I found a very excellent book at the bookstore called "Secrets." A man named Frank put it together, based on his blog, Post Secret. People send in artful-ish postcards and disclose secrets. Many are quite powerful. One of the first notes said "I don't like sex," mounted on an Calvin Klein ad close-up of a man's crotch. Others were about suicide, cheating of various forms, and events people regretted, or felt they should have regretted. I found myself drawn to the book, as I do have quite a few secrets myself. Despite my efforts to be open here, there are certain matters of which I am so ashamed, or so confused, that I choose not to write about them. Or maybe I do write about them, without realizing it, when I write stories or poetry. I am never been able to express my state of internal isolation: I approach, then balk. My first attempt, thirty-five years ago, failed, and the rare efforts since then failed as well. I could write a book about that, but it would probably not be of particular interest to other people.
Today is Christmas. My parents accepted an invitation to come be Christmas Jews with us, but then decided to go to my brother's home instead. This is the second year in a row that they committed the same blunder. Even when reminded of the gaffe, they chose to go to my brother's house, since his family is usually less available than us. It is a new low to be ditched, not by a friend, but by one's parents, for a sibling. It is even lower when the faulty parties - Mommy and Daddy, as it were, do not correct the error, but choose to keep the second commitment. My mother occasionally reads the blog, but it is my blog, so I will say whaddevah I wanna say. Perhaps my parents will write into the Post Secret guy, Frank, and tell him what exactly they are thinking: the firstborn really is the favorite? Our house is too small? They have better food? Daughters are more loyal and so ditching them is not a hazard?
Other secrets I am not keeping: I am in a genuine, actual panic about the state of both my hair and my face (if I am not pretty, what the hell am I?); I really wanna cigarette; I would like to have more sex but I am fundamentally shy and remote; I am not as smart as virtually everyone I surround myself with, so I often have to 'cover,' I have a vast amount of affection for people, and that embarrasses me, because often they like me, but they don't quite adore me as I do them; my former therapist, who is a world-renowned, much-quoted expert, said a lot of personal stuff to me and I sorta knew it, but I was flattered until I realized it was wrong, and I, well, I gotta stop there because the others just aren't coming out.
One more thing: there is an inflated plastic, bigger-than-life sized Jesus about two miles down the road. Not a secret, but rather an example of something that never should have been let out of the bag.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Saturday, December 02, 2006
The Tele-Polygamy Solution: A Cure for Man & Strife
Oh I do so question the fundamental idea of American marriage. Why are we so down on polygamy? I could still be with my kids, but the Ball & Chain's tendency to act as if the television were a soul-mate would be another gal's burden. Actually, I may have hit on something right there. It was gradual - when we first met, there was no t.v. in sight - but over time, B&C has made a heart-felt commitment to the television. There was no sudden something, there was just a gradual tendency to tape shows, assume that I knew he'd be watching hours-long homo-erotic videos, i.e. football, and the tendency to pay far more attention to that square box, its general health and schedule, than to me.
Jealous of the television? Hardly. If we can ever get a big-screen plasma mega-wall covering, I may covet the television, and devote myself. Currently, the television has saved me from the above-mentioned drench of American marriage. Here are my perfectly lovely kids. Why must they be related to B&C as well? It is so inconvenient when I am compelled to listen to his opinion regarding their care. In truth, his efforts have improved of late. Nevertheless, I am confident in the assertion that any of my judgments regarding children will be superior to his. Not necessarily because I know all, but because I always know more than him. Adolescent boy sex education is the exception. But even then, I had to direct him from 'behind the scenes.' This is what fathers do, etc. Yawn.
My main consultants are the women in my life, of course. My Mama, once smart and now phenomenally smart regarding people and child-rearing; Chrystal, whose child-rearing talents include kicking out her lazy-ass ex; Becca, who also lives with 2 children and a human husband; and other peoples, including my sister and two lovely and intelligent neighbor-friends who are with "grown men." We often chat, house-to-house, about the mediocrity of marriage and the most recent unfortunate events. I'd call it a series, but that name's been taken.
