The Passive Voice

A Quiet Welcome to a New Year

Happy New Year! It's not quite midnight in my time zone, but I'm up all alone.  Gadget Guy retired early (and slightly ashamed) with a headache.  He feels old, but I told him it's ok because we stayed up partying till 1 am last night playing Bookopoly(because that just how we roll) and watching Gossip Girl.  Such crazinees took its toll apparently.

Once upon a time, such a solitary fate on this overhyped evening might have saddened me.  But not anymore and certainly not tonight.  It's hard to feel sad when you have a good book, a wonderful CD, a warm fire, and a purring cat.  And three quarters of a bottle of cheap champagne all to yourself.  

I've made a resolution, but I'm keeping it close for now.  Probably not what you're supposed to do since without a public acknowledgement, a resolution can just dissolve without ever seeming real. I could post it here, of course, and hazard that my one reader (dear reader, you know who you are) might see it.  But not tonight.

Instead I'll bid farewell to the blur that was 2007 farewell and greet 2008, alone but by no means lonely.
Cheers!

Movie Season

For GG and me, holidays mean movies.  Back in the day, before we had kids, we went to the movies often.  And we survived our first few Christmases far from family by going to the show.  One year we saw a double feature of Quills and You Can Count On Me on Christmas day at the local indie theatre. 

But these days, we watch movies at home after the kids go to bed.  So far, we've viewed some winners and losers, some current and some older, a list which includes Zodiac, Oceans 13, Shoot 'em Up, The Painted Veil, The Secret Life of Words, and Stranger than Fiction.   Here are some random observations:

• Oceans 13, Stardust, and Stranger than Fiction provide further evidence that great actors of an earlier generation (namely Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman) have become sad parodies of their former selves.  All the performances are painful to watch, but De Niro's in Stardust is by far the worst. Perhaps because it works the least within the context of the movie.
• Oceans 13 is awful.  Which shouldn't be a surprise since Oceans 12 was abysmal.  The only upside was that Julie Roberts wasn't in it.  (And really, her blond hairdo is reason enough NOT to see Charlie Wilson's War non?) But watching Clooney and Pitt pretend to cry at an episode of Oprah was more than I could handle.
• Happy endings to stories which include war crimes are pretty hard to pull off.  And The Secret Life of Words doesn't manage it. As much as I like Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins...

And in case you think I can only be negative...

• Emma Thompson, just by speaking, makes most movies better (Sense and Sensibility excepted since she was too old to play Elinor.)  I quite enjoyed Stranger than Fiction, a movie I suspect I would have liked less without her in it.
• The Painted Veil, which in theory should have been my favourite, was good but I figured out the ending. (It wasn't hard.)  And I'm always let down when that happens.  GG tells me I shouldn't try to figure it, but I can't help it. 
• To my surprise, Zodiac is the movie I've liked best.  Not my typical genre, but I like its doggedness and storytelling.  And Mark Ruffalo always is a bonus. And I didn't figure out its ending.
• I can't think of anything to say about Shoot'em Up, which probably says it all.

On deck for tonight either Away from Her (great reviews, but Alzheimer's is a bit of a downer) or The Shop Around the Corner.

The Happiest Place

I just learned that the place where I grew up has just been named "the happiest city in Canada."  This comes as a bit of a shock.  Saint John doesn't exactly conjure up pictures of sweetness and light. And while I had a perfectly happy childhood, the city itself exists in my mind in various shades of grey.  This might be due to the fog, of which there is plenty. Or because of all the pollution, which is even more abundant courtesy of the oil refinery and pulp and paper mill.  Anyhoo.  Good for ol' Saint John.  I have many friends and relatives who still live there, so I'm sure they're tickled.  And as Gadget Guy pointed out, those of us who weren't happy, have left.

