Emma

Dear Mr. Homer,

My middle-aged lover of seven years has been having some kind of midlife
crisis. What more could he possibly want? I’m the nymph of Eternal Youth,
for Jovesakes. But all he does is sit on the shore and stare into space.
You don’t seriously think he’d go back to his boring old WIFE, do you?

Calypso

Dear Ms. DuMarier:

I’m the second wife–no, no, don’t get me wrong, I’m not technically “the
other woman.” And yet, I am. See, the first wife died long before I came
along. But not only can he not forget her, neither can anybody else! It’s
always Rebecca this, Rebecca that. So she was perfect, GET OVER IT PEOPLE!
They think I’m a meek little mouse because I don’t say the vicious
comebacks that come to mind! It’s true, I’d never even say a word like
“petcock” without blushing. But they should see what catty things I write,
in the oh so tasteful Morning-Room. If only there were an Internet i’d be
on there all day. But in real life I just want to be loved for myself. Is
that too much to ask? I’m drowning here!

No names, please

Gay Parents

Mothers Who Think | Debby – 04:18am May 13, 1999 PDT (# 1 of 128)

Since my 2 best friends are gay we have always talked about it in our
house, but in a very casual way. I’ll talk about Kenny’s boyfriend or Rob’s
new flame the same way I would casually mention any other friends love
interest. When he was an infant one of the little diddies I’d sing to him
was “there are men who like women who like men, there are women who like
women every now and then, and there are men who like men because they don’t
pretend they are men who like women who like men.” At one point he did ask
questions and I just explained it basically the way it is in the song, some
people like this, some people like that, it’s all the same in the end. We
vacation in Provincetown frequently and as a toddler he was quite impressed
by the drag queens (he called them the “Sparkly ladies” because of all the
sequins). One funny conversation we had when he was six: he had the idea
that ALL poodles were female, I said “Well if there are no boy poodles how
do you think they get baby poodles?” and he said, “Mommy I think you are
forgetting something. What about if the poodles are gay?” so we had to add
an impromptu biology lesson to the sociology discussion. My aim was just to
present it as perfectly natural from day one. Now that he’s in fourth grade
one of the big insults for the boys that age is “gay” as in “you’re gay” or
“thats so gay.” When this happens I firmly interupt and launch into a big
lecture and tell who ever said it that it is NOT allowed in our house to
use that word as an insult and launch into my different strokes speech. I
don’t care if I am indoctrinating other people’s kids because they are
indoctrinating MY kid into this crap. I don’t allow it any more than I
would allow racist comments.

Did you get that “Bryan Winter” email?

Social Issues | Nathan Schwartz – 01:30pm May 11, 1999 PDT (# 33 of 69)

Is it possible we’re all missing the point of the story? I don’t think it
matters whether Bryan is real or not, whether he wrote such a letter or
not, or whether a woman coyly wrote to him or not. Assume this is all a
hoax. The part that isn’t a hoax is that this letter circulated quickly
around the net. Thousands believed it without even raising a single
questioning eyebrow. REAL Bryan Winters were harrassed as a result.

The issue is not who, if either of these people are real, is the bigger
asshole. It’s how many people are willing to believe any unattributed
diatribe that slips in through the electronic transom. Let’s look at
another example. I think every friend I have (including my sister, an
educated, accomplished professional CPA)is awaiting their free ticket to
Disney World. They all received e-mail purporting to be from Walt Disney
Jr. promising cash or a free trip to Orlando just for forwarding the
message (which was part of a test of a Microsoft E-mail tracking system
test) to friends.

Are we less skeptical because this nonsense comes to us as e-mail? What is
it about this medium that renders us so gullible? Or have we always been so
willing to believe? Does the medium make us more vulnerable? Why?

My daughter competed in cross-country this year, and the coaches, parents
and team all seemed to be about healthy competition. No one disparaged
anyone. My daughter improved her time dramatically and got an award for
that, even though she was not one of the best runners. I think it’s
possible to acknowledge everyone’s efforts realistically in a way that
doesn’t make anyone feel like shit. When my daughter started in
cross-country, she came in last several times. She told me that her coach
told her to hang in there, that she really had heart and would improve. I
thought it was great coaching: encouraging yet honest and believable. And
the coach was right.

