"That leaves 30 years — 30 years of what? You’re going to knit? That's just crazy!"

Anne-Marie Slaughter is alarmed:

The snobbish rejection of pre-fabbishness.

We're finally getting around to putting wood flooring in the one room in this big house that hasn't had it, and we got into comparing pre-finished wood flooring and what I call — in my impoverished lingo — real floors. In the showroom, I had to suppress my urge to say things like "It doesn't look real" and "It looks like fake wood" and "You might as well have wood-patterned linoleum" more than... well, what do you think is decent? 20 times?

Back at Meadhouse, 12 hours later, we had a conversation about the prejudice against pre-fab things. We're not disrespecting pre-fab homes anymore. Some of the best-made, coolest houses are in this category. And no one sniffs at ready-to-wear clothing, because no one even knows anyone who wears couture. You might sew your own clothes and knit your own sweaters if you had some meditative, aesthetic relationship with fabric/yarn, but you still wouldn't think ill of the pre-made stuff in the stores. Some people might coo over handmade pottery, but it's more elevated aesthetically to value straightforward perfection that's mass produced and machine-made.

So, let's talk about packaged food — processed food. It's another category of prefab, and it's an area where rejection is on the upswing. The idea of cooking your own food and making everything from scratch — the finest, purest scratch — is pushed by opinion leaders. Should we be following Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan — or would a scoop of skepticism hit the spot? Here's a long — really long — article in The Atlantic with the somewhat distracting title "How Junk Food Can End Obesity."

Foodlike substances, the derisive term Pollan uses to describe processed foods, is now a solid part of the elite vernacular. Thousands of restaurants and grocery stores, most notably the Whole Foods chain, have thrived by answering the call to reject industrialized foods in favor of a return to natural, simple, nonindustrialized—let’s call them “wholesome”—foods....

The Pollanites seem confused about exactly what benefits their way of eating provides. All the railing about the fat, sugar, and salt engineered into industrial junk food might lead one to infer that wholesome food, having not been engineered, contains substantially less of them....

The fact is, there is simply no clear, credible evidence that any aspect of food processing or storage makes a food uniquely unhealthy.... The results of all the scrutiny of processed food are hardly scary, although some groups and writers try to make them appear that way....

In many respects, the wholesome-food movement veers awfully close to religion.

When pre-fab things are good, opposition is superstition. That's not sophisticated. The better class of snobs is looking down on you.

ADDED: Meade, reading this post, getting to the excerpts from the really long article, observes that they are the equivalent of fast food. My blogging is processed journalism. Blogging is pre-fab.

ALSO: Here's the actual pre-fab flooring we ended up liking — specifically, the "stained white wash." We're still comparing that to "real floors" — hardwood that is installed and then finished.

"I just got a haircut, and it's short enough that I can no longer play with my hair."

"What can I do instead?"

You might think this is an opportunity to how to avoid nervous, compulsive behavior, but here is someone trying to get new ideas for fidgeting.

Temporary fixes I've used in the past include playing with hair elastics worn around a wrist and squeezing small plushies/stuffed animals, but these tend to loose their appeal quickly with me. Knitting also quells this urge, but it's not really an option during my work day. Chewing gum is also out due to TMJ.

At the Samoyed Café...

... you can make a new friend.



ADDED: You can spin yarn from your Samoyed's wool and knit sweaters, which will be extremely warm.

"My Mom thought the cowl looked like a micro-mini skirt!"

It totally fits like that too. Perfect with leggings as an item of clothing I call an asswarmer.

Get your hiking shoes on!

Quit posing!



Get out here!

"Would you send your kid to a school where faceless dolls and pine-cones are the toys of choice?"

"A school where kids don't read proficiently until age 9 or 10 -- and where time spared goes to knitting and playing the recorder? A school where students sing hymns to 'spirit' every day?"