I hated Lady Gaga at first. I think I just didn't get it. She seemed like maybe she was trying too hard. But then "Bad Romance" came out and I could no longer fight it. That shit will suck you in no matter who you are. Even Evil Rob loves "Bad Romance."
But now the backlash is beginning, with her newest album. Critics like it or even love it, but the more casual fans are all, "What the hell is this crap?" and the hardcore fans seem a little confused. So allow me to break it down for you: It's an exploration of and tribute to her musical influences. Also, Gaga loves hard rock a little more than you might have cared to admit.
"The Edge of Glory" is a kick ass song.
No, it really is. It totally sounds like something Lita Ford might have come out with if she'd just stuck with it and not given up. And that Clarence Clemons saxophone solo is sublime. It conjures up every single outstanding 1980s sax solo all in one simple 30-second riff. Mostly it reminds me of a combination of the sax solo in Glenn Frey's "You Belong to the City" and George Michael's "Careless Whisper" and Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train." Only it's better, because it's not in one of those shitty songs and stuck in the 1980s, it's in a Lady Gaga song from 2011. It's cool, and it doesn't sound like anything else on the radio right now.
I think that's where people get confused: they want everything to sound the same. Bland and predictable. And Lady Gaga was getting overplayed for two years and then she did something a little different, mixed things up a bit, and people don't know what to think because it doesn't fit in with fucking OneRepublic and Train and Bruno Mars and the newest made to order hits by Katy Perry and Britney Spears (who, don't get me wrong -- you know I loves me some Britney but her newest song is such a snoozefest!). This is a summer without a jam and it's been really depressing.
"The Edge of Glory" though -- it perks things up a bit. The other thing that's cool about it is that she doesn't do ANYthing in the video. She just prances around a fire escape in a weird outfit and up and down a rainsoaked street showing off her ass. Which -- there are worse things in life than 5 minutes of looking at Lady Gaga's ass. Here:
Yeah. I'm a little put out by that part where she kisses the pavement because that's really unsanitary and conjures up images of a real New York City sidewalk covered in old chewing gum and black dirt from cars and the bacteria left behind by a million pairs of shoes. But whatever. Also, I bet Clarence Clemons totally loved seeing as much Gaga ass as he did, filming that video. And the part where she's all snuggled up next to him -- she's like a little pocket Gaga next to The Big Man.
I dunno. I dig it.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Yeah, I wrote a book.
Something strange happened to me over the weekend: I actually finished something.
Even stranger: It was something I wrote.
I've been a non-finisher my entire life. Honestly, it took every ounce of strength I had to finish college -- and that required an extra semester. After that, I spent many, many years not finishing things. Relationships. Books I was reading. Leases. Goals. Scrapbooks. You name it, I did not finish it. In 1999, I got my insurance license and it was huge. HUGE. Huger than it should have been, because it was an actual accomplishment for me -- something I had finished instead of walked away from. But don't worry -- that was the last thing I finished for a long while. I wasn't in any danger of becoming some sort of goal driven overachiever.
Sure, I had dreams. But they were just dreams. Dreams of having a book published, and dreams of writing something for the screen -- movie or television, I wasn't choosy. This was supposed to somehow make me rich, so I could travel the world and rub elbows with rock stars and movie stars. My dream self didn't get the memo that rock stars and movie stars don't hang out with the JK Rowlings of the world.
I've been writing my whole life. I mean, since I was old enough to actually write. So I've always thought of myself as a writer -- even when I was a nanny or a student and well into my years as an insurance agent, I never let go of thinking of myself as a writer. But I could never really finish anything. I wrote two novels in junior high -- horrible, terrible melodramas about figure skaters. Lots of teenagers making out and poorly written competition scenes, going on for hundreds of handwritten pages. I couldn't stop because I liked the act of writing them so much. My best friend wrote one too, and we would pass our pages back and forth to entertain one another. Neither of us ever came up with an ending. I'm not sure there was actually even a plot in either of mine.
I started another book my freshman year of college, about a cocaine addicted high school girl. It was based loosely on someone I knew. It never really went anywhere. I think I let my little sister read it, and she never forgave me for not finishing it. As a creative writing major, I had to write short stories all through school, and mine always ended up being the basis for what I hoped would turn into book length works. But I could never quite get there. And then my senior year, I finally turned in a story that wound up being a pivotal chapter in a novel that I worked on for years, through three major versions. I took seriously beginning around the age of 27 and worked on it till I was about 33, at which time I was too busy single parenting to continue struggling with it. It wasn't going anywhere. I had about half a book, and no end or character growth in sight.
And I didn't write for years. And I missed it all the time. So last November I decided to do NaNoWriMo. And I finished -- a little more than the qualifying 50,000 words. And I realized that I really liked the novel that I had begun, and decided to keep working on it.
And something crazy happened: I started to take it seriously. I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I could finish this time. And maybe something would come of it, though that wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I woke early every morning and put in at least an hour before work; I wrote on my lunch hours; I wrote well into the night more nights than not. I set some goals for myself: I wanted a first draft by the end of May, and I wanted a revision by the end of July.
I didn't quite meet those goals.
But I finished my first draft. This past Saturday, very quietly, around 2:15pm. I was exhausted, and went to take a nap without even telling my husband I was done. I had been certain that when I finished, I was going to just put my head down and weep. And I probably would have if I hadn't been so tired that day.
And Sunday night, I sent it out to a handful of friends who'd volunteered to read and critique for me. And that's when it actually hit me, what I'd done: I wrote a book. A BOOK. A whole book.
I mean, yes, it was just a first draft. A very rough one at that. But it was a book. Almost 300 pages, with a beginning, a middle and an end. And I was flipping out. In a good way. As soon as I hit "send" on the email, my heart started pounding and I thought, "Oh shit, what did I just do?" But then within twenty minutes, I had a reply from one friend saying she'd read a few pages and was hooked, and that made me feel better.
And the next morning, as I went into work, I felt so amazing. Like I could do anything. Because I'd written a book. A BOOK.
No one at work was impressed. Well, that's not entirely true -- two people were very impressed. Everyone else was like, "Umm, okay, you have a phone call..." It took me down a notch or two. But I wrote a book. A BOOK. And they can't take that away from me. No matter what.
Even if nothing else happens, it's really amazing to know I wrote a book. To know I finished something. At last.
Even stranger: It was something I wrote.
I've been a non-finisher my entire life. Honestly, it took every ounce of strength I had to finish college -- and that required an extra semester. After that, I spent many, many years not finishing things. Relationships. Books I was reading. Leases. Goals. Scrapbooks. You name it, I did not finish it. In 1999, I got my insurance license and it was huge. HUGE. Huger than it should have been, because it was an actual accomplishment for me -- something I had finished instead of walked away from. But don't worry -- that was the last thing I finished for a long while. I wasn't in any danger of becoming some sort of goal driven overachiever.
Sure, I had dreams. But they were just dreams. Dreams of having a book published, and dreams of writing something for the screen -- movie or television, I wasn't choosy. This was supposed to somehow make me rich, so I could travel the world and rub elbows with rock stars and movie stars. My dream self didn't get the memo that rock stars and movie stars don't hang out with the JK Rowlings of the world.
I've been writing my whole life. I mean, since I was old enough to actually write. So I've always thought of myself as a writer -- even when I was a nanny or a student and well into my years as an insurance agent, I never let go of thinking of myself as a writer. But I could never really finish anything. I wrote two novels in junior high -- horrible, terrible melodramas about figure skaters. Lots of teenagers making out and poorly written competition scenes, going on for hundreds of handwritten pages. I couldn't stop because I liked the act of writing them so much. My best friend wrote one too, and we would pass our pages back and forth to entertain one another. Neither of us ever came up with an ending. I'm not sure there was actually even a plot in either of mine.
I started another book my freshman year of college, about a cocaine addicted high school girl. It was based loosely on someone I knew. It never really went anywhere. I think I let my little sister read it, and she never forgave me for not finishing it. As a creative writing major, I had to write short stories all through school, and mine always ended up being the basis for what I hoped would turn into book length works. But I could never quite get there. And then my senior year, I finally turned in a story that wound up being a pivotal chapter in a novel that I worked on for years, through three major versions. I took seriously beginning around the age of 27 and worked on it till I was about 33, at which time I was too busy single parenting to continue struggling with it. It wasn't going anywhere. I had about half a book, and no end or character growth in sight.
And I didn't write for years. And I missed it all the time. So last November I decided to do NaNoWriMo. And I finished -- a little more than the qualifying 50,000 words. And I realized that I really liked the novel that I had begun, and decided to keep working on it.
And something crazy happened: I started to take it seriously. I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I could finish this time. And maybe something would come of it, though that wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I woke early every morning and put in at least an hour before work; I wrote on my lunch hours; I wrote well into the night more nights than not. I set some goals for myself: I wanted a first draft by the end of May, and I wanted a revision by the end of July.
I didn't quite meet those goals.
But I finished my first draft. This past Saturday, very quietly, around 2:15pm. I was exhausted, and went to take a nap without even telling my husband I was done. I had been certain that when I finished, I was going to just put my head down and weep. And I probably would have if I hadn't been so tired that day.
And Sunday night, I sent it out to a handful of friends who'd volunteered to read and critique for me. And that's when it actually hit me, what I'd done: I wrote a book. A BOOK. A whole book.
I mean, yes, it was just a first draft. A very rough one at that. But it was a book. Almost 300 pages, with a beginning, a middle and an end. And I was flipping out. In a good way. As soon as I hit "send" on the email, my heart started pounding and I thought, "Oh shit, what did I just do?" But then within twenty minutes, I had a reply from one friend saying she'd read a few pages and was hooked, and that made me feel better.
And the next morning, as I went into work, I felt so amazing. Like I could do anything. Because I'd written a book. A BOOK.
No one at work was impressed. Well, that's not entirely true -- two people were very impressed. Everyone else was like, "Umm, okay, you have a phone call..." It took me down a notch or two. But I wrote a book. A BOOK. And they can't take that away from me. No matter what.
Even if nothing else happens, it's really amazing to know I wrote a book. To know I finished something. At last.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Bars Are Dark and Lonely
I don't write about music very often. This is because I love music, probably just as much as I love life itself. And what music does to me is nearly impossible to put into words. It would just sound trite: the right song in the car on the way to work can change my outlook for the entire day. The right song on a road trip can make even the most boring of drives a beautifully hued memory. Like the time a few years ago that we drove straight throught to Florida, and intellectually I know I thought it was horrible at the time, but because of the accompanying soundtrack, I've been tricked into believing that it was fantastic from start to finish, and something to laugh about now. Some songs take me right back to where I was the first time I heard them, or to a time in life when they were in heavy rotation, and can bring me to my knees with nostalgia.
I'll listen to nearly anything. I'm not terribly fond of jazz or country, but give me the right jazz, the right country, and I'll listen to that too. I'll hate a musician with a passion, but then they come out with "Blow" or "What the Hell" and I can't look away. Evil Rob gives me shit about this, because he intellectualizes music too much; in fact, he'd probably make a really good writer for Paste magazine. He thinks good music should be deep. I disagree -- I think good music can be deep, but it doesn't have to be. Not always. Sometimes you don't want deep, you just want "Bad Romance." Also, this from a man who listens unironically to Tenacious D. Right?
But I digress.
We are fans in our house of this new folk-rock sound. I think I described it to my friend Betty last night as "folk-country-jam-band-rock" or something like that. This was specifically to describe My Morning Jacket, but it could also apply to Fleet Foxes. Mumford & Sons are more bluegrass-rock. Seryn, my newest favorite, are folk-bluegrass-magical-rock. Anything with a ton of traditional instruments being used to make what is essentially rock music -- that's the folk-rock sound. With some magicianship thrown in, where the music steals you away for a bit and when you come back, you're sitting in your car at a red light somewhere in the middle of the suburbs and you're not quite sure how the hell you got there.
Or maybe that's just me.
When Evil Rob and I got married, we had a really hard time narrowing down the music for the ceremony and for slow dancing at the reception and stuff like that, because we had what felt like a million songs that meant a lot to us. So we decided to choose a careful selection of songs to be played in the half hour leading up to the ceremony, and then there were a couple of songs during the ceremony, and then there was the one at the end, and then there was our first dance, and we put all these on a cd that we gave to our guests as a party favor -- since little boxes of candy stamped with the bride and groom's faces are dumb. Hell, maybe our cd was dumb too, but I've had a lot of people tell me they really loved it, and they seemed sincere, so I'm just going to continue to take that at face value and believe our cd was cool.
And one of our songs was "Golden" by My Morning Jacket. This is a band I was first introduced to in the (awesome) Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown. They played the cousin's band Ruckus, and whenever I see them on television or someplace now, I shout out, "Ruckussss!" I'm going to do this when we see them at Red Rocks this summer. Just to be an asshole. They had a couple of songs on the (also awesome) soundtracks: "Gideon" and "Same In Any Language." Evil Rob got hooked on them after we got together and he heard these songs for the first time, and that was all she wrote. So this song "Golden" became one of our songs. Basically it's a song about how hard it is to meet someone, and when you do meet someone special, you want to be there for them forever, "if it falls apart or makes us millionaires." For better or worse, basically. It's a beautiful song about commitment, realistic commitment, not this starry-eyed bullshit fairy tale crap that so many people seem to go into their relationships with.
So I was all excited last night when My Morning Jacket were the latest band to be featured on VH-1's Storytellers series. And the second song they played was "Golden," and Jim James, the lead singer, told a really long story about it, about how he got one of the signature lines from his Grandma, which made it all even more perfect somehow. And after he told this somewhat rambling story, they played the song, and OH. MY. GOD.
