Tag Archives: observations

Woman Marries Cat

Here are some notes I made about an imaginary rom-com. This is my attempt at coming up with a believably unbelievable premise for a film:

• A woman marries a tuxedo cat because he’s already wearing a tux. This is an excellent method for saving money — and she posts about it on her Financial Management TikTok account. Or her Financial Management YouTube channel. Or both, because she’s all about cross-platform monetization.

• She does it for publicity. She hopes to meet and marry a millionaire — a local millionaire? A well-known animal-loving celebrity? (Must figure this angle out.)

• She ultimately falls in love with a magazine editor who can’t decide whether the article should be called “Cat marries woman” or “Woman marries cat” — but since the film is called Woman Marries Cat, we’ll probably go with that one.

If anyone wants to turn this into a film, then I’ll gladly accept an executive producer credit. TIA.

If I Were A Rich Girl

I listened to a podcast the other day, where they said that J.D. Vance — a particularly loathsome fellow — is an elitist who still pretends to be an “aw, shucks” country boy.

As someone who’s an “aw, shucks” country girl from Kentucky — Authentically Country, because I’m descended from coal miners, sorghum farmers, sharecroppers, and maids — I can tell you that I don’t try to act like I’m impressed by silverware, senators, or Vetements.

None of it phases me. I can watch children in dirty diapers run out into the street in front of the trailer park, chasing Meemaw’s boyfriend’s pit bull. I could also watch a member of Congress snort cocaína off a $50,000 dinner plate without batting an eye.

None of it would shock me. Not because I know everything — but because I know that just about anything, good or horrible or funny, is possible in this world.

WAGs

I wouldn’t want to be a WAG — not really. It seems like a lot of work to be camera-ready, when I’d much rather be lounge-around-ready.

The one aspect of dating a professional athlete that truly fascinates me is that the players are apparently on the road all the time — and on training and travel days, you’d have the entire house/condo/castle/mansion* to yourself, if you wanted it that way.

That is fascinating. I’m sure I would miss him, especially if he’s a hunk, but imagine having a whole mansion to yourself. This mansion wouldn’t be MFH beige-and-gray. The walls might be off-white, but there would be pops of color. (Don’t ask me which colors — I haven’t even picked out our wedding colors yet.) It would be maximalist-minimalist, with a small-ish number of big-ish eccentric artworks and pieces of furniture.

Nothing too ostentatious — and no sculptures. I don’t want anything that couldn’t be knocked over, and I don’t want anything that’s difficult to dust or to clean.

(I’ve thought a lot about the sculpture situation in this imaginary mansion, I know, but it pays to be prepared. What if he’s a good player and has lots of trophies? I’ll need to dedicate my energy to figuring out how to get those dusted.)

I’d want to live a simple life. I would be an uncomplicated WAG. I wouldn’t ask for designer stuff, because I would rather wear plastic Walmart bags fashioned into a dress than to wear any Coco Chanel. No, thanks.

I would fall asleep in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, with a fake fire burning in the electric fireplace, and a book open on my lap. I’d read twenty pages at a time, and I’d drink a few cups of masala chai or cold brew, and I’d call my man and make sure he knew how grateful I am.

I would be a WAGG — a wife (and/or) grateful girlfriend. Especially on road match weekends.

* This is a game of MASH. I’m going to live in a castle with a Premier League player. We’re going to have 7 kids and drive a tractor. 🚜💨

Thoughts On Music: Western Swing and Punk Rock

Bob Wills did for country music what Joe Strummer did for punk rock.

A blend of genres, styles, flavors — the process of amalgamation and unending blending defined the work of both musicians. Strummer and The Clash made reggae-punk-ska-world-disco hits, and western swing was a honky-tonk heaven with pianos, big-band trumpets, and quirky, silly ad-libs. (The same way that Young Thug uses his voice as an instrument, Bob Wills did something innovative with his corny (but fun!) quips.)

These artists both tried something fresh and different, something fun and enduring. Is Western swing the punk rock of country? That’s a question for a musicologist or a music theorist. In the meantime, I’m just enjoying some really, really great songs.

