Red Prada Shoes

Did you know the pope wears red Prada shoes? The things I learn from The Daily Show.

Except I just googled it, and according to the New York Daily News, the Prada part is incorrect. And it turns out the red shoes are traditional and even liturgical. Damn. Just hate facts. It also turns out that the pope's red Prada shoes have been the subject of much comment, controversy, and internet buzz. And I had no idea. I hate that even more than I hate facts. I don't want to be an Out-Of-Touch Person. I don't want to be my mother, refusing to consider a computer, furious that her grandchildren post photos on Facebook rather than presenting them, framed, at her door. I don't want to be my colleague who hauls gigantic maps into the classroom and then gets all pissed off when he discovers that the metal map clips that used to be on the top of the chalkboard have been removed. "Jim," I say, "I can show you how to get those maps online. You can project them--" He waves his arm and walks away. I really don't want to be that guy.

I do, however, have a stack of books that I really want to read. And movies I want to watch. And I'd like to learn Polish and figure out pot gardening. (Wait. That sounds strange. I mean growing herbs and flowers in pots, not cultivating marijuana. At least, not yet.) Anyway, the point is, there's so little time. Must I spend it mastering the latest technological manual, when I know very well that that technology will be out of date in a year or two? I feel proud, in fact, that I never learned how to set the time on my VCR. What would be the point, now?

But how do you figure out which things have a point and which do not? I thought the Nook had a point but now there are tablets and there's no point, is there? I spent time figuring out the Nook, time that could have been spent learning Polish. Or reading Booker Prize novels. Or growing pot. Or, I dunno, doing great good things. Or at least good things. Instead I mastered the Nook and now there's no point. And the tablet awaits. And I find myself exhausted. Scared. Resentful, really.

My mother. She's there. I have seen the Future and it is She.

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."

Sick Day

Stayed at home from work today with a massive headache. In between putting my head on ice and ransacking the cupboard for more drugs, I watched a bit of daytime tv. I do love What Not to Wear--it's like "Hints from Heloise" for people who leave their kitchens occasionally. So cheery and affirming. Today's subject was a young woman on the heavier side of plump--or, in Clint and Stacey's eyes, an "hourglass figure" and "great boobs" and "wonderful curves." A shorter skirt here, a splash of color there, the right little jacket. . . and golly gosh darn, she was ready to take on the world.

But the best part were the commercials. Did you know that every household needs a Martha Stewart craft scoring board? So that you can make your own envelopes and paper party centerpieces resembling gigantic disco balls? The mind boggles. I try to imagine a life in which I would make my own envelopes. I fail.

My favorite commercial today, tho', was for one of those law firms that sues drug companies:

Have you ever taken XXX?
If you have ever taken XXX and your answer is YES to any of the following, you may qualify for compensation!
Do you now or have you ever suffered from

• heart palpitations or irregularities?
• shortness of breath?
• heart attack?
• death?

I had no idea daytime tv was this much fun. I may become a professional invalid.

Bridget Redux

I've been driven back to Weightwatchers by an imaginary character. Is that a bad thing?

It was Friday evening; I'd had several days of Bad Headache; the polls showed Romney and Obama in a dead heat; I was in my usual "ohmygodtheweekisoverandI'veaccomplishedNOTHING' mode. So I did what I usually do: I reached for familiar fiction. OK, yes, first I filled my wine glass. And then I pulled Bridget Jones' Diary off the shelf and settled down for some comfort reading.

Except remember how she starts each entry with--wait, what do you mean you've never read Bridget Jones' Diary? OK, click here and order your copy and go read it; get along now; scoot!--so you've read it now, right? Alrighty then, you know how she starts each entry with a log of her weight, "alcohol units," cigarettes, lottery tickets, et.al., plus commentary? e.g. "9 st. 1 lb.  [in the American edition, 127 lbs], alcohol units 2, cigarettes 0, calories 998 (excellent, v.g., perfect saint-style person)."

And you know how she's supposed to be this lovely but chubby woman?

Well, I now weigh rather more than chubby Bridget. Crisis. Back to Weightwatchers! Because while lovely but chubby Bridget does end up with Colin Firth and gets to sleep with Hugh Grant along the way,  let's face it, I probably won't.

