Doctor Who Goes to the Oscars

It's Oscar night. All America is watching the Oscars. I am watching Doctor Who Revisited on BBC-America. Dear God, thank you for the BBC.

I'm supposed to be at an Oscars-viewing party but I am home nursing two sick cats and an incipient case of massive depression.  I'm the depressed one; the kitties just have a rather disgusting pooping problem.

I'd rather have a pooping problem. Tho' actually, to be perfectly honest, pooping problems are somewhat intrinsic to depression. You get depressed; your tummy gets its own version; you have pooping problems. But I am totally not blogging about that.

Depression. I am blogging about depression. (You thought it was the Oscars, didn't you? Bwah hah hah!) Here's the thing: I fight constantly against depression. Tonight, tho', depression gets a victory. Just a minor one, mind you [she types confidently]. I am staging a tactical retreat. My reserves are exhausted; I await reinforcements; I flee back to the ramparts.

In other words, I empty the house (sick kitties don't count) and I watch Doctor Who. Tomorrow I resume the fight. I will claim happiness. I will be fun and funny; I will have the energy for my fellow human beings. Tonight. . . tonight,  I need Time Lords and aliens.

Is it bad to prefer the company of Daleks and Cybermen to actual friends and family members? Perhaps a wee bit insane? OK, yes, I do realize the correct answer is "yes." Choosing fantasy aliens is probably not high on the list of acceptable responses to depression. But you know, this is the great thing about facing down 50: The boundaries of "acceptable" prove to be more and more elastic.

At this rate, by the time I hit 60 I'll no longer leave the house and I'll talk only to my cats. Still, cats are Doctor Who fans (I mean, it's obvious). So, all will be well. Maybe in a bizarre, slightly twisted, not exactly normal way, but I no longer aspire toward normalcy. Just being well. And if wellness involves time travel and incredibly sexy aliens and huge doses of fantasy (as well as incontinent kitties), so what?

Geez louise. Go see Silver Linings Playbook (it's up for the Oscar for Best Picture). Then explain to me how to define "normal."

New Year's Resolutions

2013. What kind of year is that? What good can come in a year named 2013?

I resolve not to make any New Year's resolutions. I'm still scarred by my experience from a few years back, when I wrote up my resolutions and ended up with a list of 31 Do's and Don'ts, ending with "Be less hard on myself." And it took me several days before I saw the irony.

So, this year, in this badly named year of 2013, I resolve not to resolve. I Resolve Simply To Be. Just to be. To be: to breathe and to enjoy breathing. To be: to see the divine in the daily. To be: to recognize and even to rejoice in the fact that the highlights of my year will be the new seasons of Downton Abbey and Doctor Who. To be: to invite friends over on the spur of the moment and not to worry about the state of the house or whether there's any dessert. To be: to be as anal about responding to social emails as I am to work emails. To be: to allow myself more time to cook and to bake. To be: to remember friends' birthdays. To be: to go for long walks and to find a yoga class that doesn't drive me nuts. To be: to call my mom more often and to enjoy the calls. To be: to. . . to . . . .

Oh fuck.

Pausing in Time

So, I'm watching Doc Martin and want another glass of wine. Cool beans! I click "Pause" and off I go for a refill. Pause. PAUSE! I've paused Live TV!

God. I love living in the 21st century.

I had no idea one could pause "Live TV," as in "TV being broadcast right now." But the weekend before last, Hugh had some friends staying over. While he was passed out upstairs (ok, yes, another story), his buddies were watching tv and I came in and we started chatting and something came up so that they pulled out the remote and said, "Look, Miss Facing-50, see, just press this button with the two lines and  you can pause your show." I was stunned. "Wait. Are you serious? TV? It's not a dvd? You're pausing a TELEVISION PROGRAM?" "Yeah, sure," they said, all nonchalant, but also rather gentle, like they were talking to an inquisitive toddler or maybe an Indigenous Person in a loincloth who somehow got catapulted from the jungle into our living room. "And see, just press this button with the arrow and you can fast-forward."

