Sooey Says

I'm freezing to death at work. Yesterday, I had to wear four layers of clothing.

I just thought you might like to know how much your government cares about the environment.

Posted by Sooey at 07:12 AM | Permalink

... And discovers that women are allowed to ride elevators now, too!

Just kidding. This (link) is to make up for my David Warren mockery in posts past (and above):

Jacko,WeHardlyKnewYe

Posted by Sooey at 10:03 AM | Permalink

I am so relieved that Michael Jackson is dead. Honestly. He was such an (amazingly) live embodiment of modern Western culture, the one Americans insist must be spread to the rest of the world so that it, too, can be relevant, that I was beginning to worry the torch might never be passed to Britney.

But I grew up just outside the Michael Jackson loop. He wasn't cool when I was young because he was my age and I had an older brother and sister who wouldn't have tolerated the Jackson-Five (5?) for 5 seconds. The only reason I was allowed to watch The Partridge Family was because it came on at a time when they were both otherwise occupied with extra-curricular activities.

And he wasn't cool when I was older because I wasn't into big theatrical MTV video productions. I was into bar bands - and Madonna (whom Michael Jackson, in an unguarded gay moment caught on tape, famously referred to as "a heifer"). So, even his spectacular talent, rated as such with predictable regularity in the popular press, "didn't impress me much", to quote (using slightly better grammar) Shania Twain.

Also, and this is where Michael Jackson really left me cold (particularly after the "heifer" diss of his only real competition) I never didn't see the disgruntled grown man in the "mysterious" pop icon. The wispy Marilyn Monroe delivery ("why won't people take me seriously?" she asked, incredulously, while wearing clothes three sizes too small), the anorexic girl physique, the conspicuous consumption attempting to fill a void so infinite it rivalled Disneyland (and eclipsed Graceland) - all I ever saw, as a non-fan, was the self-loathing, misanthropist who was so rich he could afford to amass a third-world-sized debt before mercifully passing on to his great reward.

Sorry, eh, to all you Michael Jackson fans. But, if it gives you any consolation, I'm like that about Madonna now, too.

Posted by Sooey at 09:36 AM | Permalink

There was a case a while back, I think it was in the States (even). It involved a young couple into sado-masochism. He was leading her around the city on a leash, dog collar around her neck. She was willing, he was more than willing, but a judge said he wasn't willing. He "erred" on the side of her personal safety.

Take away the benefit of the doubt accorded to religion and the burka is no different than that dog collar.

Posted by Sooey at 07:49 AM | Permalink

Is anybody else starting to wonder if politicians have affairs just so that they can get caught and then hold press conferences apologizing (in an on and on sort of way) for what bad boys they've been?

Posted by Sooey at 07:39 AM | Permalink

This, on the burka ban in France, via stageleft:

a) We find it appalling that your religion dictates what you may and may not wear. b) We therefore propose to dictate what you may and may not wear.

Except that the "we" includes men AND women in a culture that has been modernized by Feminism and the "you" is really directed at Muslim men, not Muslim women - if you ask me, a woman.

It's not about the burka. It's not even about Muslim women, not really. It's about, yes, the state, erring on the side of caution for some, and telling others - loudly and clearly - that the state trumps religion - here.

Posted by Sooey at 07:14 AM | Permalink

I went to a graduation ceremony today. I doubt the valedictorian had an impact on anyone in the audience except me. That's because - I am receptive, if nothing else. At 50, all I know is, whatever choices I've made, they've been made sans thought. I'm lucky, is all I can say.

But the valedictorian quoted J.K. Rowlings.

Now, I read the first three Harry Potter's aloud to my kids. I stopped at some point during the fourth because I was having nightmares and the kids were avoiding having nightmares by reading Archie comics under the covers. Also, my marriage was falling apart. And oddly enough, although I don't remember yelling, my voice was giving out. And the book was too big. All of which is irrelevant, because, of course, J.K. Rowlings can give non-magical advice, too.

So we called it a day. I declared everyone old enough to read on her/his own - although s/he didn't much after that - and everything marriage-wise went the way it was destined to when I first said, "I do".

The quote, and I'll have to paraphrase such that it's quite possible J.K. Rowlings said no such thing, "you haven't succeeded if you haven't failed". Whatever. I like THAT quote. Because I've worked really hard on my personal life (in the way that only Scottish Presbyterians can) and thought I'd always be married (even though I went into it with one foot out the door and have an absolutely pathological fear of permanence) and I was very smug about success while it lasted, too. But somewhere along the way, choices were made, all by me, and I live a life completely different than the one I thought I was destined to live (after I'd married, of course, because before I married, I'd have thrown myself in front of a bus in had I thought I'd be living in suburban Ottawa, married, to the man I was always kind of hoping would, mercifully (for me) be hit by that very same bus I might have thrown myself in front of had he not been hit by it first.)

He wasn't hit by a bus. So, we got married. He didn't get hit by a bus after we got married, either. I'm starting to think he might never get hit by a bus.

And today, packed into my American Apparel teenaged wear (it's a black dress and I'm slim, so - what the hell, eh?), Ellen Tracy sandals my mom bought me from Winner's, and a scarf from the Sally Ann tied around my waste, I had lunch with my ex (still my husband, but when you don't care but still care, who cares, right?) and his girlfriend, bald from chemotherapy but otherwise no different than she's been these past six years or so, and our second of three - who is so not involved, in that cool teen way, that she didn't know she'd won a reasonbly presitigious award until they announced it on stage. I had lots of "look at you"s (I'm blond now) and "where ya bin, girl?" (because black suburbanites live in my old 'hood now, too - not that the greeters were black) and "hey - did you hear that the school might be closing?!" (I was the co-leader of an elementary school closure battle that eventually saw the school close).

Where have I been? Well, I've been being that same good girl I've always been. I can't not be a good girl. I saw them step up on stage, good girl after good girl, receiving an award for something or other, and I thought, "Been there, done that, and I actually have the tee-shirts". Anyway, to make a three hour introspection short, at some point, maybe during the always emotional graduation march, I realized I was going to quit a perfectly good job. A perfectly good job, that is to say, for somebody else.

When I do - and it's not an if, thanks to J.K. - it should make a nice counterpart to my failed marriage, which has been surprisingly successful ever since I leapt out of it.

Posted by Sooey at 06:01 PM | Permalink