Have you lived abroad?

Wanderlust | DJC NYC – 11:22am Apr 28, 1999 PDT (# 33 of 33)

I lived in Krakow, Poland for two years, November 94 until November 96. I
also agree that your first priorities should be to learn the language and
to use it. Also, when you have trouble finding something, forget your
assumptions of where it would be. For instance, in Poland the stores seem
to be organized in terms of materials. I can remember explaining to new
arrivals the existence of the “Red Plastic Department” where you could find
a number of things, many of such seemed entirely unrelated except that they
were or could be made of red plastic. There was always trouble with tampons
and toilet paper. The place you were guaranteed to find them was in the
stationary store. Also, if there are plastic baskets just inside the
entrance to a store, take one. Never mind if you are only there for one
tiny item. If you don’t take a basket, all the clerks will frown at you and
follow you about. You are assumed to be a shop-lifter. Some things may not
exist. After about three weeks, the new foreigner would have run out of
time to simply come upon a laudromat and be reduced to asking where the
heck were they. They weren’t, though by the time I left, there were two
used almost exclusively by foreigners. It seems the Poles are squeamish
about putting their clothes in the same machine that has been used by who
knows who. Oh, I could go on and on, and do at the least opportunity. I’ll
never forget it and never regret it, and actually intend to take my social
security and go live where it will support me well. There’s nothing like
moving across an ocean and back again to clarify exactly what you value
most. I also now have absolute total admiration for and openness to
immigrants. Anyone who has the gumption to leave everything he or she knows
and go to a new country with no intention of coming back has the kind of
courage and strength any country can do with more of.

Are Suburbs “Hell on Earth?”

Social Issures | Dan Icolari – 03:42pm Apr 24, 1999 PDT (# 2 of
80)

…I know Littleton–not well, but well enough, since I visit my
brother-in-law there from time to time. On one visit, I was alone in the
house and decided to go out walking. Block after empty block of perfect
lawns, manicured shrubs, and tasteful facades. The occasional strip mall.
Utterly interchangeable with countless places just like it everywhere.

I remember feeling not just excruciating boredom but almost panic about
getting the hell out of there and back to a city (in this case, Denver)
with some diversity in architecture and options and people.

I’m not proposing a direct connection between suburban life and violence,
but I wonder about the effect on kids who grow up in these unrelentingly
bland environments, where there is little if any experience of the
diversity and excitement that have always characterized cities–even a
second-tier city like Denver.

I don’t think there are any easy answers. Limiting gun access WOULD be a
sensible course of action, so will never happen. Neither will parential
responsibility, or any other possible beneficial thing. Everyone’ll just
point fingers at everyone else, and nothing will ever change.

(That Dunblane DID cause things to change in England makes it memorable, in
the fact that people didn’t just wave fists at each other, they stood up
and did something. Never mind whether you agree with what they did. Change
happened, and that, in itself, was good. I just don’t believe anything
comparable will ever happen in the US. There will never be anything so
horrific that it’ll shock the whole of the country into doing something
more than tuning into the next episode.)

Rock Critics Killed Rock ‘n’ Roll

Music | ted burke – 08:42am Apr 16, 1999 PDT (# 36 of 155)

What stinks, it seems, is the obnoxious certainity in the use of the word
“dead”: rock and roll is as its always been in my experience, mostly
“trendy assholes” and an intriguing swath of credible acts, bands and solo,
who keep the edgy rigor of the music in tact, and vital. The dustbin of
history is always full, what survives the clean sweep is anyones’ guess. In
the mean time, I reserve the right to be excited, engaged but what is
honest and, to whatever extent, original.

If I’m tired of dead things, I should leave the grave yard.

Rather, I think it’s criticism that’s ailing, if not already deceased as a
useful activity. Rolling Stone abandoned itself to gossip magazine
auteurism, Spin gives itself over to trendy photo captions, and for the
scads of “serious” commentary , much of it has vanished behind faux post-
structurualist uncertainty: criticism as a guide to larger issues at hand
within an artists work is not being done. Rock criticism, taking its lead ,
again, from the worn trails of Lit/Crit, has abandoned the idea that words
and lyrics can be about anything.