And suddenly, there was This Moment. Just a second or two, I guess. But in that one or two seconds, I had this vision, this totally Doctor Who moment, the possibility of time collapsing, of fast forwarding into the future, wrinkles in time, wormholes in space. No Tardis and no David Tennant, sadly, not even Matt Smith, but still, TIME, right at my fingers via my remote control.

Until Hugh's buddies stammered, "Oh no, umm, no, Miss Facing-50, we didn't mean you could, like, you know, fast-forward in real time. Just if you pause a program, later you can, you know, fast-forward it. But you know, like, you can't like really mess with time. Not really."

They had That Look on their faces--that "Oh my God, we're dealing with an insane old person" look. And, even though Hugh was unconscious upstairs and Owen was doing whatever he does in Oregon, I could hear both of them howling, "MOM! Oh God, Mom! Really?! Are you kidding me???"

Time and space collapsing.

Right. Of course. I know you can't use your tv remote to fast-forward through time. Kind of. Except, you know, like, I've seen a hell of a lot of technological change in my time. Geez louise. We had a black and white tv, you know? A transistor radio. A friggin' hi-fi. And now, I click on my remote and I pause my tv program. I speak into my phone and it tells me where to go, then I plug it into a little box and somewhere somehow someone plays hours of music that I like, songs I've never even heard before, but yes, I like them, and somehow someone somewhere knew I would like them because I like Bruce Springsteen and the Beatles and the Clash. So, fast-forwarding through time. . . .for a second there, it seemed, well, utterly real, totally sensible, completely possible.

Just for a moment. A second. An eternity.

Declaration of Intent

Earlier this week Keith and I and a group of friends went to hear Neal Conan from NPR's "Talk of the Nation." Conan has always struck me as incredibly witty and sane so I figured it would be a great talk. It wasn't. It wasn't bad, mind you, but Conan said nothing that we all didn't already know. Of course, maybe I hang out with an incredibly sophisticated, educated, and articulate crowd. Anyway, afterward, everyone headed to one of the friend's houses for drinks. Except me. I went home to bed.

I do not like being The Person Who Goes Home to Bed. The person who has trouble staying awake past 9 pm. The person whose first reaction to any kind of invitation is to think, "Do I have to?" The person whose idea of an especially good time is to be alone with a big bowl of vegetarian chili and a Doctor Who episode.

All evidence to the contrary, I really am not that person. The real me loves to spend time with good friends. The real me has a passion for politics and intense conversation. The real me enjoys exploring and engaging and experimenting. It's just that the real me has somehow gotten encased in, swallowed up by this carcass, this husk that seems to consist of nothing but aches. Every morning I wake and make plans, blueprints, reallly, for how to construct the day so that I am really me. And every day the husk makes a mockery of those plans, distorts the blueprints.

And it's really pissing me off.

My yoga instructor ends every class with this meditation: breathing deeply, she intones, "Embrace, affirm, accept your body, just as it is, just where it is, here and now, at this moment." Right. Not a chance. There's me and there's the husk and between us is the line in the sand. I have had it. I hereby declare war.

Bitter Woman

Keith is watching football. LSU vs. West Virginia. God. I hate football.

I shouldn't be bitter.

I'm not. I Am Not A Bitter Woman.

The thing is, we had a very short courtship. So it came as something of a surprise that I found myself married to a sports fanatic. Somehow, this fanaticism just hadn't really surfaced in the months, umm, weeks, of our pre-marriage romance.

You might think that as the younger sister of five older brothers, I was prepared for Sports Fanaticism. But my big brothers were more into cars and cigarettes and beer and drugs. We were Cubs fans, because my much-loved grandma was a Cubs fan. And being a Cubs fan went well with beer and cigarettes, frankly-- add a hotdog with mustard and relish, and Life Is Good. But football?? Dad watched the Bears on Sundays in the depth of winter when he could laugh at "those idiots" floundering in the snow. And my brothers were far too stoned to care.

So, here I sit, with this man who cares intensely. Who actually just now said, as he moved the chair so he could be right in  front of our rather small tv, "Can you see?"--as if I cared. But he can't imagine I don't care. Which is so sweet. And just so damn weird.