It was literally one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. And this is a song I've heard hundreds of times in my life. It took my breath away for a minute, and I felt like my heart was going to break, and then it did break a little bit, and then my eyes filled with tears (just as they are right now as I tell you about it), and I realized that this? This feeling? Was IT. The reason I love music. The reason I love the music I love. The songs I go back to over and over and over are the ones that break my heart a little bit.
Not in a bad way, no. In a way that makes me feel alive, and like I'm part of the universe and everything and everyone in it. Yeah, that's cheesy. But it's so easy to forget that, as we go through the routines of our daily existence. I cherish my routines, and knowing where we'll be from one moment to the next. But every now and then, you need a reminder that you're part of something bigger. That it's not just about you.
That's what music does. Not just for me, but for anyone. I feel sorry for these people who never listen to music, or who claim they don't like music. I honestly think they're broken inside. I give people shit all the time for listening to boring music or music I'm not a fan of, but it's lighthearted teasing -- everyone loves what they're going to love. It can't be helped. I myself have an unfortunate soft spot where Britney Spears is concerned.
And this? This is why I don't write about music.
Here's a link to the video of "Golden." I can't promise it will be life-changing, but I can promise it's a really killer song.
I'll listen to nearly anything. I'm not terribly fond of jazz or country, but give me the right jazz, the right country, and I'll listen to that too. I'll hate a musician with a passion, but then they come out with "Blow" or "What the Hell" and I can't look away. Evil Rob gives me shit about this, because he intellectualizes music too much; in fact, he'd probably make a really good writer for Paste magazine. He thinks good music should be deep. I disagree -- I think good music can be deep, but it doesn't have to be. Not always. Sometimes you don't want deep, you just want "Bad Romance." Also, this from a man who listens unironically to Tenacious D. Right?
But I digress.
We are fans in our house of this new folk-rock sound. I think I described it to my friend Betty last night as "folk-country-jam-band-rock" or something like that. This was specifically to describe My Morning Jacket, but it could also apply to Fleet Foxes. Mumford & Sons are more bluegrass-rock. Seryn, my newest favorite, are folk-bluegrass-magical-rock. Anything with a ton of traditional instruments being used to make what is essentially rock music -- that's the folk-rock sound. With some magicianship thrown in, where the music steals you away for a bit and when you come back, you're sitting in your car at a red light somewhere in the middle of the suburbs and you're not quite sure how the hell you got there.
Or maybe that's just me.
When Evil Rob and I got married, we had a really hard time narrowing down the music for the ceremony and for slow dancing at the reception and stuff like that, because we had what felt like a million songs that meant a lot to us. So we decided to choose a careful selection of songs to be played in the half hour leading up to the ceremony, and then there were a couple of songs during the ceremony, and then there was the one at the end, and then there was our first dance, and we put all these on a cd that we gave to our guests as a party favor -- since little boxes of candy stamped with the bride and groom's faces are dumb. Hell, maybe our cd was dumb too, but I've had a lot of people tell me they really loved it, and they seemed sincere, so I'm just going to continue to take that at face value and believe our cd was cool.
And one of our songs was "Golden" by My Morning Jacket. This is a band I was first introduced to in the (awesome) Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown. They played the cousin's band Ruckus, and whenever I see them on television or someplace now, I shout out, "Ruckussss!" I'm going to do this when we see them at Red Rocks this summer. Just to be an asshole. They had a couple of songs on the (also awesome) soundtracks: "Gideon" and "Same In Any Language." Evil Rob got hooked on them after we got together and he heard these songs for the first time, and that was all she wrote. So this song "Golden" became one of our songs. Basically it's a song about how hard it is to meet someone, and when you do meet someone special, you want to be there for them forever, "if it falls apart or makes us millionaires." For better or worse, basically. It's a beautiful song about commitment, realistic commitment, not this starry-eyed bullshit fairy tale crap that so many people seem to go into their relationships with.
So I was all excited last night when My Morning Jacket were the latest band to be featured on VH-1's Storytellers series. And the second song they played was "Golden," and Jim James, the lead singer, told a really long story about it, about how he got one of the signature lines from his Grandma, which made it all even more perfect somehow. And after he told this somewhat rambling story, they played the song, and OH. MY. GOD.
It was literally one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. And this is a song I've heard hundreds of times in my life. It took my breath away for a minute, and I felt like my heart was going to break, and then it did break a little bit, and then my eyes filled with tears (just as they are right now as I tell you about it), and I realized that this? This feeling? Was IT. The reason I love music. The reason I love the music I love. The songs I go back to over and over and over are the ones that break my heart a little bit.
Not in a bad way, no. In a way that makes me feel alive, and like I'm part of the universe and everything and everyone in it. Yeah, that's cheesy. But it's so easy to forget that, as we go through the routines of our daily existence. I cherish my routines, and knowing where we'll be from one moment to the next. But every now and then, you need a reminder that you're part of something bigger. That it's not just about you.
That's what music does. Not just for me, but for anyone. I feel sorry for these people who never listen to music, or who claim they don't like music. I honestly think they're broken inside. I give people shit all the time for listening to boring music or music I'm not a fan of, but it's lighthearted teasing -- everyone loves what they're going to love. It can't be helped. I myself have an unfortunate soft spot where Britney Spears is concerned.
And this? This is why I don't write about music.
Here's a link to the video of "Golden." I can't promise it will be life-changing, but I can promise it's a really killer song.
Monday, May 16, 2011
On Reading Trash for Fun and... Fun
Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. You know -- like use toilet paper in place of coffee filters because you've run out and it's 6:30am and there's no way you're capable of getting ready for work without that first cup of the morning.
I don't drink coffee, but I've seen this in a movie, so I know it's real.
Along those same lines, sometimes you just gotta read what you gotta read.
The summer before my senior year of college, I remained at school in order to take a couple of requirements I'd put off during the school years. Sometimes it was easier to do the more difficult classes during summer term, since you went to the class every single day and the information tended to stick better in your brain for what was usually a weekly test. I think this particular summer I took a class called "Math in the Social Sciences," which was math for idiots who couldn't handle normal math (you know -- English and History majors, and maybe the occasional Art major) -- mostly we did things like "map the optimal route for the postal worker," but there was one section on probability that the entire class of 60 collectively failed. I also took Grammar. Not like the grammar shit you learned in elementary school and your junior year of high school, but Grammar for senior level English majors -- people who might actually become professors of Grammar someday. That shit was difficult. I barely scraped a B. That class brought down my 4.0 in-major GPA. I was pissed.
But not as pissed as I was about the third class I took that summer: American Literature of the Early 20th Century. Or something like that -- it was all Dos Passos, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, with a dash of Willa Cather and a light dusting of Gertrude Stein. The professor we got stuck with for this class was a classic professorial douchebag: over 70, drunk, hated women (except, you know, Willa Cather and Gertrude Stein), hated students in general and teaching in particular. My classmates were half fellow English majors, and half not -- the second half consisted of three perpetually confused but game Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers; a bitter, argumentative girl named Willow who seemed to own a week's worth of orange shirts; and some other quiet people who mostly sat in the back and tried not to fail. The professor was, yes, a douchebag, but he did end up grudgingly liking me and the frat boys because we four always, without fail, picked up on the sexual euphemisms in the books. English lit professors appreciate that sort of thing, but sadly never test on it.
There was a shitload of reading to be done.
I don't even know how to define "shitload" as it pertained to that class, but the term was 10 weeks long, and we read about 12 books. So I guess that's the definition. 12 books, 8 of them really difficult, only half of them really enjoyable -- it was through this class that I learned to loathe with every fibre of my being the hell that is a William Faulkner novel (and don't let Oprah trick you! Faulkner sucks!). I did learn to love Hemingway, though, and that love endures, so I guess that's something. It was a lot of reading, and a lot of work.
This particular summer was not really about having a good time. Not reallyat all. I can count on one finger the number of parties we went to.
I was sharing a house with four other friends that we sublet from one of my Sigma Kappa besties, and since there were five women in their early twenties living in one small house, one could always find one of the following three things if one needed them: expensive shampoo and conditioner in the shower; Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer; and multiple copies of Vogue, Elle, and Cosmopolitan magazines lying around in the living area. And I don't know about now, because Cosmo is trash, but back then, they used to publish excerpts from romance novels every month. And one day, I picked up the latest Cosmo (brought into the house by someone else - I suspect the other Shannon but it might have been Tish) just to rest my brain for twenty minutes or so. And came upon the most delightful book excerpt I've ever read in a magazine: the third chapter of Judith McNaught's Paradise.
Now, up to that point in my life (I was 21 years old), I had actually never voluntarily read a romance novel. Period. End of story. I had been forced by my older sister to read the ever-so smutty book Lace when I was a mere sixth grader, but I barely understood a third of what went on, and I'm not sure it qualifies as a romance novel -- it doesn't really seem to follow the proper conventions. But this excerpt from Paradise -- oh, it gripped me. It just sucked me right in with its promises of drama and romance and sex. And I did what I had to do: I drove to the mall, marched straight to the bookstore, and picked up a copy of the book. In hardcover. I was a broke college student and I bought it new, in hardcover. In order for this book purchase to appear less embarrassing, I purchased A.S. Byatt's Possession and a Star Wars novel, Heir to the Empire, at the same time (also in hardcover, and I'm not sure how I thought that was less embarrassing than the romance novel, but whatever, right?).
And then I went home and immediately started reading Paradise.
Now, this was not a short book. And I did have other shit I needed to do. So I really couldn't allow myself to read it the way I normally do: give up all other responsibilities or interests for the next several hours and read it straight through in one sitting, maybe two if I exhibited some sort of self-control. No, I had to treat myself to it, a chapter or two at a time. You know -- get x amount of work done, and then you can read a chapter. If you're really good, you can read two. So I took to carrying it around in my backpack so I could bust it out on campus if I had spare time. And one day, I got to the American lit class early and had some time to read, so I took it out and read a few pages before others began to show up, then closed it when someone engaged me in conversation.
And then this one quiet bookish girl I'd been in classes with all through college looked over at the book sitting on my desk and asked, "What's that book?"
And I got all embarrassed -- I mean, it has flowers and a string of pearls on the cover -- and said, "Oh. It's just this romance novel I'm reading."
And she looked all envious and said, "You mean for fun?"
Other people had begun to pay attention to our conversation by this point. I nodded. "Yes. For fun. I needed some light reading." And everyone nodded. They could, of course, relate.
And then she asked, "What's it about?"
We still had ten or fifteen minutes before class began. So I gave them a synopsis of what I'd read so far. And let me just tell you: they too were gripped by the tale of the Chicago socialite who falls in love at the age of 18 with a dashing oil rig worker ten years her senior, gets her heart broken, and then has the opportunity for a second chance several years later (in fact, as she's turning 30, which is a romance novel convention, apparently -- not too old, but not too young, I assume is the thinking).
And so it was that a strange thing happened: By unspoken mutual agreement, almost everyone started showing up to class twenty minutes early, and the book got passed around and read aloud over the next several weeks. Even the frat boys joined in. It was crazy -- I mean, English majors had never exactly been known for our camraderie. But here we were, practically friends. We were all addicted to this book. We needed it. We needed it as a break from the serious, difficult and sometimes tortuous required reading. Yeah, we all laughed at it, and snickered our way through the only-slightly steamy sex scenes. But we did love it. Every single word. As much as we loved Hemingway or Fitzgerald.
Because sometimes, you gotta read what you gotta read.
I've been going through this a little bit lately. I'm working really hard, writing a novel, and already making outlines for a sequel. It's difficult. Rewarding, because I know I'm going to finish, and I know it's good, but still really difficult. And you know how much I read -- three or four books a week, usually, depending on length. And I just can't read anything serious right now. God knows I've tried. I have four books with bookmarks sitting anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through and I just can't pick them up again right now. I don't plan to abandon any of them completely, but they're just going to have to wait.
They're going to have to wait, because I've been really busy reading Rachel Gibson's romance series about a fictional Seattle NHL team called the Chinooks. I even bought one at the Tattered Cover on Saturday, because it's not available on Kindle, and I actually apologized to the woman working the register. But the fact is, these books are awesome. And the biggest question they leave me with is, are there really this many uber-hot guys on any one hockey team?
And sometimes, that's all you want to know.
I don't drink coffee, but I've seen this in a movie, so I know it's real.
Along those same lines, sometimes you just gotta read what you gotta read.
The summer before my senior year of college, I remained at school in order to take a couple of requirements I'd put off during the school years. Sometimes it was easier to do the more difficult classes during summer term, since you went to the class every single day and the information tended to stick better in your brain for what was usually a weekly test. I think this particular summer I took a class called "Math in the Social Sciences," which was math for idiots who couldn't handle normal math (you know -- English and History majors, and maybe the occasional Art major) -- mostly we did things like "map the optimal route for the postal worker," but there was one section on probability that the entire class of 60 collectively failed. I also took Grammar. Not like the grammar shit you learned in elementary school and your junior year of high school, but Grammar for senior level English majors -- people who might actually become professors of Grammar someday. That shit was difficult. I barely scraped a B. That class brought down my 4.0 in-major GPA. I was pissed.
But not as pissed as I was about the third class I took that summer: American Literature of the Early 20th Century. Or something like that -- it was all Dos Passos, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, with a dash of Willa Cather and a light dusting of Gertrude Stein. The professor we got stuck with for this class was a classic professorial douchebag: over 70, drunk, hated women (except, you know, Willa Cather and Gertrude Stein), hated students in general and teaching in particular. My classmates were half fellow English majors, and half not -- the second half consisted of three perpetually confused but game Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers; a bitter, argumentative girl named Willow who seemed to own a week's worth of orange shirts; and some other quiet people who mostly sat in the back and tried not to fail. The professor was, yes, a douchebag, but he did end up grudgingly liking me and the frat boys because we four always, without fail, picked up on the sexual euphemisms in the books. English lit professors appreciate that sort of thing, but sadly never test on it.
There was a shitload of reading to be done.
