OMGZEITGEIST

Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The term is a loanword from German Zeit – "time" and Geist – "spirit" (cognate with English "ghost").

-"Zeitgeist" article on Wikipedia

I have never liked fads. I never had any pogs, never wore bell bottoms in middle school, and I don’t like Twilight. Lots of people have liked or do like these things, but they don’t interest me. One reason is that I could never see the point of scattering little pieces of cardboard around, I think bell bottoms are ugly, and I’m not into vampires. The other reason is that I generally tend to dislike anything that is currently considered “cool.”


What I have is sort of the opposite of a hipster’s “I liked it before it was cool.” I’m more of the “I liked it way way after it was cool” type. I couldn’t see the point of green nail polish when the popular girls were wearing it in middle school, but in college it was hard to find me without my fingernails painted a strange shade. I was disinterested in the early hullabaloo surrounding the Harry Potter series, and didn’t see any of the movies until at least five of them were out, and now I have seen all of them and have read the books through several times. I absolutely refused to join any social networking sites when they first became really popular, and now my computer is rarely on without being accompanied by facebook.

The only thing I have been on the bandwagon at the time for was the Lord of the Rings movies, and I think that mostly had to do with the fact that I was hanging out every day with a group of friends that were all into them too. Fangirling alone in your apartment is not as much fun as fangirling with a bunch of people. They call solo fangirling “stalking.”

Don’t get me wrong, I will enjoy something whether or not others enjoy it. Although I will usually try to share it with someone else if they will listen, and the one who falls victim to this most often is my poor husband: “So she didn’t want to tell him about it and asked her friends not to tell him, but then this other guy who knew about it tried to tell him so they all tried to make him be quiet and...” He is very sweet and just sits there and lets me talk, and eventually I realize I’ve been talking for ten minutes and he’s been mentally checked out for at least 7 of those minutes, and I finish up with “...but whatever, you don’t care anyway, go back to what you were doing,” and laugh at myself. (And he goes back to playing video games, breathing a sigh of relief that he’s not going to be quizzed on it later.)

I like to watch very popular television programs after they have reached the peak of their popularity and are on the down slope. I never watched Scrubs (until about a week ago), Bones (until the middle of season 5), or NCIS (until about season 6 or so) when other people were watching them. I love all these shows, but one thing I can’t stand is a cliffhanger. I will wait for six months to a year before catching up with them, and then watch everything that’s available except the last two or three episodes. I’m okay to be left hanging between regular episodes, but every single show on television likes to do a little “OH NO WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT” episode near the end of the season that makes every viewer hate summer.

And I like summer.

So I don’t watch TV like other people do. The exception to this rule is pretty much everything on USA Network (Burn Notice, White Collar, Royal Pains, etc.). The nice thing about USA Network is that instead of doing one season of shows beginning in the fall and ending in the spring, they break up the season into two chunks. Like, the first half of the season will show in the spring and the second half in the fall, or the first half in the summer and the second half in the winter. Then they stagger when the shows are on, so that there’s always something new showing, no matter what time of year it is. Of course, with a double dose of cliffhanger opportunities per season, there’s more “OH NO WHAT WILL HAPPEN” frustration, but since after one half season ends, another great show starts up again, I can’t be too sad about the disappointing ending of Covert Affairs because, ooh, Burn Notice!

I really enjoy reading a book series after the author is finished writing it. For some people, the anticipation makes the book even better, but for me it’s annoying; I just want to find out what happens! With things that I love, I don’t mind much, because every time a new book comes out is an excuse for me to read the whole series from the beginning again. But my friends have a hard time convincing me to pick up a new series sometimes.

Thankfully, I did not miss out on the works of Jim Butcher due to the persistence of our good friend JR. I was disinclined to start the Dresden Files series: he had made the mistake of telling me that not only was the author remotely close to finishing them but that they also predominantly featured vampires. I never really got excited about vampiry things before the universe got all “OMGZEITGEIST” about them, so now that they are a fad I’m even more disinterested.

JR baited me with Butcher’s finished series, The Codex Alera. The two things that drew me: no vampires, and JR’s description: “Somebody challenged him to write a story combining Ancient Rome and... Pokémon.” That description may turn some people off, so don’t worry, Butcher’s “furies” aren’t really anything like Pokémon. It is plenty Ancient Rome-y, though, and the history major in me was like, “YES PLEASE.”

After I shook JR down for his copies of every book in the series and read them twice, I figured that the Dresden Files would be okay to try, too, vampires and all. I shouldn’t have worried: Butcher’s vampires do not sparkle.

I don’t like popular things. I almost have to be forced to try something that everyone else in the world won’t shut up about. Usually I shrug and say no thank you, but on the rare occasion, I will regret not trying something sooner.

I’m too slow to catch up on what’s popular that I will never be a fashionista, but give me time and I will most likely come around and watch that movie or read that comic that you recommended. 

Unless it’s about vampires.

What a Mother Does

There’s been some controversy recently about stay-at-home moms. I read an article about a woman without children who complained about her friend who was a mom, asking why she didn’t answer phone calls or emails or invitations to hang out and wondering what she was doing, just sitting around? I read the rebuttals by the columnist and another by a stay-at-home mom/blogger, and agreed with both. Children take up a lot of a mother’s time, and even if she would like to spend time with her friends, there is so little time left by the end of the day/week/month/year to do things without her children that she just wants to have some time to herself.

Some people might not agree with me, but I feel that being a mom is the best thing in the world. Staying at home with my kids is my current occupation, and I love it; sometimes it’s hard for me to see why a mother would choose to do anything else when she could be treasuring her beautiful children at home.

Because of this, I’ve always been a bit disdainful of women who are well off enough to stay home but choose to go back to work. I understand those who need to work to support their families, and I’ve always felt bad that they didn’t have the means to stay home. The logic behind the choice of working when you could stay home eluded me; I always thought, “do they just not love their kids enough?” until just the other day.

I was watching an episode of the TV show Bones, in which the female lead, a scientist who solves murders, had just had a baby. In this particular episode, she went back to work for the first time after having the baby, and everyone was asking her, “Don’t you miss your baby?” She would always reply, in her logical way, that she knew where the baby was and could go see her anytime she wanted to, but that she was doing important work and that the asker should probably get back to work as well.

At the conclusion of the case, they caught the killer (as they always do) and she and the male lead sat down on the couch with their daughter. “Do you want me to take her so you can get some sleep?” he asked. “No!” she replied forcefully, “I’m... fine.” After a bit of cajoling on his part, she admitted almost tearfully, “I missed her so much!” He suggested that she could take a bit more time off work, but again she said, “No!” and explained that the work she did was important and that even though she missed her, she wanted her daughter to know that her work was important, too.

By that point, I was crying; I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to have to leave your child in the care of others to do what needed to be done. Imagining how I would feel having to do that wrenched at my heart.

I was ashamed of myself. How could I assume that just because a mother went back to work that she loved her child less? Of course a mother wants to treasure her child every second of the day! Just because she works does not mean she feels any different about her children than I do about mine.

So to all the working mothers out there: I apologize for judging you. Never again will I assume that the reason you choose to be away from your children is because you don’t care for them. I understand now that whatever a mother does, whether at home or away, she does for the love of her children.