Why can't I be you?

Envy is thin because it bites but never eats.   - Spanish Proverb

My husband puts up with a lot. Chaos usually follows in my wake, because I tend to make and ignore messes, distracted endlessly by the many shiny things in the world. I am disorganized and frivolous while he keeps the bills paid and the accounts balanced. He sees work to be done and I see books to be read. I hope I’m amusing enough to make up for what I lack. I try his patience in many ways, but right now I think Benedict Cumberbatch may top the list. 

I am obsessed with BC. If his name appears in the credits, I’m there. Now whenever I mention a movie I want to see, Dear Husband responds with wary suspicion. My Pinterest account has been overtaken by photos and videos of Benedict. I await the return of Sherlock with an intense anticipation that most people probably reserve for the birth of their children. I’m nowhere near the worst or wackiest out there. Thanks to fans far more obsessed than I, there is an ecstatic proliferation of Tumblr accounts offering an endless supply of photos and gifs capturing every performance, public appearance, change of hair color, and shift of expression. This is the standard by which I measure my sanity - at least I have not opened a Tumblr account and started creating my own screen caps. I have, however, considered creating a Sherlock themed Christmas tree.

Dear Husband  probably thinks this is my ultimate fantasy: 

source: http://imsooochangeable.tumblr.com/post/28980471547

 

Yeah, well, someone who went on and on and on and on and ON about Amanda Tapping really shouldn’t be so judgey.

I think celebrity obsessions originate in a part of the building you don’t usually visit, but if you give any thought to the matter you’ll probably discover something unexpected and possibly unwelcome about yourself, and it often has less to do with sex than with other desires.

So yeah, he definitely has 1000 watt sex appeal - beautiful eyes, tousleable auburn/blond/black curls, swoony voice -  but there is another side to this.

Really.

And if it wasn’t a teensy bit of a downer, would I even bother telling you?

So here goes, I have a silly fantasy of a long, meandering conversation in which I ask him endless questions about acting and writing, and what’s his take on the NSA/GCHQ business, and who are his favorite poets and how the hell does anyone get into character anyway (something I’ve never understood, as I can barely get into my own character). Just me and my imaginary friend chatting about creativity and art and, I suppose, the meaning of it all, over tea at a nice little bohemian cafe on some London side street. I wouldn’t even care if he smoked, but he wouldn’t, because that’s the sort of gentleman he is.

He’s so very clever. I like clever people. Clever people make me happy. I get high on clever. In interviews Benedict comes across as intelligent and eloquent. He navigates his ocean of crazed admirers with grace, poise and humor. He does charity work (check out this blog by a young girl with Cystic Fibrosis and tell me he isn’t a sweetie). He did a series of videos with the pianist James Rhodes and what’s that - he can play piano, too? He survived a car jacking in South Africa. He taught English in a Tibetan Monastery. He can go from elegant to charming, to dorky in seconds without any apparent embarrassment. He’s adventurous. He’s athletic. He’s humble. He’s exotic.

And his acting - I think he may be channeling the gods. He delivers, as one writer put it “ a level of acting almost messianic in its quality.” Oh yes. He so completely embodies Sherlock that I’m convinced the character now exists as a real person in an alternate reality. Imagine the level of talent and dedication it would take to get to that point, so it seems to flow from you as naturally as sunshine falling over water.  

And then when I thought he couldn’t get any more amazing, he does this: Benedict Cumberbatch Sends A Message To The Government Through The Paparazzi

And this.

And then he gives an interview like this, and I think I may cry from the sheer joy of witnessing someone talk using polysyllabic words.

I’m in awe, with a side of hero worship.

And I’m so very jealous.

I wish I could go back to my 15 year old self and say - this, this is the person you should take as your role model. Keep to this and you might get somewhere and be somebody. You might be something more than the chaotic, chronically distracted person who has never created anything admirable, or noble, or beautiful, who instead stumbles from day to day in a state of existential confusion with the vague sense of having missed the point.

So, at the end of that long conversation in the fictional cafe, I imagine him saying: “So what have you done with your life lately? Hmm. I’m just going to take this BAFTA now and go help some disadvantaged youth. Laters." ‘Course he would never say that. He’s too much of a gentleman.

It's better when it's just about sex.

The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd.

I wonder if I’m doing okay? Sometimes I’m not sure. Sometimes I’m not sure I’m that in touch with myself. Maybe I could send myself an email. My thoughts have been soggy. When we passed the anniversary marker for Firecracker’s surgery, and when I remember it, my stomach clenches its fist and looks balefully at me. What were you thinking? To put your child through that? And for what? Nothing!

I feel death wafting around me. Perhaps I will die this year. I don’t want to die. I’m really opposed to it. My nephew, my friend. My friend. Is it easier to meet death deliberately instead of waiting for it to snare you? Why did she feel that dying was better than living? I miss her. And what about me? I think of estrogen. Perhaps I should have gone on tomoxifin. Maybe estrogen is the enemy. I’m overweight, so I’m even producing more of it. I’m practically swimming in it. Perhaps it’s wreaking havoc even as I sit here so indecisive. Perhaps I’ll die from indecisiveness. And then there’s Dear Husband. Whenever he has a flair up I wish I could peek into his bladder and make sure all the cells are behaving, no proliferation. Everyone’s health panics me. What is going on that I cannot see? Death and his demons, where are the creeping?

