Craptastic Temp

It's 86 degrees inside my house right now. Who knows what the humidity is? It was finally warm enough Friday night to turn on the A/C and when we did, it was kaput. We'll be in the new house in less than a week. Thank God. I'm getting so tire of the haphazard upkeep of this place.

"Lost" lust and feminist guilt

I've been pretty darned remiss in posting, lately, but not nearly so much as one of my blog-dulgences, TexasWhip. I don't know where those guys have disappeared to. My excuse? I've been hosting guests, working overtime a lot and we're in the process of buying a house, so I have to spend my freetime freaking out.

Since we've been waiting for Battlestar Galatica to resume for season 3, Honey and I have been catching up on that more mainstream TV phenom, Lost. The pilot was so-so, but I've been surprised how quickly we've been drawn in. We're loading up on season one on Netflix. It's crazy. Lost falls into common sentimental traps of TV writing at least once every episode or two, but for the most part, the story is really fascinating. I love the X-files feel to everything. Freaks my ass out. And I recently discovered that the actor who plays the hottie Iraqi soldier, Sayid, for whom I must mop up my drool, is also the same actor who played the lucious Sikh soldier, Kip in the English Patient.

On another note ... Thursday night, a girlfriend and I went to see another mutual girlfriend perform in a play. The show was written in '75 or '76, but basically at the height of the modern feminist movement. I question the director's choice to remount the show. It was just five women monologuing on their lives (our friend's performance, btw, was the best part of the show; she was the most natural and played the most levels. She's almost as much a delight to watch as she is to know.). While I sat there listening to this show, it suddenly occured to me that the basic sentiments being expressed in this piece were the underlying reasons why I feel guilty for not being a bigger breadwinner in my family, for actually wanting to have babies and, on very rare occasions, for being married. The gist of the monologuing women's pieces was this: "My life was what it was: sometimes good, sometimes bad, but my own. And then I met a man and had children, or an abortion. My life was never my own after that and I'm miserable." The only character who wasn't miserable was loopy. The play told me, "You should not be happy." It was also kind of like, between the lines, I could hear the 80s Barbie, saying, "Molly, I told you, 'We girls can do anything!' It's 2006! You're not doing the 'anything' things I was trying to inspire you to do! You may as well be one of these characters!"

I bore in mind that the show was written in the 70s and 30 years ago, this was probably the perfect piece. There's gotta be a period in every social movement when those who are moving up have to work through the demons of why they're moving up. I'm suspicious of groups who do not vent emotionally. But I really failed to see how this piece was compelling today. Though the womens' emotional experiences may not have been anachronistic entirely, it seemed their social experiences were so too far removed from my own understanding of women in America, today (ie, the thought that you can't go to college, just because you're a woman) that it just rang self-important and insincere. All of this could be a by-product of the play's production not supporting the material as well as it could have. I don't know.

To recap, the play tells me: "Marriage makes you lose your sense of self. Family suffocates you. It is better to be lost alone than a lost matron. You should not want these things." But here is what I know: I love my husband with all my being - even when he drives me nuts. I love my marriage with all my heart. And I am very, very happy with both. And for those reasons, I really did not like the theme of the play, as I perceived it. But I definitely congratulate my girlfriend on her performance. Darling, you made that show bearable and thank you, for actually finding the humor in the piece!

Colbert's ThreatDown Nails it!

Here's one for the "holy shit" files: some bears at a Dutch zoo ate a monkey! Can you imagine the creepiness of behing at that park? What a freaky family outing! Life ain't Disney, kids.

30 days to 30 years

Yup. It's time to start reflecting and thinking about where I want to go from here.

let him live? let him fry?

So the jury is taking a long time deciding whether to give Zacharias Moussaoui the death penalty, and MSNBC suspects this means they may be relucatant to give him the gurney. For what it's worth, I hope they deny him his wish. I really get the feeling that this guy is kind of like Andrea Yates. Crazy and dangerous, but really only dangerous in a very limited setting. I also kind of get the feeling that al Quaeda didn't even want to play with this guy. Like they were like, "Allahu Akbhar Jihad, brother Moussauoi! Hey, why don't you save us a seat in the cafetorium for five minutes and I swear we'll all be right back. We just have to run to the men's room." Like he was the wrong kind of crazy for them or something. Maybe they wanted him to get busted. Maybe they were even afraid of flying with him. ... Anyway, if the jury gives him the death penalty, it seems they'd be granting this lunatic the martyrdom he wants. Why play into al Quaeda's hands? ... I'm just sayin' ...

In the meantime, I'm trying to survive a yucky sinus infection and buy a house and maintain my career. My days have improved since my last entry, but not out of the woods. Methinks I'm entering that part of my adulthood where it's all woods. Great. (blech.)

Off to swig the O.J. and get going to work. Ciao!