Orwell

I take it that this is one of Orwell's last messages, in which he warns us of the perils of going down the path of "1984".

I have to snicker a little when he seriously talks about the pending elimination of the sex instinct and the orgasm. That is surely something we need not fear from any totalitarian. In "1984", I appreciate how it shows just how completely omnipotent Big Brother is, but one cannot imagine any totalitarian really caring to make such a demonstration of its power.

66. Rapid City Days

A little trouble sleeping last night, and a McDonald's memory plagued me. The time that woman day-manager was doing a night shift, and John, the main night-manager, was obviously counting on me to make it an easy job for her, in my position behind the grill running the meat. However, at the very beginning of the shift, I felt a little sick, a little nauseous, and got leave to go home. I bought some ill feelings with that move. I suspect John may have even come close to firing me. The truth is that I wasn't feeling that sick. Did I just choke under the pressure?

I’m not sure why I am dwelling on this now. It is not one of the more fascinating forks in the road on my little journey through life. It’s not one of the places I find myself often returning to, wondering how things might have gone differently. Regardless, I am back there now and taking another look, and I can better appreciate that I failed myself. I let myself down. This was no big deal in itself, but I can appreciate how all these little things lead to this empty place I find myself in now. It is not just my looks and humble origins.

Sylvia

This is another excerpt from Sylvia’s journal entry on the cold war.

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Oh, America’s young, strong. So is Russia. And how can they think of atom-bombing each other, I don’t know. What will be left? War will come some day now, with all the hothead leaders and articles “What If Women are Drafted?” Hell, I’d sooner be a citizen of Africa than see America mashed and bloody and making a fool of herself. This country has a lot, but we’re not always right and pure. And what of the veterans of the first and second world wars? The maimed, the crippled. What good their lives? Nothing. They rot in the hospitals, and we forget them.

[As if to show that nationality and ideology are not good reasons for war and killing, she goes on thus.]

I could love a Russian boy - and live with him. It’s the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don’t matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can’t see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth.

-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals, the college years

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Kim Cattrall

Kim Cattrall is putting up a brave face in old age.

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Yet Cattrall, 56, was the wrong side of 40 before her acting career finally hit the big time. As for men, she says, don't get her started. It was one disaster after another.

"I never gave up believing that there was much more to life than how I was living it," she says. "There is no need to feel defeated at 40, 50 or 60. I'm having the greatest time in the second half of my life.

"Whenever I take a look at women like Helen Mirren or Judi Dench, in their 60s and 70s I think, 'That's how I want to be.' "They also look like their age. They have not had facelifts or plastic surgery to change the way they look. They are genuine beauties who do not suddenly appear like somebody else.

"Have you seen some of the women - and the men - in Los Angeles? They pay surgeons to make them look completely different in the hope of finding their youth. But youth comes from within. If you have a young attitude then that can show in your face, the way you walk and move."

Cattrall admits that she has had some "minor" work done on her face. "I had a crease between my eyebrows and have used Botox to get rid of that," she says.

[...]

"I like the thought that I've saved my best years for last," she says.

-- ONTD

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It's amazing how badly we can fool ourselves.