Rusty's Ventures

Random Thoughts of This Week

2012-01-27T15:52:00.000-05:00

- I may be the only person on earth who thinks this, but I miss the original Sweethearts flavors. No, they didn't make a lot of sense but I grew up with them and I think it sucks that they don't at least offer "Original Flavor" Sweethearts for 10 cents more. I'd totally buy them.

- The worst (mundane) part of owning a cat has to be dealing with canned cat food. Most of it looks and smells like compressed meaty vomit and you will always get some on you no matter how you handle it.

- I want both outfits Diane Kruger wears in Inglourious Basterds. In my size and without the blood, of course.

- In the last couple weeks I watched The Guard and the first few seasons of "Sons of Anarchy" including the episodes in Belfast and now I kind of miss Ireland.

- Then I look outside at the cold rainy weather we're getting in Maryland and realize that if I hum a few reels and drink a Guinness I'm not actually that far off the basic Irish experience.

- Why do telemarketers still exist?

- After washing my keyboard cover the other day and looking at it now, I've decided that it's one of the soundest investments I've made even if half the letters are worn off now.

- Vanilla greek yogurt is way better if you mix in semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Probably defeats the purpose of eating greek yogurt, though.

- I think I just turned what could've been at least seven separate blog entries into one. Whoops.

Copyright Nerdery

2012-01-24T17:40:00.004-05:00

I’m going to be talking about copyright for a bit. Not the SOPA mess which has been covered by a whole lot of people a whole lot better than I ever could. (My two favorites being The Oatmeal and Seth's piece on Pajiba.) No. I’m going to be talking about a more recent Supreme Court decision regarding public domain. For those not interested, I supply this dashing photo of Guy Pearce because that’s still the most popular search term used to find this blog.

OK, those of you still with me; the Supreme Court decided that some works by European composers which has previously been considered public domain are no longer in the public domain because those composers deserve the same copyright duration enjoyed by American artists. This is fair, and I don’t disagree that life of copyright should be standard for all compositions no matter what the composer’s country of origin. What I don’t like is that works which had previously been in the public domain are now under copyright protection again. This has never been the case before and it’s not good that it’s the case now.

The composers affected by this adjustment are people like Prokofiev and Stravinsky, whose works are extremely popular. Not only does this complicate matters for people staging concerts involving those works or creating new audio-visual works that will use the compositions, it also complicates things for anyone who had previously used the compositions either in a recording or a movie or television show. When they created the recording, movie, or show the work was in public domain and they only had to obtain a synchronization license for the recording; now they have to go back and obtain a license for the use of the composition itself. And since these works are already in existence the entity granting the licenses knows they have creators over a barrel when it comes to setting a price point. Without getting those licenses, a copy of any audio or audio visual work featuring music composed by these authors can no longer be sold, played, or aired legally.

This would include movies like Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, which both feature works by Stravinsky. (The first features “The Rite of Spring” and the second “Firebird”.) You start in with Prokofiev and things get worse; Children of Men, Center Stage, and State of Play all feature pieces by him. Not to mention episodes of “Ren and Stimpy” and “The Simpsons”. And those are just the big names, this decision will affect dozens of lesser known composers and unless the licensing departments of virtually every media producing entity in existence are paying attention there could be a flurry of very serious and very expensive lawsuits coming in the near future.

Honestly I could go on for pages as to why this is a bad decision. I won’t, because that would be self indulgent (like ranting about copyright issues on my blog isn’t, but whatever). Anyway, the point is this is bad, I am a copyright nerd and I really need a job that takes advantage of that second fact so I stop inflicting these sorts of things on people just here for more dumb stories about my life.

My Relationship Status is Pass the Ben and Jerrys

2012-01-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

[After I told an anecdote about a male friend who fell down quite badly, yet humorously, while ice skating.]

JJ*: So… is this "friend" someone you're seeing?
Me: He's gay.
JJ: Which means?
Me: No, I'm not dating him. He was one of my guy friends. I have guy friends. I realize you're hyper aware of when I mention my male friends because you're convinced that you're not going to hear if I start dating someone until four months later. Which is probably true.
Mom: No, I thought we'd hear about it when you sent us a picture postcard of the wedding in Vegas.
JJ: Or when I get the engagement announcement if you want to go old school.
Me: I wouldn't let anyone propose to me without meeting all of you. I'd want them to know exactly what they were getting into.
JJ: *Diabolical laugh*

*Brother

Pulling a Boyle

2012-01-18T00:25:00.001-05:00

There’s been a couple of incidents lately that I found an excellent example of the power of words in our society. First of all, there is the ongoing saga of an apartment complex landlord who insists that putting a “Whites Only” sign on her pool is totally not at all racist or discriminating.

The second is Rick Santorum and his wife talking about how much they love gay people and have no idea why anyone would think anything else despite his previous public statements conflating gay sex and bestiality.

In both instances, the offenders have seemed to grasp that being accused of discrimination, or being called a racist or a bigot, is a bad thing. But at the same time have failed to grasp that the way to avoid this is to not act in a racist or bigoted way. The discussion is about the use of that term in relation to them, rather than a discussion of how or why their actions are racist or bigoted.

Rather than talking about how to avoid being called racist or bigoted* I’ve decided to take the American approach of dealing with the term rather than the problem. Last night I watched The Guard which was a great movie featuring a character who frequently said racist things.** This character was Sergeant Gerry Boyle as portrayed by Brendan Gleeson, and I’ve decided that for no reason other than my own whim I’ll use his name for my rechristening efforts. Henceforth, when people are racist or bigoted I won’t say “Wow, that’s racist.” but rather “Wow, you just pulled a Boyle.”

Avoiding the word “racist” which seems to set people off on some wild tangent about what racism is or isn’t, where intention enters into the picture or some dipshittery about ‘reverse racism,’ the term “pulling a Boyle” will cause simple confusion. “Why, whatever could you mean?”

Ex. 1: “Well, friend, when you just said you don’t want black people swimming in your pool because their hair products make the water cloudy.”

“They do!”

“Wouldn’t sunblock, makeup, or hair gel worn by people of any ethnic group make the pool water cloudy?”

“I suppose it would.”

“Perhaps, then, a better sign would be ‘swimmers must shower before swimming’ rather than ‘whites only’ since products worn by white people could also make the water cloudy.”

“You know, you may have a point there.”

Ex. 2: “Senator, it seems that you have just pulled a Boyle.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“You just compared a consensual sexual act between two adults to someone forcing themselves upon an animal. Those are two very different things.”

“Yes, but I find both repugnant.”  

“Fair enough, we all have our flaws. But tell me, would you agree that what consenting adults do or don’t do to each other in privacy is not actually your business or anyone else’s.”

“It’s God’s business!”

“And does God need you to check in on that for him?”

“…no.”

“Then that settles that, doesn’t it?”

I know this seems unlikely, but you can never underestimate the element of surprise. And if Pokémon taught me anything, it’s that when something is confused it’s more vulnerable to your well reasoned attack.

*Hint: starting a sentence about a minority group with “I’m just saying, all [minority group members] can/do/say” is a bad idea. Even if you preface it with “I’m not racist/homophobic, BUT.” Especially if your immediate line of defense is “But I have [minority group] friends!”

** I know some of you are firing up your comment fingers right now, but lets be real. They were racist. “I thought only black boys were drug dealers” is racist no matter how hilarious it was at the time OR if the character was only saying it to fuck with people.

Awesome Stuff From This Week 1/13

2012-01-13T13:22:00.001-05:00

A woman in England coughed up her own tumor. It was an extremely aggressive kind of cancer with a 50/50 survival rate… except that she somehow managed to cough up all the cancer cells. Y'all have fun with that thought next time you have a coughing fit.

Stateside, a homeless girl is a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search. Warning, video at the link. Because no one writes fucking articles anymore.

I don't play video games* but I spent a frightening amount of time during the back half of this week watching video game reviews over here. Warning, these are also videos but they're completely hilarious. With abundant filthy language and unexpected dildo clip art. So, hilariously filthy. You probably shouldn't watch them at work.

And the by now viral Fotoshop by Adobé video. I was just remarking to my sister the other day that we've reached a point in our culture where the standard of beauty has become unattainable not only for the vast majority of the population, but even for those select few individuals who have been chosen to represent the standard of beauty. This is very depressing in one sense and extremely freeing in another.

Any cool stories or sites that you've stumbled across recently? Feel free to share!

*That don't involve motion control or on very special occasions plastic guitar like controllers. I played Portal 2 for ten minutes the other day and spent the entire rest of the night with the spins while sober. Unpleasant.

Real Life vs. Sitcom Life

2012-01-12T15:33:00.001-05:00

Situation: I realized midway through the day that I was wearing my underwear inside out.

How this was discovered - Sitcom version: While running errands in a large urban center, I run into a guy I went on a date with this past weekend! He walks with me to the next shop, but on the way there I walk over a subway grate and my skirt flies up, exposing my inside out panties to the WHOLE WORLD!! I run off, horribly embarrassed. Immediately cut to me in a bar with my friends lamenting how said guy will never ever call me again. My racy friend makes a predictably racy comment ("now you see why I never wear them.") while my sensible friend tries to console me while gently chastising me for my perpetual singleness. ("It's ok! You just need someone more special to really get you and you'll find him! Someday…") Just then the guy texts me to ask me why I ran off so suddenly and if my cute panties and I are free this weekend! I read it aloud to my friends who tell me to ignore it because he's obviously some kind of panty obsessed freak. Cue laugh track!

How this was discovered - Real world version: I went to pee, looked down and said "Huh, I put my panties on inside out. Go me." and went about my day.

Preferred outcome: Sitcom. Sure, everyone sees my underwear, but at least sitcom me has a social life.

On Having an Unusual Name

2012-01-10T13:32:00.000-05:00

Now that I've outed myself and revealed my name, I can actually write a bit about a problem that I'm incredibly familiar with and which will probably be topical forever: having an unusual name.

My name, Genevieve, is interesting, unusual, and difficult to spell. Having this name for my entire life has caused me to adopt certain attitudes with regards to names that are interesting, unusual, OR difficult to spell:

- Do not name your child a popular name with an unusual spelling: I know you think you're getting something over on all the other parents by naming your Olivia "Ollyvia" or "Oliveya" or whatever. You're not. They will still be called "Olivia H." or some other nickname, but they'll have to spell their damn name for everyone forever. Don't do that. I'm ok with spelling my name on command, but I'd probably be less cheerful about it if I had to do it because my name was Gennafyr pronounced like "Jennifer" you know?

- Unusual names sometimes require unusual stories: I can't tell you how many times I've been asked how or why my parents named me the way they did. The answer I have (which is the god's honest truth) is that my mom found the name in a book of saints and thought it was beautiful*. It is. But it'd be way better if I could say something like "Oh, yeah, my Grandmother nearly became a nun** and she was inspired by Saint Genevieve so my parents decided to name me in honor of her." Being forced to tell acquaintances that you were named after your mother or father's favorite liquor, car brand, or piece of Ikea furniture is even worse.

- If your child's unusual name has a meaning, tell them: Obviously not applicable if you named your child "Pinot Grigio." Also, Pinot, honey, talk to me. I'll help you through it. Also, do a quick google search on existing uses. I happen to share my name with the dog from the Madeline series of children's books. This doesn't bother me overly much, but it's good to know in advance when you're naming your offspring.

- Pray that child doesn't have dyslexia: I've gotten extremely good at spelling my name out loud. Actually, I ended up extremely good at spelling overall. This is more luck than anything else, but, you know, light a candle or whatever the non-lapsed Catholic equivalent of lighting a candle is.

- Get used to nicknames: Oh my god, you guys, the amount of nicknames I've had in my life is downright unholy. Some are derived from my name, some not, but apparently no one likes names over two syllables. However, the best way to get nicknames to not stick? Don't respond to them. Then it's just a matter of whether your can out-stubborn whoever is trying to stick you with the unwanted nickname and you should ALWAYS out-stubborn those people. It's your goddamn name, you know?

- Make your unusually named child familiar with alternate pronunciations: My name is originally French/German/Celtic*** and the version that my family uses (Gen-Eh-Veev) is not the version that the whole world uses. I've learned to love the French version of my name (Jon-Vi-Ev) just as much, if not more, than I do the version that I'm used to.

- Unusual names can be inspiring: I joke about it a lot, but being the only "Genevieve" for almost my entire life has helped me be more comfortable living outside the norm in other ways. I've always felt at least a little special or different because of it, and I love the history and meaning of it. That said…

- Have a sense of humor about it: When I was in college Mattel came out with a Barbie doll named Dancing Princess Genevieve. I own this doll, because that shit is hilarious.

I hope this helps those of you out there who plan on naming children at some point in your life. Really, though, stick to existing names, don't fucking around with the spelling, and take five minutes to google search/imagine having that name in middle school and you should be set. When in doubt, just stick "Supreme Court Justice" in front of your preferred name and see how it sounds. Just in case.

* This same mother was ready to name me "Hunter" if I was a boy because her favorite author was Hunter Thompson. My mom was 25 when she had me. I think I ended up with the better outcome in that 50/50 crap shoot. Though I still refer to Hunter Thompson as my namesake.
** True.
*** You get over 1000 years back and all that shit just starts merging together.

The Unveiling

2012-01-08T17:50:00.002-05:00

Hi there. My name is Genevieve. This is me doing my best "now what the hell is going on over here" face:

Mostly because I didn't realize the camera was about to go off. That wasn't planned that way.

I've decided that I'm going to start writing under my own name over at Pajiba and elsewhere. There's a few reasons for this which I will list below:

- My main reason for using a pseudonym has not materialized.: The biggest reason I was writing under an assumed name was to have the ability to filter who in my academic and professional life could see my writing. I am now seven months out of a Masters program, and most places I've applied to haven't even bothered to send me a "thanks, but no thanks" letter. So… screw it.

- I'm writing a book.: As mentioned here before, I am writing a book. So far it's going slowly, painfully and with far more cliched bouts of self loathing than I'd like to admit. But having my name out there probably helps with the endgame, which is to SELL the damn book.

- I am terrified.: This applies generally; I'm terrified that I won't find a job, I'm terrified I'll never pay back my student loans, I'm terrified that I'll be a failure both personally and professionally, etc. But specifically I'm also terrified about what revealing my "self" to the internet will mean and hope that by and large people are at least less than openly hostile.

Those are the main points, though of course if you have any further questions I'll be happy to read them. If you're really lucky, I might even answer some.

Collection of Stuff

2012-01-06T13:50:00.003-05:00

- So this is a video I did a while ago for Hot Ink Reviews that I decided to post over here also for funsies. It's about eyebrows and how to make them look more… eyebrow-y.

- Persephone Magazine reprinted my review of Always Infinity pads, which is super cool.

- Still doing 5 Shows After Dark over at Pajiba Sunday through Thursday sometime around 6pm. That's going to get slightly more interesting coming this Sunday.

Also, my current but temporary 'regular' job ends this week leaving me that much more time for writing, sleeping, and bouts of crippling self doubt revolving around feelings of failure. So you have a lot to look forward to, is what I'm saying.

Book Review: "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me and Other Concerns"

2012-01-04T23:39:00.002-05:00

When I was in high school, I had an acquaintance say to me* “You can’t be as smart as you seem to be and as happy as you seem to be. You have to be lying about something.”

It struck me, deeply, and made me think hard about what he said. Being well read and intelligent should mean that I felt more keenly the problems in the world, right? That I as attuned to Serious Issues and one who is concerned with Serious Issues couldn’t do a dance of glee over getting a new pair of shoes. I was thrown into serious self doubt and examination.

Years later, I realized that 16 year old boys don’t know jack shit about the world either and there’s nothing wrong with being happy even if you are smart. Around the same time I discovered Mindy Kaling’s blog Things I’ve Bought That I Love where she talks about her love for pretty, silly things. I already knew she was a writer and actor on “The Office” by the time I found this blog, and I loved that this obviously successful and intelligent woman was so open and bubbly about things like pretty shoes.

Mindy Kaling’s book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me and Other Concerns is more of that in the best way possible. Kaling’s personality is mirror bright through all of the vignettes recounted, from childhood up to present. Many are both funny and heartbreakingly relatable stories from her own life (like growing apart from friends, but being deeply hurt when you realize that they are, in fact, hanging out without you). Some are more thought exercises, like a piece on women that only exist in romantic comedies**. She also talks about the process that took her from her first off-Broadway play that she wrote, produced, and acted in with her best friend and roommate (called “Matt and Ben”) to working with Greg Daniels and the rest of the staff at “The Office.”

While it’s clear that Kaling is a fun loving person who enjoys things that many people would deem “silly” or “shallow,” if you read carefully you’ll also get a clear sense of her determination and will. She had big dreams and she achieved them, not because she had the right pair of shoes but because she’s good at what she does and an incredible work ethic. She jokes about using her time while “out on episode” to get manicures or watch daytime TV, but it’s also clear that her work is getting done and done well. It’s just not as funny to write about that.

My only real problem with the book is Kaling’s attitude towards her own body. She talks about how diets are her hobby, and I appreciate that honesty, but her insistence on referring to herself as chubby is less refreshing. Anyone who has seen “The Office” knows that she’s not a big woman, and while she may not be the size 0-2 ideal, she has a lovely figure. It’s not a big theme in the book, but it’s there so it may not be the best read for anyone with weight or eating issues.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me is a fun, funny look at the life and thoughts of Mindy Kaling and great reading for anyone curious about life behind the scenes at “The Office” or who’s interested in comedy writing in general. Aside from the slight sour note involving the term “chubby,” it’s a fun, quick read.

*Basically, high school was a long time ago so this probably isn’t word for word.
** For the record, because she specifically talks about ‘clumsy’ women, when I say I’m clumsy I mean in the “I run into things that haven’t moved in five years” way, not the “I walk out of my house perfectly coiffed and then fall flat on my face only to recover still looking perfectly coiffed because I’m an adorable rom com heroine!” kind of way.

Hopes for the New Year

2012-01-02T23:15:00.005-05:00

I realize I'm a day late with this, but the first day of the new year I spent sleeping until 1pm and then napping gratuitously to celebrate that I'd be getting a whole two days in a row off from the job I have for this month. So I'm writing it today. Late today. So, yeah.

ANYWAY, I've never been one for New Year's resolutions. "Resolution" feels final and immutable, and life is a moving target that's almost constantly changing. This year, though, I've decided that in place of resolutions I'm going to make a list of hopes for the New Year; things I'd like to look forward to or accomplish. It's a little bit hippie, but I think that's not terrible in small doses. Here's my list:

In 2012 I Hope That:
- I finish and publish my book
- I become financially solvent to the point that I can move out on my own again
- My family stays healthy and happy, and becomes more successful
- I run at least another 5K, if not something longer
- I pay down both my credit cards
- Be more serious about writing, since that's the road that's most open to me now

That's my list. It's short, but I'm trying to keep things simple right now. This month that I've been working has helped me out a lot in terms of my bank account and outlook. It has taken time away from writing, but I've been able to print out chunks of what I've already written in order to edit and make notes, so that's useful.

The main idea is that I'm going into 2012 hopeful. Things aren't great for me right now, but I believe they can get better and I'm going to take steps towards these goals to help make it so. Frankly, I'm already off to a better start than I was last year since this time in 2011 I was sitting around with a broken finger and sprained ankle.

My apologies for being somewhat earnest. I'll get back to the snark soon enough.

Living in a Dry State

2011-12-14T01:11:00.003-05:00

I can tell winter has descended upon the mid east coast because my hair has become limp and lifeless and my skin has decided that many things I need to live in society are now unacceptable and can never touch it. Things like pants. Also, it would really prefer I didn't shower every day. Unfortunately, thanks to my hair's state of utter depression robbing it of the ability to perk itself up above my scalp at all I need to shower every day in order to keep from looking like I ran butter across my scalp for funsies.

Anyone out there know how I can start my own child-sponsor type charity? Only the child is 25 year old me and what we're sponsoring is relocating me back to Miami?

Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon

2011-12-05T15:21:00.003-05:00

It's strange to reflect on the kind of power that words have over our lives and our perceptions of ourselves. Recently, I've been making a conscious effort to refer to myself as a woman rather than a girl. I've been a legal adult for over seven years now, and a legal adult of alcohol drinking age (thanks, USA!) for over four. I'm not a girl. But the word woman seems so… boring.

Girls are young and vibrant. They just want to have fun! They go wild in ways that seem to involve doing things that men like to watch! Being a girl is supposed to be fun and filled with excitement and the vigor of youth. But it also means that you're immature on some level, not someone who can take care of themselves. You're still just a girl.

The word woman, on the other hand, has this image of being poised, buttoned up. Responsible in a way that involves napkin rings and walking out of the house with your hair properly done. A woman has a bedtime. A woman is a grown up; someone who has their shit together and has put frivolous things behind her for more mature and refined interests.

So here I am, someone who likes going out and having fun (though not going wild… not in public anyway) and who very clearly does NOT have her shit together. But at the same time I am growing aware that I am an adult, and I don't want to talk myself down anymore. I don't want to be one of those women who spends her whole adult life chasing the person that she was at 21 or 18 or 16 or whatever age it is that 'girls' are supposed to be. I want to move forward, to face what's coming next without losing my sense of fun but admitting that perhaps going out to the club two and three times a week was a bit excessive, even if I wasn't paying for it.

I can't do my hair for shit. I may never own a single goddamned napkin ring. Having several rum and cokes with friends and going out dancing still sounds like a great time to me. I am still a woman, and I am not boring. My guess is that most other women aren't either.

Theory of Laundry Relativity

2011-11-25T15:16:00.000-05:00

Occupy Everywhere

2011-11-21T14:35:00.002-05:00

I've been hesitant to write about the Occupy movement because I feel like anything I have to say is inconsequential in the face of the people who are on the front lines demonstrating. Recent circumstances, though, have pushed me over the edge.

I am a 25 year old woman with a bachelor's degree and a masters degree from a well respected university who can't find a job that will support me and leave me enough left over to make my student loan payments. As of my next birthday I will be kicked off my parents' health insurance. I am angry about this, and it doesn't make me entitled to say that. I was told my whole life that I had to go to college to get a good job, and that it was better to get my graduate degree done before I had a family. That the path to success required these things, and that achieving them would make my life better.

When I look at the US now, I see a system that refuses to hire new workers because they've figured out that when people are terrified of getting fired you can make them do the work of two people. I see a system that's been controlled by those who have the money to buy influence, and those people don't want to hand over the reins to my generation even a little bit. I see a system that scorns citizens who dare raise objections to the idea of health care as a for profit industry, or who think that trying to build an economic structure on taxing the poor is absurd. I see a system that will whither and die unless it can put its young people to work. I see young people like myself taking jobs or internships that won't support us, won't allow us the money to invest in our future or pay off our student loan debt because it's all that's out there. I see a system that then tells me that I'm hurting the economy by doing this. I see a system where the people who ruined the economy still have jobs paying them millions, while I'm sitting on my parents couch.

Watching the violence against the protestors does not make me re-think these things, it only reinforces my feelings that country right now is trying to discredit people like me and tear us down because they're afraid of what we're saying. Of what we're capable of. They want to say that our message isn't cohesive, that we're in favor of communism, that we just want to destroy the rich. But calling what's happening right now 'free trade' or anything close to it is blatantly false.

Saying that our country is in economic trouble is not revolutionary. Pointing out that the industries who trashed the economy are trying to tell us how to write our economic policy is not anarchist. Believing that no one should become bankrupt because they broke their goddamned leg while working a job that didn't offer health insurance isn't criminal. No matter what happens to the protestors or how much people mock the fringe elements of the movement, these beliefs aren't going away. And neither are we.

Why I Don't Like Telling People About My Master's Degree

2011-11-15T22:24:00.003-05:00

Me: I have a master's degree in music business and entertainment industry

Person: Why would you do that? The music industry is going to be dead inside five years.

Me: Oh, is that the five years that started when Napster went mainstream? Or the five years after the iPod launched? Or the five years that started right now when you just provided that stunning in depth and detailed analysis of the complexities facing the music industry currently?

Person: Whatever, I mean, they should just get rid of copyright.

Me: Yes. Because artists and songwriters should just give up the right to earn money from their work and control how it's used because it's inconvenient for you in that you want music but don't feel like paying for it. Splendid.

Person: Record companies are evil.

Me: Admittedly they haven't done a great job of splitting profit fairly with artists. But they wouldn't exist if artists didn't by and large need other people to coordinate the recording, mastering, release, publicity, accounting, and other non-creative aspects of their work. Funny enough, most artists STILL don't want to handle that shit, they just don't want to work with record companies either.

Person: I think you just don't GET where music is going.

Me: If you'll excuse me there's a fairly large bottle of rum I need to confer with on this topic.

Pet Peeve: Inadvertant Butt Cleavage

2011-11-07T21:14:00.003-05:00

An open letter to all clothing companies that manufacture women's jeans:

Listen, I love that jeans no longer come all the way up to the proper waistline. High-waisted pants are a recipe for massive camel toe and high waisted jeans were all that with a side of being unable to bend from the waist at all. So, yay for low waisted jeans!

HOWEVER, just because I enjoy low waisted jeans does not mean I enjoy giving friends and strangers an intimate view of what underwear I'm wearing that day or, more likely, what the top of my ass looks like. I actually don't know anyone who DOES enjoy doing this, but somehow all low waisted pants seem to make it so that one can't sit down or bend over without doing so. Belts don't really help much in this situation, since women are shaped in such a way that the belt doesn't really have anything to cinch to in low-waisted jeans so it won't keep the jeans from slipping further down the hips to where the butt is visible. Boo to low waisted jeans!

Simple solution though: most low waisted jeans I've seen are built in such a way that if the pants are lying flat, the front and back are level with each other. Given that most women have more going on in the back than they do in the front, this simply doesn't make sense. Constructing jeans that slanted up an inch or so on the sides so that the rise in the back was higher than the rise on the front would solve this little problem beautifully and would be fairly simple, construction wise.

Now now, no need to thank me with large amounts of money. Just a free, lifetime supply of jeans that don't give me a 'coin slot' will be thanks enough.

Sincerely,

Rusty

Trick or Treat: Music Edition

2011-10-31T16:44:00.004-04:00

I don't generally get into the matter of recommending or even talking about music because if there is anything that I've learned while earning two music degrees it's that most people manage to be pretentious jackasses when they talk about music even if they don't mean to be. Today, I will go ahead and be a bit of a pretentious jackass.

Today the group Pyyramids (comprised of Tim Nordwind of OK Go and Drea Smith formerly of He Say She Say) released their first EP, "Human Beings."* It's a sweet little collection of songs that ranges from 80s inspired techno ballads ("Picture Perfect") to a melancholy pop tune with built out of little more than a guitar riff and a simple drum line ("That Ain't Right"). You don't have to take my word for it though, the group has the whole album streaming on their website AND on Spotify so you can give it a listen before deciding if you want to buy it. I really do encourage you to give it a shot, front to back the whole EP isn't going to take more than 20 minutes to listen to.

Pyyramids' EP is released by Paracadute records, the record label formed by the group OK Go when they left EMI records in the spring of 2010. So if for no other reason, take a listen to help support independent music because if digital distribution and bands doing their own PR and management are the way of the future then the fans have to be supportive. That's my obnoxious, pretentiously jackassy PSA for today. Have a happy Halloween!

*In the interest of full disclosure, I received a free copy of this EP last week. Because I'm awesome, that's why.

Girl, Interrupted

2011-10-25T13:16:00.003-04:00

It's amazing how quickly you can get accustomed to certain things. Like how quickly I became accustomed to living by myself and being able to plant myself in my living room, on the couch, and be secure in the knowledge that I very likely wouldn't be disturbed by anyone or anything. That's not to say I was able to work with no distractions, after all the internet still exists, but my thought processes weren't routinely interrupted and I just got used to a certain level of non-interference. I lost all of that when I moved back home to write this book. (Almost to 30,000 words, by the way!)

Living in a house with four other people and six animals means that there's virtually no time of day when I won't have an interruption except after midnight so that's when an awful lot of my writing has been happening. It's frustrating and I've noticed that I've started to put off starting writing or anything else I need to focus on for more than five minutes until everyone has gone to bed which doesn't bode well if I need to contact other humans who exist in the daylight hours. Also, it's really playing hell with my sleep schedule; going to bed at 4am and waking up at noon isn't really a sustainable lifestyle choice.

Part of this is just that there's nowhere in the house I can be that people or animals won't occasionally walk through except my bedroom and thanks to lifelong sleep issues I've been trying to keep that a sleeping-only area. I'm doing my best to work around the issue now, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to introduce (and enforce) 'working hours' for myself but I already know at least one member of my family has a compulsive need to talk at people for a certain amount of time per day. Whether or not they want to listen is not taken into consideration.

The good news is that several chapters of my book are at or near completion and ready for editing. The bad news is that other chapters are barely outlined, but those are the chapters that I've had trouble getting sources for so I just need to try harder or pester more people. And I need to get better about writing down what I want to do, so a sudden interruption doesn't disrupt my whole train of thought or schedule because I completely forget what I had meant to do. Also, maybe train the dogs to fetch me snacks.

Winter is Coming

2011-10-20T21:50:00.004-04:00

I got my second cold in two months this week because I'm back to living in an area of the world that experiences winter to my supreme unhappiness. I spent most of the week miserable and unable to sleep properly until last night when I brewed up a concoction I'd had several times while I was in Ireland; whiskey hot. I can't list the exact proportions, but you start with a shot of whiskey, and then add a spoonful or so of brown sugar, some hot water, and either a lemon slice with a couple cloves in it or just plain lemon juice. I drank two last night. Today I feel great.

There are some days I think I might be a walking Irish American stereotype and then there are days when I'm certain of it. Today is the second kind of day.

Shades of Grey: "What Is It About Men"

2011-10-13T13:58:00.003-04:00

- TL;DR Men folks have feelings too! Like sad feelings and angry feelings and confused feelings! Mostly because of the ladies, but not always.
- Never get surgeons to build your deck.
- I say Dr.Bailey decides between Hot Nurse and Hot Anesthesiologist via a shirtless oiled up wrestling match.
- Daddy Mark is adorable, though a bit overly neurotic to be ovulation inducing hot.
- Owen's a tool. They can try to spin his planning out and then assaulting a patient any way they like but he's still a tool. A tool who's about to get the pants sued off him.
- The above thought makes me now think that they're going to have a rotating Chief this season.
- This concept confuses and infuriates me.
- I should probably get a new trash TV show, right?

Shades of Grey: "Take the Lead"

2011-10-05T00:55:00.003-04:00

- Jesus Christ, is Karev ever going to get a win in his column free and clear? Also, if they try to pair him up with April, I'm gonna lose it. The man needs a smart, sassy, take-no-shit type of woman who is also NOT A DOCTOR.
- Like Christina Yang would walk into an OR unprepared. Her ego would not allow her to do so.
- I still don't like Teddy. Pretty sure no one else does either.
- I can't decide if Arizona was just busting Jackson's chops and he backed down or if she had second thoughts (or rather third thoughts) about him doing the surgery. If it's the first, he's a little bitch and if it's the second she's a little bitch.
- Derek and Meredith having a real conversation about their problems was a bit of a shock but also a wonderful step towards them having an adult relationship. Especially if they plan to raise children together.
- Wasn't Richard grooming Bailey to be his replacement one day? What the hell ever happened to that?

Shades of Grey: "Free Falling" and "She's Gone"

2011-09-25T21:33:00.004-04:00

Because I'm still watching "Grey's Anatomy" and I know some of you are I've decided to just do a sort of reflections on this week's episode kind of thing on Sundays. At least this way I have a sort of reason to keep watching, right? SO, this week we had two episodes run back to back; "Free Falling" and "She's Gone." Because I can't remember exactly what happened in which half I'll just treat them as one episode. Spoilers abound, obviously.

- Shouldn't Meredith know better than to waft around the hospital uselessly after being fired in the middle of a mass casualty event?
- Derrick doesn't deserve to be married if having the moral high ground is more important to him than having his wife and daughter.
- I don't care how hard the writers try to make me like April, I don't like April.
- Same goes for Teddy.
- I like that the show is able to admit that having a woman raise a child she doesn't want is, in fact, not a good thing.
- Frankly, Meredith was right when she said that if she left the study without admitting what she did, the results wouldn't have been compromised. They should have just let her do that, but then we couldn't start off this season with a massive shit storm.
- There's no way they'd let a surgeon go down into an unstable sink hole. Just… no.
- I'm wondering how they're going to continue to have the chief on the show now that he's quit. Because that lasted so long last time.
- While it's not my favorite show anymore, I have a lot of respect for them that they had a married woman with a stable career go through with an abortion because she genuinely didn't want children. In the current political and social climate, that does take a lot of guts.

Great Expectations

2011-09-08T13:15:00.002-04:00

My mother has always hoped that I or one of my siblings would go into science. While she was working as a lab assistant at NIH and USUHS for the better part of 15 years, she would take us into the lab with her and let us play with some of the equipment and talk about what she was working on with us. All three of us were used as 'normal controls' at one point or another in different studies to show us how research worked, and we were all told exactly what was being studied and why our participation was important to the researchers. There was a periodic table of elements poster mounted in our house for most of my life, and when I was in college she went the full step of actually hiring me one summer when she was short on hands in her lab.

Somehow she ended up with three children who have no intention of pursuing science degrees. While she loves us all the same, there are occasions when it becomes obvious that we did not quite live up to her hopes for us.

Last month my mother cut one of her fingers with a pair of sewing scissors. The cut was pretty deep and extended from the nail bed on one side of the finger pad to almost the edge of the finger on the other side. Apparently, it's a bad idea to hold fabric up in the air to cut off a small scrap while talking on the phone immediately after sharpening all your scissors. She woke me up to come see what was going on with it since she immediately slapped a wad of tissues over it so she wouldn't bleed on the fabric and wasn't sure how serious it was. I looked at it closely as blood dripped out of her hand down her arm and onto the floor and told her, calmly, that she had two choices; we could go to an emergency care center or we could go to the E.R but one way or another she was going to get stitches put in that finger.

At the E.R she was talking to the doctor about how she cut her finger and she mentioned that she was a seamstress and had cut her finger while working on a new project. The doctor thought that was just aces and decided that he'd tell her how to remove her stitches so that she didn't have to bother making a new doctors appointment and gave her a suture removal kit. Which would have been excellent, if the procedure to remove stitches didn't require two hands or if her stitches hadn't been in one of her hands.

This is how I ended up a few nights back bending over the kitchen table removing my mother's sutures while she pointed out that if I'd just gone to medical school she never would have had to go to the E.R in the first place.

Because obviously THAT was the problem with the situation.

As a bonus, I now know how to remove stitches which is a skill I'm sure will come in handy exactly never again.

All Kinds of Nerd

2011-09-03T20:43:00.004-04:00

Me: Dad doesn't care much about what we name the dogs, so lets just decide on some names.
Sister: Pearl and Remo!
Me: I'm not sure I like Pearl for the girl, she's a little more destructive and rambunctious than "Pearl" would indicate.
Sister: We could name her Sabian.
Me: Sabian isn't a girl's name.
Sister: It could be.
Me: How about Eris, the spirit of strife?
Sister: *makes face*
Me: Boris and Natasha? Like from "Rocky and Bullwinkle"? They just want to kill moose and squirrel!
Sister: What's "Rocky and Bullwinkle"?
Me: Oh, right, you're 16.
Sister: So?
Me: You can name one and I'll name the other. So, we'll keep Remo cause I do like that and… Kali? Hindu goddess of destruction?
Sister: Yeah, ok.

Writing

2011-08-11T23:44:00.003-04:00

I've started writing my book which is fraught with confusion for me mostly because I gave up on the idea of being a writer sometime around age 15 when I realized there are a lot of people who like writing, far fewer who are good at it, and far FAR fewer who actually make money doing so. So I went into music. Because I'm a genius, that's why.

Part of writing the book, though, is attempting to establish myself as someone who can be taken seriously or at least semi-seriously not only on the topic but as a writer in general. This means that something that most would say has been long overdue may be happening in the next couple of months, sometime. (Seriously, how long is it supposed to take to write a book? I know George R.R Martin has a habit of overshooting but I don't want to finish TOO quickly because then I'll feel all tense like I didn't do something right the way I always did when I finished my test first by a ridiculously large margin in school. I may have mentioned this previously, but I'm borderline for some form of anxiety disorder.)

Anyway, my point is that if this whole writing thing looks to be working out there may be a time soon when I reveal my super top secret only not really identity. Both over at Pajiba and here on my own blog, mostly because I'll be attempting to pimp this prospective book anyway I possibly can and if you're already reading what I have to write then hey, no brainer! I'm apprehensive about this both because I've been very careful to make this version of myself that won't return to, you know, ME when people google my name and there's something comforting in that. Also because all the lady writers over at Pajiba seem to take lots of shit for being ladies and that sucks. The other lady writers at Pajiba are awesome. I'm actually worried that I'll bring down the amount of collective lady-awesome once I out myself as a lady and those 75-80% of the readers who think I'm a dude realize otherwise.

Still, none of this is happening soon. After a few days of trying to find a rhythm I've decided that I'd like to make it a goal to write 1,000 words a day and got access to Billboard's online archives (via the sneaky method of subscribing to Billboard) and there's a few books I need to track down and/or re-read but since I still don't have a real job I've got some time to play with. I'm hoping to have a first draft finished sometime around the end of September, at which point I will be crowd-sourcing title ideas because I am goddamn TERRIBLE at that shit.

Make You Feel Better

2011-08-05T22:08:00.004-04:00

I'm not someone who's particularly wussy about pain. Maybe it's because I've been somewhat clumsy my whole life and if I had to sit down and cry for five minutes everytime I stubbed my toe I'd never get anything done, or maybe I'm just too fucking stubborn to admit that I'm mortal, but either way I'm pretty resilient.

Weirdly, those in the medical profession don't seen to view me that way.

This week I had a doctor's appointment to talk about how my left knee erupts into a ball of agony any time I run. I specified that this happened 1. only when I run and 2. was well controlled by over the counter pain killers and really I just wanted to know WHY it was happening so I could make it stop happening. The result? 90 pills of 800mg ibuprofen.

Earlier this summer I went to an urgent care center because I'd had a migraine for four solid days. It wasn't even that bad of a migraine, but it had lasted so long I figured I should seek treatment. They gave me a large shot and told me in no uncertain terms that if the migraine persisted I should go to the emergency room. To review: if the pain came back I was to go to the hospital immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Then they handed me a prescription for tylenol with codeine. I'm not sure if they thought I'd need all 15 between the time I left the center and the time I determined I wasn't in pain anymore, but it was confusing.

Last year I bruised my shin playing soccer. When I went to the doctor she asked if I had trouble sleeping and I said "I guess a bit because I've been trying to elevate it at night and that makes sleeping a little awkward." Was handed a prescription for a pain killer to help me sleep. That painkiller was just straight up codeine. 30 of them. And I got that from the doctor at a student health center.

I keep hearing about how this country has a problem with prescription drug abuse and I'm beginning to think it's because they'll give the damn things out like candy to anyone with a hangnail. I'm beginning to wonder what would happen if I DID ask for pain killers. Morphine drip? Oxycotin? Actually, asking for them would probably put me on one of those lists for 'drug seeking behavior' and I'd never get out of a doctor's visit without playing 20 questions again.

OH! And this past January when I broke my finger and sprained my ankle? No dice. I guess one out of four is… comforting. Although that time I would've liked something, not to take the edge off the pain which wasn't that bad (after all, it took a whole two days before I even went to the doctor) but to help alleviate my annoyance at having a cast halfway down my arm for a goddamn broken pinkie finger. I spent basically a solid month just in a constant state of pissed-off because of that damn thing. Being in a druggy haze would have vastly improved the quality of life for those who had to interact with me.

