Idleness

There was this article flying around the internet recently about the benefits of idleness.  Did you see it?  You're on Facebook - you saw it.  I confess that when I saw the title, I thought, "Fantastic.  Now not only will I constantly be dealing with shit I have to do, I'm supposed to feel guilty about feeling like I have to do shit I have to do."  To be fair, this isn't really what the article was about.  But, you'll forgive me for the wrong assumption because the internet is just chock-a-block with articles about how you're doing everything all wrong. Especially those of us in the working mom camp.

Anyway, I did read it.  And I didn't love it. He lost me a bit when he got to the paragraph lauding the woman who was totally relaxed since she got an artist's residency in France.  I'd be pretty relaxed if I had an artist's residence in France.

(I tend also to generally disregard anything in which someone leaves America, goes to France and figures it all out.  It's been a cliche since Gertrude Fucking Stein.)

But then he goes on and talks about the whole thing where you feel like you HAVE to being doing something all the time. I'm a person who reaches for her phone to check email when I'm stopped at a red light. If someone gets on an elevator with me and pushes a floor before mine I think they're really rude for wasting my time like that (fortunately, I have a phone that I can check during that 5 sec interval). I once made a home-from-school daily schedule where tasks were delineated within 5 minute increments.  


That's not cool.

This evening, Laney is at a friend's.  I'm going to pour a glass of wine and read a Carl Hiassen novel or re-watch last night's Bunheads.  You should be idle with me and start watching Bunheads.  It's Gilmore Girls with ballet.  Last night American treasure Kelly Bishop narrated a ballet she'd choreographed called "Paper or Plastic."  The grocery store cashier was cast as the devil.  Nature died.  Seriously - that show is so great.

The Kids Today

Hi, guys.  It's been a while, but I got something to say.  Which is:

As you settle into the middle part of life, weird, unexpected things will happen which make you realize that you are not 26 anymore.  Like your back hurts a lot.  And you suddenly notice this one long hair growing out of your chin. Seriously, you guys!  It was like three inches long!  And, EVERYTHING makes you fat. Aging is gross. But I have hope that old age will be better.  Forty years from now, I plan to be walking around with bright pink lipstick outside of my lipline and an askew wig.  And I bet I'll think I look fucking amazing.

Wait... where was I?

Oh yeah.  There's this one hallmark of aging that I'm calling for an end to and I am preaching to all my mid-life homies out there.  It is time to stop complaining about how entitled and spoiled Gen Y or the Millennials or whatever you want to call them is.  Just stop. There has not been a generation born to man which has not seemed spoiled and entitled to the generation that came before.  When you had long hair and wore flannel shirts and were boring everyone to tears by telling them how much more authentic Mother Love Bone was than Pearl Jam, there was some Boomer bitching to his friends about how spoiled and entitled you were.

Let's just stop it.  Let's just agree that while youth may tend toward callow and solipsistic, we bitch about them because we are jealous and would, in a New York second, trade our work ethic and finely honed resumes in for flat stomachs and hangover-free all night benders.  Let's stop bitching about the kids.    Mother Love Bone would never have relied on such a trite and obvious thematic convention.

When It's Hard Not to Believe

I've written about this before - about how I came to embrace atheism because I believe it is the most morally tenable position I can take (much like my vegetarianism, I hope you'll take my personal pronoun as it's meant - I'm not prone to evangelize on behalf of either of these things as I've come to them as right for me and not, necessarily, empirically correct for humankind at large... although, honestly, a little...).

That said, and having embraced this distinctly minority position, my ears perk up when I hear of others in my tribe. I've heard tell of a few atheists talk about how it gets hard to hold onto disbelief when confronting death. You know how they say there are no atheists in foxholes? Well, there are probably no foxholes anymore, but I bet when there were, they housed an atheist or two. I'm calling bullshit on that cliche.

For me, death isn't the problem. I like Roger Ebert's position on it, quoted(ish) from memory: "I was perfectly content before I came into this world and I expect to be perfectly content when I leave it." I think this is such a sensible way to approach death.

For me, my atheism gets hard because sometimes I dearly want to say to someone "I'm praying for you." When horrible things happen to people I love, when they're going through something awful, I'd like to be able to say, "I'm praying for you," since that feels proactive. Shit, I want to pray for people. I want to feel like I have some control over the terrible thing that is happening.

I was brought up, you see, churched. And not bad-churched. There was not bad touching. No nun ever beat me. My mother never told me I was making Jesus cry. I was brought up good-churched, loving churched. I was brought up to do the sign of the cross when an ambulance passed as natural as saying "Godblessyou" when someone sneezed. And, as a child, I believed that my sign of the cross meant that the person in that ambulance wouldn't die.

And then as I got older, my sign of the cross grew less miraculous. It became respectful acknowledgment of the potential seriousness of the situation; an outward sign that I did not want whatever poor soul was in that ambulance to die.

