Here, Prince!

As little girls neither one of my daughters was ever particularly interested in pretending to be any one of the growing arsenal of Disney princesses.  This was fine with me, since it meant they never wished their father were a Prop King instead of Prop Master.  And it also meant I never had to help them waddle down the street on Halloween night holding a mermaid fishtail off the sidewalk.

Fortunately, when I was a little girl the Disney marketing machine had not yet been cranked up to eleven, so the issue of my royal aspirations only came up when either Snow White, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty would make a celluloid appearance at our closest movie palace.  (For the record, I did want to be Cinderella, but only because of The Dress.  Considering the future years wasted watching red carpet arrivals, you might say that was my "gateway gown.")

So it came as some surprise when my 16 year-old  recently announced that she wanted to be Rapunzel, the newest Disney Princess, from "Tangled."  Was it because of her magical hair?  No.  Was it because at 16 Rapunzel manages to banish the only mother figure she has known from her life?  Thankfully, no.  Was it because she wanted to marry a prince?  Yep.

But not just any prince.  My daughter wants to marry Flynn Rider.  Not someone who looks like Flynn Rider.  But the actual, fictional Flynn Rider.

Preposterous, I know.  Although, not because Flynn Rider is two dimensional.  There are many men walking around out there for whom that third dimension is a drawback.  My issue with her selection was due to the fact that Flynn has a goatee!  Could this girl seriously be my daughter?  Goatees are for slackers.  Goatees are underachieving beards.  And I hate beards!  Goatees announce to the world "I can't grow a mustache."  And so I ask you, what else will Flynn Rider not be able to do for my daughter?  (Before your mind goes too far in the gutter, the answer is "support her.")

Now, I'm not saying that I haven't had my share of foolish, youthful flings with Peter Pans, my crush on Peter Pan actually being one of them.  But in my opinion, if you're looking for true romantic satisfaction among the computer-generated, you simply can't beat the nameless prince from "Beauty and the Beast."

That mane of hair!  That strong, aquiline nose!  Those shoulders!  Even when he was a Beast his voice was enough to make your knees go weak (in no small part because that was Robby Benson's voice -- a real life heartthrob of my youth).  Granted, he almost lost me with that cheesy turn-to-the-camera "Look at me!" moment at the end.  But face it, when you're that beautiful and you haven't seen your real face in several years, you're allowed a moment of vainglory.

Some would say that to fantasize about a lover who is animated -- in the pen-and-ink sense, at least -- is unhealthy.  And I'll bet some of you parents out there are shaking your head and judging me, certain that my encouragement of my daughter's infatuation will only reinforce unrealistic expectations and all but assure her inability to find a true (i.e. human) partner later in life.  But that's where you'd be wrong.  It is possible to meet, fall in love with, and even marry a cartoon character...





I did.

How Am I? Don't Ask!

I remember reading somewhere that in cultures where there is no word for stuttering, people don't stutter.  Please don't run and google this statistic.  It doesn't matter if my memory is totally flawed.  What matters is the idea that if you don't apply the label, the condition might not exist.  For those factoid wonks who demand accuracy, I'll re-pose my theory in the form of a familiar philosophical query: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody asks if it made a sound, would the tree even know it fell? (I didn't say it would be a great philosophical query.)

That's what I'm wondering these days as I make my way through the quotidian morass of paperwork, drudgery of homemaking, stress of our declining economy and fact of my advancing age.  If I never asked myself "Am I happy?" would I ever doubt that I was? 

Another aphorism I've heard, but can't remember where, claims that "nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else."  This philosophy can readily be applied to all sorts of undesireable situations: Fifty is great as long as you wouldn't rather be forty.  Cooked beets are tasty unless you think of chocolate cake.  Your spouse is gorgeous as long as you don't look at Brangelina.  Ergo, I am happy until I compare my mental state to, oh, the way I felt on my wedding day, when I was thirty-five, was literally forced to eat cake and slept with a man who could give Brad Pitt a run for his hearthrob money.

So yes, these days I find it helpful to walk through my duties with mental blinders on and caution tape around my brain's pleasure centers.  Nothing to see over here, just keep walking.  My motivational catchphrase is much more in line with the Nike slogan, "Just do it."  (However I might preface that with "You don't have to like it.")

So, how am I?  Who cares?  It's enough that I simply "am."

In conclusion, I would like to lay to rest one final pithy adage.  With apologies to Socrates, the unexamined life might actually have something going for it.

Remembering My Brother on 2/14/11

I have now lost three members of my immediate family and I can say with total honesty that the specific dates of their deaths have never been any kind of emotional trigger for me.  (As a matter of fact, it has always kind of amused me that my father died on the third of September… which the Temptations unknowingly predicted in song.)  Where annual milestones were concerned, I found that I missed my loved ones the same every day, and tried to honor their memory with equal daily consistency.  To focus on any one date seemed rather arbitrary.  But Doug died on Valentine’s Day, a very high-profile date that demands acknowledgement (not a surprising exit for those who knew my brother.)

Again, however, I have to confess that Valentine’s Day was never a big deal for me.  I always felt it was artificial and commercial.  Other than the annual heartbreak I may have suffered in high school if the right boy didn’t deliver the right card/box of candy/flowers, the day has held very little significance for me; much to the relief of my husband, I’m sure.

But I do know that Doug did not feel quite the same as I did in this regard.  February 14^th is a day that purports to celebrate love, and Love was a gospel Doug preached.  He even got married on Valentine’s Day.  I’m talking about his third marriage!  If that doesn’t prove he was a romantic, then how about this:

Fading as he was, one of the last requests Doug made of me was that I go out and buy a Valentine’s Day card for him to give all the women who were taking care of him in those days.  He was having trouble remembering how to work his iPod, but he sure as hell wouldn’t forget what date was fast approaching.  One of the most gut-wrenching things I have ever had to do was deliver those cards that afternoon, after Doug was already gone.

So now I have this memory of Doug and his legacy of love, coupled with a date that is highlighted on every calendar across the country.  I find that indifference is impossible.  Thanks to Doug, Valentine’s Day will forever now have meaning for me.

Thanks to Doug, every Valentine’s Day I will remember how deeply it is possible to love somebody.