Day Fourteen: Thinking

Animal Planet is the worst thing to happen to a dog-deprived human like me since DailyPuppy.

Day Thirteen: Nonsense

This could also be called : a non-update, update.

To say work was dead tonight would be greatly understating the amount of non-action. However, half the staff is at my house right now and this is fun so I guess I shouldn't complain, not even a little bit.

We still don't have internet so this is from my phone. Tomorrow, a real post. I swear.

Day Twelve: Books

Okay, so. Facebook. The more mature people on my friends list have been passing around a filler-outer-spam thingy that goes like this:

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen books you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your 15 picks, and tag people in the note - upper right hand side.)

Well, I'm not going to tag anyone but I do like thinking about books that have impacted me.

1. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (This book, and maybe it's silly to give a book power like this but, this book gave me the strength to believe in God even if I wasn't quite sure who he was.)
2. The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester (Any person who loves language, who loves English will love this book. The amazing history of the Oxford English Dictionary is truly a tale of a professor and the madman who helped him; a story of help coming from all the wrong places.)
3. The Places You'll Go - Dr. Seuss (And, you will, go to oh, so many places.)
4. Close Range - Annie Proulx (Though I'll never write the way she does; never be able to craft a scene or describe emotion the way she does, I'm still able to read her without jealousy. And, if you know me, being able to admire talent without getting all snitty about it. . . well you know, then, what a feat it is.)
5. Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer (I think the boy is an idiot; the writer? A genius.)
6. Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer (So, I always thought Mormons were absolutely off-the-wall nuts. This book confirms my belief, but, Krakauer also does a careful job of distinguishing the different branches of Mormonism from each other.)
7. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (The book that I finished and said, Well, I want to be a writer. How incredible?)
8. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint - Brady Udall (Speaking of BYU. . . Udall is a graduate. But, don't hold it against him. He's a masterful storyteller. I'm not sure if I recommend this book; it is heart wrenching and unrelenting. It did impact me though, and the story is absolutely unique - a rarity.)
9. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle (To be honest, I don't remember much about this book except that at the time I was absolutely enthralled. I remember a big old house and a thunderstorm and I remember loving every second of my stay in her universe. I should maybe read it again, but, I might wait to share it with my own kids; I'll relive it then.)
10. Skeleton Crew - Stephen King (I went through a King "phase" where he was all I read, I find him a bit repetitive now but I still go back to this collection of spooky stories. Something about them captures him.)
11. Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane (I had trouble choosing a Lehane book - he's written several. However, this one resonates with me (maybe because it was such an incredible movie). I'm not usually one for mysteries or capers but I think Lehane hits on raw human emotion within his detective plots.)
12. Dracula - Bram Stoker (At least one classic had to make the list.)
13. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen(Ok. So, prepare a little for a rant. I hate British literature. I can't stand the style or the stories or ugh, anything about it. I suffered through my Junior Brit Lit class with a permanent scowl on my face. Still, Elizabeth and Darcy are a very classic pair and something about their story still rings with me, even now. My opinion about Brit Lit hasn't changed, don't you worry. I'm not afraid to throw Wuthering Heights to the wolves and take one step towards me with that horrid Jane Eyre and I'll throw you to them, too.)
14. Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare (Not a book you say? I say: Shove it.)
15. In a Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson (I want to live in Australia, ok? That's it.)

Also, Harry Potter could totally be on this list because What A Ride. But, it remains at #16 and therefore not worthy.

Day Twelve: Moving and a Twilight review

I think Stephanie Meyer, the author of Twilight is a hack who got lucky.

Let's rewiind.

Let me begin here: Stephen King stated, "the real difference [between Rowling and Meyer] is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer, and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."


Meyer is very obviously a young woman who was once a young girl who didn't have many friends. And this whole time she didn't have any friends she dreamed about being whisked away to a city where no one knew her, where she would be exotic and appreciated. Her "character" , Bella Swan, is simply what she sees when she looks in the mirror. Slightly plain but definitely misunderstood; smart and "above" all the shenanigans of high school.


I'll give Meyer this: the story has the potential to be interesting. Edward and his family have a vaguely intriguing dynamic and of course, Vampires are always bound to be entertaining. The idea of a "good" vampire clan isn't new- there are always going to be those that struggle with the monster within.

What's lacking is any talent. Meyer comes across as a girl who had a crush on some boy named Edward and wrote in her diary (see: LiveJournal) about how wonderful it would be if they fell in love.

It's absolutely horribly written.

