In Which I Quote Wholesale from Douglas Adams

I read this paragraph tonight and just really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd pass it onto you all:

"He had discovered that the reason for the carnival atmosphere on Saquo-Pilia Hensha was that the local people were celebrating the annual feast of the Assumption of St. Antwelm. St. Antwelm had been, during his lifetime, a great and popular king who had made a great and popular assumption. What King Antwelm had assumed was that what everybody wanted, all other things being equal, was to be happy and enjoy themselves and have the best possible time together. On his death, he had willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone of this, with lots of good food and dancing and very silly games like Hunt the Wocket. His Assumption had been such a brilliantly good one that he was made into a saint for it. Not only that, but all the people who had previously been made saints for doing things like being stoned to death in a thoroughly miserable way or living upside down in barrels of dung were instantly demoted and were now thought to be rather embarrassing."

From "Mostly Harmless," by the late, lamented, wonderful and hilarious Douglas Adams. Everyone got their towels?

Some Pig, Indeed

This morning I was driving Laney to her tennis lesson and from the back seat, apropos of nothing, she says to me "The doctor in the book said it was the web that was the miracle not the words."

As those of you with chillun know, parenting is all highs and lows, valleys and troughs, one coming hard after the next. Count this one as a high. Big time*.

Last night was a Saturday night in the heart of the summer. After I read a chapter of "Otherwise Known as Shelia the Great" to Laney she grabbed a book from her bookshelf to read for a while before falling asleep. She chose "Charlotte's Web." I then wandered downstairs, poured myself a bourbon and sat down at the piano where, over a period of two or three hours, I'm pretty sure I came close to reanimating the corpse of George Gershwin so he could head into my living room, slam the piano lid down and say, "Look. Just... no. Stop."

I was deeply invested in playing Gerswhin terribly and it was a Saturday night in the middle of summer, so I was content to let Laney read for as long as she wanted. Turns out, she read the whole book.

We'd read it together before. The last time it was a purely collaborative experience because I was crying so hard by the end that Laney exhorted me, "Get it together, Mom!" and then took over the reading of it.

But then, last night, reading on her own she came across a passage that articulates the poetically rational philosophy that I've tried to impart to her for her whole life. The supernatural makes for great stories, but it's not real. Nature, however, is pretty fucking amazing. There are miracles all around you. Things grow and are beautiful and people are kind to one another and food tastes so good. So, rather than setting up worship of water turning into wine, enjoy water and, one day, enjoy wine. Appreciate the great art of nature.

Sigh. As usual, I'm not saying it well. That Chuck Darwin could turn a phrase:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Or, the miracle is not the words, it's the web.

* Ain't I lucky to have such a smart, book-loving kid? She's also great in that she keeps me from getting all cocky about it. For example, as I write this, Laney is sitting on the other end of the couch, legs in the air in that way that only kids and yoga masters are comfortable in, reading a book. She looked up from and said, "Do you mind? I just farted at you." I kinda did.

Look, Just Don't Do that

Today after I parked my car, I read my email on my phone in the garage elevator. Terrible habit! I really need to stop that. One of the mails I read practically guaranteed a shit morning, navigating the murky waters of someone else's IT department. I hate dealing with other people's IT departments. So much. Don't you? Do you ever have to? It's the worst!

So, I left the garage kind of of lost in thought, trying to think of a good way to handle the situation. I crossed the street and headed into the CVS to buy my morning Diet Coke.

As I was about to walk through the door, a guy on a bicycle zoomed up right next to me, super close, and said, "Good morning," real chirpy right into my face. I was startled, under-caffeinated, and still mostly thinking about how to respond to the customer and so I didn't return his aggressive "good morning" in a timely enough manner. He wheeled away and said, real shitty-like, "I guess it's not then!"

God, that annoys me. And, you know what, it annoys every woman I know. It's more common corollary is the guy who demands of some girl he doesn't know that she smile. If he's older and southern, he'll probably also tell you that you're prettier when you smile. I hate that. Because the thing is, it's not flirting, it's not charming. It's aggressive and demanding. It's not a double-x chromosomal imperative to smile and be cheerful and make the world a pleasant place. Sometimes, we've got shit on our minds.

So a PSA, fellows, don't order strange women to smile. Don't get all up in their faces and demand pleasantries. It's onerous and obnoxious. Imagine how you'd feel if some strange guy felt welcome to complain about your insufficient cheer.

You'd hate that. So don't do it. Just, dont.

Nostalgia

I tend to reflexively shut down when people start getting all dewy-eyed and nostalgic. I distrust and dislike nostalgia. It really bugs me when people talk about the "good old days" without acknowledging that those days weren't so good for a good chunk of people. The past is complicated. And we as a people actually keep getting better, not worse. Mayberry makes for a nice rhetorical turn, until you remember that the real Mayberry was most likely a place where Jim Crow laws were the rule of the land. But, hey, people were more polite or something!