Weird as it is, I'd be ok with it, if it were just LSU football. I mean, I get obsession. Obsession is ok. I have my obsessions. Doctor Who. Bruce Springsteen. And everything Paul Newman has ever done. And I ritualistically, fatalistically, follow the Cubs, as part of my birthright. So, if Keith were simply obsessed with LSU football, really, I'd be ok with that. But, here's the deal: I thought The Game was this afternoon. Because Keith spent the entire friggin' afternoon watching football. But that was other football. Gettin' ready football. Preparatory football.  Foreplay football.

Keith is watching football. LSU vs. West Virginia. God. I hate football.

And yes. I Am A Bitter Woman.

Fertility + Dementia

Oh for pete's sake. I've got my period. A full-blown, bright red, flowing, I am fertile too bad you didn't inseminate me a few weeks ago period.

My mom had a friend, acquaintance really, who got pregnant at age 52--back in the Dark Ages, before artificial insemination and test-tube babies and surrogacy and the rest of our Brave New World. Mom always talks about this pregnancy in a tone of horror. I think it'd be kinda cool, really. Shoot, I like babies and little kids and now I'd actually have some sense of what I was doing. And by the time said baby became a horrid teenager, like the one clumping through the house right now, well, I wouldn't really notice much, would I? I'd just shake my head, the one with no hair left, and wave my arms, the ones with the extendable skin, and hobble back to the sofa to watch another episode of Doctor Who.

Doing Something Important

Day 5 in Post-Old-Lady-Foot-Surgery World. I had planned to spend my time on the sofa accomplishing all kinds of Important Things: finishing off a review, devising syllabi, writing a book proposal, drafting two sample chapters for other book proposals, and most important, revising chapters of my Damn Jesus book.

Oh. Perhaps that last one needs a bit of explaining. See, I've been working on a book about images (visual, theological, literary) of Jesus in British popular and intellectual culture since 1850. The problem is, I've been working on this project since, well, it seems since 1850; certainly my sons have never known life without it, and as a result the entire family calls it the Damn Jesus book. Not that we have anything against Jesus. Not at all. Jesus is good.

Anyway, I planned this totally laid-back but completely productive on-the-sofa recovery period. But, to quote a line from Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, "A plan is what you have when you don't think." I forgot to factor into my brilliant plan one very important, uh, factor: Pain. I do have these really groovy pain-relieving drugs, but said drugs are, it must be admitted, more appropriate for watching Ghostbusters than for constructing brilliant and logical historical arguments that will convince committees made up of grumpy over-educated white men that they should promote me and pay me more. Leave out the drugs and one is left with, well, plain ol' pain.

And here again, I realize what a Bad Academic I am. A Good Academic would soldier on through the pain. I would like to think, I choose to think, I must think, that if I had to Do Something Important, if I had to, say, finish an article on which the future of a decent, affordable education for all residents of the state of Louisiana rested, or testify before Congress on the need for universal health care, or I dunno, geez, what vitally important thing could an historian of modern Britain actually do???

Which of course is the point. I love my job. But I made sure that my surgery did not conflict with the socially crucial part of it (i.e. the teaching part). And gritting my teeth and working through tears so that the few interested cultural and religious historians can read what I have to say about changes in the British image of Jesus. . . . umm, it ain't happenin'.

Instead, I've used up my few pain-free and lucid moments to write my Christmas cards, talk to my guys, read Terry Pratchett, and watch Doctor Who. But wait--those last two are British, and in fact not just British but Modern British. Eh voila, I've been working through the pain. Gosh. Someone ought to promote me.

Ornamental Pillow People

One might think that two relatively bright, aware, sensible people, married for 20 years and thus combining their relative brightness, awareness, and sensibility, would not repeat the same mistakes over and over and over. But we do.

We ordered a bed online. We know better. We have tried assembling furniture in the past. Many times--as our household interior bears witness, replete as it is with various wonky, wobbly chairs, desks, and tabletops. We are not handy people. We are not mechanically inclined. We have no practical function whatsoever.

