This headline from MSNBC this morning is just embarrassing:
“You have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses.”
The article goes on to reveal the “salacious” details of email exchanges between Governor Mark Sanford and his Argentine mistress. Except it’s not really like that; it’s kind of a sad little tale of someone who has clearly fallen in love. The tone of the emails is romantic and yearning – I half expect these two to have written poetry to each other.
What a disaster. From a political perspective, this is probably the end for the eccentric, conservative governor from South Carolina. Being a Democrat, I’m just as happy to have a Republican presidential hopeful out of the field of competitors. But on a human level, I feel a little bad for the guy. You have to have some pretty extreme emotions to think that as the governor of a state it’s worth the risk of jetting off to frigging ARGENTINA for a week, without telling anyone where you’re going, to be with/break up with your Argentine lover. I’m sure he didn’t expect to find himself in such a situation. But here in the good ol’ United States of America, if you want to be a politician you have to be a little more careful to hide your peccadilloes from the world.
But now he’s learning, if he didn’t already know, that nothing good ever comes from cheating on your spouse. It’s hard to know whether you are following your heart or if you are blinded by infatuation and lust; you can only learn that in the aftermath of your destruction. Because destruction is what happens, isn’t it? Mr. Sanford says he is trying to work things out with his wife, and maybe he will. But this is a pretty bitter pill for her to have to swallow; particularly as it is played out in public complete with the script of her husband’s loving words to another woman. Not to mention the likely end of his political career. That’s a pretty big price to pay for one’s love, or lust, when with a little restraint he could have handled it a lot differently.
Back in my pre-marriage days, I learned a little something about cheating that after a lot of self-examination has crystallized into a strict but easily observed policy of "not for me, thanks."
1. People don’t cheat when they are happy at home. I really don’t think that someone new can just waltz into your life and you are suddenly, magically in love if you are truly committed to someone else. Don’t pretend “this just happened.”
2. If you meet someone to whom you feel a magnetic attraction, force yourself to think before you leap. You’re an adult, you do have that capacity. If you still want to act on your feelings, then you need to end the relationship you are in first. Don’t ever think you can have it both ways, because you can’t. The person you are about to betray will find out, probably because you are going to feel compelled to unload your own guilt by telling them yourself. Then this person who you have loved and who loves you is going to feel that much worse than they would if you had just had the decency to admit you weren’t happy and wanted to end the relationship. And if you are thinking you can just keep it secret and when it’s over you can get back to your real life, well, then… yuck. You’re deluding yourself, on purpose.
Cheating on a spouse isn't for me. The repercussions are just too huge and lousy. Not to mention that if I really wanted to cheat with anyone, it would be my husband; I’ve never met anyone before who was the whole package the way he is. I feel pretty lucky to be able to say that.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Things are pretty cute around our house.
Ian is playing "soccer" now, which is downright adorable. Basically, practice is a bunch of kids running in different directions, some crying and none of them paying any attention whatsoever to each other. I like the picture where Ian looks like captain of this erstwhile "team."
Vanity also requires me to point out that the female leg in the picture is NOT mine.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The freedom to dump my brain in your lap.
I wonder what I was thinking yesterday, posting such a personal fact about myself. I’m not embarrassed about it or anything, but nor is it really something I actively wish people knew about me:
New Acquaintance: “Kate, tell me something about yourself!”
Kate: “I support a woman’s right to choose … I mean, like, REALLY support it.”
NA: “……oh.”
I racked my brain yesterday evening to think if there is anyone I know who reads this blog who would be shocked and dismayed to learn that about me if they didn’t already know, and I think it’s possible there might be one or two. So, if you are one of those people, I’m sorry you had to hear it at all; much less in this forum, where you thought you’d just see some more cute pictures of my kids and read increasingly inane snippets about my hamster wheel of a life.
Enough of that. On to the news.
WORLD NEWS
What do you think is going to happen in Iran? Clearly, the election will not be annulled and Ahmadinejad will, at least for now, remain in power. But what of all the emotion the election has stirred up? That won’t just go away because Iranians have been told to sit down and shut up. People continue to protest, but is life there really bad enough to endure the bloody revolution it would take to … to what? Overthrow the government? Allow women to sing in public or choose not to cover their hair? Put a halt to tyranny? It’s hard to envision how this will play out.
