Brotherly Love

Man o man!  I can't wait until that "Brothers" movie comes out with Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal this *Fridaay*.  The picture for the ad hooked me; beautiful and simple!  Check it:
http://www.brothersfilm.com/#/?cc=&page=home
The question at the center of the film is painful though; what would you do, how would you act, how would you support your family if you believed the love of your life was dead?  The tagline is "there are 2 sides to every family".
It.turns.my.stomach.in.knots.
The drama.  The pain.  The loyalty.  The obligations!  The love.  Uuugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  THE. LOVE!!!!!  Then would you, could you fall in love/pick up shop/roll in the hay with an in-law?!  Wowzers.
On a lighter note, these actors look so young!  Are they really old enough to be married people with babies and fighting in wars?  Isn't Natalie Portman Queen Amidala still and isn't Tobey Maguire Spider Man and Jake Gyllenhaal Jack Twist-it-up-yer-*ss in Brokeback Mountain?  Where have I been for 4 years???
Side Note: I really loved Natalie in "Garden State"; that movie made me cry like a baby.  "Brothers" looks as painful.
Hmph.  Time to drink some wine.

Christmas Magic

I’m going to try and *commit* (eek) to writing an entry a day and sometimes this is all that’s on my mind!  I know, I’m relieved too.

I love that Walmart commercial where the aisle markers light up in turn with the song “Carol of the Bells”.  Apparently it’s 2 years old.  It makes me happy and it makes me believe in the spirit and magic of Christmas.  Depending on the week of the month, it sometimes brings me to tears b/c it’s kinda beautiful.  Way to tug at the emotions Walmart!  It makes me want to shop at Walmart, actually.  Magic!  And what would be even better was if someone in marketing would program the lights to actually do that.  More Magic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXSwFEXRTCM

Christmas, man.  What was better than going to sleep and waking up with a ton of new loot?  Not much.  Magic!  Nowadays there’s so much more I want for Christmas than toys.  I’ll take a cue from my baby girl though and delight in whatever I get. 

In closing there’s also this take on “Carol of the Bells” which has made it so that I cannot hear the song without hearing ‘would you like an apple pie with that?’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSaJ1KkqQI

More tragic than magic.

Go you!

Take off your cape and flog yourself

This phrase came up in conversation over the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Additionally, one of my friends got a cape from her husband as a gift, I am not kidding!  She does rock though, I’d probably give her a cape too.  

Maybe people want to be recognized martyrs?  And I mean more than a pat on the back.  Maybe they feel they need martyrdom to be important or have value or to be/have something they aren’t intrinsically?  I’ll borrow loosely from Merriam Webster and define a martyr as: one who suffers on account of adherence to a cause or faith or belief.  They also define a hero as someone of great strength or courage.

Marriage is a semi-exclusive direct route to martyrdom for some.  Laugh now.  You want to “stick it out” for the good of x or y or z or anything other than yourself b/c martyrs aren’t selfish, superficially anyway. And cause x or y or z is much bigger than you, your life, your desires, you, you, you.  And heroes are strong and courageous enough to weather the storm of unkept promises, lost faith, de-prioritization, and eternal like.  We explain that the burning in a fire of rage or bitterness or unfairness or, or, or... will make us stronger or better while elevating us closer to martyrdom.  Through the suffering and sacrifice of self you become better and by definition less selfish.  Less like you more like something else.  Small-nothing-you is now associated with something big and important.  Life in a crucible elevates YOU.

Now does this happen anywhere else in anything else?  Does this sound absurd yet?  Get burned at the stake.  Be a prisoner.  Be a scapegoat.  Host a parasite.

Motherhood is a less-exclusive yet direct path for others.  For most mothers the biological drive towards self sacrifice for progeny is hormonally hard-wired and emotionally irrepressible.  This is evidenced by a dizzying loss of sleep, loss of self, loss of sexual relations, loss of bone density, loss of higher brain function, and loss of sanity, just to name a few.  In some species (penguins and seahorses for example) dad does kick in.  Yay team dad.  But since I have first hand experience with the mother thing, I’ll stick with that.  Some moms lose their identity in their children, if they had one to start with.  “Who was she?  She worked here too?  I never heard her talk. When was her kid born?”  But look out for super mommy now!  These types know all the latest research, publish their own reviews, are involved in every d*mn play group there is and seem to know every developmental milestone or at least have an opinion about it and want you to care or at least be impressed with them for giving a rip. She was invisible mom before her kid and now she is the Martha Stewart of Mommies.  Oh, and she used to work but now baby is #1.  There is.nothing.else.  Why do you ask?  (Stepford wife smiley face here). I think I might rather be a hamster than her child.  Once the kid is old enough to have an identity and aren’t as dependent on mommy then they’re both in therapy.  Hero?

