The January 30, 2007 episode of House, M.D. has the charming Katheryn Winnick playing Eve, a young girl who has been raped. The theory is that the medical professionals need to get her to talk about the experience, to process her feelings, to gain closure.

What should Dr. House tell Eve? House gives her a sedative, then asks his co-workers. Wilson says to tell her the truth. Allison Cameron says to tell her that his life has been good, even though it hasn't, so that she will have hope. Eric Foreman says to tell her that his life sucked, even though it didn't, so she will realize she's not alone. Robert Chase tells him to keep her asleep. House sarcastically tells everybody that they've been a big help.

In The End

In the end, House is able to get her to talk about what happened, but House is still conflicted. It's not clear to me that anyone ever benefits from "getting closure". House draws a similar question: "We drag out her story, tell each other that it will help her heal, feel real good about ourselves. At the end of the day, though, all we've done is made a girl cry."

I'm going to base this moment on who I'm stuck in a room with. It's what life is. It's a series of rooms and who we get stuck in those rooms with adds up to what our lives are.

This episode was written by David Shore, the guy who created House in the first place. Not only is House a misanthrope, but the topic of many of the shows are generally defiant of conventional morality, much like Mark Twain's Story of the Good Little Boy and Story of the Bad Little Boy, in which evil doth prosper and goodness fails to be rewarded.

No Good Deed

Claire Booth Luce, famous for her "No good deed goes unpunished" line, would have reveled in House episodes such as the one where everyone assumes that a porn actor's medical problems are due to his occupational hazards, but turn out to have been caused by overprotective parents raising him in a too-hygenic manner.

If you take a look at literature, though, almost all of it has a strong romantic or bromantic element. Cagney and Lacey. The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. Butch and Sundance. Turner and Hooch. Tom and Huck. If there isn't an "and" in the formal title, it usually ends up with one in the story line. Even House is a bromance between Wilson and House.

We come into this world single file, and we exit this world one at a time as well, and life if pretty shitty if you can't find someone to pair up with in the meanwhile. Blondie and I have one perpetual argument, and that's the order in which we die. If we don't simultaneously die, perhaps in an auto accident, the survivor is going to be really pissed at being abandoned.

Gilgamesh

The oldest piece of literature known to mankind is the epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is king of the city/state of Uruk, and there's a wild and crazy man, Enkidu, living in the nearby woods. The famed warrior king Gilgamesh feels threatened, so he attacks, and the battle ends up a draw. The two men respect each other and become friends. At the time, the city practiced droit du seigneur, a custom by which maidens spend the night of their marriage with the king, as a way of building political allegiance; it's as if everyone in the city/state was related to each other. Enkidu objects to this, and Gilgamesh ends up granting him an exception to the custom.

Later on in the story, Enkidu dies, and Gilgamesh is crushed by the loss, and risks his own life trying to bring Enkidu back to life. In the end, it's just another "and" story, like Romeo and Juliet, or Tango and Cash, or McCartney and Lennon.

One day, one room. Our lives consist of a series of rooms, and it's who we share those rooms with that determine what our lives are like.

Storm Door Closers

I made a really crappy purchasing decision a few years ago, buying a too-cheap storm for the front door from Lancaster Building Supply. The weatherstripping is shot, the handle is shot, the door closers are shot. I bought new door closers in 2008, and finally got around to installing them today. There's a pin in each end of the door closer holdint it in place, and while it's fairly easy to install the first pin, getting the second one to fit requires more manual dexterity than I have, and smaller fingers that will fit in tighter quarters. I installed the upper closer first, dropping a pin. No problem; I used the pin from the bottom closer for the top closer. Then I sat on the steps to install the lower closer.

That's fine - but now I had to stand up again. I'm a gimp. Due to as osteo injury fifteen years ago, I have limited range of motion in my right hip. Standing up requires that you have your feet at angles, so that you don't fall forward, don't fall backwards, don't fall to one side or the other. I can't do that, unassisted. I tried to use the handrail beside the steps, but when I lost my balance, it collapsed under me. (Note to myself: buy a new handrail.) Blondie came to my rescue, fetching my quad-cane and providing a steadying hand. Without her, I'd have been up that well-known tributary without a means of locomotion.

Adam's Two Wives

If you read carefully, you'll notice that in the book of Genesis, there are two stories of creation of Adam's mate. One says that Adam and his mate were both made from the earth; the second says that God put Adam asleep and made a mate for him from Adam's rib. In a non-canonical gospel, there's more of an explanation. Adam and Lilith were equals, drawn from the earth, but equals don't work too well. Lilith decided to go her own way, and God came up with Eve as a substitute, because it is not good that man should be alone. If even the Bible is an "and" book, who are we to argue?

I've been told that this is one of the strangest blogs online. I don't argue. For one thing, virtually any blog that discusses religion talks of nothing else. I try to post a religious topic (this is one of them) every weekend, and yet the religious ideas I put forth - polytheism, for instance - don't jibe with any of the major religions. I also regularly find excuses to post pictures of nekkid wimmen. Well, it is not good that man should be alone, and if man was created in God's image, it's as close to a picture of God (or Gods) as we're likely to come.

Tiger's Problems

I thought about writing about Tiger Woods instead, and perhaps I did. It doesn't appear that he and Elin have a marriage. Frankly, if someone tries to attack you with a golf club, I believe a divorce is grossly insufficient; criminal prosecution is more appropriate.

Half the women in the US think Tiger Woods is a bum, and I suppose I'm making no friends by defending him. There are now stories popping up from Tiger's girlfriends that Elin wasn't much of a wife to him, but those women mostly know what Tiger was saying. If I were to cheat on my wife, I'd certainly tell my girlfriends that they were not to think of themselves as being home wreckers. On the other hand, if a marriage is sound, a fellow might suffer one lapse of judgment, or even two or three, but not ten to twenty.

Telling ten or twenty women that you are going to divorce your wife and marry them is indefensible, though. I think it's time for Tiger to free himself of his current marital ties, and be careful of jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Adam - bromance - Butch and Sundance - Cagney and Lacey - Claire Booth Luce - closure - David Shore - divorce - door closers - droit du seigneur - Enkidu - Eve - Gilgamesh - gimp - handrail - House - Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon - Katheryn Winnick - Lancaster Building Supply - Lilith - Mark Twain - marriage - McCartney and Lennon. - polytheism - quad cane - Romeo and Juliet - Tango and Cash - The Ghost and Mrs Muir - Tiger Woods - Tom and Huck. - Turner and Hooch - wife