It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard’s pear tree. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of Maybe Next Year….
As in, maybe next year November will return to being one of my favorite months. But for now, good riddance.
November was a trying month, in many ways and for many reasons. Its devastations included the death of a friend, a lovely, the-world-was-a-better-place-with-him-in-it person, followed by the election of a the-world-will-be-a-wretched-place-with-him-and-his-henchmen-in power, despicable excuse for an arrangement of DNA. The latter event contributed to my continuing disenchantment with the apparent values, cognitive abilities and perceptions of a good deal of my fellow Americans.
Still, there are good people still willing to fight the good fights, and there are Santa hats on the flamingoes. What were those wise words of…who was it, Epicurus? Paul McCartney?Obladi; obladah; life goes on, brah.
* * *
Department Of Overheard Foolishness
I thought moiself was done for the year, when it comes to explaining the holiday season to those whose certainty about their religion being the reason for the seasonis directly proportional to their ignorance of the historical facts behind what came to be known as Christmas. But, nooooooooo, I had to overhear a couple of Happy Holidays-HatingHalfwits carping about the subject at a grocery store. [2]
The HHHH most likely don’t read my blog (poor deprived dears). If they did, they’d know that I run moiself’s annual blog post re the winter/fall holiday season origins on the Friday before Halloween, which was October 25 this year. On the chance you have even a mosquito’s bunion’s amount of interest in being prepared should you encounter a HHHH, you can refresh (or repulse, or another re- reaction) yourself, here ( “The Holiday War I’m (Still) Not Declaring” ). Or, for another rational take on the subject, treat yourself to journalist/religious studies graduate/author David G. McAfee’s entertaining and informative article on the subject – teasers to follow.
“Contrary to what you might believe if you’ve been fed a steady diet of right wing
propaganda over the last few decades, atheists don’t spend the holiday season
eagerly waiting for someone to wish them a “Merry Christmas!” so that they can
pounce on them insult their faith or file a lawsuit.
In other words, there is no “war on Christmas“…. … I and many other atheists enjoy celebrating as much as anyone else does
on December 25. We might visit family, exchange gifts, overeat and do all the
other Christmas things… In fact, a Pew Research Center study from 2013 showed that more than 80%
of non-Christians in the U.S. also celebrated Christmas…. So…why do atheists and other non-Christians want to celebrate
the birth of Jesus Christ, whom they don’t believe is divine?
The quick answer is that we don’t.
The fact is that the date of December 25 has about as much to do with Jesus as any
other date on the calendar, and that date is most certainly not the actual birthdate
of Jesus of Nazareth. [4]
So, if the source isn’t biblical, how was December 25 first linked to Jesus’ birth?
Prior to the existence of Christmas…Romans already had multiple celebrations
around that same time of the year, as did many others around the world….
First, there was Saturnalia, which included feasting and gift exchange and
preceded a December 25 celebration of Sol Invictus, a Roman sun god.
December 25 also became associated with the god Mithra….
During the fourth century, during emperor Constantine’s reign, it was the
Catholic Church that decided to make Jesus’ birthday a formal holiday and set
that date for December 25, centuries after Jesus was said to have lived….
In modern times, Christmas is often treated as the sole December 25 holiday,
with some Christiansrefusing to acknowledge those that came prior to their holy
celebration – or that some Christian groups mark Christmas on a different date,
such as January 6, 7 or 19.”
( read the rest of the article here: “Atheists aren’t fighting a ‘war on Christmas’ – many of us even celebrate it. Christians don’t own the idea of a winter celebration.” By David G. McAfee, Salon, 12- 2022 )
* * *
Department Of A Blast From The Past
What turned out to be the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?! [5] friend gave me (was it really over a dozen years ago?) for writing a blog was that the blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. As in, I would have a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind during a certain period of time. And now, that’s what I have.
I was feeling curious this week, about what was on my mind a year ago, early December. Here is a sample from my blog of 12-8-23 ( The Oracles I’m Not Consulting ):
Department Am I So Lucky To Have Raised A Science *And* Film Nerd?
