moment of weakness

I got home from Christmas shopping this afternoon, and a feeling settled on me. It was a tense feeling, a feeling that had something to do with the weather and something to do with the time of day. I could feel my shoulders hitching upwards and my breath coming a little shallower. I felt like I had to go and do something, but at the same time I didn't think it was something that could be done, and I couldn't figure out what it was.

Then it hit me. I wanted to watch Twilight. I really, really wanted to watch a Twilight movie.

I don't usually like to admit to being a Twilight fan. I mean, I really should know better. Twilight is not edifying fantasy; it's blatant escapism, and I was taught to believe that there's no excuse for that.

I remember reading an article by C.S. Lewis (or maybe it was Tolkein; I don't remember) justifying the appreciation of fantasy. He said that there are two kinds of escaping in fantasy literature. The healthy kind enables you to get out of the world for a minute and see it as it ought to be so you can reorient yourself and go back in. This kind of fantasy has epic conflict and great sacrifice. The other kind of fantasy is wish fulfillment, a thrilling kind of pie-in-the-sky imago-emotional morphine that makes you think "why don't I have that?", and Twilight is definitely of this latter kind. Not healthy. Plus it's written for junior high kids, and I'm nearly 30.

But I can't help it.

I'm not a blatant Twi-hard. I don't have any t-shirts that say "I kissed a vampire, and I liked it" or facebook flare that says "Real men sparkle." I've never been to Forks. I didn't see movies one or two in the theater, and I'm not sure I'm looking forward to movie four with great anticipation.

Still, there are moments or even days when I feel an almost overwhelming pressure to see something Twilightish, when I log onto the Internet and go hunting for a Twilight headline just to get that "hit of my drug supply" (if you're a twi-hard, you'll get that reference), when I open my kindle and upload one of the novels before sending it back to the archives unread. I guess that makes me a guilty twi-hard. Why not just give in and indulge, you say. Haven't you ever noticed that indulging some cravings only makes them stronger?

It seems like I always get "twilight" cravings when Seth works a long, long, long day or when he's getting ready to leave, and it just so happens that he's leaving soon. It probably doesn't help that "Eclipse" will be coming out on DVD next week, and the ads and headlines have been everywhere.
I especially liked the ad for Eclipse gum. Those are two franchises I would not have put together.

Mom says I should purge my brain with some good, wholesome fantasy like Narnia or Lord Of The Rings. Boogaloo loves Narnia, but I'm convinced LOTR would be too much for her. In fact, I haven't watched LOTR or Indiana Jones or Star Wars since she started taking an interest in movies.

That might be part of the problem. We've watched VeggieTales, Mary Poppins, Cars, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe so many times that Boogaloo and I can recite their dialogues together. It's been so long since I've watched a grown-up movie that when I think about the movies I'd like to watch, I slide all the way down the spectrum into guilty pleasure, even though the only way the Twilight films heretodate can qualify as an grown-up movies is the fact that I'm a grown-up and I want to watch them.

Another part of the problem might be that Seth's departures always make me feel like a petulant teenager who needs to be protected and consoled, and hey, misery loves company. Bella Swan could really be up there with Scarlet O'Hara as far as self-centered naratives are concerned, and sometimes it feels good to listen to her complain and watch her manipulate the people she should be listening to. (She doesn't listen. Have you noticed that? She never intends to change her mind. It's with the greatest reluctance that she acknowledges that someone else might have a point. She never lets herself be influenced by anyone!)

But that's exactly why I don't indulge myself very often. There are some thoughts that don't need reinforcement, however realistic or common to man they might be. The kind of friends you keep and the kind of books you read will affect the way you think. I have learned part of the secret to contentment, and it is keeping the imago-emotional morphine to a minimum.

Pudding Painting.

Well, the weather has sacked in. We had forty mile per hour winds these past two nights and buckets of rain all day. We're supposed to have rain for the next ten days with a couple possibilities of snow. I could almost believe that I saw snowflakes coming down outside once or twice, but the Yahoo! weatherman maintained that it was 43 degrees and merely cloudy. Maybe I need to find a new weatherman.

