Double Feature

There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. ~ Oscar Wilde

I was told by a very sweet friend recently that watching a feel-good movie like "You've Got Mail" or "While You Were Sleeping" and perhaps getting a bright-colored pedicure would be just the trick to lift my spirits. Oh man, romcoms don't do it for me. Understatement. I would take "The Hangover" over "Sleepless in Seattle" any day, and I strangely found "District 9" to be more romantic and lovely than every Meg Ryan movie combined. That's odd to me now that I re-read it, but it's true. Though I am, and always have been, the epitome of a hopeless romantic (Did the globe heave? Maybe Collier County heard a sigh. Happy Valley definitely felt a whimper...), the formulaic-everything-works-out-in-the-end movie just doesn't cut it for me in the end. Apparently, visceral human-becomes-alien-and-surreptitiously-makes-art-projects-for-his-beloved-ex-fiancee movie does. Sweet.

So. I scrapped the idea of a feel-good movie and decided to get my very first fuschia pedicure. It had been several months since my last (pale-pink-per-usual-yawn) pedi, and what a treat. I felt like a girlie-girl. Young, and frivolous and ready to, I don't know, go line dancing in flip-flops. So, got home and stared at my feet.

Shit. I felt like my toes should be sticking out of a bubble bath in one of those hazy Calgon commercials from the '70s. Or maybe they should be peeking out from behind a fluorescent beach ball in a Kohl's tv ad. I swear, they were pleading from below: "Why did you do this to us? We were happy being status quo. Nondescript. Why have you chosen to go all 'Legally Blonde' on us? Why? What did we do to deserve this Essie Flirty Fuschia prison?"

[Side note: AJ loves them. I picked the kids up from daycare shortly following above toe diatribe and AJ immediately knelt down, lightly caressed my neon digits, and exclaimed, "Ohhhh, cute!" An exclamation not unlike those normally offered up by Carson Kressley from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy".]

[Side note to side note: After picking them up from daycare, we jammed out to my newest favorite song "Wish You Well" by Katie Herzig. I could have played an old standby from Jack Johnson, or one of Lila's faves by Fergalicious, or even AJ's ultimate Bob Marley song. But I chose my new song... Was that wrong?]

Not sure why, but all of this made me think of how my choices as a woman will be influential to my honeys. While I'm of the mindset that exposing both of my children to different points of view and, ultimately, letting them decide what they want to believe in and be interested in is best, I can't help but ponder how much my interests will influence them, regardless. And how, or if, certain interests will be important enough for me to try to impress upon them. Yes... some will...

But I certainly don't think that everything I believe and do is to be mirrored. By anyone. Holy freaking rhetorical statement, Jen. (Though my love for the Red Sox and dancing without rhythm is deemed by yours truly as oh-so-necessary for little monkey character building.) I will try every day to be a person AJ and Lila can respect, learn from, expect openness from, and enjoy being with. Beyond that, the sky's the limit as far as what I want for them to be able to reach, see, be...

With movies and toenail polish choice simply being a microcosm here for the big wide world, maybe Lila and I can plan Double Feature nights in the future. (Maybe AJ, too, considering his fondness for fuschia.) We can make popcorn, cuddle up on the couch, set up an array of polish colors with everything from Mademoiselle (palest of pink) to Diva (put on sunglasses), and sit back for a night of "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Gladiator". Hmm... Or, maybe we can all agree that "A Room with a View" is romance at its cinematic best, polishing off our popcorn in a romance haze...

In a nutshell, I don't want to be a bad influence. So I won't be. But I also don't want to narrow down my monkeys' choices to the all-too-few from my too short, 41-year, girl from New England who went to Penn State and moved around the east side of USA a bunch just to fall in love with two wacky twins' years. I want to give them the influence of someone who has been around the world. Scratch that. I want to offer them the world. To impress upon them, "Here you go, my loves. Here is the globe. Oh, what wonderful things you can do within it. No matter the colour, music, art that anyone's shown you before, find what you need so you can offer your kindness and share your pleasure. Be good to it. It's yours to share."

Happy Wednesday...