We are now sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

Yet this return to a kind of grad student sparseness has occurred in tandem with a leap into bourgeois luxury. We have become Ornamental Pillow People.

It wasn't intentional. Keith, for one, hates ornamental pillows. Art is fine--he has no trouble spending money on paintings or photographs. Because art has a point--you look at it, you enjoy it, you're challenged by it, whatever. But the point of a pillow is to sleep on it. An ornamental pillow? No point.

I'm more ambivalent. I've always really been rather awe-struck by people with ornamental pillows on their beds. They're like the People Who Live in Our Magazines. But I dunno. Life seems complicated enough, without having to arrange a complicated tower of pillows on the bed every morning. Plus I nap most days. That means building the pillow pyramid twice every day.

But after two decades of connubial bliss, we decided to graduate to a queen-sized bed. (I worried about the implications of this move, I'll admit. Does it mean there's a growing distance between us? Are we no longer close? Actually, it just means we're both sick of being squished by the kitty.) Anyway, a new mattress means new bedding. And on overstock.com, I found this great deal on a rather attractive "12-piece bed-in-a-bag". I'll admit, I'm not a good shopper. I didn't really pay attention. I mean, 12 pieces. I just assumed, gotta include sheets, right? Comforter = 1. Blanket = 2. Sheets and pillowcases = 6. God knows what else = 12.

But no. No sheets. No pillowcases. Instead, lots and lots of Ornamental Pillows. I feel like a miner when I go to bed now--it requires much tunneling and shoveling just to find the sheets. Keith refuses to do the pillow mining. He just inserts himself into the mass--with the result that I come into the bedroom and it's like an episode of Doctor Who: alien pillow-shaped life forms have swallowed my husband's head and are munching their way down his torso.

Still, we're trying. Why can't we be Ornamental Pillow People? We're people. We like pillows. And heck, we're largely ornamental.

Jaunty

Keith and I spent the weekend in New Orleans with my good friend Karen and her husband. Karen and I go way back, back to Chicago and grad school, back to the Time Before Tenure, the era before House-and-Spouse. We've each moved the other; we've celebrated each other's victories and mourned each other's failures, and now we're both facing 50. (Actually, she hit 50 last month; I still have a few weeks left of my 40s. Just to, you know, be precise.)

Karen is facing her 50s with, well, glee. She's jumped into the research for a new book and thoroughly ensconced in academic life; she's thrilled with her husband and house and dogs; she has a couple of stepkids who are "done and dusted"--out and about and living fine adult lives; she's where she wants to be and doing what she wants to do. She's downright jaunty.

Jaunty. I don't think I've ever been jaunty. I'd like to be jaunty. But jauntiness seems to require energy and ambition, and I have neither. I blame menopause. Menopause is great. It's like teething with babies. "He's so fussy--he must be teething." "He feels hot--I think he's teething." "He's so clingy lately--I bet he's teething." "He's all congested--gotta be teething." Doesn't matter what it is, really, you just blame teething. Menopause works the same, but for middle-aged women rather than babies, obviously.

Except the thing is, I'm not sure I ever actually had energy and ambition. I used to think I was an energetic and ambitious up-and-comer but honestly, I think I was simply petrified. Scared shitless. Utterly, absolutely, existentially terrified. All that supposed energy and ambition, all the emphasis on achievement was, simply a way of shoring up the barricades, of constructing a fortress behind which I could shelter from the demons of depression and debilitating anxiety. By racking up points, coming out on top, winning the prizes, I kept the monsters at bay.

And then I had kids. And they didn't conform to schedules or slip neatly into file folders or abide by deadlines. My achievements dwindled.

And now I'm supposed to say--jauntily--that I learned of course that other things--motherhood and family, for example--were far more important and that I discovered that I was fine without the prizes, that I had no need of such defences because the demons never existed and the monsters were really cuddly toys.

Bullshit (she says politely).

With the barricades down, in hurtled the monsters. Depression rampaged through my life--slicing, slashing, gouging, biting-- and left me, my kids, my husband bleeding and scarred.

