Fall Days and (Guilty?) Thoughts

Today I have my slippers on. It's chilly in my little victorian house and warm outside. It won't warm up until the sun hits the front of the house where I'm typing this in my office, so I'm going out soon. It's lovely to have this beautiful, perfect fall weather after the summer that never was. I watched a NOVA movie about global warming and they said the gulf stream isn't returning the cold water current back to the equator because the arctic isn't cold enough anymore. Could we all just get out there and paddle?

O.K. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. My Mother ruined my life. She wouldn't let me be a groupie, which was a perfectly valid career choice when I was twelve. Her lack of foresight condemned me to a life of having to earn a living, ride coach and watch other people be rich and famous for no reason. By the time I was eighteen there were no more openings for professional groupies and this tragedy has colored my whole existence.

I'm not even guilty about that thought.

I'm struggling with a guilty pleasure, so why not humiliate myself to the whole world and get it over with?

I have a crush on a rock star. Not "George Clooney is cute" but a crush like I used to have in high school. Where does this come from? How does it happen? I'm smart. Who am I talking to now? What purpose would fantasy serve?

As I have already said, after a certain age, any show of passion becomes an object of ridicule—even to others my own age. So there, is the guilt in my guilty pleasure. It has to be hidden at all costs. You'll notice I didn't tell you who is the object of my impossible affection.

I saw my rock star on tv. You couldn't hear him sing because of the screaming fans. I listened to them and said to myself: "What do they want?" They don't care about his singing—I mean, here's their chance to worship him and they're screaming in church. He's just cute. Do they think he'll pull them up out of the crowd to dance with him the way Bruce Springsteen did to Courtney Cox in some old commercial for I can't remember what? Is he going to notice them and fall in love? What?! I don't get it. Somebody please tell me.

Hero worship has always been a part of being human. It evolved from an unsophisticated brave hunter, admiration of the ability to overcome the fear of the unknown, superstition's spiritual leader, Greek mythology, doer of heroic deeds, worship of the dead hero, to ancestors, legends. "More than a man—less than a god."

Now…do we have romantic heros? Do we worship because our heros are better than us? Can we claim to follow their virtuous lead? JFK and Martin Luther King JR were philanderers. Do we forgive their misdeeds because they are above ordinary constraints? Whole countries can worship power. The names Napoleon and Hitler come to mind. Do we claim things beautiful or powerful as our own? Vicarious achievement? After all, we exist only as egocentric beings and I haven't had much luck vanquishing evil doers lately. I can't even lose ten pounds. Are we worshipping beauty? There's a lot of 'super' things going on today. Super heros, super rich, super star, super model, super market. No wait, scratch that last one. Is our worship the narcotic that sends them to rehab? Does the cult of culture reduce us to lemmings? Does our hero have a sandwich named after him? I have often wondered; Reuben who?

All I know is that for me, it involves suspending reality. That's what you're supposed to do at a good movie. Maybe it's a vacation from real life. I don't know. I'm going to figure it out. Then I'm going to become rich and famous due to the acclaim for my book. I've already got a really good title: