Ennui

I know y’all are waiting on tenterhooks for my next post, and it is not forthcoming. I’m sorry. I mean, yeah, I’m busy. I’m writing fictional stuff; I’m on two committees; I’m churning out scripts for my Hebrew school stuff. But that’s not really the problem. It’s just that there are so many things that I have absolutely nothing to say anything about, and I used to. I came to this realization when it turned out Katy Perry’s not a feminist. Once upon a time I would have LOTS to say about a Katy Perry not being a feminist. What does she think feminism MEANS? Doesn’t she understand that she can do what she does because feminism? And what about her young fans, I ask you? What about the CHILDREN?

Now I say, eh. Did anyone think she was a feminist before? And if so, why?

The Petraeus scandal is sort of like that for me. I used to love sex scandals! I wrote a whole post about Senator John Ensign! Why can’t I bring myself to write about Petraeus?

I mean, first of all, the man has too many vowels in his last name. It’s confusing.

But I don’t know. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable. I mean, for starters, I have fuzzy but positive feelings towards Petraeus; he seems like a good dude. So when he cheats on his wife in what appears to be a fully consensual relationship with his biographer, I’m kind of going, “Well . . . shit happens.” I mean, he’s got a seriously high-pressure job; according to that tape Rachel Maddow talked about that WaPo released, he apparently hasn’t been home often enough to even see his house (and I know she thought the important things about this tape were that Fox News really is, no seriously, for reals, the media arm of the GOP, and that the CIA is basically in charge of modern warfare but I hear what I want to hear, alright?). And then there’s Paula Broadwell, and she’s younger and good-looking and spent all day every day staring adoringly at him and writing down all the things he said so she could write the glowing story of his life. How could he resist? And he was once called Supreme Allied Commander and was now the head of the CIA. He was hard at work keeping America safe, widely respected as intelligent and fair, and she was spending all day every day researching how awesome he is. How could she resist? And yeah, the e-mails and the Jill Kelly thing were kind of gross, and you do have to worry about the head of the United States’s spies not being able to keep an extra-marital affair a secret. But I’m hardly the first person to make that joke. So what am I supposed to say?

I think the election wiped me out. I mean, I wrote about the first round of awful things Republicans say about rape, but I couldn’t bring myself to write about the fifth because for serious, what are you supposed to say? Rape is bad. Men who don’t seem to believe that rape is bad are also bad. Rape needs a much longer and more complicated discussion in this country, not just about what should be the legal ramifications of acts, but how to create a society that’s a little more moral about, no, seriously, consent, that’s important. But I tried to write that post and went off my head (though this story has me thinking about it again).

So I will be back. I swear. I’ll try to write more regularly. As soon as I shake this blanket of ennui that I’m currently snuggling under.