9 posts tagged “rantings”
I've been exceptionally lazy of late. I guess that's obvious to the tens of people who read my blogs. It's not that I have nothing to say. If anything, there so much stuff running through my head it's impossible to sort it out and settle on one subject. I'm also going through a phase when I think there's nothing I have to say that's so important it needs to be said in public. Better to just talk to the cats.
JP's been saying for years that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but I'm skeptical of anything referred to as a disorder, because "disorder" sounds like a minor malady that's been blown out of proportion by spoiled, self-indulgent Americans and the pharmaceutical companies that want to make money off of them. Anyway, I don't think it's SAD as much as it's that I fucking hate winter, even NC winters, because I hate to be cold. This year has felt more like central PA, which is just pissing me off. My energy is low and I don't want to do anything. Even cooking is a chore these days.
Here's what's on my mind, in no particular order of importance, some serious stuff and some not so much:
I'm tired of hearing that Obama's administration is a failure. I'm not happy with everything he's done. I think Bush and Cheney should have been put in handcuffs and hauled away on inauguration day, and Gitmo should be closed immediately. So there is that. But Obama's been in office for...what... six weeks? He can't take on everything at once. Give him time. I still believe in him.
Keeping in mind that it's a reality show, i.e. why do I care?, Hosea didn't deserve to win Top Chef. Also, he's a punk.
Hell's Kitchen is still the best comedy on television.
I've heard that Raleigh wants to ban smoking in its parks. I want to know if there are buildings in these parks so I can go inside to smoke.
I barely drink alcohol anymore. I wouldn't mind that so much if it were because I'm no longer young and my body is telling me to stop it, because that's a self-adjusting thing. I could still drink as much as I'm in the mood for. But I don't drink because of the painkillers I'm on. It's almost impossible for me to have more than one beer without waking up the next day feeling like I've been on a binge. I have no control over my spine. It's only going to get worse. And this awful condition is ruining my life. I'm still in pain, I'm stoned all the time, I can't sleep and I can't even have a frakking beer. And I'm pissed.
I've been living inside my own head for so long I don't know how to get out. I wonder if my life would have been better if I'd never left Harrisburg. There are things that wouldn't be any different. Certainly I'd still be dealing with my stenosis, and you can't beat time, you know. My 53rd birthday is next Friday, and that's something I can't do anything about. But I came down here sure that I could only do better professionally. I had a pretty good resume, and there were tons of jobs here in 2000. Instead it's been what can easily be described as a professional disaster. In the 8 1/2 years I've been here, I've worked a total of 2 1/2 years. I doubt I'll ever have a normal job again, and I readily admit I'm not the kind of person who makes things happen for herself. It's hard for me to cobble together a living by doing a little of this and a little of that. I mean, what the hell would I do? I love to cook, and catering the occasional event is something I can do, but I don't ever want to do it for a living. I've been told I make the best cookies and brownies around, but I'm not aggressive enough to go from one bakery to another, trying to talk them into selling my stuff. I'm afraid of 1) bothering them, and 2) being told I'm not really that good. Like most people, I think I'm a fraud, passing myself off as better than I am.
Many people have said I should be writing. Not just my husband, who, seriously, if he thought I sucked at it, would tell me so and also to stop deluding myself. But, crap, everyone wants to be a writer. Everyone thinks they're good enough, but most of them aren't. And again, I don't have a clue how to start even trying to get paid to write. And maybe I'm not good enough either.
I don't know how I ended up where I am. I don't know who I am. When I left Harrisburg, I was already starting to move away from being the party girl with crazy hair and weird clothes. My friends in Durham barely know that part of me. But what have I become? On a good day, I can bake a pound cake and a loaf of bread, do four load of laundry (that gets hung outside, like in the stone age), and make dinner. On a bad day, I manage to feed the cats and make the coffee. I spend the rest of my time on the couch. Every day, I am housewife and a damned gimp who can't drive anymore and barely leaves the house. And I have no idea how this happened.