Mess

2011-08-03T21:56:00.002-04:00

The day after I moved I had bruises up and down my legs and arms from moving, one around the inside of my left elbow from a failed attempt at donating plasma, (apparently veins can 'give out' if they're too small. Filed under information that would have been useful before I tried to donate plasma.) and an eye that had mysteriously swelled about half shut overnight. I walked downstairs and my sister was there to let me know that I looked like a heroin junkie who'd got into a fight with some stairs.

Kate Moss made it look so much more glamorous.

In Memoriam

2011-07-24T12:30:00.000-04:00

In the past 48 hours, a bomb went off in Norway followed by a man opening fire at a youth camp for about an hour and a half with a total death toll of almost 100 at current count, two commuter trains in China crashed into each other killed a few dozen people, and troubled singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in London.

I've seen some people imply (or even flat out state) that the first two events somehow mean that one cannot acknowledge the third. That because dozens of strangers were killed unexpectedly and violently, a woman whose music touched many people personally should not be mourned.

This brings up two questions: 1. Is there some sort of finite supply of grief that one may have and therefore must choose to direct that grief properly and 2. That human lives can be logically quantified and judged against each other and therefore the death of one singer with drug problems should not even be a blip on the radar compared to the deaths of over 80 young people whose only crime was political involvement. I reject the first immediately. Humans are not video game characters with some kind of special 'grief' XP that we will run out of if we're not careful. The second is trickier.

Ms.Winehouse's struggles with addiction have been well documented by tabloids, gossip sites, and even reputable news sources in the five years since her album "Back to Black" made her an international superstar. The young singer captivated the world with the smokey purr of her voice and the way she was able to convey an astounding series of emotions over the course of a four minute pop song. It sounded like her heart was in her music and for her fans her heart was obviously damaged but resilient. It spoke to us of lost love, of realizing you've not only disappointed those around you but yourself with your actions, it spoke of understanding your flaws and how badly you wanted to crawl back from them if only you could find the way. Those who mourn Amy Winehouse are mourning the loss of an artist who touched them in that way, who perhaps altered their lives and gave them music to speak to the part in many of us we don't like to visit too often. I haven't seen anyone glorify her behavior, just mourn the fact that we've lost such a wonderful talent.

To me, that's what it boils down to; what touched your life. Yes, I understand on an intellectual level that what happened in Norway is almost unspeakably awful. The families of those who died are going through hell right now and there's no justification for the death of their loved ones. Families in China also are mourning victims of a hideous accident that ripped people from their lives while those people were trying to complete the most mundane of tasks. The shock must have been terrible. However, Amy Winehouse's death FEELS more personal to those of us with her music, those of us who had been waiting to see if she could pull together that long promised third album, those of us who so badly wanted to see her launch a successful tour so we could be held in thrall by that voice in person. All of those dreams have died. If I knew the people in the Norway attacks or the China accident, I would weigh their deaths more heavily because they had touched my life more deeply. More to the point, the scale of the tragedy in Norway is almost unimaginable. What is an appropriate response to that?

Tragedy is individual. It must be, otherwise all of human kind would go mad attempting to process the horrible things that happen to people around the world on a daily basis. It is, quite literally, the easiest thing in the world to keep your mouth shut and let people have their moment if you know their reaction differs from yours. Please, exercise this basic level of courtesy. Thank you.

Random Thoughts July 11th 2011

2011-07-11T18:30:00.003-04:00

Things I Like To Think About to Distract Myself From The Fact That I'm Swiftly Approaching the Event Horizon of Being Forced to Move Back Home

- Cookies
- Running
- Not running because my knee hurts
- The last Harry Potter movie
- The News of the World scandal
- Shoes
- Make up
- Actors I see in multiple commercials
- Witty digs at the new USA series which I promptly forget
- My hatred of those little "tongue scrubbers" which are on the back of every damn toothbrush now which makes toothbrush shopping impossible for me because the scrubby bits rip the insides of my lips to shreds
- That having a family that loves me enough to take me in anytime I'm struggling is something I should be grateful for rather than depressed about
- How many naps per day you get before you're classified as narcoleptic
- yogurt
- Google+
- That Abbey from NCIS has a nearly impossibly broad skill set
- Bacon

Media Me

2011-07-03T16:05:00.003-04:00

I currently have:

A Facebook account

A Twitter account

This here blog

A LinkedIn account

A regular gig over at Pajiba

And recently acquired that Google+ thing

I still haven't figured out if I actually have anything worthwhile to say. Rest assured, though, that when I do I will have multiple ways to convey it.

Revelations

2011-06-18T13:05:00.000-04:00

Apparently there's been a huge uptick in the amount of dudes blogging as ladies. And by "huge uptick" I mean, there's been two of them who have admitted to it in the past week. Both men have made it clear that their intentions are good but when your goal is to attract attention to the plight of groups that traditionally have their voice overshadowed by the mainstream perhaps the solution is to find a member of that group and, you know, provide them an outlet to tell THEIR story rather than making up a story you think they have. Or at least if you're going to do the second, be honest that it's a fictional account.

However, this has inspired me to sit down and parse out some of the truth vs. fiction of my blog. Mostly, the truth is that this is the truth and there's no fiction because I'm terrible at writing fiction because I'll get a decent story idea but end up getting stalled NAMING MY CHARACTERS because I'm all "I don't know, what's it like to be named Helen? Or maybe Tanya? Is that too strippery? How would I feel about being named Tanya? I don't know, because I've never been named Tanya. Fuck this." So, without further ado, here we go:

- I am female. There are those who doubt this based on my nicknome de plume but it's true. I'm a lady.
- I am a completely uninteresting, middle class American lady who has a masters degree but is still only fluent in one language.
- I do have two degrees from University of Miami and currently reside in Miami while job hunting.
- Let's face it, I'm just too boring to be fake. Honestly. If I was a fake 24 year old lady living in Miami this blog would be all about my hook-ups and trips to the beach with overly graphic descriptions of how I and my friends look in bikinis. Not a chronicle of my anxiety issues, odd conversations I've had, or commercials I have weird fixations with.
- While writing this I'm attempting to eat a salad off a plate and failing miserably. Note to self - always put salads in bowls.
- I am maybe sort of writing a book. Not a novel because see above, but a book about the business models available to independent artists and whether or not they're feasible for long term success. I'm at the outline stage now, and add to it every time I can get rid of the crippling self doubt that wonders who the fuck am I to say anything about it. This is the first time I've mentioned this to anyone outside family, professors, and close friends so that might help.
- My current biggest pet peeve is the overabundance of commercials dealing with products meant to help make people poop. Seriously. If you don't know fiber and yogurt help with that by now, no amount of peppy middle aged ladies perkily exclaiming about regularity is going to save you.

That's about it for now. If I think of any other important truths about myself I'm willing to release into the wilds of the internet I'll post updates.

In Which I Write About Basketball

2011-06-13T08:15:00.000-04:00

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate the 2011 NBA Champions, the Dallas Mavericks. You played wonderfully and absolutely deserve the trophy that you were awarded last night. Thank you for an extremely entertaining series.

NOW THEN, as someone who has lived in Miami for the better part of the last seven years and who didn't have a basketball team before, I'm a Heat fan. I've especially been following the team this year, just as (I suspect) everyone else who had to sit through "The Decision" has. Frankly, I wish LeBron had left well enough alone and let the team make the announcement that he'd be playing here this season, but that's all in the past now. The point is, I'm a fan of the Heat and OBVIOUSLY have some thoughts on how the NBA Finals turned out. Here are those thoughts, helpfully arranged in list fashion:

1. The Heat are arrogant: While watching all this season, I've noticed that the Heat tend to play very close games even when they're obviously far better than the team they're playing against. In short, they're not playing any harder than they need to and it came back to bite them in the ass. They've never been particularly aggressive about putting up leads or ball possession because it seemed like they always counted on being able to make it up later. I've spent many games yelling "FUCKING FINALLY!!!" at my television set as the team wakes up and starts playing basketball. Tonight their opponents obviously had the jump on them in that regard.

2. Full Court Press: Not just a basketball themed porn movie*! Actually a defense technique that's been proven incredibly effective and one that should have been employed by the Heat tonight, especially in the second half of the game. That didn't happen.

3. Passing game: The Heat have a beautiful passing game that's a joy to watch when they're not in pressure situations. When they ARE in pressure situations you learn why people say that perfect is the enemy of good as the ball goes back and forth and back and forth and NO ONE MAKES A SHOT and then there's a turnover. This happened at least twice in the second half of the game. It was incredibly painful both times.

4. Pressure: I honestly think that the Finals was the first time the Heat had to fight for a win and it overwhelmed them. A lot of the things they did well early in the game fell apart the longer the game went on and especially as the gap in score got wider. I don't know if they're not used to playing that hard for that long or if it really was just the situation itself getting to them.

This is just one woman's opinion, though, and a woman who doesn't read a lot of sports writing and is bad at following sports through an entire season. It's not that I don't like watching them, but there's something about me that after a couple weeks you say "hey, are you watching the game this weekend?" and I go "There's another one?!? I have to watch ALL OF THEM?!? Fuck that noise, I've got shit to do." and just look up the score later. It's why I like championship series, the World Cup, and the Olympics so much; all of them tend to last the amount of time I'm actually capable of staying attentive and enthused about that particular sport/event.** I did play basketball for a couple of years when I was tall (read: before all my classmates got their growth spurts) so at least with that I don't have the famous problem of not having the vocabulary to express why I'm frustrated with the team.*** Sort of, anyway.

*I said that to be funny. I don't know if it's true. Please don't send me links.

** This is sort of the same reason I gave up on "The Killing." Instead of watching the same group of guys throw a ball around with a very slightly different group of guys each week, it was watching the same detectives look moody and suspicious at slightly different people each week while it was gray and rainy. But I digress.

*** Actual conversation from the 2006 World Cup: Mom - Hey, honey, how's the game going? Me - The US are playing like a goddamned girls JV team.

Actual Conversations: May 31st, 2011

2011-05-31T21:22:00.002-04:00

(Background: I got a temporary job as an extra for a movie shooting in Miami.)

Mom: So you go in for your first day on the movie tomorrow, right?
Me: Yeah, supposed to go see wardrobe and I guess that's when they'll tell me what days I need to be there for the actual filming.
Mom: Be sure to wear nice underwear.
Me: …obviously.
Mom: Especially your bra, make sure you have a nice bra on. I don't know if there will be anywhere for you to change or if you'll just have to strip down in front of everyone.*
Me: …Yup.
Mom: So, you know, just keep that in mind.
Me: I think I have it covered.
Mom: Ok.

Ladies and gentleman, I am 24 years old and I swear to god that's the first time I've gotten the "make sure you have clean underwear" on speech from my mother. You'd think she'd trust me on the point after this long.

*Note: This is less weird if you know that my mom's a seamstress and has done extensive backstage work in wardrobe departments. So, she is and she has.

With a Vengeance

2011-05-20T20:51:00.003-04:00

Dear America;

WHY THE FUCK ARE WE LISTING THE CALORIE CONTENT OF CAT TREATS IN THE COMMERCIAL?!?

Kissies,

Rusty

Semester

2011-04-14T12:57:00.003-04:00

I'm coming up on the end of my last semester of school, probably ever, and while I'm not displaying many outward signs of being stressed about it I'm finding that my psychological indicators are reacting like they're sitting on the deck of the Titanic looking at an iceberg. This isn't surprising, on April 29th I have two papers due that will directly impact whether or not I earn my Masters degree on time AND I will be leaving my current job and only source of income.

I do have some prospects for a job later in May and I wouldn't mind having at least a couple weeks off after I'm done with my we-don't-call-it-a-thesis to regain mental stability. Unfortunately, for mental stability I really need to KNOW that I have a job lined up not that there is probably one out there, somewhere, and I'll find it eventually. My awesome professors have let me know they're happy to help, and one of them even suggested I turn my totally-not-a-thesis into a book and that if I wrote up a first chapter and table of contents he'd show it to some friends in publishing. At that I laughed nervously and took a giant sip of wine* and said I'd think about it. Get the not-thesis actually finished first and then we'll discuss whether or not I can write an actual damn book. I probably could, but I'd also probably drop 20lbs in the process given the way I handle stress and writing that book would be a whole lot of stress and stressful situations.

Which brings us back to my initial topic: stress. I'm not someone who paces, someone who picks nervously or bounces their leg as their stress level goes up. I tend to sit, quietly, as my thoughts turn cannabalistic and go after me, my health, all the things about myself I could improve, and all the terrible things that could happen to me. I've gotten better about managing them, but there are still situations that can kick them off to their previous levels. One of them happened last spring when my dog died while I was away at school right around this time of year. The other was the time my bag with my passport in it was stolen in Barcelona on a Friday night and I was due to take my last final in Ireland on Tuesday and fly back to the US on Wednesday. For that second one I did manage to get home after some incredibly kind people actually FOUND my passport and left it at their hotel, but for about the 36 hours from robbery to walking back into my apartment in Maynooth I think I ate a Mars bar and a sausage roll. Last spring I basically stopped sleeping while it was dark out until I got back to my parent's house in Maryland.

This year I'm doing my best to be better to myself; I'm working out regularly to help with the sleep issue and making sure I'm eating instead of dismissing hunger to work more. On the job front I'm reminding myself that I have enough left from my student loans to carry me through July if I'm careful and reaching out to anyone who may be able to help me despite my natural reticence about ask for help. I'm not sure if it'll work, come ask me May 3rd if I still don't have any solid job prospects lined up how I'm doing, but I'd like to think that at having a plan in place helps. I feel better so far this year than I did at the same time last year and that's a very good thing for both myself and those around me.

*Bonus of graduate studies; many social events with your classmates and professors include alcohol!

Book Review: "The Bone People"

2011-03-30T09:07:00.001-04:00

Most entertainment strives for the cathartic release; a problem almost everyone can relate to, a suitable struggle to tug the heartstrings, culminating in an easy answer that generally affirms societal norms. Keri Hulme spits on your societal norms and thrusts in your face the fact that in real life there are no easy answers and frequently we all make decisions that cause our conscience to rest uneasily in that long dark tea time of the soul.

The Bone People is many things, but an easy read is absolutely not one of them. The novel was originally published in 1984 so it actually predates me which is one of the things that makes me feel like I'm not quite worthy of airing my thoughts on it. The other thing that makes me feel that I'm not quite worthy of airing my thoughts on it is the fact that it deals intimately with the question of ethnic identity; two of the main characters are of partial Maori descent and both have their own personal struggles with that identity in the course of the story. The third character has no identity and serves mainly as a sort of fulcrum for most of the action and character development of the other two.

Kerewin Holmes is an artist who can no longer produce artwork and who had withdrawn from society and her family until a mute young boy appears in her house one day. The boy, Simon, is the adopted son of Joe. Both Joe and Kerewin share a partial Maori heritage, while Simon was the only survivor of a ship that wrecked on a nearby beach and who was too young to be able to provide any information about his background when he was rescued. No one knows exactly how old he is, although the best guess puts him somewhere between seven and ten. Joe found him, took him in, and made him family. A fortuitous decision since his own wife and infant son succumbed to illness within a year and a half of Joe's adoption of Simon. The novel covers about a year during which Joe, Kere, and Simon build a relationship, fall to pieces, and eventually find a sort of peace again. Nothing about the story, though, will give you the ability to smile with content at the ending. You see, there's a large piece of the story that bears revealing. If you are spoiler averse you can end your reading with this thought; the book is not for those of weak constitutions or those who have suffered domestic violence. In a word, it is triggering. Be warned that below I will discuss specifics of this aspect of the book.

It becomes apparent as the story progresses that Joe and Simon's relationship has more in it than the reader, or Kerewin, first observes. As the novel progresses facts of Simon's troubles come to light; the boy is stubborn, uncommunicative (not particularly surprising for a mute child) and aggressively antagonistic when he feels upset to the point of wanton destruction of property and lashing out at the adults around him. Even when the boy is in a good mood, he has a nasty klepto habit which, combined with his habit of breaking windows and hitting other children, has earned him a bad reputation around town and caused Joe a good deal of stress as people blame him for his son's behavior. Joe also has a bit of a drinking problem and is still depressed over the loss of his wife and other son. All of these things, however, do not explain the unexplainable or forgive the unforgivable; Joe beats Simon. Viciously. With his hands, with his fists, with his belt, and finally with the very house he sheltered the boy in.

Most of these incidents are referred to in past tense, revealed when Kerewin notices a wound on the boy and finds his back a weeping mess of lacerations from Joe's belt with other scars still visible. Kerewin confronts Joe, and through their discussion they come to the understand that the next time Joe feels like hitting Simon he'll call Kere first and she'll discuss it with both of them and decide on an appropriate punishment. Remarkably, this works. For a time. About 2/3rds of the way through the novel, though, Simon steals something of Kere's that holds deep personal significance to her and throws a fit in her house resulting in a broken window. In her anger she ends up telling Joe to do what he sees fit. The child ends up beaten into a coma, but not before stabbing Joe in the gut. Both survive.

The last third of the novel meanders through the three characters finding themselves and their way back home after that final beating splinters their relationships and scatters them to the wind. This part of the book was the most mystical, and touches heavily on the ancestry of Kere and Joe in their journeys. Simon, for his part, spends this time desperately trying to get back to Joe and Kere after being removed by the courts (obviously).

I can't pretend that I'm entirely comfortable with the way the novel portrays Joe and Simon's relationship. The idea at the end seems to be that if Simon loves Joe and only wants to be with him, then that's the right thing to do. But honestly, what child under the age of 10 can be said to know what the best thing for them is? What child, who has only known a life of pain interspersed with love will realize that you can have a life with love and without pain? What child, especially a child with a disability, can comprehend that there are other people in the world who can love and cherish them all the time in the ways their parents/guardians do in only their best moments? Particularly since Joe literally saved Simon's life, there exists a layer to their relationship that makes parsing out Simon's true feelings for Joe nearly impossible. I found the way their story was resolved deeply unsettling and even offensive in a way.

Kerewin, on the other hand, is more relatable. A woman who clings to the idea that she's a misanthrope to distract herself from the fact that she misses her family. Kerewin's argument with her family is never explained, mostly because it's besides the point. When Joe and Simon come into her life they fill a hole she'd never admit was there in the first place. Kere's journey is one that brings her back to a life that she wants to live, a life with friends, family, joy, and art in it and while I won't pretend to understand a certain amount of what she goes through to get there I can understand and sympathize with her act of self flagellation through isolation. I can also understand why Simon would come back to Kere, who works to understand the silent and confusing boy from their first meeting with respect, patience, and attentiveness to his needs and feelings. A rather tall order, considering their first meeting takes place when she finds the boy trespassing on her property.

The Bone People is a deeply complex and affecting novel, and while it made me incredibly uncomfortable I can't deny Hulme's talent; in the hands of a lesser author the story could have become cloying, outright appalling, or gone for the easy answers. Hulme is comfortable leaving questions unanswered rather than tying things up with a neat bow. Whereas sometimes this can betray a disorganized author, when done correctly it's a stark reminder that life frequently comes without answers and there are some mysteries we learn to live with because otherwise we'd go crazy. So it goes for Kere, Joe, and Simon.

I Said This About "Sucker Punch"…

2011-03-28T12:51:00.005-04:00

… and as best I can tell, no one read it where it was posted. (In a comment on the Sucker Punch review on Pajiba.)

So I'm putting it here:

"There's been a lot of focus on the way the girls dress as proof that this can't possibly be how women would view themselves in their fantasies of being empowered that I don't really agree with. There are a lot of women (young women especially) out there who equate sexual attractiveness with power. And I can see how that attitude would become more prevalent in a (slight spoiler alert) situation where those in power may be in the habit of bestowing favors upon those who are sexually available/use of one's sexuality can be used to obtain objects needed for an escape plan. This being the case, it doesn't seem so bizarre to me that a young woman would fantasize that she was not only an ass kicking dynamo armed with a variety of weapons who was capable of fearlessly facing down enemies, but that she was able to do so while still looking desirable. Doesn't make it right, asserting sexuality as a form of power over others comes with a whole host of larger problems later down the road and is not 100% effective to begin with, but I understand it. Frankly, I don't think it's any stranger than a teenage boy picturing himself with the bulging muscles of Arnold when he was on the roids and guns strapped to every inch of his body while a bikini model fawns over him. It has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with sociological images of who is able to easily command power (in these two examples; sexually attractive women and physically powerful men).