Power Points: 2 Nutrigrain whole wheat waffles: 5 pts, 1 1/2 teaspoons low-fat peanut butter: 1 pt, coffee and skim milk: 1 pt. Gah! 2 alcohol units = 8 pts. Only 11 pts left for entire rest of day's food allotment and it's 7 am. Not perfect, saint-style person.

The New Rules

So at what point does one get to check out from, well, new stuff? When does one get to say, no more, sorry, enough already, brain's tired, spirit's sapped, just can't any longer?

I had a disastrous class on Friday with a lecture I'd given with great success a couple times before--but that's never a guarantee. The students change, the class time changes, I change. And technologies change. Part of this lecture involves a film clip (from Mary Poppins--never let it be said that I do not challenge my students) and my copy is on VHS. Yes, a videocassette. But we no longer have a VCR at home so I could not cue up the scene in advance and my effort to do so in class set into motion an entire series of technological mishaps, all with the students glaring at me in obvious contempt. Because of course the scene is on Youtube and of course one can embed the scene in one's Powerpoint--if one is not me, that is. Tired old me with Mary Poppins in its gargantuan plastic rectangle, a relic of my children's childhoods.

But you know, if the problem were confined to technology, I could cope. You 're mystified, you fail, you whine and moan, and then you go find someone young who shows you how. I get that. Plus it's every generation's right to immiserate the last with new technology. I get that too.

It's the new rules that are driving me nuts.

Take the Matchy-Matchy Rule. I went home in July for a wedding and accompanied my 14-year-old niece as she hunted for shoes to wear with her silver-and-black dress. I suggested a silver-and-black pair of heels and she shot me a look somewhere between sorrow and pity: "I don't want to be Matchy-Matchy," she explained. Oh. Right. I nod like I have a clue but inside I'm asking, "Wait, when did matching become a problem? Who changed the rules? Why wasn't I notified?" And now it's a Sunday morning in August and I am wearing a new black-and-white polka-dotted sundress and I have a pair of adorable black-and-white polka-dotted earrings. . .  but Hugh says no, too Matchy-Matchy. Well, dang.

Or then there's the Trim-Your-Bush Rule. Keith and I went to see Your Sister's Sister (a terrific film, by the way) and in one hilarious scene, Rosemarie DeWitt's character reveals that her half-sister (played by Emily Blunt) once came home from a date all embarrassed because the guy had laughed at the bulge in her underwear created by her pubic hair: "She didn't know she was supposed to trim her bush!" And the Emily Blunt character is cringing and everyone in the theater is roaring and I'm laughing too but I'm also thinking, "Well, damn, so you are supposed to do that." Was this always a rule that somehow Mom forgot to inculcate? Or is it a new rule and once again, I missed the memo?

Where does one pick up these memos? When are they delivered? And really, when is it ok just to chuck them in the trash and trip along unawares, earrings matchy-matching one's sundress, bush pooching out from one's underwear, videocassette of Mary Poppins firmly in hand?

I've been Bruced. Bossified. Springsteenized.

Bruce Springsteen has provided the soundtrack of my adult life, thanks to the Guy That Got Away, a sweet New Jersey boy I dated back in my Calvin College days. It was 1980--five years after Born to Run, the iconic, amazing single and album that vaulted Springsteen into rock history and put him on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week. But in 1975 I was only 15.  "Born to Run" actually didn't make it at first onto regular radio; Springsteen didn't leap the boundaries between "rock-that-critics-adore" and "rock- that-young- unaware- Midwestern-teens-listen-to" until 1980, with The River. 1980--still four years before Born in the USA. So, until The Guy That Got Away, I didn't know Springsteen, hadn't a clue. But The Guy, well, he was from New Jersey, and he was clued-in. He volunteered as a dj on our college radio station--broadcasting to the dorms and dining halls of Calvin College, not a huge gig, mind you, but still--and I would sit there through his sessions with him. The radio station protocols were strict: every hour had to include a certain number of minutes of "Christian rock." The Guy, bless him, hated Christian rock, so he would carefully search out Christian rock songs whose duration matched those of Springsteen singles. He'd play the Springsteen, and then enter the Christian song in the log. I have to tell you, in the context of Calvin College, this was downright subversive. Of course, no one ever noticed, since no one ever actually listened to the college station. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. The Guy gave me Bruce. And I've had him ever since. Bruce, that is. Not The Guy. Which also, in the grand scheme, turned out not to matter. My mom used to say there was a lid for every pot. Actually, I think there are several. Plus pots change shape over time, and so do lids. And sometimes, you know, you just cram that sucker on there and command it to fit.

