"She won't do anything she doesn't want to do. She doesn't give a damn what other people think of her. She is tremendously skilled. And she is unlike anyone I've ever met."
Dragan Armansky on Lisbeth Salander
from The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson
It's been a quiet summer. And a boring one. On purpose. I haven't written much here because there simply wasn't much to say. Or, better to the truth, much I wanted to share. Because I blog under my own name, and am thus easily google-able, I've lost both job opportunities and dates to my online accountings. Sucky, but I suppose if they found something here they thought objectionable, we wouldn't be a good match anyway, whether for work or fun.
Furthermore, I don't think anything in this forum is sketchy; in fact, I know it's all rather reserved. I've got lots more I could say, and want to say, and I've been trying to get up the courage to get it out here.
I've been filling up notebooks and index cards with thoughts, drivel and observations. I have drafts of several essays I don't know what to do with. And I've been readingreadingreading. Mostly online, but books, too.
I recently inhaled "The Girl Who Played With Fire." (I liked it fine, but preferred the first of the series, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.") The passage above jumped out at me. Because I think that would be an amazing compliment if it referred to me.
I've never been a conformist. I couldn't give a shit about trends or cool, and I really don't care if you don't like me (and if "you" are a man, I don't care if I'm not sexy/hot in your opinion). I do expect respect (and because I tend to give it, I get it). I'm a professional at work, courteous in public, and loving/kind in my personal relationships. The older I get, the less I care what random others think of me. I meet hostility with disinterest and I have perfected the art of the ignore. It's likely I'll never be rich, but I'll always have my integrity. (Unfortunately, I did live in Stockholm for a few years; remind me to tell you about it...)
With this post, I'm coming back online. I'm off to Chicago in a few hours, to spend the weekend with a good friend, her husband and their two young daughters. I'm bringing andouille, books and Hubig's pies, as well as other treats.
I have been promised a birthday cake.
This will be a good year. I will make it so.
3 comments:
Happy birthday, Adrienne. This is your old Rose Tattoo friend--Carissa. I'm glad you're doing well and that you're writing again...I enjoy reading your posts!
Here's a birthday poem for you by Margaret Atwood--I thought of it as I was reading your "Happy Birthday to Me" post--they have a similar mood. I hope you enjoy!
from The Circle Game
“Songs of the Transformed”
by Margaret Atwood
Men with the heads of eagles
no longer interest me
or pig-men, or those who can fly
with the aid of wax and feathers
or those who take off their clothes
to reveal other clothes
or those with skins of blue leather
or those golden and flat as a coat of arms
or those with claws, the stuffed ones
with glass eyes; or those
hierarchic as greaves and steam-engines.
All these I could create, manufacture,
or find easily: they swoop and thunder
around this island, common as flies,
sparks flashing, bumping into each other,
on hot days you can watch them
as they melt, come apart,
fall into the ocean
like sick gulls, dethronements, plane crashes.
I search instead for the others,
the ones left over,
the ones who have escaped from these
mythologies with barely their lives;
they have real faces and hands, they think
of themselves as
wrong somehow, they would rather be trees.
Happy Birthday, Adrienne.
Happy Belated Birthday!
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