Movie Torture

Be careful what you ask for. I've written about women in film and the need for more. Linked below are a few blog posts about women in film. Filmmaking is a man's world, although it didn't start out that way, and needn't continue that way. Women have made some progress, and then that progress was squashed. It's uncommon to have a woman screenwriter, director, producer. Katherine Bigelow has directed two box office hits recently. Both involve war. The latest film riled people about torture as a means to an end.  I was looking forward to seeing Olympus Has Fallen. I like action adventure, hero journey epics, rescue operation movies. The reviews I read this morning changed my mind. I will not be seeing the movie. Torture is featured again. And a woman screenwriter is involved. Is this now what it takes for a woman to get a job in Hollywood? Some whacked version of traumatic bonding/Stockholm syndrome? WTF? And how do we fix this? Fairy Tale Princesses, Boomer Anxiety About Aging?!  Women and Film 2011: Sexual Violence. The Throwaway Woman Plot Device.

Lean In, Push Back, and Then Get You Some

The last Christmas my mother had, she gave me a pair of purple gloves. I didn't figure out the entirety of her message until 10 years later. She was giving me a nod to run my stick along the public railings, and learn to spit as in Warning by Jenny Joseph. Over the years I've dropped many of the behaviors that make up the sobriety of youth. I swear in public and I've worn slippers in the rain. I do not always set a good example for children. I call managers out of their back offices to solve my problem. And I'm not waiting to be an old woman to do what suits me, and not do what doesn't. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg is the flavor of the month. Women may take a seat at the table. Then raise a hand. Then say something. So 60s. Push back, writes Maria Shriver. So 80s. This is the second decade of the 21st century. Women are fighting the same bloomin' fights we fought for all of the last century. Fights I fought in the last century. Michigan's most invasive species is our legislature. Many states are harboring the same invaders. Why? Because women lost our voices again. And the women voices we're hearing are disturbingly reactionary. We have a 21st century woman COO telling us: ladies, it's okay to raise your hand. We have a 21st century woman CEO's edict that employees may not work at home. What is this? The 50s? These woman head up Facebook and Yahoo, monstrously cloudy social networks. And this is their schtick? I feel aprons and pearls making a fast fashion comeback. As if Mad Men wasn't enough. So, I walk by the TV and some egocentric politician is spouting for the cameras, and I casually say "he must clank when he walks." I have been known to say "he's got the balls of an ox." I do not remember if it was in mixed company, or through which decades. I accidentally said it in front of my father once, but that's another post. A couple weeks ago, talking with a friend about the latest male directed preferential ass-kicking, I said what we need to do, what we must do, is get some balls. Big balls. I said this again later to another friend. And so on. From the dim outback of my memory, I looked for a glass necklace I thought was in the jewelry supply storage bin, found it, took it apart. Big balls. Big shiny glass balls. Earbobs. One friend wants brass. Another suggested color - blue balls anyone? The message is self-directed. And it makes me laugh, laugh, laugh. Yes, by all means, sit at the table, raise your hand, use your voice, push back. Then get you some balls. Own some. Sit at that table pushing back, with your big balls on. I can testify that once you have the image planted in your brain, you've already changed. You might even learn to spit.

