It's in the details, isn't it. The little things you sometimes overlook are the ones that tend to get you in the end.
Take the swine flu, or H1N1: it's the subject of jokes and eternal derision. And it's all pretty funny, until you come down with it.
Today's entry will be brief: if you have children, consider vaccinating them. And if you come down with it, start pumping lots of Tylenol into your system.
And if you're sick, I feel for you, from the bottom of my heart.
I'm sick.
I wish I were not.
But most of all, I wish my older child were not sick either.
________
As with Death, Temperance is a card about change. Death brings about sudden, irreparable change; Temperance deals more with the balance of what is and what can be and tries to compromise.
It also deals with booze.
________
So yes. Not much of a blog, but enough to pass as NaBlo stuff. Keep it all in moderation. Keep it classy.
I've seen people cry and be traumatized for a long time afterward when this card appears in their readings.
(Well, duh I've dabbled in Tarot readings! I mean, I may be ever so rational but I like this kind of stuff a lot. Also like astrology muchly.)
Anyway, yes, this is Death. It's an unsettling card, to be sure, but it's more so because of its evocation of the unknown than because of its actual power of devastation.
Bear with me if you will: death itself is only an instant. Other instants in life include breathing in; breathing out; saying "yes"; changing your mind; farting.
Farting, of course: it's there for a reason.
__________
Have you ever farted loudly in public?
I don't mean that you passed gas and perhaps crop dusted around the room (you KNOW you've done this, so don't get uppity with me here): I mean you audibly let one rip and people realized a) it was a fart, and b) that it was coming out of your anus.
It's embarrassing, isn't it? You may get teased about it or perhaps you may be able to joke about the whole thing. Some people will empathize with you or perhaps tell you embarrassing stories of their own. And some people will try to completely ignore the fact that your fart happened. They will go about their business and never, ever bring up again the fact that you passed gas. But the fact is that no one can put the air back into your intestine. Done is done, for better or for worse. And let's face it-- you probably are at least a little relieved that you were able to release some pressure, even if everyone is now cracking jokes at your expense.
And so it is with death.
Death-- not the pain or the sorrow or the emptiness left behind by death, but the moment itself-- is just an instant. It happens: one moment you're alive and the next you're dead. It technically does not matter how death comes about, but when it happens it's done and there is no more life.
And that's it.
Everyone around you will react in their own way: grief, sorrow, empathy, or complete and total denial. But the dead remain so, no matter what happens.
Something changes irreversibly, and that's it. In some way, it's oddly liberating. It's over.
Think of something that's a done deal. Think of something you'd like to see through and call it a done deal.
Which one keeps you up nights?
_______
Now, next time you get Death in your Tarot reading, don't stay up nights freaking out about it. Just think of it for a moment, and then think of it as a moment.
Oops.
I didn't notice last night, but I made a mistake. I was so very ready to write about the Hanged Man last night that I accidentally made it card eleven. It really is card twelve. Eleven happens to be Strength or Fortitude. Then again, it's kind of interesting to note that cards eleven and eight were arbitrarily mixed up by the makers of the well-known and esteemed Rider-Waite tarot, so this is not like it's totally set in stone.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I give you Strength.
__________
Sometimes I find it's easier to write about the obscure and indefensible cards-- the ones that make you uncomfortable or that you don't want to pop up. The easy cards are easy: everyone *wants* strength, for instance. I mean, really-- what's not to like?
Everyone wants to be the sun that shines at noon, blinding the populace with its radiance.
Everyone wants to have lust and vim and vigor and love of life.
Everyone wants to sound the barbaric YAWP! that Whitman wrote about, right?
So, okay. That's cool and everything, but how many more times do I have to abuse the repetition tool before you start rolling your eyes?
Strength: good, in moderation.
(Something else good in moderation? Blogging.)
I've been getting rid of stuff like crazy.
At first, it was just a regular fall cleaning switching-of-the-closets effort. It was all about turning things over, checking to see if the cute little pair of jeans that fit the butt of yesteryear could somehow manage to span the butt of today; that sort of thing.
