Eat Pray Love and Bitter Moos

Okay, so I checked it out from the library (before I Netflix it) because I wanted to see what the fuss is all about. As I'm reading it, I'm thinking, it's okay. Entertaining, not spectacular. I'm not having that deep, emotional connection people talk about, but each to his or her own.

(As an aside, now that I'm reading the book, I entirely see Rats' point about the ever-unoriginal GFG and how she's attempting to ride the coattails of books like this. It's as if she's thinking, okay, I want to be the Eat-Pray-Love of gluten-free eating. Thanks for the insight, Rats.)

In a nutshell, EPL is about a woman who was firmly on the path of the LifeScript, but realized she did not want children and she didn't want to be married to her husband. She was the primary breadwinner and was a successful writer. She had a very nasty divorce in which he asked for all the money (she gives it to him). She uses her next book advance to travel to Italy, India and Indonesia and write about it.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

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Elizabeth Gilbert
I was hiding in the bathroom for something like the forty-seventh consecutive night, and — just as during all those nights before — I was sobbing. Sobbing so hard, in fact, that a great lake of tears and snot was spreading before me on the bathroom tiles, a veritable Lake Inferior (if you will) of all my shame and fear and confusion and grief.

I don’t want to be married anymore.

I was trying so hard not to know this, but the truth kept insisting itselfto me.

I don’t want to be married anymore. I don’t want to live in this big house. I don’t want to have a baby.

But I was supposed to want to have a baby. I was thirty-one years old. My husband and I —who had been together for eight years, married for six — had built our entire life around the common expectation that, after passing the doddering old age of thirty, I would want to settle down and have children. By then, we mutually anticipated, I would have grown weary of traveling and would be happy to live in a big, busy household full of children and homemade quilts, with a garden in the backyard and a cozy stew bubbling on the stovetop. (The fact that this was a fairly accurate portrait of my own mother is a quick indicator of how difficult it once was for me to tell the difference between myself and the powerful woman who had raised me.) But I didn’t — as I was appalled to be finding out — want any of these things. Instead, as my twenties had come to a close, that deadline of THIRTY had loomed over me like a death sentence, and I discovered that I did not want to be pregnant. I kept waiting to want to have a baby, but it didn’t happen. And I know what it feels like to want something, believe me. I well know what desire feels like. But it wasn’t there. Moreover, I couldn’t stop thinking about what my sister had said to me once, as she was breast-feeding her firstborn: “Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it’s what you want before you commit.”

She and her husband did try for a few months. Luckily for her, she did not get pregnant.

Now, 10 years later, she is married again to a man who has had a vasectomy. The interviewer asks her about her life now. I got a laugh about the Moo letter writer.

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Elle Magazine
I point out that a decade later, she has ended up in a seemingly similar situation (husband, house, small town) to the one she fled. “You know, it’s a very similar-looking situation, but the problem was the marriage and…not wanting to have children,” she says. “In the book, I was unable or unwilling to talk directly [about] what the problems were…for a million reasons, from I don’t think people should have to fucking read that, to I’m scared I’m gonna get sued…to I don’t have the right to tell one side of a very confusing story.” And she’s still not interested in defending herself against the finger waggers—and sometimes even sympathizes with them. “When people have made other choices, when they’ve stuck through their own bitterness and disappointments, I think, understandably, it can seem very irritating to them that somebody else blew off what they didn’t,” she says. “The angriest letter I’ve ever gotten was someone who was like, ‘You don’t think I was on the bathroom floor too? You don’t think that I fucking hate my life? Well, I stayed with it, bitch!’ And I was like, ‘Well, good for you!’”

Wow. I can hardly fathom someone who TOOK THE TIME TO WRITE A LETTER to someone who made a different choice than she did. BITTER MUCH? mob :biggrin2

That Moo has probably been to this board too, back in the old days, before we could kick people off.

Elle interview

Wow, mindlessly following the Lifescript has indeed became The Golden Calf!

Now I feel even more compelled to read it. It is also on my Netflix list (my mom liked it and doesn't like Julia so it can't be too bad lol.)

Yeah, according to the masses this is supposed to be what women want. I didn't want that life either. I want to travel and write about it. I want to work for the joy of working, not because I have to. The bitter moos need to get over the fact that they chose their misery, or get over the fact that they fell for the hype.

