America's Comeback Kids

The New York Times headline read, "For Giffords, House Comeback is One Too Many."

It's funny to me how a mere headline can hit you, instantly, and make you feel something you didn't know you were going to feel. I mean, if I understood my college journalism class (which I took over the summer so I could have an occasional awkward coupling with my Catholic girlfriend who was doing summer theatre, thank you very much) that's part of what a headline's supposed to do. It's supposed to be quick, sharp, and it's supposed to hook you, to con you into reading the rest of the story.

Well, this headline kind of worked. It was quick and sharp, and it hooked me-- but I didn't read the story. Blame it on the Amazing Shitting Twins, who prevent me from doing, well, anything these days. Except blogging. YOU'LL NEVER TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME, YOU LITTLE SPIT-UP PARASITES!

*Ahem.* Sorry.

Maybe I should read the article before writing this post. That's generally how it's done. The best lesson I was ever taught as an undergraduate theatre major was "never audition for a play you haven't read". I mean, no shit, right? But I don't have the time to both read AND write these days. So, I'm going to be one of those people I can't stand, who comment on something they haven't read. Actually, sort of, but sort of not. See, I'm only commenting on the headline, which I have read.

The headline in The New York Times, to me anyway, reeked of a sort of intrinsic disappointment. It was as if to say that Giffords recovery has been remarkable, inspiring, (warning, the word I hate) amazing, but it's just.... short of perfect. Just shy of the American ideal of the person who beats all the odds, who defies all the expectations, who does the un-doable.

To me, the fact that Gabrielle Giffords is still alive today, that she is a living, breathing human being after taking a bullet to the brain is comeback enough. Why should she be expected to return to Congress? Now, she may have had that expectation for herself, and that's fine, one cannot poo-poo a person's expectations for him or herself, but what about what we expect. Had she returned to Congress, this country would have gone apeshit, falling all over itself to post laudatory Facebook status updates featuring pictures of her in her smart business suit, sitting in her tufted leather chair in the House. But why would that be something to celebrate? Why is Gabrielle Giffords going to her physical therapy appointments not something to cheer about? How about her eating a bowl of cereal? Why do we encumber the sick or the injured or the unfortunate with these inflated and conflated ideas and ideals about what "comeback" and "success" and "recovery" mean?

After my wife had her brain surgery, I had to bathe her, and make her meals, and drive her places. I had to endure conversations with her where she spoke at such a high pitch and such a fast rate of speed that I could not understand her. She learned to drive again, to use her left hand again. She went back to work. She regained her place in society. But she can't play the bassoon anymore.

Is my wife just short of the ideal American recovery?

We're the country that invented the phrase "the comeback kid". We love that shit. We eat it up. Runners with one leg beating the balls off their able-bodied competitors with the use of a prosthesis. The homeless girl getting the scholarship. The black kid from the ghetto going to Harvard.

What's... wrong with us? Unfortunately, our warped notions of what it means to be successful in this country inspire people to do things that might be better for us and our egos and our insecurities than things that are necessarily better... for them.

Watching the news, I just want to stand up and scream, "LEAVE THIS WOMAN ALONE! STOP IMBUING HER WITH YOUR OWN FAULTY EXPECTATIONS! GET YOUR FUCKING CAMERA OUT OF HER FACE AND OUT OF HER LIFE!"

It's not bad enough she had to get shot in the head on camera, now the cameras, and the expectations, will just never go away.

On September 11th, 2001, I remember how the late Peter Jennings and other dapper news anchors like him lauded the first responders who went back to Ground Zero again and again and again and again. Shift after shift after shift, police officers, medics, firefighters working seventy-two, eighty-four, ninety-six hours straight with no break. No masks. No fear. Well, I'm sure there was fear. And we ate it up-- the footage of those men and women in the prime of their life sifting through the rubble looking for their fallen brothers and sisters, looking for the fallen brothers and sisters of New York, tirelessly, frantically, endlessly, and we all cheered them on. But there was nobody there when those formerly healthy police officers and paramedics and firefighters were diagnosed with a plethora of cancers, and the great American public was not at their too-soon funerals, as the bagpipes bleated out their mournful dirge for these former heroes who, well, couldn't quite overcome adversity.

But, damn, they tried-- didn't they?

Well. Almost.

What Do You Expect?

Last night, I got an email from one of my precious few readers who has the misfortune to know me not just as a blogger but as a human being. The email directed me to a post on a blog called "The Art of Manliness" and the post was called What Can Manly Men Expect of Women.

You can read it here, if you're the bookish, sensitive, intellectual type of person who likes to know both sides of a story before just blindly trusting me and letting me touch you in the dark while you're asleep.

What?

The post makes the argument that men ought to be manning up, in many various ways, but that women ought to be expected to follow suit-- by feminizing up, as it were, because that-- like the handlebar moustache and the word "hosiery" seems to have gone out-of-style.

The article even quotes some "professor" as stating the following:

"But the younger generation is looking at getting dressed up and making their mark,” Mr. Cohen continued. “It’s a real generation gap here. I teach at three different colleges, and I am amazed how dressed up some of the students are. Girls still come in their hoodies and pajamas, but boys come in their suits.”