On another note, there is an undertone of abuse that worries me. I'm thinking now of the kids I used to coach in swimming who were obsessed with these books. There is a constant banter between Edward and Bella where he tells her that he "can't control himself around her" and that "she drives him crazy". He warns her again and again of his strength and she APOLOGIZES for her WEAKNESS; she's only human. I know that in later books (yes there is more than one in this series) they have sex and he leaves bruises which she tries to hide.

She. Tries. To. Hide.

I'm sorry. Fucking good Vampire or not a monster is a monster. Teaching our kids that people who say "I love you" always mean it and that it's your fault for being weak if they end up hurting you? That's just fucking nuts. I'm sorry, babies, but if your boyfriend leaves bruises or hurts you in anyway; if he's ever so out of control he doesn't hear or "process" when you say no or stop? That is your cue to: Walk (See: Run) The Fuck Away.


Anyways, my prognosis? Totally NOT worth it.


More moving today, I think. Most of the heavy stuff got moved yesterday. I have NO ganas. We'll see how I feel after a latte.

Day Eleven: Moving

Okay, so I'm moving house . . . again. I know that I absolutely should be more excited but mostly I'm just exhausted. I'm tired just thinking about: hanging clothes, folding clothes, hanging frames, framing pictures, cleaning, moving a couch, a table, my mattresses, my t.v., my d.v.d. player, my d.v.ds, et al.

Actually, I think that is all.

Anyways, more to come on the saga that is me moving house. Keep in mind that in the last year alone I have moved from my apartment to my house to Spain back to my apartment back to my house and now to this new house . . . and almost everything I own has gone to every single place. Awe. Some. Or, you know, not awesome, like, at all.

Day Ten: Annoyed

I'm still trudging through Twilight but I think I'll save my review (see: rant) for when I'm finished suffering.

I am annoyed today by the roofers next door who think I don't notice when they stop what they're doing and stare down into my living room windows where I'm stretched out reading. I know that I am the only woman you have seen in several hours and although I am younger than most of your daughters I'm probably cuter than most of your wives; However, I'm not as oblivious as I look, you freak-show, hardly-working, over-paid men. Oi. Vey.

Day Nine: Distracted

Okay, so, to be perfectly honest I'm super invested in the current Dog the Bounty Hunter episode and so this post isn't exactly . . . as focused as it probably could be. Can you blame me? No, no you can not.

The deal is I'm reading Twilight; or rather, I'm suffering through Twilight. My gift to you? You are going to suffer with me.

I have read 53 pages in which rain was referenced 33 times. I counted. I need a distraction from the plot or the lack of plot. In case you're foreign, the PNW (Pacific NW) is a lot like London and Dublin in that it has a reputation for rain. It's gray. Whatever. So. This book, written by a lady living down in Phoenix (Valley of the Sun she doesn't mind reminding us) decided to set her book in Forks, WA the rainiest place in the United States of America. She then precedes to tell us every time a rain drop touches the sad, pale head of our fearless if clumsy heroine. . . Every. Time. Every. Single. Time.

Great quotes so far?

Pg. 22 - "His face was turned away, but I thought his cheek appeared lifted, as if he were smiling, too."

Pg. 25 - "He was so mean. It wasn't fair."

Pg. 48- "I couldn't fathom his interest, but he continued to stare at me as with his penetrating eyes. . . "

So far in the story we have met Bella, an inexplicably pale girl from Phoenix who has moved to Forks to live with her father. She is drawn to a mysterious Model.Hot.Gorgeous.UnbelievablyBeautiful boy named Edward. He is mean and then he saves her life and then he's mean again. It rains. A. Lot. There is a lot of raining all day with the rain and one day it snowed but then it rained later.


Are you ready for this? Because, I am totally hooked . . . or baffled. Either way, this chick is a millionaire best-seller. I'm trying to ignore the part of my brain that says, Honey? This is a case of the Emperor's clothes. She has real talent, this Stephanie. Right? Right???

Day Eight: Nonsense

124 MILLION people have already watched this but I really couldn't let it pass by without posting it. I want this guy at my future kids 5th birthday party or my grandma's retirement - whichever. ALSO, OMG he IRISH dances to COTTON-EYE JOE! I mean, how many CAPS-LOCKED words can one video earn? A lot, apparently. (And, AND, bye bye bye at 5:12 not even kidding.)

Day Eight: Music

Embedding has been disabled BUT I think this video is well worth the trip over to YouTube.

The 88 - Coming Home aka That One Target Commercial

Such a perfect dance-while-doing-the-dishes song.

