In no particular order.
Martha Stewart: (from 1990s K-Mart commercials) “Make your bed, EVERY day…” And the funny thing is, I have. I certainly didn’t learn that from my mother. All it took was one dictatorial good hostess, and I found myself, despite evening falling, rectifying my perhaps once-a-year nonbedmaking gaffe. I made it, and slept better for it.
My Mother: “Who do you think you are?” Which is the point, really, of growing up — learning that. Heard too many times to count. She has been dead, officially, for 19 years and one day. Long enough technically for her to have had a great grandchild, had she survived and I been more lax prophylactically.
Polymorphous Catholic Inner Voices (we’ll call her Polly for short): You will burn in hell for all eternity — or maybe not; just offer it up to the poor souls in purgatory.
My Mother: (extrapolated rather than voiced) – I will burn in hell for all eternity. Or maybe not, maybe I’ll just go to church again. The crime: birth control. The punishment: another sibling. And burning in hell for all eternity.
Sister Dorothy: Don’t touch yourself there! The thing is, I am now Sr. D. (whose other accomplishment was teaching me to read clock faces), but only to one child, and nothing to do with a probable urinary track infection. I have learned good tricks to influence students to do things they don’t want to do, all except that one child. She digs in her heels and refuses to spite me, incapable of seeing who she is really spiting. My head-shaking sorrowful “I certainly wish you have chosen to finish this project this year. It is such a shame to not have it done” — the pluperfect disapproval obviously scraping the bottom of the reactionary barrel, and was received in precisely the same manner in which I heard Sr. Dorothy effectively accuse me of masturbation that day I went for the itch, at age 7 or so. There was shame. This girl is 100% solid self defence and perfect resilience, restructuring the event in her retelling to show off wanting her project to be different from everybody else’s (if you can call half-finished a variation on a theme). There was only that one wavering moment of recognizing that on that deepest level, I disapproved….and then it was gone. Why, then, did I never develop an adequate defense for Sr. D’s inappropriate misconstruction of my intentions? She branded me on the forehead that day with a giant M to signify out-of-control-pervert-masturbator. This kid is a mess, but far happier than I ever was, reframing her unpleasant experience into an individualistic stylistic choice. I wish I didn’t, in that one moment, make myself her Sister Dorothy, whom she will remember until she dies for reasons of discomfort.
Fr. Martin: (to a whole class) Don’t look at dirty pictures of naked ladies!
Julia Roberts: (from Pretty Woman)… “I say who…I say when……I say who.” When taken out of solo-prostitute vs. pimped girl as a lifestyle choice defense, she makes a good point. Ladies, don’t let anyone choose for you.
Disturbing phrase read yesterday: Amish puppy mill.
Disturbing occurrence: almost considered getting dog (and lifetime supply of claritin and asthma drugs).
Disturbing change in habit — now willing to flush stinkbugs, due to the plague and all. I hate to kill.
Disturbing plan for the day: work, work, work, then work.
