Days of the Locust

A couple years ago, I audited an African-American literature class, taught by a virtuosic professor who wove music and art and American history into a syllabus that was symphonic in its complexity and power. His performance as the conductor of this score was life-changing, for me at least.  Among the homework assignments was to attend a retrospective of the African-American painter Kerry James Marshall. In the following class, he asked students for their response to the exhibit. One young woman said her experience was spoiled by the presence of “old white ladies.” The scorn with which she uttered this epithet took my breath away. For one thing, I was the only old white lady in the class—most of the other students were young people of color—so I felt like an intruder under a spotlight. Which in a sense I was.  I wasn’t offended. In fact, I almost savored this little taste of being the object of racial, ageist, sexist hatred. It was experiential education. I told a friend ...

A friend recently repaid my purchase of theater tickets with a $100 bill. She expressed relief at unburdening herself of this inconvenient currency. And I understood why. Of what use was this denomination for the kinds of everyday purchases we tend to make: a $3.99 bunch of asparagus, a $9.99 T-shirt, a $1.99 cup of coffee, a $15 movie ticket. No merchant ever seems to have change for $100. So it’s a tar-baby bill. And I was stuck with it. Or it was stuck to me. Other, of course, had the solution: Go to the bank and cash it in for smaller denominations. Which I did. But on my way there, I started imagining what would happen if I inadvertently gave the $100 bill to a panhandler. Initially, that person might feel that her ship had come in. But it would be even more difficult for her to use than it was for me. For one thing, a merchant might be suspicious of a homeless person trying to pay for anything with a large bill. Police might even be called. Virtually no one--except maybe a drug...

I’m not religious and certainly not Catholic, but there was a time when Pope Francis seemed to have a bead on life’s little conundrums. A couple years ago, he solved my niggling worries about giving money to panhandlers who were clearly drug addicts or alcoholics. I’ve always given money, but I often felt conflicted about it. “Help is always right … even if [the beggar] spends it on drinking a glass of wine,” the Pope said. If “a glass of wine is the only happiness he has in life, that’s O.K.” So for the past two years, I’ve felt comfortably virtuous as I placed small bills in the hands of begging women. (I have only so much walking-around cash, and there is a limitless supply of outstretched hands in my neighborhood, so I made it a rule of thumb to give only to women, which satisfies an urge to restack the cards—this time in favor of the sex least favored in life.) I took care to look into their eyes, and to place—not drop—the bills, making sure to touch their hands, as the Pope adv...

Some synonyms for “squeamish” may surprise you: scrupulous, principled, honorable, upright. These come to me as a pleasant surprise since I am known for my squeamishness and ashamed of it.  But I cannot claim the high-mindedness those words suggest. The synonyms for my kind of squeamish run along the lines of paranoid, phobic, selfish, suspicious, and, at best, commonsensical. Among the things that make my skin crawl: warm subway poles, warm telephone receivers, warm toilet seats, warm drinking water, drinking water with ice, iPhones with smeared or cracked screens, a human sharing a tub of cottage cheese with a cat, a human sharing food from a plate with another human, leftovers of any kind but particularly Chinese takeout. And then there are the things that make everybody recoil but induce a more severe, phobic response in me: lice, ticks, mosquitoes, bedbugs, the odor of mildew. Paradoxically, I’m comfortable changing soiled diapers on the young or old, but dog shit on my ...

I have a dear little friend, now 3 years old, with whom I’ve been having playdates throughout her lifetime. About six months ago, I had a troubling moment. I was changing little P’s pull-ups, and she was wriggling on the changing table. To entertain her as I cleaned her up, I started lifting her shirt and tickling her tummy. The first time I did it, she screamed (with what sounded like delight) and laughed. When I lifted her shirt to tickle her again a few seconds later, she screamed and laughed again—and yelled “No!” She seemed to love this game, and I continued to do it till I got her dressed and took her off the table. She ran off giggling and squealing “No!” She seemed to want me to play some more. Then suddenly the “No means no!” slogan flashed through my mind. And I stopped right there. Looking back, I’ve wondered about this moment. And I’ve finally come to a conclusion. Even when a little girl who’s having fun says no as part of a game, I’m thinking it’s a pretty good idea...