Where's a methadone clinic when you need one?

If one is on a diet, it’s best to avoid bakeries. If one is trying to kick the crack habit, then certain areas of New York City are definitely off limits after dark. This is not wisdom, it’s simple common sense. Which, it seems, I have taken leave of, or how else to explain that I spent much of the day today ignoring my responsibilities as wife, mother, and sometime employee, and instead spent it nose first in the pages of The Gatekeepers.

If you’re not familiar with it, please, let me fill you in. It’s a brilliantly written account of one year behind-the-scenes of the Wesleyan admissions department. While it was heartening to see the commitment of each and every person in that department, and encouraging to read how they agonized over the applications, it still in the end confirmed my worst fear—that poor A* is at a big disadvantage by being an affluent, happy, suburban white boy who has had no obstacles to overcome in his thus-far charmed life. If I truly loved him, if I were sincere in my wish to help him in his college quest, then I would apply myself here and now to developing a raging drug addiction and having a child out of wedlock.