. For instance, if you indulge in Nutella, you, personally, are destroying the rainforests. [Note: But deliciously.]

I know a 10-year-old boy who was at his friend's house, and who, when offered some chicken, asked: "Is this free-range, organic chicken or is it factory-farmed?" Okay, that was my kid. I am so proud.

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modern family angst

 
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Something snaps in regular people the minute they have a baby and move to snoburbia.

I was watching the show, Modern Family. There was an exchange between Mitchell and Cam, a gay couple* raising a young daughter, Lily. It was a pitch-perfect capture of the angst snoburban parents feel.

Mitchell came home, panicked, after noticing that Lily's usual playmates and their moms were missing from the playground. Where were they?

Mitchell: [T]hey all sent their kids to preschool!

Cam: What?! We agreed to wait until next year!

Mitchell: It was a fake-out - to make sure their kids got a spot.

Cam: Those skinny b*tches...

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* We don't even notice whether parents are gay in snoburbia, because we are so tolerant.

lady, can you spare a dime?

The Washington Post did an article about me and my blog yesterday. Then there was a follow-up Live Chat, which was lighthearted and fun. It has been a whirlwind, with 1,000 times the usual amount of hits. I have received really nice emails from people who appreciate my posts. 

The reporter, J. Freedom duLac, emailed me twice today to tell me it was the second most emailed story yesterday, and that it was in the top five stories on which people clicked. Heady stuff, right?

Most of the comments and emails sent to me personally have been very kind. But then I started reading the Post comments. Geez. Calgon take me away.

What I didn't expect was the barrage of vitriol, from people who don't know me and who made [wrong] assumptions about, 1.) an imagined life of privilege, or, conversely, 2.) a mundane suburban life and unnuanced observations not worthy of daylight, depending on who was commenting (anonymously).

The first group thought I was a spoiled, ungrateful punk. It was the comment about the $300 door handles that was probably my downfall. Okay, I admit, I splurged on those handles. I admire them every day. They're awesome. It's not as if I buy something like that on regular basis. (All my light fixtures are $9 and $13 glass and chrome jobs from Home Depot.) One of these commenters ended his tirade with: "Lady, can you spare a dime?" Ouch.

One person insulted my father, who had the nerve not to know what the PSAT was. Someone else wrote, "We know her, and she is strange." Um, okay?

And then there was the second group (from D.C. Urban Moms blog). Here's an example...

She doesn't seem to appreciate some of the finer distinctions among the various subcultures of suburban life she observes. For example, the Chevy Chase View family with 4 kids, Connor, Brendan, Grace and Patrick, all of whom play LAX or soccer for either Prep or Stone Ridge and get carted around to games in their Suburban with the OBX sticker is worlds away from the McLean family with 2 girls named Piper and Hayes who play tennis for Madeira and drive a Range Rover with a MV sticker.

Okay, now that's funny (but probably not in the way the writer intended)! Or maybe it's not.

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yo vote in snoburbia

After I voted yesterday, I was proud to wear my generic "I voted/Yo vote" sticker. I felt extra special. But then I saw this one from snoburban Northern Virginia*:

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* I don't actually go to Virginia unless medically necessary, so thank you to astute Virginia reader Chris L. for sending me this photo.