Back to our main story.

In all these years, I've never seen Springsteen in concert. There was this and there was that, never in the right place with enough money and enough time. But last night, he was in New Orleans and I was there, in the right place, at the right time, with a paid-up ticket.

It was good. It was very very good. Sometimes life is very simple and very sweet. Not often. But sometimes.

And I believe in a promised land. . .

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.

Streaming

Long time no blog, I do realize and I do apologize. I could blame the hot flashes--the decision to go off the Prempro was definitely not a good one (and must be remedied very very soon). Or I could chalk it up to the stress of parenting an incredibly smart, incredibly smart-ass 17-year-old--honestly, that should give me a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for eternity. Or I could point the finger at the Republican presidential primaries, because, well, why not?  I suppose I can no longer blame anything on Katrina or the Gulf oil spill, tho' those definitely provided rather handy excuses for quite awhile.

But the fact is, I've been streaming.

Ah me. I used to live a productive life, filled with a variety of cultural and intellectual activities. I mean. you know, sort of, kind of, occasionally. But now, I appear to be fated to be a 21st-century version of Miss Haversham. Years from now a modern Pip will find me, clothed not in the tatters of a wedding gown but in what remains of my comfy jeans and oh-thank-God-the-bra-is-off tank top, sitting on a dust-covered sofa in a darkened room while the rats and roaches nibble their way through the remnants of pita and hummus on the coffee table.

If you haven't read Great Expectations, the precediing paragraph will have made no sense. Go read it. Quick! Before you start streaming, because once you do you'll never read again.  At least if you're a weak-willed soul like me.

It all started when we bought  a flat-screen high-def Google TV. It comes with this groovy remote that looks like you can program nuclear war. But instead of sending the planet to Armageddon, what you actually do is: Stream. You click a button, and you are watching whatever you want to watch, right there and then. No trip to the video store. No dvd. No envelope to return. Handy for movies, yes, but far far more handy for watching entire television series. You don't have to wait an entire week for the next episode, you don't have to order the next series online. It's just there, saying "Watch meeeeeee. Waaaaaatch me NOW." And so we do. To the exclusion of everything else. We (can't believe I'm admitting this. . . oh, the shame) actually walked out during the intermission of a Swine Palace production of "Pride and Prejudice" to hurry home and get back on the couch. Swine Palace, mind you, is THE premier professional theater company of Louisiana, which probably doesn't sound like much, but actually really and truly frequently matches what I've seen on stage in Chicago, New York, and London--and yet, even so, we left halfway through the play to resume streaming.

Now mind you, I am talking about streaming high -quality tv. We have not sacrificed our social lives and our intellectual development to "The Jersey Shore." [Honesty check: I have never actually watched "The Jersey Shore." Maybe it's a really great stuff. So if it is, just fill in whatever tv dreck you want.] We watch amazing programs that prove that the "idiot box" needn't be so idiotic, that actually this medium is capable of mind-bending, artistically innovative, spiritually challenging, extraordinarily well-written, stunningly acted original drama. (No really. Check out "The States of Tara." Watch "Friday Night Lights." Be in awe.)

Still. No matter how good the programs. Still. I have come to this. Me.  A sofa. A remote. A flat screen. A bottle of wine. Pita and hummus.

And Keith. That's the redeeming factor. Somehow as long as I'm not sitting and decaying on the sofa on my own, as long as there's this sentient being next to me who is also slowly descending into total tv-passivity, it's ok. We can just call it "together time." Amazing what you can get away, with as long as you're in a couple.

Oh what can it mean?

Is it possible to be driven stark raving mad by music? To be launched into lunacy by a lyric?