That was probably a lot more thought and analysis than this deserved."

To take it a step further; why is it when men in movies are portrayed as kicking ass and taking names it's allowed for film makers to make it clear that they're also attractive (See: Every action movie in which the hero gets the girl either during the movie or it's implied he gets the girl during the end credits.) but to do similarly for women is considered a form of exploitation? Yeah, ok, no one really goes out swinging a katana with one hand while wielding a pistol with the other in a short skirt, high heels, and pigtails, but I'm betting most men don't actually head into shoot-outs in tuxedos either but you don't hear people complaining about Bond tramping himself up for the ladies. Hell, that's kind of the point, isn't it? You think the ancient Spartans actually went to battle in Man-kinis? How many movies that aren't trying for verisimilitude actually put warriors in realistic combat gear?

If you want to talk about the concept of "school girl" look and attire as being sexy, that's a whole other problem that has nothing to do with Sucker Punch specifically and everything to do with society in general and the message it sends that only young women can be sexually attractive. If you've got an easy way to fix that, I'd love to hear it.

I'm not saying Sucker Punch is a good movie, I'm saying that reacting to it with "OH MY GOD, DID YOU SEE HOW THOSE GIRLS WERE DRESSED!?!?!" completely misses the point.

In Which I Attempt to be Helpful

2011-03-20T22:45:00.000-04:00

Now, men of the world, I realize that talking to ladies is a difficult thing which is why I have always employed the tactic of being nice until you give me a reason not to be. That said, there are certain things that I've noticed that drastically decrease your chances of success in getting further than a brief chat or an awkward smile and hasty retreat. Here is a non-exhaustive but all completely true list of things that have earned guys the "Well, it was nice chatting with you. I have to go over there now." reaction (Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed to speak for all womankind everywhere.):

- Use of the phrase 'tig ol' biddies': Doesn't matter if you're referring to me or someone nearby, or a celebrity, just stay away from it.

- Asking 'do the carpets match the curtains?': Basically the best way to make sure you never EVER find out the answer to that question.

- Excessive touching when I have known you less than five minutes.: Including but not limited to sitting with your leg touching mine even after I've moved my leg away, grabbing my hand, throwing an arm around my shoulder when I have not leaned into you, hugs that don't involve someone leaving, resting your head on my shoulder, fiddling with my hair, etc. I've come across this so persistently I'm pretty certain that it's in some "guide to picking up women" something or other somewhere but nothing will make me want to get away from you faster. I'm not even huggy with family members, dude who started talking to me on my way to the ladies room, so please don't think that polite conversation entitles you to my personal space. It's aggressive and pushy which is NOT the first impression you want to make.

- Quoting to me what percentage 'white' my town is when you don't live here. This says a whole lot of things about you and most of them aren't good.

- Asking why I'm single/"I don't see a ring… *questioning look*": Really, there's no way to answer this without getting super awkward and personal quickly. Not the sort of light, playful banter you want for a first conversation.

- Pushing for a phone number: If you ask and I give you a polite brush-off, please take the hint before I have to say "I'd rather not continue this conversation" because that's sad for both of us.

- Saying 'nice ass' as I walk by.: I have never EVER stopped for a guy that said this or any variation of this. Yelling it our of a car is, if anything, worse.

- Attempting to start and/or continue a conversation while I'm obviously otherwise occupied.: Am I ordering coffee, talking on the phone, crossing the street or otherwise focusing my attention on something else? Bad time to make a move.

- Complimenting me while I'm purchasing 'sensitive' products: One time I was buying the morning after pill and the pharmacist asked for my ID to make sure I was over 17. (Fun fact: I was almost 21 at the time.) After looking at it he said "Oh, you have a really pretty name!" and gave me a big smile. NOW, it's entirely possible that he just wanted to give me a compliment to make me feel a little better since most women buying emergency contraception are not having the best day of their lives, but I swear to god in the moment I thought "The pharmacist guy is hitting on me because he thinks I'm easy because I'm buying Plan B and I'd love it if the floor just opened up and swallowed me now." A brief but by no means complete list of products that would fall under this classification would be: birth control pills, emergency contraception, condoms, pregnancy tests, and tampons. If she starts a conversation with you, great. If not, keep the chit-chat to a minimum.

- Cornering me while I'm at work and refusing to leave me alone until I give you my number/tell you what time I get off.: Please do not put me in the very special hell that is this place where I'm not actually allowed to be rude with you for fear that you'll tell my manager that I was but you give me no option for getting rid of you without being rude.

- Negging: This may have been effective on some girls at one point in time, but after a reality show and references on such programming as "Criminal Minds" and "Law and Order: SVU" most of us are passingly familiar with "Game" and know that when you tell us you think we're awful smart for a pretty girl or that you don't usually like brunettes/redheads/blondes except for now, or whatever most of us will figure it out.

- Pushing drinks on me.: Creepy. Also? Getting me drunk won't make me want to sleep with you if I didn't want to sleep with you sober. It just makes me more likely to agree to do so in the near future if I was interested in doing so already. And I will buy my own drinks and spend my evening without some kind of weird expectation hanging over my head, thank you.*

If you disagree with me and can explain your disagreement politely and without the words "bitch," "cunt," "tease," or any sort of assumption or disparagement about my appearance, please feel free to leave a comment.

*This one is probably where I differ from a lot of women the most. I know girls who have the philosophy that if you're asking to buy them something they're happy to accept whether or not they're actually interested. Moral of the story? Don't buy a woman a drink unless you're OK with her walking off with it immediately afterwards.

Things I Hate

2011-03-11T01:46:00.000-05:00

Almost always, but especially today:

- Yogurt with the gross mushy dead fruit in it that everyone else apparently loves because I can never find just fruit flavored yogurt without weird bits of goo in it.

- Socks.

- Doing laundry.

- Waking up before noon.

- Recyclable containers that require scrubbing before they can be dumped in the recycle bin (looking at you, cream cheese tub).

- The band Train

- Everyone who buys Train's albums therefore giving the impression that their music is appreciated.

- Cleaning the blender after making a smoothie.

- That washing and drying a load of laundry in my complex's laundry room costs $2.50

- The fact that even after spending $2.50 to wash and dry my laundry, my jeans are still damp.

- Packing

- Taking out the trash

- That moment at the gym when you think you're doing really awesome and then catch a girl who looks like a model lifting more than you.

- People who don't accept it when I say I don't tan and give me the advice that I should just do "a little at a time" to acclimate myself. Thanks, but I'd rather not acclimate myself to deliberately damaging my skin cells so they over produce melanin. You have fun though!

- Being between bra sizes

- Ants

- Crickets

- Days when it seems like I have a "Random Creepy Guys: Please Approach Me!" sign on my forehead

- Licorice

Poor Planning

2011-02-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to organize my thoughts on the recent decision by the House to de-fund Planned Parenthood into something that didn't end up a run-on sentence with lots of swearing and ending with me pulling my hair out. It wouldn't be great for you to read, and I happen to like my hair. So I'll tell you a story instead, about a man I'll call Smith who I didn't get to know too well when he was alive.

My grandmother's fourth husband (you know how people sometimes say they're not the marrying kind? Apparently she is the marrying kind.) was a man who had grown up with her before she went away to college and lost touch. He started his own appliance repair business and moved to a small house in central Maryland. He was the kind of man who would probably be called a "real American" by people who use those terms; he was a business man first and foremost and invested in property around the Baltimore area while living in an extremely modest house of his own. He hunted, and kept loaded .22 rifles on the porch for use in groundhog population control. He didn't chat much, and wasn't particularly outgoing. He had no children of his own, but several nieces and nephews.

It wasn't long after he and my grandmother began seeing each other that he was diagnosed with throat cancer. It was terminal. The rest of the relationship was what would be called "whirlwind" in happier circumstances; they ended up marrying in a private ceremony in the courthouse, and my grandmother moved in with him to be with Smith for however much time they had. My family visited, and he doted on my baby sister like she was his "own" grandchild. He passed, as comfortably as anyone in that situation can be said to, when I was only about 11.

Several years later, my mom happened to mention to me some of the arguments that had arisen after Smith's death involving business associates of his who accused my grandmother of being a gold-digger only out to get his money. They had been convinced that had he not married my grandmother, Smith would have left them larger pieces of his estate. My mother told me that this wasn't true, she has seen the original will before it was amended to include my grandmother. In that will, aside from several small gifts to various family members or friends there was only one main beneficiary:

Planned Parenthood.

In his years walking in and out of houses all over the area to repair dishwashers, sinks, fridges, and the like, he had concluded that the most important thing he could do with his estate after his death was to leave it to an organization dedicated to providing family planning and reproductive health services to anyone who wanted them.

When I found that out I wished desperately that this man who had been my grandfather for less than two years was still alive so I could talk to him about his views. So I could learn what lay beneath that quiet exterior, and most of all so I could find the common ground we shared. But he was gone, and all I had left was this small reminder that people can surprise you even when you least expect it.

As far as the legislation goes, I have high hopes that it won't pass the Senate. My bigger question is why so many people would want to take away federal funding from an organization dedicated to providing medical services to people who may otherwise not be able to afford them. The least of those services, abortion, isn't even covered by federal funds since the passing of the Hyde Amendment in 1976. If you'd like to explain to me why pap smears, STD testing, and pre-natal check ups are against your morality, please do so. If you'd like to argue that poor people aren't worthy of receiving health care because they're poor, I'd like to see you explain to a child why they should die of pneumonia because their parents made some bad choices. No, Planned Parenthood doesn't treat pneumonia, but if you're making blanket statements like "if you can't afford health care you shouldn't get it" then I don't think you get to pick and choose which kinds of health care you're referring to.

I don't know a lot. I've never been in a position where I didn't have health insurance, I've never been pregnant in either expected or unexpected fashion, and I've never had to hide from my parents that I was getting regular blood tests for certain "infections" for fear of punishment. Much of that is due to sheer dumb luck rather than any decisions I had a hand in, and because I know that I know that there are certain services everyone should have access to. So did my Grandfather Smith. I wish my country could get to a point where human sexuality was treated as a simple fact of biology and information regarding practicing one's sexuality safely and consensually was easily available to all citizens rather than something spoken about in hushed tones behind closed doors.

End Of The Week

2011-02-26T00:35:00.003-05:00

You'd think that after several thousand years of human evolution, we'd come up with a solution to a problem that afflicts about half its population once a month for years that didn't involve basically stuffing a cotton ball up one's twat.

Just a thought.

An Imagined Conversation

2011-02-14T01:18:00.006-05:00

Two months prior to the Grammy awards, at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences bunker somewhere below the Scientology Center

Cee-Lo: So, I hear y'all like my song "Fuck You?"

NARAS Exec #1: Indeed we do like… that song. Or at least my grandkids do. In fact, we like it so much we want you to perform it at the Grammys!

Cee-Lo: Well that's great!

NARAS Exec #2: Err… well, there are a few minor adjustments that would have to be made Mr.Lo.

Cee-Lo: You can just call me Cee-Lo. And yes, obviously I'd have to do the radio edit version where I say "Forget You" instead of "Fuck You" what with the impressionable youths and all. I know how concerned you are that some poor parents might have to have a conversation with their eight year old about why some words are only used by adults.

NARAS Exec #1: Quite right! So we can just call the song "Forget You" then?

Cee-Lo: Well, that might be a little tricky because that's not actually the song's title, you understand.

NARAS Exec #2: I don't follow.

NARAS Exec #1: No no, I get it. Lets take a book out of the page of he who shall not be named and refer to it as… "The Song Formerly Known as F…" wait, that won't work.

NARAS Exec #2: "Forget You (also known as F…)" Nope, that won't work either.

Cee-Lo: Why not "The Song Otherwise Known as 'Forget You?'"

NARAS Exec #2: Not terribly snappy.

Cee-Lo: You got something better?

NARAS Exec #1: Point taken. Ok, onto the next part which is who you'll be performing with!

Cee-Lo: Surprise me, fellas.

NARAS Exec #2: Gwyneth Paltrow!

Cee-Lo: …I meant in a good way, not a pants shittingly awful way.

NARAS Exec #2: Like on that "Glee" show my niece told me about. She says all the kids at her school, uh, "Tweak" about it? Is that the right word?

NARAS Exec #1: Sounds suspicious to me, should we sue them?

NARAS Exec #2: No, they're on the up and up, I checked. Anyway, we've already spoken to Ms.Paltrow's administrative unit and after a four day summit they concluded that performing with you at the Grammys could help her make her image more hip and with it, so they're a go.

Cee-Lo: Do I get a say in whether I want some skinny rich white girl singing my song about how I don't have any money?

NARAS Exec #1: Nope.

NARAS Exec #2: You think we got where we are by letting other people make the decisions?

Cee-Lo: What do I have a say in?

NARAS Exec #2: Oh, the usual. Back up singers. Costume. The little things.

Cee-Lo: Muppets.

NARAS Exec #1: Pardon?

Cee-Lo: I want motherfucking muppets for my background singers.

NARAS Exec #2: Um… unorthodox, but why not.

Cee-Lo: And feathers.

NARAS Exec #1: Feathers?

Cee-Lo: You're goddamn straight, feathers. I want enough fucking feathers to put Lady Gaga to shame. I want to look like Big-Bird on an acid trip. With a chestplate. And a beaded headress like whats-his-name from Conan the Barbarian only sexier.

NARAS Exec #1: Surely, you're joking.

Cee-Lo: Try me, bitch.

NARAS Exec #2: Well, I'm sure we can manage that. Any other requests?

Cee-Lo: Yeah, fuck you and fuck him too.

NARAS Exec #1: Literally or rhetorically?

Cee-Lo: I'm out. See y'all at rehearsal. And there better be some fucking feathers and fucking muppets when I get there.

NARAS Exec #2: Are there enough feathers on the planet to put Lady Gaga to shame?

NARAS Exec #1: *shrugs*

All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author alone and are not meant to be a reflection of the views of any person, real or not real, who may or may not be associated with NARAS, Cee-Lo, Ms.Paltrow, "Glee," Lady Gaga, or Tweaker. And especially not Scientologists, who are obviously Xenu's chosen people and better people that I am now, have been, or ever will be. By reading this disclaimer you have agreed not to sue me for anything. Ever. That's totally legally enforceable. Thank you, come again!

Screw It

2011-02-10T21:59:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned previously, I've been trying to eat better and work out more. I had been doing pretty well this week and today planned on getting home, putting my lentil stew that I made yesterday on the crock pot to warm up while I went to the gym for half and hour, then come back, shower, and enjoy it while watching my terrible terrible Thursday night TV ("Grey's Anatomy." No, I can't explain why I'm still watching it, stop looking at me like that.)

Then I got a stress migraine about a half an hour before I left work. By the time I got home it had spread from it's starting position of right above my right eye all the way down to my lower jaw making the entire right side of my skull a wall of throbbing misery.

After taking Excedrin and spending about two hours in bed with a pillow over my head to block light and sound, I ordered a pizza and am enjoying it with a soda.

The soda is Whole Foods brand though. That totally counts as healthy, right?

Thoughts I've Had This Week

2011-02-06T08:37:00.000-05:00

- I got my cast off this past Monday, which was awesome but my finger is still kind of stiff and sore which is not and I can tell that it's kind of crooked but no one else can. I've taken to throwing suspicious looks at it occasionally to see if it straightens up. No good so far.

- However, I can now get back to using all ten fingers to type which makes me far happier than it should.

- I am really goddamned glad I live in Miami after looking at all those pictures of snow and ice from other places in the country.

- Someone is apparently shocked that Taco Bell "beef" is not 100% beef. Seriously, folks? When you pay 70 cents for a burrito, do you really think what you're getting is top of the line quality?

- Knowledge of the above lawsuit totally did not prevent me from getting chalupas on Thursday night when I was driving home from my boss's gig at 2am. I am part of the problem.

- In this year's Superbowl, I'm rooting for a sinkhole to open up and swallow the Steelers, the Packers, and the eyesore that is Cowboys stadium. Someone get me the Vegas odds on that and I will bet exactly one dollar.

- I'm getting back into the habit of working out again because I'm hideously out of shape thanks to winter vacation, a month in a cast, and aforementioned Taco Bell habit. Due to freak genetics, I don't actually get any bigger when I'm out of shape, which makes the ambition to get back in shape difficult to maintain.

- After spending six months working for a jazz singer, I have to suppress the urge to respond sarcastically when someone says they'd like "At Last" played for their wedding/anniversary.

- Look! Kitties!

- Jello pudding cups are totally an appropriate breakfast food, right?

- I bought a new TV to finally replace the CRT monster I have now that got dropped when I moved here and now has a funny spot on one side of the screen. The new TV is internet ready so I can stream Netflix directly through my television. I may never leave my apartment again.

- What I should be doing right now: taking advantage of being awake unexpectedly early to go buy stuff to make guacamole for the Super Bowl party I'm going to later and avoid the rush. What I am doing: Blogging and eating a pudding cup.

- Being woken up at 6:45am on a Sunday for a plumbing problem you had nothing to do with sucks big time.

Uh, Hey There

2011-01-22T00:14:00.004-05:00

- I know I haven't posted in a while. This is partially because I'm now working regular hours five days a week instead of working part time and being a lazy grad student.

- This is also partially because, as I mentioned on Pajiba, I broke my left pinkie on New Year's Eve:

and was then put into a ridiculously large cast:

which makes typing difficult and frustrating.

- The cast also causes perfect strangers to stop me on the street to ask what the hell happened since it looks like I shattered my whole wrist. I look at them, say "I fell down" and walk away.

- It is nearly the time of night when I drink wine.

- I never did a review for my final Cannonball Read book of last year. It was Fool by Christopher Moore. I enjoyed it, but felt the tone was… uneven.

- I'm not officially participating in the Cannonball Read this year, but I'll still put up book reviews if people want to read them.

- That's about all for tonight. Bye!

CBII: Book #51 A Short History of Nearly Everything

2010-12-20T15:44:00.002-05:00

This is one of those books that I couldn't remember if I'd done it last year or not but that's pretty much moot now since I'm over a month behind on finishing up these damn reviews anyway.

Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is a book that examines the origins of (basically) life, the universe, and everything in language that is easy for the non-scientifically minded to read and understand. Unsurprisingly, it's still fairly long and somewhat dense but if you've ever sat down and wondered how scientists could manage to come up with how much the earth weighs or the debates involving classifications of life, Bryson does a fairly deft job of touching on the relevant parts while keeping things moving at a reasonably snappy pace.

The title really sums it up best, it is a short history of nearly everything. There are obviously some gaps, and places where it's clear that the surface of available information has barely been skimmed, but it's still a good overview and will probably be more informative than the high school science classes you took if you went to a public school like me.

If you're looking for answers to some of the big questions, and perhaps a multitude of smaller ones, this is a good place to start and the references can give you better places to continue. And you'll never look at a lichen the same way again.

Don't Shoot Me Santa Claus

2010-12-08T21:23:00.005-05:00

Christmas is right around the corner, which means I have to somehow find the money to buy things that demonstrate to my loved ones how much they mean to me. Or how much they want to think they mean to me, because giving some people used tissues for Christmas is generally frowned upon and is especially frowned upon when those people are family. On the other hand, giving people hand made gifts which necessarily require more time, care, and thought on the part of the giver tends to be considered cheap or unacceptable too, or that's what advertisements keep telling me because they want me to buy shit that will break in a couple months instead of knitting someone a scarf they can wear for years.*

I bitch a lot about what I call the Christmas Industrial Complex because I feel like it takes a holiday that can really be beautiful in a genuine way and instead turning into this stressful, cynical, overpriced marathon of consumerist orgy that starts earlier and earlier every year. It's part of the reason I enjoy living in the sub-tropical zone I've chosen to spend eight years of school in; it's easier to ignore the Christmas onslaught without all the snow and cold I've been trained to expect. If it doesn't feel like Christmas time yet, I can go about my life as normal until I choose to acknowledge it or until my neighbor puts up a fucking ridiculous lawn snowman lawn ornament because IT DOESN'T SNOW IN MIAMI, GOD!