I don't even know how to define "shitload" as it pertained to that class, but the term was 10 weeks long, and we read about 12 books. So I guess that's the definition. 12 books, 8 of them really difficult, only half of them really enjoyable -- it was through this class that I learned to loathe with every fibre of my being the hell that is a William Faulkner novel (and don't let Oprah trick you! Faulkner sucks!). I did learn to love Hemingway, though, and that love endures, so I guess that's something. It was a lot of reading, and a lot of work.
This particular summer was not really about having a good time. Not reallyat all. I can count on one finger the number of parties we went to.
I was sharing a house with four other friends that we sublet from one of my Sigma Kappa besties, and since there were five women in their early twenties living in one small house, one could always find one of the following three things if one needed them: expensive shampoo and conditioner in the shower; Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer; and multiple copies of Vogue, Elle, and Cosmopolitan magazines lying around in the living area. And I don't know about now, because Cosmo is trash, but back then, they used to publish excerpts from romance novels every month. And one day, I picked up the latest Cosmo (brought into the house by someone else - I suspect the other Shannon but it might have been Tish) just to rest my brain for twenty minutes or so. And came upon the most delightful book excerpt I've ever read in a magazine: the third chapter of Judith McNaught's Paradise.
Now, up to that point in my life (I was 21 years old), I had actually never voluntarily read a romance novel. Period. End of story. I had been forced by my older sister to read the ever-so smutty book Lace when I was a mere sixth grader, but I barely understood a third of what went on, and I'm not sure it qualifies as a romance novel -- it doesn't really seem to follow the proper conventions. But this excerpt from Paradise -- oh, it gripped me. It just sucked me right in with its promises of drama and romance and sex. And I did what I had to do: I drove to the mall, marched straight to the bookstore, and picked up a copy of the book. In hardcover. I was a broke college student and I bought it new, in hardcover. In order for this book purchase to appear less embarrassing, I purchased A.S. Byatt's Possession and a Star Wars novel, Heir to the Empire, at the same time (also in hardcover, and I'm not sure how I thought that was less embarrassing than the romance novel, but whatever, right?).
And then I went home and immediately started reading Paradise.
Now, this was not a short book. And I did have other shit I needed to do. So I really couldn't allow myself to read it the way I normally do: give up all other responsibilities or interests for the next several hours and read it straight through in one sitting, maybe two if I exhibited some sort of self-control. No, I had to treat myself to it, a chapter or two at a time. You know -- get x amount of work done, and then you can read a chapter. If you're really good, you can read two. So I took to carrying it around in my backpack so I could bust it out on campus if I had spare time. And one day, I got to the American lit class early and had some time to read, so I took it out and read a few pages before others began to show up, then closed it when someone engaged me in conversation.
And then this one quiet bookish girl I'd been in classes with all through college looked over at the book sitting on my desk and asked, "What's that book?"
And I got all embarrassed -- I mean, it has flowers and a string of pearls on the cover -- and said, "Oh. It's just this romance novel I'm reading."
And she looked all envious and said, "You mean for fun?"
Other people had begun to pay attention to our conversation by this point. I nodded. "Yes. For fun. I needed some light reading." And everyone nodded. They could, of course, relate.
And then she asked, "What's it about?"
We still had ten or fifteen minutes before class began. So I gave them a synopsis of what I'd read so far. And let me just tell you: they too were gripped by the tale of the Chicago socialite who falls in love at the age of 18 with a dashing oil rig worker ten years her senior, gets her heart broken, and then has the opportunity for a second chance several years later (in fact, as she's turning 30, which is a romance novel convention, apparently -- not too old, but not too young, I assume is the thinking).
And so it was that a strange thing happened: By unspoken mutual agreement, almost everyone started showing up to class twenty minutes early, and the book got passed around and read aloud over the next several weeks. Even the frat boys joined in. It was crazy -- I mean, English majors had never exactly been known for our camraderie. But here we were, practically friends. We were all addicted to this book. We needed it. We needed it as a break from the serious, difficult and sometimes tortuous required reading. Yeah, we all laughed at it, and snickered our way through the only-slightly steamy sex scenes. But we did love it. Every single word. As much as we loved Hemingway or Fitzgerald.
Because sometimes, you gotta read what you gotta read.
I've been going through this a little bit lately. I'm working really hard, writing a novel, and already making outlines for a sequel. It's difficult. Rewarding, because I know I'm going to finish, and I know it's good, but still really difficult. And you know how much I read -- three or four books a week, usually, depending on length. And I just can't read anything serious right now. God knows I've tried. I have four books with bookmarks sitting anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through and I just can't pick them up again right now. I don't plan to abandon any of them completely, but they're just going to have to wait.
They're going to have to wait, because I've been really busy reading Rachel Gibson's romance series about a fictional Seattle NHL team called the Chinooks. I even bought one at the Tattered Cover on Saturday, because it's not available on Kindle, and I actually apologized to the woman working the register. But the fact is, these books are awesome. And the biggest question they leave me with is, are there really this many uber-hot guys on any one hockey team?
And sometimes, that's all you want to know.
Monday, May 02, 2011
In Which I Pick Apart The Most Awesomely Moronic Facebook Status Update EVER
Okay, so you know how President Obama gave the go ahead for a military strike to take out Osama Bin Laden, and now Osama Bin Laden is dead, and buried at sea, and they got DNA samples to verify it was him and everything?
No? I mean, it was totally in the news.
Anyway, on Facebook, everyone's talking about it. And one of my friends posted this status update:
And I would like to take this opportunity to respond to these comments.
First of all -- really?? Someone I am friends with actually believes these sorts of ludicrous conspiracy theories? I honestly question the sanity of people who believe that sort of thing. I think it's pretty out of touch with reality. So I find the suggestion that his body is on ice someplace and has been for months to be a bit 1950s B-movie, truth be told.
And just FYI, President Obama announced his intention to run a month ago. A month ago. So how exactly is the successful military operation taking out Bin Laden meant to coincide with that?
And okay, this: "birth certificate fake"?? For chrissakes. President Obama showed his goddamn birth certificate to the proper authorities back in 2007 when he announced his intention to run for president. End of fucking story. He only brought out the long form version last week to make people like you and Donald fucking Trump look like an asshole. Which, guess what?? Totally worked, no matter how Klansman Trump wants to spin it. And yes -- the Birther movement is rooted deeply in racism. They cannot cope with the fact that a man who doesn't look like them got elected President of the United States. That's all it is. How can a man who looks like that and has such a funny name have been born in the United States?
I'm not sure what is meant by "such an auspicuous day." I've never heard the word "auspicuous" before. So I'll just let you have that one, I guess.
But the most moronic bit was saved for last: "Obama saying all this is to his credit? Where does the military get credit?" ARE YOU INSANE??? All he did was give the military, and everyone else involved, credit. Herewith, a transcript of his speech:
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
If that's just too much reading for your ignorance to deal with, here's a link to a video of the speech. Maybe you should actually, I don't know, watch it and listen to it and allow it to sink in instead of making uninformed, ignorant statements that you mistakenly think are clever.
I know what the argument is for this type of behavior: You're going to say, "Well, I'm entitled to my opinion." Yes. Yes you are entitled to your opinion. What you AREN'T entitled to is to perpetuate lies and half-truths and ludicrous accusations. Lies are only lies. They aren't opinions, and you aren't entitled to them. If you can't participate in the discourse like a grown up, then step away from the table and find something else to talk about, like boys or movies or adult contemporary music.
No? I mean, it was totally in the news.
Anyway, on Facebook, everyone's talking about it. And one of my friends posted this status update:
And I would like to take this opportunity to respond to these comments.
First of all -- really?? Someone I am friends with actually believes these sorts of ludicrous conspiracy theories? I honestly question the sanity of people who believe that sort of thing. I think it's pretty out of touch with reality. So I find the suggestion that his body is on ice someplace and has been for months to be a bit 1950s B-movie, truth be told.
And just FYI, President Obama announced his intention to run a month ago. A month ago. So how exactly is the successful military operation taking out Bin Laden meant to coincide with that?
And okay, this: "birth certificate fake"?? For chrissakes. President Obama showed his goddamn birth certificate to the proper authorities back in 2007 when he announced his intention to run for president. End of fucking story. He only brought out the long form version last week to make people like you and Donald fucking Trump look like an asshole. Which, guess what?? Totally worked, no matter how Klansman Trump wants to spin it. And yes -- the Birther movement is rooted deeply in racism. They cannot cope with the fact that a man who doesn't look like them got elected President of the United States. That's all it is. How can a man who looks like that and has such a funny name have been born in the United States?
I'm not sure what is meant by "such an auspicuous day." I've never heard the word "auspicuous" before. So I'll just let you have that one, I guess.
But the most moronic bit was saved for last: "Obama saying all this is to his credit? Where does the military get credit?" ARE YOU INSANE??? All he did was give the military, and everyone else involved, credit. Herewith, a transcript of his speech:
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory -- hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.
And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.
On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.
We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda -- an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.
Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.
Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will -- remain vigilant at home and abroad.
As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not –- and never will be -– at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.
Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done. But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.
Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.
The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.
So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.
Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.
We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.
Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.
And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.
The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.
Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.If that's just too much reading for your ignorance to deal with, here's a link to a video of the speech. Maybe you should actually, I don't know, watch it and listen to it and allow it to sink in instead of making uninformed, ignorant statements that you mistakenly think are clever.
I know what the argument is for this type of behavior: You're going to say, "Well, I'm entitled to my opinion." Yes. Yes you are entitled to your opinion. What you AREN'T entitled to is to perpetuate lies and half-truths and ludicrous accusations. Lies are only lies. They aren't opinions, and you aren't entitled to them. If you can't participate in the discourse like a grown up, then step away from the table and find something else to talk about, like boys or movies or adult contemporary music.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thoughts on the Royal Wedding
Evil Rob had to pee at 4:36am this morning, and you know what that means -- it required a lot of noise to get in and out of bed and walk to and from the bathroom. So naturally I woke up, and we all know I can't get back to sleep at that hour, so I figured to hell with it, and tuned into the Royal Wedding.
First of all, Kate -- excuse me, Catherine -- looked beautiful. And I love it that she looked like herself. The dress, while not as drama as some people might have been hoping, was gorgeous, and totally her. She didn't do anything insane to her hair or wear too much makeup (Princess Eugenie, I'm talking to you) -- because she knows that when you've got it going on, you've got it going on.
Some other random thoughts I had while watching...
-- Prince Harry got the good head of hair in that family, didn't he?
-- Also, who thought it was a good idea to leave him in charge of the children's carriage? Or was that punishment for something -- sticking Prince Harry at the equivalent of the children's table for the duration of that ride?
-- You know Prince Harry is never getting married now, after all this. And if he does, he's eloping to Vegas (or okay, Monte Carlo!) and letting the chips fall where they may.
-- We're obsessed with this wedding in America because the closest we've ever come is the televised wedding of Trista and Ryan. A Bachelorette and the fireman she loves. That's the best we can do.
-- I think we can all agree that the Queen took her fashion cues from Luna Lovegood and accordingly, wore sun colours for the wedding.
-- I laughed when they cut to shots of the crowd, and all the people over 50 were singing along with the hymns, and all the people under 30 were giving them looks like, "You are SO embarrassing to be around." The 30-and-40-somethings were, of course, oblivious.
-- Wow! That kiss did take place at exactly 1:25pm, didn't it? I for one appreciated the extra little kiss. I'm sure they did that just for me.
-- Speaking of which, I'm certain that as soon as the doors shut behind them, they were like, "What is wrong with these people?" Referring to the throngs who'd waited days in the streets just to watch them roll by.
-- On the other hand, I think it's nice that we can still all come together over something nice, instead of only after a tragedy, or to fight with one another.
-- Also, I think we can all agree that Pippa has a really nice ass. I'm sure she'll be watching this on video days from now and thinking, "My ass looks enormous," because that's what women do, but I would just like her to know she's wrong.
-- I spend way too much time thinking about asses. I know. And yet.
Anyway, congrats, you crazy kids!
First of all, Kate -- excuse me, Catherine -- looked beautiful. And I love it that she looked like herself. The dress, while not as drama as some people might have been hoping, was gorgeous, and totally her. She didn't do anything insane to her hair or wear too much makeup (Princess Eugenie, I'm talking to you) -- because she knows that when you've got it going on, you've got it going on.
Some other random thoughts I had while watching...
-- Prince Harry got the good head of hair in that family, didn't he?
-- Also, who thought it was a good idea to leave him in charge of the children's carriage? Or was that punishment for something -- sticking Prince Harry at the equivalent of the children's table for the duration of that ride?
-- You know Prince Harry is never getting married now, after all this. And if he does, he's eloping to Vegas (or okay, Monte Carlo!) and letting the chips fall where they may.
-- We're obsessed with this wedding in America because the closest we've ever come is the televised wedding of Trista and Ryan. A Bachelorette and the fireman she loves. That's the best we can do.
-- I think we can all agree that the Queen took her fashion cues from Luna Lovegood and accordingly, wore sun colours for the wedding.
-- I laughed when they cut to shots of the crowd, and all the people over 50 were singing along with the hymns, and all the people under 30 were giving them looks like, "You are SO embarrassing to be around." The 30-and-40-somethings were, of course, oblivious.
-- Wow! That kiss did take place at exactly 1:25pm, didn't it? I for one appreciated the extra little kiss. I'm sure they did that just for me.
-- Speaking of which, I'm certain that as soon as the doors shut behind them, they were like, "What is wrong with these people?" Referring to the throngs who'd waited days in the streets just to watch them roll by.
-- On the other hand, I think it's nice that we can still all come together over something nice, instead of only after a tragedy, or to fight with one another.
-- Also, I think we can all agree that Pippa has a really nice ass. I'm sure she'll be watching this on video days from now and thinking, "My ass looks enormous," because that's what women do, but I would just like her to know she's wrong.
