people you meet

After my flight today, I ended up sharing a cab with this other woman, Lorna Sass. Is she famous? Am I supposed to know who she is? She makes herself seem all important on her website, and earns enough money from cookbooks and cooking classes to live on the Upper West Side alone. Maybe she was offended because I didn't know who she was...

I also met someone who made a comment about never being able to teach at a community college (vs. being a researcher at a top university), because people would look down on him, even if he enjoyed teaching far more than doing research-- Would you rather have better social status and hate what you do than have lesser social status but love what you do? I should hope not. I guess I can detect the same hungering for status inside me, but I've never had the boldness to say it so bluntly: "Wouldn't you not want to teach because people would look down on you?"