Blythe Spirit

I’ve been hanging out at the community center lately, near lunchtime when the local meals-on-wheels organization serves a meal to seniors in the dining room. They do food delivery too, but those clients who are able-bodied and socially inclined show up to eat and chat and pick up a sack of day-old bagels or a newspaper.

Before lunch, the center hosts exercise classes of the kind you imagine at senior centers – they sit on chairs and stretch their arms; they stand behind the chairs and stretch their legs; they bend from the waist to one side and then another. I like to watch them because they remind me of my grandparents, most of whom are gone. I lived within a half hour of all four of them when I was growing up, but when I moved away twenty years ago this summer, I saw them only a couple of times a year. I find myself imagining Grandma doing the slow-motion version of the hokey pokey at the senior center.

This week I was there a little earlier in the day, and instead of the swayers I was surprised by a whole different group. The ladies’ tap dance class was taking place on the stage at one end of the dining room and I swear I could have watched those women all day long. They were dancing to Rockin’ Robin (A Michael Jackson homage? Perhaps.) and man, could they tap. I took my share of tap-dance lessons and I never really mastered it; it’s all about ankle and knee control and I was better suited to stiff-legged ballet. The class of seven was led by a woman who must have learned tap dancing during World War II. She was serious, stopping the group when someone was clearly out of step and making them all start over again, and they were all way better than I had ever been, even at age ten with my young joints and brand new shoes.

I wonder what kind of class I’ll take at the senior center when I am seventy-five. Hip-hop? Maybe Macarena?

I haven’t posted about what’s going on with me in a while. And that’s mainly because, on a day-to-day basis, it seems like nothing much is going on. I eat Cheerios. I post boring things to Twitter. I take Theo to the park, where he spends most of his time begging to climb on the concrete skatepark and I spend most of my time pointing out that the kids with the low-rider pants and long hair would mow him down with their boards in 1.3 seconds if he toddled into their paths. I watch So You Think You Can Dance.

Aaaand I just killed a spider that was walking across the arm of my chair. Just then. I meant just to brush him off, onto the floor, but he was squashed in the melee. (This is real-time blogging, right here. Riveting, isn’t it?)

Fortunately there are a few other places on the internet where things are a bit more exciting. How about these?

Let’s Panic About Babies!
You might not want to click on that while you’re drinking your coffee because you’ll snort it out your nose. The 1-800-DINGOES ad did it for me.

Heavy Cross by The Gossip
Best band name I’ve heard in a while. They do a kickass Careless Whisper cover too. Also, from Portland!

John Cusack is on Twitter, another example of why it’s sometimes more fun to worship celebrities from afar than to actually know what they’re thinking. (Side note: It’s unfortunate that the more boring and misspelled the twitter feed, the more convinced I become that the celebrity is actually writing it himself.)

During the Tony awards, Bret Michaels wraps up a rollicking performance of “Nothing but a Good Time” with his Poison bandmates. Bret gets a little carried away taking his bow. The Tony show producers are hyper-aware of their schedule, considering this is the lowest-rated of the low-rated awards shows, and they need to get on with things to keep their advertisers happy. So they cue the scene change, assuming that Bret will notice there’s a giant piece of scenery barreling down from the ceiling at him and get out of the way. Bret, suddenly realizing he’s supposed to be exiting upstage along with his bandmates, turns around and makes a leap for the drum platform. C.C. DeVille tries to give him a hand. Bret almost makes it, but he’s on a collision course, and the audience cringes as he is clotheslined by a huge mural of the Manhattan skyline. Stockard Channing, gripping a fur stole, belts out “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” stage left.

That whole scenario sounds like a SNL sketch from the 1980’s, and I’m quite sure that until a couple of weeks ago neither Poison nor Stockard Channing could ever have imagined they’d be sharing a stage. But that’s showbiz, right?

Following the mishap, Tonys host Neil Patrick Harris takes the stage, makes a joke, and says, “Oh, he’s fine!” and gets on with the show. Because that’s what you do in the theatre. If Bret had been knocked unconscious during a swordfight in Romeo and Juliet (”Starcrossed Lovers’ Bus?”), they’d have dragged him offstage and his understudy would have appeared seconds later. He probably would have worn a little SuperGlue on his bruised nose during the next day’s matinee. That’s it.

Back in 1986, while promoting Look What the Cat Dragged In, Bret probably got beaned in the head by C.C.’s high kicks once or twice. Considering the way liquor hinders one’s reaction time, it’s inevitable. But I”m sure he just went right on singing “Talk Dirty to Me” while wiping the blood out of his eyes, no harm done.

