2.3 Kids

A dispatch from bewilderness

I started working at Time Magazine in 1972. I was a token hippie, a token female “professional” among hordes of preppy males. I was also the only woman on quite a few floors who didn’t make coffee as part of her job. All the guys in my position had a wife, a nanny, and 2.3 kids. The nanny made meals and took care of the wife and the kids.  

While they lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, I lived over a cab garage in a crappy, crumbling structure in a crumbling neighborhood with no trace of college grads. Fyi, cabs were called “hacks” then.

This was before Macs and PCs and laptops and smart phones, email or internet. We used typewriters and dinosaurs still roamed the earth. Computers were kept in ice-cold rooms the size of a stadium. When we made a mistake, we didn’t hit the “delete” button. It had not yet been invented.  I’m an antique.

Once upon a time, a computer named “Watson” won “Jeopardy ” on TV with a higher score than the best two human players combined, and became a millionaire. Watson got his knowledge from media.  He aced human language -- read a million books every second -- and kept every friggin’ fact at his metaphorical fingertips

Think how little you remember, even without a head injury.  You might remember half of what happened today, and even less about last night.  Then think of Watson.  He perused 200 million pages and recalled every single blessed bit.

13 foods he shouldn’t freeze.  9 he shouldn’t microwave.  10 e-mail habits humans hate.  How to chop onions without getting teary.  How to get an eff-ing grip.  Plus how to live with a human.  8 biggest investing mistakes.  5 love potions he should try.  How to delete his web history.  How to keep moths away from his clothes.

Since starring on “Jeopardy,” Watson has been employed at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he assists with patient treatment plans. He has also grown five spiky hairs, written a cookbook (“Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson”), consulted for Hollywood, and become a financial advisor.

Post-truck, I have painted, made collages, written poems, a book or two (minus an agent to get them published), and this stack.