And then I got older still, and I recognized that sign of the cross as superstition. As much superstition as throwing salt over my shoulder when I knocked over the salt cellar. But less silly. More like knocking wood. Knocking wood is a valuable superstition; it's good to be aware of your hubris. It's good to want that person in the ambulance to live.

I think for a lot of people "I'm praying for you" is a lot like that sign of the cross - but more personal. And it means much the same as "I'm thinking of you." It's a comfort when you're going through terrible things to know that people love you, care about you. I've gone through no great tragedies beyond those that a woman my age would reasonably expect to, yet even those tragedies were alleviated with the knowledge that people loved me and genuinely, desperately wanted to alleviate my suffering even though they knew they couldn't. Suffering is lonely work. Knowing that people care helps a bit.

We are all of us, believers and atheists alike, helpless to the gods or fate or nature or whatever. I imagine prayful people might even tell me that that's the point.

Sufjan Stevens has this wonderful song "Casmir Pulaski Day" that he wrote about a friend who died of bone cancer. It's the saddest song I've ever heard and makes me cry every time I hear it. It touches me even though that song is steeped in his Christian faith; a faith I have rejected. At the end it goes:

All the glory that the Lord has made

And the complications when I see his face

In the morning in the window

All the glory when He took our place

But He took my shoulders and He shook my face

And He takes and He takes and He takes

I don't believe in god. I don't believe that a man called Jesus walked the earth and then died for my sins and then rose again. But I also believe that all stories are true. And he takes and he takes and he takes ... I get that. All these stories are true.

That Picture

I posted this picture on Facebook today:

But I agonized over it a little. See, the thing is, I didn't want to be one of those straight people who shores up her tolerance bona fides but smiling down benevolently on gay people. It's hella patronizing, n'est-ce pas ?

On the other hand, it's a nice picture. It's nice to see people coming home from military deployments to people they love, isn't it?

But if this had been a picture of a straight couple, would I still have felt moved to throw it up on Facebook? Or did I want to post it to make sure that everyone knows I approve, when my approval (as we used to say back home) is not hardly the point.

I went for it and posted it alongside an anecdote from, I think, Andrew Sullivan about all the good wishes gay people have bestowed on straight people and how it's nice to see that going the other way now. And that is nice. But maybe still not the best reason for posting pictures like this.

In the end, I think the best reason to share pictures like this is that it's good to be happily complicit in the normalization of images like this. The more we look at pictures of gay couples kissing, the more quotidian and unremarkable it becomes. And that's good. I'd like to live in that world. I'd like to live in a world where a picture like this gets a few "awwwws" and likes from people who just know these guys and not 50,000 people who feel compelled (like me) to pronounce upon their kiss.

I'd also like to live in a world where nice young fellows like this didn't have to go and spend a few years getting shot at in Afghanistan. But I guess that's for another post.

In Which I Suppress a Profound Urge to Punch Someone in the Neck

I've been leading this Girl Scout troop for about 5 years now. And, it's a lot of work and the cookie stuff stresses me out to no end. But, you know, I love those girls. All of them. Even though now they're getting to that age where some of them are kind of stinky and they yell a whole lot and are generally wild. But, I am firmly in the camp of these girls and I want wonderful things for all of them - no matter how loud or stinky they are.

And I'm really going to miss them upon my retirement at the end of the year. I love each and every one of those girls. But it's time for a break.

And then I read this, and was simultaneously seized with the urge to punch this asshat in the neck and re-up for another year. Here's the quote:

Nonetheless, abundant evidence proves that the agenda of Planned Parenthood includes sexualizing young girls through the Girl Scouts, which is quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood.

There are no words for how angry this makes me. Sexualizing girls through the Girl Scouts! What, in the name of decency, is WRONG with this man? What kind of a sick, twisted mind thinks of the Girl Scouts as a place where girls are sexualized? The Girl Scouts, for crying out loud! The Girl Scouts whose primary mission is empowering girls. To quote, "building girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place." An organization, not to put too fine a point on it, made up of LITTLE GIRLS! Who can see these girls and see them as sexualized? Who?

I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you exactly what kind of a sick twisted mind comes up with this: the kind of damaged, simple, and weird mind that is terrified of an acceptance of any sexuality beyond the most "traditional" (and I hope those scare quotes indicate just how ridiculous that word is... as if gay people sprang whole from a disco in 1975. It's just SO FUCKING STUPID). Accepting that two women might want to be in a relationship or that a child with a Y chromosome might feel more comfortable wearing pink is the same, to a mind like this, as actually having sex.

How sick is that?

And scoff and guffaw all you want at the notion of a Republican led war on women. But it's real and the front line is right at Planned Parenthood, an organization which Republican leadership would dearly love to see as Acorn Redux. Well, too fucking bad. You're not going to beat Planned Parenthood because there are too many women in America who have a real relationship with that place. And we'll fight for it.