Day Seven: Facebook

An old co-worker from the Y reminds us: if you're gonna masturbate with a noose around your neck make sure you have a spotter.

Day Seven: Did you know?

Okay, so, I'm a total snot about intelligence. I am. I'm a prat, really. How many times a day do I say: did you know? No really, did you? I bet you didn't. Well, Thank God I Am Here, because now you know. So now, I'm trying to spare my friends and family from the constant nagging I do all day (but not at all succeeding because not 5 minutes ago I was watching a show about crocodiles and I turned to my dad and said did you know that. . .? And I never finished the question because my dad decided pretending to choke on his tuna was more important than finding out what it was that he probably didn't know but most certainly needed to).

Did you know. . . .
. . . American Crocodiles wear down their teeth so much and so often that they, in their life, go through 3000 teeth? Oh my god, the crocodile tooth-fairy is SO rich.
. . . Bolivia, a land-locked country, has a NAVY and this NAVY is harbored in Lake Titicaca (I shit you not, this is a real lake in a real country and it has a REAL navy)?
. . .no one really knows how the Oyster Cracker got it's name?

Day Six: Books

I have recently enjoyed:
Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes


Haunted is gross and creepy and deliciously perfect. Palahniuk is one of those writers that always, without fail drags me into his sadistic-masochistic imagination. Don't forget to take note of his social commentary buried as it is beneath spilled guts and severed fingers.

Dracula, a classic, has only recently captured and held my attention. I'm sure I was required to read this book at some point but Lord knows I only did about 1/10th of the reading that was ever asked of me. It takes a little effort to get invested but this story which has Vampires! and Werewolves! is excellently crafted and certainly terrifying.

Accordion Crimes isn't Proulx's best work, I'll say that. But, even on her off days this incredible writer is an all-time story teller. Crimes traces the origins of emigrant America through an Accordion crafted in Sicily. It's heartbreaking and at times isolating but I think it's a stark look at how La Merica became America, our home, sweet home.

Day Five: Annoyed

I don't understand why you think that it is OK for you to request PROMPT service when you make a point of telling me that you aren't going to tip me because a cute girl like me could totally be making better money elsewhere and if I'm not going out to earn that better money than I don't need yours (which is obviously hard earned, you trust-fund, silver-spoon asswipe.)

Day Four: Thinking

The thing with friends is you have to make the effort. Anymore, you won't be seeing them at school. Anymore, you won't be rooting for the same team or living in the same city. Anymore? You have to pick up the phone.

Day Three: Film

I was watching Last House on the Left with my mom and her sister (and they might as well be twins they look and act so much alike) and the movie was horrifically graphic and awful. Our reactions were much the same -- we all got up at various times or hid behind pillows. I held onto my dog and hid in her fur when it got particularly bad.

In general, I love horror films (some might say I am unnaturally obsessed with horror films). This, however, was brutal and disgusting. The little revenge that the victims do exact is minor in the face of what they had to endure; not to mention that the girl who was the true victim was able to exact no revenge at all except that she survived which, maybe, is enough.

It got me thinking though. At what point does horror become "torture porn"? And at what point do we sit back and look at ourselves and say Jesus, with everything that is going on, this, this made over $40,000,000? Really?!

New York Magazine ran an excellent article which discussed the recent popularity of movies like this in American cinema.

As for me, I didn’t understand why I was in that place either, watching through my fingers—or why I’d found myself in similar places many times during the past few years, at The Devil’s Rejects, Saw, Wolf Creek, and even (dare I blaspheme?) The Passion of the Christ. . . As a horror maven who long ago made peace, for better and worse, with the genre’s inherent sadism, I’m baffled by how far this new stuff goes—and by why America seems so nuts these days about torture.

Edelstein goes on to ask "Is there a masochistic as well as a sadistic component to the mayhem?"

And I think, maybe there is. I agree, also, that we are, as a society, a little numb. After 9/11 and Katrina so close together, after Bush and the economy collapsing, after being lied to so often about so many things we are a little numb. Maybe we are turning to these films to say "Hey, it's bad, but you know what? It ain't that bad. . . not yet."

Day Two: Thinking

I would be much more excited about moving house if I didn't actually have to move anything. Also, I was never told that my late teens and early twenties would be full of so much moving. . . I've lived in one dorm, one house, one apartment and now another house, not to mention Spain and all the summers I traipsed back home. I know it's nothing new and it's very much a first world complaint -- I mean, really, how long suffering am I? Boxing up all my Apple gadgets and my university textbooks, dragging crates of designer clothing and bags off cotton bedding . . . such a burden isn't it? All this stuff that I am allowed to own and keep and sell and lose without another thought.

