lumière des étoiles

still brain squidgy
2005-04-28 3:27 p.m.

rrrr; I forgot to add the following to my list of "badies" when I wrote last: Justice Sunday, Florida's creepy new Shoot First law (gold star, cousin Jeb!), and Ann Coulter, that shrewish old harpie.

I also have to ask - why the sudden ado about Condoleeza Rice's single status? I wince every time I read her defend herself in the press for never having married: "I don't see these as choices somehow. I see them as the way life has unfolded. I have a tremendously full life," she said. Such attention is no shock, really - when she was first sworn in as Secretary of State, I read a lengthy piece in a reputable magazine about her choice of shoes and her hairstyle. I don't recall ever reading such about Colin Powell, but I digress. Such is the gender-biased perspective we cling to in this country. It's no surprise that there's a double standard and we obsess over why on earth any woman would ever choose to remain single. My question is, why now? Not twice, but three times - thrice, if you like - this week I read or watched her make these statements, all squidgy and a bit uncomfortable. Why now? What did I miss? And why do we care?

I don't know if this is better or worse than all the hoopla over the outfit she wore to some international conference a few months ago: a dress and knee high boots. Pictures of her in this non-descript, truly neutral outfit were splashed all over the media, and she was asked to comment about it. This, when I - personally speaking - would much rather the interviewer ask her oh, I don't know, POLITICAL QUESTIONS. There's quite a lot going on these days, you know.

As much as I dislike Jane Pratt's petty and self-congratulatory magazine Jane, I do remember a few years ago that one of her writers lined up a bunch of male rock musicians: Thurston Moore, Dave Grohl, Steven Tyler, etc., and conducted an interview that asked generic, to-be-expected questions at first (touring, composing, writing lyrics), but then outfit/hair/make-up questions toward the end. Their point was well taken: women musicians often get asked in perfunctory, obligatory ways about music or their art, but then eventually get dragged into discussing their hair and make-up. The same is not true for men, which is why Dave Grohl's genuine confusion and annoyance over the question "how many pairs of shoes do you own?" was so hi-larious.

It's raining and windy now - it had been so beautiful the last week, and it's turned a bit cold again here. It's no bother to me, really; this weather reminds me of traveling through Ireland with my mum a few years ago, something we promised each other to do again, and soon.

I haven't been witness to or involved in a "family vacation" (of multiple family members, at least) in a long time, and I'm wondering if we'd all get on each others' nerves less now that we spend so much time apart. I truly haven't seen brother B in about a month - he's busy with his new house and work and what-not. Brother A is also busy with his kids and work, but since I've been baby sitting and working hard with him to get our mother's day present squared away, I've seen him a lot more.

Would we kill each other if we did finally take that cruise to Alaska together? Brother A is quite a loner, and most definitely needs his space. Brother B gets cranky and defensive when he's sleep deprived. And I'm either a royal pain in the arse or ironically distant when I'm around more than three people for extended periods of time.

I think it might be a go in some future year, though - truthfully, nothing would make me happier. I love my family so much, and when I think about how infrequently I see them sometimes, I get really sad.

So I'll move on, since rain + this train of thought might just ruin the rest of my day. I started thinking about family trips again the other day since I saw that on The Amazing Race, they're soliciting whole families to sign up for their next season. They must have some criteria for how many people constitutes a "family", but I don't think it has to be nuclear or anything. So last time I was talking to my cousins Sarah and Ben, we had a grand old time imagining different combinations of people from our family who would probably have to a) quit after the first week because they'd be quarreling so much - about things other than the race or b) quit after the first week because they couldn't be without their hair-dryer/chardonnay/gummy-bears/digital cable. It was all in good fun, no harm no foul. But it really wouldn't be funny unless you knew grandma so-and-so and uncle what's-his-name, and could imagine them having to work together as a team to search some tower in the middle of Berlin for some key to a clue box.

Yikes, I just looked at the time. I'm meeting Nicole for coffee and a little shopping in an hour, and I'm going to be late as usual. Hopefully she will be too.