Cancer Vixen

I just finished reading Cancer Vixen.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Paul got it for me from the library, and I didn't think I'd like it. The cover art doesn't appeal to me at all, nor does the title, nor did the premise: shoe-brand-discussing, name-dropping, "oh no I gained an entire pound" fashionista-who-uses-the-word-fashionista gets cancer, but pulls through it with style and expensive lip gloss.

As you have no doubt cleverly surmised, instead I loved it. LOVED it. It was not only highly entertaining (romance! family! humor!), but also highly informative: here's what happens when you get cancer; here's what the various treatments are like; here are some things I hadn't expected. If I get cancer myself, I will buy a copy of the book and work my way through it the way I used to work my way through week-by-week pregnancy books.

Boy, I haven't made that sound real appealing, have I? And I understand if it doesn't sound like something you'd like: I LOVE graphic autobiographies by female author-artists, and yet this sat on my book pile for two weeks because I didn't want to read about cancer treatments (or shoe brands). I thought it would be boring, depressing, scary, and annoying. Instead I finished it, walked directly to my computer, ordered a copy to be sent to our local library (Paul had had to request it from another branch), ordered a copy of the author's other book (Just Who the Hell is SHE, Anyway?) to be sent to me, and then wrote this post.

This Means War

We were so glad to have all your input about movies! It threw things into a bit of a panic, because we'd been almost for sure planning to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (my sister-in-law and sister-in-law's sister were having an Oscar party the next night and hadn't seen that one yet), but the comments about it were so amusingly damning, it made us reconsider (though we also thought it might be very funny to see it with that mindset: I could picture us dying from stifled laughter during an exceptionally dull scene). But then the whole thing came down to a time-related choice, so our choices were Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which we were pretty sure was going to be dullllllllll, and This Means War, which we were pretty sure was going to be dummmmmmmmb.

We finally had to flip a coin. A literal coin, which we actually flipped in order to choose our movie for us. The coin chose This Means War (the movie the poll also chose), a movie we were considering only because my sister-in-law read a review in Entertainment Weekly that was something along the lines of it being contrived fluff from beginning to end and yet highly enjoyable anyway for some unidentifiable reason.

And YES. What a good explanation! It's a movie I would have rejected from the poster: Reese Witherspoon in a little black dress standing sassily between two arms-folded hot guys in suits. ...Here, let me find it for you:

Not a promising introduction.
(photo from IMDb.com)

The plot is that two guys are competing for Reese Witherspoon's character. The gimmick is that both guys are CIA agents, so they have access to, like, spy helicopters and driver's license records to help them win the competition. Plus, they're both hugely wealthy and connected.

What made me really, really like the movie is that I felt like it was tongue-in-cheek. The action scenes seemed like they were for pure fun and didn't take themselves seriously: all guy fantasy stuff, with dangling off skyscrapers, leaping from car to car in a car chase, smash-falls onto tables/cars, tonnnnnns of shooting (often while simultaneously firing off witty remarks). The competition for the girl felt like it was funny in part because it was totally inappropriate to be competing in that way. Even the invasions of her privacy seemed like we ALL KNEW it was WILDLY WRONG, which made it very funny to me: it was so unapologetically over-the-top, it was funny in a way mild spying might not have been. And the guys are clearly meant to be enjoyable for the female audience (visually, but also to laugh at / roll eyes at / recognize types).

Downsides, let's see. Well, none of the three of us girls liked the romantic resolution (which seemed to take itself seriously after a whole movie of unserious), and there was a completely cheesy/condescending line there that still bugs me days later. (I did like the SECOND part of the romantic resolution.) And there were parts of the guys' characters/histories that seemed like they were there for pure emotional manipulation: oh, he had a tragedy in his past, that's why he's SUCH A CAD now, perhaps he can LEARN TO TRUST AGAIN. I also think they tried to overdo the whole "Reese Witherspoon as gawky nerd-type" thing, while still putting her in 6-inch heels in EVERY SCENE, including the one where she is BY HERSELF MAKING POPCORN IN HER APARTMENT, WEARING NO PANTS. And there are some moments of passion that immediately took the movie from "Oh, I should see this with my parents, they'd love it!!" to "NO WAY I AM SEEING THIS WITH THEM" in, like, one second. (That countertop looked COLD, and the careful posing on it looked...carefully posed. And the later casual reference to "five times" made me roll my eyes right out my ears.)

I think it helped tremendously to go into it thinking "contrived fluff." And it also helped that we went into it expecting to enjoy NEITHER movie option. And it helped that I think both guys are pretty cute, and that I like Reese Witherspoon. I really did enjoy it all the way through, though I'd be a little embarrassed to recommend it.

