Perceptions

My first task of the new year was to clean out my desk.

The other day I went to the fabric shop and bought a couple of yards of material to make a new curtain for my kitchen window and a coordinating table runner. I hoped to sew-up these items this week, but I haven't had a spare minute. After a couple of weeks off for Christmas, we are back to our homeschool lessons. Add in laundry for seven people, meal preparations, food shopping, appointments (this week there were haircuts and a doctor's visit), and household chores, and there isn't much time left for special projects.

In the evenings I am too tired to work on anything that requires any mental effort. Sometimes I am even too tired to knit! This week I watched, The Bourne Legacy, on demand  (I really love action movies...must be the influence of growing up with three older brothers). The first half of the movie featured breathtaking scenery in the Alaskan wilderness (this alone made the movie worth watching for me). It wasn't a great film, but I found it entertaining anyway, just as I have been entertained these last few evenings reading Jayne Ann Krentz's book, Copper Beach.

I suppose I like these things (violent movies and mass market paperbacks) because I am American.

Americans are (an incredibly diverse nation of 315 million people) as a rule, you know: fat, stupid, rude, violent, too religious, prudish, and over-sexed. Everyone knows this.  But, if  you are unsure about what Americans are really like, all you need to do is view our movies, read our books, and listen to our music--we're all just like what you see and hear in those images, stories, and lyrics. That's us. That's me. That's my life. My husband and I are regularly in car chases: he drives, I shoot the gun out the window. Right now I have to go squeeze myself into my sequined tank dress; I'm going to a private party on a yacht in Boston Harbor. Tom Brady invited me : ).  Because here in America, that's what we do. We're not very smart, but we sure know how to party (when we're not in church).

As I ponder the wide-spread anti-American sentiment in the world (which has been at a deadly level for more than a decade), I wonder how many people who nurture hatred for this country have ever had occasion to visit it and get to know real Americans?