May 23, 2004
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Murphy's Law of Sunbathing in Sarah's Backyard: When you shed the
swimsuit top, the lawn care staff will appear. I had time to retie, to
snatch up the patriotic picnic blanket I was basking on, and to stumble
deck-ward, water bottle in tow, but left behind my volume of Ovid's
less yawn-inducing verse. I was reading The Amores,
which begin as a mock-epic and are entertaining beyond belief and
translated much more idiomatically (and delightfully so) than my crude,
too-literal attempts made in early April. But Penguin chose to couple
them with the Ars Amores and call the collection The Erotic Poems.I'm not afraid of The Erotic in literature. I can remember scouring The Bluest Eye
when I was seven, and all of those other best-selling Oprah-endorsed
novels that I'm too Book Snobby to even skim now. My mother devours
romance novels and shouts out the more laughable adverbs; extreme
overuse of "infinitesimally" sent us into a synchronized Scottish
Breakfast Blend-spitting-fit that I'll never forget. I struggle at
times with seeing everything as Erotic, for unlike some of my Literary
Gods, life doesn't daily grab me by the shoulders and shake me and say "I'm
all about biological impulses!!!" but there's an erring-on-risque
Chagall print on my wall and sex is seeping from my bookshelves and I
bought this volume all alone a few months ago, plunked it down on the
counter at some big-name bookseller and may have just imagined the
mid-50s-ish salesman grimmace before pretending not to notice the
playful way he made the "joy" in his "enjoy" last an extra syllable.But The Amores aren't even erotic in that sense, not in the least!
Try telling that to the staff of Southern 20-somethings who retrieve
your copy and hand it to you, smirking, eyebrow-raising, Why isn't
Fabio on the Cover?-ing.On a less I Think I'm Beginning to Hate this Experience-y note... My
mother seems to think that my future relationships will fall into one
of several categories, each with a unique set of consequences
("consequences" seems needlessly pejorative. This isn't a bad thing,
and I've no disdain for her input, for she reads cognitive science
journals the way most mothers around here page through Southern Living
(absently, relating gleaned facts gleefully, scissors in hand; think
"Oh look, 15 Ways to Doll Up Your Formal Dining Room with Daffodils!"
only "Oh look, a factbox about Limbic Mode!", wears cat shoes
occasionally, and wrote new insect-themed lyrics to that "Baby I'm a
Thug" rap song of short-lived ubiquity ("'Cause I'm a Ladybug") to
liven up a science unit (ergo makes my Coolest People Ever list in an
instant). These are the broad categories:1.) The Mr. Knightly:
Tall
Dark
Handsome
Will scold me2.) The Sweet, Practical, Mindful-of-My-Passions Guy:
Great job
Well-rounded
Can enjoy the same things I do, but not nearly with the same degree of intensity
Tame evenings of cooking together, watching the news, reading our
respective Books of the Moment (his is probably a Grisham-y whatnot.
Kill me.), sleeping, arising, repeating3.) The Self-absorbed Investment Banker:
Power suit
Power dining
Power trip
I do the entertaining4.) The Implode Guy
Witty banter, hysterical laughter, reparterepartereparte!
Manic everything
Can't slow down
The Ted Hughes to my Sylvia Plath. Before things went to hell.My mother and grandmother have made it clear that I require a cross
between Mr. Knightly and our fairweather friend, The I-banker. .
"He won't understand my love of literature my Bohemian earrings my
Auden at 4 a.m. and won't want to stay up an hour longer to watch the
sun rise!"
"Good, they're your passions, not his. He'll keep you in check."
"You need a strong man!"
"You need a stabling influence."
"You need that Fear and Awe element."
"You need someone who relies on you for certain things."And I? These days I think of nothing but Imploding.
Comments (11)
Why do you need to discuss your future "man" with your mother? Ya know...you say that all your girlfriends talk about is "who they'll marry" - maybe you are a bit of a hypocrite - and I love John Grisham, just so you know. I think I'm a cross of The Sweet, Practical, Mindful-of-My-Passions Guy and the I-banker. Guess we're not meant to be together.
I still love you, though.
This is who I am, Ethan!
I discuss everything with my mother because she's an insightful, joyful person who knows me better than anyone else does. I included a brief characterization of her so that she wouldn't be mistaken for an oppressive Victorian-valued control freak. I shouldn't have even had to include that... I know she's cool as hell, and this is my Xanga.
I want companionship one day, though unlike many my school friends it's not all (keyword) I think about--were it, I would be guilty of hypocrisy. Replace "marry" with "date" or "have sex with"! Yet had I used one of the latter you'd have rebutted with "but what does it matter? If it's a short-term thing, stop reading into it" or something to that effect.
I don't enjoy John Grisham. Many do! That's wonderful. I'm talking about MY preferences and MY desires. They differ from yours, you've made that quite clear on numerous occasions!
You obviously ought to have included Mr. Knightly in your characterization of yourself, for you feel the frequent need to chastise me!
Fanciful, for what it's worth, if I could be called a Sylvia Plath, a Virginia Woolf, a Dickinson, a Dillard, a Boland, a Stripling Byer, etc....I tried having a relationship one time with a Hughes, Emerson, Thoreau, Collins, Heaney, Yeats, Cummings, Williams...and it actually didn't work out too well. Now I have married a man who is nothing short of the exact opposite of any of those musing men above, and aside from three to four times a year when I could use one, we never discuss literature or poetry, nor writing at all. And it actually works well that way. I have my writers' groups (and xanga) and my papers and pens, too. I did always figure I'd end up with a writer, though. But things have a way of working out. P.S. I would advise avoiding Prospect #3 above, however! So, school's out? What does the summer hold for the lovely Floridians?? Damn, I miss Florida...
I love critiquing you....you give such great rebutttals! I wish I had your enormous capacity to delve through the social romanticisms. You just know how to handle everything!!
We're good friends because we both adore all things Bread and should never forget that!
from theo c. theoharis himself (definite husband material, but ambiguous?) in his mystifying scrawl upon the romantically dusty chalkboard:
"the intellectual + the erotic = the ineffable = G-d"
also, if you find a #3, i will have to commit seppuku for you.
All things Bread? Methinks I have found the appropriate blog
Fabulous as always, darling.
WE'RE IN WE"RE IN WE'RE IN YALE MEN YALE MEN YALE MEN??? hahahahahaha. Whaaaats going on?
The Hook Up, that's what!
I'm being silly & cryptic. It's "Bvlgari??!?" Guy, he'll be a Bulldog in the fall. Life is so hilarious and I am incurring debt just IMAGINING all the visits we'll be making to New Haven. Think: "I hate John!"... "I love John!"
Did you know there's an Emma soundtrack? I purchased it today, and am listening to a lilting track entitled "Celery Root."