Page 280 of 524

She-Ra and the Secret of the Sword


Yes, you read the title correctly. With Rob away this weekend my Sunday movie review is of the little remembered feature film that introduced He-Man’s twin sister to the mesmerized hordes of impressionable children in the mid -80’s.

I have ElderD to thank for this movie and a companion disc of the “best” of She-Ra Princess of Power finding their way into BabyD’s realm. Rob’s daughters were enamoured of He-Man and his sister as children. And why not? The cheesy Dance Fever music, the pastels, the bulging, the complete gayness of it all.

“What movie did you watch tonight,” Rob asked when he called.

“She-Ra,” I said.

“Really, the girls wanted to watch that too as we drove up here. MidKid had gotten ElderD her own dvd set.”

“Did they watch it?”

“No, because I didn’t bring along the headphones and then I would have had to listen to it too.”

“You know, I was in college then, so I never saw He-Man or knew much about it, but…it’s really gay. Did you know that?”

Rob just laughed and I felt ashamed of my politically incorrect assessment. But it is. He-Man (well just about all the men portrayed in the cartoon) had a distinct Village People aura about them. It was so 1980’s when every guy on TV or out at the bar on the weekend was wearing colors my dad thought only girl babies should be decked out in and had hair as feathered as mine.

The story involves He-Man’s mild mannered Clark Kentish alter ego, Prince Adam, being sent on a quest to find the twin sister he never knew he had. Dual long lost twins must have been an 80’s thing too. Together they use their powers to keep their people safe from tyranny.

BabyD was more impressed with She-Ra than He-Man.

“She has way more powers, Mom,” she needlessly pointed out because it had already occurred to me she was a cross between Wonder Woman and Jana of the Jungle. “How come?”

“Because she is a girl, I guess.”

“Girls get better powers then?”

“Only in cartoons,”

An hour and more minutes than I care to remember later, it was over. Another low point in children’s entertainment history.

I wonder though where the idea that men should be overtly masculine in appearance over a basically female interior came from because, when I think about it, that is a theme of that time period. And the reverse as well. Hyper-sexual women overlaying male aggression.

Fortunately, BabyD was not so enamoured that she has asked to watch the other dvd. She was impressed with She-Ra’s flying horse and the rest was a bit “scary” for her. Thank goodness. I have enough trouble keeping her away from Total Drama Island and trying to redirect her away from the bad language she is picking up from the older kids on her school bus. I think the only word she hasn’t used so far is “fuck”. But Canadians swear like sailors on leave, so that is probably a losing battle.

Skip the compilation discs of She-Ra and He-Man. That is if you were tempted.

I Hate Dead People


My most recent piece at 50 something Moms elicited a comment about my morbid life view.  Precisely that I reference the dead too much. And that it is creepy.  Because, I guess, what is normal is to excise dead people from one’s referential library of memories. Thank goodness I’m not my mother. Fifty-two years is a lot of slate to wipe clean. Still I find it hard not to refer to the measly seven I had with Will. Perhaps if we hadn’t procreated? That pesky kid thing ties me to him pretty tightly. But I suppose I could be vague and let people think I was divorced which is the natural assumption if I don’t mention that he died but still reference the time we were married or his existence in general.

What do I do about Dad though? That’s my whole life and if I don’t fess up to him being dead, and just write about him as though he were still alive – well, that has a higher creepiness factor, right? Or wrong?

Maybe I should just stick to chronicling my journey from Earth Mother to Crone with occasional side-trips to my maiden days of yore. Plumbing heavy posts. And tales of my war against middle-aged girth.

I can’t write about Rob. And not because he forbids it – though there are things he would rather I not blog about – but because he has that whole dead wife issue. And way more years to avoid bringing up than I have . Twenty-seven. That’s half of his life. The adult half. And of course if I mention the step-daughters at all, well that makes him seem divorced too unless I put it in context.

Perhaps being divorced is more acceptable than being widowed? It is less creepy because it is closer to the norm for someone my age?  Only old women like my mother should have buried a husband. For her that is normal and acceptable to reference because old people have that well known tendency to dwell in the past, having not all that much future to look forward to anymore.

