Random Monday

I have no post for today, just random thoughts.  Although that would probably also describe my regular posts, so never mind.

I read a romance by a new-to-me-but-famous author last week, and I’m still puzzling about my reaction to it.  I thought the sex scenes were unmotivated, and I could see the strings behind the plot–threatened cute kids, snobby inlaws, dastardly relative–so I didn’t get the emotional surge I should have, but mostly it seemed thin.  And the thing is, even though I could tell myself it was thin, I couldn’t figure out why.  The stakes were strong, the plot moved, there were complications.  Of course, I knew how it was going to turn out, it’s a romance, but that’s a feature not a bug.  It wasn’t that there wasn’t a Theme because if I can easily see the theme in a novel it’s trying too hard.  I’m wondering if it wasn’t too much of a pinball plot: send the characters bouncing off these standard obstacles to get the ding-ding-ding at the end.  I mean, there’s a reason those things are standard in plots, they work.  Maybe you need to do something new and twisty with them?  As somebody once said, Shakespeare stole all his plots, he just did a better job writing them than anybody else.  Must think this through.

In 1983, I had colon cancer and was given about six months to live.  I was surrounded by lovely, caring people who would ask me, “How ARE you?” and after a while I just wanted to say, “Dying.  And you?”  Because I was not my disease, thank you, stop measuring me for a nice shroud.  I’m starting to see some of the same things again now.  These are lovely, lovely people–my neighbors, my family, my friends–but every day they ask me how I’m doing.  I’m terribly tempted to do the Not-Dead-Yet scene from Monty Python: “I’m feeling much better, I think I’ll go for a walk.”  Yes, I know my odds aren’t good.  You could get hit by a truck tomorrow.  Do I ask you how it goes on the street?  But the thing is, these are really good people who care about me and really do want to know, so I don’t say, “Dying.”  I say, “I’m great” because that’s also true.  Thank god for Krissie, who basically said, “You succeed at everything, bitch, you’re gonna live forever.”  

My favorite game as a kid was Park N Shop.  The board was a town with a lot of stores and you drew cards that told you what you had to buy and then you moved through the board as efficiently as possible to get all your shopping done in the shortest possible time.  To this day I still plan my multiple stops so that they move on the same side of the street, so that I’m not turning into traffic, so that I never back track.  This game probably had a bigger impact on me than my parents.  So this afternoon I have to go to the doctor.  On the way is the diner.  So I should eat at the diner.  Now do I stop on the way there or after?  I think after because then I can hit the deli, too, and I don’t want to leave deli stuff in a hot car while I’m at the doctor.  I’m pretty sure I’d lose points for that.  But between the doctor and the diner is a farm stand.  So maybe the doctor, the farm stand, the diner, and then the deli.  Except then I’ll have tomatoes and corn in a hot car.   I may be overthinking this.  Maybe I should have played Clue.

My neighbor Carl is a sweetheart, as is his dog, Jackson.  Jackson weighs about four pounds dripping wet and most of that is fur; he’s some kind of tiny, fuzzy terrier, and even though he’s now sixteen and a little cranky, he’s still the cutest thing on paws.  He runs Carl’s life.  One day shortly after I moved here, Milton got away from me and met Jackson.  They didn’t bond but  Milton being Milton made friends with Carl.  Carl gave him a chew bone, and that was it for my afternoons.  Every afternoon, we go down the road to get the mail, and the box is beside Carl’s house, so Milton goes to Carl’s door and waits for a treat.  I have bought many packages of dog treats and handed them over because Milton was snarfing all of Jackson’s cookies.  And then came this summer, when Mona discovered that Carl is the easiest touch in dogdom and started tagging along with Milton.  And now I’ve noticed that Carl’s wife is an equally soft touch so that if Carl is asleep, she comes across with the goodies.  I have incredibly nice neighbors, but my dogs are scamming them something fierce.   

I’ve really been enjoying the political reporting this week.  Giuliani saying “Truth isn’t truth” was a high point.  The NYT reporting that the White House lawyer has spent thirty hours telling things to Mueller was lovely.  And then I found out that Republican strategists are ready to strangle Trump for claiming that there’s no blue wave, it’s a red wave.  Since Trump’s followers believe anything he says, the fear is that they’ll believe him and Fox and Rasmussen that there’s going to be a Republican blow-out at the midterms and stay home because their votes won’t be needed.   I find this hysterically funny.  Also that Omarosa keeps playing tapes on TV.  But I think “truth isn’t truth” is my favorite.  

I’m not a fan of most romcom movies, especially lately.  They seem to be so lazily written, as if the people behind them said, “You know what women like, do that.”  But there’s a new one coming out that I have high hopes for.  In fact, I would have written this if I could.  It’s called Destination Wedding and it’s about two angry people (my fave) who get stuck together at a wine country wedding.  The best part may be that they’re played by Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, which is one of those pairings that seems strange at first and then obvious.  John Wick and Lydia Deetz.  Neo and Veronica Sawyer.  The possibilities are endless.  And it does not look thin.

I laughed pretty hard at the “a cougar maybe?”  Not quite as good as “Truth isn’t truth,” but still funny.  Also it’s now 12:30 and I’m starving so I’m going to the diner first.  Then the doctor, then the farm stand, then the deli.  It’ll mean two stops in the same parking lot and I lose points for that, but it’ll also mean I can go to the ice cream place next door and get a no-sugar added milkshake.  I think it’s a plan.

ETA: So I’m home from the doctor’s and one thing stood out.  I said, “My friends and family are driving me nuts.  I’ve looked up my life expectancy and it’s anywhere from one year to twenty, with the possibility of being hit by a truck as I leave this office.  What can I tell them to get them to stand down?”  And he said, “You’re not dying.”  I think that should do it.  I don’t know who gave Mollie my death sentence, but the cardiologist said he’s been following patients with worse numbers than mine for ten years and they’re doing fine.  I’d write more, but I have to go find the doctor who told my daughter I was on my way out and strangle him.

The post Random Monday appeared first on Argh Ink.