Dateline: last Saturday, circa 8:50 am. The following IM message chat ensued between daughter Belle and moiself, after she’d IM’d me the previous evening to let me know she was going to see the new Godzillamovie.
Belle: OkayGodzilla Minus One was AWESOME…. I know I recommend a lot of movies but I RECOMMEND this one.
Moiself: I will see it for sure…We’ll see if I can drag MH to it.
Belle: It’s a pretty low budget film, but the combination of practical and special effects is really well done, and the story is really solid. I also really like the Godzilla design.
Moiself : He doesn’t have a peewee head, I hope. In some past ones his head was out of proportion to his body, IMO.
Belle: Sorry, his head is tiny haha.
Moiself: 😵💫
Belle: … the tiny head had never really bothered me. It makes sense for a lizard that lives in land and water. It’s an aerodynamic shape; and, I think the canon is that he feeds off of radiation, so he technically doesn’t need a big mouth to eat anything
Moiself: This conversation is so going in my next blog post.
You are right, of course. I think I’m reacting to having been imprinted on the original Godzilla, in which he had a much bigger head, more like a T-rex, but your commentary on the design makes sense.
Belle: Because of course the anatomy of a giant radiation-consuming lizard has to make evolutionary sense!
Moiself: Doesn’t the radiation trump evolution here?
Belle: Exactly lol, I’m saying it’s kinda silly to assume the small head is because he doesn’t need to eat things when it’s a totally made-up monster. But I like the case of evolution gone totally haywire. That’s more fun.
* * *
May you enjoy serious discussions re the size of a movie monster’s head with someone you love; May you be the good people still willing to fight the good fights; May you convert to pacifism anyone foolish enough to declare that people are declaring a war on any holiday;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago.
[2] Commiserating over being wished “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”
[3] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[4] “In fact, according to Luke 2:8, there were “shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” on the date of Jesus’ birth, which would indicate a day more closely tied to springtime (due to weather conditions), according to the story. Other clues, including the biblical description of the alignment of the stars on the night that Jesus was born, back up that Jesus was likely born sometime in the spring, not winter.”
[5] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.
The post is a part two, meant to be read as companion piece to part one, my post of 4-7-23 ( The Upbringing I’m Not Regretting ). Cliff notes preview: the subject for part two is my leaving “the church” – specifically, how I told my pastor (but first told moiself ) that I was doing so, via a dream that I’d had.
My dreams range from pastiches of images/seemingly random blurbs from the previous day’s events, to straightforward narratives of events or scenarios realized, to Cecil B. DeMille [1] style, cast-of-thousands epics, with the occasional/random celebrity cameo. I think that the scenarios and images contained in my dreams can be
* both profound and significant, with my unconscious mind using my dreams to work on puzzles, or try to message my conscious mind;
* due to the random firing of neurons stimulating the brain’s centers of memory and creativity;
* everything above and beyond and in between.
I had a class in college wherein dream interpretation was mentioned and briefly discussed, [2] and for a couple of months after that, I kept a dream journal. Upon waking in the morning – or sometimes in the middle of the night, when one of my dreams was either so intense or ludicrous that my brain decided to rouse me from sleep with a what the hell was that? – I wrote down whatever dreams I could remember. I wrote what I wrote and put that journal away until the next dream; I purposefully did not read the journal entries until several months had passed. My idea was to try to view what I’d dreamed with new (or newer) eyes and perspective.
When I did go back and read them, I was astonished. Employing images and scenarios that were in turns realistic, fanciful, or outrageous, my brain apparently was using my dreams to work out/try to identify ongoing dilemmas relating to my school studies, my job, my boyfriend(s), my relationships with my apartment mates, my past, present, and future… Yeah, like, that would be, My Life ® .
My subconscious mind – likely the hippocampus, an area in the temporal lobe which is believed to be key in dreaming and imagination, and not to be confused with the part of a college where large semiaquatic mammals native to sub-Saharan Africa hang out….
“Are you sure this is the way to the dining commons?”
I’ll try that again.
My subconscious mind – likely the hippocampus, an area in the temporal lobe which is believed to be key in dreaming and imagination – knew things that my conscious mind was apparently unable or unwilling to deal with. And in that sense, my dreams were my attempt to send a message to moiself.