But the point is, as any fan of Doctor Who knows, monsters must be faced. You can't just cower behind the defenses you've erected and wait for the gnashing gashing hordes to go away. Because they don't. They just hunker down out there and eat a whole bunch and exercise a lot and get really strong. So you've got to go on the offensive; you have to fight. And here's where Doctor Who actually lets me down (hard to believe, but true). The Doctor makes the fight seem exciting, damn, even sexy. And it's not at least not when the monsters are depression and anxiety rather than space aliens. It's a fight that's boring and exhausting and goddamned fucking disillusioning and discouraging and just plain difficult. Much more like an episode from The Pacific.

So. Umm. I am not jaunty as I face 50. But I am, actually, hopeful. I mean, if you're hunkered down with the enemy all around you and yet you refuse to admit there's a fight going on, you haven't much chance of winning, do you? Oh, I know I'll probably lose all the same. Still, it's not so bad to go down fighting, is it? (she says, just a wee bit jauntily).

But that's dangerous!

I'm a pretty cautious person, rule-oriented, inclined to consider worst-case scenarios. A timid, tepid sort of soul, really. Yet in the eyes of my mother-in-law, I'm an adventurer.

The oldest child in a poor but upwardly aspiring Southern rural family, Marilyn married young. Her husband, Keith's father, was a schoolteacher, so there never was much money, yet Marilyn never worked outside the home. Scrimping is thus bred into her bones; it structures her approach not just to money matters but to life. Holding back, being careful, regarding the world as hostile and unpredictable--these are attitudes that have served Marilyn well. "But that's dangerous!" is her mantra. (You have to imagine this voiced plaintively in the country accent of central Louisiana to get the full effect.)

Compared to Marilyn, I'm a wanton, and Keith and I live lives of great recklessness. We're buccaneers, willing to place even our children in peril. We let them them lick the batter from the bowl (raw eggs!), bicycle around the neighborhood (cars!), fly across the Atlantic alone at age 8 (hijackings!), and, in then-15-year-old Owen's case, spend six months in South Africa (too many dangers to put between parentheses!).

I love it. When I'm with Marilyn, when I see myself through Marilyn's eyes, I'm transfigured. I'm no longer a menopausal mom with a stagnant academic career and a cat litter box in need of cleaning and a lawn in need of mowing. Instead, I'm Marion careening through Egypt on a jeep with Indiana Jones. I'm Rose saving the Doctor. I'm Princess Leia leading the rebellion. I'm Katherine Hepburn braving the snakes and leeches with Humphrey Bogart on the African Queen.

Actually, I hate leeches. I rarely exceed the speed limit. I've never shot a gun. I read warning labels. In times of crisis, I sit down and cry.

Maybe I should ask my mother-in-law to visit more often.

The play's the thing

Yesterday the Royal Shakespeare Company's latest version of Hamlet arrived on dvd. Because we didn't get started on it til later in the night, we had to stop halfway through and so I've been waiting all day to resume watching--I just can't wait to see how it all turns out.

I know. It's friggin' Hamlet. I have read and seen it. But oh, many many ages ago. Let's see, the last Hamlet I saw was Mel Gibson's, and I was heavily pregnant with Owen, and so I slept through all but the first few minutes. And before that, oh gosh, college I guess.

It's not that I've forgotten the ending, not really, well, not totally, I mean, I have a kind of vague recollection. . . all those bodies. . . but I had forgotten so many of the twists and turns--not forgotten per se as much as just not remembered, you know? Like when you return to a childhood place and you keep saying, "Oh, right, that's right, that's where they lived!"

But the real point is, although I do know how Hamlet ends, I don't know how this Hamlet ends. RSC productions always cause a bit of a buzz in Britain, but in this case the buzz sounded more like the roar of a chain saw rather than a bee's temperate bzzz bzzz--because the amazing David Tennant--the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who, the man for whom I'd leave my husband and have lots of babies, hey! haven't you heard of surrogacy?--is in the leading role. And, in addition to my beloved Doctor, it's also just a really great, thought-provoking production.

And then there's another point. I hate this point.

