All the Horrible Girliness

Astounding

On Mr. Aran's computer, behind me, there is a closeup of a painting he's in the middle of... painting. My writing is bad because it's been one hell of a busy day, and junior is pissed.

Anyhow, there's this painting of a British schoolboy, part of a project he's working on with a friend. The fact that these things come out of someone's brain and fingers never astounded me, but it astounds me that I know that someone, that in fact he's in my bed now. He astounds me every day. I cannot imagine entering marriage with someone who did not amaze me every day.

Speaking of Dr. Laura.

If you don't listen to the program, you probably didn't know I was speaking of Dr. Laura. I do. I would call it a guilty pleasure, since she is admittedly a raving, shortsighted bitch, but I agree with her a good eighty percent of the time. I am afraid of what that says about me.

Her writing is pretty elementary. I saw one of her books at Border's the other night. I passed it by, went to Fiction, and picked up a Chuck Palahniuk book. I own this book, a first edition signed copy, and someone has taken it. I always have this glimmer of hope that this book will come back to me somehow, as it is irreplaceable, so I have never bought a second copy. But I have picked it up in bookstores a few times, just to hold, and read the first few pages again.

I picked up this book at Border's the other night, and then went back to the Dr. Laura. I looked left and right. When I felt assured I was not being watched, I picked up the Dr. Laura and slipped it under the Chuck Palahniuk. If anyone was watching me on security camera, they would have thought I was stealing. Imagine the horror: being apprehended for stealing a Dr. Laura book. The humiliation would have felt how the half-human alien baby felt in Alien Resurrection, when it got sucked through the little hole in the spaceship, one agonizing inch at a time.

Holding my treasures under one arm, careful not to show the title of the offending book but showing off the dead bird on the cover of the Chuck P., I stood in line at the cafe. Before me in line was a trailer trash family:

Mom: Dyed black hair pulled into pigtails; fifty extra pounds; ill-fitting jeans; deep, irritated voice; tattoo on lower back, like a sperm bullseye.

Dad: Sandy blonde hair; four inches shorter than Mom; twenty pounds underweight; dip in lip; high, equally irritated voice.

Grandma: Frazzled, dull brown hair; voice that has seen two packs of Pall Mall Reds a day for forty years.

The boy had a shaved head and the hint of a scar on one cheek. He looked, by all rights, like he should be wearing a little wife-beater and ripped shorts in a dusty Idaho town, helping with the farm chores. Instead, he paced beside his mother, who ordered several drinks, yelling across the store to Dad for his preference. Mom ordered him a drink. The boy watched it being made with a horrified look on his face. He couldn't have been more upset if his mother had ordered him a crushed snails and worms smoothie. The whipped cream was his breaking point: he all but retched at the sight. His mother insisted that he would love it for several minutes, during which he adamantly insisted that he would hate it. "Yull love ih," swore his mother. He won, eventually, and a long conversation ensued with the cafe server over whether anything interesting could be done with the flavored syrups instead.

The boy and I locked eyes for a moment. I smiled, then he smiled. His entire face radiated Smile. It was too much smile. It made me shy, so I looked away, and then he did, too. It looked like he really wanted to smile at somebody.

I should have been annoyed at these people. All I wanted was a cinnamon roll and a bottle of water. But the boy, and then the book I eventually ended up reading while I ate, made it worthwhile.

It was a book written by monks from New Skeet about raising puppies. You can see the cover here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0316578398/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-5203038-6881459#reader-page

This cover is just beautiful.

Apparently, these monks raise German Shephards to support themselves. I read the intro quotes, and there was one I wish I had written down. It was about how, when you realize you are a part of the spiritual world, it is important to remember that you are also a part of the physical world. This is a big step from how I grew up. I became a bit worried about the environment when I was about twelve, and when I brought it up to my grandpa, he told me God had made plenty of stuff on Earth for us to use, and he would take us all Home before it got used up. Which didn't explain all the things that were already extinct and whatnot, but it was nice, comfy reasoning and I didn't question it.

So I liked the idea of these monks raising the dogs to feel part of the physical world, to commune with other beings, to see them as intelligent and worthy of love, an idea I came to only in adulthood.

It reminded me of my preparation classes for Catholocism. My teacher, a stout, no-nonsense, sweet nun, told us one day, "We want you to live a happy life." This caught me off-guard, because my childhood church taught me that life was about suffering, that the true reward came after death. All of the Catholic principles, unsullied by politics and bullshit, is really a roadmap to living a happy life. Ritual, faith, family, support, love.

Before I met my husband, I had been truly free. I had done what and whom I pleased. I cheated and lied and did what I had to do to have what I wanted. I had this beautiful Sex and the City sort of existence, but I was miserable.

The Catholics, and even mean bitch Dr. Laura, have one thing right: happiness, and love, comes from loving and doing for others. That's why family is such a big deal in the Catholic church. That's why leaving a good husband to pursue one's personal destiny is a good way to get screamed at on the Dr. Laura show. They taught me that serving Jesus meant serving my husband and community. Now, it seems ludicrous to me, my family writing checks to a church, showing up four times a week, being self-righteous and horrible to their family, and thinking they're serving Christ.

All of this, and I really meant to write about the mall and my new boots and the strange kid we gave a ride to. I guess it'll have to wait.

posted by Samus @ 11:28 PM