We always wanted to read whatever my mother was reading, and that meant that in the 80's, we all got into Stephen King and Agatha Christie and Dick Francis, plus some popular nonfiction of the era like Desmond Morris's books. I remember getting into trouble about Wifey, which my mother thought was porn, but she didn't try all that hard to keep it from us, as I recall. Some years later, she was surprised when I told her that Judy Blume's YA books were controversial, as she'd assumed that pretty much anything YA would be fine for us to read; she never checked. I think the same thing happened with V.C. Andrews, which we girls all read for sure. My brother might have, but he'd never admit it. On the whole, it was never my parents who chastised me for the intellectual quality of what I read. Just my high school English teacher, sigh. She's gone now, and I still happily read reams of smut and regret nothing. She got after me for reading Robert Parker during a free reading period. Good thing she didn't know about the zillions of Sweet Valley High books that are still in my attic.
I let my kids pick their own books. Not much scares me. I remember the power of reading to let me resolve my own questions and problems without having to have embarrassing conversations with people, especially my parents, who were definite social liberals but who had been raised ashamed enough of sex to have a lot of trouble with it when it came to parenting matters. They were nearly always palpably trying to stay out of their own way when raising us, but my dad had three daughters and he just couldn't help himself from wanting us to stay virgins until at least he died. It didn't work out.
I always love your columns, Mary, and not only because I have what I know is an irrational and half-dreamy fascination with the 1945-1965 years (when my own mother was growing up, the source of a lot of secondhand cultural memories for me). One thing you said was something she said to me once when I asked why she didn't like Frank Sinatra and big band, which she is baffled that I love: "But that's my parents' music." We had a conversation about why it was then that I was assumed to like my parents' music (which I do), both the Beatles and Elvis and other popular music of the 1960s, and the classic rock hits of the 1970s, when my parents were both young adults, and how odd it is that the bright line of the music of old people seems to be arbitrarily set in my grandparents' era. During my childhood and teenage years in the late 70's through the early 90's, we definitely knew which music was ours and which was our parents', but the concept of retro came in and hung on, so we all knew our parents' music and there was no stigma about liking it. I'm still trying to figure out if my children will have the same experience as I did, or instead are more like my parents about music from before their time. My kids don't have the same relationship with contemporary music as we did, or generations before us.
I had this same conversation with myself about Roger Thornhill and Eve Kendall from North by Northwest. So he's going to go back to being an ad man, and she's going to give up the spy life to be his wife in some large but still confining apartment in Manhattan? Um, no. He'll get bored and so will she; the difference is that he'll find someone else to compare to a box of chocolates, and she'll go back to the spy life, and she'll definitely be better off.
Probably some hot sex for them until that happens, though.
Depending on the circumstances, I either like to explore them or perform rituals in them. On special days, both.
"I like historic cemeteries." Boom, done. Who'd have time for someone less than intrepid about historic cemeteries.
I had three years of unsuccessful job searching before finally giving in and applying to Ph.D. programs (upon completion of which, this bullshit will certainly start all over again, because job hunting in academia is just as bad), and this is why I unequivocally hate HR people. Just, all of them. I have a few friends who do it and I have to overlook it the way I'd overlook bad politics or a missing sense of humor or excessive religiosity. The way companies treat job applicants now--and the general public, if leaving key positions unfilled and advertising for openings that don't exist are anything to go by--is reprehensible. We are not fucking around; we need jobs for food and housing and transportation and supporting families. It's the meanest meanness not to treat people humanely in a job search. I know someone's liable to jump in and tell me that hating HR people is not fair or a good solution, but sometimes the smugness of people in power is too much to take, even, or especially, if they don't know they're being smug.
Made my whole Monday worthwhile.
The museum piece: I'm posting as someone with a museum degree and a lot of years of experience, but at the technical and visitor-services end, not curation. I've worked with the curators, though. Some things to understand:
1. The curator is an academic. In recent years, academics have been very overshadowed by businesspeople and their interests in the acquisitions end of things. Even if she'd made an ethical argument about acquiring looted works--and this is generally an unethical thing to do; acquiring anything without known provenance is risky, as demonstrated by legal wrangling over art "acquired" by the Nazis or sold by fleeing European Jews at fire-sale prices--there's no guarantee anyone would have listened to it. Part of the business end of a museum is acquiring pieces that have business value, and things that will attract visitors and donors, which also can be acquired at rock-bottom prices because they're not being sold on the open market, fit the bill.
2. I strongly suspect that she was targeted at least in part because she's a powerful woman in what is still often a boys' club, especially for people of their respective generations (and it's an aging profession; people stay in that job for decades, and it's very difficult for young people without the proper social connections to break in. You have to have the education and know the people). That's why Hecht has his book deal and she doesn't. This story where she's in a backed-down position and Hecht isn't is pretty much a perfect demonstration of what made her vulnerable. If Hecht is guilty of wrongdoing, he clearly isn't letting that stop him, and True is saying, well, my career is over now because they won't let me do it anymore. They took her out because they must have suspected she'd make it easy for them in the long run, because she knew she'd done things she shouldn't have, as a scholar and professional. This is far from the first questionable transaction involving the Getty, also.
I actually never even realized that was a thing. Poly, yes, but not specific to these circumstances. I appreciate what you've said. Thank you.
I've thought about it. You can't unsee what you see when window-shopping on Craigslist. But so far, it's like a odds good-goods odd situation. Married men looking for married women for companionship because of this kind of situation come off pretty sleazy, and I can't fool myself that I'd look much better if I came right out and said "seeking friendship because of complicated marital situation." What men can see as a practical solution for themselves, they tend to regard as unforgivably slutty and faithless in a woman. I don't want any relationship with anyone who would think that of me. I'm open to the possibility that someday I'll meet someone in person, though, who gets the situation and wants to go with it because of who I am, not because of what they need. But it's the kind of thing best kept on the QT.
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NDR 
Contraption