Back to the television. Not all marriages have a television. If you have been with the same man - lesbians, I envy you, I once thought I was a lesbian, I am certainly oriented in either direction, but I must exclude you from the idiocy that is man and wife - I do recommend getting a television and introducing him to some nice attractive shows. Perhaps he likes sports? Cleavage? Sexual content? Guns, car chases, idiotic cartoons? If he fits into any of these categories, you may have a chance at the Tele-Polygamy Respite Program. Mind you, it's not for everyone. If you enjoy your partner's company most of the time, well, you have obviously not been married long and I don't know why you're reading. Similarly, if you have a long-distance relationship, you're all set. At-home-moms may enjoy the solution because even when he's there, he's not. But then again, you may want to use his at-home time to bitch and ditch, off to see a friend and get a break from the house.
I am hereby creating the Tele-Polygamy Respite Program for all aggrieved overly-married women. More qualification requirements will be forthcoming, but I suspect you know who you are. In the meantime, there is not much on today, so I have some serious errands to run. The daughter rejected B&C's offer to go to an event, so that she could be with me. Like mother, like daughter: a genius.
Jealous of the television? Hardly. If we can ever get a big-screen plasma mega-wall covering, I may covet the television, and devote myself. Currently, the television has saved me from the above-mentioned drench of American marriage. Here are my perfectly lovely kids. Why must they be related to B&C as well? It is so inconvenient when I am compelled to listen to his opinion regarding their care. In truth, his efforts have improved of late. Nevertheless, I am confident in the assertion that any of my judgments regarding children will be superior to his. Not necessarily because I know all, but because I always know more than him. Adolescent boy sex education is the exception. But even then, I had to direct him from 'behind the scenes.' This is what fathers do, etc. Yawn.
My main consultants are the women in my life, of course. My Mama, once smart and now phenomenally smart regarding people and child-rearing; Chrystal, whose child-rearing talents include kicking out her lazy-ass ex; Becca, who also lives with 2 children and a human husband; and other peoples, including my sister and two lovely and intelligent neighbor-friends who are with "grown men." We often chat, house-to-house, about the mediocrity of marriage and the most recent unfortunate events. I'd call it a series, but that name's been taken.
Back to the television. Not all marriages have a television. If you have been with the same man - lesbians, I envy you, I once thought I was a lesbian, I am certainly oriented in either direction, but I must exclude you from the idiocy that is man and wife - I do recommend getting a television and introducing him to some nice attractive shows. Perhaps he likes sports? Cleavage? Sexual content? Guns, car chases, idiotic cartoons? If he fits into any of these categories, you may have a chance at the Tele-Polygamy Respite Program. Mind you, it's not for everyone. If you enjoy your partner's company most of the time, well, you have obviously not been married long and I don't know why you're reading. Similarly, if you have a long-distance relationship, you're all set. At-home-moms may enjoy the solution because even when he's there, he's not. But then again, you may want to use his at-home time to bitch and ditch, off to see a friend and get a break from the house.
I am hereby creating the Tele-Polygamy Respite Program for all aggrieved overly-married women. More qualification requirements will be forthcoming, but I suspect you know who you are. In the meantime, there is not much on today, so I have some serious errands to run. The daughter rejected B&C's offer to go to an event, so that she could be with me. Like mother, like daughter: a genius.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Modern Woman Shuns Self-Improvement
Yesterday this smarmy lady on the t.v. news which I do not usually watch (and now I remember why - it's so fucking stupid) - obsessively gave whispery-sweet advice on how to raise a girl who feels comfortable with her body. She said not to kvetch about how your ass - or my ass, as it were - looks in jeans, not to make self-deprecating remarks about my body, and to encourage Rugelah to exercise with me, or some such shit. Too late! She said it all with a condescending smile, as if she were actually giving new advice. This after another woman wrote an entire column in the New York Times about how to "re-gift" politely. That one had little hints like remove the card that was on the original gift, and if it's a piece of crap don't give it to someone else. This is the Seinfeld of the news. Write about nothing!