You know what I think about writing something like this? I think I sound like a self-involved whiner who wants everyone to pat me on the head and tell me I'm awesome. And I think that opening this vein is not cathartic. And I feel like baking a poundcake.
I'm like those people who watch shows they hate and then bitch about how much the show sucks. I can't stop reading the NY Times. It is, after all, the self-proclaimed Paper of Record, and sometimes I find an article that actually speaks the truth.
For more years than I can remember, I've been saying that a little dirt never hurt anyone. That's not merely a justification for my crappy housekeeping skills. It's based on fact, i.e., my opinion. Anyway, here's a piece that says eating dirt is good for babies.
From the article:
In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma.
These studies, along with epidemiological observations, seem to explain why immune system disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies have risen significantly in the United States and other developed countries.
Scientists and other sane people have been claiming for quite a while now that the more we sanitize our houses and ourselves, the sicker we become. Considering that vaccines are made from weak solutions of the very virus, bacteria or flesh-eating disease the vaccine prevents, it makes sense that a little dirt can protect you from something much worse.
Have you seen the commercials for sanitizing products? Panicked mothers wiping and spraying down everything in sight. "Don't forget to spray the kid while you're at it." Corporations that produce these products love to feed on the fears of parents. "Use our product or your kids will die!" We're cleaning our kids to within an inch of their lives, leaving them with no defenses against the world around them. Maybe we should just lock them in a round room with soft walls. Then they'll never get sick or hurt until they leave home, and we'll end up with generations of adults suffering from allergies, constant, nasty colds and the inability to eat anything more interesting than oatmeal.
_____________
Just for fun, here's the text of one of Julia Sugarbaker's famous Terminator Tirades from Designing Women (and if anyone can find a video of it, please send me the link. I spent an hour looking for it):
Yes, you can give him a message. You do take shorthand, don't you?
Good, we take it in the South too. Anyway, just tell him that I have
been a Southerner all my life, and I can vouche for the fact the we do
eat a lot of things down here........ and we've certainly all had our
share of grits and biscuits and gravy, and I myself have probably eaten
enough fried chicken to feed a third world country ---- not to mention
barbecue, cornbread, watermelon, fried pies, okra, and
...........yes.........if I were being perfectly candid, I would have
to admit we have also eaten our share of crow, and for all I know ---
during the darkest, leanest years of the Civil War, some of us may have
had a Yankee or two for breakfast. But........... speaking for myself
and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved
through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil, I would like for
Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past,
and we will surely eat many things in the future, but --- God as my
witness - -- we have never, I repeat, NEVER EATEN DIRT!!! -- from the episode Getting Married and Eating Dirt
24 is back on, so yay to that. Last season was completely over the top, but that didn't keep me from bouncing up and down on the couch when it returned. Is there a bigger badass on television than Jack Bauer? I say NO. I mean, he's died for real at least twice, and successfully faked his death once. And he killed his own brother. The man is unstoppable.
Over at What's Alan Watching, there's been quite a fuss over the use of torture on 24. Oh, the hand-wringing. What message does it send? How can we say we're against torture and still love this show? Just about the only thing I haven't seen is "shouldn't we think of the children?"
I'm as progressive as one can be without being a full-on socialist, and, yes, the torture kind of freaks me out. It's supposed to. But for real, I just don't care. I mean, it's television. Insane, absurd, mock-worthy-but-still-great-at-tension television. Half the fun is figuring out who the mole is, when Jack will end up A Man Alone, how much time it will take for the hard perimeter to be breached, and just what he has in that manbag of his.
A few of us dissented:
I said (some repeating of what I've said here):
I'm as bleeding heart as they get, but I'm with Shara on this. It's just outrageous, over the top fiction. The torture freaks me out a little, but I don't think it means anything, except that the showrunners want 24 to be as nuts as possible.