Opening a Bottle of a Very Nice Vintage

I am this very hour returned from an Overnight! Of! Fun! with my brother, sister-in-law, and sister-in-law's sister, and I am half-surprised to be alive. I am not sure if you have already noticed this about my temperament, but I am anxious and morbid by nature. My natural reveries, if left unchecked, are along the lines of "What I would do if there were an intruder/fire and I couldn't save all the children at once" and "How long could we survive with only the items already in our house" and "What things around the house would be poignant to everyone if I were to die unexpectedly." So whenever I go away for an overnight and need to drive for a full! hour! on the scary! highway!, my thoughts as I pack my overnight bag are mostly along the lines of this being the last memory the children will have of me.

Nevertheless, here I am, still among the living. And I have come to a fresh realization that I am a country mouse, or actually a town mouse, whatever, but what I mean is not a city mouse. (I think "country mouse" can have negative connotations because of the "mouse" element, so it's important to remember that the mouse from the city was ALSO a mouse.) I say this because I got trapped in a city driveway. Trapped. In a city DRIVEWAY. Completely stuck. I kept slowwwwly backing the car out, and then another car would slam on its brakes and lean on the horn for a good 10 seconds to punish me for wanting to use a road I couldn't see, and then I'd scurry back into the driveway. After trembling and trying not to cry for a minute, I'd realize there was no other option: I HAD to back out of the driveway. So I would creeeeeep back out again, and there'd be the screech of brakes, and I'd scurry back in. My brother, my YOUNGER brother, had to come out and RESCUE ME, including patting my shoulder and then DRIVING AND RE-PARKING MY CAR FOR ME while I went into the house and tried to resume normal breathing.

Well. Anyway. I do enjoy VISITING the city, because it is so pretty and there are so many cool buildings, and because it is so nice to be able to walk everywhere (NOT DRIVE) (PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME DRIVE) (THERE ARE ONE-WAY STREETS OMG SAVE ME) on big wide sidewalks, and there are all these restaurants that serve delicious unfamiliar foods, and there are crosswalks with pedestrian signals so you don't have to wait for traffic to voluntarily stop for you. And there are movie theaters! And so many take-out options! And stores I've heard bloggers refer to, like Urban Outfitters! And there are TEA SHOPS!

I had a second revelation this visit (the first one was about being a town mouse, in case you have lost track), looking at my nearly-3-year-old niece and my nearly-6-month-old nephew: THIS is how we bottle it. THIS is how: by spending short amounts of time with other people's children. I often wish I could have saved some of that overwhelming/frustrating/anxious/boring/endless time with my small children, because it seemed like everyone kept telling me to enjoy it and I KIND OF was and also I COULDN'T enjoy it when that baby would NOT let me put him down for EVEN ONE SECOND and I needed to PEE and I was so TIRED and I smelled like baby barf and I was so hungry but it was time to feed the baby again and I was ruining my toddler's life because I couldn't spend any time with him anymore and this baby was probably the biggest mistake I'd ever made but I love him so much and he's growing up way too fast and one day he'll get old and die waaaaaaaaaaaah!

My point is that it's hard to enjoy that, but that once it was over it became a place I'd like to VISIT. I'd like to pop in, pick up tiny infant Rob, and enjoy the way he would! not! rest his head on my shoulder when I held/burped him, instead of having to fret that it meant he would never love anyone and would end up rocking and keening on the streets (one-way CITY streets) as an old man. I'd like to go back and squeeze 4-year-old William and fuzz his fuzzy head and snuggle his snuggly self and write down more of the funny things he used to say, without worrying that the newborn twins were depriving him of everything he needed. And so forth.

Visiting a niece and a nephew is like getting to go back for a visit. It is of course not exactly the same---but since we can't have that, this is as close as I've found, and I will take it. I squeeze my baby nephew's satisfying baby shape, and I play "Hi! Hi! Oh, HI! Hi! Hi, baby! Hi!" with him, and appreciate the cuteness of his kicky feet and bunchy keeks and feetie sleeper, and it reminds me of my own babies. And I watch my niece playing, and I admire her little ponytails and her baby teeth and her funny dancing, and I am so amused by how every single thing she says is so cute AND so funny in phrasing and tone and pronunciation, and it reminds me of my own babies.

But it's a VISIT, and I don't have to potty-train anyone or get up in the night with anyone or worry about which preschool to choose or feel like I can't put a baby down for even a second or figure out how to fill an endless day or wonder if we're doing enough / too much tummy time or ANYTHING. It is ALL GRAVY. I assume this is what people mean about grandchildren later on.

Movies

I think we should have a poll. My sister-in-law, my sister-in-law's sister, and I are planning to go see a movie this weekend. What should we see? Oscar-nominated Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? Oscar-nominated animated shorts? Rampart? This Means War, which my sister-in-law says got an intriguing review in Entertainment Weekly (the gist was that it was contrived fluff the reviewer nevertheless completely enjoyed)? Chronicle? Something else that's still playing in theaters?