But now it's become a bit of a thing: I want to let go. I want clean drawers and I want just enough.
_________
Letting go is hard.
It's a simple thing: you want something, or you want to hold on to something, because you think happiness or well-being or that elusive goal hides behind the thing or things you cannot let go of.
But all along, it is you who makes things happen. It is you who holds the key to your own happiness, no "if only" allowed.
It's not anything to do with losing the weight (though it might help with your health and well-being), and it's nothing to do with time (although we can all make time for those little things we enjoy).
Purses and shirts and pants and egos are nothing but trappings: things you put around, under and over yourself to forget you're there-- to shield yourself from the world. Granted, they are also nice things and appropriate on occasion. But if they are not used, what good are they?
If your gifts are not used, what good are they?
Which is why you need to scale back; clean up; reassess; turn your world upside down; hang from your foot and stand on your head; and let go.
You will be glad of it.
Today someone was shot on H Street. He turned out to be the older brother of DeOnté Rawlings, a boy who was killed in a theft-related incident by an off-duty police officer in 2007.
So George Rawlings had to live through the loss of his little brother, and witness a murder of a friend of his on Halloween, just to end up shot and killed as he was trying to board a bus after leaving the funeral.
Ironic, at best. But I can't help thinking of Mrs. Rawlings and her pain as a mother tonight.
_________
We've had plenty of ups and downs in the neighborhood-- crime seems to flare up every once in a while and rattle the nerves of everyone, and it's been rattly lately. But then in the greater scheme of things, horrible things like the Ft. Hood murders happen, just as horribly and senselessly.
And the economy seems in a slump and people are getting laid off left and right and the dollar is weak and Those Who Claim To Know Better keep on trying to convince us that we're going to hell in a hand basket and that everything is going even more downhill than downhill.
But if you slow down and stop spinning out of control with fear and paranoia, you see that things tend to gravitate toward the middle. It's true that people die and people get out of control and sadness and unemployment prevail. But it's also true that this neighborhood is teeming with pregnant bellies everywhere and people seek treatment for their mental illness so they can have better lives and people hold block parties and splash in puddles and people find new jobs every day.
Some things come and some things go. Just when you think you can't handle another bit of sadness, someone goes and tells a dumb joke and you laugh.
The wheel of fortune embodies infinity-- no beginning and no end, just like life itself.
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
Socrates
You've read me whine on here about wishing to be who I am not.
I sometimes wish I could reread those pieces to myself to remind myself of who I am: someone who needs to recharge with few or no people around.
And that's it, for now.
John Allen Muhammad will be executed tomorrow. Some call it justice. Some call it closure. Some call it senseless murder.
________
If the name does not ring a bell, perhaps the case of the Beltway sniper attacks might ring a bell. Two men --one of them, a minor-- went on a killing and wounding spree over a three-week period in October of 2002. They randomly shot, wounded, and killed people going about their day.
It was a horrible nightmare for many around the DC Metro area. In some ways it still is, because they have to live with the constant reminder of losing their loved ones to a senseless and brutal action by a couple of unstable men.
But then there is the whole bit about whether "An eye for an eye" living makes sense, and whether killing a man who is mentally ill and a veteran with untreated issues is really the kind of example we want to set in society.
Justice is blind for a reason, I suppose.
_______
No one likes justice, even if everyone clamors for it.
Justice is messy and it's no one's friend, even as people are willing to die for it. Nothing is ever cut and dried: answers never satisfy the thirst inside, and things are always far more complicated than they seem. And when the poison goes into Muhammad's veins and it's a few minutes after nine p.m. tomorrow and he's dead, no one can know for sure what will be felt by anyone else, whether they were directly affected by the murders or not.
But one dead asshole is not going to bring anyone else back. They will all still be dead.