I'll be planted in front of the TV on Sunday, and will no doubt watch the entire season. The only thing that's bugging me is that I already know Tony is alive.
Someone responded:
To Maura and Shara,
24 is indeed fiction but there are cites that people in the Bush CIA and Defense department used 24 as justification for things that were done. As cuture it does have an impact. I remember reading that memos had to be cirulated with regard to the show and I think I even recall reading that the producors specifically filmed something for the government basically saying something like, "We're just TV; Don't do what we do!" I like the show but feel it peaked with season 2 but it isn't accurate to just dimiss its impact.
I said:
Oh yes, I'm aware of that. But those people are crazy, and will find any justification they can for their behavior. I can't put the blame on 24 and more than I would blame Dexter if there were a rise in serial killers only murdering bad people.
As Shara said, viewers will accept behavior from television characters that we would never accept in real life. How else can you explain the popularity of Gregory House, Al Swearingen, Tony Soprano or Don Draper? Even Lorelai Gilmore did things that would make me want to smack a real life friend. I wouldn't want showrunners to make every character palatable and bland because of nutjobs who will misinterpret the behavior of fictional characters as proof that such behavior is acceptable.
I hate the idea that characters should be dumbed down because someone might misinterpret their behavior. Showing bad behavior is not the same as condoning it. Amy Sherman-Palladino was not saying "It's OK to run off and have sex with your high school boyfriend/the father of your child because you just had a fight with your fiance", when Lorelai did just that. She was saying "this is what Lorelai Gilmore would do, because she's impulsive and emotionally immature, and Christopher makes her feel better, even though he kind of sucks sometimes." 24 was not saying "How cool. Jack just tore some guy's throat out with his teeth. Oops, he's dead." There was no message. They just wanted to be as insane as possible.
No normal person thinks torture is a good idea. If someone is so horrified by the torture on 24 to the point where they can't watch it, I sure as hell get that. There are no adjectives strong enough to describe how awful real life torture is, and the previous administration's approval of it turns my stomach. If they had to turn to an outrageous, crazy-ass, no-basis-in-reality fictional show to justify their actions, they don't have a leg to stand on. But I refuse to accept that 24 is in any way responsible for their criminal behavior.
If you don't like 24, don't watch it. You can always tune in to Two and a Half Men, starring that pillar of the community, Charlie Sheen.
As you might have heard, much has been made about Barack Obama's smoking habit. I don't know who decided to make a public fuss about it, but I'll make a wild and completely unfounded accusation that it was a Republican who wanted to cast doubt on his moral character. All Obama needs is a goatee and we'll finally understand just how evil he is.
This popped up in the New York Times today. If ever there was much ado about nothing, Obama's supposed smoking habit is it.
Mr. Obama’s heaviest smoking was seven or eight cigarettes a day, but three was more typical, according to an interview published in the November issue of Men’s Health magazine.
Three cigarettes a day? That barely qualifies as recreational. Has he ever sat in a bar and smoked an entire pack in four hours? Has he ever walked to the corner store in the pouring rain to buy a pack? Is walking to the corner store for a pack of cigarettes in the pouring rain the only exercise he gets?
I can smoke three cigarettes in the first 45 minutes I'm awake. I've been up for just over three hours, and I'm on my sixth cigarette of the day. I have a smoking habit. Obama's smoking is an occasional stress reliever. I doubt he sits in the family room and smokes while watching a movie with his kids.
Any stress he has experienced before is nothing compared to what he's headed for. Let him have his three smokes a day.
Two things before I get to my point:
1) I don't usually condemn a movie without seeing it first. Like anyone, I have my rules: any movie based on a character from Saturday Night Live is most likely going to suck; ditto any Rob Schneider movies; and I'm going to hate all Tom Cruise movies, even if they don't suck. He ruins good stories in order to feed his enormous ego. (Given the chance to play Jesus, he'd be at The Last Supper by himself. Because he always works alone.) But previews can be misleading. What seems like a silly comedy turns out to be a movie about death, love and family dysfunction, e.g., Little Miss Sunshine; a movie marketed as a chick flick is actually a guy's movie - Beautiful Girls; a movie that should be awesome is really a piece of crap - Wonder Boys.