Main Villain Syndrome

Back in 2020, I wrote a thread over on The Dead Bird about how a lot of people have Main Character Syndrome or Main Villain Syndrome. And some people have both, because they’ll do anything to be in the spotlight.

To sum up what I wrote, I said that these people basically want to be cruel to make themselves relevant, to be talked about, to be raked over the coals on nighttime talk shows.

That seems like what’s happening with a certain tech CEO, a certain rapper-turned-fashionisto-turned-preacher-turned-charter-school-operator, and certain infamous influencers.

They think that their bad behavior will be forgivable if they can establish themselves as “fashion geniuses” or “automotive geniuses” — even though their employees and assistants are the ones who are doing all of the hard work.

The only thing they work hard at is performing. When you realize that they’re performing — and that they don’t even have the stones to be good performers — it’s a bit easier to realize that these people are struggling and stunted.

Being the Main Character isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s hardly ever fun. These folks are grinding unnecessarily instead of grinning merrily.

For my part, I would rather be part of the supporting cast — and I would spend my offscreen time doing whatever it is that I want to do.

Elitism

I’m not an “intellectual” in the strict sense — I hate Greek mythology and I absolutely can’t stand when people drop Latin phrases into non-legal or non-medical conversations.

I like to read, but I don’t like to be smug about what I have or haven’t read. (The only thing I’m willing to be smug about is that I absolutely despise Edmund Spenser. I wish I could do to him what Twain threatened to do to Austen, shin bone and all.)

I’m certainly not an elite. I spent the first four years of my life living beside a railroad track — so the phrase wrong side of the tracks is more familiar to me than Ivory Tower, even though I have been degree’d up. I’m credentialed, I guess, but I feel like the same little girl who stood out in the yard, waving to the train conductors, begging them to honk the bellowing horn. They always did, from what I remember — and those are fond memories.

Before I digressed, I was saying that I’m not an elite. I go back and forth between two tabs on my phone — the New Yorker and r/datingoverthirty. I look at the first one when I want to make myself upset over not having written the Great American Short Story Collection, and I look at the second when I want to remind myself that being 29 and unmarried is okay, because nearly every single person is either lonely or messed up. Or both.

All of that’s to say that I balance my high-brow interests with my low-brow interests, and that I often realize that my low-brow interests are more relevant to my own tastes, my own behavior, my own lived experiences.

I will never write the Great American anything, because I enjoy reading more about literary gossip — and the bad behavior of writers — than I would enjoy trying to emulate their work. Similarly, I’ve yet to find someone I want to marry — but I feel like that’s more within my reach, and that it isn’t an elitist aspiration to find a partner.

There are two “elitist” hills I will Green Boots myself on. The first is that I don’t enjoy the show Friends. I don’t haaate it, although I understand why other people do. But I feel like the Venn diagram between “people who think Friends is the funniest TV show ever” and “people who liked playing Chubby Bunny at church youth retreats” is probably close to a circle.

I think it’s perfectly wonderful to watch that show, if you really enjoy it, because it isn’t hurting anybody. It’s a harmless show — but it’s also a toothless show. And that’s its biggest sin.

The second “elitist” hill I’ve climbed involves reality TV. As a teenager, I hated Jersey Shore, because I thought it was shallow. Guess what? It is shallow. That’s the whole point.

Most of the MTV reality shows know that they’re shallow. I don’t mind reality shows that understand and actively embrace how depthless they are. The reality TV shows I can’t stand are programs like The Bachelor, where finding love — something that should be sincere or fun — is trivialized in the form of competitive dates. The idea of competitive dating is bonkers.

That being said, dating is inherently competitive—to a certain degree. All of the eligible singles in your area are also looking to find someone, and while that doesn’t mean that everyone else is your direct competitor, it usually means that you have to find a way to make yourself seem like the Most Appealing Bachelor(ette). You want your partner to feel like they won a prize.

At the end of the day, I still have more in common with the people who watch Friends and The Bachelor. I would much rather listen to them talk about relationship journeys than to listen to anything about The Faerie Queene or dawn with her rose-red fingers.

Life is too short to be (too) pretentious. Sometimes, you have to eat ice cream for dinner — just because that’s what’s available, or just because that’s what all your friends are having.