The thing is, I've never watched Hamlet before as a, as a, umm, ya know, as a (shhh-whisper this) middle-aged woman. So here I am, sympathizing with Gertrude. Is it this production, or is it me? I'm even willing to give Claudius a chance. Just a wee bit, but still, a bit of a chance. And there's a part of me that wants to sit Hamlet down and say, "Honey, let's talk about your choices."

Double Standard

Keith and I regularly watch the next day evening rerun of The Daily Show. We're too old to stay up late enough to watch the live broadcast and, well, way too old to watch tv shows online at any old time, which yes, I do know we could do. But we can't because that's just, oh, just so not right. My laptop screen is too small and I tend to spill stuff. But more than the Practicalities, there are Principles involved here: 1) one should have to endure commercials as penance for watching tv; 2) one is supposed to watch tv shows at specific times on specific days--how else will one learn time management skills? and the exquisite pleasure of expectation and impatience?

Anyway, one evening last year, Owen joined us in the living room--

--oh hey!!! Principle 3# of It's-TV-Not-Computer-Watching: the family is to cluster around the tv set (one cannot cluster around the computer--there aren't enough chairs and there's always that annoying booping noise alerting one to incoming chat message thingies for Hugh); if one does not cluster as a family around the tv, what will happen to family values?--

--while we were watching The Daily Show and right out of nowhere, Owen turns to me and says, "It'd be all right with me if you left Dad for Jon Stewart."

OK, then.

But perhaps I should confess that Owen's comment was not as random as it might appear. I mean, we weren't talking about it right at that moment, but the fact is, that as much as I love and adore my husband and think he's really sexy (particularly when he's wearing his clerical robes, which I realize is a little weird, tho' let me note that he has never worn said robes to bed, which would be a lot weird, tho' somewhat interesting, actually, now that I think about it), Owen and Hugh did grow up hearing me assert, on occasion, that I would leave Keith for a select group of individuals.

Paul Newman, top of the list. Not only Cool Hand Luke Paul, when he was at his all-time sexy peak (which must be actually the peak of male sexiness in human history) but Paul at any time (except now, of course, because he's dead)--all that beauty and dedication to craft and social consciousness and quirky humor and that utterly splendid marriage to Joanne Woodward. (I know you're thinking that if I had left Randy for Paul, he would have had to leave Joanne for me, but I would have shared. Joanne's wonderful. And an LSU grad to boot.)

Others on the List of Men I Would Leave Your Dad For: Bruce Springsteen (but he and Patti seem very happy these days), Kenneth Branagh on his good days, the Tenth Doctor Who (a fictional character and so perhaps not very promising, particularly as he's now regenerated as the Eleventh Doctor Who, an engaging character I'd enjoy hosting for dinner but not a man, err, Time Lord, for whom I'd toss aside marriage, children, and life as I know it), and now, thanks to Owen, Jon Stewart.

So, not a lengthy List and not one that poses much of a threat to my marriage (tho' the fact that all seven slots in my car cd player are occupied by Springsteen albums bothers Keith to no end--to which I respond, with my usual sensitivity, Suck It Up).

The subject of my sensitivity, however, brings up a teeny-tiny little itsy-titsy niggling detail: my kids have not grown up with a List of Women Dad Would Leave Mom For. Unlike horrible mom me, at no point has Keith had to comfort a sobbing Hugh and assure him that Bruce Springsteen was really not very likely to come knocking and take away his daddy. Keith's more inclined to comment (out loud at least) on Julia Roberts' incredibly fake puffed-up-looking lips than on any of her more appealing attributes--tho', dammit, he does get totally misty-eyed and tongue-tied and downright goofy on the subject of Keira Knightley in the long green gown in the library sex scene in Atonement. . . .KEIRA KNIGHTLEY!!! Anorexic stick insect Keira Knightley!! She must be, what, 18 years old? Gaaahhhhhh . . . . But the thing is, the boys don't know about Keira. Well of course they know about Keira--what teenaged boy doesn't?--but they don't know of her as Someone Dad Would Leave Mom For. As far as they know, there's no such woman.