2) I say seriously and with no shame that I love good chick flicks. What qualifies as good is subjective, certainly. Movies about lost love just kill me. I've cried my eyes out at every viewing of The Way We Were and Splendor in the Grass. Edward Scissorhands upset me so much I don't think I can ever watch it again. But I still loved it. I'm also a sucker for love triumphing over class differences - Dirty Dancing is a favorite. It has everything a girl could want in a movie - Patrick Swayze. Jennifer Grey before the nose job. Creepy frat boy getting his comeuppance. Kelly Bishop. Sex. An illegal abortion. Dancing! And, my God, Jerry Orbach!
There are a ton of sub-genres within "chick flick", and "girls being shitty to each other" is one of them. I know girls can treat each other like crap sometimes. But the very premise of Bride Wars offends me to no end.
I've been seeing previews for the movie lately, and "you have to be kidding me" was my first reaction. But I thought that the girls were strangers fighting over wedding dresses and who gets the best caterer in town. Then I saw this preview, and got the full story. They're lifelong best friends. They're each others maids of honor. Then a mix-up occurs! And hijinks ensue! Kate Hudson tells Anne Hathaway her "wedding can suck it." Anne retaliates by attacking Kate while she's walking down the aisle.
The hilarity must be endless, I'm telling you right now. Look, I've been divided about weddings for a long time. I love them, but they bring out the worst in people. The only brides-to-be who don't want to lock their mothers in a closet are the ones who don't have a mother. I was ready to lock up both my mother and my future mother-in-law, and not let them out until after the wedding. The stress of planning a wedding can make anyone lose perspective.
But there's something that seems so completely distasteful about Bride Wars. It feeds on the idea that women are desperate to get married; that a wedding is the most important day of a woman's life; that all women have been planning their weddings since they were six years old; that women are, at heart, enemies of one another; that the wedding is more important than the marriage - so important, in fact, that no expense is too much. Even the expense of a lifelong friendship.
I know. It's just a movie, and a piece of fluff comedy at that. Comedy, after all, is often about the weaknesses and general dopiness of humans. Beneath all the funny is the truth of how people reconcile their idiocy with their desire to be good and loving to the people who matter to them. It's possible that Bride Wars is actually funny, because anything is possible. But, having seen only the preview, I can't get rid of the bad feeling I have about this movie being made in 2008, more than 40 years after the beginning of the second wave of feminism. I assume that Hudson's and Hathaway's characters are supposed to smart, talented, educated young women, maybe even professionally successful and ambitious. So why are they behaving like jealous, mean spirited harpies?
I have no doubt that Bride Wars will have an absolutely shocking ending, in which Anne and Kate realize the errors of their ways, and tearfully make up, swearing to never let anything come between them again. But you know what? Once you've told your best friend that she has a big ass, you can't ever take that back. I'll never know for sure if Bride Wars is as bad as I think it is, because I won't be spending either the time or the money to see it.
I'm so mad right now I could spit. Michael Ruhlman put up this post about a new documentary called Food Fight. He encourages everyone to pay more for their food, which is, of course, a great idea. But, honestly, how in hell can his readers think it's just a matter of changing priorities? A lot of the comments pissed me off, but this is one of the worst:
The "buy staples at the lowest price so we can splurge on the trinkets" is an epidemic of modern society. Over the next year or so we will begin paying the real cost of that folly as federal bailouts start hitting our pocketbooks. It's time for all of us to refocus on what's really important and that's the real quality of our lives.
WTF? Splurging on trinkets? Does he mean stuff like heating bills? Are those trinkets? Going out for a beer is a big deal for us these days.
