Mrs. Jesus

I'm no different from perhaps a billion people on this planet -- I've read The DaVinci Code -- and Angels and Demons. I have to admit I was enthralled by the former, but then felt a little bit duped when reading Angels and Demons made it obvious how much the two are the cookie-cutter image of one another. I swore that two Dan Brown novels were enough for me and refuse to even look at the cover of a third. Dan, you are writing novels, not episodes for a TV series like Gilligan's Island. Stop trying to get off the island!

With all the critical writing and discussion going on about the new movie, however, I hope that this critical analysis of Brown's treatment of Mary, her transformation from one female stereotype (prostitute) to another (the wife and mother), is not overlooked.

Cast in this light, it reminds me of a dear friend of mine, who is an extraordinary political theorist. In her award-winning dissertation, she presented a very insightful and complicated analysis of the use of virtue and vice both within and outwith feminist circles -- of how both sides of this binary are used against women as well as how difficult it is for feminists to theorize outside and beyond virtue and vice.

*****

Beyond this, and on a personal note, this May has been the second crappiest May of all time for me. The last May that was this crappy happened in 1987. Which actually may be a source of hope. Both of these crappy Mays were, in part, due to serious malfunctions in judgment on my part. That doesn't mean that I did not have judgment malfunctions between these Mays. It just means that, given the fact that the first May really has had no negative impact on my life, maybe this May, in time, will not either. But I doubt it.

I thought we were supposed to become wiser as we become older. Sometimes I think I just get older and none the wiser. How long does it take to develop good judgment and caution? How long does it take to tame impulsiveness so that it occurs only in harmless contexts? I don't want to become such a cautious mouse that I never act spontaneously, but I am tired of creating unnecessarily painful situations for myself.