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Novels by Mary Marcus
New on the Blog
Gender Inequality II Or, Why I Don’t Wear Dresses
I almost bought a dress today. I was on my way to yoga. I spied it in the window of a small shop on Montana that was having a 75% off sale and thought it had possibilities. But when I went back after class, (having wiped myself down carefully in the loo post class) and tried the thing on, it was a no-go. On me, that schmatta cried out for binoculars, old Birkenstocks, and maybe some hat purchased at a sidewalk sale of a camping store. When I told this to the proprietor of the shop, she really lost her cool and did a deep guffaw confirming that I was right. Not that I have anything against bird watching, I watch birds all the time, but I don’t want to look like a birdwatcher. I don’t like dresses. I don’t feel comfortable in dresses; I don’t think I look right in dresses. Though I do own one sort of dress that I adore, and wear it only sparingly because I don’t want it to wear out. It’s not really a dress, but a long stripe t-shirt that falls exactly right. My dear friend Lydia gave it to me after I admired hers. It’s from Muji, that Japanese store, and she sent it to me in the mail from England wrapped around a picture of her darling daughter Martha, at age about 13 months, when she was still very bald and baby-like. I keep Martha’s picture on my altar and Lydia’s t-shirt dress on my best silk hanger. They are two of my favorite things. Driving home from yoga, I thought about the dress issue. Why do I eschew them? When you wear a dress, you are...Swearing, Girl Scout Cookies and Gender Inequality
I really liked Patricia Arquette’s acceptance speech about equal pay for women. She reminded me of Jane Fonda in the old days, using the Oscars as a platform for her political agenda. And that’s a good thing. If the U.S. falls behind the other civilized nations in happiness, health care, child care, literacy, to mention a few, we still make some of the best movies and people all over the world watch the Oscars. Gender inequality really is a big issue. It’s something I think about especially this time of year when the Girl Scouts are out selling those horrible cookies nobody should be eating. I was a Scout myself, before I was kicked out of the troupe for swearing. I don’t remember the repercussions. My father was already dead, and my mother had a lot to worry about with three kids, her own failing health and a shrinking bank balance. Maybe she just shrugged it off when the scout leader called her and told her I had a “potty mouth.” That’s not why I don’t like girl scout cookies, I don’t like them because the ingredients are awful. If you’re going to eat sugar at least do so in a more salubrious manner, and give girls something better to do than stand on street corners or go door to door selling crap that makes one fat and sluggish. I bet no boy was ever kicked out of scouts for having a potty mouth. The expression, “potty mouth” is really filthy, isn’t it? Isn’t “saying the “F” word,” a lot cleaner than saying, “you have a potty mouth.” UGH! My...Manulita
The flu was enlightening. At the height of it, I was actually hallucinating, reminding me of being young and taking all sorts of mind bending drugs. I was trying out the holistic method, which is to let the illness burn itself out and, as a by-product, kill off free radicals. By the time I stumbled over to the Motion Picture Clinic on Day 3, I was at 102 and felt considerably more lucid than the day before, when our old bird Manulita materialized and began talking to me. In my febrile state she was bright green with purple eyes, but I still knew it was Manulita. My son named her, it was one of those charming made up names children seize on. She was grey with little orange markings, a pointed head and bright bright eyes. Her wings were clipped when we brought her home with special instructions on how to repeat the process (“It’s just like cutting your fingernails!” they said at the pet store, but none of us believed that line). We bought her a huge black cage that cost five times what she did, and parked her in one corner of the dining room. I took her out first. And I remember this feeling of EEEK, it’s a claw curling around my finger, but soon it was okay. I’d stroke her little grey back and we would walk around the house together. My son, then maybe seven, did the same thing. She was quite responsive. She’d do this bird thing with her little head, bobbing it back and forth, and let out with her crazy piercing shriek, that seemed so big and important coming from such a tiny little thing that weighed in ounces not...
The New Me
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