If I could, I would gladly pay $5/lb for organic chicken at the farmer's market. But I can't. It's all we can do right now to pay our mortgage. Our health insurance premiums are $2500/month, and they're killing us. We have one car and it's 8 years old. Thank God we finally paid it off.
I have a savant-like ability to stretch both our grocery money and the food I buy. I do everything I can to eat healthily and locally (despite my addiction to Oreos and potato chips). We do a good part of our food shopping at a locally owned food store and at the farmer's market. I haven't stepped inside a chain grocery store in months. Oops. Does Costco count? Yeah, well, if it's a food crime to buy some of my food at Costco, it's a bigger one to shop at Whole Foods and pat your self-important ass on your self-important back about it. Whole Foods is a chain too.
I truly believe that we can only do better by being conscientious about where we buy our food and what its origins are. But too many people in this movement apparently have no idea that there are Americans who are in such dire straits that paying higher prices for everything isn't a possibility. Local farmers deserve every penny they charge at the markets, but I can't afford it. Neither can a lot of other people.
Maybe I have no place in this movement, but if there's no place for me, then it's just a whole bunch of assholes congratulating each other for how enlightened they are. Instead of it being about The People, it becomes a classist movement with no connection to the lives of millions (number pulled out of my ass in order to make a point). This movement should be about doing what you can, not judging those who can't.
(Also posted on my food blog, The Wooden Spoon)
Judith Warner's September 25th column on Sarah Palin didn't give me pause. It gave me friggin' heartburn. Before I start on a tirade about Palin though, I have a thing or two to say about Judith Warner.
Warner's weekly column, Domestic Disturbances, generally makes me roll my eyes. She writes about modern parenting, or rather, Modern Parenting Through the Eyes of the Privileged, which, seriously, I couldn't care less about. Unfortunately, I get sucked into reading her columns on occasion. I think she's a little young to legitimately be a baby boomer, but she engages in the same navel-gazing, "my mother's hairbrush is a metaphor for life" syndrome that my generation is so embarrassingly fond of. So I approach her columns with some trepidation. She's semi-heir to Anna Quindlan, whose persona was "I'm just a mom who happens to write for a newspaper", except Quindlan was politically savvy and only made me want to tear my hair out about 25% of the time. Warner, on the other hand, often gives me a migraine.
OK, so: Poor Sarah. Warner, upon seeing a photo of Palin sitting next to Henry Kissinger, has a lightbulb moment during which she realizes that Palin is in over her head, knows it and is afraid of being found out. Well, some of us knew that from the get-go. And I have yet to meet anyone who didn't suffers from Imposter Syndrome. So that's not what I would call a unique position for Palin to be in. Maybe it's unique to her, because I can imagine her being so arrogant that it never before occurred to her that she didn't know what she was doing.
Then Warner has the almighty gall to call Palin our Inner Elle Woods.
I think I’ve seen it now. In her own folded hands, her hopeful, yet sinking posture, her eager-to-please look. Sarah Palin is their — dare I say our? — inner Elle Woods.
I had thought of Elle Woods, the heroine of the 2001 and 2003 “Legally Blonde” and “Legally Blonde 2” films, a great deal during the week that Palin became McCain’s running mate and made her appearance at the Republican National Convention. The thoughts didn’t actually originate with Palin; my daughter Julia had recently discovered the soundtrack of “Legally Blonde: the Musical” and then the movies that inspired the Broadway show.
Re-watching the movies with Julia, I’d been surprised at how time, and motherhood, had tempered my affection for Elle Woods — a frilly, frothy blonde who charms her way into Harvard Law School and takes the stodgy intellectual elitists there by storm with her Anygirl decency and non-snooty (and not-so-credible) native intelligence.
I’d found the “Legally Blonde” movies fun the first time around. Viewing them in the company of an enraptured 11-year-old, who’d declared Elle her new “role model” after months of dreaming of growing up to be a neuroscientist in a long braid and Birkenstocks, was another story.