So what's a mom to do with an antsy child on a day like today? Pudding paint.

It's inexpensive, edible fingerpaint. Just take a box of vanilla or banana cream pudding, mix according to directions, divide into five bowls, and add the food coloring of your choice. Art time becomes snack time or vice versa. The funny thing about Boogaloo is that she paints with her spoon and eats with her fingers. Of course, pudding doesn't dry very quickly, especially if it's heaped on the paper, so the odds of getting to keep the resultant masterpiece are pretty small, but you can always do what we did and take pictures.

This is Boogaloo's masterpiece. I think it could fit in very well among the modern masters. It looks like one of those paintings that people stare at in museums and say, "Come on, a kid could do something like that." Well, that's exactly right, and here's the proof. After I took this picture, she proceeded to smear it all together and turn the whole thing green. Maybe the key to art is knowing when to stop. :)

Experts say that the child feels validated if mom and dad play along, so I played along too. Okay, okay, I have more fun than she does, and I take my painting very seriously. This is my dabbling in modern art. I used to be one of those people who looked at paintings like this and said, "There's no point to it." But put it in pudding, and . . . there's still no point to it. But it's fun! Maybe it's hard to take those artists seriously because we think they take their work too seriously. If they would just admit that they're just having fun . . . oh well, that's a discussion for another day.

This is an exercise in line and color. This is throwing my food at a paper. I like this one better.

I think I'm going to make it my facebook profile picture.

Whoops.

I just realized that my last post was on November 2nd, and I didn't mention a word about the election. Not entirely surprising. The end of last Tuesday was like a breath of fresh air. I was so tired of the election season. It seemed like every other ad on the radio was a political ad, and five out of seven pieces of mail were political flyers. About half of the ads I encountered were positive and respectful, but the other half were more than enough to sour someone on the political process. I didn't even realize that I hadn't seen any results for our senatorial race until two days later. (My candidate lost, but my party made huge gains, so I guess it's going to be an interesting political season as well.)

So here is how our state fared in the election: we defeated the income tax and kept alcohol sales in the hands of the state. The right of the state to withold bail was extended from murder charges to other violent offenses, and the state has found a new way to calculate its bond debt. Certain taxes on groceries were rescinded, and other taxes and fees were increased. So everything sort of rounds itself out. Patti Murray beat Dino Rossi by barely 3% of the vote, and Kitsap County keeps all its same representatives on the federal and state levels. (Washington Secretary of State: Election Results. http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/?ElectionID=37) I had hoped for better things, especially on the pro-life front, but it seems to me that we're getting closer. We just need to keep praying and doing, and God will get our state on the bandwagon.

Love to you all.
Good night.

The Joy of Christmas Catalogues

(Warning: some product placement may follow!)

It's that time of year again, the time of year when both companies that we love and companies we have never heard fill our mailboxes with glossy pictures of things we simply can't celebrate the holidays without. I love looking at holiday catalogues. I like looking at the pretty things, the novel things, the useful things, and the absurd things that nobody in their right mind really needs but that look neat anyway.

I especially love the way the products are set up in this semi-glorious light which implies that by buying this product, I'll be satisfying a deep psychological need, protecting the environment, feeding starving children, and reaching Nirvana all at once. I look at those pictures, and I get a "queer ache," as Anne Shirley called it, right in the middle of my chest. And all the while my brain is saying, "It's just a pillow sham. Granted, it's pretty and made of organic cotton, but you have absolutely no use for pillow shams. In fact, you hate pillow shams. Turn the page."

It's only the second of November, and we've already gotten three holiday catalogues, not counting the weekly circular from the Navy Exchange. The first two were from companies that we use regularly, but the one that came today was from a place I've never heard of -- Garnet Hill. Apparantly they sell decorating knick-knacks, linens, and specialty clothing.