I think the Monkees are driving me insane. Or, more precisely, Davy Jones. Or, to be anally accurate, just this chorus: "Cheer up, sleepy Jean! Oh, what can it mean? To a daydream believer and a Homecoming Queen." That's all I know. Just those 17 words, sung in an English accent to a jaunty melody, repeated non-stop in my head, all my waking hours, since Davy died on February 29. It's 12 days later. I am experiencing a pop music version of Chinese water torture. No, no, that's where they drip water on you slowly, right? This isn't a slow drip. This is nonstop sleepy Jean and the Homecoming Queen. I don't even know what the damn song is about, for pete's sake.

Davy Jones was my first media-induced love. I was 6, and like all my classmates, I watched The Monkees on Channel 5 after school. I can still sing the entire Monkees theme song. But then, I can still sing all the lyrics to The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family theme songs. I'd feel ashamed, except I know from careful objective surveys of my demographic (i.e. late-night song fests with friends when we're slightly drunk), that every white middle-class American woman my age can do the same.

But before Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan, and Cindy, before Keith, Laurie, Danny, the little kid who no one ever remembers (they did change the actor after the first year), and Tracy, there were the Monkees. Like every girl in the first grade of Western Suburbs Christian School, I picked a favorite Monkee, the man I would marry if I could. That was the question: Which Monkee would you marry? Mind you, we were 6. We were too young to know there are other things one can do with men besides marry them. And although it was 1966, we lived in the white bread western suburbs of Chicago: "The '60s" were still emphatically confined to the city.

And yet. . . I do remember the utter anarchic joy of that goofy theme song--"'cos we're the young generation, and we've got something to say--hey hey we're the Monkees!"--with the four of them on the tv screen jumping and laughing. Did I know the word "liberation" at age 6? I'm not sure, but even if I didn't know the label for what I was feeling, there is no doubt that I felt it, watching the antics (not a word I often have use for, but The Monkees' episodes really rather defined the term) of four silly guys, the sense of possibility, of boundaries crashing, of something going on. And the complete, total, absolute confidence that this something had nothing whatsoever to do with my parents.

Of course, it's more than slightly embarrassing to have one's experience of the '60s summed up by the Monkees rather than the Beatles or the Stones. But such was the sad fate of those of us born in the very twilight of the baby boom. The 60s weren't really ours. They belonged to older siblings, or to our young aunts and uncles. We got the trickle-down 60s: the Monkees, the fringed suede jacket I wore in fifth grade, the Cowsills, the black-light poster I won as a prize for selling magazines to raise money for the school development fund in the 7th grade: "I do my thing and you do your thing and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful."

So back in first grade, my best friend Wendy chose Mickey, and I selected Davy, but since I was only 6, I never actually owned a Monkees record. My mother would never have spent money on such a thing and I didn't have any independent income. Or a record player. So my Monkees occurred entirely on tv, which explains why I know only one chorus of a Davy Jones song. And if that damn song doesn't get out of my head soon, I am going to go utterly, absolutely, friggin' insane.

Rest in peace, Davy Jones. And hey, Sleepy Jean, Homecoming Queen, y'all hush up, now.

Oh what can it mean. . . for a daydream believah and a AUGHHHHH.

On the Streets of Baton Rouge

I was bruised and battered
And I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself.

Springsteen fans, and anyone cognizant of important music in the 20th century, will recognize the above as the opening lines of "The Streets of Philadelphia," a beautiful song featured on the soundtrack of the movie Philadelphia with Tom Hanks.

The movie, as I imagine most of the world knows, is about a guy with AIDS, early in the AIDS epidemic (if you haven't seen it, you should; really). So why are those lyrics playing over and over and over in my head this Sunday night, as the weekend draws to a close? I do not have AIDS. No one I know has AIDS. I know that AIDS is an enormous global crisis, one that I should pay more attention to.

And I will. Truly. I promise.

But right now, I can't. I'm too bruised and battered. I can't tell what I feel. I'm unrecognizable to myself.

I'm not on the streets of Philadelphia. I'm just here, at home, in boring ol' Baton Rouge. (Tho' I gotta say, gumbo vs. cheese steak?? Gumbo wins, hands down.)

The thing is, I've just spent the weekend with Hugh. My 16-year-old son. And, all I can think and hear , the only thing that seems to make sense of the chaos in my heart and the churning in my gut and the ache in my skull is that song:
I was bruised and battered
And I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself.