Once again, I am glad to live in a place where, at least for now, we know freedom. Sure, we had eight years there where those in power were working toward something a little more like the Middle Eastern ideal, but thankfully the Puppetmaster and his little monkey didn’t rig the last election and we found ourselves with a human being with a functioning intellect as our president. Let’s not take it for granted, since it's what allows me to write and post this drivel and our global audience (minus our friends in Iran and China, of course) to waste a few minutes of their workdays.
FINANCIAL NEWS
Unbelievably, a couple of old colleagues of mine, one of whom was also a friend (at least in the chummy at work sort of way), have been accused of and will be standing trial for insider trading. Holy christ!
ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
A couple of things:
1. R. and I are going to see Phoenix this Thursday at the Bluebird. Phoenix are an awesome French band that you may have seen (1) on Saturday Night Live, or perhaps (2) sitting around playing guitar in the movie Marie Antoinette (the lead singer is married to Sofia Coppola). Or maybe you just know their music and love it like I do. I’ve wanted to see them in concert for some time, and I can hardly believe they’re playing here in Cowtown!
2. There is a new movie I want to see, which is nice because there hasn’t been a movie I’ve wanted to spend $60 on a babysitter to see for some time: Moon. Have you heard of it? It’s a sci-fi movie starring Sam Rockwell as a mining engineer who for the past three years has been stationed on the moon by his creepy corporate employer, mining a gas for energy use back on Earth. Tangentially interesting, particularly given the subject matter, is that it’s directed by Duncan Jones, who is David Bowie’s son (who changed his name from Zowie Bowie). It looks like an engrossing alternative to all the mindless summer crap that’s out there right now.
New Acquaintance: “Kate, tell me something about yourself!”
Kate: “I support a woman’s right to choose … I mean, like, REALLY support it.”
NA: “……oh.”
I racked my brain yesterday evening to think if there is anyone I know who reads this blog who would be shocked and dismayed to learn that about me if they didn’t already know, and I think it’s possible there might be one or two. So, if you are one of those people, I’m sorry you had to hear it at all; much less in this forum, where you thought you’d just see some more cute pictures of my kids and read increasingly inane snippets about my hamster wheel of a life.
Enough of that. On to the news.
WORLD NEWS
What do you think is going to happen in Iran? Clearly, the election will not be annulled and Ahmadinejad will, at least for now, remain in power. But what of all the emotion the election has stirred up? That won’t just go away because Iranians have been told to sit down and shut up. People continue to protest, but is life there really bad enough to endure the bloody revolution it would take to … to what? Overthrow the government? Allow women to sing in public or choose not to cover their hair? Put a halt to tyranny? It’s hard to envision how this will play out.
Once again, I am glad to live in a place where, at least for now, we know freedom. Sure, we had eight years there where those in power were working toward something a little more like the Middle Eastern ideal, but thankfully the Puppetmaster and his little monkey didn’t rig the last election and we found ourselves with a human being with a functioning intellect as our president. Let’s not take it for granted, since it's what allows me to write and post this drivel and our global audience (minus our friends in Iran and China, of course) to waste a few minutes of their workdays.
FINANCIAL NEWS
Unbelievably, a couple of old colleagues of mine, one of whom was also a friend (at least in the chummy at work sort of way), have been accused of and will be standing trial for insider trading. Holy christ!
ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
A couple of things:
1. R. and I are going to see Phoenix this Thursday at the Bluebird. Phoenix are an awesome French band that you may have seen (1) on Saturday Night Live, or perhaps (2) sitting around playing guitar in the movie Marie Antoinette (the lead singer is married to Sofia Coppola). Or maybe you just know their music and love it like I do. I’ve wanted to see them in concert for some time, and I can hardly believe they’re playing here in Cowtown!
2. There is a new movie I want to see, which is nice because there hasn’t been a movie I’ve wanted to spend $60 on a babysitter to see for some time: Moon. Have you heard of it? It’s a sci-fi movie starring Sam Rockwell as a mining engineer who for the past three years has been stationed on the moon by his creepy corporate employer, mining a gas for energy use back on Earth. Tangentially interesting, particularly given the subject matter, is that it’s directed by Duncan Jones, who is David Bowie’s son (who changed his name from Zowie Bowie). It looks like an engrossing alternative to all the mindless summer crap that’s out there right now.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tornadoes and other modes of obliteration.