*ahem*

The bottom line is that I have mixed feelings about the holiday season. So I'm choosing to think of it more as finals season, because that makes for better grades for me and less aggravation that may cause me to lose my shit on some poor retail worker about why it's obscene to play "Santa Baby" in October.

*My brother is still wearing the Space Invaders Scarf I made him two years ago. Which is a damn good thing because that scarf took me for fucking ever, or approximately 1.75 seasons worth of "Bones".

CBII: Book #50 The Heights

2010-11-20T15:13:00.000-05:00

I need to learn that I'm not a fan of the "fraught lives of the white middle class" genre and stop taking out books that obviously fall into it. I get it that there are some great works dealing with that topic, and I will miss out on them because I won't be able to see the brilliant insights or use of language because my eyes will be rolling too hard. Yes, everyone's life can be difficult in it's own way, it doesn't mean I want to hear you whine about it.

The Heights by Peter Hedges is about a young couple with two children struggling to make ends meet so they can live in the upper class Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. Kate and Tim Welch have a comfortable life even if it's maybe not quite as comfortable as they'd like it to be. Tim has been working on his thesis for years while working as a teacher at a nearby private school and Kate has been a stay at home mom, aspiring to a life of quiet normality after a tumultuous childhood and college life that she left behind when she married the sensitive and earnest Tim.

The Welchs' lives are thrown into turmoil with the introduction of the beautiful and mysterious Anna Brody, a wealthy new neighbor who forms a fast relationship with Kate and who finds Tim's devotion to his wife and emotional displays appealing. Meanwhile, one of Kate's former boyfriends, now a soap opera star, reappears and both Tim and Kate end up questioning their commitment to each other.

Honestly, I wasn't a fan of either Welch and most of the other characters are shockingly one dimensional, though I'll give Hedges the benefit of the doubt and guess that that's just supposed to be how the Welchs' view the other characters and it's meant to be an indication that they're just as shallow and judgmental as the people they disparage for being shallow and judgmental.

I didn't find The Heights particularly compelling or engrossing, but as I mentioned above, books in this genre aren't ones that I enjoy by and large. If the everyday lives of people who are convinced of their own superiority is the kind of thing you enjoy reading about then by all mean, pick up this book.

In Which I Gamble With My Health

2010-11-16T23:03:00.002-05:00

First of all WHOA TWO BLOG POSTS IN ONE DAY CRAZINESS! Honestly, I'd been planning on writing something for a while and then would feel guilty that I didn't have my Cannonball reviews in and be worried that I'd look worse if I wrote crap about my new purse but not about the books and then The Summer of Naked Swim Parties was due back to the library so I FINALLY got it done and now I can post again without feeling guilty. For at least a day or two and then I'll start feeling guilty about my other outstanding reviews but that's not what I want to talk about now even though it kind of looks like that's what I just did. Whoops.

A few days ago I decided to make some chicken stew in my wee crockpot in an effort to feed myself for the next several days and feel like I was eating more than take out and things that came out of boxes. So, I went around my kitchen and gathered up garlic, butter, celery, carrots, a can of Ro-tel (tomatoes and jalapeños), lentils, chicken, and chicken broth. Threw all of that into the pot with some salt and pepper and several hours later took off the top to discover… my soup was black.

Wait, what?

Closer inspection revealed that only the top was black, the rest was the anticipated lentil-ish color, and it smelled fine and tasted fine so I ate it anyway because I'm a foolhardy 24 year old who's never had food poisoning and wasn't about to waste an entire goddamn pot of food until it was threatening me with a knife or similarly obviously harmful to my health. Then I popped the leftover soup still in the lift out ceramic part into the fridge, figured it was one time weirdness and if I wasn't projectile vomiting in the next day and a half, it was cool.

Now, it was. I'm totally fine and I've eaten the soup again a few times and am intending to finish it off after I stop writing this but IT KEEPS TURNING BLACK ON TOP and it's weird and kind of freaky and makes me wonder if there's some kind of strange chemical reaction taking place or what. Or maybe I'm slowly killing myself in some way that has yet to become apparent. Stay tuned to find out!

CBII: Book #49 - The Summer of Naked Swim Parties

2010-11-16T14:52:00.000-05:00

Tolstoy wrote at the beginning of Anna Karenina "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way." Jessica Anya Blau's The Summer of Naked Swim Parties attempts to put a dent in that assertion by presenting a family that through it's own collections of quirks and unique relationships somehow ends up forming a happy family.

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties manages to condense most of the big moments of a teenage (or older) girl's life into a single, extremely eventful California summer in the 1970s for fourteen year old Jamie. She has her first kiss, her first boyfriend, her first sexual experience, her first break up, the first time a boy uses her for sex and her first up close experience with death all in the span of a few months. She learns that there are some girls you can't count on once boys get involved, that being "in love" as a teenager has a fairly fluid definition, and that sometimes being the cool kid just makes you look like an asshole. It is a coming of age story that has managed to squeeze itself into that magical carefree space that exists between Memorial Day and Labor Day and it's a hell of a ride for Jamie and the reader.

Through it all, Jamie is able to rely on her family despite her parent's embarrassingly open sexuality (they're the ones holding the titular naked swim parties with other adults in the neighborhood), her antagonist relationship with her sister, and a procession of odd characters drawn in by her mother's somewhat fuzzy and uninformed sense of spirituality.

Most of what I could relate to in the book was Jamie's experiences with growing up, even though what she goes through in the span of a summer in the books took me (and probably most people) several years. I couldn't so much relate to Jamie's family situation because my mom doesn't make breakfast topless, but the sentiment was familiar. Jamie both loves and is embarrassed by her parents and both loves and feels resentment towards her older sister Renee. They stand behind her through everything and while they may not always say or do exactly the right things, it's clear that Jamie's support system is firm enough to allow her to fall on it when things start to go bad.

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties has a bit of a breakneck pace that strains credulity at times, but overall presents an image of a girl testing her boundaries and finding out that while her family might not be perfect, they're always hers. It's sweet, and manages to not take an alarmist tone when discussing the riskier behaviors that Jamie and her friends engage in as young teens, and might be a nice read for women just coming out of that period of their lives when it seemed like every relationship was true love and every betrayal was the end of the world, or for girls who want to know that most people get through that time relatively unscathed, and that the people who really love you will always be there.

Oh Lately It's So Quiet

2010-11-01T21:20:00.002-04:00

I haven't been posting much lately because I've been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest* so I apologize for that. I've got three more book reviews to pump out for the Cannonball Redux (they count, I finished them in October) and I've decided NOT to jump in on NaNoWriMo this year both because I always fail and because I'm so busy that I would really fail spectacularly this year. I'm not a novel writer. I'm comfortable with this fact.

Blogging isn't the only thing I've been putting off; my apartment is in desperate need of real cleaning, not just moving stuff around when it gets in the way. I'm not at "Hoarders" level problems yet, but only because I'm pretty persistent about throwing shit out. I can do cluttered, I can't do piles.

The bottom line is that I'm good; there's a lot of fun things going on. I got to go see my sister's marching band finals this past weekend, Halloween was a blast, I helped host a concert the week before that was awesome and the afterparty was even better, my job is going well and I'm inching ever closer to actually having a Master's degree. I really should tell you all more about it.

*And apparently turning into my grandfather at the same time.

CBII: Book #48 - Baking Cakes in Kigali

2010-10-22T22:35:00.000-04:00

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin is an interesting book, in that it's superficially light, fluffy, and full of the sort of feel-good sentiment that would appeal to the Oprah's Book Club crowd but at the same time tackles some extremely difficult topics related to the genocide in Rwanda. The stories in the book were allegedly based off or inspired by stories told to Parkin who counseled women and girls in Rwanda as a VSO volunteer, and while they're set against a background of love, understanding, and cooperation there's no getting away from the fact that what happened to most of these people was something that is almost impossible for anyone else to truly understand.

The central character in Baking Cakes in Kigali is Angel, a Tanzanian who is living in Kigali due to her husband's work while caring for her five grandchildren. Both of Angel's children, a son and daughter, are dead. She has her own business making cakes, which provides the framework for most of the people she interacts with in the novel. Most of the novel is told in semi-episodic fashion, touching on different interactions and individuals as they cross paths with Angel but there are a couple overarching story lines, in particular Angel and her husband coming to terms with their daughter's death. The stories that pass through her door are deeply affecting and haunting; the woman who saw her husband and son killed while she hid in the bushes, a girl who began prostituting herself at age 11 to take care of her younger siblings and a boy they found who had no family after the massacre, a young soldier who seems to have been driven insane by the conflict and is fixated on the idea of marrying any foreign woman so he can leave Rwanda, families who were lost and are found or rebuilt through community.

While I don't know Kiswahili, Angel's first language, it seems Parkin has gone to some efforts to preserve idioms or speech patterns that are not English in nature. When talking business, Angel refers to herself as a "professional somebody" rather than a professional person and people who are deceased are referred to as being "late" as in "my daughter is late." She also vividly describes the living conditions and everyday life of her characters, which gives the book a depth and richness that may not necessarily be matched by the vocabulary. Indeed, the whole book is not difficult to read, and could probably be read by a particularly bright fifth grader but for the subject matter involved.

Baking Cakes in Kigali is a strange animal; on the surface the message is very positive and life affirming while dealing with the aftereffects of a horrific genocide and the ongoing struggle of dealing with things like HIV. It's not a difficult read, and some critics might say that it doesn't give enough gravity to the tragic stories it relates but there are plenty of sources for very serious and graphically detailed accounts of what happened in Rwanda. Baking Cakes in Kigali is about what came afterwards, and sometimes it's worthwhile to realize that there is an afterwards. That life went on.

CBII: Book #47 - Requiem, Mass.

2010-10-21T13:24:00.000-04:00

Whenever this literary trend of writing about people with fucked up childhoods due to mentally unstable adults is over, I will be very happy. It's not that I'm unsympathetic, but really, you hear one "My mother was schizophrenic and my father was a pathological liar with another family" story, you've sort of heard them all. Just variations in the key of Batshit Crazy.

Requiem, Mass. by John Dufresne is, as some of you may have discerned, a book about a boy growing up with a schizophrenic mother and a pathological liar father. Johnny bands together with sympathetic neighbors to ultimately escape his mother's cruel attentions for long periods of time and to keep child protective services from taking him and his younger sister, Audrey, away from her. His father is largely absent, supposedly driving a truck across the country but that proves later to be, shockingly, a lie.

I will give Dufresne credit that Frances, the mother, doesn't come off like one of those charmingly crazy women that's magically alluring until you find her on the floor trying to carve the tracking devices out of her thigh with the vegetable peeler. Frances is absolutely mentally ill; she's convinced that her children are replacements sent by "them" and is unrelentingly cruel to Johnny and his sister. She is also convinced that she's dead, and rotting from the inside out and douses herself with perfumes to cover the stench. Frances comes off genuinely as a woman who is barely holding it together and Johnny's feelings towards her reflect this; when she is committed and he's spending time away from her he realizes that it's the most relaxed and happy he's been in years. Johnny's father doesn't come off any better, considering his obligation to his children secondary to his own wishes and desires. While home from a drive and witnessing Frances's particular brand of crazy over dinner he asks Johnny "How do you expect me to live here like this?" with seemingly no self awareness that he's abandoning his children to live like that every day that he's gone.

The whole book has a framing device of the author discussing writing about his past in the "present" with his wife which I wasn't a fan of. It seems too much like a wink and a nudge that the novel starts off with the wife telling her husband that if he's going to write about his life he should just write about his life and not make it fiction, seeming to set up the reader to constantly be questioning how much is novel and how much is real.

Requiem, Mass. isn't a bad book and it's certainly better than some other books with similar themes that I've read. But it is depressing and it's not something I'd read again. Dufresne doesn't sugarcoat his novel with humor the way Augusten Burroughs did in the thematically similar Running With Scissors, it's all just laid bare before you and it can be a lot to take.

Late Night Conversations

2010-10-20T21:09:00.002-04:00

(Paraphrased from an actual cell phone conversation regarding my plan to dress up as Leeloo from "The Fifth Element" for Halloween. First costume. I'd post a picture, but blogger is being a bastard and not letting me right now.)

Me: So, you got the picture I sent you for my costume, right?
Mom: Yeah! It looks really cute, perfect for Miami. And it should be pretty easy to make, just a set of bikini bottoms and strips of two different widths. It's perfect for someone like you, anyone bigger wouldn't be able to pull it off.
Me: Right. Now, I looked at a g-string and some pasties but I wasn't sure if I should get nude or white.
Mom: Go nude, white might show through and look kind of funny.
Me: Ok, Fredericks of Hollywood had both for a pretty reasonable price and it looks like the pasties are reusable.
Mom: And if they're from Fredericks you know they're actually meant to be worn for real and not just for like, decoration.
Me: True. The next step is getting some discipline down so I can just tighten up a bit before Halloween.
Mom: I could stand to lose some weight, but I'm more looking into the cleaver option.
Me: Don't chop pieces off your stomach, mom.
Mom: But liposuction is expensive! And if I cut the fat off and go to the ER to get sewn back up, insurance will cover it. It's a win/win situation.
Me: This is why I get nervous about you when I'm not living at home.
Mom: Gotta go.
Me: DON'T CHOP OFF PIECES OF YOUR STOMACH!
Mom: Bye, sweetie.

CBII: Book #46 - Of Bees and Mist

2010-10-09T15:12:00.002-04:00

Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan reads a little bit like a Hayao Miyazaki movie put on the page. There's a similar sense of disconnectedness, of being in a world you don't quite understand, where emotions have physical manifestations and the laws of reality aren't the same as in our world. At the same time, Setiawan doesn't simply allow his setting to do all the work, and the story is nothing groundbreaking, but engaging enough to stand on it's own apart from the magical surroundings.

Meridia grows up in a house that is literally and emotionally frozen, where mysteriously colored mists hang around the yard, and with parents who have escaped to their own world and left their child to the care of her somewhat agoraphobic nurse. As Meridia grows she looks outside the house for affection and finds Daniel. It's Meridia's relationship with Daniel and his family that defines most of the book.

While there are unanswered questions in Of Bees and Mist, it's not quite a mystery and the story moves forward more on it's own power than in an effort to answer those questions. The novel follows Meridia from her birth to about age 30, pausing on all the major developments in her life and all the significant relationships she has in that time. This makes up the bulk of the story, I could describe all the major events in the book in less than two pages but this is not a book about events; it's a book about people, the effects they have on each other, and the physical impact those effects can have.

It's not a perfect novel; there are some symbols that are belabored and some connections that are a little too convenient to accept naturally, a couple characters who lacked subtlety, but overall I found it to be a lovely book that folds you into its world effortlessly. Too often in books involving magical realism or supernatural phenomena it feels forced, whimsy for the sake of whimsy, but I never got that sense here. Setiawan has deliberate intentions behind the technique and uses it in ways that make sense. Discord can feel like a constant swarm of bees, emotional distance can seem like a cold mist, and sometimes it does seem like you're the only person who can really see the friends who mean the most to you.

Of Bees and Mist is a delicate character study wrapped in a veil of the supernatural. It's not the kind of book that will appeal to everyone, the reader needs to be patient and somewhat open minded, but it's worth it for people who have the time and the leisure to turn themselves over to another sort of reality for a few hundred pages.

Songs I Get Stuck in My Head That Make Me Want to Lobotomize Myself Part. 1

2010-10-04T11:39:00.001-04:00

"Sandwiches" - Detroit Grand Pubahs

"My First Kiss" - 3 Oh! 3 feat. Ke$ha

(Full disclosure: I actually like 3 Oh! 3 and think they're funny and great at making awesomely bouncy music. It's Ke$ha's contribution and the kissy noises that get me.)

"If We Ever Meet Again" - Timbaland feat. Katy Perry

"We Like To Party" - Venga Boys

"Dynamite" - Taio Cruz

Walking On Sunshine

2010-09-27T21:02:00.002-04:00

It's been a rough few weeks. It seems like I'm always busy, that I'm always chasing all the things I need to get done, and any time I take for myself I feel guilty about and that while I am (thankfully) getting paid a real amount of money for the work that I'm doing, it all gets sucked up. This weekend I took my car to get an oil change and found out that it needs a new air filter (which I'm going to buy and replace myself because I looked it up and it seems pretty easy) and it'll need a new battery within a month. That's leaving aside the fact that I still don't have a dresser so all my clothes are arranged in neatly folded and organized piles on my floor and I need a decent knife set before I end up with a blade embedded in my thigh after it skips off the cutting board because it's crap.

Today I got up at 8:00am for a day that still isn't over yet because of an early appointment on campus. I left straight for work afterwards and got out to Miami Beach about half an hour before I had to be at work. I got a coffee and a snack and walked the three blocks over to the beach proper to take a look at the ocean. I'm always amazed by it down here; unlike the ocean up in Maryland or Delaware that I remember from my childhood, the water here is always a beautifully inviting blue color and unless we've got a major storm kicking up, the waves are gentle. There's dunes and palm trees and a huge expense of white sand and I find it all absolutely gorgeous. Standing there, though, the following kind of hit me:

I am, at this point in my life, exactly where I want to be and doing exactly what I want to do. It's hard, it's tiring, and I can't think about my student loans for too long without needed a paper bag to breathe into and an injection of Valium, but the fact that I can even say that is an amazing thing.

Now I have to go fight with photoshop, and then read for a bit about the composition techniques of Bartok and Copland before collapsing out of utter exhaustion. But, you know, livin' the dream!

CBII: Book #45 - The Wife's Tale

2010-09-22T22:19:00.002-04:00

There are people who live their lives and there are people who let life happen to them. Mary Gooch is one of the second kind of people. The Wife's Tale is primarily about Mary Gooch's search for her husband, Jimmy, after he disappears from their small Canadian town. It is also the tale of Mary Gooch's life and her struggle with her weight and the overall lack of inertia in her life.

Mary is described by author Lori Lansens as being obese, and the book lists her weight at the beginning of the novel as slightly over 300 pounds.* Much of the book is told from Mary's perspective and she speaks at length about the drive to eat in language similar to the kind used to describe drug addiction, and about it being something she's battled her entire life. Mary has been drastically overweight for almost all of her life, the exception being the two year period when she began dating and eventually married her husband, Jimmy. Early in the book, Mary mentions the new carpet she and her husband bought themselves for their silver anniversary, and her speculation that her husband bought it so he wouldn't have to look at the rut his wife wore into the carpet between the bedroom and the kitchen. That rut represents the last 25 years of Mary's life when the book begins.

As Mary begins the search for Jimmy, she leaves the comfortable and tiny world of Leaford, Ontario where has spent literally her entire life and begins to come to terms with just how much she's limited her life and his through her fear, inactivity, and guilt over her weight. After she comes to grips with the disappearance of her husband and leaves her town and eventually her country to try to find him, her appetite disappears and as her world get larger, she gets smaller. While the messages might be… less than subtle, the book is probably one that will hit home for women who find themselves in their mid-40's and disappointed with what their life has resulted in. It's not a new idea, and it's something that most would argue Eat, Pray, Love did better, but Mary is sympathetic and her character development is believable enough. There's a few instances of deus ex machina (the way she finances her trip is because her husband won the lottery and deposited the money in their account so she could use it while he "took some time" like, seriously?) and a "makeover", but for being an escapist novel it's not bad. It's engrossing enough, and Mary's slow realization of how small she's made her life is relatable.

The Wife's Tale is a book you keep reading because you want to find out what happens but at least, for me, none of it really got under my skin. I wouldn't describe it as a meaty book, but I've never been overweight or married for 25 years so I'm not sure how someone with a life that has more in common with Mary's might react to it.

*Her height is never listed, and as I am not a doctor and the character is, you know, not real I can't speak as to whether or not the assessment of obesity is accurate. Please don't give me a lecture on body types, muscle density, and how BMI is bullshit.