-- I spend way too much time thinking about asses. I know. And yet.
Anyway, congrats, you crazy kids!
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Randomsauce
Saffron rice for breakfast. Kind of wish I'd been born into a culture where that's acceptable behavior.
Watching the VH-1 Top 20 Countdown. The new 30 Seconds to Mars video has the boys thinking they're the fucking Clash or Queen or something. It's good to dream, but... you know, come on. No one even remembers the REAL name of your lead singer. Everyone just calls him "Jordan Catalano."
Also, I'm pretty sure that the first person my son would want to see after being rescued from kidnapping by terrorists is not My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way.
Bad videos are better than no videos, though.
I got my first stitches ever the other night! I shouldn't be so excited about it. I cut my finger with a sharp kitchen knife while cutting an onion. It was the onion's fault. So we had to roll on over to Urgent Care and I got some stitches while Evil Rob and the doctor discussed the first season of "The Walking Dead." Which was way better than what Evil Rob did after it first happened: sat at the computer and ignored me while completing his fantasy baseball draft.
I was going to post a review of this great book I read, The Botticelli Secret, but there's not a lot to say about it other than it was totally fun and entertaining. It's about a young woman in Renaissance Italy who gets drawn into this political plot after modeling for Botticelli. She and this Franciscan monk follow all these clues in the painting to solve a mystery, and along the way they fall in love. Of course. So it's historical chick lit, basically. So fun.
Is it just me, or does "Source Code" look like the most goddamn boring movie ever??
A bonus included in one's viewing of VH-1 is all the ads for class action lawsuits against drug manufacturers. Did you know that nearly every single problem your baby has ever had in their entire life was caused by the drugs you took when she was in the womb?????
Yeah. I know.
Watching the VH-1 Top 20 Countdown. The new 30 Seconds to Mars video has the boys thinking they're the fucking Clash or Queen or something. It's good to dream, but... you know, come on. No one even remembers the REAL name of your lead singer. Everyone just calls him "Jordan Catalano."
Also, I'm pretty sure that the first person my son would want to see after being rescued from kidnapping by terrorists is not My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way.
Bad videos are better than no videos, though.
I got my first stitches ever the other night! I shouldn't be so excited about it. I cut my finger with a sharp kitchen knife while cutting an onion. It was the onion's fault. So we had to roll on over to Urgent Care and I got some stitches while Evil Rob and the doctor discussed the first season of "The Walking Dead." Which was way better than what Evil Rob did after it first happened: sat at the computer and ignored me while completing his fantasy baseball draft.
I was going to post a review of this great book I read, The Botticelli Secret, but there's not a lot to say about it other than it was totally fun and entertaining. It's about a young woman in Renaissance Italy who gets drawn into this political plot after modeling for Botticelli. She and this Franciscan monk follow all these clues in the painting to solve a mystery, and along the way they fall in love. Of course. So it's historical chick lit, basically. So fun.
Is it just me, or does "Source Code" look like the most goddamn boring movie ever??
A bonus included in one's viewing of VH-1 is all the ads for class action lawsuits against drug manufacturers. Did you know that nearly every single problem your baby has ever had in their entire life was caused by the drugs you took when she was in the womb?????
Yeah. I know.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Book Review: The Weird Sisters (Eleanor Brown)
The Weird Sisters is about three sisters in their late twenties/early thirties, daughters of a Shakespeare professor (hence their names: Rosalind, Bianca, Cordelia), who return home to their small Ohio college town upon learning their mother has breast cancer. Ostensibly, they don't get along. Each has followed a different path in life dictated by what they feel their role in the family has always been -- Rose, the oldest, is solid and dependable, a professor of mathematics at a nearby university, engaged to another professorial type who wants her to move away to England, where he's taken a position at Oxford. Bianca, or "Bean," went to New York City in search of money and men; it's ended badly. Cordy has been living what seems to be the life of one of those Phishkids, wandering around the country, crashing wherever, never landing anywhere for longer than a few weeks. She learns she's pregnant just as she gets the news of her mother's illness.
The tagline of the book is "See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much." And it's interesting -- as the book began, I didn't like any of the main characters, but I loved the writing, so I kept going, because I was so engaged. And by the end, I liked them all a great deal -- which is parallel to what actually happens in the story. And what does happen? Not much. Just a family living in a house and getting to know one another again, and each of the three sisters having some small victory over her own demons -- these three women bring a lot of their own problems on themselves (well, I suppose most of us do that, don't we?), and a lot of their supposed dislike for one another is created in their own heads.
I think the danger in a book like this is that, because the narrative is being spread thin across three main characters, motivations can get short shrift. And that definitely happens with at least one character, Rose -- I found myself frustrated with her need to stay in this small town and not go be with her fiance, because there didn't seem to be anything real behind her insistence in staying. She kept saying she had to "take care of" the parents, but it was quickly obvious that this was not the case, and thus it was unbelievable that someone capable of earning a living as a professor wouldn't know this and come to accept it much sooner. She does eventually go (that's not really a spoiler, as it's not really that kind of book), but I was frustrated by her the entire 200 pages it took her to get gone. I was rolling my eyes at her often and muttering under my breath, "Come on, just get over it already."
Luckily, the writing was good enough to keep me going. And as for the other two sisters -- I didn't really like Bean, but I totally got her and understood what she was going through. And I did like Cordelia, who would have been easy to be annoyed by with her hippy dippy flakiness and utter lack of any sense of responsibility. I loved the parents. And I also loved how the family all quotes Shakespeare to one another at every turn, in any situation -- all of them but the mother.
All in all, it's an enjoyable read, and really well-written. I definitely recommend it.
Friday, March 18, 2011
What the Hell
So yeah. I'm sitting on my couch, watching the FUSE Top 20 Video Countdown. I got kicked out of my office. Not for bad behavior or anything. We're have a remodel done, and today the contractors were sanding the shit out of this new flooring they put in, and I've already been having asthma and allergy issues from all the dust and whatever. So my boss was like, "You need to go home." And I was like, "See you next week."
But it's kind of depressing, I've realized, to be at home when you're not sick. I mean, literally the minute I walked out the door of the office building and got some fresh air, I was feeling better. So here I am, all perky and snarky, and posting funny shit on Facebook, and everyone else... is at work. It's so sad and pathetic to be sending out status updates into the void. Stuff about the new Ke$ha video, and Katy Perry's sparkler boobs in the video for "Firework." And my self-loathing at how much I love the new Avril Lavigne song.
I'll tell you what I don't love, though: Avril Lavigne. She is still a halfwit, and has ludicrous hair. In a bad way.
I'm still of the mind that musicians really shouldn't be allowed to speak. They're all so stupid and ineloquent.
But it's kind of depressing, I've realized, to be at home when you're not sick. I mean, literally the minute I walked out the door of the office building and got some fresh air, I was feeling better. So here I am, all perky and snarky, and posting funny shit on Facebook, and everyone else... is at work. It's so sad and pathetic to be sending out status updates into the void. Stuff about the new Ke$ha video, and Katy Perry's sparkler boobs in the video for "Firework." And my self-loathing at how much I love the new Avril Lavigne song.
I'll tell you what I don't love, though: Avril Lavigne. She is still a halfwit, and has ludicrous hair. In a bad way.
I'm still of the mind that musicians really shouldn't be allowed to speak. They're all so stupid and ineloquent.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Best Picture Showcase 2011
So this weekend and last I attended AMC Theatres' Best Picture Showcase, like every year, and saw all 10 Best Picture nominees for this evening's Academy Awards. Which, trust, are more fun to watch when you've actually seen a bunch of the movies. Following are some thoughts on the nominated films (oh, god, now I'm one of those pretentious people who call "movies" films).
Toy Story 3: This was a good movie. Of course -- it's Pixar. Pixar makes a good movie. And I loved that they still found a way to make the Toy Story franchise relevant and fresh, even with a third installment. The visual gags were fantastic and the story was engaging. I mean, I wasn't sitting there weeping like a lot of people I know claimed to do during this movie, but I was definitely invested. Also, it was not shown in 3d at the showcase, and I don't think I missed anything.
127 Hours: This was a great movie -- the story of Aron Ralston, a dude from Colorado who went hiking alone in the Canyonlands and fell into a crevice, an arm pinned beneath a boulder; he had to cut his arm off to get free. The combination of Danny Boyle as director and James Franco in the lead role make for a gripping movie which could have been really boring, given the subject matter. But there were just enough diversions and flashbacks to keep it moving, and James Franco's performance is so engaging. He's a well-deserved Best Actor nominee for this one, and while he'll likely be beat by Colin Firth, he's definitely worthy.
The Kids Are All Right: This is the story of a lesbian couple played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore and their two teenage children, who initiate a meeting with the sperm donor who their moms used to conceive them. They all wind up drawn in to one another's lives in different ways. It's a good movie, and everyone in it is really fun to watch, but it's not all that. Sometimes I think I'm missing something when a big fuss gets made over a movie or someone's performance in the movie, and that's kind of what I think is happening here -- critics have compared Annette Bening's performance in this movie to her performance in American Beauty, and I just don't see it. Mark Ruffalo is perfect as the sperm donor who's not really a slacker but wants everyone to think he's a slacker. Julianne Moore's character is hard to pin down -- the things said of her character form the part of the movie that annoyed me most: at one point Annette Bening accuses her of micro-managing their lives, but then it's clear she sees her as flaky and devil-may-care. So which is it? I don't think you can be both a micro-manager and a flake. That's just not real. And then I read this funny thing by someone in Slate who complained that it didn't make sense that Mark Ruffalo's character was all into organic food farming for his restaurant, but didn't seem to give a shit what Julianne Moore's character was doing to the garden in his yard -- it just didn't gel. And that was something that I had gotten hung up on as well -- the characters just didn't make any sense sometimes.
I mean, it's a good movie. It's just not worthy of Best Picture.
True Grit: What do I say about this one other than "OMG it's so amazing"???? From the opening piano note in the score (literally, the very first note) to the very last second of the credits, I was just hooked. I mean, at times my mouth was hanging open. The performance of Hailee Steinfeld as the girl was absolutely fantastic; I don't know the mechanics of billing and stuff, but feel she should have been nominated as Best Actress, rather than supporting actress. I didn't expect to like this movie, let alone fall madly in love with it, because it's a western and that feels like a dirty word to me. But fall madly in love is exactly what happened. The Coen brothers gave it their own special sauce, but otherwise apparently stayed pretty true to the original. Jeff Bridges is great as always, and Matt Damon was barely recognizable in his role as the Texas Marshall hunting the same man -- totally a good thing. I absolutely loved this movie, and can't recommend it enough.
The Fighter: Look, I get it -- hardscrabble story of a boxer down on his luck, and the drug addicted brother who brings him both inspiration and a lot of grief, and their journey into healing through... boxing. It's one of those quintessentially American stories that we are all suckers for. But no fuss would be made over this movie if it weren't for Christian Bale's scenery-chewing performance as Dicky. I mean, it's a pretty good movie. But it isn't fantastic -- it doesn't transport you anywhere. It just makes you glad you never smoked crack. Or took up boxing.
Winter's Bone: Not a single actor you've ever heard of, though you may vaguely recognize a face or two, and yet this is a sadly beautiful film about a teenage girl (Ree) who is attempting to care for her two younger siblings and a mother who's gone 'round the twist, after being abandoned by a meth-cooking father. Ree learns that her father has placed their house as collateral for bail and has a court date he's about to miss; she tries to find him in order to avoid losing the house. Her search takes her on a journey through the criminal underbelly of her extended family, and eventually she learns her father was killed, but no one will produce his body. My husband rightly pointed out the parallels between Ree's journey and that of Frodo's in Lord of the Rings -- this is an ultra-modern hero's journey. Her quest is for the truth; her ring of evil is avoiding the drugs that have destroyed so many in her family; and her Shire to come back to is personified by her younger brother and sister. It's a brutally real movie, but lovely just the same. The young actress who plays Ree, Jennifer Lawrence, has been nominated for Best Actress -- well deserved. I can't recommend this one enough, either.
Black Swan: This is seriously one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's cliche, it's poorly filmed, the acting is terrible -- it's a goddamn melodrama. The biggest issue is that you're supposed to go on this journey into madness with the main character, Nina (Natalie Portman). But you don't really want to go on this journey with her, because you don't actually give a flying fuck about her. She's cold and crazy and she has a batshit crazy mom who is just a lame shadow of the Joan Crawford portrayed in Mommie Dearest. Honestly, there's better acting in the so-bad-it's-good Center Stage, if you want ballet, and if you want a crazy mother, just check out Mommie Dearest. If you want Natalie Portman, check out almost any other movie she's been in, including the pretty hilarious No Strings Attached. Don't check out this. It's garbage.
Seriously. Garbage.
Inception: Here's another movie I wasn't all that excited about, and in fact had no interest in it at all when it was first released. But it turned out to be really well done and fascinating -- a very cerebral action movie would be the most apt description I could give it. I've heard people bemoan its lack of acting nominations, but I don't agree -- I don't think any of the performances are all that fantastic. It's just an example of a movie that could have been sucktastic were it not elevated by an ensemble of compelling actors, led by Leonardo DiCaprio. There are some things I'd have done differently -- lose the unnecessarily bombastic Hans Zimmer score for a start -- but otherwise, it's a really good movie. Maybe a bit overlong, but still really good. Also, some people find it confusing, and I admittedly have no patience for that -- it's not confusing, but you do need to pay attention from beginning to end to follow along. If paying attention to a movie isn't your thing, you might want to skip this one.