Name Nerdiness: an introduction

Somewhere along the way, I became a name nerd.  Thinking about and talking about names is one of my hobbies (or as close to a hobby as I get.)  Like many people who read a lot and like words, I think I've always been fascinated by names.  My own name, while not entirely uncommon, is definitely not what would be called popular.  Or even well-liked.  It's one of those names that people either love or hate.  I also credit my mother for my interest in names since she clearly had taste off the beaten track and both my sister and I grew up knowing the story behind our own particular moniker.   Part of me believes that a name does make the person.  I tend to believe I am who I am BECAUSE of my name. (Perhaps somewhere at some time there's been a cheerleader who shared my name, yet I highly doubt it.)

Well a few years ago, my interest in names exploded into an on-line activity.  While pregnant with my second baby, I started visiting an on-line baby name board.  And suddenly I found myself immersed in conversations about sibling sets and kre8tive spellings and the pitfalls of a popular name.   We discuss guilty pleasure names and make top ten lists and mourn the names we will never get to use since our childbearing years are over or because our significant other lacks proper name appreciation. (RIP Alistair. You live on in memory.)  Now I read baby name books in  my spare time and mentally note the kids' names we encounter along the way. (Too many Jacks and Lilys to count!)

Which leads me to my current name crush.  Whether there will be another baby to name remains undecided chez Passive Voice.  It could go either way.  But the desire to NAME another baby never, ever dies.  And because most of my names tend to come from books, today's is courtesy of E. Nesbit's Wet Magic.  In it are four siblings:  Francis, Mavis, Bernard, and Kathleen. (Not a bad sibset overall, although the repetition of "is" at the end of Francis and Mavis might have been avoided.)  Anyhow I have found myself quite taken with Bernard, who is sometimes called Bear by his brother and sisters.  (Bernard means "bold as a bear" in German.) 

Bernard happens to be a family name which I've tried to warm up to before (without much success), but suddenly the possibility of a nickname like Bear has me humming.  How cute is that? But like any crush, the question is how long will it last.  Will it only be fleeting or is this the kind of love that will endure?  Only time will tell.

Making a Mountain out of a Muffin Top

In many ways, I am conventional... and I wish I was not:  my kids eat too much processed food and watch too much television, I wear nondescript clothes from the Old Navy and Gap, and I don't really take a stand on anything either way.  I'm pretty run-of-the-mill.  Indeed by virtue of  being a wife, mother, and homeowner, a certain amount of convention rules my life.  Once you are roped into going to Christmas work parties, getting your kid to school on time, and keeping the front walk shoveled, it's hard to feel like you're fighting the power. Sometimes i wish I were a homeschooler, or wore finds from funky vintage stores, or was committed to an organic diet, but I'm not  and I don't.  I have great respect for people who do, but it feels too hard for me. 

On the other hand, I worry about my inability to be "normal."  I wonder why it's so hard for me to keep a kitchen tidied up. Or why I forget so often to wash my kids' faces.   Why can't I plant tulips in the fall like every other person on our block?  Perhaps if such (non)acts were evidence I was taking a stand against the Man, I would be okay.  But instead they just seem to be further proof of my inherent laziness.

There are times when I believe, for a moment, that I might be normal, that I might actually pull it off and be kind of regular.  Like the day I managed to get up at 6:30 am to bake muffins to take to my son's school for a "Teacher Appreciation" breakfast. I was rather pleased with my out-of-character accomplishment.  But then I told a friend and she was disappointed.  "But that's not you!," she said.  "You don't get up at 6:30 am to bake."  And then I wondered whether or not she was right. Do I make muffins at 6:30 am for a school function or do I not?  And really, what is at stake either way? What do I prove by NOT baking the muffins? What do I compromise if I do?

Such incredibly silly questions, I know.  And yet, these are the kinds of things I think about.   I realize there are people who would just bake (or not bake) the muffins and it wouldn't mean a thing either way.  And I envy them, whether they're conventional or not.

Since it's been about six months...

it must be time for me to start posting again....