Although I was fascinated (and at times embarrassed) to read my dreams, I was busy with work and classes, and fell out of the habit of writing them down. Then,
As in, Hillsboro, OR, one winter weekend morning almost twenty years ago.
Moiself awoke in a state of some agitation. As MH and I packed up the car and kids for our day trip to Mt. Hood, I asked if he would mind driving as I needed to “…write something down.” Once we were on the road I opened the blank spiral notebook I’d grabbed at the last minute and wrote down the source of my agitation: the early morning dream I’d had.
I hadn’t consistently written down my dreams since college. This time after writing down my dream I did not set the notebook aside, but read through it again…and again…and again. Later that day, after we’d returned to Hillsboro, I told MH about my dream. I told MH that my brain was sending me a gigantamous, face-palm of a message:
You. Have. To. Leave.
You have to leave “the church;” as in, religious attendance and affiliation.
Your involvement has served its purposes (see 4-7-23 post for what that was).
Continued involvement, even in the liberal/progressive UCC, will not only give you an increasingly severe case of cognitive and ethical dissonance but will actually be harmful to the children you are trying to educate and raise with integrity.
I stopped going to church.
The pastor of the church (“Pastor D____”) our family attended was a person I liked and admired, as well as being one of the most well-read people I have ever met. A month or so after I’d had the dream she called to ask me if she could take me to lunch to discuss why I had left the church. Sure, I said, then asked if I could email her the narrative of my dream, so that she could read it before we met up. [3] Pastor D____ agreed, which probably accounted for the pleasant lunch that we had.
D____ in no way tried to refute or chastise me, or convince me that my decision was wrong. In fact, she told me that after reading my account of my dream she’d realized that, “Yes, it’s true, you don’t belong in the church.”
Yup; really.
And we enjoyed our chai teas and the Indian restaurant’s ample lunch buffet, and talked about…other stuff.
Over the years I’d shared my perspectives on Christian theology with D____, and through my participation in the weekly nonfiction book [4] group that she led, she was aware that I was not a “true believer,” even when it came into the UCC’s liberal theological/social gospel interpretations. What she was not aware of was that when it became my turn to serve as a deacon [5] and I was setting up for a church service, I would perform my own little acts of dissension, such as (but not limited to) the following.
In our church there was an enormous King James Bible kept on a platform behind the altar (the hefty tome had been donated by two church member in honor of their late son; the UCC is not a King James-ish denomination when it comes to bible translations ). It was customary to have that bible open to the pages of whatever Old Testament reading had been chosen for that particular Sunday’s service (even though, with extremely rare exceptions, the laypersons doing the scripture readings did not read from that KJ bible). When doing my Deacon set-up tasks, instead of opening that bible to the page(s) featuring the morning reading I would find a nearby page which contained a particularly odious passage, such as the Psalm which lauds dashing the infants of one’s enemies upon rocks ( Psalm 137) , or the Hebrew god’s directions of how and when to kidnap and rape women (Judges 21:10-24; Numbers 31:7-18, ad nauseum….) or the story of Yaweh sending bears to maul boys who had teased a prophet about his baldness (2 Kings 2:23)….
I hadn’t told Pastor D____ about that little petty prank of mine. I had told her other things, and she’s always assured me that those beliefs/disbeliefs of mine, those “arguments” I had with the tents of religion, were exactly why my presence and perspective was needed in church. Thus, during our lunch, after having read my dream, D____ apparently felt no need to discuss my reasons with me. She did say at one point that while it came as a disappointment to her that I was leaving (the church), it did *not* come as a surprise, considering how I’d “…made many close friendships with __________” (she named several people who had attended the church at one point, and then left).
Much like writing down a dream, setting it aside and thinking about it later, that remark of Pastor D___’s came back to me. When I shared it with MH, he reached the same conclusion about/interpretation of it, as moiself:
“In a way it’s like she *wants* you to go,
before you stay longer and influence others to leave as well.”