Let's have a poll over to the right (below the ad). [Poll closed; see results below.] And give the reason for your vote in the comments if you can, because that can be so helpful for determining if we should take the advice or not ("I think you should watch X because it's SUPER TERRIFYING! I barfed for WEEKS!" "I think you should watch Y because it made me really think about how awful the world is and how there's nothing we can do about it!").


Poll results:

Warning Sign; Bathroom Dreams; Dr. Suess

I've had a policy at my house for awhile, which is that if I decide to drink in the evenings, I have to keep laundry cycling the whole time. I like the built-in safety of this: if I get caught up on laundry, I'll know there's a problem.

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I've been having dreams night after night about moving to a new house. After it got to the point of incredulous laughter ("AGAIN??"), I looked it up on a dream interpretation site, where I found that it means I'm going through a big life change/re-evaluation, which, no kidding.

But also, in that same category, I found a bunch of stuff about what it means if you dream about bathrooms, especially if there are no doors on the stalls and/or the toilets are filthy and overflowing. The dream-interpretation sites have INTERPRETATIONS for that, along the lines of your psyche is clogged or you need more privacy in your life.

But do you know what it actually means? It means your body needs to pee, and your body doesn't realize it's dreaming so it's about to wet the bed, and your brain is frantically scrambling for ANY reason why your body CANNOT PEE right now. That's what it means. So that kind of calls the whole dream-interpretation thing into question for me.

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Dilemma: Elizabeth's spelling challenge words this week include "Dr. Seuss," but the teacher has spelled it "Dr. Suess." It's spelled that way in more than one place, so it's not just a typo. I'm not inclined to teach her to spell it incorrectly, but if I teach her to spell it correctly, she may get it marked wrong. ...Actually, I guess this isn't much of a dilemma, since the Worst Case Scenario is that she doesn't get ONE possible BONUS point on her spelling test.

Still. It's making me a little grouchy. I understand the source of the misspelling (it's a hard name, even more so because the common nickname Sue is pronounced like the first sound of Seuss), and everyone makes mistakes (you'll note I don't blog about every "bring in their Valentine's" and casual typos on every single memo/newsletter)---but this PARTICULAR word seems like a misspelling an elementary school teacher would be especially/professionally familiar with and therefore extra careful to avoid if she knew she had an issue with it. She'd think, "Oh, yes, Seuss---that's a tricky one, and I can never remember how to spell it. I'd better make sure I've got it right, before I add it to the spelling words list!"

Question About Yellowstone National Park

Swistle's Dad writes:

We're suddenly starting to plan for a Northwest road trip this May, to include Yellowstone National Park. I don't know if you'd want to ask this on your blog, but we're looking for advice on being in Yellowstone either May 9-10 or May 30-31. Does that three weeks make a big difference in weather? Do the crowds start picking up at the end of May, or not until later? Is stuff still closed or inaccessible in early May? Etc. Just an idea if you're desperate for a topic.

Saturday

I'm wearing Charlie perfume today. That stuff brings me right back to high school---but in the good way, not in the "OH GOD NOT THIS DREAM AGAIN!" way.

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Yesterday Henry was playing outside and broke a window. At least two children saw him do it, and no one told us. These are children who normally tattle such offenses as BREATHING TOO LOUD and "He's thinking I'm stupid!!"---but when it's something we really would like to hear about, nothing. So cold air poured in all night. Little belated Valentine's Day gift for you, there, gas company.

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If you are browsing your sad empty weekend RSS reader, I suggest MO Mommy's post Mutualism, which contains this excellent line:

People always say, "BE YOURSELF! Don't worry about what others think! BE YOU!" But what if being me INCLUDES caring (and caring deeply) about what others think? THEN WHAT?

and this one:

The internet can make people feel anonymous, make them feel it's ok to say things for the sake of an argument, when the argument itself misses the whole point.

Or, Marie Green was talking on Twitter about The Trephine's post Some Divorce Advice From Me to You. It's got advice if you're getting a divorce, if you know someone getting a divorce, if you're not planning to get a divorce, if you're not even married. It's part serious, part funny, part insightful---one of my favorite combinations:

Plus, anytime anyone asks about your ex and how it’s going, you can say, “Oh, he/she is great. A++++++++, would divorce again.” Oh, come on, that’s funny.

Or you might like to read Bebehblog's post Opening Up, on the serious subject of psychiatric medications, but also funny:

Some days I wondered if I was crazy for NOT having postpartum depression. And then when things started to feel out of control I wondered if I was just exaggerating so I could fit in.