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Location: Work.
Stress Relief: The bottle of bubble-stuff on my desk.
Listening: "Freak Of Nature" ~ Liz Phair.

I opened my mailbox last night to discover the ubiquitous manilla envelope from home. Somewhere along the line, my mother decided that it would be an excellent idea to send me clippings from Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Self, etc. on
a well-nigh weekly basis. In the past, said clippings have included articles on how to stop smoking, how to lose fifteen pounds safely in two months, what passages of the Bible condemn living together before marriage, what passages of the Bible condemn sex before marriage, what passages of the Bible condemn Los Angeles specifically, what John Grisham thinks about the "craft of writing", what George Will thinks about Al Gore, etc. Needless to say, as a result, I've become fairly impervious to anything that might turn up in my mailbox.

Last night's offering was a ten-page essay on why aspartame/Nutra-Sweet is a nerve toxin (which, by the way, it actually is according to several professors of mine) that eventually will make habitual Diet Coke drinkers exhibit symptoms mimicking those of Multiple Sclerosis. Scrawled across the front page was the accompanying note: "DON'T DRINK DIET SOFT DRINKS! READ THIS!". Intriguing, but not the highlight of the packet.

Over the past few years, my mother has expanded her mailings to include clippings of engagement announcements from The Commercial Appeal, Memphis's local newspaper. She claims that she started doing this in order to entertain me with little surprises about childhood and prep school friends. However, I never fully bought that explanation and, when she highlighted the groom-elect's occupation on a few of them, determined that these were actually meant as less than subtle hints.

Some background might be in order. To state the main issue here briefly: I am Southern. My mother is Southern. I am her only daughter. I am unwed at twenty-five. Now, in times that often, back home, don't feel as if they were quite so long ago, this would have been indicative of one of the following conditions:

1. I am "strange" ("Did you see the way she opened her own door on the way out of the University Club? I swear it just gave me chills to think that I was sitting next to one of those girls all during dinner!") , no man will have me, and I will end up living with my aging parents and several cats.

2. Some horrendous physical, mental or social/genealogical flaw has been discovered in me, no man will have me, and I will end up living with my aging parents and several cats.

3. I am pining for a lost love and will die a spinster and it's likely for the best as no other man will have me and I will end up living with my aging parents and several cats.

As it stands, my current state is somewhat indicative of the first (as you've read), somewhat indicative of the second
(the folks are still considered "new money" in Memphis), and somewhat indicative of the third (not pining, though--remembering what happened the last time I said I'd marry someone). However, it's much more indicative of the fact that I've been determined since I could form a sentence that I wouldn't marry unless I could do so and maintain my self-respect and overall freedom
(widely quoted at the age of three as "No man is gonna tell me that I have to cook his dinner when I wanna go play." Damn straight.). I've never seen marriage as the zenith of my experience as a female. I have a great deal of respect for the spirit behind the legal bullshit and feel that too many people enter into the institution far too casually. I also have never felt the need to legitimize my feelings for another person by creating a public spectacle designed to be more of a display of largesse than of emotion. I despise bachelor and bachelorette parties and the message that they send about how our society has come to view marriage (read: as the end of one's youth and pursuit of true happiness). I look horrid in white and some fool relative of mine would be scandalized unto a cardiac if I wore a Victorian riding skirt and boots--and that would fuck up proceedings royally. My male friends promised me that they'll limit themselves to two minutes each when the "Speak now..." portion of the ceremony comes around. These are just a few of the reasons why I'm still "single".

Try telling any of this to my family. My mother has finally reached the point where she will insist that she's actually pleased that I'm not married--that she knows that I don't want to be and feels that that is a good thing because I'm so independent--that if I did get married I might be tempted to have children and I'm so terribly selfish that I would raise sociopathic children and God knows, society doesn't need more of those. I've learned to be amused by this line of reasoning. Yet, my mother still yearns to be able to tell her friends at the fitness club or over lunch that her daughter ("my free-spirited Beatnik child" as she apparently refers to me) has snagged some dazzlingly successful young medical resident, lawyer, broker, corporate climber, etc. and that the ring really is just too huge, but what are you going to do? etc. etc. ad nauseam. She wants this in the same way that she wants to be able to tell them that I not only graduated a year early from high school, but I've also already published my first book and am in school for my JD/MBA/MD which I'm looking to finish in four years. She wants this because she's bored to death with her own life and has started to think that the status of other people's children compared to mine is a direct reflection on her as a parent.

I'll have to continue tonight, but needless to say, this and Peter's musings on Diane's upcoming wedding touched off several things in my mind that I'd like to explore here.