It’s amazing what plastic surgeons can do with reconstruction, it really is. But my new breast will always be a…a… construction. It is better than cancer, but it is still this alien sculpture perching on my chest. How I wish they could have done the TRAM. I’m still sad about that. I’ve never intended to have another child, but the knowledge that I could never nurse one if I did makes me cry. Isn’t that weird?

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not doing what I was intended to do. The problem is that I have no idea what I was intended to do. You know, that idea that God has a plan with a place for everything and everything in its place. Do I even believe that? What do I believe? How can I believe? When I think of death, it seems the most preposterous suggestion that we would go somewhere after. It pretty much looks like a blank wall: bye bye. But there are these stories, this scripture that says otherwise. I find it hard to swallow.

I find it hard to chew on most things Christian these days. The claims, the glib prayers, the churchy stuff, the inspirational books, the enthusiasm, the dull dull tumbling of words. The bright shininess and maudlin spectacle of it all. The music. Oh god the awful sameness and bouncy bouncy of it. Sometimes it seems that if I jumped in the river it would come up to my ankles, so shallow the water is full of silt.

And then there are these longings that I don’t believe in: to home school my children, or at least to be a SAHM there when school is over, when the bus drops them off. The mom who can visit the class with the cupcakes and a story to read, who may actually someday meet the other mothers whose children my daughters spend more time with than with me. It seems so out of balance, but who am I kidding? My salary is essential and always will be, even after we pay off the cars and the student loan. Besides, I can’t organize my own time. I’m useless at it. How can I organize anyone else’s?

There, I’ve written it out of me for now. Tomorrow Firecracker is having a birthday party. I’m afraid no one will come. That happened one year, or nearly. Only one child showed up. I’ve tried calling, and the moms either don’t speak English or act as if they are reluctant to admit that the live in this universe, the universe with the invitation, my child, their child, and their common classroom.

More on my adventures in dyspepsia later. The title of this post, btw, is from Black Adder, and it gave me the day's first laugh. If you aren't familiar with Black Adder, you need to correct that deficiency right away before it becomes a way of life.

Anxiety, dread, and depression

It’s one of those days when my mood suddenly turns on a dime. I was going along, bored but getting things done and feeling generally positive, when I suddenly found myself sliding down the mountain of self doubt. All my choices seem suspect. All my talents have been buried, misused, or never existed at all. Every event seems like a hurdle, from the smallest to the largest. It’s just a mood, I tell myself. It will pass. But really these sorts of moods suck the joy out of everything and replace it with anxiety and dread. I have enough anxiety and dread on the good days without more taking root.

Life bites; if only I could bite back

As usual, when life gets stressful, I take refuge in books. Right now I’m reading the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer. I love books about vampires. I was really into the Ann Rice novels—such elegant vampires with such poetic and philosophical musings, not to mention an eroticism that was creepy and compelling. In the end vampire stories all seem to be about sex dressed up in gothic clothes with nowhere to go.

The Twilight series is about a teenage girl, Bella, and a vampire boy, Edward, who fall desperately in love. And I do mean desperately—teen love ramped up and kicked into overdrive. Then the novel piles on the complications, misunderstandings, danger and conflict. It’s all very Wuthering Heights, although Catherine would think Bella a wimp, and I always thought Catherine and Heathcliff were so immensely unpleasant that I grew impatient with the sturm and drang.. The books refer to both Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet a lot, which is apt, since Bella and Edward think their lives will end without each other, which they demonstrate with much dramatic hullaballoo. Really, this is fabulous. I love this kind of stuff, even if Bella is a spineless masochist and Edward is unrelentingly gorgeous, annoyingly noble. They can’t do much in the way of physical contact, since his kiss could kill her. Talk about repression. Bella does a lot of swooning and Edward seems to be in a constant state of anguish trying to keep from loving her to death. Interesting, huh? He loves her so much his impulse is to kill her. Of course he doesn’t want to—it’s his biology he’s resisting. Well, I wouldn’t look too closely at the male/female dynamics here—it spoils the fun and critics are so tiresome when they start berating books for not being feminist enough. (I read one such criticism and wondered if the reviewer thought it would be best not to read Dickens because his female characters are ridiculous. But I could go into a long diatribe about those who think we should read only what’s proper and healthy for us in order to maintain a good literary hygiene.) There’s a werewolf vying for her affections as well. Talk about a tumultuous romantic life. As I said, vampire novels seem to be about desire that is never satisfied, which doesn’t really want to be satisfied because the tension of not being satisfied is so intoxicating.

There are other vampires out to get Bella, so you’d think Edward would just turn her into one to protect her, but he refuses. Why? Well, because if he didn’t there wouldn’t be a story, now would there? The moment they’re on an equal footing, the plot will have to find a new focus. Oh, and the werewolf is bound by pack law to kill any vampire who bites a human, so it looks like we’ve got a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation (ha ha). I have one more book of tortured indecision before the grand finale (coming out in August), and I think I’m 39th on the waiting list at our library. Edward, for pete’s sake turn her into a vampire already and hightail it out of werewolf territory. After a while a tortured conscience just gets boring. Bella, you’re going to have to decide between the vampire and the werewolf and just deal with it. If you want to be a vampire so badly, get one of the others to change you. Sheesh. It’s not like Edward is the only vampire in town.