Thursday, November 18, 2010

High/Low--It's All Culture

First, the High.

Zoey loves Shakespeare. That's what she tells me each time she asks to read The Book (much like The Bible or The Koran, she says it with all the Gravity befitting a bedside table drawer at Howard Johnson's).It is certainly a pretty book, printed in 1941. Zoey asks why the pages are stained a bit brown but does not accept my explanation of age. She says it is blood; I'm pretty sure this is part of the reason she loves The Book. I tell her who Shakespeare was, recite the 3 sonnets I memorized my senior year of high school, then she sits quietly while I read a few other poems aloud, though mostly she just likes to sit alone with The Book. She whispers as she reads it, she makes it up each time, and more than anything I wish I could hear what story she is telling.

The Low.

Last night I watched 16 and Pregnant because I am the mother of a 4 year old girl who reads Shakespeare. The episode centered around a teenager with crispy permed hair and a terrible cliche of an accent. She was 22 months pregnant with twins, and smaller than I am at 11 weeks pregnant with one baby. I'm thinking of picking up a can of Aqua Net because in the grand scheme of things, these things matter. Everything matters.

xo,
S

6 comments:

Maggie May said...

i am torn over that show. i watch it sometimes. but then i feel like shit.

zooey is awesome. if i thought a book had blood on it, it would seem pretty important to me too.

Maggie May said...

and YES! you are pregnant!!!

aren't you glad i told you?

:)

Melissa & Emma said...

Did you say 22 months pregnant and barely showing. Lord, she should be a mammoth by now!
I take it Zoey is reading the tragedies, in which case maybe it really is blood in The Book. Perhaps Lady Macbeth wiped the blood off her hands on your book?
Great post! Smile on my face! You make me happy.

Geli said...

Gosh that picture is so beautiful and tranquil - it could be your Christmas card. I have a 15 year old and I let
her watch 16 and pregnant in the hopes that she will take precautions once (hopefully not for a few years) she's sexually active. In theory she knows, but will it prevail in practice? That show is a great deterrent....

Anonymous said...

I am 34 weeks pregnant and love your postings more then ever as a soon to be mom. Pregnancy has given me a lot of anxiety that obviously can't be soothed with 5 glasses of wine or a xanax, BUT I can't begin to tell you the peace I have found in watching 16 & Pregnant...it is my new drug. I also highly recommend I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant on TLC and some other show that follows pregnant woman in jail on living in tents...enjoy...May

Miss to Mrs said...

16 and Pregnant is my guilty pleasure. I really should be more like Zoey and make Shakespeare my guilty pleasure. She's going to be a better person than I could ever dream of being.