“You can’t,” I’d admonished Julia, “accomplish anything worthwhile in life just by being pretty and cute and clever. You have to do the work.”
Let me tell you about Elle Woods. She was a bubbled-headed sorority girl whose innate smarts were stifled by parents who never expected any more from her than to marry rich. She was treated like an idiot when she arrived at Harvard because she was in foreign territory and didn't know the rules. But, BUT, despite what Warner says in her column, Elle did do the work. Has Palin done any of the work? Not only that, but after Elle's been humiliated at a party by one classmate and told by another to go back to her sorority, Elle says "At least if you showed up at my sorority, I would have been nice to you." And she would have. I think if Palin were humiliated like that, she would have made everyone's life a living hell. Who became Elle's best friend in Legally Blonde? A blowsy manicurist who had terrible self-esteem and who used to live in a trailer. Would Palin be caught dead hanging out with someone like that? She'd probably treat her like a servant, and not in the "she's just like a member of the family" way.
This, though, is what sent me over the edge.
You don’t have to be perennially pretty in pink — and ditsy and cutesy and kinda maybe stupid — to have an inner Elle Woods. Many women do. I think of Elle every time I dress up my insecurities in a nice suit. So many of us today — balancing work and family, treading water financially — feel as if we’re in over our heads, getting by on appearances while quaking inside in anticipation of utter failure. Chick lit — think of Bridget Jones, always fumbling, never quite who she should be — and in particular the newer subgenre of mom lit are filled with this kind of sentiment.
You don’t have to be female to suffer from Impostor Syndrome either — I learned the phrase only recently from a male friend, who puts a darned good face forward. But I think that women today — and perhaps in particular those who once thought they could not only do it all but do it perfectly, with virtuosity — are unique in the extent to which they bond over their sense of imposture.
I saw this feeling in Palin — in a flash, on that blue couch, catty-corner to Kissinger, as her eyes pleaded for clemency from the camera. I’ll bet you anything that her admirers — the ones whose hearts really and truly swell with a sense of kinship to her — see or sense it in her, too. They know she can’t possibly do it all — the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders. And neither could they.
Really? REALLY? They know she can't do it all, so they want her to...have it all? Even though she won't do the work? Why would a woman with any smarts want a VP who's so intimidated by meetings with foreign leaders that she can't hide it? Are we going to play the girl card now?
There's no doubt that the Repubs carry some blame in this. After all, they're the ones who chose her, and yes, they're using her. But is she really at the beck and call of The Men? Some people think McCain is the one who's being used, and that he should probably get a metaphorical soup taster. Palin is indeed over her head, but she's no delicate flower who needs to be protected.
Like any grown-ass woman, Palin should have put on her Big Girl Pants and thought about whether she was up to the challenge. Now she's in it and her ego and her ambition won't allow her to get out of it. So I'm not feeling too sorry for Sarah Palin right now.
Not only do I watch a lot of television, I also spend a fair amount of time on-line talking about it. Maybe it's because I encounter so many more people at one time when I'm on-line than I do in real life, but I'm often surrounded by assholes. There are the regular crimes like name-calling, gasbagging and nitpicking, and then there are the two crimes that irritate me so much that I wish I were in charge of the inter-webs so I could ban the perpetrators asses forever.
This comment below (in bolded text), about Betty Draper, a character on Mad Men, is an extreme example of both crimes. (For the uninitiated, Mad Men is a show set in a Manhattan ad agency in the early '60s. Betty is married to Don Draper, the main character, and she is the women Betty Friedan wrote about in The Feminine Mystique.) Can you name the crimes?
"Like Betty, lots of women were depressed ...because they were stifled creatively and felt trapped by marriage and motherhood. They weren't necessarily "crazy." They were struggling with their identities and yes, self-medicating with booze."