Who do I become when I am with him? Who is this horror? This hectoring, righteous, ill-humored, rigid soul? And who does he become? My beautiful boy, my charming, funny, cheeky, handsome guy? How does he transform into this rude and cruel and self-centered hulk, this mass of IWantIDemandINeed WhatIsWrongWith YouYouAreSoFuckingLame?

When Hugh was 15 months old, I went to London for three weeks to do research. And when I flew home, Keith was there with both boys to meet me in the airport. And Hugh reached out his chubby little arms, smiled, said softly, "My mama," and nestled close.

My Hugh. Baby, where are you?

Flummoxing Netflix

I suppose it's an indication of the limited, somewhat pitiful life I lead that one of my greatest pleasures is flummoxing the Netflix computer.

Netflix (which is, for those of you living on another planet, the extraordinary dvd-by-mail company that has wiped our strip malls clean of video rental stores) keeps track of what you order and then suggests other movies you might like, the results of a complex algorithm about which I once read a really interesting article but of course can no longer recall any of the details or even any of the significant facts. (Gimme a break. I'm a middle-aged woman in menopause.)

Anyway, humanist that I am, I find the idea that I can be reduced to an algorithm profoundly disturbing. Thus it gives me great delight to know that I regularly give the Netflix computer conniption fits. But "I" in this case isn't actually just me. "I" embraces both my sons, for both of them know my Netflix password, and both of them regularly stream Netflix movies to their computers. (Me, I prefer the old-fashioned, out-of-date dvds that come in the cheery red envelopes.) The result of this password/account sharing is, from the Netflix computer's point-of-view, one really weird customer who enjoys indie movies about suicide, anything Jane Austen, and adolescent comedies about farting, vomiting, and masturbating. You should see what comes up under "Our Recommendations for Facing-50."

Tho' it does dawn on me that we have here the makings of a great reality tv show. A kind of American Idol for filmmakers: Come up with a movie that will please this Weird Person. Must be set in Regency England and contain a brooding but appealing aristocratic hero and a spunky but still gentlewomanly heroine, must also contain a suicide and weird camera angles and lots of awkward silence and an alienating soundtrack, while also being a rousing  and earthy comedy containing frequent references to body exhalations of all sorts. An Oscar awaits.

Sedative or Stimulant

Have you seen those tv commercials for the new Infiniti car: "Luxury can be a sedative [snoring couple in plush leather seats of expensive car]. . . OR a stimulant [Infiniti zooms ahead through wild landscape]." Clearly we're supposed to opt for the stimulating Infiniti, but, umm, who buys Infinitis? I would assume, given the price range (upper $30,00-upper 40,000s--doncha just love Google?) and the style of the vehicle, that we're not talking 21-year-old guys but rather middle-aged folks. Like me, except with lots more money. Now perhaps money makes these folks not at all like me, a different species entirely. But if not, what a stupid ad campaign. Sleeping in those seats looks way more appealing to folks like me than zipping around those corners. We can always zip, but how often can we sleep?

And here's to you. . .

In earlier posts I've likened menopausal women to toddlers and to teenagers. And to my dog. But lately I'm feeling more like Benjamin Braddock in the early scenes of The Graduate. (As opposed to the later scenes with Mrs. Robinson. I am not looking for my own young Benjamin. Nor my own older Mr. Robinson. Just to be clear.) You know, the scenes where he's floating in the pool, or sitting underwater in his scuba diving equipment. The aimlessness. The detachment. The lassitude. The disengagement.

I keep waiting for someone to stick their face in front of me and whisper, "Plastics!"

The Horrible Truth

So I'm watching the Rahm Emanuel Twitter impersonator on Colbert. And now I know what I've suspected for quite some time: My life is worthless. I have never and will never live up to my potential. I will never be a clever fake Twitter person. And really, then, what's the point of going on?

Lost the Plot

Whenever we can, Keith and I watch "The Daily Show" at 6:00 (Central time). Of course this is the rerun; we're too old and tired to watch the live show the night before. And yes, yes, we do know we can watch the rerun any old time online. But we're old. We like routines.