And now, the dream (followed by my thoughts about it, written later that same day, after I’d reread what I’d written):
* * *
The Dream ® : early Wednesday morning, April 20, 2005
I am looking at an old house that is for sale. Design or style-wise, it is a combination Victorian and what I call “Grandma house,” with many classic features, from the glass & brass doorknobs to hardwood floors, moldings, built-ins, and exceptional woodwork.
Pastor D___ is showing me the house. I’m unclear as to whether she is selling it; i.e., whether it is her house that is for sale, or whether she is acting as an agent for another party. The house has been newly remodeled and upgraded; I glance out a window and see workmen, their trucks parked in front of the house, packing up ladders and painting supplies. D___ tells me about the new plumbing and points out the fresh paint in many of the rooms and talks about the upgrades, which are very eye-catching.
Then I see the basement/first floor (I’m not sure which it was; we seemed to start touring the house in the middle floor, and the house had at least three floors), and I am astonished. The basement/ground floor is an absolute disaster. Its wooden flooring is old and rotting; paint has been randomly flung on the walls; floorboards and moldings are missing or pulled out and splintered, light fixtures are missing or damaged, woodchips and sawdust litter the floors…. I ask D____ if the remodeling will be finished soon, possibly by the workmen I’d seen outside? No, she tells me, they are packing up and not returning – they’re finished with this particular house.
D____ senses my disappointment, and points out that I can finish the job myself or hire another remodeling crew…and then she offers to lower the price to $305,000. (I can’t remember the asking price, but it was a good deal higher). I know that 305k would be a good price – a great deal, really – for that kind of house, if the house was in top condition, but its ground floor needs BIU extensive work, and I have neither the time, the skills, nor the desire to do it myself. I add up the time, materials and labor costs, estimating what it would take to get the floor in shape (I’ve been looking at similar style houses for some time and have comparison prices in my head) and am quite discouraged, as it would be less costly to just tear the place down and start over.
I tell D____ that I appreciate her showing me the house, and while it may be a good price for what it is, I just can’t buy it.
* * *
I just can’t buy it.
How obvious can my subconscious get?!?! The last line of my dream, not-so-subtly screaming out what’s been eating at me.
(And it is about what’s eating me. Despite K’s and Belle’s discussing their objections to bible-religion/”church stuff” with me over the years, they were not in the dream, nor was MH.)
I like many things about the UCC Hillsboro congregation in particular and the UCC denomination in general. But, for all our/their remodeling, they are still a Christian church in a Christian denomination, and the ground floor — Christian theology in particular, religion in general — is, to me, a mess: archaic, in shambles, needing to be replaced or simply razed. I also love, respect and admire Pastor D____ for what she is, and for what she does and tries to do. I appreciate the “deal” she has made for (people like) me, but I can’t buy it. I can’t buy Christianity – even the laissez-faire, UCC brand – for what it is.
I’m certain that there have been several recent triggers for this dream, including the Sunday when a family from our kids’ school attended our church. There was a baptism, and I remembered experiencing discomfort and even embarrassment on their behalf (or mine?) when I listened to – actually paid attention to – the baptism liturgy and thought, yet again, I don’t believe this stuff. That the “waters of baptism” confer any special blessing or standing – that’s voodoo/chicken bones talk. Much if not all of it is symbolic and/or metaphorical, I realize, but that’s not what was said (and then, what’s the point for using the symbols and metaphors?). The new member class I attended (as a longtime member who was there to meet potential new members) also brought uncomfortable issues to mind, as does almost any meeting where church policy related to theology is discussed. The new member attendees were all pleasant people, but listening to their experiences and ideas of what a church is or should be was awkward for me. When ZM mentioned how she was unfamiliar with the Bible, having grown up in a Hindu household, and was learning about it through the children’s sermon and her daughter’s children’s Bible, I found myself wanting to blurt out, RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!, or at least, “Don’t go any further than the kiddie version, or you might not like what you find.”
