Monday Update

I'm really liking Shameless...so much so that I kind of regret my practice of watching one season at a time; then waiting for Random.org to pick it again for me.

On the other hand, I'm excited to see what my next show will be.

My favorite episode of Shameless so far has been "It's Time to Kill the Turtle".

In this episode, Frank (William H Macy) the alcoholic, narcissistic, father is told he will get $3000 if he stops drinking for three weeks.

He's a struggling, grumpy mess in the first hour or so of the experiment. But once he discovers the powers of sugar via his daughter's (Emma Kenney's) juice box, his mood picks up, and he becomes sober-super dad. 

He entertains and impresses his kids with his piano talent. He makes pancakes. He takes the kids bowling....

Most importantly, for the first time in the show, he shows interest in being with his children.

The tragedy in the episode is the children knowing that none of it will last.

One thing I wondered while watching the episode is if Frank's narcissism is dependent on his drinking. Without a drinking problem, would he be NOT-a-narcissist?

OR was he still a narcissist while sober but in a less noticeable way?  

The episode reminded me of two of my old blog posts.

Lucifer had inspired me to write God Narcissists and Demon Narcissists, and The Fosters inspired me to write this post. The former was my way of dividing narcissists into those who are adored by many and those who are scorned. The latter was about a character in a similar situation as Frank. She seemed to be a narcissistic heroin addict. Then she gave up the drugs and also seemed to give up the narcissism. 

Oh! I just saw that the post talked about another thing I've been wondering about. (Past me and Present me sometimes REALLY think alike)

Anyway, what I was and am wondering is if narcissism could influence the behavior of the drug addict and/or alcoholic.  

Do alcoholics without narcissism put in more effort to be sober/clean? And even when drunk/high, do they treat their kids better than a narcissistic drug user?  

What I asked in the old The Fosters post is this: I'm also wondering, are all addicts that desperately manipulative?  Are there some addicts who manage to have standards?  Like, I'll steal to get high. But NOT from my own children! If some addicts have lower standards and are more manipulative, could these manipulative traits be there before the addiction began and after they've become sober?  Could it simply take a more subtle and different form? 

As for the god and demon narcissist thing. I would definitely put Frank in the demon category. He's not seen in good light, maybe partly because of the narcissism but more so because of the heavy drinking and irresponsibility with money.  

Did Frank's narcissism disappear when he stopped drinking? And would it permanently go away if he stayed permanently sober? OR would he just become a God narcissist—someone who is self-absorbed, dishonest, and manipulative but hides it behind things like physical attractiveness, wealth, charm, talent, philanthropy, etc.  

Moving on....

I'm starting to like season 2 of Broadchurch. I wasn't too into it with the first two episodes. But with the third episode, I started warming up to the whole thing. And I was even dismayed when the episode ended...longing for more.  

I usually try to not play on my phone while watching shows. I'm bad at multitasking. But I started doing that while we were watching the second episode. I was looking for Broadchurch actors older than me so I could feel less old.  Yeah. I do that sometimes.

I found a few.

But I also found out that Jodie Whittaker and Arthur Darvill (who are dreadfully younger than me) have the exact same birthday. I was so excited about this. I blurted it out to Tim and actually asked him to pause the show, so he could fully hear the news.

Tim listened and then asked if they were born the same year.

I was like...hello? Why else would I see this as being newsworthy?  I mean it would be mildly cool for actors on the same show to have the same birthday. I probably wouldn't have interrupted the show for that, though. I might have just said it quietly to myself not caring if Tim heard or not.

I feel it's kind of a big deal to know someone who was born on the same day as you.

I don't think I ever met anyone who was born the same day as me.

BUT....one of the few things I remember from my late 1970's St. Louis life is that there was a girl in preschool. Her name was Allison, and her birthday was close to mine. I don't think we had the same  exact birthday. But it was a big enough deal to me just to have a friend with a close birthday.  I mean a big enough deal that I still think about it 43 years later.  

I wonder if we were the same age. Were we born days apart? It's possible that she was a 1973 birthday instead of my 1972.  

In screenwriting news, I'm feeling somewhat good about The Dead are Online version B. I had decided to NOT submit that one to contests.  I was unhappy with one of the characters...Anna.  My plan was to save the scenes in version B and use them when/if I wrote a miniseries version.  

I felt somewhat okay with her character in a full length project but felt things about her personality and storyline would be a deterrent to a contest judge liking my screenplay.  

SO I ended up deleting a couple of scenes that might have fixed the problem.

Well...to be less vague. Anna and her fiancee Eugene have a bad relationship. They are awful to each other; maybe more her to him than vice-versa. Then, in the end, they start mending their relationship. But I started to think that maybe Anna was too toxic, and the mending of the relationship wouldn't be seen as a positive thing.  So I took out her more toxic bits.  

I've not been a podcast person, but I was suddenly in the mood to hear the Horizons theme song and ended up finding the Imagineer Podcast, and they have a whole episode about the ride. I listened to it in bits...just like I've been listening to Trump bully Raffensperger in bits. But with the Horizons thing, I listened in larger bits, and I'm already done listening to it.    

