Beauty and the Beast

Is there really any archetype more damaging to women than that of Beauty and the Beast? Oh, sure, it’s not that great for you to sit around and wait for your prince to come, but you can do things while you wait, even if it’s just nap, and, if he doesn’t show up, you can get on to other things.

But to believe that the behavior of a man can be changed if you just love him enough?

I don’t know. There’s something heartbreaking about the end to this Daily Beast story:

But she made it clear what she had liked about him; he wasn’t a wasp, or some facsimile of a Kennedy. “Everyone assumed that I was supposed to marry someone like a John Kerry, some preppy that had gone to Harvard or Yale. I didn’t want to marry those boys. I did not like them. I had been around them my whole life. I interrupted the story line. I wanted out of that suffocation.”

But he was who he was, you know? It’s not like Schwarzenegger has ever not been a gropey, womaninzing mess of a man in his personal life, which is not to let him off the hook. He is an asshole. But he was an asshole before they married. And, yes, love is blind.

But I worry we teach girls we can change the people we love, transform them from monster into price, instead of facing squarely that the person in front of you, for all his or her faults and good points, is always going to be that person.

Comcast Customer Service that Works for Me

I had decided that the way to get over my anxiety about finding an agent would be to send out some query letters last night. But then the internet went down, so I watched NCIS and hung out with the Butcher and the Red-headed Kid. I admit, I haven’t been watching as much NCIS as a person might, but I had somehow gotten it in my head that Ray was a little kid, so much of that episode was confusing.

However, here’s what I wanted to say. After I’d restarted my modem and still didn’t have an internet connection, I called Comcast and their little computerized voice recognized my phone number and asked me if I was having tv or internet problems and when I pressed “2” for internet problems, she was all “Yeah, we know. We think we’ll have it fixed by 11:30.”

I did not even have to talk to a human being. But I felt like someone knew something was wrong and was fixing it.

I’m kind of wondering if Comcast isn’t overlooking a business opportunity. Think of the comments at Pith. What if they could call an 800 number and get an soothing womanly voice who was like “Are you calling to complain about Betsy? Press one if you just hate her. Press two if you think she’s stupid. Press three if you think she’s a liar. Press four if you think she’s be a much better writer if only she took your coaching to heart.”

“You’ve pressed 4. Press one if you encountered the ‘You’re not the boss of me’ glitch. Press two if you’ve encountered the ‘Met with hostility’ glitch. Press three if you were just ignored.”

And then it could say something reassuring like “We are aware of Betsy and working on a solution. It will take a hundred years.”

That would be nice.