Eggs Over Easy, Hold the Offspring

One of the top reasons that I will never have children

This article could not have better pinpointed the paralyzing fear I have of the idea of motherhood.  I sometimes feel that there is a certain expectation that I should have children - I don’t know if that comes from my gender, my age, or the fact that I volunteer almost all of my Saturdays to teach kids (or a combination of the above).  To be fair, this has slacked considerably since I became single.  Instead, it has mutated into a find-someone-now-so-you-can-settle-down-(and-have-kids) pressure.

The fact of the matter is that I cannot imagine myself being a particularly successful parent.  I won’t say that my relationship with my own parents is strained, but it is certainly not as comfortable as I wish it to be (and I’m also fully aware I have some responsibility in that).  I’m just not sure I could cope with having a similar relationship with my own child. 

And then there’s the issue of raising a happy, well-adjusted kid.  I can deal with the fact that I often don’t feel that happy or well adjusted.  I don’t want to take on the responsibility of producing that in another person when I can barely produce it in myself, though.  When I was going through my RSCDS certification classes, the tutor told us to always demonstrate the steps and figures to our best ability because the first things our students will pick up is our bad habits.  Particularly children, because they are such mimics anyway.  I can cope with students picking up my bad dance habits – at least I was given training to fix them.  Children don’t come with that training (other than a sort of trial and error).

About a year ago, I was having lunch with an old friend before she moved to the east coast.  She asked me if I wanted kids.  When I replied in the negative and cited the reason that I didn’t think I would make a good parent, her response was, “I think the fact that you’re worried about whether or not you’d be a good parent proves that you would be a good one.”  Maybe.  I’m just not willing to risk the happiness and well-being of a helpless, moldable being to find out.  I’ll err on the side of caution, thank you very much.

We are the knights of Spamalot…

Clay Aiken in Spamalot

I find this disturbing on soooo many levels.

Knuckle Dragging

I will admit that I don’t like AB 1825 (mandatory harassment prevention training for California supervisors), mostly because it is a major pain in my ass.  Then I read this, and I realized maybe the logic behind it isn’t as random as I perceived.  It will seem naive on my part (maybe because my office has been very fortunate to not have had many problems – none in the 9 years I’ve been there), but I honestly did not believe that this kind of mentality was still pervasive in today’s society.

Rent vs. Rent

In general, I prefer written word in its original form.  I will only occasionally watch the movie version of a book, play, or musical because I inevitably get frustrated with a difference of interpretation.  There are a few exceptions:  I love the Harry Potter books and the movies (interestingly, number 3 is my favorite movie and favorite book – though I was totally creeped out when I found out the director was the same guy who directed Y Tu mama tambien).  If Zepherelli is directed a Shakespeare play into a movie, I will absolutely see it.  And, much to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoy Rent in film form.

Let me explain: I am NOT a Renthead.  I saw the touring show when it came to San Francisco, and walked away feeling utterly disappointed.  Why was everyone making such a big deal about this show? Okay, the subject content was fairly unique for a Broadway musical, Jonathon Larson’s death was a tragedy, but…I don’t know.  I was disappointed by the songs, I was disappointed by the cast, the abstract set made it very confusing for me to figure out where scenes were taking place (were we in the loft? outside? in a hospital?), my head was buzzing with the cacophony of sound that had just blasted my eardrums.  By the time I saw it in the late 90′s, huge advances had been made in HIV drugs that many of the scenes involving AZT and the AIDS subject matter felt overblown to the point of almost being comical.

On a whim, I picked up a cheap copy of the DVD.  I figured if I hated it, I could trade it for something else, but I was really interested in seeing how the show was translated.  And I sit here to say that I LOVE the movie.  SOO many of the issues I had with the stage show were instantly cleared up with the conversion to film.  I had scenes grounded in actual places; the cast (mostly from the original Broadway cast) practically crackled with chemistry; the more irritating filler music bits were gone; the AIDS subject matter no longer evoked suppressed snickers.  Needless to say, I did not return the DVD.

Instead, I decided to run an experiment.  While I was alive during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, I certainly don’t remember much of it.  I do remember when AZT hit the market as an HIV/AIDS drug and how hopeful everyone was about it, but, to my knowledge, nobody I knew was HIV +, and most of my knowledge in those days I gleaned second hand from my high school friend, Yolanda’s, work with a Planned Parenthood theater group.  But, I certainly had enough to understand what they were talking about in Rent; I remembered the sense of urgency to find a cure, to find a way to retard the virus, to live.  So, I passed the DVD along to a sixteen-year-old student of mine (which, after listening to the commentary, is the demographic they’re trying to reach).  She, who had grown up in the era of protease inhibitor cocktails.  What would she think of it?

She loved it.  “My mom had to explain some stuff to me,” she said.  “I downloaded the entire soundtrack onto my iPod and had to get the DVD.  When I go to New York, I’m going to see it on Broadway.” That was news to me – it was still playing on Broadway after all these years??

So, I had to quiz her when she got back.  What did she think of the stage show?

She didn’t like it.  She, too, found the abstract set design confusing, and what happened to the song that was in the show but not the movie? That took me a minute to figure out, because there were two possibilities for that.  “Good-bye Love” was cut to much protest, and there was another Jonathon Larson song that the cast recorded (intended for end credits, I believe).  I decided she must have been talking about “Good-bye Love” and she hit the nail on the head for another musical objection to the show: the songs all run into one another to the point that you almost can’t tell them apart (unless you’ve listened to the soundtrack beforehand). 

So, Rent has received my first “Better as a Movie” vote.  I’m sure that is anathema to many, but there you have it.

And I expressed it in less than 750 words