All I can think of is this:
Monsieur Meow told me about this guy who would walk into the men's bathroom and instead of showing the proper male decorum that --I imagine-- orders men to pick stalls away from other guys; to carefully go about the removal and reinsertion of the pertinent equipment; to avoid eye contact at all costs; and, possibly, to wash hands once the deed is done; would instead unbuckle noisily, drop his pants unceremoniously and let them droop down to his ankles and, without taking precautions to man his artillery or guide his cannon to its due course, would simply let 'er rip and start urinating while he placed his hands, balled into fists, on his waist with what I can only imagine to be a satisfied, smug grunt.
I mean-- ew, right?
But oh, to have the equipment to pee in such a disgusting fashion.
I don't see Naomi Campbell and necessarily think, "Empress."
This is something that bothers me.
_________
At the end of the summer, Dolce & Gabbana released five fragrances named after tarot cards. Being a bit of a sucker for scents and ditto for the Tarot, I was completely intrigued.
Most of the scents I frankly found a little blah. If a perfume is to be based upon the Tarot, I kind of expected it (or them) to be grand and maybe even a little over the top and garish. Instead, they are mostly understated: the kind of perfumes you could wear every day and not think much of them, for better or for worse. I did buy one of them --but that is a topic for another day.
Needless to say at this point, however, I did not buy 3-L'Impératrice, though it was kind of pretty.
________
The Empress is the card that relates more classically to women as matrons, mothers, etc.; in other words, this card is less unsettling than yesterday's.
And so, Naomi Campbell and her crackpot, tantrum-prone self just doesn't jell with the idea of a representation of a definitely more wide-hipped and flabby-bellied self than she portrays.
Yeah. That's it. That's all I've got for now. Technically I do have more-- there is a part of me that is kind of itching to know exactly why some people in the modeling world keep on recycling themselves beyond the point of interest, but I think reinvention is more in the realm of the Wheel of Fortune. Let's face it: there are some cards that are more appealing than others. And there are some cards that speak to me more than others.
________
Incidentally, I feel I should talk more about yesterday. But.... let's just say that I am running on a major sleep deficit, so this is all going to have to wait until the weekend. Because this theme is fertile, but at this point I am starting to realize that I'm doing this NaBloPoMo just for the discipline of the writing exercise and not so much for the deep pearls that are dropping from my fingertips.
I was reading the other day about how it is hoped that Hilary Swank's new movie, "Amelia" will be a box office draw and not another one of those "women movies" that do not lure people to the movies.
The exact line struck me as particulary ominous:
If it ["Amelia"]fails, it will be cited as yet more proof that strong female protagonists are box office poison. (Click here to read the rest of it-- sorry, subscription required)
The article goes on to say that apart from hits such as Sex and the City and Mamma Mia!, strong women in movies are not a draw whatsoever. I thought of Kill Bill, Vol. 1 & 2, myself, but maybe studios would also think those movies flukes.
Then again, maybe the industry has a point. A simple look at the user-voted Internet Movie Database's Top 100 kind of takes care of any doubters. The top ten movies are as follows:
| Rank | Rating | Title | Votes |
| 1. | 9.1 | The Shawshank Redemption (1994) | 452,492 |
| 2. | 9.1 | The Godfather (1972) | 369,952 |
| 3. | 9.0 | The Godfather: Part II (1974) | 216,860 |
| 4. | 8.9 | Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. (1966) | 136,191 |
| 5. | 8.9 | Pulp Fiction (1994) | 370,419 |
| 6. | 8.8 | Schindler's List (1993) | 245,444 |
| 7. | 8.8 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) | 188,709 |
| 8. | 8.8 | The Dark Knight (2008) | 399,886 |
| 9. | 8.8 | 12 Angry Men (1957) | 99,118 |
| 10. | 8.8 | Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) | 250,822 |
Okay. So out of these ten movies, NONE of the main characters are female. Arguments could be made as to how,
Okay. Point made, point taken. But why? Why is this so?