The Social Network: Yes, this is me and Evil Rob's kind of movie -- sharp, witty dialogue and a quick-paced story. A fictional account of the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. I am a huge fan of Facebook and resent the constant demonization in the press of its founder, so I had concerns that this movie would be overly critical, but it wasn't. Nor was it fawning. I think it just did its best to present a reasonably balanced picture of the early days of Facebook, framed by some of the ensuing lawsuits. I am married to an individual with undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome (his mom just thought he was really, really smart-- and he is!) and it's always been clear to me given everything I've read and seen about Mark Zuckerberg that he has this "disorder" as well, so I get very prickly and defensive whenever it's portrayed in television or film, because it's so easy to get it wrong and be insensitive about it. So we really liked this movie on a couple of levels -- first because it's about Facebook and that's just good entertainment; and second because of the way it deals with Zuckerberg's humanity -- it doesn't suggest why he is the way he is, but it does tell us what it might be like to live in his shoes. Evil Rob was particularly struck by the moment near the end when the attorney played by Rashida Jones explains to Zuckerberg why he'd never be able to win over a jury -- Rob knows he's usually seen the same way by people who don't know him.
The King's Speech: This was a lovely movie as well, and it has Colin Firth in a quietly brilliant performance as King George VI; Helena Bonham Carter as his wife; and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist. It's quite well done, and no one needs to chew any scenery to make us care about this king who struggled with stuttering. This is the odds on favorite for Best Picture and Best Actor, and it's well deserved. It's not my personal favorite of the 10, but I can't wait to see Mr. Darcy win his Oscar.
So many good movies! I'm glad I only disliked one of the ten -- it's really hard to sit through bad movies.
If it were up to me, True Grit would be Best Picture, with a Best Director win for the Coens. I can absolutely live with Colin Firth for Best Actor, although James Franco runs a close second for me. My personal Best Actress pick is Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone. For Best Supporting Actor, I think I prefer Geoffrey Rush to Christian Bale, although I do love his Baleness, and for Supporting Actress, I'd choose Hailee Steinfeld for sure.
Toy Story 3: This was a good movie. Of course -- it's Pixar. Pixar makes a good movie. And I loved that they still found a way to make the Toy Story franchise relevant and fresh, even with a third installment. The visual gags were fantastic and the story was engaging. I mean, I wasn't sitting there weeping like a lot of people I know claimed to do during this movie, but I was definitely invested. Also, it was not shown in 3d at the showcase, and I don't think I missed anything.
127 Hours: This was a great movie -- the story of Aron Ralston, a dude from Colorado who went hiking alone in the Canyonlands and fell into a crevice, an arm pinned beneath a boulder; he had to cut his arm off to get free. The combination of Danny Boyle as director and James Franco in the lead role make for a gripping movie which could have been really boring, given the subject matter. But there were just enough diversions and flashbacks to keep it moving, and James Franco's performance is so engaging. He's a well-deserved Best Actor nominee for this one, and while he'll likely be beat by Colin Firth, he's definitely worthy.
The Kids Are All Right: This is the story of a lesbian couple played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore and their two teenage children, who initiate a meeting with the sperm donor who their moms used to conceive them. They all wind up drawn in to one another's lives in different ways. It's a good movie, and everyone in it is really fun to watch, but it's not all that. Sometimes I think I'm missing something when a big fuss gets made over a movie or someone's performance in the movie, and that's kind of what I think is happening here -- critics have compared Annette Bening's performance in this movie to her performance in American Beauty, and I just don't see it. Mark Ruffalo is perfect as the sperm donor who's not really a slacker but wants everyone to think he's a slacker. Julianne Moore's character is hard to pin down -- the things said of her character form the part of the movie that annoyed me most: at one point Annette Bening accuses her of micro-managing their lives, but then it's clear she sees her as flaky and devil-may-care. So which is it? I don't think you can be both a micro-manager and a flake. That's just not real. And then I read this funny thing by someone in Slate who complained that it didn't make sense that Mark Ruffalo's character was all into organic food farming for his restaurant, but didn't seem to give a shit what Julianne Moore's character was doing to the garden in his yard -- it just didn't gel. And that was something that I had gotten hung up on as well -- the characters just didn't make any sense sometimes.
I mean, it's a good movie. It's just not worthy of Best Picture.
True Grit: What do I say about this one other than "OMG it's so amazing"???? From the opening piano note in the score (literally, the very first note) to the very last second of the credits, I was just hooked. I mean, at times my mouth was hanging open. The performance of Hailee Steinfeld as the girl was absolutely fantastic; I don't know the mechanics of billing and stuff, but feel she should have been nominated as Best Actress, rather than supporting actress. I didn't expect to like this movie, let alone fall madly in love with it, because it's a western and that feels like a dirty word to me. But fall madly in love is exactly what happened. The Coen brothers gave it their own special sauce, but otherwise apparently stayed pretty true to the original. Jeff Bridges is great as always, and Matt Damon was barely recognizable in his role as the Texas Marshall hunting the same man -- totally a good thing. I absolutely loved this movie, and can't recommend it enough.
The Fighter: Look, I get it -- hardscrabble story of a boxer down on his luck, and the drug addicted brother who brings him both inspiration and a lot of grief, and their journey into healing through... boxing. It's one of those quintessentially American stories that we are all suckers for. But no fuss would be made over this movie if it weren't for Christian Bale's scenery-chewing performance as Dicky. I mean, it's a pretty good movie. But it isn't fantastic -- it doesn't transport you anywhere. It just makes you glad you never smoked crack. Or took up boxing.
Winter's Bone: Not a single actor you've ever heard of, though you may vaguely recognize a face or two, and yet this is a sadly beautiful film about a teenage girl (Ree) who is attempting to care for her two younger siblings and a mother who's gone 'round the twist, after being abandoned by a meth-cooking father. Ree learns that her father has placed their house as collateral for bail and has a court date he's about to miss; she tries to find him in order to avoid losing the house. Her search takes her on a journey through the criminal underbelly of her extended family, and eventually she learns her father was killed, but no one will produce his body. My husband rightly pointed out the parallels between Ree's journey and that of Frodo's in Lord of the Rings -- this is an ultra-modern hero's journey. Her quest is for the truth; her ring of evil is avoiding the drugs that have destroyed so many in her family; and her Shire to come back to is personified by her younger brother and sister. It's a brutally real movie, but lovely just the same. The young actress who plays Ree, Jennifer Lawrence, has been nominated for Best Actress -- well deserved. I can't recommend this one enough, either.
Black Swan: This is seriously one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's cliche, it's poorly filmed, the acting is terrible -- it's a goddamn melodrama. The biggest issue is that you're supposed to go on this journey into madness with the main character, Nina (Natalie Portman). But you don't really want to go on this journey with her, because you don't actually give a flying fuck about her. She's cold and crazy and she has a batshit crazy mom who is just a lame shadow of the Joan Crawford portrayed in Mommie Dearest. Honestly, there's better acting in the so-bad-it's-good Center Stage, if you want ballet, and if you want a crazy mother, just check out Mommie Dearest. If you want Natalie Portman, check out almost any other movie she's been in, including the pretty hilarious No Strings Attached. Don't check out this. It's garbage.
Seriously. Garbage.
Inception: Here's another movie I wasn't all that excited about, and in fact had no interest in it at all when it was first released. But it turned out to be really well done and fascinating -- a very cerebral action movie would be the most apt description I could give it. I've heard people bemoan its lack of acting nominations, but I don't agree -- I don't think any of the performances are all that fantastic. It's just an example of a movie that could have been sucktastic were it not elevated by an ensemble of compelling actors, led by Leonardo DiCaprio. There are some things I'd have done differently -- lose the unnecessarily bombastic Hans Zimmer score for a start -- but otherwise, it's a really good movie. Maybe a bit overlong, but still really good. Also, some people find it confusing, and I admittedly have no patience for that -- it's not confusing, but you do need to pay attention from beginning to end to follow along. If paying attention to a movie isn't your thing, you might want to skip this one.
The Social Network: Yes, this is me and Evil Rob's kind of movie -- sharp, witty dialogue and a quick-paced story. A fictional account of the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. I am a huge fan of Facebook and resent the constant demonization in the press of its founder, so I had concerns that this movie would be overly critical, but it wasn't. Nor was it fawning. I think it just did its best to present a reasonably balanced picture of the early days of Facebook, framed by some of the ensuing lawsuits. I am married to an individual with undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome (his mom just thought he was really, really smart-- and he is!) and it's always been clear to me given everything I've read and seen about Mark Zuckerberg that he has this "disorder" as well, so I get very prickly and defensive whenever it's portrayed in television or film, because it's so easy to get it wrong and be insensitive about it. So we really liked this movie on a couple of levels -- first because it's about Facebook and that's just good entertainment; and second because of the way it deals with Zuckerberg's humanity -- it doesn't suggest why he is the way he is, but it does tell us what it might be like to live in his shoes. Evil Rob was particularly struck by the moment near the end when the attorney played by Rashida Jones explains to Zuckerberg why he'd never be able to win over a jury -- Rob knows he's usually seen the same way by people who don't know him.
The King's Speech: This was a lovely movie as well, and it has Colin Firth in a quietly brilliant performance as King George VI; Helena Bonham Carter as his wife; and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist. It's quite well done, and no one needs to chew any scenery to make us care about this king who struggled with stuttering. This is the odds on favorite for Best Picture and Best Actor, and it's well deserved. It's not my personal favorite of the 10, but I can't wait to see Mr. Darcy win his Oscar.
So many good movies! I'm glad I only disliked one of the ten -- it's really hard to sit through bad movies.
If it were up to me, True Grit would be Best Picture, with a Best Director win for the Coens. I can absolutely live with Colin Firth for Best Actor, although James Franco runs a close second for me. My personal Best Actress pick is Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone. For Best Supporting Actor, I think I prefer Geoffrey Rush to Christian Bale, although I do love his Baleness, and for Supporting Actress, I'd choose Hailee Steinfeld for sure.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
A Short List of Things I Find Way More Offensive Than Justin Bieber
1. Republicans.
2. spiders
3. Train
4. Miley Cyrus
5. shitty beer
6. mud tracks on the carpet
7. People who drive with their heads up their asses.
8. The Goo Goo Dolls.
9. Ill-fitting clothing that I have to look at on other people.
10. Lengthy periods of cold weather.
11. Violence.
12. Racism.
13. Anti-gay sentiment.
14. Pro-lifers who believe they should kill fully grown humans in order to "protect" fetuses.
15. Poorly written books that I had to pay money for.
16. Pro-Activ ads.
17. Jeanelle on Teen Mom 2.
18. Hypocrisy.
19. Religious fanatics. Of any religion.
20. Willful stupidity.
21. Monday mornings.
22. Sick people who come to work anyway.
23. Farts in the car.
24. People who chomp their gum.
25. People who wander around the grocery store like they're the only people there, stopping in the middle of aisles, blocking aisles, chit chatting with their neighbors in the middle of the walkways... etc. etc.
26. Stupid boring sitcoms that pander to the lowest common denominator.
27. Low budget ads on television.
28. Anyone in management at my old office. (See numbers 18 and 19.)
29. Limp pickles.
30. Neighbors who can't be arsed to throw away their baggies of doggie poop, instead leaving it on the staircase landings for others to... enjoy.
Yeah. I could go on...
2. spiders
3. Train
4. Miley Cyrus
5. shitty beer
6. mud tracks on the carpet
7. People who drive with their heads up their asses.
8. The Goo Goo Dolls.
9. Ill-fitting clothing that I have to look at on other people.
10. Lengthy periods of cold weather.
11. Violence.
12. Racism.
13. Anti-gay sentiment.
14. Pro-lifers who believe they should kill fully grown humans in order to "protect" fetuses.
15. Poorly written books that I had to pay money for.
16. Pro-Activ ads.
17. Jeanelle on Teen Mom 2.
18. Hypocrisy.
19. Religious fanatics. Of any religion.
20. Willful stupidity.
21. Monday mornings.
22. Sick people who come to work anyway.
23. Farts in the car.
24. People who chomp their gum.
25. People who wander around the grocery store like they're the only people there, stopping in the middle of aisles, blocking aisles, chit chatting with their neighbors in the middle of the walkways... etc. etc.
26. Stupid boring sitcoms that pander to the lowest common denominator.
27. Low budget ads on television.
28. Anyone in management at my old office. (See numbers 18 and 19.)
29. Limp pickles.
30. Neighbors who can't be arsed to throw away their baggies of doggie poop, instead leaving it on the staircase landings for others to... enjoy.
Yeah. I could go on...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
But at least we got the tree down.
The house is still kind of messy. But at least we got the tree down. It's amazing how much better that makes me feel. I mean, we were out of town for two weeks right after Christmas, so it's not like we really had the time or inclination to take it down before we left, but I didn't realize how annoyed I'd be by it once we got back. I mean, I've intentionally left my tree up till Valentine's Day before, so what makes this year any different?
Clutter. That's what makes it different.
It's not that I view the tree as clutter. It's that placing our tree causes other clutter to get shoved behind the couch in a pile. And we don't really have a lot of good places for the other Christmas decorations to go, so they were all cluttering up the bookshelves and stuff. And it was just annoying.
Also, I realized yesterday that we need at least three new bookcases.
That damn Ikea in Park Meadows can't open soon enough.
Clutter. That's what makes it different.
It's not that I view the tree as clutter. It's that placing our tree causes other clutter to get shoved behind the couch in a pile. And we don't really have a lot of good places for the other Christmas decorations to go, so they were all cluttering up the bookshelves and stuff. And it was just annoying.
Also, I realized yesterday that we need at least three new bookcases.
That damn Ikea in Park Meadows can't open soon enough.
Friday, February 11, 2011
And now it's February.
You should see what our house looks like.
