Blissful relief

I went to see Mary for the weekend. She introduced me to Firefly, and I'm now in love with it. It's basically Indiana Jones meets Star Wars quality. We went for a pampering treatment, the whole caboodle with massage and facial. Very blissful. Mary is a rare friend, someone whom I can just sit around quietly without worrying or thinking about much. There's no need to talk too much and silence is just as meaningful as the spoken word.

Went to church for the first time in a long time with Mary as well. I guess there's something about the churches in Oxford that don't compel me to go. It's not that I'm still not close to God and it's not that my belief in faltered. The sense of community that I wish to have doesn't seem to exist in the places where I want to worship my saviour. But that's neither here nor there. It feels nice to be in a church and to be in Mass, to celebrate Communion and be at one with the Holy Spirit physically.

I finished reading a few books lately that have struck some deep thought. Thanks to Katey who gave me the books. The Binding Chair by Kathryn Harrison. She describes in graphic detail the story of a woman who had her foot bound and her (mis)-adventures through life with it. She relishes in the pain that she describes through the books and enjoys describing perverse fetishes, of which there are many in the book. Right after that I read The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka. I will be slightly biased about this book mainly because I am Malaysian and I have every right to nitpick on whatever I feel like. This book is multigenerational and spans matriachal lines. It starts of with a child bride travelling from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to Malaysia, the land of dreams. Basically, an American dream story. Hard work will give you a great life, all of this interspersed with the usual Malaysian melee of racial diversity and inequality, the progress through time from a small town to a big city and the changes in lifestyle.

Both authors relish the sexual perversity or sheer cruelty that they want to exist in the life of their characters. It's not as if they don't exist in real life. I just find it condescending that they could not choose to develop their characters in a better light. Strong female characters are always cruel or have strange sexual perversions. What is it about the female self that when even a woman is writing about another she can't potray her in a more well-rounded way? Or are all our neuroses so genetic that we can't bear to think of another woman in a better light than we see ourselves? Where are the female role models that we need to see around us today?

Finally got round to reading Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and everyone's right. The movie isn't as good as the book.

And now moving on to the final book on my reading shelf at the moment, Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life by Robert Kohler. Technically, it's classed as a history textbook but I find it particularly helpful and rather amusing to read about the good old days of genetics when only not so modern tools were available to break down and give the scientist much grief!

Now if I only could some motivation to get up in the morning and do some work at normal hours instead of being a nocturnal creature?