A Three Story Life: Medical Advocate

Nice doesn't get a damn thing done. Civil is good. My mantra these days is "I don't have to get mad, I just have to get what I need done." As caregivers, especially as live-in caregivers, we know the level of need. We know it like we know how high our blood pressure is, but we do something about other people before we do anything about us. That's for another post. Dad's blood pressure is really high. He has a medication in the cupboard that was prescribed by his VA doctor. He got confused and stopped taking it in December. December. His BP is dangerously spiky. He calls in his BP to their "blood pressure monitoring" answering machine. and Nurse Kelly will call and ask "why is your blood pressure so high?" to which I want to reply, well, never mind. Nurse Kelly told him to hold off taking the medication prescribed by his doctor until the results of his vascular tests are in. Ridiculous, but he waited. The results are in. But my father misunderstands what he's told, too. I told him to call the doctor. She's not in. Leave a message. A message just goes into a message center. Yes, that's where messages go. Leave a message for the doctor. He called Nurse Kelly. I used his phone to call VA Doctor. Message person asked if he's reporting to that monitoring bullshit. Yes. They will call, message person said. No, I said, I want to talk with VA Doctor. Okay. I'll leave a message for her team. No, a message for VA Doctor to call. No response. Please repeat the message as you entered it, back to me, I said. Think dog/bone. Think tick/ankle. Think clearly about what you need, and then insist the entity at the other end of an exchange repeats back to you what you want. Be clear. Be specific. Use short sentences. One word responses. If you need to write it down first, do so. And repeat what you need until the other party agrees you need it. Every office you call has a Flat Alice who is the front person supposed to move you away ASAP. It's your decision whether a doctor needs to be bothered, not the gatekeeper. No one bars the door for me any more in medical situations. Use please the first time, but not onward as the conversation ages. Say thank you, only after you are sure you were understood. Nice doesn't get a damn thing done. Civil insistence does.

A Three Story Life Separate

I'm sitting here in the dungeon wondering if the pain in my chest is physical. If I don't finish this post, you'll know it was. Just had another quaky conversation with our father about Scott going to the grocery store. We disagree on whether Scott is comfortable going. My brother is Dad's legs. He claims it helps Scott to fetch things - keeps him alert. Perhaps. Dad offered as evidence that Scott hurries to carry out tasks assigned. My brother has speed issues. His awareness of where his body ends, and how fast it's traveling, is compromised by Alzheimer's. Scott said no to the store the other day. That's major involvement for him, and I'd like for his choices to be honored. Later I heard Dad tell Scott to get his coat on: they were going to the store. Tried to talk about it today because Dad's sitting upstairs waiting for Scott to come home from an outing and he'll take him to the store. I tried hard to be reasonable, thoughtful and respectful. I said I would go to the store. Dad said he himself wanted to go out. Fine, I said, I'll pick up most of it and you can go mosey later. Dodging and weaving around the issue. Dad was lulled into confessing that he is still focused on discipline. This is our primary difficulty in the house. While our father may mildly grasp the realities of Alzheimer's disease, he deeply believes that Scott's behaviors can, and should be, controlled. Curbed. That's the word he used. And my heart started aching again. I have no more strength for this situation. So discussions will commence with the rest of the family about alternatives. I cannot help either of them, and I cannot help myself from here. 

The Gift of Self Esteem

I don't know how it got here, but I know the day it did. I tweeted its arrival. An early and unexpected Christmas gift from the universe on December 22, 2012. For the last half of 2012, I was fascinated by a call for entries from an Eastern Michigan University senior fine arts major named Felicity Baker. She is double minoring in psychology with women and gender studies. The exhibition, during March (Women's History Month) will be head and shoulders renderings of what contributors understand about the looking-glass self. Presented by Charles Cooley in 1902, this theory purports, as Baker quotes, "I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think you think I am." Twisty, huh? It took a handful of weeks to even understand the concept. I've had several ideas of art to submit, but I am thinking in three-dimensional art, rather than flat art asked for submission. And I am thinking about whether this theory is true. For me. In the long years of the past. Today. The art I imagined is a discarded frame hanging in my workroom. Around the edges I would paint "I have a framework. It is constant and divine."  True. All the wiggly bits and electricity and chemical compositions that make a human are there at the beginning. Centered in the frame on fishing line is a light. Small, bright. This is my essence. Powerful, as significant in every way as anything else in the cosmos. As mighty, as miniscule. True. In front of this incredible light would be transparent panels representing what has, and is, obscuring that light. 1st layer: painted with the parent brush. 2nd layer: painted with the peer brush. 3rd layer: drawn with the teacher pencils. And so on. Bosses, coworkers, lovers, enemies, circumstances. True. And understanding emerged. We have no way of knowing what others think of us. But we make it up. We absorb what our culture feels about us. We suffer for it. We do it to ourselves. For the last several months, I've been removing the painted layers from my mental work of art. When these obscuring layers are abandoned by me - because I am the person who keeps them installed and effective - when I remove the layers, what remains is my light. Small, powerful, steady, calm and bright. So bright. And on December 22, 2012, when I subconsciously reached for the veil, it wasn't there. None of them were. Self esteem. "I am what I know I am."