I'm one of those people who comes right home from vacation and unpacks so I can start laundry and not have a giant mess to navigate around. And that's what I did when we got home from Florida: I unpacked my suitcase, Evil Rob's suitcase, and the dirty laundry suitcase. Pook's was neatly organized and full of clean clothes so I let it sit in the front room for a few days before finally putting it all away. But I think it was giving myself license to do that which created the current disaster we're calling "home." Because then it took me 10 whole days before I finally unpacked my giant Disney tote bag full of all the souvenirs Pook and I bought while at Disney World and Universal. And there are still five grocery store shopping bags in the hallway full of crap we've pulled out of the car post-trip, in addition to all the toys Pook bought at the Lego store.
But that's not all. Oh no.
Our Christmas tree is still up.
And all our Christmas decorations are still out.
I can't even tell you how much I'm hating my Christmas decorations right now. I just can't even stand the sight of them. It's starting to look like I will never decorate my house for Christmas ever again. Until November.
It's times like these when I find myself actually wishing that Harry Potter was real, and I could just whip out my wand and perform "one of those householdy spells" that Tonks was never any good at and get the damn stuff put away. Because I swear to you, if I stub my injured toe on one of those bags full of crap, I'm gonna kill someone.
Yeah, I have an injured toe. An ingrown toenail gone awry while walking around Disney World for five days. TMI? I thought so.
And by the way, I actually have a wand now. It's a replica of Sirius Black's wand. Someone -- or two someones, really -- convinced me I had to have it while we were making our last shopping rounds at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It's pretty awesome. It has runes carved in it.
And hell -- I didn't have enough crap around my house to dust already. What's one more thing?
I'm one of those people who comes right home from vacation and unpacks so I can start laundry and not have a giant mess to navigate around. And that's what I did when we got home from Florida: I unpacked my suitcase, Evil Rob's suitcase, and the dirty laundry suitcase. Pook's was neatly organized and full of clean clothes so I let it sit in the front room for a few days before finally putting it all away. But I think it was giving myself license to do that which created the current disaster we're calling "home." Because then it took me 10 whole days before I finally unpacked my giant Disney tote bag full of all the souvenirs Pook and I bought while at Disney World and Universal. And there are still five grocery store shopping bags in the hallway full of crap we've pulled out of the car post-trip, in addition to all the toys Pook bought at the Lego store.
But that's not all. Oh no.
Our Christmas tree is still up.
And all our Christmas decorations are still out.
I can't even tell you how much I'm hating my Christmas decorations right now. I just can't even stand the sight of them. It's starting to look like I will never decorate my house for Christmas ever again. Until November.
It's times like these when I find myself actually wishing that Harry Potter was real, and I could just whip out my wand and perform "one of those householdy spells" that Tonks was never any good at and get the damn stuff put away. Because I swear to you, if I stub my injured toe on one of those bags full of crap, I'm gonna kill someone.
Yeah, I have an injured toe. An ingrown toenail gone awry while walking around Disney World for five days. TMI? I thought so.
And by the way, I actually have a wand now. It's a replica of Sirius Black's wand. Someone -- or two someones, really -- convinced me I had to have it while we were making our last shopping rounds at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It's pretty awesome. It has runes carved in it.
And hell -- I didn't have enough crap around my house to dust already. What's one more thing?
Thursday, December 30, 2010
So ready. So, so ready.
GAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Our vacation is so close I can almost taste it. So close, yet so far away... a whole 8 days. One long weekend, and 5 workdays. I'm not sure I can wait. I am so looking forward to getting out of town for a bit. We haven't been on a vacation in forever. Our 2008 trip to Florida was so depressing and stressful that it hardly qualifies as a vacation -- I mean, it had its moments, but we were broke and worried about money the entire time, and both stressed about our jobs, and rushing everything about the trip because we didn't have a lot of vacation time left. It was more frustrating than fun, in a lot of ways. And before that, the last trip we went on was to Ontario in 2007. Which was fun, but could have been funner (yes, I realize that is not an actual word).
So I am ready. So, so ready. We've got a nice mid-price hotel on Disney property, and a meal plan so we'll be able to go to lots of yummy Disney restaurants and visit lots of characters. And obviously we've got a day planned at Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal -- like I'd go all the way to Orlando and miss that! The AccuWeather 15-day extended forecast is predicting temps in the 70s and low 80s for Orlando the week we're at Disney World, so we should be blessed with nice weather. And of course we get to spend a few days with Evil Rob's mom in Tallahassee.
Is it too soon to start packing? I mean, what would it hurt?? I could at least get organized with the stuff I won't have to wash between now and next week.
I'm too excited to sleep.
Our vacation is so close I can almost taste it. So close, yet so far away... a whole 8 days. One long weekend, and 5 workdays. I'm not sure I can wait. I am so looking forward to getting out of town for a bit. We haven't been on a vacation in forever. Our 2008 trip to Florida was so depressing and stressful that it hardly qualifies as a vacation -- I mean, it had its moments, but we were broke and worried about money the entire time, and both stressed about our jobs, and rushing everything about the trip because we didn't have a lot of vacation time left. It was more frustrating than fun, in a lot of ways. And before that, the last trip we went on was to Ontario in 2007. Which was fun, but could have been funner (yes, I realize that is not an actual word).
So I am ready. So, so ready. We've got a nice mid-price hotel on Disney property, and a meal plan so we'll be able to go to lots of yummy Disney restaurants and visit lots of characters. And obviously we've got a day planned at Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal -- like I'd go all the way to Orlando and miss that! The AccuWeather 15-day extended forecast is predicting temps in the 70s and low 80s for Orlando the week we're at Disney World, so we should be blessed with nice weather. And of course we get to spend a few days with Evil Rob's mom in Tallahassee.
Is it too soon to start packing? I mean, what would it hurt?? I could at least get organized with the stuff I won't have to wash between now and next week.
I'm too excited to sleep.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Weird Christmas, and other random stuff
This has been kind of a weird Christmas. For me, anyway.
Those of you who know me probably also know that I'm a bit of a Disney fan. Or maybe you don't. But you will for sure know I'm a Harry Potter fan. And as it happens, we're leaving in about two weeks for a trip to Florida, in which we will spend 8 days and nights at Disney World, and one day visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure. And so naturally I am extraordinarily excited about this trip. Rob and I also agreed back in August that the trip would be our Christmas gift -- no stocking stuffers, no video games, no books, no stuff. And I thought that would be so difficult to endure, because me?? I love getting presents.
But it turns out that I was fine! I survived! I wasn't even a little bit sad not to have anything to open yesterday morning -- we just watched The Pook open his stuff, and then we headed out to the Waffle House for our traditional post-gift opening breakfast. Of course, it helped that my mom bought us all a bunch of presents, but still -- I'd have been fine either way. So I will take this as a sign of maturity on my part.
And also as a sign that I am now a grown up and can just go buy whatever I want, whenever I want it, and don't really need very many presents.
But yeah, so it was weird, because I am so excited to go on this vacation -- our first real vacation in years (the depressing trip of 2008 doesn't count, because we were broke and I was stressed about my job the entire time, rightfully so since I was let go just a few weeks later), by the way -- that I wasn't even all that excited about Christmas! And now I have already made myself a little countdown chart to hang on my desk at work... 9 more work days! 12 days total!
In other news, The Pook has turned into a teenager overnight. Yeah, he's still 9, but he acts like my best friend's 15-year-old daughter. Haaaaaaate. I'm not really sure how to cope with it. I've threatened to ground him 19 times in the last 48 hours. He's only escaped actual grounding because I keep leaving loopholes in my threats, like "One more outburst out of you today and you're grounded for a week." So then the next day, he has another outburst, because I only covered the day before with my threat. It's all very tricky, and I can only hope that we'll cover it all now, and when he is an actual teenager, he'll be really nice, like all the teenage boys he does karate with.
And at least he has role models.
A month ago, I never would have said this, but honestly, I am just over football for this year. Watching NFL Red Zone today was excruciatingly boring. I guess it's because I don't really have a team to care about any longer. I didn't realize how much I've come to hate the Broncos until I sat here actively rooting against them this afternoon, and then took offense when they won. It's the obsession with Tim Tebow. It disgusts me. Even people who should know better are obsessed with this guy. It creeps me out. I think he might be the antichrist.
I had this whole lengthy rant planned on this very subject, but I've decided that enough gets written and said about that "sanctimonious little prick" (my husband's quote) that I'm not going to devote any more space to it. Even if it's just here on my blog that only 10 people read.
I suspect that my excitement over my trip might be affecting my ability to enjoy the remainder of the regular season. Because I am excited for the BCS Championship game, which will be played the night we get to Disney World. I am looking forward to seeing Cam Newton work his magic against the ever so annoying Oregon Ducks.
Working on a handful of different books right now: Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, about a World War II pilot who crash landed in the Pacific and was eventually captured by the Japanese and spent three years in a prison camp; Neil Gabler's Walt Disney biography that I've been working my way through for several weeks now -- it's good, but just really, really long; a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which my sister the artist recommended to me as a useful read about how we artists self-sabotage, and what we can do to avoid that trap; The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, a continuation of his Heroes of Olympus series (Percy Jackson and all that) -- I pilfered this from The Pook's gift pile yesterday and truth be told, it's a bit plodding; and finally, A Novel Bookstore by French author Laurence Cosse -- a literary thriller in the most literal sense.
I'm having some issues with characterization of my protagonist in the novel I began writing for National Novel Writing Month, but otherwise, that's going well. I'm loving the process. Loving it a lot. It makes me feel whole again to be writing.
So yeah. A little random, and maybe a little boring. But whaddya do.
Those of you who know me probably also know that I'm a bit of a Disney fan. Or maybe you don't. But you will for sure know I'm a Harry Potter fan. And as it happens, we're leaving in about two weeks for a trip to Florida, in which we will spend 8 days and nights at Disney World, and one day visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure. And so naturally I am extraordinarily excited about this trip. Rob and I also agreed back in August that the trip would be our Christmas gift -- no stocking stuffers, no video games, no books, no stuff. And I thought that would be so difficult to endure, because me?? I love getting presents.
But it turns out that I was fine! I survived! I wasn't even a little bit sad not to have anything to open yesterday morning -- we just watched The Pook open his stuff, and then we headed out to the Waffle House for our traditional post-gift opening breakfast. Of course, it helped that my mom bought us all a bunch of presents, but still -- I'd have been fine either way. So I will take this as a sign of maturity on my part.
And also as a sign that I am now a grown up and can just go buy whatever I want, whenever I want it, and don't really need very many presents.
But yeah, so it was weird, because I am so excited to go on this vacation -- our first real vacation in years (the depressing trip of 2008 doesn't count, because we were broke and I was stressed about my job the entire time, rightfully so since I was let go just a few weeks later), by the way -- that I wasn't even all that excited about Christmas! And now I have already made myself a little countdown chart to hang on my desk at work... 9 more work days! 12 days total!
In other news, The Pook has turned into a teenager overnight. Yeah, he's still 9, but he acts like my best friend's 15-year-old daughter. Haaaaaaate. I'm not really sure how to cope with it. I've threatened to ground him 19 times in the last 48 hours. He's only escaped actual grounding because I keep leaving loopholes in my threats, like "One more outburst out of you today and you're grounded for a week." So then the next day, he has another outburst, because I only covered the day before with my threat. It's all very tricky, and I can only hope that we'll cover it all now, and when he is an actual teenager, he'll be really nice, like all the teenage boys he does karate with.
And at least he has role models.
A month ago, I never would have said this, but honestly, I am just over football for this year. Watching NFL Red Zone today was excruciatingly boring. I guess it's because I don't really have a team to care about any longer. I didn't realize how much I've come to hate the Broncos until I sat here actively rooting against them this afternoon, and then took offense when they won. It's the obsession with Tim Tebow. It disgusts me. Even people who should know better are obsessed with this guy. It creeps me out. I think he might be the antichrist.
I had this whole lengthy rant planned on this very subject, but I've decided that enough gets written and said about that "sanctimonious little prick" (my husband's quote) that I'm not going to devote any more space to it. Even if it's just here on my blog that only 10 people read.
I suspect that my excitement over my trip might be affecting my ability to enjoy the remainder of the regular season. Because I am excited for the BCS Championship game, which will be played the night we get to Disney World. I am looking forward to seeing Cam Newton work his magic against the ever so annoying Oregon Ducks.
Working on a handful of different books right now: Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, about a World War II pilot who crash landed in the Pacific and was eventually captured by the Japanese and spent three years in a prison camp; Neil Gabler's Walt Disney biography that I've been working my way through for several weeks now -- it's good, but just really, really long; a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which my sister the artist recommended to me as a useful read about how we artists self-sabotage, and what we can do to avoid that trap; The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, a continuation of his Heroes of Olympus series (Percy Jackson and all that) -- I pilfered this from The Pook's gift pile yesterday and truth be told, it's a bit plodding; and finally, A Novel Bookstore by French author Laurence Cosse -- a literary thriller in the most literal sense.
I'm having some issues with characterization of my protagonist in the novel I began writing for National Novel Writing Month, but otherwise, that's going well. I'm loving the process. Loving it a lot. It makes me feel whole again to be writing.
So yeah. A little random, and maybe a little boring. But whaddya do.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A little epiphany for my Tuesday morning...
So I was just sitting here eating some crackers and tuna salad for breakfast, attached work-related emails to files, when I opened up an email from NaNoWriMo asking me to take their Participant Survey. And at the end of the survey was an opportunity to enter a drawing for a place in an online revision workshop, which of course I entered. And a link took me to the website of the organisation that offers the workshop, and I was thinking maybe I'd register for it in the event I don't win a place in the drawing (because let's face it, I never win anything, other than Evil Rob's undying love and affection, which I guess is way better than winning stuff like scrapbooking supplies or online classes). But then I balked at the cost.
And then I thought about it some more. And first I compared it to the cost of a scrapbooking retreat. Which I never balk at. Ever. Someone could be all, "500 bucks" and I'd be all, "Sign me up!" Because I love scrapbooking, and love scrapbooking retreats even more. And usually go on two per year.
