Jon & Kate Plus 8: Hang 'em from the highest tree

I just finished the season opener of Jon & Kate Plus 8. It was painful to watch, especially for anyone who has gone through the breakup of a marriage. Clearly they are each putting on the Brave Face that I remember so well from my own life, and that, perhaps, makes it harder for me at least to see. I get the sense that they are both doing the best they can in a crummy situation.

Meanwhile, the citizens are milling about yelling, Jump! Jump! Or maybe, to make the metaphor I'm reaching for clearer, Off With Their Heads!

I am astonished at the hysteria that this family has generated in the tabloid press, and thus on line, and therefore in Twitters and Facebooks etc. etc. etc. For a while public sentiment was against Jon, the doubledealing, cheating, oh-my-god-he-got-hair-plugs, what-does-he-do-for-a-living-anyway husband. But now, now Kate is on the rack because...because--

...because she's a woman and she isn't meek. I have a couple of book shelves full of most worthy historical assessments of the role of women, with titles like Disorderly Conduct, The Female Grotesque, and (one of my person favorites) The Madwoman in the Attic. They are all a testimony to the fact that in our culture, we have not wanted our women bold and beautiful and we have certainly not wanted them smart and articulate. Kate Gosselin fails on all four points, and thus she must be chastened, scourged, and maybe even burned at the stake.

As always, it amazes, saddens and disgusts me that it is mostly women who are casting the stones. Lord, how we love to hate each other. And we're so good at it, aren't we? While little boys bash each other over the head to establish dominance in the sandbox, we girls do it with sly innuendo and backbiting. We're the master (if I can use that word) of the verbal assault because really, that's the only ammunition our culture has allowed us.

I don't know what will happen to the Gosselins. I wish them well. I wish their period of time being scapegoats for the American shadow psyche is brief. I wish we weren't all so fucking eager to raise the flag and then, just when it's flying high, pull it down to trample it in the muck. I don't know--I guess I wish we weren't so human.

Why I Stay Home

I have another one of those social thingies to go to tonight. I was all hot-to-trot when I first heard about it, drinks at an Irish pub downtown, 6-8pm. I planned the 'when shall I wash my hair, do my nails' around it--all the girly stuff that makes going out an anticipatory blowout. But now that the 'witching hour is drawing nigh, I'm all--eh, meh, and bleh.

Because I would analyze the worm out of the wormwood, and because I really do see this as Getting In The Way of My Life, I'm ready to do some hard thinking-through. See if any of this sounds familiar to you--and if so, are there any ways I can outwit myself?

• Going out means getting dressed.
  
• Getting dressed means selecting from my wardrobe.
• Selecting from my wardrobe means confronting that fact that nothing fits--and if it does, it looks like shit.

which means....

• Confronting the ways in which my body has changed, much to my horror and dismay

which means....

• Confronting that I'm older, aging, past the halfway mark, over the hill, out of the running--

oooops. Out of the running: that resonates. Clangs, in fact, and starts me thinking about what it was that I used to like about going out:

• Picking a terrific outfit that would be the perfect costume (yes, as in theatre) for who I was going to be that night.
• Loving the look in the mirror. Not as in some narcissistic venture but as in, "Damn I look good!"
• Making my entrance, playing my character, seeing what kind of applause I would score.
• And maybe, if I was interested, scoring.

That's pretty much gone for me now. I'm just not really interested, and I don't have the goods to venture on the stage as a leading lady any more. So what I'm left with when I go out is--what? And is this a good or a bad thing?

Witnessing for the Lord

I am such a sucker for these people. Because I'm nice and my mother raised me right and when someone comes to my door, I may not let them in, but I at least give them the courtesy of listening to their spiel. But they're not satisfied with my courtesy; they want nothing less than my soul. When they find out that it's a Jewish soul, oh my my my, do their evangelizing hearts beat faster. They whip out their Bibles and start quoting Isaiah to me and take me point by point through this verse and that to prove that the Prophesy is true, and I could be saved if only I'd listen. And read the literature which they left me the last time (which I threw out, but not without some guilt that I was tossing someone's Word of God). I stand in my doorway and nod and smile and give the same mindless comments I'd trucked out in high school when a date would start talking about his car.

The irony of that does not escape me, that I'm still putting on a happy face so a male should not know how pitifully boring I found him. But it is my choice; I could cut them off at the pass (which is what my mother would have done, without a second thought). I don't because they care so much. I find that kind of intense good will a rare quality in today's world; therefore, in the spirit of tikkun olam (to heal the world), I listen.