Choose Life! (Because the alternative is less than dignified)

If I had to represent the last few months of my life in a metaphor, I'd choose a big pot of stew. Something that takes a long time to cook, that has at times been at a boil, at other times at a simmer, and into which a big variety of ingredients has been thrown. (Vegan ingredients, bien sûr.)

(Moroccan stew!)

Now the pot is pretty much ready. I've straightened all my ideas out, cleared up my head (and heart, where some more personal issues were concerned) and I'm simultaneously energized and... going nowhere.

"Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

Thank-you Stephen Leacock. Just too much is ready all at once. Like the hundred ideas I have to write about on this blog, and each night I'm on the horse, going nowhere.* But here's one attempt.

Here is the full theme to Oprah's new network, written by will.i.am:



It reflects one of my favorite life ideas, that came back to me just this week, from Deuteronomy 30:19...

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life." 

My excellent friend Mae asked me once if this means I think death is bad, so I want to be clear that I don't. I think it's natural, and life comes from death. But even at a genetic level we're programmed to fight for life, like cutting of our arm if it's trapped under a boulder, or saving those dearest to us.

Once death comes, okay, it's meant to come. But in the meantime... When we finally put my poor sick Sherringham cat down, he was so weak, he wasn't moving anymore, he wasn't drinking or eating, he pretty much wasn't choosing life anymore, and I was feeling guilty for having waited longer than I should have. But when it came for the pre-needle, the one to relax him, the little bugger fought it! He reminded me of the Dylan Thomas poem, raging against the dying of the light.

So we need to support our bodies. Choose life. This isn't meant as a shaming for those who commit suicide, because it takes a hella lot to get to the point where you don't want to live (boulder boy!) so I have only compassion for those who do. But short of that...

I don't want to say: We need to get out of bad situations, because that's obvious. No one wants to be in them. But we need to get out of the truly mediocre ones. I don't mean every aspect of your life has to SpArKLe! There's a lot of peace and beauty in normalcy, or ordinariness. Eating pasta and watching Jersey Shore. Your job doesn't have to be your dream job to be Just Right, and your home doesn't need to look like Architectural Digest or an Ikea Catalogue.

But sometimes we settle for situations that slowly bury us alive, one shovel full at a time. And you might not realize it until the dirt is choking you. Romantic relationships, poisonous friendships, or even just the non-choices. Not doing the therapy, or starting that class, or making that decision.

Years ago my husband got a coffee at Starbucks with this quote printed on the side, and it reminded him of someone (not me) so he kept it on his bookcase for, like, ever:

"Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever." (Po Bronson)

He never gave it to the person he was keeping it for, but I never forgot it was there. It would occasionally draw me to its side, and I'd flip over the crumpled cardboard and read the quote again, then float guiltily away. Over and over. Like a clean load of laundry I just don't want to fold and put away. ...Okay so sometimes the dirt can be landing on you, you're aware of it, and you still don't get up out of the hole.

Choose life. However you can, whenever you can. When you can muster up a little strength.

Daedalus simply presented Ariadne with a skein of linen thread, which the visiting hero might fix to the entrance and unwind as he went into the maze. It is, indeed, very little that we need! (Joseph Campbell)

And if you can't muster up the strength, I've discovered the secret failsafe built into the universe. If you stop choosing choosing between life and death, blessing and cursing, Life comes along, grabs you by the scruff of the neck...

And dumps you in a big pot of stew.

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*I asked urthalun how she keeps up with her wide blogatude reading and she replied she's a sans-young-kids, doesn't have a job, doesn't clean, and stays up very late. I LAUGHED. I have no kids, no job, don't clean, and was reading it at 5 AM, just before going to bed. :-D There's just no excuse for me!!

My Cat Haley: Goddess worshipper, feminist, glamor queen

I have so many projects on the go right now, SO much I'm trying to accomplish, I'm losing my head. I have a million blog ideas, but keep losing time to write them. So instead today... a blog posting I wrote on my personal blog, about my cat Haley. Also known as Wolverbean because of her snickety-snick capabilities.


Friend Maewitch came over this week, and then Friend Midnightstreet. Minion, it turns out, flees from new visitors. Well we never have anyone over (usually our place is too crazy messy.) She'll come out after half an hour. Or in the case of the Videotron man, after I go get her.

Haley, though, was so happy to have guests--female guests. Tortoiseshell and calico cats--cats with an orange/black/white coloring--are almost always female. So Haley is a staunch feminist, one of the man-hating kind. She belongs to one of these ancient goddess-worshiping religions. So having girls over was great for Haley, it was like Sex and the City, let's break out the cocktails, let's talk about sex, let's wear high heels and designer clothes. (Haley can fight like Wolverine but you may have noticed her gorgeous coloring. She's wicked beautiful.) Midnightstreet maybe talked a bit too much about babies for her liking, but she was a chick so it was all good.

