Eccentric Flower:199810/sluts and mothers
From Eccentric Flower
«October 1998 «Eccentric Flower
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twenty-six october ninety eight eleven a m Sluts and Mothers OK, I wasn't going to write anything today. I was in a snit. Not only have I not heard diddly about reader reactions to the tragic tale of Sir Robert, but I have not received a single piece of email about the dreams or anything else I've said in the last three days! I am going to have to work harder to be provocative. I only say this because I am something of a yenta. No, that's the wrong word. I don't want to meddle exactly; I just want to sit on the sidelines and offer color commentary. Hardly a day goes by, reading the webring (and I check every page in the ring nearly every day) that I don't read someone else's entry and get the temptation to fire off some comments. In short: I often find the words of other journallers provocative. But I have stopped commenting on their words, for the most part, because the lack of turbulent flow in my mailbox indicates - to me - that no one else really wants to get comments the way that I do (despite Dianne's insistence that "Write me!" is not a suggestion). Am I wrong? I think one fundamental issue is that I am an Email Slut, whereas a lot of the other journallers I read seem to be Stats Sluts. You know what I mean. When I hit a page and it seems to have -almost- finished loading, yet there is some intangible holdup ... I know that I am waiting on someone's odometer, or that funny little statistics thing with the logo kinda like the planet Saturn, or some other number-crunching dingus. What is the point, I think? and I hit the Stop button perforce. OK, admittedly I get a rather comprehensive report every week in the mail from my provider. I look to see roughly how many times people have asked Heliotrope for a postcard (a couple hundred a week, if you're curious) and then I discard it. Oh, no, it's not my intention to dis the readership - and thank you for stopping by, sir or madam! - but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather hear from you than detect your footprints on my pages. Ah, well. Pardon my mood. With the exception of Diane's RPG experiences, which are most provocative but dovetail into something I already planned to write about later, here are some Random Things Which Occurred To Me™ while reading other journal pages: 1. I wonder if Al would be shocked if I showed him the X-rated haiku I write sometimes when I'm bored. 2. Everybody's mother seems to be getting on the web except mine. A blessing in disguise? My mother doesn't know the extent of some of my weirdnesses (read: gender) although the woman who sewed me my first garter belt couldn't possibly be too shocked by the news. 3. Speaking of motherhood: Lest one dismiss Sam's comments on not having children (because she's only in high school, which some would think makes her point of view suspect), let me point out that I'm thirty, have given the matter considerable thought, and I agree with everything she says completely. 4. I didn't talk about ANTZ here because I figured everyone would see it anyway and I was much more interested in getting you to see The Impostors. But ANTZ was good too, although I never liked Woody Allen and he does exactly the same tired schtick here. All the way through. Non-stop. 5. Aussie notes a bunch of things that men should know but often don't, and ditto for women. Hear, hear. Everyone should be able to follow a recipe. Everyone should be able to sew a button back on. Everyone should be able to fix a toilet (honest, they're not complicated). Everyone should know how to change their own oil, even if you never do, and how to change a tire, and and and and .... I could go on for days. Instead I will point this out: To be completely gender-cliché about it, the number of women who have brought themselves to acquire traditionally "male skills" is substantially larger than the number of men who have done the reverse. There are a lot more women who know where their carburetor is than there are men who know how to use an iron properly. That means something. I don't know what. It may be a "protect that fragile masculinity" thing, but if so, there are a lot of deluded men. Isabel Allende isn't the only woman who knows that there is nothing more seductive than a man who can cook.
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