It was my scheduled time to write, but I didn’t. I was just about to type, “couldn’t write” but that would start things off with a tone of falseness. I simply didn’t, but I surely could have. I was alone in the house and had about an hour and a half to myself. My son was ensconced with friends whose day out turned into an early evening foray to a kid-friendly billiards room with video games and flying airplanes; my husband was on his way to the gym before coming home. I didn’t need to make dinner, my emails were checked, and I was completely, totally free to write.
Instead, I snuck an episode of Glee (Season 2, because the Gods of Netflix have finally granted the wishes of mere mortals like me and added the 22 episodes of Season 2, after stalling and withholding for months). Why I was sneaking, I’ll never know, as I was alone and my love of Glee is not exactly a secret, nor is it illegal or even immoral or anything that ought to create a hint of shame. It was the episode with Gwyneth Paltrow, who is not my number one idea of a singer, despite her pop duet with Huey Lewis, putting me in league with the StarPulse.com online voters who in 2008 ranked it “the worst vocal collaboration of all time.” But it had a mash up of two Singing in the Rain numbers, and I was hooked. I brought out some cassava chips and sour cream, poured a glass of white wine, silenced my phone, and watched and sang along and hated, just hated, the return of Shue’s evil ex-wife, who, I hope, with this last exit, will remain exiled to the island of awful, awful ex-wives who leave their toned and sculpted, hot and sexy, smart and caring nice guy ex-husbands (do you get how rare it is you can use all those adjectives with one guy?) alone so they can find true love and take their shirt off again with someone deserving.
I was contemplating the next episode, but instead scrolled through my little Netflix offerings, supposedly personalized with movies chosen just for me. But in our home, this personalized selection is its own mash up between my musical/romantic comedy/drama-with-witty-repartee interests and my husband’s intense/violent/thriller/sexy-female-alien interests.
Here’s a sampling of our categories:
More like Glee
More like Sons of Anarchy
More French Language Dramas
Gritty Thrillers
British Period Pieces with a Strong Female Lead
I chose a French movie with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead. It was gritty and seemingly realistic, despite the implausibility of the situations and the characters’ swiftness to engage in awful behavior. She traipsed through scenes in unattractive wedge sandals and nondescript clothes, at one point revealing a boring white lacy bra with tiny, flat cups, and at another point completely nude. Her chest is so thin you can see her rib bones, her eyes have constant dark circles around them, she has visible wrinkles and a blue vein in her forehead, crow’s feet, and a look of complete believability as a love-neglected woman seduced by faintest attention of a construction worker who offered the extramarital French affair trifecta: a penetrating gaze, a bad boy history, and a recent physical wound requiring the love-neglected woman to tend for him. He reached out to touch her for the first time, and she brought his hand to her crotch, away from her breasts and her face.
My husband came home in the middle of one of the love/sex scenes, and my son came home just minutes later; my evening of not-writing had come to an abrupt end without a single word written. I switched off the TV, put my wine glass in the dishwasher, stored the leftover chips in the cupboard, and resumed the roles of wife and mother. My secret pleasures went back to their secret places, where they’ll percolate until after lights-out tonight.