That's funny-- I care way too much about my suits to come in them.

But seriously, folks-- where the fuck does this guy teach-- the Sorbonne? My freshman year roommate barely attended class and, when he did, he sported a wifebeater and track pants, if he was feeling chipper. The amount of smelly, unshaven, hair-across-the-eyebrows guys who came to class wearing flannel pajama bottoms and hoodies outnumber the amount of recall notices on the Ford Pinto.

The post then goes on and on to whine about the "double standards" that exist in this world that have heavily stacked the deck against men. Well, let's all just back away from our monitors and have ourselves a good old manly cry about that, why don't we? Of course, if you look at the media, you start to see that it's true. Look at any situation comedy. You've got a rail-thin, high-titted, intelligent, world-weary wife inexplicably married to some semi-retarded, usually obese fuckjob whose job makes inappropriate choices like it's his job-- if he has one. You want to rise up and say, "Hey, wait-- that's not fair!" until you realize that all of these fucking shows were created and written by men.

Oops.

The post then goes on to point out the following contradiction:

"Could we perhaps say that equality shouldn’t mean embracing and outdoing men in things that were traditionally considered masculine? That making out with other chicks for attention and lifting your shirt for beads and getting smashed and burping the alphabet and dressing in sweatsuits really has very little to do with being “liberated?”

Wow. Sounds like the writers of this blog (apparently a hubband-and-wifey team-- awww!-- almost makes them immune from critique, don't it?) have been watching too many "Girls Gone Wild" videos, or at least too many episodes of "COPS: Live & Tasin' at Mardi Gras" to me. What percentage of the population of 18-24 year-old women behave like this, I'd like to know? And, while we're on the subject: how many of them have webcams?

The article also makes lots of claims, presenting them as fact but without citing any sources or evidence, such as "did you know that 2/3 of divorces are initiated by women?" Well, define "initiated." Does that mean the actual legal proceedings? Does that mean bringing it up at the breakfast nook? Does that mean that she was the one who took her ring off first?

Oh, and does that figure include all the instances of divorce that began due to the husband's sticking his dick in a hole where it didn't belong at a Motel 6 during his lunch hour?

The post ends by asking a very simple question, though, and I think it's a question that I should be answering on this here blog of mine because, really, I have a big mouth and sometimes I feel like I need to use it for something important.

And the role of men and women in our society is important. Isn't it?

Here's what I expect from women as a whole:

Nothing.

And I hope to God they expect the same, or less, of me.

You know why? Because I'm a human being, and I fuck up a lot. I say the wrong thing and I use the steel wool on the bundt pan and I zone out at work and I can't spell "synagogue" correctly without really thinking about which vowels go where and I spend too much time fantasizing about owning some impractical, crazy fucking car like a 1973 Mercedes 220-D with tan leather interior and wood inserts on the dash and I have anxiety about dying all the time and I'll never play the banjo as well as Steve Martin.

We're all hopeless, even those of us who make it big. Especially those of us who make it big. Christ-- look at Steve Martin. If you think his Inspector Clouseau is funny, you can just un-follow this blog right now, because you're dead to me.

Actually, maybe I mis-spoke a while ago when I said that I don't expect anything of women. I guess maybe I expect them to not be assholes. You know what I mean-- the kind who feel they are entitled to things. When a woman budges in line at the post office or reams me out at work, she's a bitch. When a man does the same things, he's a dickhead.

But those are just words-- they're just names. Would I be some kind of kerchief-mouthed revolutionary if I started referring to annoying women as "dickheads" and annoying men as "bitches?" Look, I'm too tired and too insignificant to start reinventing the wheel. I already tried that with "LMT" and "Keep Fucking That Chicken" and I don't think it worked.

I just want people to be good to each other, for Christ's sake. Figure it out, people. Start fighting fair with each other. Stop accusing and blaming, take responsibility. If one of you doesn't like doing laundry, then make that your thing. She'll walk the dog or iron your pants. Who gives a shit? Stop looking for excuses as to why your life is so unfair and why your race is so downtrodden and why your gender is so maligned. Stop complaining to each other over cosmopolitans or coffee. Stop writing into Dear Abby. Actually, don't do that.

Today, my wife and I went outside three times and did battle against a foot-and-a-half feet of snow with a shovel each. First we dug out her car, and then we dug out mine. She shovelled the walkway, I shovelled the sidewalk. Why? Because we're goddamn partners. I didn't go out there myself because I felt the need to prove that I'm "the man" with my big dick and balls, and she didn't do it to prove that she's a modern, empowered woman with a clit of steel and a snarky New York-state-of-mind disposition.

Man-- fuck that.

Gender roles and gender stereotypes are what we make of them-- they were invented long ago and we insist on either inventing new ones or perpetuating the old ones. Either way, we do a disservice to each other when we do it. What do you expect of women? What do you expect of men? You have to start smaller, by expecting things of individuals. We wouldn't permit, as a polite society, reading a post entitled, "What Do You Expect of Blacks?" or "What Do You Expect of Jews?" would you? Let's just take each other one at a time.

And those of us who are lucky enough in this life to have partners, well, we can start there.