But rock and roll, good and ill, cranks on. The spirit that moves the kid
to bash that guitar chord still pulses. To say that bad, abstruse writing
can kill that awards too much power to what has become an inane, trivial
excercise.

But this aint the Summer of Love. The sooner I accepted that, the easier it
became to listen to music I didn’t grow up with.

movies/books/etc.: protection and censorship – where do
you draw the line?

Mothers Who Think | Kevin M – 10:42am Apr 19, 1999 PDT (# 3 of 39)

I refuse to explain certain New Yorker cartoons: it is usually a fruitless
and exhausting process anyway, but even if they did understand I think
some levels of irony and cynicism is best left to form naturally during the
teenage years.

Mindless violence is out, but this has been a non-issue so far. Anything
that repeatedly causes nightmares.

I’d like to draw the line on drivel (like the berenstain bears) but once
they get it into their hot little hands it is so hard to pry out again. We
usually lose on that one.

Good books, videos or music are in. I’ve not yet applied any content
screens to good stuff.

Hitchcock’s wife and daughter, who surely knew him better than anybody else
could have, have been loyal to his memory. This must count for something.

His fondness for practical jokes didn’t alienate the people who worked for
him. Towards Tippi Hedren he does seem to have behaved very badly, but this
was one episode in a long life – haven’t we all done things we’d love to
forget. And OTOH Hedren owes her position as a minor but unchallengeable
movie icon only to Hitchcock. Without him she’d be a woman who once
appeared in a beer commercial.

I don’t see that his films, taken as a whole, are morally perverse. I think
he genuinely disapproved of cruelty, (real, not playful cruelty), and of
any creed that justifies cruelty. There is a story, the source of which I
don’t recall, that, travelling through France by train, he looked out of
the window, saw a little boy and a priest walking with the priest’s arm
resting on the boy’s shoulder, and commented quietly: “That’s the most
terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

Does anyone recall Stewart’s final speech in “Rope”? It goes something like
this: “That’s true. You’ve only put my theory into practice. Logically, I
should be with you. Well, I shall never trust logic again.” This, I
maintain, is the nearest thing to a moral manifesto in Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

Mental Illness and PC language

Mind and Spirit | Wyatt Parkinson – 05:53am Mar 10, 1999 PST (# 4 of 12)

Often those who call you “crazy” are doing so because you do not conform to
society’s standards. I believe there is Relative Insanity and Absolute
Insanity, but they often get confused. Relative Insanity depends on culture
and society, and Absolute Insanity is an actual physiological disfunction
of the brain. When you’re relatively insane, it could mean that either
you’re an insane person living in a sane society, or a sane person living
in an insane society (and often, it’s the latter). As with absolute
insanity, the physiological disfunction along with the often impulsive
behaviours that go along with it should truly indicate that the person is
insane.

As for PC, I find it annoying in that the people who promote it think that
changing language and dropping euphemisms everywhere will somehow unite
society and get rid of hatred. Of course, this is total bullshit, because
as it has already demonstrated, it only divides people and stirs up hatred.
There are better ways of bringing people together than reforming language.
One way is to bring communities back to together after they have been
ripped apart by the assembly-line housing and ubiquious shopping malls
created by suburban sprawl.

Does your mommyhood define you?

Mothers Who Think |maryanne – 05:54pm Apr 5, 1999 PST (# 8 of 101)

I work full-time as a professor at a university, I have a full and active
social life, lots of hobbies and always make sure that I have lots of
personal time….that said, I think that being a parent of 2 small children
is a big part of my identity. It’s an enormously important part of who I am
and how I spend my time. The same holds true for my husband who also
teaches full time, plays basketball every week, etc. So, of course, being a
parent defines me, it’s a central part of my life…but it’s also not the
ONLY part of my life….

But I love being a mother, it’s one of the best parts of my life, and if
someone wants to talk about parenting or family size or whatever…or wants
to praise my kids and tell me how great they are…I’m all for it! I don’t
feel like I have to resist that part of my identity or go around insisting
that motherhood DOESN”T DEFINE me, because I don’t think 1) that anyone
thinks that it does, and 2) it is an enormous, central part of my life and
I’m proud of that.