If all goes well, then, most Tuesdays thru Thursdays at around 5:55 one of us is turning on the tv and turning in to Comedy Central. That means for a number of years now, we catch the last few minutes of "Scrubs." We've never seen anything of "Scrubs" but these last few minutes; we know no characters' names; yet, over time, we've developed some sense of the characters and the plot. So, yesterday, when the nerdy but sweet main guy who's perennially involved with the attractive but all-over-the-place blonde doctor woke up next to a different woman with curly brown hair, Keith objected, "Hey, who's that? Where'd she come from? He's in love with the blonde."

"Dunno," I began, and then it suddenly hit me. Our knowledge of "Scrubs" mirrors our understanding of our teenaged sons. Every now and then we're allowed a quick glimpse into their lives. And on the basis of a five-minute snippet seen here and a dialogue overheard there, we extrapolate entire narratives; we delude ourselves into thinking we understand the plot and we discourse with great confidence on the motivations of the major characters. Actually, of course, we haven't a clue as to the storyline or cast list.

I remember once I was watching an episode of "Little House on the Prairie," and my mom, who never watched television, came and sat down next to me. In one of those excruciating Mom-trying-to-relate moments, she said, "Oh, this is 'The Brady Bunch,' isn't it?"

So here we are, thinking we're watching our sons and their chums Greg, Peter, and Bobby, when actually they're in another century, clearing the land, battling smallpox and blizzards and that annoying spoiled-rotten shopkeeper's daughter.

Stuck in the "way back"

We are about to enter the realm of iPhonedom. Hugh's in charge of the driving and directions on this trip. Keith, I guess, is in the passenger seat; at least he's the one with the wallet. Me? I'm the drugged dog in the pet carrier, wedged in the "way back" of the station wagon, in between the suitcases and the cooler.

I just don't get the cell phone. I know that's like saying "I just don't get chocolate" or "I just don't get the Beatles" or "I just don't get Jane Austen." I mean, there are things one cannot and should not and does not live without. But here I am, cellularly inept. Not only does it take me an uninterrupted hour to compose and send a four-word text message, not only do I not know how to take a photo or check email or go online or play music or watch videos with the thing, I have trouble using it to make a phone call, mostly because it's lost, forgotten, or uncharged. I think I could have a cellular disability; I know I'm cellphone-intolerant.

Hugh assures me, however, that all will be well, I will be well, once we're settled in iPhonedom. So what the heck. I like to travel. I even like moving. Just hope the new neighbors will cut me some slack.

The horror! The horror!

Lately my dreams have been dominated by food and poop. I think I'm regressing to infancy. I blame menopause: It reduces a complex, sophisticated, multi-faceted woman to, well, to an animal, a very advanced animal, a bundle of physicalness. Hot flashes and inexplicable weight gain and hair loss and the absence of moisture and lubrication in areas that really need a bit of wetness--suddenly all of life is a matter of The Body.

Me? I'm more of a Mind Person. I wasn't one of those "in-touch-with-primal-earthiness" pregnant women. I just longed to have my body back under control. And sex--yes, the body's certainly there but if the mind's not, well, might as well forget it. Yoga and meditation and relaxation techniques, all those "release the mind" activities? Total failure. For me, this whole menopausal journey back into the body is like Marlow's journey up the Congo into the Heart of Darkness.

"The horror! The horror!"

Mistakes

After my surgery last week, the nurse sent me home with this strap-on plastic bootie, a bottle of pain pills, and a routine list of instructions that included the order to "walk to comfort." So, I figured, boot thing + pain meds + weird instructions = walk until it really hurts and then take drugs. I was never very good at math. Plus today I went for my post-surgery check-up and discovered that the nurse had forgotten to give me a pair of crutches and strict instructions to bear no weight on my foot. Oops. No wonder the damn thing has hurt so much.

Fine, then. I'm actually pretty good on the crutches, at least in short spurts, tho' I think perhaps watching my wine intake might be a good idea. And then there's the dog, who's terrified of folks with large stick-like objects in their hands, particularly large swinging stick-like objects that go Tha-ump!. It's so sad to see him so conflicted: "Danger! Danger! Enemy with Stick!" "No, no! That one gives Food. And Car Rides!" "But she has Stick!" Poor darlin'. Maybe I should rub the crutches with chicken broth or pork skin. He's used to me walking him every night, and now as night after night goes by, and Keith or Owen pull down the leash, I can see him looking at me and wondering where it all went wrong between us.