Then there are the types who overschedule themselves and their poor progeny also so that the whole lot of them are victims; slaves to the Joneses; doing what they think everyone thinks they should be doing but not really anything they want to.  When you ask a simple question mom instantly sounds winded as she begins a 30 minute monologue on the first 30 seconds of her day.  Or the moms with too many kids and not enough frontal cortex left to keep their names straight, even with help, “I can’t stop poppin’ them out!  They’re just so precious”  Martyr?   

But I can agree that the path would vary for everyone.  You have to own something before it’s your to lose.  If you don’t have a care, a personality, and opinion, or something of value to lose then what could you sacrifice on your path to martyrdom?  You can't lose something you don't have to begin with.  Can you suffer for or because of something you don’t have?  Can someone who is neither married nor a parent be a martyr?  Sure but not according to these examples.  Said single person might be a true hero.

I may sound bitter but maybe it’s only b/c maybe I wish I was a superior mom and wife. I wish I could weather the storm; I wish I had more to complain about.   I wish I had more to lose.  Oh well, time to put my cape back on.

I stumbled across this blogsite:
http://earthmother-intheraw.blogspot.com/

And found this cute photo.  I.mean.cute!

Dining and Whining -most of the Dining

Hey Y'all,
So a brief edit needs to be made here
1- because I learned my blog is actually being read (yay and thank you!) and
2- there's alot less dining out happening!

My pointless ramblings, attempts at creative writing, and mental diarrhea will be posted more regularly than every 3 months... and in sticking with the title and theme of this blog, there will be some whining, but not exclusively.  I'll save most of that for my real-and-not-cyberspace friends!  I'd hate to lose my charm.
Isn't it ironic (cue Alanis Morissette) that the act of creative writing can actually help destruct, disarm and elucidate bigger and invisible "things"- oh like feelings, paranoias, compulsions or dreams; the real and the imagined?  Yes, and I like the idea of a hobby that is mostly constructive.  How novel.  And I like the idea of destructing things; real or imagined, that won't hurt anyone.  I like the idea of not hurting people in general, and anyways I like the idea of destructing creatively or creating (destruction) with images and words.  Noun and verb and adverb interchanges- exotic!  Let's remember that neither destruction nor creation have to equal destroying but there is usually some kind of collateral damage involved in either process.  Hurting and pain are subjective after all.  You digg?  Justification.
And maybe something that I type will spur someone onto another creative endeavor...I'm thinking the Butterfly Effect with words and thoughts (not breezes from lepidoptera (nod to Dr. Williams)).  It's almost invisible at first!   But while we're talking about butterflies let's think about molting and growing and irreversible processes like chemical v. physical changes.  Remember those stupid examples in grade school?  What is baking a cake?  What is forming ice from water?  What is blah blah blah?  (chemical and physical respectively)
So if I am destructing/breaking myself down/changing my understanding of things and myself and other people, who's changing?  WHAT's changing?  Me?  Only me?  My brain chemistry?  My understanding of my surroundings and myself and my interactions with these things?  What is real (cue the skin horse)?  Let's shine a flashlight up in this cave Plato.  Aaagh!  Is this an irreversible process?  Will I hurt anyone?  Will I destroy anyone?  I don't want to do that.  Will I make a change?  What will the change be?  I'm starting with the man in the mirror (cue MJ). Will any of me get destroyed?  These questions are hard to contain in one posting within a 2x4 box of 12 pt Times font for now.  But I want to know and I want to understand and I want to create and I want to grow!  And I can't wait another minute.
Are you excited and still reading, or not?!  Now, when I talk about growth and development I am not constraining this to a linear type of growth.  Much like I don't believe the definition of "evolution" is exclusively linear.  It just can't be.  And like the irony I first started with at the beginning of this post, sometimes progress requires or is synonymous with regression...it all depends on how you define the terms of the game.  Change and changing are definites though.  Hurting and pain don't have to be.
You can see how I've kept therapists employed, won friends, and entertained strangers with this type of thinking?
Ok, that's enough for now.  But I'm back with a bit of pizazz and it feels good.  Look out Stella, I'm gettin' my groove back.