crazy love
May I gush? Deadwood is amazing. I’m bereaved every time the credits roll. I’m hopelessly crushed on Seth Bullock and scared to death of Al Swearengen. I don’t know where Trixie gets the inner steel to defy that devil of a man. Don’t think I could do it. I’d be like Calamity Jane, falling apart and sobbing snot. Unless, of course, the kid he was after was one of mine, in which case he’d have to kill me first, but that’s not real courage, just the lesser of two evils from my point of view.
It occurred to me as I was running this morning, taking a much-needed break from endless diplomatic crises with Claire, that attachment parenting works both ways. Cuddling and playing with your newborn gives him or her the opportunity to display the full range of attachment-seeking behaviours. Letting yourself fall for the little brute helps get you through the years of noncompliance and flat-out contradiction that follow. Claire has become necessary to my happiness. That’s lucky, because you’re not allowed to sell five-year-olds on eBay.
America and I have gone through the same arc. I came here as all economic migrants do, for a deposit on a house and maybe some retirement savings. I planned to stay a couple of years. It’ll be ten in April. San Francisco sent out its tendrils of charm, its urban coyotes and soapbox derbies, its open studios and improving coffee and nasturtiums growing like weeds. For an overeducated, bookish, nerdly woman, it’s Renaissance Florence. Which is lucky, because you’re not allowed to sell dysfunctional oligarcho-plutocratic superpowers on eBay either.