Umm, so yes, there's kind of a double standard here. I'm aware of it. I'm not proud of it. Too damn tired to change anything, mind you, but still with enough integrity to feel a wee bit guilty and uncomfortable.

Except, I mean, Keira Knightley. Geez louise.

The Limits of HRT

So, I've been on HRT for about a month now, and I have to say, it's pretty good stuff. Not as good as the painkillers I was on after my C-section--gosh, those drugs were great--but still, it is lovely to wander thru my days and meander thru my nights without repeated, sudden, intense flashes of heat and sweat.

Sadly, however, the HRT has done nothing about my mood swings, the rapidity with which I shift from Professor Jekyll into Ms Hyde, nor (much to Keith's regret), has it aroused my somewhat dormant libido in any noticeable way.

I guess could badger my doctor for a higher dose, a bigger pill. I mean, what's a higher risk of heart disease and cancer in comparison to the promise of emotional equilibrium and a lively sex life?

Except.

The thing is, my emotional life didn't exactly resemble Lake Placid even before the onset of menopause. I have always been a tad prone to bouts of bitchiness. Expecting HRT to make me a nice, gentle, sane person reminds me of that old joke:
"Oh, but doctor, doctor, will I be able to play the violin?"
"I don't see why not."
"Wow, you're a great doctor. I've always wanted to play the violin."

And, umm, much as I hate to admit it, menopause hasn't changed my sex life all that much. I like sex, I really do. But I also like a good brownie. Or a great cup of coffee. Or watching the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" episode for the umpteenth time. Or--hey--enjoying a good brownie with a great cup of coffee while watching the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" episode--we're talking, like, multiple orgasms. The point being, much as I'd like to be the historian version of Samantha in Sex and the City, I'm not and never have been a voracious Sex Goddess, and I doubt that even mega-doses of HRT will change that.

But I dunno. I'd like to be a voracious Sex Goddess. And I'd like to be a placid person. I just don't think more HRT is the answer. Maybe if I eat more good brownies and drink more great cups of coffee and keep watching Doctor Who. Maybe then.

The Slough of Corruption

It's official. I am Morally Corrupt.

I used to be pure. Unsullied. I didn't own a tv. Then my mom gave me an old black-and-white portable that used to be in my parents' bedroom. That was fine. Most of the time the "picture" was just a bunch of wavy lines, so I could watch I, Claudius and yet still feel untainted because I was really just listening. That tv melted in an apartment fire and shortly thereafter, I took my first step down the slippery slope. I accepted a small color tv (bizarrely, the giver was once again my mom, not usually one to play the Temptress in my life's story).

So, ok, tv. But free tv. I drew the line at paid tv, and when we married, Keith gave up his cable subscription. Time drifted on, however, as did technology, and eventually we found the only way to ensure that the free network channels would actually appear on the screen was to purchase a cable tv subscription. Basic cable, just the networks and a bunch of local and religious stations, but still, we were now paying--paying--for tv. Down the slope we slid.

I suppose I should note we had paid for tv before--when we lived in England. But that's different. That's paying for the BBC. The BBC is worth it. It's moral. Totally different.

Anyway, there we were back in the U.S., with Basic Cable, clinging to our moral sense, as the boys moaned and whined and sulked and pestered us. Evidently we were the only family left in America with Basic Cable. Evidently we were guilty of child abuse by depriving them of Nick-at-Nite and MTV. But we stood firm.

Until Keith read one of those mail advertisement things and discovered that for less than what we had been paying, we could get our wireless internet bundled in with our phone and satellite tv--with the regular package of tv channels. Well. A Really Good Deal trumped morality. We went from about 5 watchable channels to umm, 95? Not that all 95 are watchable, not at all, but the thing is, the regular package included BBCAmerica, which meant there was no going back. Not ever. Life without BBCAmerica is totally unthinkable. I am not sure how I survived so much of my adult life without it. I know for a fact that if I were deprived of the new Doctor Who, my adult life would not be worth living.

