Archive for Deborah Lipp

Thoughts on Motherhood

May 13, 2007 / / 3 comments

Happy Mother’s Day. Woot. I have some thoughts on the topic.

I think I spend about twenty percent of the time thinking or fearing that I’m a bad or inadequate mother. Our culture gives us a picture of motherhood that is both sub-human and super-human. “Moms” are a thing, whether a glowing, lovely thing, or a harried, wearing mom-pants thing. What has continually thrown me about motherhood is that it’s not a thing; it’s me being a mom, other women, both ordinary and extraordinary, being themselves; we happen to be mothers, and motherhod happens to be consuming, but it isn’t an identity. It has no personality traits. It’s simply a part of the lives we have. And that utterly violates our expectations.

It started in pregnancy. Here are two things about pregnancy no one will tell you: It makes you gassy, and stretch marks itch. So here I was, thinking I was the frickin Madonna, all round and soft-focus, and instead I was belching and scratching my belly.

And then I had a baby. I’m a very distractable person, I need lots of things to focus on or I get bored. Yet somehow I thought I’d enjoy focusing on a baby. Which can’t talk or do a little dance or really do anything interesting except glow and pee. I used to prop books on his little head when I breastfed. Because breastfeeding? Wonderful but not really occupying.

What I ended up bringing to motherhood was me. All my good and bad qualities; not “mother” good and bad qualities. So I’m impatient, easily bored, I say inappropriate things, I’m short-tempered, and a shoddy manager. (Mothers need management skills. There’s like, paperwork.) I’m also smart and funny and blunt and I get people. I get Arthur. I have the knack for seeing inside someone and knowing a lot of what’s in there, and Arthur’s a person who needed that, even more than most kids. So that worked out for us. That’s maybe the best part of us as a family.

Sure, motherhood changes you. Like, utterly. Reaches in and rips you open with a love bigger and more demanding than anything you’ve ever known. The thing to me that motherhood is, at its heart, is that love. The other stuff, that yes I’m more short-tempered than I was before, and have more gray hair, and am a much better cook, well no matter who and what you are, you adapt and change in response to your own lifestyle and the people in it. In my case, one of those people happens to be my son. Motherhood didn’t give me cooking skills, a life in which they were useful and needed did.

What motherhood is for me is simply this: How much I love him. Not that he loves me. Not what I do right or what I do wrong. Not any social accoutrements of parenthood. Just love. And the longing to be and do more to fulfill that love.

Study of Witchcraft Available for Preorder

May 12, 2007 / / 5 comments

Ooh! Thrills!

Amazon has The Study of Witchcraft available for preorder now!

(Happy dance!)

Click for exciting cover art: » Read more..

Grief, narcissistic boyfriends, and Grey’s Anatomy

May 12, 2007 / / 10 comments

So in the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy’s mom gets sick. Buffy deals with fear, grief, and the struggle of role-reversal, trying desperately to keep it together for her mom and her little sister.

And Buffy’s boyfriend cops an attitude. He’s upset because she cries alone, rather than on his shoulder. He’s upset because she doesn’t reach out to him; that the people who stopped by her house to see how she was doing (in Whedonverse, no one has a working phone) knew what was going on, but he didn’t, because he wanted her to be the one to reach for him.

And the show painted it as her being cold, closed off, not letting herself need people. And all I could think was, what kind of asshole makes someone else’s grief about them? In what way does Riley get to call himself Mister Wonderful Boyfriend when he’s that much of a narcissist? Hello? The good ones let a person freak the way she freaks, without judging their relationship based on that.

So why this comes up is that the exact same thing happened on Grey’s Anatomy this week (which I Tivo’ed and watched last night). Meredith’s stepmother has died, and her father, with whom she has just begun to create a relationship (mostly through the stepmother’s machinations), blames her and rejects her. And, understandably, Meredith freaks. And being Meredith, how she does that is by freezing, going numb and silent. And everyone who knows her knows that’s what she does. So her friends see her freeze and know she won’t reach out to them and so they arrange to help her and stand by her anyway; through her silence. And her boyfriend feels all sorry for himself because she didn’t reach out to him. He looks at the friends gathered in support and he’s jealous because he’s not included. As if she’d gone to them and said “Please gather in support for me, but don’t tell Derek.”