At another level, I think people rarely recognize that the happy times of the past might have been so happy because they were children when they experienced them. Good parents make the world their kids live in a safe and wholesome place. But that doesn't mean that the grown up people around them weren't sweating the bills and the changing cultural norms. I'm freaked out almost all the time, but I'm hoping Laney looks back at these parlous times as comforting and safe.

That said, lately, there seems to be so much hysterical concern about demographic winters - fear that America is in danger because there aren't enough white babies being born. And I can't help but remember the halcyon days of my own youth when we talked about melting pots and how Freddie Prinze was as much an American as the old white dude he worked for (ask your parents). It seemed like when I was growing up, the idea that Being American=Being White was being challenged and well on its way out the door.

And I miss that. I despair when Pat Buchanon shows up on the purportedly "liberal" MSNBC and waxes paranoid about the looming threat of more brown babies being born than white babies.

So, I confess, I'm nostalgic for the 70s. I miss the melting pot. I mourn the notion of American diversity as the greatest American strength. I hate seeing the notion that the only real American is a white American getting any kind of traction. It's so toxic and retrograde.

And that's all the nostalgia you'll get from me.

Almost...

Tears, Idle Tears

We raced home after Laney's birthday party to catch the end of the Women's World Cup and, oh, it was a heartbreaker, wasn't it? I mean, since I'm not generally invested in women's soccer, it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to feel happy for Japan because there's a country that could use some spirit lifting. And no matter how you feel about sports, moments like these do lift the spirits of a nation.

And how awesome was it to see all these men so invested in women's sports? At the bowling alley (where we held the birthday party), I commented about all these men so riveted by those women playing soccer and this guy turned and said to me, "This is great!"

U.S.A. lost. But I still found some stuff to cheer for.

Still, my heart broke for those players. Imagine being THAT close and falling short so close to the end? Crushing. Devastating. I know it's only a game, but, damn, they worked so HARD, didn't they?

I watched the postgame interview with Abby Wambach answering those ridiculous questions, and she answered them with so much grace and aplomb and spine. She kept her upper lip stiff, answered the questions, and walked off the field with her head high.

Me? I break into tears during the cuts episodes of So You Think You Can Dance.

I would love to be as self-possessed and graceful as that Abby Wambach, who can actually answer questions like "Did you mean to not win?" (which is about the level of questions they ask) without crying or rolling her eyes or punching the reporter in the neck.

I wonder if you can learn that? Because, honestly, the older I get the more prone I am to irritating displays of emotion.

Maybe I should take up soccer.

The Problem with Reversing the Ism

A quick list of things I don't believe in: ghosts, rational libertarianism, that the Cubs will ever win a World Series, and reverse racism/sexism. Let's talk about that last one.

Racism and sexism aren't a series of individual acts. They are systemic problems in American culture. In other words, racism isn't something that happens to a black person. It's the experience of Black People (and Muslims and Latinos) Sexism isn't something that happens to a woman. It's the experience of Women.

So, while an individual black person might act like an asshole to an individual white person because that individual black person doesn't like white people, white people in America are not victims of racism. And while a woman might be an asshole to a man because she doesn't like men, men in America are not victims of sexism.

When you start using those words to label isolated experiences, you cheapen them.

We don't live in a bias-free America. There are a different set of rules for women than for men and there are a different set of rule for races other than Caucasian. It's not cool for people who have no experience living under these differing sets of rules to appropriate those fights.

There are times when I'd love to get a giant megaphone and just announce loudly to the world, "STOP ACTING LIKE ASSHOLES AND START BEING NICE TO EACH OTHER." And while that is certainly a valid wish and one, I'm sure, we all share. We can't get there by just being nice to each other. We have to start with genuinely trying to recognize and remedy systemic unfairness. And the quickest #epicfail on the road to recognition is appropriation.

In short: Shut it, Fox News: there's no war on Christians. No one's gunning for whitey. And feminists don't hate men. Be aware of your privilege.

(Also stop acting like assholes and be nice to people)

Something Else I Wanted to Say

I go a couple of weeks without blogging and then I get two BAM BAM. But I was thinking this evening that I'm starting to understand why people go ultra-conservative and fall in political love with the likes of Michelle Bachmann.

Being a member of the reality-based community is really scary, you guys. The things that make your average liberal struggle to fall asleep at night (climate change, pending economic catastrophes, pending economic catastrophes that could make the current president so unpopular that Michelle Bachmann actually BECOMES president, shit like that), are all plausible and genuinely terrifying.

But if you're one of those conservatives who love Michelle Bachmann you're terrified of things like creeping Shari'a law and gay marriage; where the latter is fundamentally unscary, and the former is just an incredibly stupid fucking thing to be afraid of.

I get it. I think I'm going to start focusing my fear on creeping Shari'a law and gay marriage. It's way better than being afraid of pending economic catastrophe. Anyone want to join me? Look! Over there! A couple of gay guys are holding hands! AUGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I'm going to sleep so much better.