Well, Cathryn’s husband Victor is much wiser than us, but he loves us both just the way we are and puts up with our infantile approach to chocolate (i.e., eating it whenever he isn’t in the house). He also puts up with the Housewives shows that we must discuss at dinners out while he rolls his eyes in exasperation, and he puts up with our generally reckless, ridiculous behavior, which shows we are still stuck in the seventies.

Anyway, last January Cathryn and I decided to fulfill a bucket-list item and read the Bible from cover to cover. We bought identical Bibles at Barnes and Noble before seeing some movie or other. The movie was intellectually too lowbrow for Victor’s taste, but he had nothing else to do and no other friends around, so he joined us anyway. After the movie we were discussing the year of the Bible read over lunch.

Victor started it all. “You two will never read the Bible this year. It will not happen.”

“Why Victor, why ever would you say that?” I asked.

“Because you two never finish anything except a box of Ring Dings, and reading the Bible is a huge commitment to excellence and intellectual curiosity—and commitment is something that neither one of you has ever mastered.”

Ouch, Victor.

We were both outraged. Outraged, I tell you.

“Victor,” I said haughtily. “Put your big money where your big mouth is. How much?”

It’s hard to remember exactly how the conversation went, and I’m hoping that the answer was $100—but my gut tells me there was additional conversation about how if it wasn’t enough, we wouldn’t take it seriously, and so it would have to be $1,000. Actually, I know it was $1,000 but I’m hoping he doesn’t. Actually, we all know it was $1,000, and I’m screwed.

Here is the bottom line. We read the first chapter and discussed it. Genesis. VERY depressing, VERY repetitive, and filled with much more violence than I had realized. We hated it. If the truth be known, that was the last chapter I can honestly say I read. Cathryn? I can’t speak for her, but I can say with certainty that she didn’t finish the book. She would have gloated.

I have recently joined a Bible Study Group and am reading Corinthians now, and again, the writing style has no style. It’s repetitive, and let’s face it, Paul is nothing if not inconsistent. But I’m in it to win it, and still going.

Which leads me to the point. You were right, Victor, and I was wrong, and I owe you $1,000, which is a lot of money. I am writing to eat crow in front of the world and to see if you are interested in double-or-nothing for next year? If not, I will send the check, but only because I have to try to be a woman of my word—which clearly isn’t the case, or I would have finished the Bible when I said I would.

So, you interested in double-or-nothing or what?

Love,

Chris

So, there I was, getting ready to do my annual review of my investment in the US, when I found myself reading about the fabulous General Electric Corporation, which we all know brings good things to life. (Great slogan, don’t you think?) So GE made a profit of 14.1 billion dollars. Good job, GE. Well done. Then I read the next line. GE paid no taxes. Huh? I read on, and come to find that $5.1 billion of their profits came from US operations—and they had a tax bill of $0.

Listen, I would like to state for the record that after all my expenses, and a total income substantially less than GE’s, I paid almost 50% of my GROSS revenue to the United States. And, judging from what I read, GE had a lot more to say about how my money was spent than I did. After all, the CEO of GE is Obama’s representative to the business community. Yep, he advises the business community on our government. Please tell me he is not advising them on how not to pay any taxes? That would just be the final straw.

I have Republican friends who read my blog, and whenever I write something like this they bombard me with how I’m really a Republican but just don’t know it. Well, I’m really just someone who would like to take five minutes of the precious time of GE’s accountants to ask a few pointed questions about what I’m doing wrong. Here is what the New York Times wrote about their tax department:

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

I don’t wish to become one of those bitter Americans who feels that the government is out to get them, or worse, that the government is corrupt beyond repair. I don’t wish to believe that GE has connections because they hire former IRS agents to work in their tax department. For Lent this year I decided to give up saying mean things about anyone, so I am crimped a bit in what I can write here, but I will say that GE needs to start re-evaluating its investment participation in our country. Otherwise I will stop buying their light bulbs, and then where will they be?

As I write this, I’m doing research to find a tax firm made up of former IRS agents. Why didn’t I think of that a long time ago?

Now, to be honest, I never read Huckleberry Finn. But I love Hemingway, who said that “All modern literature comes from Huckleberry Finn.” Hemmingway was very smart, and he didn’t say, “All history comes from Huckleberry Finn, but there are words in there that need to be changed.”

Here is what surprises me a bit. Where the heck is the literary world? Jason Epstein, stand up and be counted here! Andrew Wiley, are you kidding me? These are the masters of what we have read in recent years, and they all need to stand up and be counted before it’s too late.

Now, shallow me is thinking about what else should be changed? Should Pretty Woman be a lady of the night rather than a hooker? I don’t wish to be flippant, but please.

Should we change our fabulous American Bible, the Declaration of Independence, to read, “All people are created equal,” because it may be offensive to me that it mentions only men? Actually, it doesn’t bother me a bit, to be honest. I don’t need them to mention me; I know I’m equal. I see it every day in those I deal with, but let’s leave that alone for now.

Listen, writers: stand up for your words in the future.

Rule #1 I, Christine, will only watch one movie a month that I have already seen.

Rule #2 I, Christine, will watch only one reality show a season. (Hard choice between Biggest Loser or American Idol.) Good news is that Rule #2 does not                                     begin until the fall season because I’m already ‘in’ more than one of those shows.

Rule #3 I, Christine, will look at the TV Guide on Sunday mornings and plot my television course for the week which must include one interesting show where I                   actually learn something I didn’t know, and one talk show. (I hope I go with Rachel Maddow, not Oprah – I’m getting over Oprah.)

Rule #4 TV goes off by 9:00 pm (I Tivo everything and watch it on tape without commercials). Reading or walking Luke will take over from 9:00. Or writing.