In deference to Shonda Rimes, I think they’re not painting this as Meredith is cold and she should reach out to Derek and he has every right to feel hurt. At least, I hope not. Because y’know what? There’s not a right way to grieve, but there is a right way to be supportive.

But what gets me, what makes me bother to blog it, is this: Do people really do this? Are relationships in the world peppered with boyfriends (or girlfriends, I suppose, but I’m working from Riley and Derek) so shallow and self-centered that they’re actually interpreting grief as a statement about the relationship? What the fuck? Can that be real?

Because if so, I dunno, maybe I’m lucky to be single.

Corruption Fatigue

May 11, 2007 / / 2 comments

Yesterday, Shakes posted about her profound sense of weariness at writing about the corruption of the current administration.

Blah blah blah. I literally cannot bring myself to heave out one more post elucidating how profoundly corrupt and deserving of permanent exile from government is every last bloody member of the Bush administration

Yeah.

It’s impossible to wrap your mind around how foul and corrupt these people are. Which is why we elected a bunch of Democrats into Congress to do that for us. All these discoveries, all these investigations, they’re all about examining the bricks that built a single corrupt house. Mismanaging Katrina, fomenting a corrupt war under false pretenses, disenfranchising voters, politicizing the Justice Department, covering up sexual misconduct by Republicans, outing CIA agents, it’s all of a piece. It’s all a group of only-money-and-power-matter thugs who have taken the government of our country hostage.

Investigation is how we bring them down, but it’s also exhausting. Again, bricks of a corrupt house. Easy to be furious and focused when you look at the house. Impossible not to be drained of frickin life force when you look at each brick. One. By. One.

But it’s also hopeful, because it’s the way we’re going to kick the pricks out.

Friday Catblogging: Mouser At Rest

May 11, 2007 / / 4 comments

I find it unbearably cute when Mingo stretches.

Dig those crazy toes
Streeeetch

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Mighty Mighty Mouser

May 9, 2007 / / 9 comments

So I’m sitting in the living room with Arthur and a couple of friends, knocking off a bottle of wine, when we hear this loud, high-pitched squeaking/scraping sound. It sounds exactly like when the cats scratch at the deck doors; nails on glass. But it’s not coming from the direction of the deck.

Then we see the mouse.

May I pause for a moment to emphasize that I don’t live out in the country? In fact, when I did live out in the country, I’d occasionally see mice in the house, but they were field mice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house mouse before.

The house mouse is much smaller than a field mouse. It looks just like one of those little toy mice we bring home for the cats to attack and devour. Except, y’know, not bright pink. Or green.

So there it was, bold as you please, walking across the living room, not even trying to be discreet. And may I say, uglier than a field mouse as well. At this point, the Gang of Two are going bonkers, and Arthur’s all “What do we do?” And the rest of us just say, “That’s what we pay these cats the big bucks for” and sit back to watch the show.

Sure enough, about fifteen seconds later, Mighty Mighty Mingo trots across the room, all “I am the Hunter, Fear me!” with a mousie in his mouth, and we all applaud. And Christine points out that cats like to toy with their prey and tend to be disappointed when they’re finally dead. As if to prove her point, a minute later we hear the squeaking again. Mingo has let his toy run free so he can get more exercise. Or maybe he’s just sharing with his sister (not bloody likely).

The next morning Arthur is up before me and he calls and says “Hey Mom? You know how when we bring them toy mice they tear the stuffing out of them and leave them inside out in the middle of the room?”

Yep. That’s what they do all right.

Solutions to Character Trivia

May 9, 2007 / / Comments Off on Solutions to Character Trivia

All solved on the first day. Fab job!