CBII: Book #44 - I Drink For a Reason

2010-09-22T21:36:00.003-04:00

I'm sure David Cross is a perfectly wonderful person in real life. He seems like a very smart, curious, well traveled and (I mean this in a genuine way, not a psuedo insulting way) kind person. He also seems to be very opinionated and that can come across in his writing as being kind of bitter, even when he's writing in a humorous vein, and I have to say that I'm not really a big fan of bitter.

I Drink For A Reason is a collection of essays and fiction pieces by Mr.Cross on a variety of topics. One is a retort to an internet critic on his show, there's an anecdote about why he hates Jim Belushi so much, a whole lot about his view on religion as he is an avowed and aggressive atheist, and his thoughts on a wide variety of topics. And he is funny, for a while, and then the constant berating of certain groups of people (usually those with religious beliefs) kind of start to wear on you and you start to think "Well, gee, sorry that not everyone happens to agree with you. Don't take it too personally, bud."

One thing that is interesting is how ready Cross is to admit that there's a lot in his life that he really likes (even if his childhood was kind of a mixed bag) but at the same time seems to suffer from the smart kid problem of believing that if you have the most logic and reason on your side, everyone will agree with you. The people who hold this belief really and truly, deep within themselves, do tend to turn out bitter as adults because as most of us know that's not the case. If you have logic and reason on your side, well, that and $2 will get you a coffee, but it won't win you very many arguments.

And because I know someone will ask, he does mention "Arrested Development", but probably not as much or as in depth as AD fans would like.

Crazy Fish Lady

2010-09-21T13:14:00.004-04:00

Last week I got a fish to keep me company in my apartment. Nothing special, just a Crowntail Betta fish I bought at the PetCo for $8, but he's pretty and quiet, keeps to himself and doesn't leave dirty dishes around so in a lot of ways he's the perfect roommate. However, over this week it's become increasingly apparent to me that I may need a more interactive pet, as I have had the following thoughts since getting the fish:

- I hope he's not too bored while I'm at school/work.
- I wonder if he's lonely
- Should I ask someone to take care of my fish while I'm gone? (Note, this trip went from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. I was gone a little over 36 hours.)
- Awww, look at him! He's happy and playful!

It's probably for the best that I determined I don't have time for a dog because I'd end up being that crazy chick who doesn't go out much because she's worried her dog would get lonely and think I didn't love him/her.

Random Thought

2010-09-16T21:08:00.003-04:00

Reasons why I think Usher has an ongoing bet involving how ridiculous a title a song can have but still be a hit:

1. "OMG"
2. "Hot Tottie"
3. "Yeah!"
4. "Hey Daddy"
5. "Foolin' Around"
6. "Pro Lover"
7. "So Many Girls"
8. "Monstar"
9. "Love In This Club"
10. "What's your Name"
11. "This Ain't Sex"
12. "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love"

CBII: Book #43 Delilah

2010-09-14T18:01:00.004-04:00

Delilah is not a good book, but I don't think it wants to be. I think it wants to be a beach book for the kind of women who go to church/synagogue more for the social aspect than any strong religious belief, but who are conservative enough that they won't read Harlequin novels in public because they're "too smutty."

The novel tells the story of the doomed Samson and the temptress Delilah of biblical fame from a variety of perspectives, but primarily from the viewpoint of Delilah herself who is given a background as a novice level temple priestess and dancer. There's no real surprises here, even people only passingly familiar with the Bible know that there's no happy ending to the Samson and Delilah tryst, but India Edghill works to develop character relationships to move the story forward and is mostly successful. Delilah has something of an adopted sister in her friend, Aylah, who was bought by the temple as a child for a story too dull to relate and who walks around with a constant sense of cynicism and doom hanging over her. Samson's companion is the club footed harper, Orev, who mostly hangs around to report on the deeds of his more handsome, able bodied, intelligent, thoughtful, and all around nice guy friend who has the bad luck to be something of a symbol to Jewish rebel groups in the area who attack Canaanites in Samson's name.

Of course the path the book takes to get Samson and Delilah together and bumping uglies is somewhat circuitous. There was a point while I was reading where the thought I had was mostly "Oh, get the fuck on with it!" Interestingly, for a book based so heavily in religion, Edghill sets up the action in such a way that there is no divine intervention; all the main action comes about by way of cunning, pure human strength, or luck and circumstance. Unlike the source material, God has no place in this story.

There's a few scenes of implied sex and a lot of talking around the act that might make you blush if you also think that "tampon" is a dirty word. Most of the book is written in that type of half assed "historical" dialect that features words like "thus" and "sought" frequently to make it feel all old timey which kind of works if you're writing about the 19th Century but maybe not so much for pre-Christ era authenticity. It's not a terrible book, but it's one of those books that you'll read and have a vague recollection of reading it about five minutes later; it's a snack, not a meal. Good book to give your mother in law before she goes on vacation, assuming your mother in law is an adherent of a judeo christian based religion and in the habit of giving you passive aggressive compliments on your clothing in the vein of "Well, I might not have worn that in my day, but it certainly looks nice on you dear. I guess if I had legs like yours I'd want to show them off to everyone too."

Things Fall Apart

2010-09-12T02:47:00.002-04:00

I went through my archives to see if I'd ever done a 9/11 post and it looks like I haven't, not on the date anyway, so I'll do this now.

I don't want to talk about 9/11 first though, I want to talk about April of 2001.

April of 2001 was the first time my family and I had ever been to the World Trade Center. We'd been going up to New York City a few times a year my whole life because my father grew up in Queens and his parents still lived there. In fact, both my grand parents were New York City born and raised; my grandfather was from the Bronx and my grandmother was (and still is) living next door to the house she'd been born in. It was just one of those strange touristy things we'd never done because we'd just never really decided it needed to be done until then. So we went, did the whole deal, went up to the observation deck and walked around, looked down and got dizzy, took pictures. It was a beautiful, clear day, but very windy. We still have the pictures my mom took on that day hanging up in our living room. I was 14.

That September, I was 15. I was sitting in my American History class trying to stay awake when someone arrived at the door with a letter for our teacher, who happened to be my best friend's father. He took the note, read it, came back to the front of the class and told us that there had been an accident and a plane had collided with one of the towers in the World Trade Center and there was no other information at that time. Then he resumed class. Meanwhile, my mind was racing; it was unlikely that my grandparents would be all the way in lower Manhattan, but I still wanted to get in touch with them to make sure they were ok. I didn't know anyone who worked in the towers, or anyone who had been flying that day, so my primary worry was for my grandmother and grandfather.

As I left that class period, the halls were quieter than usual. When I got to my next class, Biology, my teacher was standing at the door with tears on her face. She said we'd be moving to another classroom that had a TV so we could see the news. That was when I heard about the second plane and the attack on the Pentagon. When I found out that it wasn't a terrible accident, but something deliberate. That was worse, both my parents were working on military bases, my mother very close to DC, and we had family friends and relatives who worked at the Pentagon. I watched the news in stunned silence with the rest of my class. At some point the towers fell. At some point I began crying. I can't remember exactly what the timeline was.

We were dismissed early, I got a ride home from a friend to avoid my bus which was full of the worst kind of people to be around in the middle of a tragedy. At that point, there were a lot of false reports flying around, reports about attacks on San Francisco and Los Angeles. When I got home my mother was frantic since I hadn't been on the bus, they'd evacuated her base early and my father was on his way home too.

I remember collecting news papers in the days that followed, I remember hearing about the people that jumped and thinking about what choice I would make in the same situation. I remember the yelling, the blaming, the fruitless arguing about what could have been done or should have been done that all boiled down to a pile of rubble in lower Manhattan. I remember the search for survivors, the stories about the rescue dogs who needed booties to walk over the hot rubble and the volunteer women who made them, and that the dogs were finding so few live people that the other rescue workers would sometimes hide in the rubble to be "found" so the dogs wouldn't get despondent. I remember the sick feeling I got remembering our visit earlier that year, and realizing that people had died for doing exactly what we had done. I remember the stories about Flight 93, and the tapes of the phone calls made from all the planes as people realized what was happening. I remember wondering if I could ever be that brave.

I remember that we went to New York for Thanksgiving that year, and there were still flyers with the faces of the missing and the dead all over the subway stations.

There's a lot of people who remember political motivations, strong feelings for or against war. I don't remember feeling strongly either way, just horrified and confused at what had happened.

I was lucky, no one I knew died that day and my life was basically unchanged. That wasn't the case for many many people, and they have my deepest sympathies and most heartfelt condolences.

Since April of 2001, I haven't been back to where the towers were. I'm not going back until there's something there again.

Guy Pearce? Guy Pearce.

2010-09-08T22:33:00.004-04:00

Blogger recently added a pretty detailed Stats tab to the dashboard and most of what it showed was a complete surprise to me because I'm lazy and never went poking around to figure out how many readers I was getting, or where I was getting them from before. I was blissfully oblivious. Now, however, I can't resist useless information when it's RIGHT THERE* so I've been reading it a lot.

Because of this I know that the post of mine which is, by far, the most popular was my post on my ideal casting for some Batman villains. Seriously, I devoted three entire posts to bras and boobs, and THAT is what's drawing my traffic. More specifically, people are getting here by looking for Guy Pearce. I don't get it either, but it's not my place to discern the whys and hows of the internet, only to use them to my advantage. Therefore, the remainder of this post will be pictures of Guy Pearce. Enjoy.

*I've been known to look up a movie's trivia on IMDB even before I'm done watching it. Yeah, I'm that person.

Alone

2010-09-05T23:01:00.002-04:00

I moved into my own apartment a few weeks ago, it's the first time I haven't had roommates or family members living with me. Already, I'm finding the benefits and downsides to this sort of situation:

Pros:
- Pants optional in all areas of the house
- The only dirty dishes are the ones you make
- No one "mistakenly" eats your food
- The AC can be set to your personal liking (especially important for those of us who are apparently lizards)
- Showers can last as long as you want
- No one tries to move in their not-quite-boyfriend without asking
- You can leave your homework out all over the couch and no one cares
- Interacting with ANYONE is 100% optional on weekends
- No chance of the crackhead roommate stealing your debit card

Cons
- It's harder to be spontaneous when you can't just walk out into your living room and say "Hey, wanna get some food?"
- No one to split chores with
- Sometimes it's good to have an external motivation to shower
- There are movies best watched with a group
- Drinking at home is ALWAYS drinking alone
- You have to buy all the furniture, cookware, dishes, etc. yourself
- Sharing rides is trickier when you can't just trade off with a roommate
- When you buy something cute there's no one to come home and show it off to
- No one to split the cost of delivery pizza with

Overall I do like living by myself thanks to several dozen hermit tendencies that were difficult to indulge with roommates (see above re: pants) but there's some roommates I do miss having around. Others, however, not so much (see above re: thieving crackhead). But there's sometimes, like when I get "Big Trouble in Little China" from Netflix and I really wish I had someone cool around to watch it with over pizza and booze.

Life

2010-09-01T21:16:00.003-04:00

On August 21st I got into a car in Central Maryland. In the week and a half since then I've gone to Harry Potter World, moved into a new apartment, bought a new car (it's named Mickey), got one job, set up an interview for another job, went back to class, celebrated my 24th birthday and fought with student account services over when I'd be getting the loan money I needed to pay the rent on my new apartment that was due today.

So, you know, that's why you haven't heard much from me.

But that's all over now, I'm just in the process of learning how to juggle my new schedule, Pajiba, blogging, and some semblance of a social life. I know all of you are eagerly awaiting my semi-regular posting to make your lives richer so let me assure you that I will keep writing SOMETHING on this blog, even if it's only barely coherent rants at things I read other places on the internet. Today's would've been to the dude who took hostages down at Discovery Channel headquarters. Listen, buddy, I'm not a fan of the Duggars either but there's a big difference between advocating responsible family planning and threatening to blow up a building with a day care in it because you think the earth is over populated.

That's all for today, I've got some Schoenberg to listen to before class tomorrow.

CBII: Book #42 - The Stand

2010-08-29T22:13:00.001-04:00

The Stand is one of Stephen King's longest books and the best way to see the full breadth of his talents and weaknesses as a writer, particularly in the "complete and uncut" version. I've read a lot of King and enjoy tend to enjoy his short stories a lot more than his novels and the first half of The Stand, which reads a bit like several connected short stories, is superior to the second half which reads more like a novel. In the first half of the book the horror of the Superflu makes itself known and society begins to crumble, and we meet the people who will guide us into the novel's second half. These introductions, and the vignettes exploring the spread of the flu and people's reaction to it are the best part of the book. The second half, where humanity splits into two camps around representations of God and the Devil for a final theological show down, is weaker by far.

The Stand is a relatively straightforward story; a military engineered strain of the flu gets loose and before the base can be sealed a single soldier escapes and goes on the run with his family. From there, the infection spreads through the entire United States and, if I'm reading one particular passage correctly, the rest of the world. While the flu is a frighteningly efficient killer, there is a fraction of a percent of the population who is immune and survives the destruction of the vast majority of humanity. They slowly begin to come together into two groups that coalesce around either Mother Abigail, a 108 year old woman who communes with God, or Randall Flagg, the dark man, who is some kind of demon incarnate.

This, however, doesn't touch on the relationships between the characters which are the best part of the beginning of the book and where the end fails the reader. Harold Lauder, an intelligent but pompous 16 year old boy, turns from your average bitter outcasted teenager into something close to a genius filled with a massive amount of rage resulting from reading Fran Goldsmith's diary. In an interesting kind of "Guess that's why there was an editor" moment, King states that Harold had the chance to turn himself into a good person by putting the diary back but lost his soul when he read word one… and also that there was a moment after finishing the diary when he could have let go of his anger and hurt and become a new person in a new world and leave all the old hurts and bitterness behind. Fran herself goes from a woman in her early twenties with a strong streak of stubborn in her to a woman who is mostly characterized by being Stu's "woman" and pregnant. Nick Andros, the deaf mute with a background that betrays his incredible intelligence and drive, is relegated to a prop next to characters who can speak and therefore interact more conveniently for King's writing.

I could go on about the flaws I see in this novel* but in all honesty, I've read it several times. It's a story that sticks with you long after you read it (particularly around flu season) and while it's not perfect it's still compelling and interesting. King's portrayal of the end of humanity is terrifying in it's plausibility, and the idea that would become so rigidly and immediately divided into the best and worst of their own natures has a chilling realism to it. It's long, but it's hard to put down, and it is worth it for everything King gets right in spite of the things that he doesn't.

*Side Note: I've seen some complaints about the length of my reviews. I could have conversations lasting hours about all of these books, but writing about them on my own gets tedious to me pretty quickly and I'd assume most of you would feel like wise. I'm not claiming these are the best synopsis or reviews of the books in question, they're just the ones I'm writing. Feel free to seek out other sources if you want something wordier.

CBII: Book #41 - Many Waters

2010-08-19T14:17:00.003-04:00

(Note: I was going for the full series but couldn't find A Swiftly Tilting Planet anywhere in our house. Sorry about that. Oh, and spoilers ahead.)

Many Waters is the only book in the Wrinkle in Time series that prominently features the "other" Murray children; Sandy and Dennys. While Meg and Charles Wallace are lauded over and praised for their brand of specialness that sets them apart from other children and draws the attention of greater forces in the Universe to them, Sandy and Dennys are dismissed by their quirky siblings as "the normal ones" for their ability to fit in easily and comfortably with society. They will never be asked to save the planet from sure destruction by kything with beings from the far reaches of space, but they also go through life unmolested by the classmates and townspeople that find Meg and Charles so unappealing. However, this means that Sandy and Dennys are much more relatable narrators than Charles and Meg specifically because they are so ordinary.

Sandy and Dennys are in their parents lab one winter day and jokingly type into their father's computer that they'd like to go somewhere warm, sunny, and sandy thinking of beaches. Suddenly they are transported into the middle of a desert where a very small but strong man comes to their rescue. This world features unicorns, manticores, tiny creatures that look like mammoths, and larger human like winged creatures referred to as Seraphim and Nephilim. As Sandy and Dennys recover from the severe sunburns and sun poisoning they developed while wandering in the desert, they begin to realize that rather than being on a strange planet as they initially suspected they are in the middle of the Noah's Ark story on earth and the man who originally took them in was one of Noah's sons.

Rereading this was strange for me, as it was one of the few instances where what I remember of the book from childhood and what I discovered upon reading it again were extremely different. For some reason, I had remembered that one of the twins had slept with the character Tiglah and lost the ability to touch the unicorns which can only be touched and ridden by virgins. This doesn't happen anywhere in the book and actually, it's unicorns that are used to get Sandy and Dennys back to their own time. I'm not sure when or how that disconnect happened but it was strange to reread something you thought you remembered and realizing you were wrong.

Many Waters isn't as complex or as deep into science fiction realm as the other books in the series, it's much closer to fantasy. If you're familiar with Catholic/Christian mythology and mythological creatures, there's not even any new concepts or "rules" to the book that you have to learn aside from the twins initial transportation to the desert. The story is more driven by the characters, their interactions, and the twin's dawning realization of what awaits these people in the very near future. It's more accessible to people who don't like science fiction, and I remember liking it as a kid (even if I didn't remember it particularly well) and I liked it this time around. Sandy and Dennys aren't as complex as their "special" siblings, but they're rendered as real people here and their struggles to figure out where they are and what they're supposed to do are easier to relate to than Charles Wallace's innate knowledge of EVERYTHING he encounters. It seems aimed at a slightly older crowd than the other books, the few metaphysical concepts discussed are complicated and use some hefty vocabulary and there's some discussion of virginity, sex, and a child birth scene that would be fairly graphic for younger readers.

CBII: Book #40 - A Wind In The Door

2010-08-17T14:25:00.000-04:00

The second in the A Wrinkle in Time series and one of a stupefying number of books in Madeleine L'Engle's overall of weirdly interconnected stories and family lines. This book sees Charles Wallace in mortal danger as dark forces in the universe find their way into the very cells of his body to attempt to kill him.

A Wind in the Door finds the Murray children more at peace with their world now that their father has returned, though Charles Wallace is being tormented by his school mates much the same way Meg was in A Wrinkle in Time. The only difference is that Charles will not or simply cannot fight back, partly due to the strange illness he seems to have come down with. Meg begins to worry more about Charles when he tells her that he saw dragons on their property, leading Meg to assume that he's hallucinating until she meets Progo, a cherubim, and learns of the mission she must go on with this new creature to save her younger brother and the universe.

This book always struck me as the least accessible of the Wrinkle in Time series. L'Engle takes her concept and characters to some very strange places, metaphysically speaking, and I remember reading this as a child and having a very hard time connecting to what was actually going on or what the characters were supposed to do because all of it seemed very vague. A lot of the story revolves around the concept of "naming" people or things which, in the understanding of the children the book is aimed at anyway, already have names. Also, when Meg "names" her former principal, Mr.Jenkins, she is told that she must love him and use that love to find the real Mr.Jenkins to name him correctly. I'm not sure about most people's relationship with their principals in late elementary and/or junior high school but if the universe depended on me loving one of those individuals it'd be a sorry ass day for the universe, particularly if I had the kind of history with them that Meg does with Mr.Jenkins. Reading it now that I'm older, I can recognize that in the limited vocabulary of the English language "love" can mean many different things depending on the context but it's still a section that makes me raise my eyebrows a little.

This book also formally introduces the concept of "kything" a sort of communal meditating that allows Meg and the others to transport their consciousnesses to other places and to communicate without speaking. The entire final action sequences takes place via kything which means that no matter what the characters are describing happening the extremely literal children (such as yours truly) can only picture all of them lying on a big rock twitching a bit the way people do when they're dreaming.

A Wind in the Door is an interesting book and probably the most heavily science fiction of the whole Wrinkle in Time series but it's not a great fit for younger kids. The action is difficult to follow and the guiding concepts of the novel are probably a little too complex for most children to grasp.

Why I Love The Internet

2010-08-12T19:35:00.002-04:00

Sometime around two weeks ago, there was this:

Then, about one week ago, there was this:

And today, there is this:

All the best things end with marching bands.