It's true; I wouldn't survive a day in the real world - that world which exists beyond my little countries protected borders. It's a jungle out there, truly it is.

Day One: overheard

"Since when is prom a bitchy slut-fest?"

Apt question, indeed. Since when has this teenage right of passage been so rife with sexual expectations and impolite young women? Since when?

La raison d'être

The goal: To write at least one post a day for 365 days.

The challenge: To make every post interesting. Life, in all it's ordinary splendor, really is a circus; this blog should write itself.

Why? I say to you: Why not? World, I have been watching, I have been listening and I have been talking (Lord have I been talking). And now? Now I am writing.

Annoyed

Okay, so there’s this etiquette that I adhere to that I think everyone else should be forced to follow. When you, amigo, are on a bus, would you, please, give up your seat to that little old lady with all the bags and the cane? I know you’re tired from 8 hours of work but I think she’s exhausted from 80 years of LIVING.

Overheard

Characters
Man in coffee shop who has long sideburns and is wearing black.

Woman in coffee shop with man in black. She has a thick accent and is from India. (The fact that she is from India is not at all relevant but it IS interesting.)

T a friend who I keep in my pocket for situations just like this.

Me


Interior Coffee Shop. Day.
A man and a woman have just sat down with their coffees. The woman has a bagel and there is a pack of cigarettes between them.

Man: I’m really falling for this girl. I can’t stop thinking about her.
Woman: Wow, that’s great. Is she in the program?
Man: The program is anonymous.
Woman: I don’t know her name.
Man: Yes, she is in the program. She’s really pretty. She’s a vegan.
Woman: Is that why you’re wearing the Vegan Or Die shirt today?
Man: I’m meeting her later.
Woman: I’m happy for you.
Man: It’s going really well. I think I’m in love.
Woman: Does she feel the same?
Man: I think so. . .
Woman: Does she know-
Man: I’m not sure.
Woman: Did you tell her?
Man: I don’t know how to bring it up.
Woman: Just say: I love you but I’m still technically married to my ex-wife because I want to stay on her health insurance.
Man: You think that’ll work?
Woman: Why not?
Man: I’m glad you’re my sponsor. All my other friends are just not as supportive. They think she’ll run.
Woman: Why would she?
Man: I’m going to grab a cigarette, you want one?
Woman: Sure.

Me in a text to T: Just found you the perfect guy. Young, smoker, loves to talk about his feelings.
T in a text back: I’m not sure I’m ready for a commitment.
Me: I know! It’s perfect; he’s totally still married.
T: I’ll be there in 5.

Film: Battle in Seattle

Question: Have any of you seen Battle in Seattle, the recent docu-drama-film-thing from Stuart Townsend, and if you have, what did you think?

I saw it and I have mixed and very emotional thoughts about it.

Being a proud (snobby?) Seattleite doesn’t help. The whole time I’m watching I’m thinking: That’s my town, yo, please stop setting it on fire.

Stuart Townsend is a talented guy and cute, too, as far as I can remember. (He was in that one Vampire film forever ago, remember? Cute! Dangerous! At. The. SAME. Time.) He does well with this movie. It’s beautiful and gut-wrenching and in true Hollywood-Liberal style it slaps you in the face with the Way. Things. Are. And things? They are not so good.

I agree with a lot of what Townsend was spewing though I think he exaggerated to the point of damaging his own case. (For Example: At the end he says that 40,000 Indian Farmers committed suicide in 2003 when the real (and still horrific) number is 17,000. See, I don’t think there is anything NOT shocking about 17,107 suicides. In the province of Vidarbha there averaged one suicide EVERY 8 HOURS. I can’t even imagine. Things? They are not so good.)

However, I think Seattle is misrepresented in this film. Where are the hippies? The recyclers? The PETA members? The Vegans? We are not heartless. On the whole we are not ruthless, corporate assholes. We did not deserve the broken windows, the curfew, the police state. We did not earn the violence. And these things? These things that I love so much about my little liberal city? They were washed away by Stuart because let’s be honest -- protesters seem so much more noble against the bleak backdrop of a commercialized, brutish and brutal city scape.

Still, despite my initial visceral defensive response I do recommend this movie. Even to Seattleites. I say to you: Take Stuart’s message seriously. Take his delivery with a grain of salt.

Featured in this film: Fake Empire by The National



Final verdict? Worth it.

For more information on the WTO and the WTO riot in Seattle you can click HERE and HERE.