"...but I do sympathize with her because being a suburban mom isn't easy nowadays...I can't imagine how stressful it was in the 1950s-1960s when you were expected to be perfect and have no life outside the confines of your home...and you had to be obedient to a selfish husband like Don."
"Interestingly, Betty Draper ...most certainly is suffering the malaise of the "modern" suburban housewife."
I'd like to argue this point, as my mother *was* one of those suburban housewives.
She wasn't depressed (my father was) she wasn't alcoholic (she would be after my father died, nearlt 40 years later) she *did* have to be obedient to my father, who was very often verbally abusive to all of us.
But when he was not there, she watched her soaps, fed her family, did the laundry, rushed just before my father got home to make it look as if she'd cleaned all day, visited with the neighbors - especially the elderly ones (and ran errands for them - on foot, as she didn't drive, but the grocery store was just down the street) as well as those her own age, and *spent time* (not just "quality time") with her children.
I knew my mother - her favorite color, movie, book (she read a lot too - her library card number was famous at our local branch) singer, actress, flowers, perfume, other things i can't recall right now, as well as her values and beliefs (and the way she protected me from my father, or at least comforted me after).
She was taught that the best thing you could do was to help other people. I admired her in that (if not in that if you were unhappy you should cure it by helping others). She was brought up by nuns after being removed by the state from a crazy mother in a large Catholic family that only grew larger before she got back. (after marriage, she was.. if not Protestant, at least in no way Catholic)
She was into walking and taking vitamins (none of which helped my asthma - though i learned to take lots of pills at once (pantothenic acid is something you *never* want to chew))
My father worked two jobs, so that she could stay home and take care of us. Which she did a very good job of (even if the cleaning was an afterthought (and her cooking wasn't that great - I gained a lot of weight after I left home - perhaps the girls on 90210 have my mother as a cook - i was 105 when I left).
The only thing she didn't teach us was that, for her daughter, the world would not be the same.
I don't think my mother was unhappy as a housewife. I don't remember her aspiring to be anything else (or anything). And I really think she was part of the glue that made good neighborhoods, well- behaved children (who weren't automatons, but were just polite, responsible citizens) and kept the elderly from having to go to nursing homes.
There may still be women like this. I just think my mother's priorities were pretty darn good.
When i was 19, she went back to work, and had no time for us (my brother was 13). I missed her.
When I was 22, the family moved to another state and I did not.
When my father was dying she quit to care for him and didn't go back(though she thought of it). she ran around with her friends for a while and then stopped, and then she watched a lot of tv and read a lot, she drank too much, so that when she started having health issues that affected her balance, we didn't notice, thinking she was drunk.
(at this point i must stop to gripe about Lexie Grey saying she's an ACOA, when her childhood was perfect. just because her father is a drunk *now*, that does *not* put her in that class. ACOA is more developmental, i think. a way to survive learned in childhood. my father was not an alcholic then either - he just blew up like one (something Thatcher and Susan never did - but I bet Ellis did.)
Back to my point - my mother would have said that life is what you make it - and she did good (unlike Betty) cared less for appearances than for good manners and politeness and giving to others, and she made the world a better place, both then, and in children who grew up resposible and not adding to the burdens of others in society (unlike siblings of friends who've done drugs, committed thefts, ended up in jail or unmarried with children they could not support).
Of course, when she chose not to have a funeral (both my parents chose this), all the people who admired her and loved her for all the good she did for them, were upset that they could not gather to praise her, and were angry at *me* but...
Perhaps Betty does feel unfulfilled, but I don't see any aspirations toward any kind of "work" or even "charity" or volunteerism in her (unlike my mother). She only cares about how she looks to others. And more and more, she really does seem a spoiled (or at least needy and damaged) child.
