Got the staples out today. Didn't get a chance to save one for Noah. I did, however, get a set of pictures of the inside of my knee. I'm thinking about using the images for our holiday cards this year. They don't really look like anything. I found myself politely nodding at what the doctor was showing me just like you do when someone tries to point things out on an ultrasound picture. I thought about posting the pictures up here, but that seems really grisly.
So I did finish "The Time Traveler's Wife." It was pretty good. A keeper. One I'll likely read again. There are still some free will issues that bother me. I just don't think the wife had many options but to marry the guy. It borders on creepy that he seemed to kind of groom her to be his wife. It got me on a line of thought that could lead to crazy-ville. There seems to be a certain percentage of life that is governed purely by randomness. No matter how many plans you make or how careful you are or what you do, things will happen to you just because. Like....falling down the steps or whatever. How much of the rest of my life is changed because of what happened on those steps? What would be different right this instance if it had never happened? Or....what if Noah was a girl? Would something more fundamental than my floor being covered with Barbies rather than Hot Wheels happen? Or that horrible mall shooting on the news today. Things like that really drive me nuts. What if one of those people decided to go shopping yesterday instead of today? I really can't let myself go down these paths very far. I have to believe that the percentage of our lives that are ruled by chaos is so tiny that the chance of major changes is very small. Maybe that's being completely naive, but if life were HUGELY random, then what would ultimately be the point of planning anything?
There was one other part of the book that bothered me. One of the characters voices the opinion that adopting a child is "cheating" and that they must have a "real" child. The character who says this is otherwise an appealing character - it's not a "bad" character who says/does other "bad" things. I find that viewpoint to be really offensive. Certainly adoption isn't for everyone, but why paint it in such an unflattering light? That attitude makes it seem like the love that adoptive families feel for each other is also not "real" and that it's just a sad substitute for a "real" family. I would hope the author didn't intend to come across this way, but she did.
12.05.2007
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2 comments:
Stuff like that adoption comment really bug me. It's so judgmental. I hate that crap. If you think adoption is cheating, then don't adopt a kid, but don't go around telling everyone else not to adopt one either. (That's my answer to alot of things...don't like it, don't do it. But don't tell me I can't do it because you don't like it.)
Making statements like that to me says that you have judged someone else and found them wanting.
Argh. I had a relative who for fifty years said "my adopted daughter." That drove my dad nuts. Annoyed him to no end. "Susan, my adopted daughter, lives in Nebraska." That will mess you up, you know, to think that your mother tells everyone you were adopted...
That whole thing in the book made my head hurt -- he groomed her to be his wife because he knew she was going to marry him, but she married him because of his actions when she was a kid, so which was the cause and which was the effect. Were they destined to marry because in the future they were married? Or did he influence that future by the way he treated her? I believe this may have something to do with why it took me so long to finish it.
But now I want to read it again, to see what I think this time. Maybe after Christmas.
All too deep for me at this time of night, but it does sound interesting. I feel horrible for the people killed at the mall, too - such weird random tragedy.
I think you should post pictures and put them on Christmas cards. Share the pain.
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