Virago

Getting acquainted with Jon Meacham's biography of Thomas Jefferson, I admired the weight and the paper. Hefty and fragrant. Started with Notes on the Text, at which point Meacham writes that he tidied up Jefferson's correspondence for our reading. All the it's were replaced with the proper its, etc. In the introduction Meacham then didn't bother with primping a Jefferson household slave's description of his master. I needed to calm down. Pictures are good. No pictures of Jefferson's wife. Turns out there are no portraits of Martha existing. 10 years married, and 6 children later, she was dead. Jefferson is highly reported as mourning his diminutive and ill wife's death, but what did he do about keeping her healthy while she lived? Aargh. A plate of Elizabeth Merry, wife of British minister Anthony Merry has Jefferson describing her as a "virago," and references a social skirmish over protocol. Meacham's book is subtitled The Art of Power. What more do I need to know about power? That it is male, hierarchical, dominant and a pain in my ass for a lifetime. Words can soothe me, so I looked up virago. Once upon a time, it meant a heroic woman. And then the Latin Bible scholars got hold of it. Aeflic, and St. Jerome, followed by Merriam-Webster, the Oxford Dictionary and its online ilk. Wikipedia gives a more thorough etymology. Jefferson used the repulsive and first promulgated modern [14th c.] definition for virago:  a shrew, a loud and overbearing woman, and (adding insult to other cultures) a termagant. Over a dinner party? I don't want to read this book. I don't remember why I got it from the library. I just finished reading about Generals Grant and Sherman, and I'm male ego-ed out. I hope I'm done this lifetime with reading about gentile slaveholders in glowy prose. I'd rather perhaps read something at all about Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, who inherited her father's 100 slaves at his death, but didn't really own them because all property went to those wielding The Art of Power.

A Three Story Life: Another Christmas

Holiday season. Coming off a cold, I got slammed anew by a nondefined malady that I choose to call passing my evil twin. I was asleep for 2 days. My father left a note on the dining room table the second day that he was at the Hyundai dealership getting his whoozit what-iffed, and Scott was asleep upstairs. I found the note on the third day. I assume Scott woke up, because he was there at dinner tonight. The tree's not up, nor do I personally employ the Christmas elf that has put the tree up for the last 7 Christmases. That after having shopped for, and bought the artificial tree. I have not shopped once this year. I think I may not. I hate shopping. I don't even like to pick up takeout. I thought the smell of evergreen was missing, so I bought some greens, and they are now dropping needles on the valet. I'll throw them out soon. They do not smell like evergreen. After doing dishes for the 3rd time today, I decided what I want for Christmas. I want the whole house cleaned top to bottom. I told Dad. Nothing will happen though, until I acquire a cleaning crew, organize a day when we can be all out of the house, get us all out of the house, and pay the crew. Be a problem-solver, Linda, my friend says. Fine. Do the research, find the crew, get the schedule organized. Put up the tree. Get, make or steal gifts for my own giving and my father and brother to give. Wrap same. Seems I've been sick at Christmas time more than once in recent years. Maybe the holiday hooha makes me sick. This year I'll promise myself again that next year I'll be somewhere with a beautiful fire, a hot drink, a few good books and only squirrels and deer outdoors for company, and all of us grateful, grateful, grateful.