But, for the love of decency, leave our little girls out of it!

I'm not re-upping for the Girl Scouts next year, because I just don't have the bandwidth for it, no matter how much I love all those little girls. But I am upping my monthly donation to Planned Parenthood. And I'm doing it in honor of State Representative Douchebag from Indiana.

In closing, here is a picture of my daughter who is a Girl Scout, who is aware that people are gay and that babies aren't picked in a cabbage patch and who is, absolutely and unequivocably an innocent:

Moonlight Sonata

When my mother was here for Christmas she told me a story about her father. Now, I never knew either of my grandfathers, but my father's father lived enough in hilarious anecdotes and offhand remarks that I thought of him as the man I would have called "grandaddy," if I'd known him. He had something of a posthumous personality. But my mother's father remained a stranger. I've always thought of him only as "my mother's father." Frankly, I never thought much about him at all until well into adulthood. He just never came up. I don't think he was much of a father to my mother.

But, my mother told me when she was up here that he played piano. And that when she was lying in bed as a girl, he'd be sitting at the piano trying again and again to get one piece of music right. Over and over he'd play the same run, the same few measures, and she would lie in bed and pray that he'd just get through it. I imagine the repetition was maddening for her.

As it probably is for Laney.

I've been working my way through Moonlight Sonata for a few months now. And we have a small house. So I imagine that Laney lies in bed and prays I could just get that one run with the double f sharp right (aside: why not just call it a G, Ludwig, I mean, Jesus Christ, a double f sharp is a G. For fuck's sake. Makes me crazy, even if there's probably a good goddamn reason why it's called a double f sharp and if I'd boned up on my music theory a little I'd know what that was. But I didn't and it's a goddamn G). Anyway, I'll hit that part and miss it a bit and move back a few measures and try it again. And again. And again.

Must be maddening for Laney. She's cool, though. She hasn't come downstairs yet and slammed the lid down on my fingers. Although I suspect the thought has crossed her mind a time or two.

It's not really the notes, though. I mean, you can miss a few notes and still get it right. But even if I got all the notes right (which I never do) I still wouldn't have it right. I might as well just get adjusted to the fact that I can't do it. I just can't get the feeling of it right. I just don't have whatever it is that you need to have to play Beethoven right.

I wonder if my mother's father did. I think it's sad that I probably won't ever really know.

Ah, well. I still love my piano. I love my clumsy attempts at Beethoven. I plan on taking on Pathetique soon (poor Laney). And I can do a standard pretty good. I should give the whole house a break and just work my way through the Cole Porter songbook. I can do those tunes.

But I wish I could play Beethoven for reals. I wish I could play like the lady below. It must be so wonderful.

Community... I Get It

I love this show. Love it madly. And no one watches it. And it's on hiatus. And it might get canceled.* But you know I don't think this is a simple as a Americans like dumb TV. Stupid dumb Americans. That's a facile response and TV these days is just too good to bear that out.

But, I have a theory.

I've often noticed that my husband doesn't like this show the way I do. I mean, he thinks it's funny. And thanks to the miracle of the DVR, he probably hasn't missed an episode, but he has nowhere near the passion for it I do. After last year's Christmas episode (Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas) when I said to him that that might have become my favorite Christmas episode of anything ever**, he looked at me... well, he looked at me the way I look at him when he exhaustively explains to me, play by play, how the Bears game finished. You know, a befuddlement that is equal parts affectionate and annoyed.

And then I heard this story about how one of the actresses on the show put a black goatee over her Twitter picture and a bunch of her followers asked her what that meant, which I thought was weird. So, I asked Don, "Do you know what it means when a character on a comedy shows up with a sudden black goatee?

He didn't.

And that's Community. Community is a TV show for people who understand, on an almost molecular level, what the black goatee means***. If you don't, you'll still really like the show because it's first and foremost really funny, and yet also has that nice gooey core of a lovable, lovely heart. And, man, is it sharp. I mean, the writing is so clever and smart. But if you don't know what the black goatee means... you probably won't enjoy it to the level that nerds like me do.

If you are, however, a nerd like me, I bet you enjoy Big Bang Theory intermittently (although, probably mostly for Mayim Bialik). I also bet, though, that the runaway success of that show pisses you off. And, probably, don't even get you started on the vomitous pile of excrement that is the most popular American sitcom.

Stupid dumb Americans.

*I think it will come back. I think it was probably more a show for a cable channel than a network, but I think it's got enough of passionate fan base that they'll keep it around for syndication rights, which is, I think, four seasons.

**I'm going to watch last week's Christmas episode again. I'll see if, on second viewing, that can unseat Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas. Because it was pretty great too.

***Seriously, with the black goatee. I mean, I get not being well-versed on Trekology, but South Park riffed on it like a million years ago. How can people not know this?