Invoking my "Bullshit my way out of blog" card, I believe it is because powerful women make people uncomfortable. It's always okay to see men angry, brooding, displeased, or chased around.
We do not, as a society, expect or even want to truly, really see a woman spewing foul vitriol during a chummy conversation; squinting grittily into the desert sun while munching the end of a cigar; sending severed heads as calling cards; pretending to be insane and then getting electroshock therapy; getting gang-raped in the laundry room of a Maine prison; or even running a successful and seemingly-callous business operation while saving people from extermination.
For all our bravado and the things we can and DO do, we women would rather be the pretty princesses, or the lovely wives who order five dollar shakes and sip on the straw with perfectly manicured hands. The women in these movies, with very few exceptions (and a niggling omission here and there as I have not seen a few of these movies all the way through, though I am familiar with their plots and characters since they are part of the popular culture canon), are the weathervanes: the happier and more stable they seem, the better we feel. Michael Corleone's girlfriend married him, after all-- we thought we could trust him, too.
Even Nurse Ratched, wretched creature that she is, seems to want to point out that there is a better way-- an easier, more compliant way, perhaps, but it didn't have to end like it did.
_________
I'm quite sure many won't agree with my mini-psychoanalysis of these movies. You don't really have to-- opinions are like leaves and they rain freely down on you, especially at this time of year. However, there is a fuzzy point in there somewhere: women are not men.
And speaking of that, here comes The High Priestess. Through the years people have disliked the idea that there could be such a "heretical" card as that of a female pope or female priest inserted into the deck. But the truth is that a female aspect to a deity or a higher power is an essential, if often overlooked, role. A female power is not going to be like an action-hero, wrathful, action-figure Jesus, if you will, but she will have her feminine attributes, feminists be damned.
And so, it is with the movies: every movie needs her feminine side. They are all there, seen and unseen, those women who help tell the story. And curiously, when they have the spotlight or when their role pushes the boundaries of expected roles, people react-- sometimes approvingly, but other times less so.
The feminine aspect is, maddeningly to many, subtle.
So is the unconscious mind, which this card represents.
And frankly, this unconscious mind needs to sleep. I may continue my rant without end tomorrow, as I talk about the Empress, or the worldly aspect of womanhood. ZzzzzZzzzzz.
In all the months since Michael Jackson's death, it was only on Friday night that I felt the least bit sad or wistful about it.
It was kind of an odd, bittersweet experience.
_______
Card number one on a standard tarot deck is called the Magician. Some decks have the figure playing a trick. Some have it typed simply as a young man. In some decks, he looks peaceful and almost holy, with an infinity sign over his head.
But the Magician is a paltry step above the Fool, really: the card most likely represents a small-time con artist, pulling a fast one on an invisible audience.
And yet, he is the Magician: making something appear out of not much. Even the pettiest con artist knows that a little imagination and a little trust go a long way. And as these two increase exponentially, so does the reach of your show. It is an infinite slope of possibilities, and it can be something majestic, or it can be a game of shells and $20 in your pocket.
________
The day before Halloween, at the edge of our neighborhood, a local dance studio organized a Thriller dance at an empty parking lot close by. Hundreds of costumed people danced, in varying degrees of skill, the dance made famous by Michael Jackson back in '83.
It was a great event-- everyone looked happy and like they were having fun. (Wanna see a few pix I took?) But as they did the steps, attempting to recreate the choreography of Michael Peters and enjoying the pulsating music with its distant discoey echoes, I was surprised at how sad I became for a moment.
These people were dancing for the entertainment of hundreds of strangers because Michael Jackson was able to make this devilishly hard choreography look easy. They wanted to do what he did-- to be him and his army of graceful zombies, if only for the four-plus minutes of the song.
But no one can do that dance justice: only Michael Jackson ever really could. There was no syncopation that could trip him up. He could add an extra three moves into a beat and make it look like it was a simple walk.
And that magician of dance is gone, simply and stupidly, at the age of 50. He wasted his potential and his brilliance with legal battles and drugs, and his last years were a pathetic imitation of a life.