I might listen to more episodes. Well...actually I started this one while doing some chores. So I'll probably continue with it.  

One last thing (hopefully).

Eastern Europe is the section of the world I've usually been the least interested in and attracted to. But I watched this video from the Frank James channel, and my interest was sparked when he said Latvia is the best country for introverts.

So this morning, I watched the Latvia episode of Geography Now! and learned about the Singing Revolution. That got my attention. My days of being disinterested in Eastern Europe are probably over (which is good because my great grandparents come from the Soviet Ukraine).

 

 Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

I Don't Like that Nanny

I read Mary Poppins last night. (but it won't be last night by the time I post this)

Now I must say that my feelings about the book might be slightly clouded from what I know about the author, P.L Travers. I didn't feel much love for this author who acted ashamed of being Australian, and separated her son from his own twin.

Still, even without knowing about the author, I don't think I would have liked Mary Poppins. I had heard that the book version of her is dark. I wasn't quite sure what that meant. A little wicked? A dark sense of humor? A bit moody sometimes? Maybe she's warm and loving, but a bit firm? I think I could have liked a woman like that.

Mary Poppins, though, is a vain uptight snob. She's a total bitch. But all this is forgiven because she's MAGIC. She takes the kids on marvelous adventures. She talks to dogs in front of them. She has medicine that changes flavor. She has a magic compass. She has all kinds of cool stuff in that carpet bag of hers. But she's NOT nice. She's cold to the children. She rarely smiles. She doesn't show affection. She lies to them, and invalidates their experiences. After they've experienced magic and try to talk about it, she insists it never happened. She even goes as far as scolding them for discussing it.

Mary Poppins doesn't seem to like the children in her care. She treats them as if they were a nuisance.

The children don't seem to mind at all. They like Mary Poppins. They grieve when she leaves. They prefer magic to nice. It's not surprising that these kids like her. They didn't love their previous nanny. What was that nanny's crime? She was old, fat and smelt of barley-water. There's no mention of her being abusive or irresponsible. She simply wasn't young and attractive enough. Mary Poppins is attractive. She makes sure of it by frequently looking in mirrors.

Now it is of course important to look at the time period in which Mary Poppins was published. 1934. In these days, a lot of people were probably still following the parenting advice of people like John Watson. There was the idea that parents (and caretakers) should treat children with emotional detachment. If you give your child too much affection, you'll ruin them. Despite all the modern parenting advice that opposes that viewpoint, some parents today still cling to that old-fashioned idea.

I think though that most of us believe at least a LITTLE warmth should be given to children. If we had a choice between nannies, I think we'd pick Maria Von Trapp over Mary Poppins. Maria can't do magic, but she's so loving and understanding. She's patient and kind. Her happy enthusiasm is contagious.

In the book, Alex the Life of a Child by Frank Deford, little Alex fills out an All-About-Me project. One of the questions asks what kind of friend she'd like. Does Alex prefer a friend who is cute, funny, rich, or nice? Alex underlines nice. When asked why, she responds simply Who wants a mean friend?

Sadly, I think many people DO want a mean friend. We like nice people, but we tend to have this attraction to people who are physically beautiful, super talented, famous, funny, and rich. Sometimes we will ignore the nice people and give more attention to the mean people who have traits that we find intriguing and attractive.

The good news is that there are beautiful women and handsome men who also happen to be super nice. There are nice, rich people. There are nice, funny people. There are nice, smart, and talented people. There are even nice, famous people.

But then there are these people who think that since they have these certain gifts, they don't really need to bother with being nice. A model might have so many men fawning over her, she decides she can treat all of them like crap. Why not? They still hang around...no matter how mean she is to them. A chef might be so talented with food that he doesn't need to be nice to the restaurant patrons. His veal is so tender. He can be as rude as he pleases. He knows people will keep coming back.

When I was recovering from my eating disorder, a light bulb went off in my head. It doesn't matter how thin I am! It matters how NICE I am! People like people who treat them with kindness. People like people who will listen to them, laugh with them, and comfort them when they're sad.

Now unfortunately I've come to realize that this is not always true. Hopefully, they're in the minority, but I do believe there are some people who care more about what you look like than how you treat other people.

The sad truth is we live in a rather shallow world. We no longer live in the 1930's, but we still live in a society where people would prefer an attractive magical cold-hearted nanny to a fat and old one.

I wish we lived in a world where kindness was valued over everything else. Now I'm not saying I expect people to be nice ALL the time. There are valid reasons for bad moods and bad tempers. Your boyfriend died. You have bad period cramps. You lost your job. You have a headache. Your mother doesn't like your vampire girlfriend..... We can't be happy, friendly, and loving all the time.

I think we simply need to remember that things like beauty, talent, fame, wealth, and magical powers should NOT be included in the list of valid reasons to be rude, cold, cruel, and obnoxious.