loads and ladies

My sister and I were discussing the popularity of a certain blog the other day, how the gal made a million dollars on it last year and that, even before the book and movie deal. Is it her recipes we wondered, or the way she calls her hubby Marlboro Man, or maybe that recording of her burping, or possibly because people read it and imagine themselves in her shoes, what life would be like if they were her. And that's when I realized this whole this is my life and if I can do it so can you take has been way off course. What was I thinking? We had a good laugh imagining anyone wanting to put themselves in my shoes. First of all, what big shoes you have my dear and how 1970s of you to be wearing, how shall I say this nicely? such a stylelessly out-of-step pair. Secondly, hello, the part of the story and usually in the prologue or maybe back there on the jacket flap, where little Miss heretofore unknown and out of nowhere and no money whatsoever and re-using an old envelope that had the notice in it to send in that manuscript, nursing the one latte all day in the same cafe writing while the baby slept thus avoiding her heatless flat and now richer than the queen and with movie number seven part II, richer than the queen's god, is where it gets good. I, however, am not yet to that part of my story, despite many pages and even the chapter about the heatless home, so for now all my readers can imagine is life on the edge and how the fall and the climb seem equally daunting, if not damn near impossible. Who has time for that sort of reality? Now, if I threw in a bit of Amy Winehouse and maybe some drama and drugs, who knows.

I have done my share of reading, okay, maybe even a bit too much, all those days in school when the door said Geometry and the book I was reading said Lost Horizons. The truth is that there are really only two stories, despite the costume variations: the one where she gets burned at the stake and the whole village gathers to watch, or the one where she pulls it out of her pocket, shoots the mean guy in the knee, uses the noose that would have had her hanging to swing over the crowd and then onto the back of her trusty steed, off she rides into the sunset. In the former, despite good intentions or maybe an ill wind fanning the flames or else blowing them away and causing  the whole ordeal to drag on, no matter really, our girl Jane does not make it. We suffer with her and want to smack the onlookers, though really, them are us: vicariously wiping our forehead with a collective whew, thank god that wasn't me. We want her to get (oh! I just love a good multiple choice) a) her man, b) her man and his money, c) her own damn money or fame, or at least, out of that shoe and away from all those snot-nosed children. Only, she doesn't, and the slap in the face is to her and us both: take that, ouch, for ever thinking you could a) be, b) do, c) speak, talk, or walk the different path. The world loves a good heretic, especially when reminded how risky and in the end, don't even go there. Better to sit on one's tuffet and enjoy whatever one eats quietly while the acromantulas of the world have their way.

Maybe it's time to rethink the odd slant I've been on, the it doesn't have to be that way just because they say so take. The ending isn't pretty, and really, I'm no big fan of martyrdom. For one the clothes are a bit too Eileen Fisher meets potato famine, and it pretty much axes the chance for a sequel.

In the latter version, our girl kicks some serious ass. And she does it in her own way, maybe with a spatula and who said doughnuts have to be sweet or that chili-infused peach jam doesn't make a great pancake sauce, especially when the cakes are blue corn. Or maybe, a dipping sauce for neo hush puppies! The bottom line is that she uses the rope she's been given, which is really the choice we all have in life: to use the rope to our advantage, or to hang ourselves. Either way, we are given a bit of rope and it's up to each of us to decide what to do with it.

Now, if I could just get hubby to agree to me calling him Working Class White Man, I might be on to something.