What forest? What trees?

Shopping can make you happy

Yes, you know you have that long, long day of work and at the end of it you decide you deserve a treat and so you go shopping. It may not be a big thing, might just be a new razor, or a t-shirt, but you just have to buy something. Well, that's the normal kind of shopping therapy. That's shopping from relief or perhaps happiness or perhaps for having just survived some long day.

But I now have a new kind of "shopping therapy." I had a day last week, one of those days. Maybe everything went wrong, from the newspaper being wet on the front steps to uncooperative co-workers to a bad turkey sandwich for lunch to vague and disconcerting phone calls with colleagues and other people.

So there I was at the end of a day like that and I still had to get food for dinner, so I headed over to the local Whole Foods, where I got a hand basket and picked up some potatoes, a steak, asparagus, a pineapple, cottage cheese, instant oatmeal, a ham and brie sandwich for the next day's lunch, a baguette. But people weren't getting out of my way, and someone cut me off in the line at the meat counter. The day just seemed to be getting worse.

Then I made my way to the checkout lanes, scanning the row of cashiers to see who had the shortest line. The first aisle is '8 items or less' and I know I can't go there but I'm thinking maybe I qualify for the '12 items or less' and I'm standing there in no-man's land counting the items in my basket when I happen to look up and see that the check-out woman in '8 items or less' is looking at me, looking at her empty line and extending her arm, palm up, letting me know it doesn't matter how many things there are in my basket. She smiles, I smile, and for the first time all day I feel happy, and she says, "you know, it's better to be busy" and I agree, glad to know that there's a grocery store where people are happy (she had a big smile) to break the rules to make things run more quickly and efficiently.

I thanked her profusely, asked for paper rather than plastic and was out of there in no time, happy. Happy to have saved a day at the last minute from the 'one long shitless day' to the 'wow, what a great ending' kind of day. And I still had the rest of the evening spread out before me.

Men get happier at women's expense

Article in September 26 New York Times titled "A Reversal of the Happy Index." Men, it turns out, are happier now than they were 40 years ago. Women are less happy. Seems that men are working less (that thing that makes them unhappy) and women, of course, are now working outside the home and are still working as much inside the home. Or, a little less at home. Apparently, dusting is down. (and obviously, not soon to be picked up by men.)

But I don't get the 'men working less' thing. I thought we were all working more.

Also seems that women don't enjoy spending time with their parents while men do. Because when women are with their parents, they're taking care of them; it's work. While men who spend time with their parents are probably sitting around watching football or baseball, doing nothing. Certainly not dusting together. This tendency is only going to accelerate as the boomers age and their parents age more and need more and more care.

I see it in my own family. Parents in their 80s. (Father recently deceased.) Four children: three boys, 1 girl. Daughter lives near parents and so burden of dealing with their health issues falls to her. And she's got her own family and her own career to deal with. That's a lot of stress. A lot of un-happiness.

Most troubling factoid for me is that high school girls are less happy than high school boys. One theory is that these young women are leading the charge in academics, in student government, in sports, and on top of all that they feel pressure to be 'hotties.' And the boys, well, I guess the boys are just being boys. But why are they happier than they were in 1976? Are they working less? Perhaps they're copying all the answers off the girls' papers.