Saturday, October 01, 2005

Will I go to hell for showing my kid a John Waters movie?

Ok, so it was Hairspray -- pretty mild stuff. Kid never realized that Divine was a transvestite; she was far more puzzled by segregation than the drag elements, which is just as it should be. But I get ahead of myself.

Weekend mornings belong to dance. We start dancing at breakfast, kid takes a combo ballet technique/jazz/tap class
at a local studio, and then we come back home to dance to the radio while we're doing those leftover chores that
didn't get done other times. Then we went to her school for their autumn shindig -- the bright sunshine and
cloudless sky made it very pleasant. Kid got her face painted as a bright pink glittery cat face and set a new
school jump rope record. The vendor food was all organic vegetarian, so we ate well. I had a terrific
vegetable curry (roasted veg) over basmati rice and kid had squash soup with bread. We split a vegan pumpkin
pie with gingerbread crust for dessert. There was also some homegrown chocolate, but I managed to miss out. Now I'll
never know what a difference antibiotic-free butter makes. (Yes, it's a very foodie school.)

Now the good stuff. Even after four years in this location and at this school with these same
parents, I'm still pretty much socially adrift -- but maybe the good food buzz (and not having my partner
along to entertain me) made me more sociable. Making friends here has been a tremendous difficulty for
me, but I think I might be on the way with one of the other parents with whom I share both professional
and personal interests. She and her family had visited our house once and everyone had clicked, but then
we hadn't really followed up on that "I like these people" feeling. So when I got this second chance, I
took it. If I'm going to stay in this place, I can't just exist here while the rest of my friendships exist
somewhere else. And likewise, if I'm going to leave, it would be a shame to have no one that I'd
regret leaving behind.

Oh, and then kid and I attempted to watch a flamenco movie, but there weren't enough kids in
it for her taste. Thus, we moved on to John Waters. Tomorrow we'll probably watch Fred Astaire
in Second Chorus. (One of the only FA films I haven't seen.) I also have Alice Adams out from
the library, but I don't really want to spend so much time watching when there's a whole world
out there that I can be doing things in. If I don't get around to watching it this weekend, it
will still be in the library next weekend. Around here, it seems, no one likes the kinds of films I do,
so I can be assured of always getting my first choices.

Tomorrow it's on with the grading. Euuuw. Even good essays are brutal when you'd rather
be doing something else.

3 comments:

imfunnytoo said...

I wish you well on the friendmaking and keeping...:) It's always important to find people that can share some common ground with you. I'm hoping to make a few more connections as I become less isolated...I haven't done a very good job of it myself since coming West in 1997.

I was once forced into watching a John Waters film.

My objections to it were purely that it surpassed my gross out factor, so I haven't put myself in the path of one of those again.

The foodie stuff sounds so good :)

listie said...

Good luck with the friend-making. I've never been good at it myself, so I have no advice, but having at least one close friend with common interests is a sanity saver.

Did you get your papers graded?

Bad Alice said...

I think we watched Hairspray together. Now if you were showing the tykes Pink Flamingos . . .

My husband lost his mind and let our 5 year old watch Grease (sorry to any fans out there, but I really dislike this movie). I asked him if he wanted her to think that her main goal should be to attract and keep a guy, even if she has to wear bad tight clothes to do it.