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From a bottle cap message on a Magic Hat #9 beer: Condoms Prevent Minivans
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I want to pick up a bus full of unruly kids and feed them gummi bears and crack, then turn them loose in Hobby Lobby to ransack the place. They will all be wearing T shirts that say "You Could Have Prevented This."

I have a cousin, same age, we were close growing up in the sense that our parents -- our dads were cousins -- would socialize on weekends so we would play together a lot, up to about age 10 or 12. Then sporadically through teen years and now as adults it's an only-at-funerals kind of thing. She's a very nice and intelligent woman, but very quiet and non-assertive.

Her branch of the family is the blue-collar LifeScript (graduate high school, get a job, get married, have kids) whereas my parents never really pushed the notion of marriage. Cousin got married at 21 -- big white wedding -- and some weeks beforehand she got cold feet and basically was given (from her otherwise nice but not very imaginative parents) the old "it's all set, look at all the money that was spent, everyone gets last-minute jitters" argument. She cranked out three kids in record time and hubs ended up being a gambling unreliable alcoholic so she has worked like a dog all these years -- kids all turned out pretty good, actually, but she just got divorced. Twenty-five years down the drain. I saw her a couple of years ago and for once we were just conversing alone with no one around and she said wistfully "I wish I had done what you did. You went to college and traveled and got a chance to really live your life instead of settling down." It was quite poignant.

I don't understand why when 25 years down the road that the moo-cunts finally realize and/or admit that they made a mistake with following the life script, that they go on to be doting and helicopter grandmoos to the next set. This only opens them up to being the first choice for the free baybee sitting gigs. I have seen it time and time again. They get married at 18-20, have a houseful of brats and when they reach 40 they are FINALLY shed of all of the bullshit. Then, even though they rejoice in their empty nestdom, they are just DELIGHTED when the first grand litter comes along and the whole vicious mess just starts all over. I have never understood that. There are GREAT grandmoos raising kyds these day and to a regretful lifescript follower that would seem to be a fate worse than death. Why don't they just leave the state? I know that I would.

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

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kidlesskim
I don't understand why when 25 years down the road that the moo-cunts finally realize and/or admit that they made a mistake with following the life script, that they go on to be doting and helicopter grandmoos to the next set. This only opens them up to being the first choice for the free baybee sitting gigs. I have seen it time and time again. They get married at 18-20, have a houseful of brats and when they reach 40 they are FINALLY shed of all of the bullshit. Then, even though they rejoice in their empty nestdom, they are just DELIGHTED when the first grand litter comes along and the whole vicious mess just starts all over. I have never understood that. There are GREAT grandmoos raising kyds these day and to a regretful lifescript follower that would seem to be a fate worse than death. Why don't they just leave the state? I know that I would.

I get the feeling they just become surrendered and ensconced in that life, even if they can get away from it. I remember trying to get a frazzled moo to go out for a nice dinner. It was a big deal but she went and ended up telling me some stuff, admitting that if she could go back in time she would do things differently. Yet, when given the opportunity to take even a night away from her boring life, she couldn't seem to let go in order to do it. She kept worrying about being away from her nest/prison for one fucking night. Later, she did become a caregiver grandmoo to help out her loser daughter.

They often bitch, whine, moan and even cry about their sucky lives but they just keep doing the same thing, pretending they don't have a choice.

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blondie
They often bitch, whine, moan and even cry about their sucky lives but they just keep doing the same thing, pretending they don't have a choice.

I think once they have their empty nest, they don't know how to live a free life, unencumbered. Also, they've allowed guilt to run their lives for so long, they just can't get away from it.

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- The human gene pool could use a little chlorine

Guess it was inevitable that some Moo would want to get on the EPL bandwagon. Guess she didn't notice the woman did it all without brats. But Moos are like that--they love to hone in even where their presence is not appropriate or sensible. And if she is bitter about her life, oh well....No one forced her to have a brat or brats.

Didn't this woman take her husband to the cleaners and use the divorce proceeds to flit around the world? If that's true, I'd be loath to hold her up as a symbol of independence.