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Tuesday Trivia: Unusual Characters

May 8, 2007 / / 13 comments

Name the movie featuring each of the following characters:

1. Roller Girl
Solved by Evn (comment #1).

2. Professor Joe Butcher
Solved by MJ Ray (comment #12).

3. Nice Guy Eddie
Solved by Ken (comment #2).

4. Walker Jerome (“the Blouse Man”)
Solved by lunofajro (comment #4).

5. Carmen Sternwood
Solved by George (comment #3).

6. Cosmo Brown
Solved by Ken (comment #2).

7. Johnny Roastbeef
Solved by Melville (comment #10).

Turns out women ARE people

May 8, 2007 / / 2 comments

Today I heard another Jeopardy College Championship commercial. I wonder, did they plan a female version all along, or did someone notice how offensive it was?

This one was…
Typical College Student: “Guys, manicure, guys, cell phones, guys, new handbag.”
Jeopardy College Champtionship Contestant: “Guys, manicure, guys, cell phones, guys, Quadratic Equation.”

Monday Movie Review: From Russia With Love

May 7, 2007 / / 4 comments

From Russia With Love (1963) 10/10
In his second on-screen mission, James Bond (Sean Connery) believes he is helping a lovestruck Russian agent (Daniela Bianchi) defect. In fact, both sides are being manipulated by SPECTRE.

In The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book, I rate From Russia With Love as my #1 James Bond movie, and review it extensively. But this is different. I had the opportunity to see this wonderful movie on the big screen at the New York Film Forum.

What I knew when I decided to go was that (a) this is my favorite Bond film, (b) I’d never seen it on the big screen, and (c) it was playing on my birthday, so fab treat for me. What I realized when I sat down was that I hadn’t seen it at all in over a year, maybe two, and that it had been even longer since I’d sat down with it just for pleasure; not to take notes or double-check something in slo-mo (perils of being an author). It was the first time in years I’d seen it just as a movie, not as a Bond movie, in the context of the entire Bond franchise. So I felt very thrilled, sitting there in the tiny Film Forum theater, with a not-really-huge screen and an extraordinarily enthusiastic audience.

The audience is definitely part of the fun. It’s a combination of hardcore film fans and people who are just taking advantage of the wonderful variety offered by living in New York City. Few, though, appeared to be hardcore Bond fans (although I met up with fellow Bond fans “LeiterCIA” and “Cooper”). Arriving early and listening to the audience chatter, it was clear that many in the audience had never seen the film, or had seen it long ago, or had seen only bits and pieces on TV. So this was a fresh, unjaded audience, with fresh, genuine reactions. They laughed, gasped, and applauded.

What a magnificent film FRWL is! So easy to forget when you get thoroughly absorbed in the whole Bond “world,” how perfect, how stand-alone, the best ones are. FRWL is brilliantly constructed. There are some minor plot flaws to be sure, but it flows beautifully, so that a complex, intricate plot is clear and easy to follow. I was struck by the way in which every scene had a clear, readable establishing shot. You always know exactly where you are. That is so rare nowadays. The narrative clarity was excellent, and given that this is a story with a mysterious hidden villain, several henchmen with distinct and bizarre characters, Russian defections and fake defections, a “murder island,” a secret SPECTRE agent following a Bulgar killer who is following a Turkish spy who is protecting a British agent…well, without narrative clarity, you’re doomed.

The theatrical experience brings enormous pleasures. Things that are very subtle on TV—like Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) copping a feel of Tatiana Romanova (Bianchi) are very obvious at full size (the audience laughed when Klebb stroked Tanya’s knee). The beauty of the film is fully-realized. The North By Northwest homage sequence; Bond being chased over hills by a helicopter that is dropping grenades at him, is a masterpiece of dizzying camera work.

And the characters! FRWL is all about the characters, and somehow they’re even better when larger-than-life. Kronsteen, evil chessmaster, got big laughs from the audience, who loved his creepy, expressive face. Pedro Armandariz is always a crowd-pleaser, and how can you not love the expansive and delighted-by-life Kerim Bey?

From Russia With Love is a 10/10 movie. After seeing it on the big screen, it moved up to a better, bigger, shinier 10/10. If you ever get a chance to see vintage Bond on the big screen, Go-Go-Go!

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