It’s a day before the start of summer, which will hopefully mark the end of a spate of weird, Midwestern weather here in Denver. Over the last couple of weeks, there have been hailstorms and tornados every day; home video footage of which we’ve been shown on the local news each night as one dumbass or another has thought it would be cool to drive right on up to the edge of the swirling funride to Oz.
Sure, it’s a bummer that people’s homes are getting ripped out of the ground, but what irritates me most is that these storms only move in as I drive home from work. It’s nice and sunny all day as I sit in my office, only clouding up and cooling down in time to scuttle our nightly plans to eat dinner in the back yard. Worse, all this rain has meant that we now have mosquitoes, something that we are usually blissfully devoid of here in Colorado. Except for the summer a few years ago when I got the West Nile virus, of course, but that was a rather extreme exception.
Meanwhile, in news from outside the borders of my increasingly dull existence, WTF is going on with North Korea? How is their belligerent boot-stamping going to end well for them? I’m really not sure what their endgame is here – just to show they are a world player because they are so powerful they can create nuclear weapons? Because waving your missiles around every time you want something from the world probably isn’t the best way to get the rest of the world to want to do things your way. Particularly when we can call their bluff pretty much anytime we want to by obliterating them from the face of the planet. Granted, they might take South Korea down with them, which I suppose is what they hope we will not be willing to risk, but I think they overestimate America’s tolerance for their shenanigans. For now, we can continue to swat away their threats like a pesky fly, but that probably won’t be true forever. I wish the Dear Leader would down a bottle of his beloved Courvoisier and drive one of his Bentleys off a cliff and leave the rest of the world, including his starving, tortured countrymen, in peace.
And then there’s Iran. Not surprisingly, I am right on board with President Obama’s approach to the current turmoil in that country: to remain more or less silent on the subject and let Iranians work it out for themselves. I can’t stand hearing the new, cornpone-accented voices of the Republican Party droning on about how Obama looks weak because he’s not making some forceful statement about the situation in Iran. Really? Because all that forceful shit George Bush put us through went down so well on the world stage. And why do we need to say anything when our ongoing political/diplomatic positions with respect to Iran should make it quite clear how we’d like things to turn out? We don’t need to give anyone more fuel for an anti-American fire. I’m not saying anything new here, but it does drive me crazy to hear a few vocal Republicans shouting for more of the same. We have a new president, f-f-f-folks, elected by a large majority of the American people. Can we try his way for a little while?
Sure, it’s a bummer that people’s homes are getting ripped out of the ground, but what irritates me most is that these storms only move in as I drive home from work. It’s nice and sunny all day as I sit in my office, only clouding up and cooling down in time to scuttle our nightly plans to eat dinner in the back yard. Worse, all this rain has meant that we now have mosquitoes, something that we are usually blissfully devoid of here in Colorado. Except for the summer a few years ago when I got the West Nile virus, of course, but that was a rather extreme exception.
Meanwhile, in news from outside the borders of my increasingly dull existence, WTF is going on with North Korea? How is their belligerent boot-stamping going to end well for them? I’m really not sure what their endgame is here – just to show they are a world player because they are so powerful they can create nuclear weapons? Because waving your missiles around every time you want something from the world probably isn’t the best way to get the rest of the world to want to do things your way. Particularly when we can call their bluff pretty much anytime we want to by obliterating them from the face of the planet. Granted, they might take South Korea down with them, which I suppose is what they hope we will not be willing to risk, but I think they overestimate America’s tolerance for their shenanigans. For now, we can continue to swat away their threats like a pesky fly, but that probably won’t be true forever. I wish the Dear Leader would down a bottle of his beloved Courvoisier and drive one of his Bentleys off a cliff and leave the rest of the world, including his starving, tortured countrymen, in peace.