As for Maewitch, she is not only a feminist (non-man-hating) but also of a wiccan flavoring, so Haley instantly recognized in her an "âme soeur" (as it would be more accurately said in French.) She was rubbing against her legs in under a minute. Mae also looks like a model, sometimes glams up in super heels and purses, and runs an online store for indulgent and decadent (but natural and usually vegan) perfumes and soapies...

Haley was in for the whole package. The perfect combination of feminism, goddess worship, hippy-tude (Haley's from Vancouver), and glamor. Not since she met me has she taken so naturally to someone. Now I don't even know what she saw in me--I've always suspected she was just trying to seduce me into helping her escape a dog-ridden house (my mother's) and now I suspect her of trying to get Mae to take her away to what has recently become a pet-free home. Mae kept offering her "sisterhood fistbumps."

"I should be on the masthead of Mae's site."

"I am pretty and you know you want to indulge me."

While she did manage to wrap Mae around her manipulative paw, I could never let another person take Haley except under extreme circs because (a) Fernando and I have seen her in Wolverbean mode (we've both been clawed through our jeans and up to our shoulders) and suspect few people would have the patience for that (maybe Mae would, but her boyfriend would enter into a fight to the death and either one's death would be tragic).

(My money's on Haley.)

And (b) I lobes my Haley.   :-) 

But if Fernando and I die in tragic accidentaltude...

Minion goes to Swiss Girl.

Haley goes to Mae. (I'll leave instructions on preventing Wolverbean episodes in my will.)

Just to show how manipulative she is, both Mae and Midnight made the same comment when they left my home, on their respective visits: (in sweet voice, scratching Haley on the head) "I thought you were supposed to be the crazy one."

They didn't see the wicked wink Haley gave me behind their backs.



Here's the cartoon I drew about the visit for my husband, who's away. (Click to see bigger.)
 
(I drew a star of David lol. Clearly there's some Kabbalah thrown in here.)

Miss Marple to be played by Jennifer Garner &#^#&@(#Y*!!!!!!

For. The. Love.

This is wrong on soooo many levels. It tires me out just to think about it.

I'm not against a reboot or retake on an old Brit mystery series. Sherlock was one of my favorite shows last year. But Sherlock changed one thing: The historical period in which the Holmes stories took place. It was very faithful to the characters, the sidekicks, the baddies, the flaws, the feel, etc. And it modernized intelligently: the use of cell phones, internet, modern psychology "I'm not a psychokiller I'm a highly functioning sociopath."

But in this case...

* Is this going to be modernized? I assume so.

* Is it going to take place in the US? Probably. Americans in Brit roles are rare, and it's being produced by Disney.

* She's obviously going to be younger.

* I doubt the books describe Miss Marple closely (as they do Poirot), but Agatha Christie apparently said she would like to see Joan Hickson play her, as she eventually did, and many consider her the best Marple (as I do.) Certainly the best Marples have been diminutive women. Garner doesn't fit how I'd imagine a young Miss M to look.

But here's the thing. Miss Marple is one of the great Old Women Heroes. The fact that she's OLD and that she's a WOMAN is what makes her character--it's part of how she solves her mysteries. She's been observing human nature for years, and she has all these stories stored up in her mind; she recognizes patterns of behavior, and certain personality types. I'm sure she was a clever and observant young woman, but old age is one of her tools.

She's patient, she listens, she knows how to make people trust her, and talk; and then her brain pieces it all together. She's not a younger woman with ambitions and projects for her own life. She's an observer of other people.

And finally, she's underestimated, often considered a foolish, gossipy old woman. You can't have a Miss Marple without disregard for women, and without disregard for old age.

You can reproduce those things. Maybe they'll make their Miss Marple seem shy. Maybe the men around her will be sexist. I don't know. But the writing is going to have to be damn good to fauxproduce what made that character MISS MARPLE. And they'll still have to make a clever puzzle to boot, so hopefully they'll use an actual Christie plot (and not come up with their own predictable plot à la Gosford Park.)

But even then... even then it will have to be so totally knock-it-out-of-the-park feministly amazing to make this actually ok. Because in the end they're screwing with one of the VERY FEW elderly heroines in the history of movies, TV and literature. Miss Marple as an oldy has been deemed unworthy for the modern day big screen, and that SUCKS.

&^**&#^!!