Far be it from me to write about the fact that women seem to be writing about nothing for the benefit of other women who presumably want to read about nothing and how it applies to their vacuous lives. That would make me an accomplice. Still, the magazines! I understand that they are all part of an evil plan to convince women we could all be better, but why must so many of the articles be about void of substance? How do I know they are brain-draining crap? My dear sister-in-law, Betty, came to visit. She hauled over all of the Self and Self-less and My Self type stuff. Some of the clothing in those ads was excellent, but the articles were about eating vegetables and injecting the fat from your ass into your cheeks. Cheek to cheek-ha!
Naturally, I have my own more pertinent advice for the modern woman who feels she looks like crap, has too much to do, and wants to read in-depth coverage of real women's issues:
1.) Wear a mini-pad. In your undies, please, and nowhere else. Inevitably, you will bleed irregularly due to medications, mothering stress, peri-menopause, break-through bleeding, an ovarian cyst, or simply a suddenly heavy period. If you are post-menopause, quit gloating.
2.) Don't wear the wrong color lipstick. Orange is always the wrong color. You'll look like a clown - the bad kind.
3.) Don't watch The View or any other mainstream female-ish show. It's a mysogynist and anti-semitic plot to convince you that Barbara Walters is actually a Jewish woman. Ack!
4.) Finish that delicious thing on your plate because if you don't when you're hungry later you'll be like why oh why can't I eat that now?
5.) Drink a lotta coffee with sugar, and I don't mean decaf! This will keep you perky and awake, even in the middle of the night! Added benefit: increased productivity.
7.) Practice dental hygiene. You may look haggard, you may feel like you're one hundred and one, but if your breath stinks, you have really sunk to the depths. Alternatively, if your partner is bothering you, avoid dental hygiene.
8.) Save time by giving your kids frozen food. You can stick a large frozen thing into the microwave, and within minutes have pseudo-food. Put some dressing on some lettuce, too - no, not spinach, for crissake - provide a glass of cow's milk, or soda, and it's a healthy meal. If your kid has allergies, well, you're screwed. Also, unless you know the cow personally, opt for the soda.
9.) If your kid does not have allergies, think about what a lazy bitch you are. Only for 10 seconds, though. Give them fruit for dessert and you'll be like the goddess of pseudo-health. Unless you grew the fruit in a hydroponic container, opt for a Twinkie instead.
10.) Don't wear a winter hat if you have curly hair. When you take it off, you will have clown-head, as in Bozo. Refer back to item 2. If you really wanna look like a clown, you know what to do.
11.) Stay away from any magazine that purports to give advice about how to feel better. Some days you will feel like shit, and other days you will feel good. Most of the time you will be somewhere in-between. No amount of self-hating pseudo-improvement can change that.
I hope my list is of help to anyone feeling oppressed by the pod-people. Gotta run - I have an appointment to sit on my ass and create a scrapbook of these, the days of the empowered woman.
Far be it from me to write about the fact that women seem to be writing about nothing for the benefit of other women who presumably want to read about nothing and how it applies to their vacuous lives. That would make me an accomplice. Still, the magazines! I understand that they are all part of an evil plan to convince women we could all be better, but why must so many of the articles be about void of substance? How do I know they are brain-draining crap? My dear sister-in-law, Betty, came to visit. She hauled over all of the Self and Self-less and My Self type stuff. Some of the clothing in those ads was excellent, but the articles were about eating vegetables and injecting the fat from your ass into your cheeks. Cheek to cheek-ha!
Naturally, I have my own more pertinent advice for the modern woman who feels she looks like crap, has too much to do, and wants to read in-depth coverage of real women's issues:
1.) Wear a mini-pad. In your undies, please, and nowhere else. Inevitably, you will bleed irregularly due to medications, mothering stress, peri-menopause, break-through bleeding, an ovarian cyst, or simply a suddenly heavy period. If you are post-menopause, quit gloating.
2.) Don't wear the wrong color lipstick. Orange is always the wrong color. You'll look like a clown - the bad kind.
3.) Don't watch The View or any other mainstream female-ish show. It's a mysogynist and anti-semitic plot to convince you that Barbara Walters is actually a Jewish woman. Ack!
4.) Finish that delicious thing on your plate because if you don't when you're hungry later you'll be like why oh why can't I eat that now?
5.) Drink a lotta coffee with sugar, and I don't mean decaf! This will keep you perky and awake, even in the middle of the night! Added benefit: increased productivity.