There was a small window of time where I let people assume I was divorced. I never mentioned what happened to BabyD’s father.  But then I started to feel that I was besmirching Will’s memory, letting others assume he was a rat bastard who wasn’t a part of his daughter’s life.

It was easier with people who knew me. There was no explaining to be done. But I got tired of everyone else being able to reference events in their lives that I was suddenly forbidden to mention because it might make someone uncomfortable or – god forbid – creep them out.

I started writing at 50 something in late September. My first piece went up just a few weeks before we had to go back to Iowa because Dad’s cancer was spreading much faster than they had thought it would. And there has been an inordinate amount of loss between Rob and I in the last year and half. Frankly, I think he was on to something when he suggested we have everyone in the family take a “no dying” pledge for the remainder of the decade at least. Life here is not just gloom but there are things I am still putting back in order or assigning new order to or simply ditching, and I do a lot of my pondering about these things in words. I thought that is what writers did. My bad.

So, no more death and dying at 50 something Moms. I will simply state the facts about the people in my immediate family and let people- who haven’t read my creepier stuff – assume what they will. Not my business what anyone thinks of me anyway, as my mom (who is still alive and therefore an acceptable reference) always says.

Another Friday Update


First full week following the Christmas break and I am nearly back to my normal schedule. Once yoga and spin classes start next week, I hope to find a sustainable rthym  for the quarter.

Progress? Nearly finished reading Breathing the Ghost Out and have begun the review for next Friday’s post. It’s not a easy read because the tone is dark and the subjects uncomfortable, but it is an incredibly well-written and beautifully told story. Kirk Curnutt is a good writer.

I poke along as far as getting blogged a bit ahead here goes. I suppose it is better for you dear readers that I am in the moment, but it makes much more work for me. I got two pieces done for 50 something Moms. One is published here. The other I am keeping as a draft until later because I am a bit tired of the two a week pace I have been trying to maintain recently and if I released it from draft today, I would end up getting published on the weekend again and no one will read it. I have been getting weekend spots a lot. Luck of the draw partly, but also because I try to put pieces up for the editors when the queue is low but by the time anyone sees it to publish, other pieces appear and they get the better “time slots”. Maybe the quality? Maybe. I am not a “professional” and some of the others are. Still, there is a little bit of randomness involved and timing matters when you post something from draft state to ready state.

The memoir? Not done. Yeah, I know what I said but it just keeps getting longer. It may end up closer to 90,000 words all told, and I am having issues with details again. How detailed do I get in order to describe my circumstances or explain events? How much of my life is mine for the telling and how much privacy do I owe anyone who may have intersected it enough to stir up a memory or illustrate a point? I am going to check on this with a memoirist or two that I know and who have published.

I think writing about the old neighborhood brought the issue up again most because of the creepy guy who lived next door. He was coincidently an old schoolmate from grade school days. He was unemployed, an alcoholic and a pain in the ass at too many different junctures along the way. I don’t know where he is now. Last I heard, he’d fallen victim to the burst housing bubble and the bank took his home. He could be back in our hometown living with his parents again because they bailed him out several times during the three years we were neighbors. That kind of enabling seldom ends.

He caused me the  most trouble when Will was still at home. He thought it was funny to give Will access to alcohol, which was like poisoning him because he’d lost the ability to metabolize it. I had to call the police and get lawyers involved. He is a part of the story, but he is also  pathetic substance abuser, so I feel a tweensy bit sorry for him.

There is another funeral this weekend. Shelley’s biological father died last weekend. Rob and the girls are attending and I am staying home with BabyD. She really didn’t know Grandpa D and we see no need for her to sit through yet another service. 

Oh, and it’s snowing. Nearly every day. I remind myself that spring is three months off and that there has only been snow on the ground for 6 weeks now, but it’s not like back in the Midwest where the temps go up and down and snow melts. Snow falls and then it stacks up here. It will not be above freezing for a long time yet. The only plus to this is that ice storms are extremely rare. 

Not a very exciting week, eh? But I am pleased none the less.