Weblog 155

January 25, 2009~ 12:00am
Tonight we watched 'Hancock'- a thoroughly enjoyable film that is hard to catagorize. I thought it would simply be a comedy, with Will Smith cast as a reluctant, street-bum superhero; lots of special effects, funny dialogue, and sight gags-- and it was all that, but it was also one of the strangest 'love storys' I've ever watched. I won't give away the plot, but I will say that what the movie ended up, for me, a kind of Neil Gaiman fable that could easily have been based upon one of his own imaginative graphic novels. Highly recommended. This one- pure entertainment.

Having penned that mini-review, I have to say that the movie lead to thinking about masks we wear- (a common theme of mine)- and how we are seen -how we project ourselves to the world. I have quite a few masks that decorate my walls, but this one is the most beautiful-



It's a Venetian carnival mask that my son bought for me when he was living in Italy. It hangs on the dining room wall, and I love to look at it, gilded and stylistic- and 'old looking'. I'm spiritually connected to birds, and there is a great deal of bird symbolism that attracts me...the flight, the airlessness, the freedom. Yes, if I were a superheroine, I suppose I would look something like this-



- minus the butt showing. LOL!! A kind of Bird Pimpernel- yes! That'd be much to my taste. We all have animals we connect with. Some to dogs, some to ravens or owls, bulls, goats......on some level, we wear these spirit animals in our everyday life, and under certain circumstances they become visible to others, oh.. perhaps just out of the corner of the eye.....we see the mask clearly.



Some of 'em are scary, and I have a feeling that when these types are glimpsed, there is a cold chill that drifts through the veins or runs up the back of the neck because we're seeing the mask beneath the mask- those are the really tricky ones.

Some masks can be instantly changed. The office clown, the one who always has a quip or a joke, may have a nasty side to the humor with a bullying undertone barely detected. However the perceptive among us might pick up on it as we gather around the water cooler and say nothing, realizing what really resides beneath the jokes and the 'just kidding's'-



-and it's something very different than the back-slapping 'hail fellow well met'. Everywhere you look, people wear their masks... dropping them, picking up others...



They float away in the stream of daily living like discarded costumes, but of course the last mask, the one we try to hardest to avoid, is the last one we'll ever see-



and when that one appears, no matter how wide the grinning mouth, how jaunty the top hat, it's Mr. Bones, alright. Maybe our masks all life long are simply ways to try and trick him when he comes to call. After all.. so many of us don disguises to avoid that guy; maybe some you'd recognize...there's 'the perennial ingenue' ... 'the lecherous rake' ... 'the consummate business man with no time for anything but numbers and charts'... these are but attempts to avoid the vulnerable and naked person staring out from the mirror each morning, completely at the mercy of time and the things it strips from all of us.

The bravest thing to do is to stare back and say, "It's alright...it's all alright."

Then the masks are seen for what they are, and taken with a grain of salt. We are not superheroes-- just human beings. And we're all aging and facing the same fears-- all different, but having so much more in common than that which separates us.

Let masks be used in fun-- as the Venetians do in celebrating carnivale, knowing that they're things we do take off.

But the face in the morning mirror is the real thing-- the one to make peace with-- the one we crawl into bed with at night. That's the one to get to know....and to embrace.




January 25, 2009~ 8:45pm
This was a day of 'false starts'. Today was my day to take my mum shopping and have dinner out. The weather looked fine when I called her at 1:30. (I do that a couple hours before I'm to show up because I've been known to sleep in....lol) but by 3:30 when I left the house, it had begun to snow quite wickedly. Only a half inch was predicted, but there was already well over an inch on my car.

I started out, and skidded in the alley. I gingerly crept along with the rest of the cars going verrrrrrrry slowly in a queue, and I kept thinking, "This is crazy. It's only gonna get worse by nightfall when it gets even colder." (It was 20 degrees at the time, and Lord knows-- the salt trucks completely forget about the roads on Sundays.) I made it to a gas station, pulled in and called her to let her know the roads were horrible, and I was going back home. Mum said, "Good! Turn around. Kathy will take me shopping tomorrow" --so that's what I did.

Back home, make-up off-- back into a robe, I decided to use the time to get February's issue of The Blue House online.

If you want to read some terrific poets, click right here



That may be just the ticket to stimulate a late Sunday, or dispel the gloom of another Monday morning. Hope you enjoy it.




January 26, 2009~ 5:40pm
Happy Chinese New Year!



That lovely moving gif was on an e-card sent to me by my sweetie. Those cranes are dancing, trying to summon spring. (Wow. It's been in the teens here for a couple of weeks in a row. No thaw on our horizon yet, but it's nice to think it's out there somewhere.)

According to the Chinese zodiac, I am a rabbit. Here's what they say-

People born in the Year of the Rabbit are articulate, talented, and ambitious. They are virtuous, reserved, and have excellent taste. Rabbit people are admired, trusted, and are often financially lucky. They are fond of gossip but are tactful and generally kind. Rabbit people seldom lose their temper. They are clever at business and being conscientious, never back out of a contract. They would make good gamblers for they have the uncanny gift of choosing the right thing. However, they seldom gamble, as they are conservative and wise.

(Oh yeah, that's me down to the ground. LOL!!)This of course, is the YEAR OF THE OX. (Nasty-sounding, isn't it? Plodders. Pullers of Plows.) Here's what the ox characters are like-

People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed.

Rabbits and Oxen are not compatible. Looks like this year's gonna be all uphill for me. If you're interested in finding out 'the year of the__' you were born into, check out this nifty Chinese Zodiac Calculator. See who you mesh with...who might make you run screaming for the door. LOL!! I love this kind of stuff. Oh.......and Happy New Year!




January 28, 2009~ 6:45pm
Little did I know when I wrote the entry above, that early the next morning would find me unable to move more than 2 ft. from the commode in the early morning hours. LOL!! I called off to tend to my 'problem', and also scheduled today out as well. Pittsburgh got hit with a nasty combination of snow, freezing rain, rain...... then more snow this afternoon. I was in a fix because tomorrow is the company Steeler Party, in this run up to the Superbowl on Sunday. I'd promised to bring broasted Frisch's chicken (which is appropriate, due to my being the biggest one of all time, with my fear of icy roads. LOL!!)



At my age, all my nerve has flown and has been replaced by frozen caution. So the chicken is appropos. Luckily there was a wee window this afternoon to first break the 2 inches of sloppy ice and snow off the car, and drive over to Frich's on what were- at that time -nicely salted, merely wet main roads. I will wear my Steeler attire and big-beaded necklace tomorrow, show up with the chicken, and



party on! Here's to winning on Sunday. Big Ben, Polamalu....do your stuff!





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