And then there’s Iran. Not surprisingly, I am right on board with President Obama’s approach to the current turmoil in that country: to remain more or less silent on the subject and let Iranians work it out for themselves. I can’t stand hearing the new, cornpone-accented voices of the Republican Party droning on about how Obama looks weak because he’s not making some forceful statement about the situation in Iran. Really? Because all that forceful shit George Bush put us through went down so well on the world stage. And why do we need to say anything when our ongoing political/diplomatic positions with respect to Iran should make it quite clear how we’d like things to turn out? We don’t need to give anyone more fuel for an anti-American fire. I’m not saying anything new here, but it does drive me crazy to hear a few vocal Republicans shouting for more of the same. We have a new president, f-f-f-folks, elected by a large majority of the American people. Can we try his way for a little while?
Friday, June 12, 2009
La la la la la.
I have the attention span of a flea these days, and every time I plan to write something for this blog, my mind skitters off and I can’t complete the thought. So I don’t write. It’s time for me to exercise a little willpower over my gray matter, though, and work to whip it back into some semblance of an adult, functioning brain.
But let’s start slow.
Have you heard of Rue La La? This business has an interesting concept that is clearly designed to get silly women (like me) to buy shit they never needed. Every day their website displays two or three new “boutiques,” each selling one brand of clothing or accessories at heavily reduced prices. Perusing the boutiques (which you can only do if you are a member – how exclusive!), I get the impression that the merchandise isn’t always the most coveted items from a designer’s line. In fact, I wonder if it’s like the January sales in Europe, where in addition to the good stuff the stores are clearly trying to empty their storerooms of the last several years’ worth of crap nobody wanted to buy the first time around. Still, the designers/brands themselves are desirable, including as they have in the last few days Marc Jacobs and 7 for All Mankind, and next week, Tory Burch.
In each boutique there are only a few of each item, and as they are sold a tag under each product proclaims “Only 6 left!” or “Sold out!” All of which lends an air of exclusivity and desirability to the clothes and accessories that they would undoubtedly be lacking on the sale racks. Which is what led me to buy a Marc Jacobs purse without reading the description adequately, because the one I really wanted was SOLD OUT, this one was the shoulder bag version of the one I wanted, and there were ONLY 2 LEFT. I can’t even find a picture of the bag on the internet, it’s so undesirable. Here’s the one I really wanted, which in retrospect was still not wholly desirable:
So I impetuously bought the one so ugly that no one has the energy to photograph or sell it, it arrived, it was indeed the ugly stepsister to the original, and now I can only return it for a credit because it is so exclusive! Live and learn.
In other, equally fascinating news, you should try the recipe on the cover of last month’s Bon Appétit. It is fabulous.
But let’s start slow.
Have you heard of Rue La La? This business has an interesting concept that is clearly designed to get silly women (like me) to buy shit they never needed. Every day their website displays two or three new “boutiques,” each selling one brand of clothing or accessories at heavily reduced prices. Perusing the boutiques (which you can only do if you are a member – how exclusive!), I get the impression that the merchandise isn’t always the most coveted items from a designer’s line. In fact, I wonder if it’s like the January sales in Europe, where in addition to the good stuff the stores are clearly trying to empty their storerooms of the last several years’ worth of crap nobody wanted to buy the first time around. Still, the designers/brands themselves are desirable, including as they have in the last few days Marc Jacobs and 7 for All Mankind, and next week, Tory Burch.
In each boutique there are only a few of each item, and as they are sold a tag under each product proclaims “Only 6 left!” or “Sold out!” All of which lends an air of exclusivity and desirability to the clothes and accessories that they would undoubtedly be lacking on the sale racks. Which is what led me to buy a Marc Jacobs purse without reading the description adequately, because the one I really wanted was SOLD OUT, this one was the shoulder bag version of the one I wanted, and there were ONLY 2 LEFT. I can’t even find a picture of the bag on the internet, it’s so undesirable. Here’s the one I really wanted, which in retrospect was still not wholly desirable:
So I impetuously bought the one so ugly that no one has the energy to photograph or sell it, it arrived, it was indeed the ugly stepsister to the original, and now I can only return it for a credit because it is so exclusive! Live and learn.
In other, equally fascinating news, you should try the recipe on the cover of last month’s Bon Appétit. It is fabulous.
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