The Fault in Our Stars

August 31st, 2015 → 5:24 am

    “Men at some time are masters of their fates.
    The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
    But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” – Julius Caesar

I’m not really a fan of teen romance movies, but I am a fan of Shakespeare references wherever they appear!  And I just realized, after seeing a production of Julius Caesar  the other day, that the title of the above referenced movie is based on the dialogue between Cassius and Brutus where Cassius speaks like a conservative Republican running for president and says – our fates are up to us, man! Take some responsibility!  The truth, of course, is that sometimes our fates are not under our control as in, for example, if you get cancer or not.

Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art

ShakeDic: cutpurse

August 28th, 2015 → 5:35 am

    A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
    That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
    And put it in his pocket!” – Hamlet

Cutpurse is an archaic word for pickpocket or thief.  I love old words.  Why do they have to disappear?

Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art

Terrorist Take-Down in France

August 23rd, 2015 → 6:13 am

“Courage mounteth with occasion.” – King John

Three Americans (Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler) on a train to France up and took down a terrorist attacker, before he had a chance to do too much harm.  How totally awesome.  You just want to hug these guys.

Filed under: Blog & Other

Worrying

August 18th, 2015 → 5:57 am

    “That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood.” – Richard III

I read an article recently about anxiety in the 21st century and, astoundingly, it said that Shakespeare only used the word “worry” once in his entire collection of works (see quote above, and he used it to mean “choke,” not be stressful).  Through my own research I discovered that Shakespeare actually uses worry twice, if you allow both “worry” and “worrying,” but still, that isn’t much use of the word, and not even in the way we use it today.  The article suggested that people simply didn’t worry back in the 16th century; that doing so is a modern malady, invented really in the 20th century when we finally had the time to navel-gaze and let anxiety about things grow.  Personally, I can not imagine my life without worrying.  What would I do for 75% of every day?  How many novel mathematical theorems would I be able to come up with if 98% of my brain weren’t allocated to worrying?  What kind of conversations would I have with my son if half of them weren’t motivated by worry of him harming himself?  Would I enjoy eating more if I didn’t always worry about becoming fat?  I…can’t…imagine…

Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Self/My Life

Baseball Game

August 14th, 2015 → 8:56 am

“A hit, a very palpable hit.” – Hamlet

I took my son to his first baseball game last night.  And every time the St. Louis Cardinals had a hit I wanted to yell, “A hit, a very palpable hit!”  Am I the only Shakespeare fan whose gone to a baseball game and wanted to do this??

(Note: My husband’s answer is - yes.)

Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life

Black Lives Matter

August 10th, 2015 → 6:11 am

“I do not set my life at a pin’s fee.” – Hamlet

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Michael Brown shooting, and my heart broke to wake up this morning and read that the demonstrations turned into chaos last night, and another person was shot.  Heartbroken…

Filed under: Blog & Politics/Politicians

Resting Bitch Face

August 3rd, 2015 → 5:16 am

    “Why, what’s the matter,
    That you have such a February face,
    So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?” – Much Ado About Nothing

I am not a daily consumer of social media - twitter, facebook, pintrest, etc. – so I’m probably late to the game here, but I just discovered the phenomena of RBF – Resting Bitch Face.  How horrible (yet another way to make women feel bad about themselves)!  Having said that, I probably have a RBF.  I’m a huge worrier, which can’t possibly result in my resting face looking like anything but a frown.  :-(  Sigh.

Filed under: Blog & Other