Still, I retained some shreds of moral decency--after all, we purchased only the regular package, not the fullbore, deluxe, HBO-Showtime extravaganza. "Oh, we don't have HBO," I could say gently, but loftily, when someone started raving on about The Wire or Mad Men or whatever. We are Good People. We wait for the series to come out on Netflix. We do not demand Immediate Gratification. We do not Spend Our Money on TV. Umm, not as much as we could, anyway.

Then I read about this new HBO series: Treme'. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans. it begins tonight. We live in south Louisiana. We lived thru Katrina. Keith works with the homeless--Katrina continues to shape his daily work life. And it continues to shape the world in which we live. We can't wait for Netflix. So, weve upgraded to HBO. We'll be watching the series premiere in just 15 minutes.

It's official. I'm morally corrupt. I gotta say, tho', this moral corruption stuff, it's really kinda fun. We just watched True Blood--without waiting for Netflix. And there are these cool movies. And that Tudor series is coming on. And Hugh is so very happy . . .

I gotta take this call

Hugh is, once again, scheming for a new phone. He's decided he doesn't like his ridiculously expensive phone, the one that he had to have, the one that he actually saved up money to purchase, the one that is only a few months old. So he's gone online, investigated the account, figured out I have an upgrade due, and concocted a plan whereby he takes the upgrade and gets a new phone, and I get his hand-me-down phone. All of this amazes me. I have no idea how to access our account online, I never keep track of the upgrade schedule, and I cannot comprehend caring very much about my phone, tho' I do wish the screen was bigger so that I could read the time without having to put on my glasses. And I guess I should admit that I have a customized ringtone (Hugh, of course, had to arrange it for me): it's the theme song from the new Dr. Who and it makes me very happy.

Given my phone apathy/ignorance, I am putty in Hugh's hands when it comes to his phone scheming. Somehow, I always end up in the horrid AT&Y store, waiting forever for some Bright Young Thing with an astonishing amount of product in his hair to come mystify me with technological terms. And somehow, I always end up handing over my credit card and paying a large amount, even tho' I always insist that I AM NOT PAYING FOR ANOTHER PHONE JUST TAKE THE FREE ONE I DON'T CARE WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. There's always some promise--a mail-in rebate, extra chores, a payment schedule--that somehow never actually gets fulfilled. The rebate form is lost, there's some byzantine contract (MAHH-UMM! DON'T YOU REMEMBER I TOLD YOU) to be fulfilled about the chores, the payments evaporate.

And somehow Hugh always ends up with a new phone. We see nothing but the top of his head for a couple of weeks, as he explores its capabilities, but soon, all too soon, he discovers that, well, life with the new phone is pretty much the same as life with the old phone, and the scheming begins anew. That part--the ceaseless quest for the one thing that will make all the difference--that part, I get.

Alien Life Forms

For me, facing 50 means facing teenaged sons. Strange: my mom at 50 was 7 years into widowhood; she'd already buried one son (well, she didn't do the actual burying, but you know what I mean), married off three more, and was whipping the last one into marital shape; she had reassembled the crib, which was now getting heavy use from the growing crowd of grandkids (eventually 24 but at this point somewhere between 5 and 7), and she had two daughters in college. But then, Mom facing 50 favored "housecoats" for daily wear, shaved her legs only below the knees, and had her hair "done" (teased, ratted, and shellacked) every Friday morning. I love my mother; more than that, I now like my mother (certainly one of the more unexpected and positive developments of the last decade). I admire her greatly. But trying to draw on her life experiences for guidance --well, it's as if I'm suddenly acting in an episode of Doctor Who: what planet has the Tardis brought us to this time?

Of course, I have a great deal of experience in dealing with alien and potentially hostile life forms. I have teenaged sons. Son 1, however, shows signs of evolving into something resembling a human. His response to my first posts seems worth repeating:

mom. what. the. fuck. i just broke my no cursing for a week rule to say that. i am glad you are keeping a blog but menstrual blood? lactating? cant decide whether im too old or too young for that.

I suppose an 18-year-old male faced with his mother's bodily fluids is a bit like the typical Christian faced with images of Jesus farting. God made flesh. Mom as sexual. Too alien?