These feelings are nothing new to me. Participating in a “worship” service of any kind has always been a matter of toleration, as I find the whole concept itself to be silly at best. I don’t know what this means in terms of practical application; it’s not like I feel I must Leave The Church ® this very moment.*** I think they/we are mostly trying to do good in the world, and I enjoy the community. But the intensity of my concerns has increased…and it’s not just a social club, it’s a church. The community, as nice as I may find the members, is based on and organized around the false premises of religion, and I’m not good at pretending to not know what I know.
The intellectual dishonesty of the rationale for continuing to participate in church stuff – to support a more liberal group to help counter the Right/conservative religious voice (aka the “voting for moderates” justification, as per MH’s reason for why he remains registered as a Republican) – is no longer enough, for me. By being part of a religion, even a relatively progressive one, I lend credence to ideas that, in their application, are dangerous and just plain wrong, including
(1) the standards of reason, judgment and evidence I apply to every otherfacet of life may be set aside for matters of “faith;”
(2) extraordinary propositions can be believed without evidence;
(3) that, by applying interpretation and razor’s edge scholarship (read: by rationalizing myth, fallacy, ignorance and atrocity) the Christian bible – or anyone’s bible – is an appropriate and even a good lens through which humanity may view present day circumstances.
When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world – not even in infinite space. I was free – free to think, to express my thoughts – free to live to my own ideal – free to live for myself and those I loved — free to use all my faculties, all my senses – free to spread imagination’s wings – free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope – free to judge and determine for myself – free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past – free from popes and priests – free from all the “called” and “set apart” – free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies – free from the fear of eternal pain – free from the winged monsters of the night – free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free.
(as quoted, in Leaving Christianity, from Why I Am Agnostic, by Robert Green Ingersoll. Ingersoll [1833-1899], nicknamed “the great agnostic,” was American politician and orator, humanistic and scientific rationalism philosopher during the Golden Age of Freethought [7] )
* * *
Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…
I love it when my dreams are stylishly consistent.
Example: Godzilla once had a cameo in a dream of mine. The dream had started in color, switched to black and white during Godzilla’s scene, then went back to color when Godzilla left. Up until then, the only Godzilla movies I’d seen were filmed in B & W.
* * *
May you remember the dreams that are worth remembering; May you remember that any dream you remember is worth remembering; May you pay attention to what your subconscious is telling you; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
*** Even though I did.
[1] Am I dating moiself with that reference? Should I use Spielberg, or Nolan, or Cameron, or the casts-of-thousands directors of today? But then, today’s cast of thousands are maybe a cast of 6 actual actors with 1,974 CGIs….
[2] The jist of the discussion being that no dream can “mean” anything out of context for the one doing the dreaming – no object in th dream “represents” any thing or idea for all people. Or as that influential but misogynistic man of his times/founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud once admitted, Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
[3] I made no formal proclamation of dissociation or anything like that; I didn’t even really tell anyone. I just stopped going. MH was not ready to do the same, so he continued for a few weeks, taking the kids at first. When our offspring realized they had a choice, they elected to stay home with me. We were all still in the habit of having a certain amount of hours set aside on Sunday, and used that time to go to nearby city park, taking our trigger-handled trash grabbers and large trash bags. We’d roam the grounds of the park, picking up the plethora of garbage (fast food wrappers, beer bottle caps, etc.) which the park users somehow neglected to escort to the park’s many and ample trash bins.
[4] Subjects ranging from science and theology, comparative religion, religious history, critiques of religion….
[5] Duties vary widely between denominations and congregations, but generally a deacon is a church member who helps out the pastor and/or church members with, for example, setting up the sanctuary for the church service and then cleaning up afterward.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[7] “The Golden Age of Freethought is the mid-19th-century period in United States history which saw the development of the socio-political movement promoting freethought. Anti-authoritarian and intellectually liberating historical eras had existed many times in history, notably in eighteenth century France. But the period roughly from 1875 to 1914 is referred to by at least one contemporary writer as “the high-water mark of freethought as an influential movement in American society”…. Freethought is a philosophical position that holds that ideas and opinions should be based on science and reason, and not restricted by authority, tradition, or religion. It is characteristic of the 18th century Enlightenment but hardly confined to any one epoch or place. The late nineteenth century American Golden Age was encouraged by the lectures of the extremely popular agnostic orator Robert Green Ingersoll, the popularization of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the push for women’s suffrage, and other political, scientific, and social trends that clashed with religious orthodoxy and caused people to question the traditional ideas about the world that they encountered in received opinion.” (excerpts, Wikipedia, The Golden Age of Freethought )
Dateline: last Thursday, ~ 7:30pm, Trivia night at MacGregor’s Whiskey Bar, Manzanita. It is round two of three, and my neighbor/friend/trivia partner JK and I are in a fierce battle for first place.