But when he shone with the power of his magic (yes, I wrote that sentence: read or cringe), he gave us Thriller.
I've been thinking about it all day.
Should I? Shouldn't I?
And finally, when I decide to sit down and make the NaBloPoMo commitment (because there is no way I'm doing the NaNoWriMo with two young children), distractions crop up out of nowhere.
And since I feel that sometimes daily blogging makes it so I overdo it and develop a distaste for blogging and stop blogging and then keep on not blogging for a while and then BlogHer sends me another curt little note, then I needed to make a quickie decision.
So I started thinking about it and realizing this:
So there we have it: a ready-made theme, with ready-made titles. It's very charming and I will take it.
And yet, I'm still a fool. Incidentally, I have blogged about the card before, when my Hippeastrum decided to bloom on April Fool's day.
We'll see if I make it to day 30.
Yes, I'm still thinking about my commitment to writing every day. Oh, and by the way, happy December, everyone! Can you believe that 2008 has pretty much passed us by? I never can. I always make it to December a little startled and in disbelief, as if all other eleven months were somehow just a dress rehearsal and, oh boy, here comes December to mess with our heads and knock us off center.
And then, there is never a performance, but we get to do another eleven dress rehearsals all over again.
I blame the mad adrenaline rush on the mostly-Sagittarian energy whizzing by like will-o'-the-wisp and making us hallucinate about this being in any way a productive time of year. But this is not to say that I personally dislike it, though I have in the past. I think that the dizzying speed with which we're supposed to close up the year and start writing a new date is partly to blame for people's crankiness, along with the consumerist evils (of which we all partake whilst kicking and screaming, naturally), and the cold in the Northern Hemisphere.
But yes. November is done, and so I put up my nifty little badge and marvel in its monochrome simplicity. And yet, I am still tying to pin down this itching I cannot seem to scratch.
Maybe it's because I failed at the novel.
Maybe it's that will-o'-the-wisp and those restless spirits that flit about this time of year, whispering in my ear and asking me what I want to do with my writing, and what I want to do with my life.
Or maybe, just maybe, it's just gas and I should let it pass.
Once again, happy December, lovely blogland. May this season not ruffle your feathers too much.
Okay, so today is the last day of NaBloPoMo (and NaNoWriMo as well, but I kind of already gave up on my project back around November eighth), but I don't feel ready to give up the daily blogging.
Yes, you read that right: I am not ready to give up the daily blogging. As a matter of fact, I rather like it --dry spells and all. I like having the quasi-religious discipline to commit even a small something to virtual paper on a regular basis. I like both the x365 idea of writing a certain number of words about three hundred and sixty five people you may have met in your life, and, more recently,I like Schmutzie's 365 days of grace.
There is some comfort in having a daily prompt or a theme-- it makes the entries a little less lost in the vast prairie of writing and it makes the writing flow a little more.
But.
You know, with me there is always a "but". These days, there is a big, fat, lardly "but" with an extra "t" as well, but yes. But.
There is this weird fetish I have for some minor torture or just for feeling like I am not doing it right unless I feel like I should be flying by the seat of my pants every day. Maybe it's not like a cilice or hairshirt because I feel nothing I should be atoning for. However, there is that feeling that if I want to take my writing seriously someday --any day, today, every day-- I should be doing daily exercises, instead of doing small sprints and then collapsing on the floor other weeks, too weak to hold myself up.
So. I might join a yearly experiment down the road, but for now I am still in a NaBloPoMo of my own making.
And I'm a little touched in the head as well.
Ladies and gents: I am feeling very whaleish and in pain today. I leave you with a post from exactly a year ago. I hope you like it.
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!: Mederma Can't Help This
Good night and more tomorrow!
There is nothing worse than seeing your child sick.
Will not blog anything else now, but I'll try later.
To do list:
Have a good Monday and don't forget to check the temperature. It's been some weird up and down stuff going on these days! Toodles!
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