Those are the new rules and I like them already.

This leads me to National Geographic’s Hawking’s Universe, which I watched a few nights ago. You all remember Stephen Hawking and the book he wrote, A Brief History of Time. He also suffers from ALS and has lasted years and years longer than anyone thought possible by his sheer determination to see his theories become truths. I, like the rest of the country, bought the book when it came out, but I never actually read it. Nor, I suspect, did most of the other people who bought it.

So, here is his book’s content on National Geographic where they explained it all in the kind of layman terms that even I could understand. It was fabulous. For the first time I understand what a black hole is and what causes it. I get what gravity really is and how it’s not as strong as we all thought. I sort of understand the string theory of additional dimensions, and just writing these things down makes me feel smarter than you already.

I was at dinner with friends last night, and I was telling them about the show. Victor (you remember my friends Victor and Cathryn. Cathryn is the one who keeps maple syrup in her car for when she stops at IHop.) Well, Victor is very smart, and he actually read the Hawking book cover to cover but pointed out to me that it was very difficult for him, and he needed to really focus when reading it. What he was really saying was that I shouldn’t bother buying it again. I told him I had no interest in reading it.

Here’s the thing. I’m 57 years old and I don’t want to read his book now. It’s not a topic that totally spurs me on to greater knowledge, but I’m so glad I now understand what a black hole is and what causes it. And, all that in one TV show for one hour. Who knew? And, without my ‘rules’ I would never have watched it. If we are totally honest here, I watched it thinking it was more about the man than the theory, but who cares what led me to the Kool Aid, because what matters is that I drank it. And, if I had watched Silence of the Lambs one more time instead, not only would I still not be an FBI agent, but I wouldn’t understand black holes either.

So, the long and the short of this lesson is that rules are very good for you. Set some.

I forgot what it’s like to read, see, hear something that takes longer than an hour. Actually on TV now, it’s only forty minutes because with Tivo I skip the commercials. There were a few times I wondered if it would ever end, but mostly I just wished I could weave a tale so brilliantly, so smoothly with sentences like “I have difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision; something that would melt into silence and annihilation as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before.” And, she penned it. No computer keys for Jane. How many times did she rewrite that page? Was her finger covered in ink?

Half way through listening, I ordered an old copy of the book on the Internet and followed along a bit. I have marked some of the passages and find myself looking at them, staring at the words wondering how she wrote them. Did she sit down and just write it? Did she rewrite over and over again the way I do?  Did the prose flow, or was it painfully slow?

Then there was Charlotte’s sister Emily who wrote Wuthering Heights. Charlotte wrote one book about love and her sister another and it appears neither of them had it themselves. I love them both. I love the way they patiently tell their stories without fanfare, without drama. Even the most dramatic parts don’t feel like shrill drama. So, the sisters living together wrote parallel books, one with a happy ending and one where the protagonist dies a sad death. Did they argue about the different endings?

In today’s world we would know these things. These amazing women would have been interviewed on television and in magazines, and we would know. I’m not sure that’s a good thing or not. Maybe it’s good I can’t get an instanteous answer.

I am so grateful these women lived and gave me the gifts of their imaginations. It makes me want to use mine more often. And, I will tell you a secret. I like Wuthering Heights better than Jane Eyre. Don’t tell Charlotte.

Here are the choices you have for love expression that you can hear.

Words of Affirmation. “You are fabulous! Oh, my God, that is the most brilliant thing I ever heard. Every other girl pales in comparison to you!” I don’t know, I fear I would find that disingenuous. I’m better with, “Are you kidding me? What were you thinking?” Or, “Go in and change that outfit? Are you nuts?” I just feel so much more at home with that approach. Alas.

Quality Time. An hour a day, staring at me and all is well in the world. Doing something together every weekend will solve our problems. Could you limit the quality time to one hour increments? That might work for me.

Receiving Gifts. Speak not to me, no problem. Send me great gifts and I will feel secure in your love. Let’s see, I’m thinking Bill Gates? Not a touchy-feelie guy, but sure could send fabulous gifts? I have determined that I have too many things already. I am not great with thank you notes. I don’t know. This one just doesn’t move me.

Acts of Service. Give a girl a finished Honey Do list on the refrigerator door and complete it, and she will feel your love. That could work. My vision is he waits for me in the car downstairs, I get in the back seat and make calls while he drives me around. Do you think that’s what they mean?

Physical Touch. Max (not his real name, I need to protect him) looked up at me and said, “This doesn’t just mean sexually you know.” I looked back at him and said, “Only men would need that explanation. Physical touch to a woman never just means sex. You are such a boy.”

Ok, here is the thing. There apparently is no option for someone who needs all of them, or some of them. Could this be why I don’t do so well in long-term relationships? When I asked him about needing more than one, he looked at me like I was nuts. I get that a high maintenance girl like me might be more than he can handle, but are you telling me that this is a multiple choice with just one correct answer? And, what if you are willing to give all five, but would be bored out of your gourd if you had to repeat one of them over and over again during a fifty-plus year marriage? I realize that I tend to dissect a bit, I get that, but really? Does anyone out there actually think they would be satisfied with just one of the above? And, if so, I hope it’s the gifts one. Just kidding.

I am not buying the book, but I felt the need to share. The best part of it all was seeing it on a guy’s desk with notes sticking out of it. I hope his wife reads my blog. She should express her pleasure to him by touching his arm, handing him a new Rolex watch in a box, telling him she is washing his car this weekend, after which they will have quality time having a six-course dinner she is preparing herself (I’m sure he’d rather have sex) and then telling him that he is the greatest man to walk the planet.