Meanwhile, Hugh has decided that he doesn't like the new Invalid Mom at all. At least the old Headachey Mom could drive him places and did her own laundry and vacuuming. This new version just has no point, no point whatsoever.

It's an unfortunate coincidence, then, that right before my surgery Owen convinced me to buy the new(ish) Morrissey album, which comprises nothing but Morrissey misanthropy. When facing sullen son who simply cannot believe you were so selfish as to have surgery and so ensure that you cannot drive him to the mall when you knew you knew you totally knew he needed to be driven to the mall and so you planned it this way because it is always about you and you rejoice in making his life hell and never never thinking about him, well, it's probably not the best idea to have these lyrics running through your head:

You hiss and groan and you constantly moan
But you don't ever go away
That's because
All you need is me

You don't like me, but you love me
Either way you're wrong
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

No, really, it would be much better if you had the lyrics to "O Holy Night" or "I'm a Little Teapot" running through your head. Or even the Stones' "Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown."
But Morrissey + horrid child + post-op = parental disaster.

Border Lands

Oh dear. Fall lectures finished, final grades almost finally calculated, department and college meetings all wrapped up. . . we now enter that in-between-time, the liminal zone, the border land that lies north of the first semester and south of the second, the period that Ordinary People regard as the ridiculously long vacation in which wastrel academics (all inveterate liberals, needless to say) sit around and drink sherry. Actually, it's the time in which Real Academics do what they, and the people who determine their incomes, regard as their Real Work. This is the thing that students (and their parents) never quite get--that actually, they and their interests and needs and ambitions and, well, their education, are utterly secondary to the university system.

The problem is--ok, let's face it, there are lots of problems with it--but, on a totally selfish level, the main problem, for me, as an Academic who aspires toward being Real, is that once I've submitted my final grades, all I want to do is, well, you know, Do Christmas. I want to bake Christmas cookies, hundreds of thousands of cookies in various shapes and sugars. I want to wrap every box in the house. I want to sniff cinnamon and mainline eggnog. I want to recite the second chapter of Luke and read A Christmas Carol out loud and listen to seven different recordings of The Night before Christmas. I want to play every Christmas cd we have and watch every Christmas tv special.

In other words, I don't want to work. I want to do anything but work. Even hanging out with red-nosed reindeers or ringing jingle bells incessantly seems preferable to work. I have three book proposals to draft and a book chapter to write and a long overdue book review to submit. I should be excited. No students! No lectures! No grading! For almost six weeks! Just me and Ideas. Real Academics just love that stuff.

I think I'm a Quasi-Academic. A Quasi-Academic slacker Christmas addict. Has anyone seen the fruitcake?

"And there were in the same country. . . "

So, we've become Gleeks. ("Gleeks," oh unknowing folks, are followers of "Glee," the stylized humorous-satirical-musical drama about a totally unreal, utterly mesmerizing high school.) You know you're a Gleek when you choose the Christmas episode of "Glee" over "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

I do feel guilty though. I'm not sure one can actually truly really deeply celebrate Christmas without "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Yes, yes, I do know one can purchase the dvd and watch it any ol' time, even in July, but that's no good whatsoever. One must watch it on tv at the proper time, as determined by The Network. It's like, well, not really, but just sort of, a bit, kind of like (I'm not trying to be blasphemous here, just you know, metaphorical), one doesn't just eat a cracker and drink some grape juice in the kitchen and declare it Holy Communion.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" debuted in 1965, when I was 5. I watched it. I've watched it almost every December since. My mom hated tv, but even she loved "A Charlie Brown Christmas." After all, it gets Christmas right: Linus quotes Luke 2; there's no Kris Kringle or puppet elves or animated red-nosed reindeer accompanied by damaged toys. And there's that fantastic jazz score and there's Snoopy, truly one of the 20th century's most brilliant fictional characters.

Oh damn. Fuck "Glee." I should have watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." One should never mess with Truth. Or Snoopy.