But now that Bret’s a reality TV star and a blogger, he posts pathetic photos of his injuries. He blogs about how it’s not his fault, mentioning that Liza Minnelli rushed to his dressing room after the accident. He whines.

And though my fifteen-year-old self who thought hair bands were all badass would be sorely disappointed, I have to admit I’m not completely shocked by this turn of events. Just take a look at that album cover and tell me those guys weren’t ultimately headed for musical theatre. Or, possibly, the circus.

Bret, it don’t get better than this.

-Good Manners
I never pictured myself as one of those parents who says, “WHAT DO YOU SAY?” to her child after the checker at the grocery store hands him a sticker, but I have become the please-and-thank-you police.

-A Clean In-Box
Allowing e-mail sit in my in-box for more than a few days gives me hives. This affliction can lead to premature archiving.

-A flattering Facebook profile photo
Why, I’m not sure, considering that so many of my FB friends saw me in junior high, high school, and college, wearing an unspeakably frizzy permed mullet, braces, and/or stirrup pants. But I tried to put up a goofy one and I just couldn’t stand it.

-Comfortable shoes
I love my red patent leather heels but I can barely bring myself to wear them. I wish I could banish the worn-out Born oxfords from my closet, but they make my feet happy.

-Lipstick
I’ll wear it even if I’m not wearing any other makeup.

-Knowing all the words
I go out of my way to research the words to songs that I enjoy so that I can sing along correctly. Seriously. I’ve googled the lyrics to “Little Red Corvette.”

It’s the little things, isn’t it? What matters to you?

Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm
This is a rad remake of a rad Michael Jackson song and who doesn’t love a band called Alien Ant Farm?

Viva La Vida by Coldplay
Makes me want to jump around the room, flailing my arms. In a good way.

Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Market Irglova
I’d sort of forgotten about this until I saw it again on American Idol. It’s lovely. I’m still trying to forget that the singers met when she was like nine and he was thirty-five and they’re now a couple.

My Maria by Brooks & Dunn
Apparently all that country music in my past is seeping to the surface. (This is a ridiculous video but the audio is the best I could find.)

Chasing Pavements by Adele
She performed at the Grammys in her stocking feet which bugged me a little but after I heard her voice I didn’t care.

Renegade by Styx
Did you ever see the Styx episode of Behind the Music where Tommy Shaw made fun of Dennis DeYoung and Dennis DeYoung got all miffed and Tommy just continued to mock him? It’s right up there with the Leif Garrett one.

OBAMA’S GAY LOVER TELLS ALL: Apparently this is what happens when we get a president with some dress sense.

ASHLEY TISDALE GOES BRUNETTE: Who is Ashley Tisdale? And that looks like her natural color to me.

MELISSA JOAN HART SHOWS OFF HER BIKINI BODY: Isn’t she a witch? Shouldn’t she have magicked a bikini body long ago?

INSIDE JON AND KATE’S MILLION-DOLLAR DIVORCE: I’m waiting for their hairstylist to get her own reality show. Or to be sued for the bad publicity resulting from Kate’s hairdo and Jon’s plugs.

I’ve admitted before that I have a conflicted impression of Gwyneth Paltrow. On one hand, she’s elegant and interesting and has a hot husband and cute kids and you don’t see her slouching down the red carpet with her nipple hanging out. (Indeed, these are our standards for decent celebrity behavior nowadays.) On the other hand, she has fashioned herself into a kind of lifestyle guru and speaks in public about how great her macrobiotic diet and personal trainer make her feel, and how everyone should give them a try.

So, depending on my mood, I react to these kinds of statements in one of two ways. When I’m in a pro-Gwynnie state of mind, I sort of appreciate her candor. She says she likes to drink wine and eat cheese and therefore must work out for two hours each day. She does not try to tell us she maintains her figure on a diet of French fries and milkshakes and tranquil walks on the beach. She talks about how she’s chosen not to work as much as she used to because she doesn’t like to leave home in the morning when her kids are asleep and come home after they’ve gone to bed. She doesn’t pretend she’s One of Us. She admits that she has two nannies.

But when I’m feeling cranky, I want her to dial it down. Is life really so difficult for someone who has two nannies and a cellar full of wine and a cupboard full of cheese and a Pilates studio in her back yard? Five days last year she had to work and didn’t get to see her children at bedtime. How often does that happen to the average working parent? About once a week. Now I realize I’m sitting here in my comfy chair at 3:49 on a weekday afternoon, typing away on a nice laptop and wifi, which probably puts me closer to Gwyneth on the scale of most- to least-annoying complainers than to your average hard-working grocery store employee. But still! She’s advising us to buy a jumpsuit? Seriously?