Everything Happens At Once

2010-08-10T18:03:00.002-04:00

The next few weeks are going to be a little crazy for me as I go to New York, pack for Miami, move back to Miami, start class and celebrate my birthday all in the next 17 days. There may actually be more stuff in there as I go along, but we'll see.

Anyway, I'll be getting in here to post whenever I can about whatever happens to spring to my mind. Actually, at the moment, I'm thinking about foundation. Anyone out there got a good foundation recommendation? I don't wear any now, and don't plan to wear it except for important events so it's ok if it's pricy because it should last me for a long time. My skin is glow in the dark pale tending towards pink. Maybe I'll just go by Sephora and get one of their people to help me out with that, but I'd still love to hear anything y'all have to say.

Why Bras Suck: Part #3

2010-08-06T15:50:00.000-04:00

So having discussed the difficulty in measuring bras and the fact that bra measurements have only the slimmest of relations to how a bra will actually fit you, the last and final problem with bra shopping is:

Bra Sizes Are No Better Than Other Clothing Sizes

Occasionally people will ask me what my dress size is and the answer is usually "I don't know, where are you shopping?" because like most women my size will vary widely based on where you buy said clothing. There tends to be an average that's generally a good starting point, but it's never hard and fast enough that you can walk confidently into any store and say "I'm a size H. No need to try it on, I just know." Some of it is vanity sizing, working on the idea that if the number on the tag is lower women are more likely to buy the clothing which is extremely apparent if you work off patterns which still use traditional sizes so they run about 2 to 4 sizes bigger than whatever you are in modern sizes and there is no such thing as a size 0. Personally, I don't care if the number on the tag is 850, if it looks good and fits comfortably then I'll wear it. It's a size, not a measure of your worth as a human being and usually you look better if you just wear the correct size instead of trying to pour yourself into an ill fitting and uncomfortable garment because the number on the tag is slightly smaller.

That said, I've found bra sizes to be similarly nebulous particularly when it comes to different styles of bras. The size you wear in a tee shirt bra may not be the size you wear in a demi-cup or a push up bra and that's just within one manufacturer. Never mind trying to figure out what size you are between different brands. Also, the range of sizes available in American stores* is pretty slim and if you fall even a little outside what's considered "average" you're almost always shit out of luck unless you go to a boutique which have some very nice bras that tend to be breathtakingly expensive. What ends up happening, at least in my case, is you take to the internet to find a bra that is maybe something close to your size and reasonably priced and once it gets there you put it on, say "Eh, close enough" and call it even unless you can't breathe or your boobs are obviously falling out of the cups. I buy the majority of my bras online and like I said, I have a collection spanning two band sizes and three cup sizes.

How to change it? Well, I'd like to see a standardization of what a band size means. To me, the band size should be close to the measurement of your rib cage right underneath your breasts since that's where the band goes, since right now you're told to add like two inches to that measurement to get your band size. Why? Why can't it just be a one to one equivalent? That if you measure around your rib cage and come up with 34 inches, you're a 34 band size and so on. Obviously there's still an issue with odd numbers but there always has been and at least if you came up with 31" you'd have a better idea of where to go with that. As far as cup size goes there's no easy answers, although hilariously the "subtract your band measurement from the measurement around the fullest part of your chest" works for me if I take the rib cage measurement instead of the around the back and over measurement most sources are advocating now. Still, the problem with cup size will always be that breast shape and composition is going to affect fit and you're just going to have to try on bras until you find out what works for you.

Finally, let's get a few things straight: a bra can help you look better and it can help contain breasts but that's about it. Some of those same articles about how all these women are wearing the wrong size bra seem to attribute qualities that bras don't have. If you're carting around a set of 34Hs the only thing that's going to stop you from having back problems is a reduction; a good bra will help with support but you're still going to be really damn top heavy which is usually what leads to pain and soreness. Also, sagging has more to do with genetics and what's inside your boobs than what you wear on the outside. If it's going to happen it's going to happen. A bra may slow the process down but that's about it.

So, those are my thoughts on bras, bra shopping and boobs in general. I'm not sure if they were at all helpful but if you read all of them I'd like to thank you for your time and I promise I will be putting a boob moratorium on this blog for like the next few weeks to compensate for all the excess boobs in these posts. Boobs. Knockers. Sweater puppies. Bajubblies. Tits. Huge tracts of land. Hooters. etc. I'm done now.

*My time in Ireland led me to discover that there and many other place in Europe the bra selection is not only broader size wise but offer a wider array of options in terms of budget.

Why Bras Suck: Part #2

2010-08-04T14:01:00.003-04:00

On Monday we discussed the problem that bra sizes are difficult to figure out and only give you a starting point, at best, to finding out what size you actually wear. Today, we'll discuss problem two:

Different Boobs Are Different

Bras work on a principle that if you measure the girth of someone's rib cage and the volume of their breasts (what bra sizing claims to do, anyway) that you'll come up with a basic model that will fit everyone who's measurements fall into that rough framework. The problem is that it doesn't take a lot into account; where your boobs sit on your chest, how dense they are, whether they're round or tend towards a more tear drop shape, etc. All of this can affect how a bra fits and none of it is reflected in the size.

This isn't helped by the fact that, at least in my case, different bras can give the impression of wildly different sizes and I'm not even straying into the realm of push-ups here. Also, if you happen to have boobs that sit more to the side of your rib cage than the middle, people will generally underestimate your cup size because the lack of obvious cleavage will lead them to believe that you're not that big. Similarly, if you've got a smaller cup size but boobs that sit right next to each other, people will probably overestimate your size. I know I've gotten comments from people when I mention my bra size that I can't possible wear Size X because I don't like I should based on things that have nothing to do with the actual volume of my breasts and everything to do with how they look externally.

The media doesn't help when it runs articles about, say, Christina Hendricks and claims she's a 36C. First of all, I doubt she's a 36 band size, probably more like a 34 but that's not really what's important. She obviously has a set of very high volume breasts and even a lay person can spot that the difference between where her bra band falls and across the fullest part of her chest is going to be more than three inches (the standard approximation for a C cup). I don't know what size Ms.Hendricks is and I'm not going to hazard a guess because that would be contributing to the problem, but it's like when magazines run pictures of female celebrities with their "weight" printed in big letters next to the picture like they're some kind of authority. It really looks like the best guess of the guy who works in the mail room, not an actual indication of reality.

(Actually, this is a problem I see in the media and among men a lot; the assumption that a higher band number means bigger tits. It doesn't, necessarily. A 34D has bigger boobs than a 36B. Although if your band size changes, your cup size will change too. If you go from a 34 to a 36 your cup size will go down because the larger band will mean the cup volume is distributed differently and if you go from a 34 to a 32 your cup size will go up because the smaller band will make the bottom of the cup slightly smaller. Easy, right? Imagine trying to figure this shit out when you were 11.)

So, that's part two; there's a lot of factors involved in finding the right bra size that aren't taken into account by bra manufacturers and the perception of what bra size one should be is not helped by the media. Next time: Why bra sizes are just as arbitrary as most clothing sizes for women.

Why Bras Suck: Part #1

2010-08-02T14:55:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking about that post I mentioned in last week's rant about registering for websites, the one where I talk about my bra, and I'm still not to the point where I want to tell all of you out there about my own personal bra but I figured I could do a few on bras in general and how much I hate them. Part of the hate stems from the fact that I didn't have to start wearing a real bra and not one of those cami tops with the elastic band in them until I was 22, but most of it is that bras just genuinely suck. Here's the first reason why they do:

No One Agrees On How To Measure Bra Size

Every so often Oprah or some study funded by a company that makes bras comes out with this "shocking" study that shows that like, 115% of American women are wearing the wrong bra size. I'm sure a lot of people who don't wear bras (i.e, men) are like "How can you be wearing the wrong bra? If it doesn't fit, get a new one!" Because it sounds just that easy, right? Nope.

A quick search of websites that sell bras (Figleaves, Victoria's Secret, and Bare Necessities) turns up three different ways to measure for band size. The VS and Bare Necessities methods seem simple at first glance, but in the event of an odd measurement (bra bands only come in even numbers) one tells you to round down and another to round up. Fig leaves uses a different way all together which has no direct relationship between what your tape measure reads and what band size you should be wearing. Super fun times, right? Right.

OK, so lets say you've taken a shot in the dark and gotten a measurement, any measurement, for your band size. Now you have to measure to get your cup size which is really easy; you just take another measurement and subtract the first one from it. Well, at least according to VS and Bare Necessities. Fig leaves gives you no guidance on how to deduce cup size other than if your tits are spilling out it's too small and if you can stuff a few socks in there it's too big. So, following all the steps listed on Victoria's Secret website (and according to their in store bra fitters, who love to assault me with measuring tape when I walk in their store) I am lets refer to it as Size #1. However, if I round the measurement the other way, I'm Size #2. If I try on a bra that's Size #1, it doesn't fit. The band is too big and the cups are too small. When this happens, the VS sales people look at me in bewilderment and say "But you're a perfect Size #1!" Size #2 is also dubious, usually the band fits but again, there's an issue with the cups. Having this happen more than twice can lead to a state of frenzy where you just buy anything that's even close to fitting and call it good enough because you want those perky ladies to stop arguing with you that you're simply perceiving reality wrong and that bra definitely fits you when it doesn't. This is how I ended up with a bra collection spanning three different cup sizes and two band sizes. All of them fit. Some just fit better than others.

Later this week: Why Bras Suck: Part #2 or Different Boobs are Different.

CBII: Book #39 - A Wrinkle in Time

2010-08-01T22:55:00.000-04:00

I can't remember the last time I read this book, but it had to be at least ten years ago and I probably read it the first time when I was about eight and it's one of the few books from my childhood that I could remember specific details from as an adult.

A Wrinkle in Time tells the story of Meg Murray, her bother Charles Wallace and their friend Calvin O'Keefe as they travel across the universe to rescue Meg and Charles's father who has been trapped on a distant planet for years. This is a very simplified version of the plot, but it's necessary to boil it down to it's most essential elements.

This book stayed with me not necessarily because of the plot, but because of the emotions Meg experiences. Her feelings are strong, conflicting, and frequently not the sort of things that good, smart girls are "supposed" to feel. She hates her appearance and wishes she could fit in better while at the same time lashing out at anyone who teases her for not fitting in. She can be sullen, moody, and aggressive. Her journeys place a responsibility on her that is too great, and she knows that it is too great and actively rebells against that responsibility being placed on her. Too frequently in books where children are given great tasks they rise to the occasion like it's only natural that an 11 year old should defeat powerful enchantments and face down an adult wizard. The fact that Meg doesn't made her much more real to me.

Other parts of the book bug me, though. Charles Wallace's precociousness can be a little hard to take when he addresses his much older sister with "good girl" as he's walking her through a deductive reasoning process. I've never had a genius telepath for a little brother, but I do have a particularly bright younger sister and I can promise you if she ever said "good girl" to me at a similar age she would have been pinched under the table and hard. I understand that he's different and special and Meg and her whole family have nothing but love for him, but siblings are siblings and Charles addressing Meg (or his mother, in other passages) in such condescending fashion doesn't read "intuitive genius as a young child" to me as much as it reads "arrogant little shit."

A Wrinkle In Time is an imaginative and interesting children's book that has stood the test of time. The details of Meg's everyday life are generic enough that the story really hasn't aged too much, and Tessering is still an unknown technology so those sections are still intriguing as well. The writing doesn't insult the intelligence of children, and the characters are flawed enough to be relatable (except Charles Wallace, but I don't think he's supposed to be relatable). My mom read it as a kid, I read it, and whenever I have kids they'll probably read it too.

I'll Give You a Damn Password

2010-07-30T13:44:00.002-04:00

The internet is a wonderful thing that I may be slightly addicted to. As such, I spend a certain amount of time on the internet and a certain amount of money on the internet as well. There are many stores out there who are only too delighted to allow me to spend my money on the internet, but they all seem to want me to register with them.

I have no problem giving out my email address to these sites. In fact, I have one email address that's entire purpose is to act as a sort of clearinghouse for those various websites and mailing lists that are absolutely insistent about being given an email address*. I check it once or twice a day, usually to delete the goddamned facebook notifications and see if I got any coupons. And the other day, I did! I got a coupon to buy seven pairs of panties from Victoria Secret's PINK! line** for $25! Awesome! And I was all happy and exclamation point-y so I clicked on the email to go get the coupon so I could take it to the store for a panty party.

Then the website asked me for my password. Now, I have a relatively easy to crack default password I use on many of these sites but lately it's been getting rejected more and more frequently because I'm supposed to have a number and non-numeric character or at least one capitalized letter in there and I understand this out of my bank but we're talking about a coupon for panties. Seriously. Oooo, someone might hack into my email and steal my opportunity to buy underwear for slightly less than its regular five for $25 price! How terrifying! And it's not just them, Wegmans also insists on a multi-character password so that people… can't see the recipes I've bookmarked? The shopping lists I've saved? I don't even use my credit card on that website. I can understand requiring a password like that if the site saves your credit card and shipping information every time, but I'm starting to wish there was a level where you could just be on the mailing list, get coupons, and have the option to NOT have your personal info saved by the site.

Basically, I'm just annoyed because I need to pick a new "random crap" password that incorporates all these specifications so someone doesn't steal my very very valuable coupons from me. Or get my Beauty Insider deals from Sephora. God forbid.

*It also used to be my primary email address from back when I was in high school so of course I can't get my parents to stop using it despite the fact that I always respond to their emails from the address I actually use. This results in interesting conversations where my mom asks me if I got an email, I say no without thinking about it, she gets upset because she thinks she broke AOL or something and then I remember that she must've used the OTHER address, click over, find the email and reassure her that she did not make AOL anymore broken than it already was.

**Shut up. I'm still size 14 year old girl/meth addict and their stuff is colorful, fits, and is within spitting distance of looking like adult clothing, unlike the stuff they sell at Delia's. I am, however, still bitter that after offering some bras in my size for all of five minutes they've discontinued them forever and ever but that's a blog post I'll write when/if I'm comfortable with telling the internet my bra size.

Cleaning Out My Closet (Among Other Things)

2010-07-27T17:17:00.001-04:00

Over at Pajiba After Dark I've occasionally joked about watching "Hoarders" as a cheap form of therapy. This is not 100% accurate as I'm not nearly at hoarding levels, I'm basically charmingly disorganized and really only up until it actually impedes my ability to do anything I want to do. I don't have personal connections with that two week old copy of "Entertainment Weekly" that ended up under my bed, it's just not hurting anything where it is and I'm lazy. Of course, when I go to get out of bed one morning, step on it and launch myself face first into the floor at speeds that should be impossible by the laws of physics, I'll go on a purge. That's when I'm in my own place, though, as I'm living in my parent's house over the summer I'm back in the room I've had since I was 13 which has had a full decade to accumulate junk. This is compounded by the fact that I keep moving in and out of it, so new batches of junk are frequently dumped in the room and a lot of that junk never actually leaves because I realize I don't need it when I move back out. This means that cleaning my room is occasionally an exercise in the weird. Here's what the questions I asked myself this time around?

- How are the Band-Aids getting out of their box and all over everywhere?
- Why is there a container of those little red cinnamon cake decorations in here?
- Was that dark purple lipstick ever flattering or was I just that stupid at 14?
- Do I have too many craft supplies or are they reproducing when I'm not looking?
- When did my high school diploma end up on the floor?
- Where did all this stuff come from?
- Fucking magnets, how do they work?
- Why is the "Toy Story 2" soundtrack in the Mariah Carey's "#1s" box and how come I don't recall ever owning either of these?
- How long do you have to keep gifts before you throw them out?
- Do I develop the disposable camera with five shots left on it that I don't remember from ever or just leave it be?
- How do I have this many clothes?
- Why does my dresser only eat single socks and not paired socks?
- Why is my make up drawer about half sample packets?
- How do things get under the bed? I don't put them there.

I'm not done yet, so we'll have to see so many other mysteries I uncover.

CBII: Book #38 - The Mother Tongue

2010-07-25T13:47:00.003-04:00

Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way is a touch out of date. The book was written in 1990 and the last 20 years have offered a wealth of linguistic development and alteration. There are words that most of us probably use every day now that didn't even exist in 1990, never mind the rise of text speak, l33t speak, and those damn cats that want cheeseburgers. However, Mother Tongue still offers a very comprehensive and occasionally humorous overview of the development of the English language up to the cusp of the internet era.

English is an inherently weird language and Bryson does a very good job of summing up all the ways it is weird. He touches on spelling, pronunciation, why spelling and pronunciation are frequently unrelated, and a few of those "grammar rules" that seem to exist only to irritate people. He also gives a pretty good run down of the words English borrowed and then bastardized and the minor differences between American English and British English with a healthy subtext about why the British should stop being such damn snobs about American English because in some ways we're actually a bit closer to the English of Shakespeare. Of course, in a lot more ways, we're totally not.

That's not to say this is an easy read. While the book is only around 240 pages, there's so much information and reference material that a few pages is enough to wear you out if you're trying to read purely for pleasure. Bryson does manage to inject a certain amount of humor and wit into the text, but there's simply so much information to absorb that it does little to lighten the tone. However, it's all worth it for the look on someone's face while you explain exactly why splitting the infinitive is not only permissible in English but to argue otherwise is to ignore the basic structure and function of verbs in English and to encourage muddled sentence structure.

Mother Tongue is a good read for anyone who's ever been curious about the English language in either Britain or America. The fact that the book is 20 years out of date means there's some parts that seem a little short sighted (Bryson predicts that Irish Gaelic will die out in the near future, but when I was in Ireland in 2008 all the signs featured both English and Irish Gaelic, it was required that all children learn the language, and there were TV shows in it as well) but for the average reader it's a good place to start examining the linguistic oddities of English. And if you want to learn more, his extremely long list of references is probably an excellent place to start.

CBII: Book #37 - The Last Lecture

2010-07-24T23:26:00.003-04:00

It's hard to criticize a book written by a dying man trying to leave something for his extremely young children who he will never see grow into adults. Whatever I may think or feel about it doesn't really matter; Randy Pausch's stated goal is to leave something behind for his children so they'll know their father loved them deeply and wishes that he could've been there as they grew up to impart the frequently flawed but always well meaning advice that he dispenses throughout this book.

Mr.Pausch's advice is the sort of thing that sounds very inspiring at first blush but when you sit down and think about it outside the context of a book written by a man with terminal pancreatic cancer, you start to see where it's generally impractical. One of the section is about "achieving your childhood dreams and two of the dreams that Mr.Pausch achieved were to become a Disney Imagineer, and having children. Now, I'm not sure about you, but when I was a kid my dreams were things like becoming the first female president or discovering a new planet. Obviously in the meantime those dreams have changed many many times to something more manageable, like paying off my student loans before I die. It's a wonderful thing to say that everyone should try to achieve their childhood dreams, but it's not really super applicable to most people's lives.

Overall, "The Last Lecture" is the sort of book people give high school graduates, or that you'd get from your grandmother for Christmas because her book club read it and she thought it was very inspiring. Mr.Pausch was a very accomplished, intelligent, person and the fact that he died of cancer is tragic, but… well, there's really no good way to say that dying does not necessarily impart wisdom without actually saying it. I hope I don't come of heartless here, and I'm glad that Mr.Pausch's children have this record (along with the videos he made for them) of a father who obviously loved them dearly and was extremely sad that he would not be able to see them grow up, but since I lack a personal connection to Mr.Pausch I found a lot of what he said to be trite or somewhat self congratulatory. Not that I think I'd have any better advice to give out if I found myself facing a terminal diagnosis, most of us really don't extraordinary insights into life, human nature, or the world around us. All we're trying to do is live the best life we can and Mr.Pausch's book makes it abundantly clear that that's exactly what he did and what he wants his children to do but while that is a lovely sentiment, it's not really enough to carry a book.

The actual "Last Lecture" he describes giving in the book is on YouTube if you'd like a somewhat condensed version of the message in the book. In the interest of full disclosure I haven't watched it because I did not feel it was necessary to watch it in order to review the book that was based on it.

