My (non-personal) confession
I’ve got an item to put on the agenda for discussion, but in order to do so I have to reveal something embarrassing. OK, here goes:
I read a column by Ellen Goodman yesterday.
That’s not hugely humiliating, of course. It’s roughly equivalent to admitting that I watch The View occasionally, or that I have a subscription to O, the magazine that celebrates all things Oprah. (Let me be clear here: Those are hypothetical “admissions.”) Confessing to having read an Ellen Goodman column won’t make people recoil in horror, but it’s inconsistent with my beliefs and principles — among which is the notion that life is too short to spend time reading columnists who are relentless in their predictability and unwavering ideology.
That’s the same reason why I rarely watch Sean Hannity, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or see Michael Moore movies. How many times do you need to hear the same shtick?
But I dipped into Ellen Goodman yesterday, and was rewarded with a treat. Her column was about the surprising (to some people) findings of a study on who talks more — men or women? Within that essay, which you can read here, Goodman wrote: “If the subject was impersonal or problem-solving, men took up more of the airwaves. If it was personal, women did.”
Boy, talk about the hot stab of familiarity. Just the day before, I’d run into a former neighbor at the hardware store. He’s a guy who’s had some recent unhappiness in his life, and I’ve had a full measure of it myself in the past few years. So, naturally, we talked a lot about fishing. Even if those personal matters had come up, the conversation would have been something like this:
Me: “Sorry about that thing.”
Him: “Yeah, it was tough.”
Me: “Did you catch the Braves game last night?”
Funny thing is, I can write about personal stuff. I just can’t seem to talk about it with any grace or comfort. It makes me feel awkward — sort of like the way Andruw Jones looks at the plate these days. If he doesn’t start hitting, the Braves can forget it this year.