It's Kind of Like the Chorus to 'Venus in Furs'

I am weary of people proclaiming, as if it's something to be praised, that they admire someone for "getting it done" or constantly trumpet that "she's just like me! She's gettin' it done!" without once asking what "it" is or whether "it" is worth gettin' done (the dropped 'g' being totemic in this campaign).

Bill Clinton would have asked what "it" is, dagit!

And I am weary of hearing people say they support Sarah Palin because "she's just like me!" Are 51 percent of America's white women solipsists? I want someone as little like me as possible running this country, and believe me, dear, so do you. How about an engineer, maybe, or someone who can at least read a balance sheet or fix a computer glitch?

It's family reading time in the Cougar household, which means the prescribed 30 minutes of Magic Treehouse for DD while mommy reads, works, blogs, does a horoscope chart, and cooks pasta. Tonight, it's the New Yorker, only been ripening about three days before I peeked inside. Observations:

Spike Lee looks old. But good.

He gets up at 5 a.m. I'm going to have to start setting my alarm another half-hour earlier.

Elsewhere, Anthony Lane attempts to redeem himself from his recent savaging by Jezebel and assorted gals with this review of The Women--and I'm ready to forgive. I head to the online version to copy this, here:

"According to Sylvie, “Nobody. Hates. Saks.” Such is the moral of this film, run a close second by “Don’t give a shit about anybody—be selfish,” as delivered by Leah (Bette Midler), a trumpet-voiced movie agent. In short, we are back in the land of “Sex and the City,” and thus with the lurking suggestion that greed—emotional greed, not just the material ravenings of the shopper—is the only alternative to the humiliation that comes from subservience to men. No middle way is permitted.

"Compare this with the split-and-try-again comedies of Hollywood’s heyday, like “The Awful Truth” or “The Lady Eve,” and you can’t help recalling the satisfaction of watching the heroine come out on top, not because she had mooched around reflecting on her self-worth, or invested that self in handbags, but because she had fought like blazes to get there. Real women like Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, and Katharine Hepburn scrapped for their power, against a society that had no wish to give it up, or against hapless, dithery males who had no clue what to do with it, whereas “The Women” of 2008 gives empowerment a bad name....

"Taken together, “Sex and the City,” “Mamma Mia!,” and “The Women” add up to a spectacular trilogy of the inane, and to point that out is not the prerogative of the misogynist or the killjoy. It’s the view of someone who thinks that women deserve better from the movies, and who sees no joys to kill."

Word. I am weary of being told that I love shoes and handbags and care what labels they once bore (bore being the operative word). I actually dislike shopping, quite a bit. I love sexy heels, lingerie, the art of fashion, most of all the art of perfume, but the day my goddamn life revolves around all that you can just go ahead and shoot me. With a crossbow, please.

Photo: Nola Darling from "She's Gotta Have It." Don't make em like that anymore. Didn't you love that bed? No, it's not at Saks. Used without any permission whatsoever. Just another in the long list of reasons why I don't want anyone like me in higher office.