May 11th, 2011

I've decided that Charlotte was a high born Chinese woman in a previous life. She cannot stand to have her feet restrained in any sort of fashion. Unless something else distracts her she will work diligently to remove both shoes and socks, and if I tried to put her to sleep with her socks on (for warmth) she cries.

***

If you are a parent, at some point in your child's life you will do something that you are, if not actively ashamed of, at least regretful over. Something that, like it or not, you really should not have done. For some this will be the time that you lose your temper and spank your child, for others it will be the time that you say something mean and ugly to them, something that you don't mean, something you only said to hurt their feelings. Some of us will regret the time we didn't hold firm, when we knew it was in their best interests for us to stay the course and deal with all the screaming that resulted, and instead we caved. Some of us will regret the time we held too firm, and didn't give our child that little bit of slack they needed, because we were too busy being "in charge."

Many of us will do more than one of these things. Some of us, the lucky ones, will only do them once or twice.

Some of us, the less fortunate, or, perhaps, suited less by nature to be parents, will do them many many times.

Whatever the case, for those of us that are parents we will all have moments when we realize that, if someone were in charge of us, now is the moment that we would be sent to time out. We have erred, mis-stepped, or, as my mother puts it, we have "stepped over the line, buddy." If we were our children we would even now be hearing something along the lines of "you get your ass in that room, and don't you come out until I SAY you can come out."

And we wish someone WOULD say this to us, because, honestly, we don't WANT to be in the middle of this altercation with our kids. We want to be having a nice, peaceful day, or, alternatively, be in time out in our rooms, thinking about what we have done, instead of still dealing with a baby/toddler/child/teenager who is bent on turning us into a raving lunatic.

Today, I had an epiphany. I realized that I was, in fact, being given a punishment. It just wasn't to be sent to time out, because, let's face it, time out isn't a punishment when you're the mother of two.

No, my punishment was that I had to turn to my son and hold him, and tell him that I would always be here, and that he never needed to worry that I would leave him. I have to give him a kiss and speak to him gently, when I was angry enough to beat the ever living shit out of him. And even worse, this was a punishment that I was giving to myself. Punishments you give yourself are worse than any other kind, I think.

There's a bit in one of the little house on the prairie books where Laura realizes that being an adult means you boss yourself around, there's no one to tell you what to do, you have to make yourself be good. She thinks that's pretty awesome, as a concept. Me, I think it blows.

***

I went and saw Thor yesterday. Now, I grew up reading my Daddy's old comics, so I am familiar with Thor's life in the Marvel Universe. I was, shall we say, a bit disappointed with the Hollywood decision to make Thor fall in love with a mortal woman, instead of Sif, who is, after all, a goddess, and a badass, and freaking fabulous in every way. I mean, seriously, people, Natalie Portman vs the living embodiment of all that is beautiful in the eyes of any Asgaardian, packaged with some fairly serious battle skills... who would you choose? Also, Thor as a mortal was still frikken Thor. He was, in no way, Dr. Donald Blake. Well, except in a fake ID kinda way. In the comics Thor really is a mortal doctor. Just saying.

Anywho... what I was NOT disappointed with was Chris Hemsworth. Now, Chris Hemsworth has several things going for him. (A) His smile reminds me of Heath Ledger. I loved Heath Ledger, and one of the things I loved most about him was that totally unexpected and awesomely charming smile he had. Chris Hemsworth has the same smile, and I love it. (B) He is totally capable of standing in the middle of a desert and screaming "Heimdall, open the bifrost!" and NOT looking like a silly ass. You might be blowing off this one, but I bet neither you nor I could do such a thing. I bet no one you know could do such a thing. I am telling you, if the man was actually standing in front of me screaming at Heimdall to open the bifrost I would not snigger at him. (C) Have you seen him shirtless? I have, cause it's in the MOVIE. He enters the shot walking away from the camera, and the first thing you think is "gee, how did the costumer find the perfect jeans, to ride the absolute lowest point possible without actually exposing any technical ass?" And then you think "My god, that is a beautiful man." and then he turns around to face the camera, and there is no next thing you think because your brain has become a puddle of formless goo in the face of his superbly gorgeous body which is STILL clad in only some VERY low slung jeans. I say "you" because of course this did not happen to me. This happened to everyone else in the theater. I had been turned into a puddle of formless goo fifteen minutes earlier by the mere realization that a shot like this was pretty much inevitable.

