Hard Core Female Pornification

Hello there, I'm back after yet another hiatus. An explanation by way of apology: as my current contract entails me sitting on my ass thinking and tapping on my computer, after several hours of this a day I am not prepared to think and tap on my computer for fun.

I'm sure you understand that while I do like my job and am not complaining, and derive pleasure from writing here, I also derive pleasure from not having shooting pains in my sciatic nerve which is the result of said sitting on one's ass all day. I'm going to cobble together a standing computer station today, to alternate with my sit-down desk to alleviate some of the pressure on the poor old ass.

At the Mayo Clinic, some offices have treadmill computer stations set to a slow amble, and a network of painted lines on the hallway floors throughout the building indicating meeting times of various lengths. For example, a blue line might take 15 minutes to complete, a green 30, etc. This way you can walk and talk versus sitting around the table. May not be practical for large or all meeting, but a good idea, no? Much like consuming too much animal protein, the luxurious state of sitting has become the norm we are both entitled and enslaved to, and from which we suffer from the consequences.

Anyway, I apparently have no problem with laying down, as I'm in bed at 3:48pm on a Sunday dodging the gruesome task of organizing last year's taxes. I've had two concurrent nights of far less than my usual 9-10 hours of winter sleep, both self-induced.

I didn't see my fellow for a few days, or several days (when does few become several, anyway? I think in this case a four-and-a-half day absence is closer to a few, or severfew perhaps). He had visiting relatives staying at his very small house coupled with studying for a midterm and continued (perhaps fruitlessly) sleep-training attempts of a sick 18-month old daughter. As I was busybusy myself with said-ass sitting and thinking, it was three days before I really started to miss him.

So when Friday evening finally rolled around and it didn't look like we were going to see each other, I decided to get my nasty on. I went to the video store to get something I knew was going to make me feel slightly soiled, repelled, bemused and fascinated. Something I could only watch by myself. Yes, I rented Sex and the City 2 (hence effectively answering my own question as to what PMS depths I might plunge to without a good man's steadying influence).

Saying you rent SATC2 for the fashion is kind of like saying you read Playboy for the articles. (Yes, yes, they are present and often excellent, but I don't know many men who beat off to The Walrus despite the excellent articles. On the other hand, select crusty pages are effective book-marks.) There is much expensive, gorgeous frippery and footwear in this film. There is also the repelling and fascinating underbelly of modern femininity exposed--not in a chaste, peep-show kind of way but in an exultant and wanton fashion.

Here's the story, in as far as it goes. Writer Carrie Bradshaw is now a rich man's wife, and is growing restless with the domesticity associated with marriage. Said domesticity being a man who either cooks or picks up take-out each night after his full-time job, and who would rather snuggle in bed watching old movies with his wife than attend glitzy premieres for bad movies. (For the record, however, I too balk at the idea of having a television in the bedroom for anything else but the occasional movie.) He gets a tv installed in the bedroom in a clumsy show of affection (Now we can watch movies in bed together!). Her reaction is to pout that she'd much have preferred a piece of jewelry. I feel your pain, Carrie. You are entitled to a piece of jewelry to go with one of the outfits you pick up at Bergdorf throughout the course of your exhausting full-time job as professional subsidized shopper.

Her pals lead an equally horrific existence. Doe-eyed village idiot Charlotte has a buxom Irish nanny she worries will seduce her Lex Luthor husband, though he is inexplicably devoted to her. Miranda, now the most sympathetic of characters and that ain't saying much, has an overbearing sexist boss at her law firm. Luckily, her own buck-toothed castrati of a husband gives her no grief since she had him fixed after his adulterous dalliance of SATC1.

The prancing Id which is Samantha is getting older. She is fighting this pernicious malady with the science contained in the literature of Suzanne Somers. This ongoing, Chrissy-led war against aging entitles her to take drastic action, and damn the torpedoes. In one scene, she sits in a glass cube of an office with her panties lowered, subjecting the secretary to the sight of her smearing hormone cream on her vagina while seated at her desk and flirting on the phone. (Decorum aside, all I could think was what manner of bacterium lived on that woman's keyboard. But really. Let us think of say, a Michael Douglas or Colin Firth lathering their genitals with invigorating anti-aging balms in similar circumstance, and you have a much different story.)

