Oh, Edgar
I've been feeling a bit morbid lately, forgive me.
I'd like to be stiller. Lately, though, I feel like things are just slipping away, and I'm hard-pressed to create stillness in anything. I've already vowed to go out every night this week, and even if I don't manage to do something tomorrow and Wednesday (the only not-booked-yet days), 5 nights out of 7 isn't bad. And yet.
My cousin asked me to be the godmother of her child if/when she gets pregnant. They're on fertility treatment, so there's a chance of that happening pretty soon, and I'm not sure how to feel about this. I do not identify as Catholic, and I don't know if I can, in good conscience, vow to help bring religion into a child's life when I am so fundamentally against the idea of religion. My mother, either because she was in a bad mood or because she's upset that I've completely rejected her religion (I can't imagine it's this, because when my poor sister asked my mother if she was Catholic herself, she replied, "I march to the beat of my own drum." What heathens we are), snapped at me and told me I was thinking too much and that things just weren't that important. I get my moodiness from her, and after 22 years of it, I shouldn't be upset, but I guess I am, a bit. She said, "And what role has Margie played in your Christianity?" and I really didn't know what she wanted me to say about that. I just said I didn't want to talk about it, and she said she didn't either, and my father got back on the phone and gave me the recipe for Honey Balls, which I guess could be pretty telling about my family, if you really wanted to get into it. I guess I don't, though. I'm left deciding what I want to tell my cousin, though. I guess I'll say yes, and feel like a phony. My newfound love for homemade toys seems to have come at the perfect time for a godchild, and, as Roger says, "you get to hold it until it cries and then you give it back." Nothing says endless family devotion like holding something until it cries and then giving it back.
I can't believe I'm being this candid. In any event, I'm reading Reading Lolita in Tehran and really liking it. I'm relating to it much more than I should be, mostly, I think, because its about someone displaced and a little bored, and while I'm not displaced right now, I am at a new point in my life and I don't know how to identify, exactly. Like I said, I don't identify as Catholic, and I can't really identify as a student anymore. Maybe I'm being unfair to myself, but I didn't get into graduate school and I wear Ugg boots, so I don't feel like I can identify as an intellectual, and I haven't created anything in weeks, not even really meals, so I can't claim to be an artist. I'm still a woman, I guess, although I think of that less and less, and now I work, so I guess I should be able to pull that into the mix, but it just isn't satisfactory, maybe because there are a lot of women and a lot of workers in the world. The truth of the matter (and I don't even really think that this is so sad) is that I think I identify most clearly as "someone who takes the bus." It's concrete, complex, and true. I suppose I can live with that for a bit longer.
Kristin...a someone who takes the bus.
I'd like to be stiller. Lately, though, I feel like things are just slipping away, and I'm hard-pressed to create stillness in anything. I've already vowed to go out every night this week, and even if I don't manage to do something tomorrow and Wednesday (the only not-booked-yet days), 5 nights out of 7 isn't bad. And yet.
My cousin asked me to be the godmother of her child if/when she gets pregnant. They're on fertility treatment, so there's a chance of that happening pretty soon, and I'm not sure how to feel about this. I do not identify as Catholic, and I don't know if I can, in good conscience, vow to help bring religion into a child's life when I am so fundamentally against the idea of religion. My mother, either because she was in a bad mood or because she's upset that I've completely rejected her religion (I can't imagine it's this, because when my poor sister asked my mother if she was Catholic herself, she replied, "I march to the beat of my own drum." What heathens we are), snapped at me and told me I was thinking too much and that things just weren't that important. I get my moodiness from her, and after 22 years of it, I shouldn't be upset, but I guess I am, a bit. She said, "And what role has Margie played in your Christianity?" and I really didn't know what she wanted me to say about that. I just said I didn't want to talk about it, and she said she didn't either, and my father got back on the phone and gave me the recipe for Honey Balls, which I guess could be pretty telling about my family, if you really wanted to get into it. I guess I don't, though. I'm left deciding what I want to tell my cousin, though. I guess I'll say yes, and feel like a phony. My newfound love for homemade toys seems to have come at the perfect time for a godchild, and, as Roger says, "you get to hold it until it cries and then you give it back." Nothing says endless family devotion like holding something until it cries and then giving it back.
I can't believe I'm being this candid. In any event, I'm reading Reading Lolita in Tehran and really liking it. I'm relating to it much more than I should be, mostly, I think, because its about someone displaced and a little bored, and while I'm not displaced right now, I am at a new point in my life and I don't know how to identify, exactly. Like I said, I don't identify as Catholic, and I can't really identify as a student anymore. Maybe I'm being unfair to myself, but I didn't get into graduate school and I wear Ugg boots, so I don't feel like I can identify as an intellectual, and I haven't created anything in weeks, not even really meals, so I can't claim to be an artist. I'm still a woman, I guess, although I think of that less and less, and now I work, so I guess I should be able to pull that into the mix, but it just isn't satisfactory, maybe because there are a lot of women and a lot of workers in the world. The truth of the matter (and I don't even really think that this is so sad) is that I think I identify most clearly as "someone who takes the bus." It's concrete, complex, and true. I suppose I can live with that for a bit longer.
Kristin...a someone who takes the bus.