So, tell me, is it better for celebrities to be out of touch with the way most of us live but at least to admit it? Or do you prefer the Fabulous People who swear they still do their own grocery shopping?

Is it only Wednesday? Because it seems like it should probably be Monday of next week by now. Remember that job I talked about a while back? I didn’t discuss it in detail because, well, we all know you just don’t blog about your job. And one of the details I didn’t discuss was that it was a temporary job. It ended last week. And all the planets aligned so that Theo’s daycare is closed for its one-week-per-year vacation this week. Which means that I went from dressing in grown-up clothes and eating quinoa salad and fresh-baked bread from the salad bar three days per week and creating spreadsheets and talking about action items in meetings, to spending all day every day attempting to convince an oompa-loompa-sized human that having a clean diaper is infinitely nicer for everyone in the household than walking around wearing a dirty diaper. And while our time as a mother-and-child unit has had its wonderful moments (staying in my pajamas past 7am, for example), I’ve felt the abrupt loss of a sense of accomplishment.

You know what I mean. Making lists and checking them off. Even adding stuff to the list after it’s already done so you can cross it out. So I made a list to make me feel better.

Recent Accomplishments:
-Taught Theo to answer back ROCK YOU after I sing “We Will We Will” a la Queen.

-Spent $18 at that really nice Whole Foods that usually seems too far away just for a quick grocery stop.

-Took a bag of clothing to the resale store. Traded it in for an Old Navy bikini that I may never gather the courage to wear.

-Uploaded the Epicurious app to my iPhone and then failed to open it.

-Updated my resume to include “80s Rock Lyric Contest Winner.”

-Jinxed the outcomes of two reality shows with my confidence that, of the three finalists, at least one of the two people I liked would win. (Helen?! And Shawn?!!) I am not even going to watch the AI final tonight lest I damage the careers of both Kris and Adam with my support.

-Found a Matchbox car inside Theo’s diaper. I’m assuming this is the result of his recent fascination with dropping everything down his shirt, but one never knows.

What have you accomplished lately?

(Also, does anyone know how to fix my template code so the ads don’t hang off over there on the right? That’s causing me physical pain right now.)

Last week, while surfing the CNN website for ways that I can make a difference in the lives of starving orphans and a detailed breakdown of the latest stock market fluctuations (by which I mean skimming the entertainment section for the previous night’s American Idol results since I missed it and forgot to set the DVR), I saw this headline:
Another racy Prejean photo emerges; site promises more

And I was surprised that Sister Helen Prejean, the human rights activist brought to my attention (as are so many important humanitarian heroes) by Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and a touching but probably somewhat overblown biopic, was posing for racy photos. So of course I clicked through and learned that Miss California has the same last name as Sister Helen (no relation). Miss California, incidentally, feels it’s very important to provide scantily-clad photos of herself to the public in order to convert The Gays to heterosexuality before they try to get married. Or something like that. Like I said, I was just trying to make sure Adam hadn’t been voted off.

Honest mistake, right? Same last name, read the story, got a little chuckle out of my misinterpretation. Well, that’s not why I’m going to hell.

For the following day or two, I’d see the name in headlines, and every time I would first think of the nun, and then remind myself that it was the pageant contestant. And I chuckled and figured I couldn’t be the only person making this connection, right? So I decided to share the laugh! Of course! So I told Jeff, and he said, “huh!? Oh yeah. Funny.” Which was not particularly satisfying.

So of course I posted it to Twitter:
Shocked that Sister Helen Prejean (of Dead Man Walking fame) would take “racy photos.” Also, wouldn’t have pegged her as a pageant type.
Kind of funny, no? Not my very best tweet ever, but if anyone else had made the same mistake, maybe they’d laugh! I would have laughed if someone else had posted it. And even that probably wouldn’t have sent me straight to hell.

But then, just a few hours later, I got this reply:
playproject@Blythe – where did you see this about Sr. Helen?
And I clicked through to the Twitter account, and then to the website.

And yes, indeed, it’s an organization that works with Sister Helen to produce the play “Dead Man Walking” in schools and they thought I’d actually read somewhere that their heroine had been competing for a pageant title AND had released nudie photos to the media.

And I had to reply and tell them I’d been making a lame joke at a nun’s expense. And they were nice and gracious in their reply and now they’re following my updates. Either because they like my sense of humor or so they can monitor my tweets for more evidence that I’m defaming Sister Helen.

And that’s why I’m going to hell.

This poem came my way today and I couldn’t help but share it.

My Son the Man

by Sharon Olds

Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.

From Poetry Foundation