7.) Practice dental hygiene. You may look haggard, you may feel like you're one hundred and one, but if your breath stinks, you have really sunk to the depths. Alternatively, if your partner is bothering you, avoid dental hygiene.
8.) Save time by giving your kids frozen food. You can stick a large frozen thing into the microwave, and within minutes have pseudo-food. Put some dressing on some lettuce, too - no, not spinach, for crissake - provide a glass of cow's milk, or soda, and it's a healthy meal. If your kid has allergies, well, you're screwed. Also, unless you know the cow personally, opt for the soda.
9.) If your kid does not have allergies, think about what a lazy bitch you are. Only for 10 seconds, though. Give them fruit for dessert and you'll be like the goddess of pseudo-health. Unless you grew the fruit in a hydroponic container, opt for a Twinkie instead.
10.) Don't wear a winter hat if you have curly hair. When you take it off, you will have clown-head, as in Bozo. Refer back to item 2. If you really wanna look like a clown, you know what to do.
11.) Stay away from any magazine that purports to give advice about how to feel better. Some days you will feel like shit, and other days you will feel good. Most of the time you will be somewhere in-between. No amount of self-hating pseudo-improvement can change that.
I hope my list is of help to anyone feeling oppressed by the pod-people. Gotta run - I have an appointment to sit on my ass and create a scrapbook of these, the days of the empowered woman.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Photos, Drama, and a Few Twists
Blogger fucking beta is giving me a beta headache which is turning into an alpha. I tried to play with it to see why exactly I should switch to it even though I already did, and finally I am able to share a photograph of myself. In truth, I needed assistance from Thing One. But before digging into the joys of technology - which is probably more of a monologue on my lack of tech prowess - I would like to respond to the many people who have commented on my very eventful life. First, as you can see, I haven't lost my looks. For that, I am grateful.My life is indeed very eventful. It's Africa, it's Asia, it's the unsafe Eastern Europe of my ancestors. Unpleasant people, unfamiliar smells and hot spicy soup. There are legal matters and medical crises. Estrangement and financial woe. It feels like Agnes Nixon of ABC soaps fame - All my Children and One Life To Live - is writing the cheesy script of my life. Way too many dramatic events. Clearly I am worthy of a heartier, more realistic plot. Or at least some cleavage to boast.
I do feel like I got a good job, and if I were one of those people who believed that "every time a door closes a window opens," I might see myself locked in a room, but escaping through a window. What an odd expression. Since I am not one of those people, however, and I am also not a trapped bird, I generally steer clear of open windows - at least those without screens. I view my small bit of good fortune as a probability game. The chances of another unpleasant or awful event happening in my life seemed to be less likely, after the many bad twists of plot. About twists, and turns, why do people always use that phrase - "twists and turns"? It sounds absurd. When I first heard it, I thought it was a parody, something Will Ferrell might say on SNL (is it SNL now, instead of "Saturday Night Live"? Is that an update to the effect of KFC? We all know The Colonel fries his chicken so I don't respect that switch.) Regarding twists and turns, it seems that people really do use those two words together. I can understand a twist, I can understand a turn, but twists and turns together sounds ignorant, like saying "nucular," or perhaps "irregardless." William Sapphire would certainly scoff, and I scoff as well. I also digress madly.
At my new job, where I am teaching Language Arts, people seem to understand that I am intelligent. It's wicked fun because I do not have to explain myself or defend myself or even prove myself because my competence is assumed. It is remarkable how much more one can do with just the notion that the people who hired you to teach sense that you can actually do the job. On that note, let's get back to using some of the functions of the Blogger beta, which is supposedly bedda than the old Blogger. It seems it allows me to make things look schnazzier so that you - my devoted reader, and the dog - will be more attracted to what I say. To that end, I suppose I should have linked to the aforementioned soaps, or perhaps KFC. Do ya really wanna go there, though? I guess I've lost the initial emotion that lead me to criticize Beta in the first place. The issue simply pales in the context of My Eventful Life. Oh and one more thing, as Columbo useta say: in truth, that photo of me is from my college days. before I really got good lookin'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