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Miss_Hannigan
Didn't this woman take her husband to the cleaners and use the divorce proceeds to flit around the world? If that's true, I'd be loath to hold her up as a symbol of independence.

It was actually the other way around. Her trip was financed by a book advance, the ex (a breeder wannabe) wanted a shitload of money for the divorce and is remarried to a Canadian diplomat who gave him his goldensons. Another "she was CF while he thrives on Kodak Moments" situation.

Her current marriage: she made him sign a prenup.

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From a bottle cap message on a Magic Hat #9 beer: Condoms Prevent Minivans
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I want to pick up a bus full of unruly kids and feed them gummi bears and crack, then turn them loose in Hobby Lobby to ransack the place. They will all be wearing T shirts that say "You Could Have Prevented This."

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navi8orgirl

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Miss_Hannigan
Didn't this woman take her husband to the cleaners and use the divorce proceeds to flit around the world? If that's true, I'd be loath to hold her up as a symbol of independence.

It was actually the other way around. Her trip was financed by a book advance, the ex (a breeder wannabe) wanted a shitload of money for the divorce and is remarried to a Canadian diplomat who gave him his goldensons. Another "she was CF while he thrives on Kodak Moments" situation.

Her current marriage: she made him sign a prenup.

All things considered, I'd take her life any day. No fucking spawn for me, golden or otherwise.

Now I'll have to rent this even tho I thought I would not have any interest in it.

I finally got SATC2 based on something posted on this board, thought I would have to grit my teeth thru it, & LUV'd it!!!

The whole SATC2 is very CF!

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CF Uter
Now I'll have to rent this even tho I thought I would not have any interest in it.

I finally got SATC2 based on something posted on this board, thought I would have to grit my teeth thru it, & LUV'd it!!!

The whole SATC2 is very CF!

Thank you for letting me know about EPL...I always love empowering movies that show people going against the lifescript and succeeding

I absolutely LOVED SATC2. It had horrible reviews (probably from moos and the like) so I went in with low expectations, and found myself totally delighted by the movie! I have such a girlcrush on Samantha Jones, because she wears her CF so well...I hope I look half as good as her at 52

The only part I didn't care for was the Charlotte Goldenblatt cosleeping with brats scenes. I wonder if they couldn't have found an uglier brat to play Rose. Poor child reminded me of one of those Sea Hags from Popeye.

Afraid I stalled out at "...a great lake of tears and snot was spreading before me on the bathroom tiles."

If I were working as an editor and a writer was stupid enough to park a visual like that before my eyes, I would beat that writer to death first with her monitor, then with her keyboard, and then, finally, with the case of her CPU itself. Or, if she were writing via pen and paper and/or laptop, I would beat that writer to death with the forty-pound 1938 cast-iron Royal Supreme that got me through college. That line ties for sheer inexcusable idiocy Audrey Niffenegger's bit in The Time Traveler's Wife about Henry's hard-on being tall enough to ride the rides at Six Flags without an accompanying adult. For fuck's sake, people, when did Bulwer-Lytton-Award material become par for the course in New York Times bestsellers...?

... I'm sorry; what were we talking about again...?

I despise the mentality the letter-writer exhibits: that by staying in a crappy situation, they're somehow more noble than someone who finds a way to get out of and rise above it, even if staying in the situation benefits nobody involved....because it's the "responsible" thing.

So this lady left a marriage because she and her wannabreed husband had glaringly incompatible goals when it came to spawning. WHY should they have stayed together despite this, just because they at one point thought they were compatible and made a decision based on that? WHY is splitting up a bad thing when it's hurting nobody and without it, hubs wouldn't have found moo-to-be and the wife wouldn't have found a compatible CF man?

If you ask the breeder naysayers, they'll blather on about "responsibility" and "duty" until it becomes clear that they lack any ability to judge circumstances individually and instead make all their decisions based on intellectually lazy predetermined values and "rules." (And their own laziness/fear of change/fear of being unconventional.) And they're so afraid of change that they "think" this all applies even when changing a course of action wouldn't hurt anyone, only help. You've heard it all: "I had to have this kid/marry its father/stay with his father/ad nauseam, even though I didn't want to and it's not ideal and things would be better if it never happened, but I can't change any of it now because I've made my decisions and now I have to take responsibility for them."

