One from a silly TV show that I was watching (had enough beer under my belt that I can't remember which), and the others from a book that I just read. The book was so good that as soon as I finished it, I spun it over and read it again.
First:
Younger women date older men to have someone to look after them; older women date younger men because they can look afer themselves.
Wow, that says a lot, doesn't it? But we still know how silly we look doing it.
And now from the book 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert:
'Virginia Woolfe wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.
........................
'The Bagavad Gita - that ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. (emphasis mine) Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.'
As imperfect as my existence may be, it's mine, and mine alone. I seem to muddle through and things work out in the end. That's all that's important, isn't it?
The next one from the book is NOT, in any way, meant to be a slam at my faithful American readers. It just struck me that, as citizens of any country in the world, we don't realize how we're perceived in other countries by the actions of our leaders.
Elizabeth is in Italy at the beginning of a quest to rebuild herself mentally after a very nasty and prolonged divorce, learning to speak the language (which I'd love to learn, I'll have to put it on my to do list), and to help her with the language she reads the paper every day.
'In more serious bad news, nineteen Italian soldiers have recently been killed in The Americans' War (as it is called here) in Iraq - the largest number of military deaths in Italy since World War II. The Romans were shocked by these deaths and the city closed own the day the boys were buried. The wide majority of Italians want nothing to do with George Bush's war. The involvement was the decision of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister (more commonly referred to around these parts as l'idiota). This intellect-free soccer-club-owning businessman, with his oily film of corruption and sleaze, who regularly embarasses his fellow citizens by making lewd gestures in the European parliament, who has mastered the art of speaking l'aria fritta (fried air), who generally behaves not at all like a proper world leader but like a Waterbury mayor (that's an inside joke for Connecticut residents only - sorry), has now engaged the Italians in a war they see as none of their business whatsoever.
"They died for freedom," Berlusconi said at the funeral of the nineteen Italian soldiers, but most Romans have a different opinion: They died for George Bush's personal vendetta. In this political climate, one might think it would be difficult to be a visiting American. Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying, "We understand how it is - we have one, too."
We've been there.
This book is highly recommended, take it for a test-drive. Well written and very humorous (in parts), a good read.