It came just in time. Today is a duty day. I've been feeling blue, and there is no better way to kick a blue feeling than to pour a bubble bath, grab a novel for back up, and spend a half an hour flipping through a holiday catalogue. I mowed the lawn, washed the baking dishes, went to Bible study, got Boogaloo to eat both lunch and dinner, and dealt with two nasty messes (Today, Boogaloo learned about painting with poop. Tomorrow, she is going to learn that this makes Mommy unhappy.). I felt like I deserved a little indulgence. So I ran the bathtub full of hot water, poured in a little "Twilight Woods" from Bath & Body Works, grabbed an L.M. Montgomery novel, and "prepared myself to be happy," as Elizabeth Bennet would say.


Or not. Sakes alive! Have I been out of touch? When did cotton t-shirts (granted, organic cotton) become $40 items? I know some people can afford to pay that much for their clothes, but aren't there reasonable limits on the prices of basic items?$238 merino wool sweaters. $90 sneakers. $68 bedsheets -- flat or fitted. Granted, some of the stuff was cashmere (sigh, cashmere), but some of the stuff was flannel! And when I pay $50 dollars for a 250 thread ct. sheet, I expect to get both of them with pillow cases and the monogramming thrown in. I don't care how well it goes with the gorgeous octagon quilt. I'm sorry. I can do better at Walmart.

It was truly a wonderful catalogue. I found something to "ache" over on every page, and if you can afford to pay that much, do check them out at http://www.garnethill.com/. They have cocoa cup bedspread patterns and Christmas tree sheets and handmade afghans in cool natural colors (I could have made that last myself if I had the pattern). They have cable knit sweaters and cashmere tunics, ruffle-edged wool trench coats and Christmas longjohns for kids. But my gosh, who pays that kind of money for those kind of things?

Needless to say, I didn't find my bubblebath as relaxing as I thought I would. With seeds of regret, discontentment, and inferiority germinating in my soul, I put my catalogue down and picked up "Anne of Windy Poplars," and within about ten minutes all was right with the world again. But I still feel a little stung. The feeling harkens back to high school when I got caught wearing someone else's handmedowns. I didn't mind handmedowns in general, but they did seem to imply (at least to my adolescent mind) that I operated on a different tier than the people who could buy stylish things new. I envied them. Oh, how I envied them.

If only the styles now weren't so gorgeous! Belted sweaters. Pencil skirts. Long, elegant trousers. Sweater dresses. Flowy, cape-like cardigans. Capes! Actual capes! Exactly what I've always pictured sophisticated, practical fashion to be. Then that if only leads to other if onlies. If only I could afford this to go with that. If only eco-friendly were also budget-friendly. If only I could be professionally lit and standing dramatically outside a log cabin on the tundra while my perfectly highlighted hair blows in a soft but not too cold wind that doesn't make my nose red. (I wonder how much make up it takes to keep a red nose from showing. If they shot on location, those models must have been cold.)

Yeah. Okay. Then the fact that the life I'm living is mine and whatever I happen to be wearing, that life isn't going to be professionally lit, arranged, and retouched settles onto my brain, and I come back to reality. Life is good, and it's even picturesque at times, but those pictures are live and organic, unlike the picture of the woman wearing a knit-lace dress and holding a sled dog on a rope leash or the picture of the woman cross-country skiing in a silk-trimmed cashmere cardigan, fine-wale corduroy trousers, and cascading bauble necklace. I mean, don't we all don cashmere and baubles when we want to participate in rigorous outdoor aerobic activity? Sheesh.

So I've learned a lesson today. Coveting can be hazardous to my peace of mind. That's probably why God told us not to do it. And really, do not worry about what you will eat off of, what you will sleep on, and what you will wear. Is not food more important than platewear and sleep more important than sheets? And isn't Christmas about something totally other than reindeer flannel and snowman pajamas anyway? Plus the Exchange has sweater dresses for $15 next week, so I can have my cake and eat it too. But I think I'm going to throw that catalogue away. Why put myself in the way of more temptation?