But writing... writing is supposed to be this solitary struggle, right? I mean, I used to take a lot of workshops, but got into a rut with what I was working on in those workshops, and decided a few years back that it was time to just get it done and forget about workshopping -- well, we can all see how that worked out, since I've never actually finished my first novel. I dug myself into a giant rut and allowed life to get in the way of my dream of being a published writer. And then almost forgot about that dream altogether.
And so I realized that it was ridiculous of me to not want to spend money on a writing workshop, but I think nothing of spending money on scrapbooking classes and retreats all year long. Writing is what I want to do, what I've always done, who I am. Scrapbooking is my hobby.
In the end, not all that earth-shattering. But to me, maybe it is a little bit world changing.
And then I thought about it some more. And first I compared it to the cost of a scrapbooking retreat. Which I never balk at. Ever. Someone could be all, "500 bucks" and I'd be all, "Sign me up!" Because I love scrapbooking, and love scrapbooking retreats even more. And usually go on two per year.
But writing... writing is supposed to be this solitary struggle, right? I mean, I used to take a lot of workshops, but got into a rut with what I was working on in those workshops, and decided a few years back that it was time to just get it done and forget about workshopping -- well, we can all see how that worked out, since I've never actually finished my first novel. I dug myself into a giant rut and allowed life to get in the way of my dream of being a published writer. And then almost forgot about that dream altogether.
And so I realized that it was ridiculous of me to not want to spend money on a writing workshop, but I think nothing of spending money on scrapbooking classes and retreats all year long. Writing is what I want to do, what I've always done, who I am. Scrapbooking is my hobby.
In the end, not all that earth-shattering. But to me, maybe it is a little bit world changing.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
I almost forgot: I'm a WRITER.
Check that shit out -- right there on the left side of this post. That's a NaNoWriMo Winner! badge. Wanna know how I got that? I wrote a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. That was it -- all I had to do. It didn't have to be good, it didn't have to contribute to the national conversation, it didn't even have to be spelled correctly or use good grammar (although you can rest assured my novel does both those things, and does them well). It just had to be 50,000 words or more.
I committed to NaNoWriMo somewhere during the last week of October, when another blogger I like to read was talking about how she was going to do it, and used the word "again." I thought to myself, I'm being left behind. Left behind by people who don't even really write fiction. And so I figured I'd look into it, maybe give it a try this year. The main rule, other than the 50,000 words, is that you have to work on something new, not something you've already started. I'd had the germ of a potential chick lit masterpiece (um, right!) working its way around my brain for a few weeks leading up to this, so I figured I'd go ahead and commit that to paper. Or computer. Or whatever. Upon hitting the forums for the challenge, I took some advice from folks who have completed it in the past and decided to make an outline. Something I've never done in the past when working on fiction.
I got off to a really slow start. The entire first week of November was really busy for one reason or another, and I wasn't able to sit down in the evenings and start writing. In fact, I don't think I even started until maybe the 10th. So already, I was way behind. Apparently you want to average around 1,667 words per day. But once I get going, that kind of word count comes easily. It was just getting to the final tally that would be an issue. And once I did get started, I immediately started to feel it -- the feeling of obsession that's always come to me when writing fiction. I was suddenly distracted all the time, thinking about my characters, thinking about their wants and needs and hopes and dreams and motivations.
And that was the biggest road block, eventually: I've always written organically. My characters do what they want to do, or what they're going to do, whether I've gone into it thinking that they would do A, B, or C. And then I explore that, and let them go on their way, and see where it takes the story. It can be slow and arduous, but it's the way that works for me. And to force myself to use the outline and push forward the word count was nearly counter-intuitive for me. I wanted to go back and flesh things out; I wanted to revise as the characters matured; I wanted to add entire scenes. But I didn't. I stuck to my outline. And ultimately, I reached 50,767 words.
I reached it with a whimper, not a bang, around 5 o'clock this evening. I was starting to lose steam, as was the story. It has its good moments, but it has more bad and cheesy moments. If the purpose wasn't the word count, I'd have scrapped 60% of it and revised already.
But if the purpose wasn't the word count, I wouldn't have started it at all. I certainly wouldn't have pursued it till I reached 50,000 words. So what it was really about was reminding me of something I'd all but forgotten: I'm a writer. A writer. I've always been a writer. And I'd lost sight of that for the last few years. Busy with work, and taking care of my family, and all the distractions that cable television provides, I haven't written more than about 4 pages in the last five years. But now, I've written about 140 in the last three weeks alone. About 60 just this weekend.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to make a habit of writing 60 pages in one weekend... unless I'm actually getting paid for it.
But I do want to get back to the habit of writing fiction all the time. Because it's what I love to do.
I committed to NaNoWriMo somewhere during the last week of October, when another blogger I like to read was talking about how she was going to do it, and used the word "again." I thought to myself, I'm being left behind. Left behind by people who don't even really write fiction. And so I figured I'd look into it, maybe give it a try this year. The main rule, other than the 50,000 words, is that you have to work on something new, not something you've already started. I'd had the germ of a potential chick lit masterpiece (um, right!) working its way around my brain for a few weeks leading up to this, so I figured I'd go ahead and commit that to paper. Or computer. Or whatever. Upon hitting the forums for the challenge, I took some advice from folks who have completed it in the past and decided to make an outline. Something I've never done in the past when working on fiction.
I got off to a really slow start. The entire first week of November was really busy for one reason or another, and I wasn't able to sit down in the evenings and start writing. In fact, I don't think I even started until maybe the 10th. So already, I was way behind. Apparently you want to average around 1,667 words per day. But once I get going, that kind of word count comes easily. It was just getting to the final tally that would be an issue. And once I did get started, I immediately started to feel it -- the feeling of obsession that's always come to me when writing fiction. I was suddenly distracted all the time, thinking about my characters, thinking about their wants and needs and hopes and dreams and motivations.
And that was the biggest road block, eventually: I've always written organically. My characters do what they want to do, or what they're going to do, whether I've gone into it thinking that they would do A, B, or C. And then I explore that, and let them go on their way, and see where it takes the story. It can be slow and arduous, but it's the way that works for me. And to force myself to use the outline and push forward the word count was nearly counter-intuitive for me. I wanted to go back and flesh things out; I wanted to revise as the characters matured; I wanted to add entire scenes. But I didn't. I stuck to my outline. And ultimately, I reached 50,767 words.
I reached it with a whimper, not a bang, around 5 o'clock this evening. I was starting to lose steam, as was the story. It has its good moments, but it has more bad and cheesy moments. If the purpose wasn't the word count, I'd have scrapped 60% of it and revised already.
But if the purpose wasn't the word count, I wouldn't have started it at all. I certainly wouldn't have pursued it till I reached 50,000 words. So what it was really about was reminding me of something I'd all but forgotten: I'm a writer. A writer. I've always been a writer. And I'd lost sight of that for the last few years. Busy with work, and taking care of my family, and all the distractions that cable television provides, I haven't written more than about 4 pages in the last five years. But now, I've written about 140 in the last three weeks alone. About 60 just this weekend.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to make a habit of writing 60 pages in one weekend... unless I'm actually getting paid for it.
But I do want to get back to the habit of writing fiction all the time. Because it's what I love to do.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Stuff I'm Thankful for Right Now
This was going to be one of my generic "stuff I love this week" posts but then I realized it was Thanksgiving... Anyway, in no particular order:
1). My 15-year-old Vancouver Roots sweatshirt, which is quite literally falling apart at the seams but is still enough to keep me warm now that the temperatures have dipped below freezing.
2). That crazy giant bunch of cilantro I picked up at Sunflower yesterday morning. I've never smelled something so lovely. I wish someone would bottle that so I could diffuse it in my scent diffuser.
3). And Sunflower Market, which keeps us from going broke on almost a weekly basis.
4). My son, The Pook. He is caught somewhere between "little boy" and "tween," and although his attitude is often one of suckitude, he is always funny and mostly sweet. I love seeing him work so hard at karate, and still hold out hope that this will eventually spill over into school work as well...
5). My husband, Evil Rob. He is the best and the sweetest.
6). Disney's XD channel, which is full of kid shows and cartoons that are actually funny (or awesome, in the case of The Avengers: The Earth's Mightiest Heroes), so neither Rob nor I wish to stab out an eye while The Pook watches his shows.
7). Speaking of Disney, I'm totally thankful that we have already paid our January Disney World trip in advance. We're talking paid in full, people!!! This is so out of character for us, but here's hoping it's something that will be in character going forward.
8). NaNoWriMo. Or National Novel Writing Month for those of you who don't know. This is where you try to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. I've tried for the first time this year, and while I'm not sure at this point that I'll hit 50,000, I do know I've already written more this month than I have in the last 5 years combined. And have rediscovered my love of writing and making up stories, no matter how stupid they are.
9). GLEE. Please. I'm not gonna leave Glee out. It seems odd that a musical show has replaced Lost as my "best show evarrrrr" show, but there you go. And any episode that features Kurt as the main storyline is just icing on the cake.
10). Nicki Minaj's rap in Kanye's "Monster." This is seriously the best 1 minute and 20 seconds of a song I've heard in years. It's a master class in everything rap is supposed to be -- sort of over the top and insane, and she rhymes "Sri Lanka" and "Willy Wonka." It's outstanding. (If anyone is ever tempted to listen to a song based on my recommendation, I am going to warn you that this particular one contains f-bombs galore. Kanye seems a little irritated these days. I dunno why.)
11). Bruno Mars. Especially "Just the Way You Are." You may heard this one on GLEE this week. The original is even better. The song at the wedding in this week's GLEE is also by Bruno Mars, and is also awesome in its original form.
12). Kleenex. Was there ever a better invention than Kleenex? Especially this time of year.
13). I'm also continually thankful to have a job, and a good job at that.
14). My family.
15). My friends.
16). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. I love movies based on books that are actually outstanding pieces of film making, and this one fits the bill. Some have complained that the "wandering lost" scenes go on far too long (a similar complaint was uttered frequently about the book, by people who missed the point), but to Rob and I both, those were the best parts of the movie. I don't have to have stuff blowing up every ten minutes and special effects or whatever -- I need some emotion. And those wide desolate shots capture perfectly what's happening with Harry (and Hermione and Ron) at that time. Also, the scene where Harry and Hermione dance to Nick Cave's "O Little Children" was a really nice touch. Totally awkward and dorky, and perfect. I cried at least 10 times the first time I saw it but got that down to a mere 5 the second time.
17). My kindle, as always. I've got 4 books going right now. It's so much easier to do that with a kindle. Way less clutter. Don't get me wrong -- I still love actual books. Books are awesome. But my kindle allows me to keep reading after my carpal tunnel syndrome wants me to stop.
All right, I gotta go -- I've got cranberry salsa to make, sweet potatoes to chop, and brussels sprouts to bake. Happy Thanksgiving!!
1). My 15-year-old Vancouver Roots sweatshirt, which is quite literally falling apart at the seams but is still enough to keep me warm now that the temperatures have dipped below freezing.
2). That crazy giant bunch of cilantro I picked up at Sunflower yesterday morning. I've never smelled something so lovely. I wish someone would bottle that so I could diffuse it in my scent diffuser.
3). And Sunflower Market, which keeps us from going broke on almost a weekly basis.
4). My son, The Pook. He is caught somewhere between "little boy" and "tween," and although his attitude is often one of suckitude, he is always funny and mostly sweet. I love seeing him work so hard at karate, and still hold out hope that this will eventually spill over into school work as well...
5). My husband, Evil Rob. He is the best and the sweetest.
6). Disney's XD channel, which is full of kid shows and cartoons that are actually funny (or awesome, in the case of The Avengers: The Earth's Mightiest Heroes), so neither Rob nor I wish to stab out an eye while The Pook watches his shows.
7). Speaking of Disney, I'm totally thankful that we have already paid our January Disney World trip in advance. We're talking paid in full, people!!! This is so out of character for us, but here's hoping it's something that will be in character going forward.
8). NaNoWriMo. Or National Novel Writing Month for those of you who don't know. This is where you try to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. I've tried for the first time this year, and while I'm not sure at this point that I'll hit 50,000, I do know I've already written more this month than I have in the last 5 years combined. And have rediscovered my love of writing and making up stories, no matter how stupid they are.
9). GLEE. Please. I'm not gonna leave Glee out. It seems odd that a musical show has replaced Lost as my "best show evarrrrr" show, but there you go. And any episode that features Kurt as the main storyline is just icing on the cake.
10). Nicki Minaj's rap in Kanye's "Monster." This is seriously the best 1 minute and 20 seconds of a song I've heard in years. It's a master class in everything rap is supposed to be -- sort of over the top and insane, and she rhymes "Sri Lanka" and "Willy Wonka." It's outstanding. (If anyone is ever tempted to listen to a song based on my recommendation, I am going to warn you that this particular one contains f-bombs galore. Kanye seems a little irritated these days. I dunno why.)
11). Bruno Mars. Especially "Just the Way You Are." You may heard this one on GLEE this week. The original is even better. The song at the wedding in this week's GLEE is also by Bruno Mars, and is also awesome in its original form.
12). Kleenex. Was there ever a better invention than Kleenex? Especially this time of year.
13). I'm also continually thankful to have a job, and a good job at that.
14). My family.
15). My friends.
16). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. I love movies based on books that are actually outstanding pieces of film making, and this one fits the bill. Some have complained that the "wandering lost" scenes go on far too long (a similar complaint was uttered frequently about the book, by people who missed the point), but to Rob and I both, those were the best parts of the movie. I don't have to have stuff blowing up every ten minutes and special effects or whatever -- I need some emotion. And those wide desolate shots capture perfectly what's happening with Harry (and Hermione and Ron) at that time. Also, the scene where Harry and Hermione dance to Nick Cave's "O Little Children" was a really nice touch. Totally awkward and dorky, and perfect. I cried at least 10 times the first time I saw it but got that down to a mere 5 the second time.