The plot thickens when Sam is offered an all-expense paid trip to the United Arab Emirates for her and the three cronies. Off they go to exult in fabulous unearned luxury, thanks to the largesse of an oil-rich sheik and the mostly unseen back-breaking labour of economic migrants. It is a relief to see the ladies glide without any qualms of social justice into an opulent suite, where their every need is anticipated. They parade about in a variety of costumes until Grave Problems present themselves.

Catalysed by a bad review of her book, Carrie applies kohl eyeliner and goads an ex into kissing her, and confesses long-distance to the unimpressed husband. In the meantime, lusty Sam's shenanigans get them effectively kicked out of a situation they realize they can't afford themselves.

However, they do throw some shout-outs to the little people--namely, a literal toast to those women raising children without full-time help (a weak and shameless attempt to pander to the audience); and the oppression of women in conservative Muslim countries. Luckily it turns out those lucky ladies rock their fashion underneath their niqabs and burqas, and are up on their Suzanne Somers, so the gals can carry on without too much worry there. Yay!

The story is meant to be light and frothy. However, it is no harmless cappucino foam to indulge in once in a while. No, it is the sickly yellow froth of a form of vaginitis found in many wealthier regions of the modern world. It signals disease associated with a rampant and thoughtless consumerism, that in its own way is way sicker than anything portrayed in film with regard to modern male ambition. At least Gordon Gekko steals his own money and is tormented by knowledge of his own pathology. These women are not only for the most part amoral parasites, they feel entitled to it as women. This flips the fundamental feminist precept of "Equality for all" into "Sure, but gimme more because I'm fabulous!"

It is, in a word, appalling. And so fucking enjoyable in a sick way! Because these women are so idiotic and repellent and unrealistic that one can't help a) steering clear of any such behaviours oneself and b) having more sympathy with men whose wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters and co-workers fall for this claptrap and act out diluted versions.

The original SATC series was light and yet ballsy. You wanted to hang out with these gals, they were funny and fun even in their materialistic neuroses. The braying broads they've become, however, are not people you would want to be seated next to in a restaurant, much less associate with. And incidentally, the outfits veered into the comically ludicrous in their high-fashionedness. Anyway, I knew the movie would be a hideous spectacle.

It seemed like a good capper to my failed attempt at reading Eat, Pray, Love. At first I put my game-face on, treating it like satire. Much like American Psycho, this Liz initially seems an interesting monster. Interminably crying on bathroom floors, making rash and immature choices under the guise of a mid-life crisis at the ripe old age of 32 or 34 or whatever advanced number causes her to lose her fucking mind, Liz is a piece of work.

Unfortunately, she is also banal in the extreme, not murderous in a fun Fatal Attraction lunatic way and not a good writer. She chortles on about gelato flavours and Italians that is reminscent of the hysterically adventurous Ms. Lavish lampooned by E.M. Forster in A Room With A View (written 80 or so years ago by a man, it is in its own right a far more interesting look at the constraints of femininity).

Sigh. I could not continue with Eat, Pray, Love. It did not "speak" to me. It did not make me want to fly off on my own journey of self-discovery. I started thinking of it as Eat, Bray, Shove (It), or Eat-Pray-Hurl. Riffing on the title soon proved more satisfying than finishing the damn thing, so I've cast it aside.

One more thing, though. After my break-up (now coming on two years), I'd given serious thought to going to post-graduate school in the Big City, or travelling the world learning martial arts to turn myself into the lethal assassin I'd always imagined myself to become with adulthood.

However, these escapes did not pan out, for various reasons. While I'm sure they would have been interesting, even potentially great misadventures, I came to recognize that I have a good life, with good people in it. Also, day-to-day life is absurd and interesting enough without me traipsing around the planet exposing myself to ringworm or malaria. The idea of my own memoir Fight, Fuck, Flee was a good one, but ultimately a reactionary one natural to the dissolution of Life As We Know It. There's no embarrassment of having had this reaction, but neither is there any glory in it.

There might be some small glory in appreciating a good life. There may be a muted dignity in loving the people in your life, and plunking along grateful for good work and the adoration of pets and a full pantry and a nice bottle of Scotch on your windowsill, despite the myriad small inconveniences of taxes and muscle aches and vehicle quirks. Mostly, there's comfort in being satisfied without being self-satisfied, and growing stronger without becoming a monstrous, shallow asshole.

I plan on doing a ceremonial burn of the Gilbert at the first outdoor bbq of the year. Hope you can make it to the premiere and one-time performance of Eat, Laugh, Burn Motherfucker Burn. It promises to be fabulous!

With matches in hand,

GR