And, as "needy and damaged" goes, Meredith Grey (while perhaps whiny) is a far better (fictional) person than she is - at least *she* always gathers her friends in support of whichever friend needs it most, making a family out of those who are not her blood, while Betty couldn't be bothered with those who *are.* (at least not till they grow up to people who will "shame her" in front of her friends (and btw, where *are* those friends? her neighbors have husbands who cheat too. is she too "image" oriented to even gripe to them?))
Time's up. The crimes are 1) too much information; and 2) seeing everything through the prism of your own experience. They generally go hand in hand, although occasionally I see one without the other . It's possible to see everything through the prism of your own experience without the TMI, but it's impossible to have the TMI alone. The very nature of TMI means you see everything through The Prism.
I won't go so far as to say that personal experience should never influence your impressions. It's impossible to be completely objective all the time. But it is possible to interpret fiction subjectively if you accept that very few things are black and white. TMI and The Prism combine to create an even bigger crime - It's All About Me. IAAM with an emphasis on The Prism leads to people being sensitive to the tiniest perceived slight; as well, it's a symptom of severe myopia. "That can't be true because it didn't happen to me/we didn't do it that way in our family/my uncle was in the same situation and this is what happened to him." It's opinion as fact.
IAAM with an emphasis on TMI leads to "Oh my God, I don't want to know this about you." It's irrelevant to the discussion, and it's discussion as therapy. I mean, I know Road Runner is cheaper than counseling, but I wish people could keep at least a few things to themselves. In the worst case, the relevant discussion comes to a screeching halt, either because people don't know what to say (I can sometimes feel the discomfort), or because it results in endless expressions of sympathy. I know I'm being heartless, but please, what does this poster's asthma, or her fluctuations in weight because her mother didn't cook for her when she was 19 years old have to do with Betty Draper's slow, on-screen breakdown because her husband cheats on her and her entire life is a sham? How is this-
When I was 22, the family moved to another state and I did not.
related to anything having to do with Mad Men?
Great fiction always tells the truth, and great characters don't have to be nice people. Instead of watching this brilliant show and learning that truth comes in many forms, the only thing this poster learns from Mad Men is how much or how little it mirrors her own life. It's television viewing as narcissism.
We went to the farmer's market this morning, for the first time in a while. We got some tomatoes, some purple peppers, and the biggest frackin' mum I've ever seen. It's bright yellow and gorgeous. We tasted some goat cheese and some sassafras tea. Yum on both parts. Everything there was beautiful. The place was packed with people, dogs and kids. It's almost everything one could ask out of a farmer's market.
I say almost because I would like someone to explain to me why, at a farmer's market that supports organic, locally grown food, whose very reputation is about sustainability and the wonders of nature, it's almost impossible to find a damned trash can anywhere Yes, I can put that tiny cup that held the sassafras tea in my handbag, but I shouldn't have to.
Hmmm. although I'm very anti-torture and highly left-wing, 24 has always been one of my favorite shows. Until last season, anyway, when everything just fell apart. I had gone the entire run of the show without ever missing a SINGLE episode when it aired, and halfway through last season I just stopped watching because it was so painful. But, after several previous seasons that I seriously enjoyed, I'm willing to give it another chance this season.
I find a lot of the criticism of the show in general to be unfair (although bash away at last season). I see it as a show about people in high stakes situations seeking resourceful ways to operate in situations where they have very limited options. In order to maintain the suspense, characters have to be placed in danger; since there are a finite number of characters, they're gonna be put through the ringer (wringer?). I don't mind the torture, because its fictional. With fictional heroes, we get to witness their character development, moral code, and sense of honor - therefore, it is easier to trust a fictional character to make decisions (i.e., when torture is appropriate) that I would never consider trusting a real person to make. I trust Jack Bauer to make the right decisions, to protect us, and to find the real bad guys and stick it to them. Like Batman - I would trust Batman with the cell phone sonar technology thing in Dark Knight, but I would never trust a real person to do that. I guess that's how I can justify watching a show that glorifies something I would never condone (like most action movies, spy movies, and military movies that I also find myself able to enjoy).