The category is Greek mythology, and the question is, “Who was the wife ofHades, god of the Underworld?” When I call out, “Melania!” a competitor on another team suggests I should get at least two points “for style.” [1]
“Key non-human players in “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” include Godzilla, whose head remains touchingly small for his body…“
Godzilla, from the original movie.
Godzilla Shin, from the 2016 film.
The latest. Why is his head shrinking?
* * *
Department of Complisults
Last week I hear the word used on a podcast, and it sent me down Memory Lane, so to speak: Complisult.
You know what it is, even if your first thought was that it’s just my spellchecker on vacation. You’ve likely had a complisult flung your way a time or two, by a frenemy[2] or (more likely) a well-meaning, we-just-want-you-to-be-happy parent or other relative. They start out giving you a compliment, or at least saying something positive…which quickly morphs into critique, or even insult.
“So good to see you, my little sweetie! Let’s ask Mommy where your older, prettier, smarter sister is.”
Both of my parents, despite their otherwise loving natures, were adept at giving me complisults. [3] Two examples immediately spring to mind, even though these happened decades ago. [4]
Example the First
Dateline: unsure (the following conversation happened twice, once in person during a visit with my folks at their home, and once during a phone call. Dialogue almost identical in both instances).
In answer to my parents’ How-is-it-going/anything new being published?query, I said I was happy to have a story of mine accepted for publication in a journal I’d long admired.
Complisulting parents: “That’s nice! Is it something we can actually find…how can we get a copy?”
Moiself (laughing): “You should appreciate this – unlike my last six or seven stories, this journal has a national distribution, so you can go to a local bookstore that carries literary journals and ask….”
Complisulting parents: “Hey, did you that Connie Washington had a story in the Reader’s Digest? It’s so great that she’s writing for Reader’s Digest!”
“Connie Washington,” is the daughter of my parents’ neighbors. I’ve known Connie since junior high school – she is also a writer, in a different field (journalism/nonfiction; mostly science reporting) from mine.
Like 99% of the pieces which appear in Reader’s Digest, Connie’s was an edited reprint, of an article she’d had previously published in a science journal. This is how RD has worked since its 1920s inception: its founder thought it would be a good idea to collect articles on different subjects from a variety of monthly journals, edit and/or condense them, and combine them into one magazine. The RD staff consists of editors; no writer technically “writes for” Reader’s Digest, as in, pens original material for them. No matter how many times I’d remind my parents of this fact, they never seemed to get it.
Moiself : “It’s great that her article is in there – I hear they pay well! But, you do know Connie’s not actually writing for Reader’s Digest. As I’ve mentioned before, she’s currently a staff writer for Science Weekly and…”
Complisulting parents: “Well, now people will actually read what she’s written. Have you ever thought of writing for Reader’s Digest?”
Moiself:“Okay; one more time: no one writes ‘for’ Reader’s Digest. Also, RD doesn’t accept original short fiction….”
Substitute Saturday Evening Post, or other old timey magazines – or even Time and Newsweek – for Reader’s Digest in Have you ever thought of writing for Reader’s Digest?”
With every publication of a story of mine, my parents would offer congratulations, then find ways to remind me that the venues publishing my works weren’t a part of their world (translation: not important).
Complisulting parents: “You really should consider sending stories to Reader’s Digest. And what’s that big magazine we saw at the market the other day – with the glossy cover pictures – Omni or something? That looked interesting.”