It's not true responsibility; it's rationalization for continually screwing themselves over with chickenshit, ignorant, scripted decisions. They talk as if they never had any choice to begin with, and make their self-justifying values out to be universal, and convince themselves the only "decent" thing to do is continue in their stagnancy. And those that do find a way out of similar situations? The ones the dutiful, still-stagnant ones know deep down they envy? They're immoral and irresponsible, natch. For not placing a "duty" to self-serving abstractions (which end up biting dutiful breeders in the ass in the long-term, ha!) above their happiness.

Nonsensical and common as dirt, like everything breeder-related.

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mumofsixbirds

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CF Uter
Now I'll have to rent this even tho I thought I would not have any interest in it.

I finally got SATC2 based on something posted on this board, thought I would have to grit my teeth thru it, & LUV'd it!!!

The whole SATC2 is very CF!

Thank you for letting me know about EPL...I always love empowering movies that show people going against the lifescript and succeeding

I absolutely LOVED SATC2. It had horrible reviews (probably from moos and the like) so I went in with low expectations, and found myself totally delighted by the movie! I have such a girlcrush on Samantha Jones, because she wears her CF so well...I hope I look half as good as her at 52

The only part I didn't care for was the Charlotte Goldenblatt cosleeping with brats scenes. I wonder if they couldn't have found an uglier brat to play Rose. Poor child reminded me of one of those Sea Hags from Popeye.

TEMPORARY THREAD HIGHJACK - MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

You folks liked that movie? :crz

I read the reviews, considered them unnecessarily vicious, but decided to get the movie from Netflix before I deciding on buying it. I have the series on DVD and the first movie, so consider me a fan.

I couldn't get past the first ... I dunno .. 45 minutes. Got to the part where Carrie ran into Aiden, turned off the DVD player, and stuck the movie back in the envelope for return. It was sooooo over-the-top, I was gagging.

*The opening production number with Liza Minelli acting as a minister to Stanfield and Anthony's marriage, then launching into a geriatric version of "Single Ladies"? I was agape.

*The unrealistic view that Big: a vigorous man-about-town, would turn into a couch potato?

*And Carrie having a rebound attraction to Aiden - a serious couch potato during the time they lived together? Mind, I was an Aiden fan over Big and considered him to be too superior to be mated to narcissistic Carrie, but that wasn't the reason I frowned at the possibility that she might hook up with him again. In this movie, the plot device didn't work.

*I adore Samantha, but the plot about how she dealt with aging was just too forced. I always thought she'd segue into more of a Mae West mold: undoubtedly aging, but still with a saucy "come up and see me sometime" attitude. I know she kept prodding Carrie to get Botox in the first movie, but it was in a more airy "everyone does it, darling" manner. In this movie, the way she gobbles the pills, slathers on the lotion (OK, the part where she had her panties down and proceeded to put some sort of elixir on her ladie's bits was funny) and goes absolutely berserk at being deprived of her pills for only a week had me shaking my head.

I didn't get to the part where Samantha flipped off the Middle Eastern dudes, but she didn't seem to be as concerned with the inequities Carrie observed and nattered about right from the time she landed, so I don't understand how Samantha could all-of-a-sudden turn and harangue them.

*Miranda -- eeeugh. How did she ever turn into such a PC person? I thought she'd be the one who'd take a stand in the middle of the street and castigate the Middle Eastern men. Instead, she takes a modern day version of Baedeker's with her. She was acting like she had a fear of being kidnapped and sold off to a Bedouin for a couple of camels if she wasn't especially nice to them.

*Charlotte -- her part kind of worked. I was honestly admiring of the scene where Kristin Davis (the actress) hid in the closet from her kids and broke down. I enjoy her character but never thought the actress had much reach into drama.

The movie definitely had its CF moments, particularly where Carrie and Big made their stand towards the IVF/surrogate couple. That line where Big said something like "they act like they just found out there was no Santa Clause (or was that Tooth Fairy?)" had me on the floor. SCORE!!.

I expect the movie to end up in Walmart's $7.50 bin soon. I'll probably buy it then and give it a watch; most likely breaking the viewing into small parts and trying to be kinder about the way I judge it. It just seemed too much a parody of the original series, lacking a lot of the smart, pointed dialogue the series was known for.