17). My kindle, as always. I've got 4 books going right now. It's so much easier to do that with a kindle. Way less clutter. Don't get me wrong -- I still love actual books. Books are awesome. But my kindle allows me to keep reading after my carpal tunnel syndrome wants me to stop.
All right, I gotta go -- I've got cranberry salsa to make, sweet potatoes to chop, and brussels sprouts to bake. Happy Thanksgiving!!
Friday, November 12, 2010
What I've Read This Month...
No More Dying Then, Ruth Rendell 
This is an Inspector Wexford mystery, sort of -- I mean, he's there, involved in the investigation, but the main focus seemed to be on one of his associates. It's always interesting to go back to the 1960s and earlier in mystery novels and see how the pages just drip with male chauvinism, even from female writers. Sadly, it was too distracting in this book for me to actually say I enjoyed it. And the resolution of the mystery was one of those ludicrous ones where it has absolutely nothing to do with any of the clues that were dropped or the suspects that were interviewed. That's one rule I like followed in my mysteries -- I don't want the ending to come out of left field. So a little off. But the writing was good. You may also remember this as being the "Booger Book" noted in my last entry. Good times!
This is an Inspector Wexford mystery, sort of -- I mean, he's there, involved in the investigation, but the main focus seemed to be on one of his associates. It's always interesting to go back to the 1960s and earlier in mystery novels and see how the pages just drip with male chauvinism, even from female writers. Sadly, it was too distracting in this book for me to actually say I enjoyed it. And the resolution of the mystery was one of those ludicrous ones where it has absolutely nothing to do with any of the clues that were dropped or the suspects that were interviewed. That's one rule I like followed in my mysteries -- I don't want the ending to come out of left field. So a little off. But the writing was good. You may also remember this as being the "Booger Book" noted in my last entry. Good times!
Loose Lips, Claire Berlinski This one I picked up quite by accident as I was browsing the aisles looking for something else -- well, actually, the second book by this author was displayed with its cover out, and it looked pretty so I picked it up (I judge books by their covers all the time), and it sounded like fun when I read the jacket copy, and then I noticed this one sitting near it and figured I might as well read them both. So glad I did! This was a fun sort of "chick lit" book about a young woman who applies to the CIA sometime in the late 1990s and spends about a year in spy-training camp. She falls in love with a guy we're not meant to trust from the get go, and in the end, she doesn't quite make the cut. But it's a really fun read. Highly recommend this one.L
ion Eyes, Claire Berlinski This is basically kind of a sequel to Loose Lips. A metafiction sequel. If one can do metafiction in smart girl's chick lit. A fictional version of Claire Berlinski is living in Paris, struggling with writers' block following the success of her first novel (Loose Lips). She gets a random email from a man living in Iran one night, asking where he can purchase a copy of her book. She sends him a pdf file of it, and they strike up a correspondence, eventually falling for one another. Claire takes a trip to Istanbul to escape from her writers' block and falls in with an American couple; the wife turns out to be a CIA agent and wants Claire to convince the man she's been corresponding with to spy in Iran on behalf of the United States. I won't spoil the ending, although I kind of wish it had gone differently -- let's just say I'm a sucker for a happy, neat ending. The real Claire Berlinski isn't, though -- she's more a fan of allowing her strong female characters to be enough for themselves, just as they are. They don't need a man. Which is actually fantastic and made me love these two books all the more.Last Night At Chateau Marmont, Lauren Weisberger I was all set to not like this book a whole l
ot, and I do have my problems with it, but all in all, I'm really glad I grabbed it off the New Releases tables at the library on my way to the check out desk. I'm just going to say that I hated The Devil Wears Prada (the book -- liked the movie well enough, though), and refused to even entertain the notion of reading Chasing Harry Winston. But this one sounded like a lot of fun because it involved rock stars. Sort of. Our heroine has been married several years to her husband, a musician with a local following; he is catapulted to stardom following an appearance on Jay Leno, and trouble for their marriage follows. They are both such decent, kind human beings that you find yourself rooting for them from the get go, and I will confess that at one point I did have to skip to the last few pages to make sure I was going to get the ending I hoped for. The things I had issues with: the cliche best friend, who wasn't even a very interesting character or sympathetic best friend; the failure to resolve a problem the main character has because of some very bad behavior on her brother's girlfriend's part; and some awkwardness in creating realistic dialogue. Otherwise, it was a really enjoyable read.
ot, and I do have my problems with it, but all in all, I'm really glad I grabbed it off the New Releases tables at the library on my way to the check out desk. I'm just going to say that I hated The Devil Wears Prada (the book -- liked the movie well enough, though), and refused to even entertain the notion of reading Chasing Harry Winston. But this one sounded like a lot of fun because it involved rock stars. Sort of. Our heroine has been married several years to her husband, a musician with a local following; he is catapulted to stardom following an appearance on Jay Leno, and trouble for their marriage follows. They are both such decent, kind human beings that you find yourself rooting for them from the get go, and I will confess that at one point I did have to skip to the last few pages to make sure I was going to get the ending I hoped for. The things I had issues with: the cliche best friend, who wasn't even a very interesting character or sympathetic best friend; the failure to resolve a problem the main character has because of some very bad behavior on her brother's girlfriend's part; and some awkwardness in creating realistic dialogue. Otherwise, it was a really enjoyable read. Blind
man's Bluff, Faye Kellerman This is the latest of Faye Kellerman's Pete Decker detective novels, and it's an entertaining enough installment. I was sad not to see much of Pete and Rina's kids, but the plot was intriguing -- ripped loosely from the headlines as always. I am getting to the point of concern, though, with the casual racism in Ms. Kellerman's work against California's Latino population (all her novels take place in the Los Angeles area). I'm not sure if it's a misguided attempt at portraying the casual racism of some of the peripheral characters, or a poorly written attempt to do the same. Unfortunately, it just comes off as racism in the narrative. If this trend continues in her next book, I'll have to stop reading her stuff.
man's Bluff, Faye Kellerman This is the latest of Faye Kellerman's Pete Decker detective novels, and it's an entertaining enough installment. I was sad not to see much of Pete and Rina's kids, but the plot was intriguing -- ripped loosely from the headlines as always. I am getting to the point of concern, though, with the casual racism in Ms. Kellerman's work against California's Latino population (all her novels take place in the Los Angeles area). I'm not sure if it's a misguided attempt at portraying the casual racism of some of the peripheral characters, or a poorly written attempt to do the same. Unfortunately, it just comes off as racism in the narrative. If this trend continues in her next book, I'll have to stop reading her stuff. I've also been reading a bunch of free essays available from Amazon for kindle -- mostly literary criticism, but also some by Bruce Springsteen reflecting on the making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, one of my all-time favorite albums. And I'm still making my way through Neil Gabler's Walt Disney, a biography of gargantuan proportions (I believe the print version is around 1000 pages, so I'm really glad to be reading this one on my kindle). It's an excellent work, but it's very detailed and gets a touch dry at times. The chapter on the making of Snow White was weirdly gripping, though. Hopefully I'll have some more time to really sit down with it this weekend, and then I can move on to something else... "something else" being Life, by KEEEEEEEF... er, Keith Richards. I cannot WAIT to read that book!!
Um, not in the same way I cannot wait for the new Harry Potter movie, though. That would just be crazy.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Fun With Library Books
So The Pook and I went to the library last weekend, and I checked out about 9 books of my own to read.
Oh, stop with the pretending to have a heart failure. I've always loved the library.
Except... I'm a germ-phobe.
I haven't always been a germ-phobe. Or at least not to the extent that I am now. And let me just say that my levels of germ-phobiness don't even approach those of many other people I know. I will, for example, touch the door handle when leaving a public restroom. Usually. Unless it's visibly foul.
But the library... I hold the library responsible for my germ-phobiness. Yes. I do.
You see, a few years ago I was a single mother constantly struggling to make ends meet. I was not at liberty to drop a hundred bucks a paycheck on new books (we won't talk about how much I was spending on my comic collection at the time). So we went to the library all the time.
And so one night, I'm sitting in my favorite chair at home, sipping a beverage and reading a book -- a Faye Kellerman detective novel. And I smell... something. Something like cigarettes. So I check the window, figuring someone from my apartment building must be out front smoking right near my window. But the window was closed.
So I sniff my own clothing -- I've never smoked a day in my life but maybe I went someplace that day where someone else was smoking and it got into my clothes. You know how that goes.
But still nothing.
And then I realize... It was the book.
The whole damn book.
Not just the cover, but every single page. Permeated by the smell of stale cigarette smoke.
And then I start examining the book more closely. And it's filthy. Filthy. It's filthy, and it stinks.
So I thought I'd just read it faster, and try not to touch it. Rest it on my lap, or on the table, and just use one finger to turn the pages. But soon, I felt like the smell of the book was bleeding into my hands. And every 20 minutes or so I was getting up to go scrub my hands clean. But I was really creeped out by thoughts of germs and bacteria and god knows what else crawling all over me.
I finished the book, and the others I had checked out at the same time.
But from that point forward, I've become this person who won't even touch a book in the library unless it looks relatively new. I inspect the edges of the pages to make sure they are properly colored, not deeply yellowed with age and dirt. If it passes those two tests, I flip through it to make sure there are no mysterious stains inside. And then, if not, I'm willing to add it to my check out pile.
Sadly, there are times when even this level of examination doesn't work, and I come home and get 67 pages into a pretty good read and suddenly, there's what appears to be a booger in one of the margins. Or a mysterious food particle in the crease between pages.
And it grosses me out. I mean, there's no better way to say it. It's gross and nasty and it kind of makes me hate people. I mean, what kind of person wipes a booger into a library book? Or any book for that matter? What kind of person thinks it's okay to eat over a library book, which by its very definition means it's shared with other people?
A gross person, that's what kind.
I don't even lend out my own books, because I see how other people treat books, and I can't have my own books come back to me in that condition... if they come back at all. My own father bends back the spines of his books. Bending back the spine of a book destroys it. Eventually the pages will fall out! And don't even get me started on the people who think that it's a good idea to turn down a corner of a book's page to mark their place. Um, how about trying a bookmark, people??
So of course dirty, smelly library books are going to send me into fits of rage.
But I think I've coped pretty well with this latest batch.
Until, that is, I found something mysterious on page 72 of Ruth Rendell's No More Dying Then. And then I became hyper-aware of how smelly the cover was, and my palms started to itch, and I was sure I was going to come down with pink eye or something equally disgusting if I kept reading.
But I did keep reading, and it was an entertaining book. And you should all be so proud of me for conquering my fear.
Until the next time.
Oh, stop with the pretending to have a heart failure. I've always loved the library.
Except... I'm a germ-phobe.
I haven't always been a germ-phobe. Or at least not to the extent that I am now. And let me just say that my levels of germ-phobiness don't even approach those of many other people I know. I will, for example, touch the door handle when leaving a public restroom. Usually. Unless it's visibly foul.
But the library... I hold the library responsible for my germ-phobiness. Yes. I do.
You see, a few years ago I was a single mother constantly struggling to make ends meet. I was not at liberty to drop a hundred bucks a paycheck on new books (we won't talk about how much I was spending on my comic collection at the time). So we went to the library all the time.
And so one night, I'm sitting in my favorite chair at home, sipping a beverage and reading a book -- a Faye Kellerman detective novel. And I smell... something. Something like cigarettes. So I check the window, figuring someone from my apartment building must be out front smoking right near my window. But the window was closed.
So I sniff my own clothing -- I've never smoked a day in my life but maybe I went someplace that day where someone else was smoking and it got into my clothes. You know how that goes.
But still nothing.
And then I realize... It was the book.
The whole damn book.
Not just the cover, but every single page. Permeated by the smell of stale cigarette smoke.
And then I start examining the book more closely. And it's filthy. Filthy. It's filthy, and it stinks.
So I thought I'd just read it faster, and try not to touch it. Rest it on my lap, or on the table, and just use one finger to turn the pages. But soon, I felt like the smell of the book was bleeding into my hands. And every 20 minutes or so I was getting up to go scrub my hands clean. But I was really creeped out by thoughts of germs and bacteria and god knows what else crawling all over me.
I finished the book, and the others I had checked out at the same time.
But from that point forward, I've become this person who won't even touch a book in the library unless it looks relatively new. I inspect the edges of the pages to make sure they are properly colored, not deeply yellowed with age and dirt. If it passes those two tests, I flip through it to make sure there are no mysterious stains inside. And then, if not, I'm willing to add it to my check out pile.
Sadly, there are times when even this level of examination doesn't work, and I come home and get 67 pages into a pretty good read and suddenly, there's what appears to be a booger in one of the margins. Or a mysterious food particle in the crease between pages.
And it grosses me out. I mean, there's no better way to say it. It's gross and nasty and it kind of makes me hate people. I mean, what kind of person wipes a booger into a library book? Or any book for that matter? What kind of person thinks it's okay to eat over a library book, which by its very definition means it's shared with other people?
A gross person, that's what kind.
I don't even lend out my own books, because I see how other people treat books, and I can't have my own books come back to me in that condition... if they come back at all. My own father bends back the spines of his books. Bending back the spine of a book destroys it. Eventually the pages will fall out! And don't even get me started on the people who think that it's a good idea to turn down a corner of a book's page to mark their place. Um, how about trying a bookmark, people??
So of course dirty, smelly library books are going to send me into fits of rage.
But I think I've coped pretty well with this latest batch.
Until, that is, I found something mysterious on page 72 of Ruth Rendell's No More Dying Then. And then I became hyper-aware of how smelly the cover was, and my palms started to itch, and I was sure I was going to come down with pink eye or something equally disgusting if I kept reading.
But I did keep reading, and it was an entertaining book. And you should all be so proud of me for conquering my fear.
Until the next time.
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