My parents were the last people from whom I’d even consider seeking where-I-should-be-sending-my-work advice: their knowledge of the publishing world was bupkis, and their familiarity with literary fiction even less. Naturally, therefore, they were generous (surprise!) with unsolicited ideas as to where I should send my work, suggesting venues which were always inappropriate (and sometimes, unintentionally, amusing non sequiturs)…forcing me to reply with a never-ending series of reality checks:
“Uh…that magazine went out of business five years ago.”
“That journal no longer publishes fiction.”
“That magazine publishes genre fiction; you know I don’t write ____ (sci-fi; Harlequin Romances; vampire murder mysteries….)
“That journal only publishes staff writers or agented writers – no unsolicited material.”
“Holy crap for not paying attention [5] – since when, as in, never, has US News and World Report ever published fiction?!”
“Yes, honey, Winnie-the-Pooh is a nice story, but if the author was a real writer he’d have chapters of it in Reader’s Digest.”
Example The Second
I was a single adult for a long time (I was 31 when I married MH). Despite having a couple of mostly great beaus along the way [6] I thought being a singleton would be my permanent state, which was fine by moiself. When my parents observed that my goals in life seemingly did not include finding a partner in life, my father took every opportunity to mention to me that his marriage and children were his greatest joy and achievement.
Although they never directly criticized my remaining single, during our weekly phone calls it became evident that such a status – one I viewed as fitting and natural for moiself – was somehow seen by my parents as a loss (or even aberration).
Complisulting parents: “And what did you do this weekend?”
Moiself: “Saturday I went to the San Antonio Wilderness Preserve, and saw….”
Complisulting parents: “Another hike? That sounds fun. We saw Margaret Denton’s parents in church. Did you hear that Margaret and Tom Crocker are engaged?”
Moiself: “I didn’t; no surprise, though. Congratulations to them.”
Complisulting parents: “Have you thought of doing something different with your hair? There were so many boys who admired you in high school…. [7]
My parents (of course), saw themselves as nothing but loving and supportive, and well-meaning…and they mostly were – moiself was fortunate in that regard, I know. Still, the doubts/insecurities inherent in complisults managed to lodge in a corner of my brain, and came back to haunt me in later years.
Is it something in the parental DNA, a gene for undermining one’s offspring? I imagine Vincent van Gogh [8] showing his parents his Sunflowers paintings:
Oh, Vinnie, how nice – so colorful…have you ever thought of trying this and sending it in – you could get into professional art school!
* * *
Department Of Firsts
Dateline: Tuesday 6-14-19, 2:41 pm. I got my first Mandarin (or Cantonese? [9] ) voicemail on my cellphone.
Can you tell this has been an exciting week for me, or what?
May strangers offer to give you style points (but leave no Mandarin messages on your phone); May your head stay in proportion to your body, should you become a monster movie star; May your complisults be few, but memorable; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] The correct answer was Persephone, which none of the teams got. JK and I took second place, losing by only one point….so those style points would have come in handy.
[2] “Frenemy” is a portmanteau of “friend” and “enemy” – an oxymoron noun meaning a person with whom you remain somewhat friendly, despite said person acting competitively with you and/or cutting you down, betraying and/or insulting you at any opportunity.
[3] I can’t speak for my other siblings, but I’m sure they have received at least a few.
[4] Seeing as how both of my parents are deceased, there are no recent examples. But if either were still alive and somewhat cognizant….
[6] And one neurotic headcase… I thought I had escaped that fate which seemed common to so many of my peers, but it seems that there’s always at least one toad you have to kiss….
[7] Those mystery admirers remained unnamed, but I’ve little doubt that, in my parents’ mind, they included the ones who would telephone me in the early evening and have hour long conversations about how they had a crush on one of my friends.
[8] One of the most influential artist the world has seen, who sold only one painting in his life – and since it was his brother who bought it (this was so that van Gogh could honestly say, as per the requirements an art show he was trying to get his works displayed in, that he was a “professional” artist) that doesn’t count.
[9] Where is my sister-in-law – a native Cantonese speaker – when I need her to translate?
[10] A recurring feature of this blog, since week 2 of April 2019, wherein moiself decided that moiself would go through my cookbooks alphabetically and, one day a week, cook (at least) once recipe from one book.
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
