Mary and Bob’s Journal

You want to fall in love with your favorite actor, writer, singer? You want to fall hard?

Go to iTunes>Music>Celebrity playlist.  Do it. 

You’ll see that Jason Segel goes on record calling Leonard Cohen the greatest songwriter alive (me too!), that he fell in love with Pink Floyd in high school (me too!) and that he likes to watch Bruce do Thunder Road on Youtube (me too!).  You know what’s better than the music we have in common? The music he’s got on his list that’s new to me.

What’s better than a new favorite song? . . . . Nothing!

Uh, yeah, it’s a gorgeous Southern Californian day. The only reason I know this is because FB neighbors are reporting something about tan getting and beach sitting. Do I feel pathetic sitting in my pajamas in the dark checking out celebrity playlists? Not really.  

My rule for the day is not to do anything productive. Any sentence that starts with “I should-” is cut off there and the sentiment is shelved until tomorrow. Chores are forbidden. Educational reading off limits. I bathed, but only because running the hot shower with nowhere to go is both decadent and fun. 

Read Joss Whedon’s playlist . . . The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied”, Pixies’ “Wave of Mutilation”. . . I feel so known.

The best thing about (why am I plugging Apple again?) iTunes Celebrity playlists is that the songs aren’t merely listed, there are little snippets from the compiler. Joss gives great snippets. No big surprise there.

What a great way to do nothing. Spending 99 cents here & there aside, I’m very happily not lifting my fingers higher than a quarter inch off the keyboard.

I’m not going to beat myself up about taking a day off from the entire world.

You know what else I’m not going to do?  I’m not going to give this post a proper ending. Nor will it get a rewrite. It will simply end, and I’ll go back to not doing.

“They can kill us with their bare hands.”

It’s a sound bite from college that has stayed with me. The conversation was with a dear friend about feminism. She’s truly much smarter than I am. I don’t remember the steps of logic that brought us there. But I remember it being a big Ah-Ha moment for me.

I guess the point was that men and women are not created equal. And that human beings cannot escape the fact that we are animals by nature. That one being’s ability to kill another being will always play a role in how we relate, no matter how civilized we think we are.

And perhaps that was when I stopped putting on make up each day. Maybe I didn’t ever consciously link the two ideas – murder and cosmetics – but on some level I must have thought, “Men will always have more power. They will always subjugate us according to how they value us, so why should I spend precious moments of my life doing things I hate, like blow drying my hair and dieting, just to conform to their idea of a thing that is fuckable.”

Yeah, I was an angry Post Teen. This is how I’ve started referring to the 20-something Ruth – as a “Post Teen”.  See, if 40 is the new 30, that makes 20 the new 10.  Think about it.  Think about a bad choice you made in your 20’s.  It works, doesn’t it?

Okay, where was I?  An angry Post Teen. Right. Picture a pale faced young woman 20 pounds overweight dressed in a black sack dress, a too big flannel shirt, thick socks and Doc Martins. Her mantras were “I am not my body, ” and “Men are just desserts”. Of course, with that attitude, the only dessert she got for a while came in Sarah Lee boxes.

Somewhere between 19 and 39, I gradually got in tune with the fact that taking care of my body and nurturing my own appearance didn’t have to symbolize surrender in the battle over gender power. I’m still a jeans and t’shirt gal to a fault, very much in need of a wardrobe stylist, but I’ve made some strides in the right direction.

I’m learning to value men in spite of our vast inequalities. I guess the circles I run in don’t involve random displays of brute force. Thank God. Dwelling in environments where creativity, ingenuity, sensitivity, flexibility, responsibility, humor and exploration are values has shown me how brilliant the male animal can be.  

I’m still bitter about the fact that having a shaved head is an acceptable hair style for a man; and that such a ‘do reduces his primp time to less than 12 minutes – including flossing and moisturizing. I know men are held to standards of attractiveness as well, and that “survival of the fittest” includes cultural standards for What Is Handsome vs. People Who Just Aren’t Fun To Look At. I’m aware that appearing and feeling attractive can be a challenge for both genders, but when push comes to shove, a guy really can just shave his head and get away with it. And I’m way bitter about that.

But I am no longer a Post Teen. Acceptance is becoming as natural and soothing to me as strong black coffee.

This is the world we live in. Men can kill women with their bare hands, but they rarely do. And as much as I hate it to admit it — for whatever-god-awful-unfair-biological-reason-I’m not even interested in researching — I like feeling pretty.

Consistent with our quest for (and love of) transcendent shows to watch, Andy brought an A.V. Club article to my attention yesterday. I’m a lazy reader, but what Wire fan could turn away from that picture of Omar’s brilliant face?

The A.V. Club poses this question for discussion among its readers and staff, “What movie/TV show/album/whatever would you like to be able to see/hear again for the first time?”  (By “whatever” – I assume they mean other form of art.)  

Now, I get the question. It’s that feeling that comes when you’re close to the end of a book and you just don’t want it to end. You wish you could start over, and have the whole thing to look forward to. Fresh. And new. 

But if you ponder the question for a while, it’s easy to see there are really two different ideas at work here. One is dependent on the piece of art itself, the other is who we were at the time of the encounter.  

I’m one of those people who has spent the last 20 years giddily hollering, “I want my two dollars” at any opportunity. Do I want to erase all my memories of “Better off Dead” so that I – now a 39 year old woman – can literally see it for the first time? Read the rest of this entry »