Oh, also not disappointed in Loki. Loki has no shirtless moments, and isn't intended to be a sex symbol to the masses, but has some decent acting chops, which is always nice to see in an action movie. Waxor overheard a guy as we were walking out saying, in all seriousness "I couldn't figure out that Loki guy, I thought maybe he was gonna be a good guy." LoL. I thought he did a good job of skirting it, so that people who knew he was the villain would see it all along, and people who didn't wouldn't get it until it was revealed.

***

Waxor and I have been watching the new Dr. Who. I should probably make clear that, for a long time, Waxor and I were total TV junkies. We had a show every night, sometimes two, that we watched religiously. Tivo made that pretty easy, we'd just save it all up for the weekends or a free evening. Now that we have two kids, and a house that needs work, and our own personal projects, not to mention a fairly consistent social schedule, we just don't have the time to watch a lot of TV. I don't know if that would really stop us, but it turns out we've been having a hard time finding shows that interest us. I mean, we loved West Wing, and Boston Legal, and Gilmore Girls. Most of the crap on now is just that - crap. But we have times when what we WANT to do is sit in front of the TV and veg, so we'll go looking for a series out on DVD that we can watch. Since Waxor used to watch the old Dr Who with his family we thought we'd try the new one.

I, in particular, was pretty obsessed with it. We both enjoyed season 1, with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, but OMFG, I am in love with the David Tennant Doctor. And now he's dead. I realize this is not a shock for those of you who watched the good Doctor when he was actually airing, and I realize that those of you who don't watch Doctor Who either don't care or are totally confused that multiple men have played him, but it is relevant to me so I'm talking about it. Thbpt! Anyway, I cried like a baby when he changed into Matt Smith. I hate Matt Smith. I don't want to watch Matt Smith. He is not MY Doctor. MY Doctor wore tailored suits and had spikey hair and wore glasses cause he thought they made him look smarter. MY Doctor was a charming Hard Ass. MY Doctor was the David Tennant Doctor, and no other shall ever replace him.

Phooey to Matt Smith.

***

Last week Osama bin Laden was killed, as I'm sure you're all aware. I first heard about it on Facebook, and then watched with a sort of stunned nausea as all the various forms of media I keep track of went on to throw a collective party. People were tweeting joyous announcements, texting some "boo-yas", and making jokes on the airwaves. If anything in my life has ever driven home to me just how divorced from reality we are, as a society, this was it.

I've come around to the idea that some people really do need to die. I don't know who gets to make that decision, but I know that I wouldn't hesitate to kill someone who threatened my children or my family directly. I can extend that, intellectually at least, to the idea that someone who would choose to kill many people given the opportunity should be killed themselves, to permanently remove that option from them. I still think it's one of the sickest aspects of society, that we would choose in cold blood to kill someone, but I think I can recognize the validity of it.

It's not that we killed him, although that does disturb me. It's the general attitude of "Hey bro, high five" that makes me want to vomit. We killed a man. Not a dog, not a horse, not a cow - a MAN. A real live human being, who had wives and kids and parents and relatives. A man we might have disagreed with, a man who might even have threatened us and made us less than safe, but a man no less. How can we have a frat boy mentality about that? Is it okay cause we weren't there, in the firefight? Is it okay cause we didn't hold the gun that shot his wife? Is it okay because none of us had to calm down his daughter, who was sobbing hysterically in the arms of her wounded mother? No, it isn't. It's not okay. This was an action taken by OUR government, so, like it or not, WE did this. We shot him in the head and in the chest, and then we went on to make jokes about it on Dancing With the Stars.

Does it make you feel like, as a society, we are completely amoral? Cause that's how it makes me feel.

And, let's not forget, in the cacophony of back slapping heard across the nation, there were very few whispered acknowledgements that, once upon a time, this was our guy. A guy we trained and outfitted. A guy we were grateful to have on our side. And then when he turned on us we treated him like a rabid dog and gunned him down. Then we threw a kegger.

If I seem angry or bitter about this it's because I am. I'm not ranting about the US here, I'm not arguing with the military action we took. I'm not saying that he didn't need to die. I don't know for sure, and that's not the argument I'm making here. I'm just sick in my soul about our attitude.

***

I realize that, aside from some well placed lust in the middle, this email has been really serious. Sorry about that. Blame it on the rain. I try not to unload the heavier thoughts I've got in this mass format, but sometimes my fingers fly away from me, and there I go, acting like I've got a thought in my head beyond mothering and being funny. Next time I promise to do better.