I'll Tell You What I Want... What I Really, Really Want

The two times I’m most aware of being single and most unhappy about it are 1) during the Christmas Eve Service at church and 2) when I have car trouble. So if I’m feeling really single right now and it’s not Christmastime, guess what? In addition to the fact that my car is in the Lowe’s parking lot (and I'm not!), I have a dog in intestinal distress. I could elaborate, but I won’t.

I just finished The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. It’s a really well written and surprisingly amusing - given the subject matter - memoir about a young wife and mother’s battle with breast cancer and her beloved father’s simultaneous fight against late stage bladder cancer. Having finished this book immediately prior to my current round of every day frustrations has made them much easier to bear. It has certainly helped me keep things in perspective….so did a pep talk from the Divine Miss M.

One of the things I think I may do someday is write a book of cinematic remedies i.e. Need a little lift? Take two Reese Witherspoon movies and call me in the morning. I am a firm believer that in the same way a great new hairstyle, a day at the beach with your best pal or a small dish of Haagen Dazs Pineapple Coconut ice cream can cure what ails you, so can viewing the right movie.

What I needed today was The Women (the remake). I haven’t seen the original, though I hear it’s wonderful! I needed to see Bette Midler’s character, Leah, in sweat pants and chemically altered state, encouraging Meg Ryan’s Mary to figure out what she really wants so she can go after it. I needed to see Annette Bening’s Sylvia put the spritzer girl, Eva Mendes, in her place. (Gotta love a friend who really has your back.) I needed to see Debra Messing’s Edie go from a woman whose head looked like it was going to spin off (gosh I wish I had thought of that line) to someone enraptured with her newborn baby. (I needed to see someone make it through the hard stuff and get to the prize.) Mostly I needed to see a woman who had been kicked about a bit by life rise from the ashes sporting the most spectacular do.

When Mary came home from the summer sleep away camp for divorcees where she met Leah, she got right to work on a vision board. Under the words “What Do I Want?” she posted all kinds of interesting and pleasing images. She then went to work trying to make those images a reality.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have my own vision board. I’m looking at it right now. It’s sort of a big picture thing though. It represents everything I want in my life over the next several years.

Big picture things have their place. If, for example, I wanted to drive to the San Francisco, CA area, a big picture thing would likely prove helpful in getting me there. Specifically, it would tell me I should do things like turn left when I hit North Florida.

A big picture thing would not help me find Fred’s Place in Sausalito once I got to the Bay area, however. To find Fred’s place, I would need a smaller picture thing, like… a city map.

My big picture things are all still out there waiting for me…the quaint blue table overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Greece, the really, great guy, my royalty checks… In the meantime, I need to put in my appetizer order. What I want right this minute are the following:

I want my car to be fully functional post haste and I don’t want to part with much cash in order to make that happen.

I want my sweet pup to stop doing her Mount Vesuvius imitation and if God forbid, she’s not ready to stop yet, I want her to learn the meaning of the word tile.

I want the crazy eyed, Summer obsessed teens in my charge over the next couple of weeks to remember what they’ve seen on Nick at Night and pretend they’re in an episode of Happy Days. I want “Gee” to be the worst thing I hear coming out of any of their mouths.

I want to get a call from somebody in the position to offer me a real job which will allow me to make more than my 21 year old son expects to make this year playing a guitar and flipping his hair around.

I want to lose those final 15 lbs of baby weight, given that my baby is an adult now. I would be most pleased if I could accomplish this in BLT (Biggest Loser Time). In other words, a double digit loss by next week would be kind of nice. I think I’ll put in my order for that.

Hope you aren’t dealing with any of the huge, truly awful things. That’s my biggest wish for you this week. If, however, you’re being pecked to death by chickens right now like I am, well then, I hope you make lemonade or chicken salad ... or whatever it takes to make those annoying little troubles disappear.

BTW, in case you’re wondering… Here’s the scoop on The Women.

Hair B: There’s lots of great hair in this movie. I liked Annette Bening’s and Meg Ryan’s “after look” the best though. I’m currently really digging that sleek, straight and shiny look that no one, even young pregnant women of Asian decent who are eating right and popping the priciest prenatal vitamins out there can hope to achieve without benefit of a flat iron.

Chemistry/Most Romantic Scene B-/C+: There are no men in the film, The Women… NONE… NADA… ZIP. There are no men on the street outside the department store. There are no men in the restaurant scene and there are no fathers, brothers, husbands or guy pals in any of the women’s homes. In fact, the only male character to get any screen time at all in this movie is Edie’s newborn baby son, and for all I know “he” could’ve been “played” by a girl baby. As for a love scene, there wasn’t one unless you count the lightening fast moment where Jada Pinkett Smith’s lesbian character looked with lust at Mary’s husband’s mistress.

Since there are no male actors in The Women and no love scenes, I’m evaluating Chemistry and The Most Romantic Scene differently in this movie. The Women contains some good friendship moments. I liked the interaction between Sylvie and Mary’s daughter, Molly. I thought Cloris Leachman’s character Maggie was a hoot. It was really fun to see her grow to love Mary in spite of herself…and when that gigantic baby boy finally made his entrance…. Well, the feeling that was in that room should be bottled and sold.

Having said that, I’ll keep my own friends and family, thank you very much. The tag line in the original movie was The Women: It’s All About Men. The remake was supposed to have a different emphasis. It was supposed to be all about women… the kind of women we all know… 21st century gals who are intelligent and accomplished… who have options and who are supportive of each other.

The thing is, the women in this movie really weren’t relatable to me. Among other things, my friends would never consider “keeping it in the vault” if they knew a guy had done me wrong and they certainly wouldn’t sell me out for financial gain … no matter what kind of pressure they were under.

Then there was Mary's Mother, Catherine (Candice Bergen). Catherine, because she was unwilling to walk away from the finer things in life for either love or integrity, because she was from a different generation and because she survived her own husband's dalliance with a woman of ill repute, advised her daughter to look the other way while her husband carried on his sordid little affair. Well, for those of you who don't know my mother, Barb, let me tell you these three facts about her: 1) She was raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, 2) She was born during FDR's presidency and 3) she did face this issue when she had young children in the house... three of them to be exact. In other words, if there is a woman out there who should understand Catherine's perspective, it's my mom.

OK, now let me tell you one more thing: I would be calling the CIA and requesting an inquiry if Catherine's words ever came out of my mother's mouth. If she told me to look the other way while a man cheated on me, I would want the Roswell investigation reopened because that would be proof positive to me that she had been abducted by aliens and lobatomized.

Lesson Learned: Who knew that there was such a thing as sleep away camp for the newly husbandless? Guess I’d better start gathering my mess kit and little plastic toothbrush cover.

Overall Rating C: Gosh, I wish I liked this one more than I do. I wanted to! I planned to! Unfortunately, watching it is sort of like being at “THE party” in a tony Parade of Homes house on the lake and wishing you were sharing a bottle of two buck chuck with your best pals on someone’s back porch. Everyone who is anyone is there, but it just isn’t that much fun.

When I watch this DVD, I watch it for the few specific scenes I’ve already mentioned and for the fashion show. They make the movie for me. On the kind of days that involve Woolite Spot & Stain Carpet Cleaner and jumper cables, those scenes leave me feeling quite empowered.