Good night, good woman

Molly Ivins passed from this earth today, at age 62, of breast cancer. The irrepressible journalist ate, lived and breathed politics and picked her teeth with the bones of any politician who dared cross her path.

Molly Ivins was the one who nicknamed GW Bush "Shrub." She also said — "....our very own dreaded Legislature is almost upon us. January 9 and they'll all be here, leaving many a village without its idiot," in a December 2000 column.

Her columns made me spit coffee on my newspaper long before I began spitting it on my keyboard.

She is a woman worth knowing. An article about here is in the Dallas Morning News.

Her most recent articles are here. Pick any one. They are all worth reading.

I like to envision her galloping around in the afterlife on Barbaro's back, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, like every good journalist should do.

In other news, thank you for all the thoughtful comments on yesterday's post. I am still holding out the hope that this circle the fat thing is some kind of urban myth, at least the part about it being done by frat boys as the women lie naked and bound.

The wish to be part of a group is woven within us, though, isn't it? It is especially apparent when we are feeling like less than perfect. We reach out to adopt a group identity because we don't trust our own to be good enough. This is the stuff that advertising is made of. I know plenty of women who dedicate a good chunk of their psyches to being Coach shoppers. Make sure that logo is plastered all over, please, because I NEED people to know what kind of woman I am! A Coach woman! A woman with such good taste that I have a logo to prove it!

I have always been a bit of a rebel, a non-joiner, one of the kids in the back of the room sneering when the cheerleaders came in to remind us about the pep rally (these are the kids who became journalists, BTW - right, WordGirl?).

During the disco era, I dressed like it was 1968, sporting jeans, knee-high lace-up moccasins, a paper-thin silk Indian blouse with crappy embroidery on it, and a bandanna tied around my head. Did I mention the waist-length straight hair? I was MY OWN KIND of cool, baby.

A cynical lack of enthusiasm was always one of my chief personality traits. I didn't want to do anything that anyone else wanted to do. I dated the unpopular guys, the guys with Issues With Authority. I never wanted to go to college because that was what the normal kids did. I didn't want to get married, to have kids, to own a house (and guess what? I never did any of these things!)

All this rebellion served to make me...what? A rebel, and nothing more. It is pretty hard to accomplish much when you are too cool to do anything. My problem was that I didn't know the difference between rebelling for a cause and rebelling because I was too afraid to invest my heart and soul in something because then I would show my hand, and showing who I was meant I might have to take criticism for it.

I still have problems joining in. Recently, though, I have tried to just go with the flow and shut my yap and have a good time. When I found my church, I decided to just jump in with both feet, so I became a Sunday School teacher, a snack provider, and eventually a board member. It hasn't been that bad, though I still cringe when someone calls to invite me to something. Then I say "Yes." Because I have to change sometime. Either that or put up with myself the way I am, and I am pretty sick of THAT.