this whole trying to make babies caper is doing weird things to me. i have never been a celebrity whore (merk! merk! merk! goes the liar alert - remember U2 when you were 16?). you know, i’ll read new weekly at the supermarket checkout or in my cousin’s toilet, but i never buy it. and the various random fertility of the britneys, marys, and katies-sorry-kates of the world has on the whole produced nothing more than the usual level of fairly banal curiosity.
but for some reason bloody-angelina (as she is now known in our household) has really got to me. i find myself musing aloud to bean as we drive around or lie in bed trying to fall asleep, hoping that b-a had a natural labour, that she is holding her baby a lot and breastfeeding, that she is in love with it even though she gave it an awful name, that she is happy…
i guess it’s because not only have i always thought she is totally gorgeous (oh yeah), but in a weird way her mediated life has kinda matched up with mine. look:
mid 1990s: b-a is into lesbianly stuff like making the movie about gia carrides and bonking jenny shimizu (sorenson comes out in 1996)
late 1990s: b-a is into s&m stuff like knives and blood (sorenson joins bad girls mailing list and starts buying pat califia books)
early 2000s: b-a makes a film where she plays a video game character who is tough and cool and much loved by both boys and lesbians (sorenson starts a phd on lesbians and comics - there’s sort of a geeky link)
early-mid 2000s: b-a gets involved the UN and starts trying to save the world (sorenson gets a job with the government in some kind of misguided hope that she can ‘make a difference’ to the odd citizen)
mid 2000s: b-a goes all motherly and adopts babies and then makes one (sorenson goes all motherly and tries to make a couple of her own)
and so i have taken that identification one step further. now i want her to have the birth and baby experience that i want so badly…because maybe then it will happen for me?
(weirdly, bean, who has always professed to dislike b-a because of her big lips, has joined me on this weird trip, and has been musing back at me on similar themes)
update: so rumour has it that she had a caesar for a breech presentation. oh well, i probably would have done the same…
