It’s time for a visit from our favorite Netflix reviewer. Today, he weighs in on the movie “Circle of Friends.”
“I cry like the baby to watching this movie of girl with plumpness finding for the love. Mini Driver has for me the much of beauty to makes me wondering of her boyfriend playing with her sexy friend. I finding myself twirling in tornado of emotional for the hurtness of the Mini for suffer betrayal of lover, but for drunking by evil sexy friend. I cry the many of tears for sadnesses and triumphing. If you don’t sameness, you must be missing heart that is beatings in your chest cavity!”
An interesting post on Earth Day over on KarenJoy’s blog got me started on a long commment that I decided to convert into a post after it reached its second parenthetical aside.
Her post reminded me of some of my early experiences when we moved here from the liberal east coast. One thing about the culture of Arizona that struck me was how fiercely people resisted any label that smacked of, oh, how shall we call it– non-conservatism. On several occasions I heard people say, “I’m no _________ (fill in the blank with your favorite term, liberal, environmentalist, feminist), but…” and then share a deeply held belief or lifestyle choice that, to my mind, fit quite comfortably in that category.
Does this happen because people associate those labels with the most extreme ideas within those categories (For example, the tiny number of feminists who believe we’d be better off without any men at all)?. Abstract terms like these are catch-alls that hold a wide variety of ideas about a certain theme, and people who do identify with these labels often do not even agree with each other (Consider the label “Christian,” which I gladly accept, even though I share it with a few people who march around with signs that say “God Hates You”– an idea I do not agree with, to say the least). Is there guilt by association? Let’s take the term “environmentalist”. Some, if not many, environmentalists are motivated in their efforts at conservation by philosophies which are not Christian and in fact may be antithetical to Christianity. Should I eschew association with such a label due to the differing motivations among my fellow label-ees? I admit it’s not really a fair question since I had an answer before I even wrote it.
I’d describe an environmentalist as anyone who seriously considers, and tries to minimize, the environmental costs and consequences of their use of resources. If someone asked me if I were an environmentalist, I’d probably say yes. But in terms of actual choices about food, purchases, and use of water and energy, I suspect that my friend KarenJoy, who does not want to be called by this label, is actually more of an environmentalist than me.
I think it would be a fun experiment to take some of these assumption-and-association-prone terms and get a bunch of one-sentence definitions from people. Do you think it’s been done already?
Liberal
Conservative
Enviromentalist
Feminist
Politician
Emergent Christian
Fundamentalist Christian
Evangelical Christian
Humanist
Activist
Evolutionist
Creationist
Spiritual
Religious
Intellectual
I can’t for the life of me figure out why I’m suddenly so efficient. Dr. G has been gone most of the week, gallivanting around the country presenting his research and whatnot, and I’ve been fending for myself on the homefront. This consists, in part, of sleeping poorly and having dreams of the pool overflowing in the backyard while a row of evil Harley Davidsons charges the front. I also start to say things and then sheepishly stop, suddenly realizing that no one is there. I miss my Dr. G and will be glad to have him back. And yet, with him gone, I get so much more done. The annoying pile of tangled necklaces has even been sorted through, each one dusted and hung on a peg board; the leather sofa has been treated with a protective salve and the cushions rotated; I hung a picture and deep-cleaned the kitchen, dug up a bunch of bamboo in the backyard and treated my tomato plants for whiteflies. This in addition to the usual routines.
The question is, why? There is nothing in particular that he and I do together that would prevent me from doing things that otherwise languish undone for weeks. Granted, he did not grow up, as I did, in a home where Saturday Chores held a spot of honor just below loving Jesus and honoring your parents. So, these days, when I occasionally “get my chore on” Dr. G. opts for the Duck and Cover response. He does not believe in the Implacable Force of Chore Doing that was practically a member of my family. Perhaps my knowing that he is not a chore-mania believer subconsciously dampens my task-based enthusiasm when he’s around. Or maybe it takes plenty of homemaking effort to simply live life together, to pay the proper attention to the one I love. Most of the time, I will happily neglect any number of chores to sit out on the back patio or watch 1950’s TV shows together.