"I'm willing to let your child wither and die inside of you if that's what's required."

Though I am fine with the cold, I am quite excited about being able to walk again at a normal gait, even a fast one. Soon, I will no longer have to take baby steps in my neighborhood. Right now, the sidewalks are a thick layer of ice that have nearly sent me crashing to the ground several times. The forecast for later this week is finally above the freezing mark. All of this ice will melt soon. I think there is a metaphor in there, one I don’t feel like unspooling.

I went to the gym this weekend. That was the only time I left my house this weekend, a few hours. The rest of the time was spent on my couch, not doing many of the things that I had intended to do this weekend, instead just binge-watching the entire new season of House of Cards.

I really don’t like the way that Netflix releases its series - all at once - because I am not a temperate person. Nothing is ever in moderation with me. I will watch the entire series as soon as possible. I want to beat the spoilers that friends or critics will let drop. I assume Netflix does this not solely for the reason they claim, to let viewers binge watch entire series, but rather to have people watching the series like this, everyone at different points, so as not to overload and crash their servers with everyone trying to watch the same episode at the same time. But the result of their dropping the entire series at once is that the conversation that happens around Netflix series is different than what happens around other series, that there is not the same weekly discourse that cultural commentators and viewers can all engage in, going through episode by episode. Instead, because everyone is at different points in the series, if they have even started it all, there is very little conversation about specifics, rather just broad gushing generalizations about how the show is “so good,” and there is not the same in-depth conversations that occur around Netflix series as, say, Girls or Mad Men.

And so as not be that asshole that gives away plot points, I’ll just also say it’s so good. I’ll also say that Robin Wright’s character, Claire Underwood, is so amazing. There is a lot to explore in why we, as audiences, love villains so much, why it is we take such pleasure in their wicked deeds. Perhaps it is to see our own repressed impulses given free reign; perhaps we are all bloodthirsty villains as well but have conformed to the rules of propriety, decency, and morality, and for a moment, the brief span of a tv show or film, we can delight in someone so unbound by the things that we are.I am captivated every time she is on the screen. She is so poised, elegant, and ruthless, such an amazing screen presence.

There is some not small part of me that wants to be her.