Lists

2010-07-23T15:46:00.004-04:00

Stuff to do before moving to Miami:

- Varnish the unfinished bed-frame I bought from Ikea because it was super extra cheap.
- Buy mattress for said bed-frame
- Sort clothing into "Take" "Don't Take" and "Goodwill" piles
- Sort books into same
- Visit NYC one more time
- Make that dress with the fabric I bought at least a month ago
- Help my family find a new dog
- Find a job in Miami (in progress)
- Work out so I get some tone back in my noodly, weak blogging limbs
- Re-develop my alcohol tolerance
- Help my brother move into his new apartment
- Help my sister rearrange her room

It's going to be a long month.

Itchy

2010-07-21T21:40:00.000-04:00

Sunday night I went out to Maryland's Drive-In Theater, Bengies, with my brother, to see "Inception." It was a pretty cool experience, all things considered, but one thing we hadn't thought about was that with our engine off, as required by theater rules, we wouldn't have the air conditioning and would have to keep the windows open. This meant several things:

1. We were treated to the frustrated cries of the toddler next to us who clearly disapproved of her parents' plan to bring her to the movie, probably hoping she would just fall asleep in the backseat so the could watch the movie. Her mom eventually took her to walk around somewhere else.
2. The INSANE sound system on the truck on the other side of us, which probably enhanced our movie going experience since the sound for the movie was piped in through a radio station so their sub woofers helped to recreate a true theater THX feel. At least on one side.
3. The goddamn ravenous mosquitos which feasted on every inch of exposed flesh, but especially my feet. I have maybe four bites on both arms combined, three on one hip where my shirt obviously rode up, and 12 on both my feet. One foot has 8 on it's own, I guess that foot happens to be tastier.

Overall I thought the experience was fun and since they play three movies on Fridays and Saturdays but it's the same price ($8 per person) it's a hell of a lot cheaper than regular theaters even if it is a 45 minute drive. And we just have to remember mosquito spray next time because dammit but itchy feet suck.

CBII: Book #36 - The Girl Who Played With Fire

2010-07-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

Nearly everyone who wants to read this book has read it, so I'll try and summarize quickly; picking up after the events of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo we find Lisbeth Salander globe trotting after getting breast implants and Mikael Blomkvist is in Sweden running his magazine Millennium which has gained new acclaim following his book. Eventually, Salander comes back to Sweden, ignores Blomkvist's attempts to reconnect, and finds herself being hunted by mysterious goons. Meanwhile, Blomkvist is working with a young couple who want to expose the underbelly of Sweden's sex trafficking by naming men who are in the police, government, and media as johns. Everything progresses smoothly until a double murder is committed and Salander's prints are found on the gun, kicking off a massive man hunt with Blomkvist alone in trusting Lisbeth's innocence.

I admire Stieg Larsson's ability to keep a reader interested, the book is hard to put down no matter what you think about it. On the other hand, there's a lot of places where I find the books confusing or frustrating. Larsson alway seems to feel the need to throw in sex scenes that are gratuitous enough to not be at all crucial to plot or character development, but not in depth enough to be just fun and smutty. At the beginning of this novel, he has Salander, a 25 year old woman, engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16 year old boy. Why? Hell if I know, and Larsson's not offering any good reasons why his apparent protagonist would be in a relationship that in most places would fall under the mantle of statutory rape in a book about sex trafficking involving young teenage girls. Because it's ok to have sex with teenage boys if you're an adult woman? Because Salander's just a hypocrite? It's never delved into, and the relationship is tossed aside when it becomes inconvenient, which it does pretty damn quickly and everyone could have been saved a lot of confusion if it had been left out entirely or if the character (who is pointless enough that it shouldn't matter) had simply been aged up to 19 or so. In fact, the whole first section of Salander on vacation seems to be mostly pointless except to reestablish that she hates men who treat women badly which, um, duh? I'm pretty sure that's something most women hate. There's more than a few parts like that, extraneous plot lines that seem to be there mostly to fill space in a book that doesn't really have words to spare once it gets going or flesh out characters that are tertiary to the plot at most.

The book does shed some light on things I found infuriating about the first book, like Lisbeth's refusal to seek police help when she's the victim of a violent rape and some of the most aggressively anti-social aspects of her personality. The final reveal did, thankfully, not take the direction I was worried it might but it was still somewhat less than the build up wanted it to be. I mean, aside from the part where Lisbeth is apparently some kind of superhero.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is not a bad book, but it's not a great book. It's gripping, and tense and you'll keep reading (and want to track down The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest given the cliff hanger it ends on) and if you can take some pretty graphic violence, it's enjoyable.

Settled

2010-07-19T21:55:00.002-04:00

Barring an unforeseen disaster, I have an apartment in Miami that I'll be moving into in a little over a month.

Now all I need is furniture! And a job. And food. And loans that don't make me want to drink. Nothing is ever easy.

I Write Like What Now?

2010-07-17T15:23:00.005-04:00

One woman versus an internet meme. Five examples of my writing from five different sources (blog post, book review, Pajiba After Dark intro, and two academic papers) and five results. I did not cherry pick the results, I swear that I only put in these five examples and dutifully recorded the results.

Example #1: "Reality television and the kind of 24/7 access to celebrities that the internet has offered brings up some questions about the nature of privacy and our relationship to the people on our televisions that don't have easy answers. One of the commenters on my column defended the decision to air Captain Phil's death because the viewers had a "relationship" with him and it was only right that they should be able to see that relationship to the end. That they deserved it. My point is that's exactly the kind of thinking I'm afraid of. Any relationship you have with someone on your TV, even a real person, is no different from the relationship you have with a character on a sitcom or drama. You'll never talk to them in person, never interact with them, and when they're gone either due to cancelation or death the only thing that changes is the parade of faces across your TV. You may be sad, you may even cry and grieve for the loss of that representation of them you'd grown attached to, but to suppose that you have a personal relationship that is equal to or supersedes the real life wishes or desires of that individual is simply false. Just because you've been tuning into "Deadliest Catch" for the last few years doesn't mean you have the "right" to watch a man die and his family's reaction to that event unless they say you can. Had the Harris family decided that those days should not be filmed, they wouldn't be cheating their viewers, they would be dealing with a very sensitive and deeply emotional time as they saw fit. No one knows how they're going to react to the death of a close family member, and to say that you'd rather the world not be watching while you go through that process is perfectly reasonable."

Result:

I write like
Stephenie Meyer

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Example #2: "In 1951 a woman named Henrietta Lacks died of an extremely aggressive form of cervical cancer in the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins. When she first received treatment for the cancer, a sample was cut from her tumor and sent to a lab responsible for trying to culture human cells for research. Henrietta's cells began to grow, and unlike every other culture before them, they never died. The cells became integral to research on cancer, on the polio vaccine, the HPV vaccine and on many other medical innovations. They were sent into space, and shipped to labs around the world. Millions of dollars have been reaped not just from the outcomes of the research that used Henrietta's cells, but from the sale of those cells to labs. Henrietta's family were never informed of her "contribution", and were not aware that her cells were being used in research until 20 years later. How her cells were being used was not fully explained to them until the early years of this decade when a researcher contacted by Rebecca Skloot, the author of this book, took the time to show Henrietta's daughter and one of her sons around his lab and discuss the issue with them. Most of her children can not afford health insurance to pay for the drugs their mother's cells helped develop."

Result:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Example #3: "The Lady Gaga episode of “Glee!” is on tonight, and anytime Lady Gaga comes up here (or most places around the interwebs) certain tiresome and utterly uninteresting discussions happen. This is my attempt at a preemptive strike at a couple of those topics: 1. I don’t give two shits whether or not you find Lady Gaga fuckable. In fact, the only person who cares less than me is probably Lady Gaga herself. Ooo, you think she’s not pretty, random individual on the internet? I’m sure she’ll cry herself to sleep tonight in her luxury hotel surrounded by custom made couture while wiping her bitter tears away with $1,000 bills. Seriously. 2. Can we all stop debating whether or not she has a penis? This is one of those rumors that pops up with virtually any prominent female figure that doesn’t 100% cater to men’s fantasies (for example, I’ve never heard a rumor that Britney Spears was packing, but I heard plenty that P!nk was) and it’s just ugly and boring. Also, after seeing what she wears on stage if she does have a penis she’s either the Leonard Da Vinci of tuck jobs or she’s the one penis bearing person Michael Bay might actually beat in a dick measuring contest. You’re still welcome to tell us all how much you can’t stand her music but let’s face it; those of us who like Gaga are just going to roll our eyes and continue to try and learn the “Bad Romance” dance in our living rooms and those of you who don’t like Gaga aren’t going to start liking her based on anything we say. So! Onto Tuesday night’s TV"

Result:

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Example #4: [WARNING: SPOILERS FOR CHUCK PALAHNIUK'S DIARY AHEAD]
"Jackson, herself a mother at the time of writing “The Lottery” creates a sympathetic mother character, a woman who’s leading a normal family life in a seemingly normal town until all turn against her based only on random chance. Her husband and children even aid in her death, a throwback to the Oedipal wishes of a small girl who wishes her father would cast aside the mother for her. Bill Hutchinson seems particularly cold toward his wife at the end, when she refuses to reveal her paper. When she will not do it on her own “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it. . . Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd” (Jackson, 301). Palahniuk’s novel displays Misty not as a mother by chance, but by necessity. While she was dating her husband, who was aware even then of her ghastly role in his town, he deliberately sabotaged all her birth control efforts, so she would become pregnant and move to the island to get married. Her father in law even tells her “’Under one name or another, you’re the mother of us all’” (Palahniuk, 245) which only emphasizes the importance Palahniuk places on this idealized mother figure. Not only is Misty the mother of her children, but of all the people on the island. Peter, her husband, was killed not because he was trying to save her, but because he tried to leave her. Their marriage was a sham, a device used to get Misty pregnant and have her move to Waytansea island, and he intended to undo their plans by leaving her with their daughter to be with his lover. However, the night he tries to leave he is dosed with sleeping pills, and is found half dead in a car left running in the garage in what would be a textbook suicide attempt but for the bag of clothes in the trunk. The whole novel, he is in a coma with seemingly no hope of recovery. Palahniuk removes the bad and disloyal father neatly, before he can become a problem or a threat. However, Misty’s (supposedly dead) father in law reappears near the climax of the novel to explain to her how her sacrifice works, and then burns to death while in awe of her artwork. Misty’s mother in law, Peter’s doting mother, is the hand that guides Misty to her ultimate purpose, with the assistance of Misty’s own daughter. The men on the island are completely secondary, most of Misty’s eventual sacrifice is orchestrated by Grace Wilmont alone. In this way there is also evidence of the infant splitting of the mother figure; Misty represents the “good mother” who gives all of herself for others and who is essentially faultless, Grace is obviously the “bad mother” who is complicit in the homicide attempt on her own son who persecutes the “good mother”, Misty. "

Result:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Example #5: "Venturing outside the mainstream Mormon Church, the lasting effect of early misogyny becomes even more pronounced. Within these fundamentalist sects, existing on the edge of the law while practicing polygamy in what they believe is the true version of the Mormon faith, sexual abuse of young girls and women is incredibly common. Girls as young as 14 are married off to men more than three times their age, all while being told that God has willed this union, and that their very salvation depends on her being a faithful wife and mother. The sermons of the prophets scattered among these sects stress obedience, that one does not question the scripture of the revelations of the prophets, that the prophet speaks directly to God and to disbelieve him is to become apostate. Men who are apostate are thrown out of the church, their wives and children “assigned” to other men and their property (which is generally owned by the prophet) removed from him. The fact that the wives and children of these men are re-assigned just as physical property is says something very clear about the perception of women within these groups. This doctrine of woman hating is so strong that it can influence men who were had previously been good husbands and fathers. In the account of two heinous murders committed by former Mormon men who had converted to violent fundamentalism, the sister of one of the victims described the man who masterminded the murders, stating “’it was such a complete reversal from the way he’d been. Before Dan brainwashed him, Ron had treated Dianna like a queen. He was just one of the nicest men I’ve ever known. But when this happened he became one of the meanest men I’ve ever known.” (Krakauer, 148) Institutionalized misogyny is nothing new as far as religion goes, but it is striking to see that under the influence of one piece of generally forgotten scripture, a man can change his whole perception of an entire gender so drastically."

Result:

I write like
J. K. Rowling

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I find it interesting that on the post I used the name "Leonardo Da Vinci" I got the result "Dan Brown" and on the excerpt featuring an individual named Ron I got the result J.K Rowling. I think this is where I call bullshit.

CBII: Book #35 - The Dead Zone

2010-07-15T17:45:00.000-04:00

The Dead Zone seems to have been written as a philosophical exercise; if you could get in a time machine and head back to Germany in about the 1930s, would you kill Hitler? The book is not subtle about this point, in fact it's a prominent feature of the last third of the book with the main character repeatedly asking the question of others and of himself. And, to be quite honest, it's a bit stronger of a premise than Stephen King usually has in his novels.*

John Smith is your average young teacher at the start of a promising career and a promising relationship. At the fair one night with his girlfriend, Sarah, he has a run of luck at a gambling wheel that seems to hint at minor psychic abilities. Then Sarah gets sick, Johnny leaves the wheel to drive her home in her car and the cab he takes back to his apartment is hit by teenagers drag racing down the road. Johnny spends the next five years in a coma while Sarah, his parents, and the world move on without him. When Johnny wakes up, it's found that he has a certain amount of brain damage stemming from the accident that he refers to as the Dead Zone but he also has developed the ability to see into people's futures or pasts by touching them or objects that belong to them. The ability isn't constant, but it's frequent enough that he earns a bit of a reputation as he leaves the hospital. One day he shakes the hand of a man named Greg Stillson who is running for Congress and has a vision of a future full of death and devastation, which is when he begins to wrestle with the aforementioned moral question.

Now, I've sort of streamlined the story's perspective, which tends to hop around a lot between the various characters. There's more than a few side plots which is surprising considering that this book is not nearly as long as most of King's later works. While the concept of Johnny's abilities is central, it does take a long time to get to where Smith and Stillson meet and what I would consider the "central" concept of the story emerges. With that said, though, the story line is pretty direct and has a very definitive ending which is something King occasionally struggles with.** Johnny's power doesn't turn him into a superhero or overshadow him as a person, it's just a factor that takes his life from something ordinary to something outside the realm of typical human experience.

The Dead Zone is a good Stephen King book for people who don't particularly like Stephen King. There's only one instance of gore, no fantasy, no overt supernatural elements aside from Johnny's ability and it's a reasonably quick read. The story is interesting and well thought out, and the characters are well drawn enough to be easy to sympathize with. Some of the plot lines are telegraphed well in advance but overall it's a satisfying little book.

*"I know! I'm gonna write a book about cell phones that turn people into angry magic zombies! To show the dangers of technology!" probably tops the list in that category.
** I don't mean to sound like I'm bashing Mr.King. I've read a great deal of his work and think that he can be an amazing writer at times, particularly when it comes to short stories, but being familiar with so much of his work means that his weaknesses as a writer are more well known to me.

Deadliest Catch

2010-07-14T11:46:00.000-04:00

My Pajiba After Dark column yesterday incited a few interesting responses. Now, I subscribe to the theory of writing that if you have to write four paragraphs to defend and/or justify the one that people had a problem with, you probably should just have written that first paragraph better. I'm not writing this to defend or justify what I wrote in Pajiba After Dark, I stand by my column, but I am writing this because there was a lot more I wanted to say that I didn't get a chance to in the space alloted.

I was not particularly worried about how Discovery would be treating the death of Captain Phil Harris. Discovery has consistently filmed "Deadliest Catch" in a way that makes it clear that they have a tremendous amount of respect for all the men who work on those boats and what they do. I'm sure that had Captain Harris or his family asked them for privacy in his final days, they would have been granted that. On the other hand, there are a lot of reality shows that are predicated on the producers (and viewers) obviously NOT respecting the people on the show and that's what makes me jumpy.

Reality television and the kind of 24/7 access to celebrities that the internet has offered brings up some questions about the nature of privacy and our relationship to the people on our televisions that don't have easy answers. One of the commenters on my column defended the decision to air Captain Phil's death because the viewers had a "relationship" with him and it was only right that they should be able to see that relationship to the end. That they deserved it. My point is that's exactly the kind of thinking I'm afraid of. Any relationship you have with someone on your TV, even a real person, is no different from the relationship you have with a character on a sitcom or drama. You'll never talk to them in person, never interact with them, and when they're gone either due to cancelation or death the only thing that changes is the parade of faces across your TV. You may be sad, you may even cry and grieve for the loss of that representation of them you'd grown attached to, but to suppose that you have a personal relationship that is equal to or supersedes the real life wishes or desires of that individual is simply false. Just because you've been tuning into "Deadliest Catch" for the last few years doesn't mean you have the "right" to watch a man die and his family's reaction to that event unless they say you can. Had the Harris family decided that those days should not be filmed, they wouldn't be cheating their viewers, they would be dealing with a very sensitive and deeply emotional time as they saw fit. No one knows how they're going to react to the death of a close family member, and to say that you'd rather the world not be watching while you go through that process is perfectly reasonable.

More people seem to feel they have the right to certain information and images of celebrities and some of it is getting more and more unseemly. Gawker had a post today about several news sources running breathless stories about the possibility of Lindsey Lohan being raped in prison. Regardless of your feelings for Ms.Lohan, she is a real person and it's a tragic thing when people are raped. It's a despicable crime, not something that one simply has to endure if they're sent to prison because they violated their probation. But that didn't stop those sites from trying to profit off the idea of a deeply troubled young woman being sexually assaulted. If, god forbid, Ms.Lohan or one of her ilk were involved in a fatal car accident there is little doubt in my mind that TMZ would have footage of the gruesome aftermath up within the hour, and Perez Hilton would have stills up with MSPaint commentary scrawled on them within a day. Because we've come to this point in our culture where some people's lives are not their own. Where we judge that, for the crime of seeking a profession that involves being in the public eye or volunteering to be on television, an individual's entire existence becomes fodder for entertainment. Discovery is treating Captain Harris's death with respect, but if the same thing had happened on VH1 or to one of the Real Housewives do you think they would?

To bring this a little closer to home; what do you share on facebook? What parts of your life are you willing to put out there to your friends, relatives, high school classmates, that kid that sat across from you in English 101, that guy you worked with the one summer you were a life guard and everyone else who has access to your facebook profile? What about your twitter, your blog, your YouTube channel if you have any of them? I know there's parts of my life I've done my best to keep out of the public eye, what little of it there is on me. I don't write under my real name right now on Pajiba and I don't here either. If you know me in real life, you can identify that I'm Rusty but I've also done my work to try and make sure it can't happen the other way around. However, I have been recognized as Intern Rusty out in the real world, and it was a somewhat disconcerting moment for me. And I do think about what my "public" online presence says about me. I write Pajiba After Dark with a very specific tone in mind, but I'm not going to put a disclaimer on that and it does make me uncomfortable that I'm judged on something I tend to write in a deliberately flippant manner.

Anyway, that's kind of what I was getting at in last night's column. Celebrity, privacy, and respect for people as real people and not simply objects for our entertainment. Thank you if you managed to keep reading this far.

Catching Up

2010-07-12T01:02:00.005-04:00

So. I haven't posted in forever. This is because the following things were happening:

- I was spending a week turning 14 children ages 11-13 into a wee marching band. I had help from several other extremely dedicated and patient individuals, but it was still quite a ride. Pro-tip: If you ever have to work with 14 children ages 11-13 for ANY reason, make sure that 10 of them aren't boys. I spent a good portion of the week telling them to not hit each other, negotiating Guitar Hero turns, and explaining what "non-relevant questions" were. ("Asking what a 'non-relevant question' is, for one.") This was an actual exchange:
Me: OK, new rule: When we are in ensemble, and you ask a question that is not related to what we are doing THIS VERY INSTANT, you will run. Except Billy, because he likes running. You'll do push ups.
Student: OK, but…
Me: "What time is lunch?", "what time is it now?" and "how much longer?" are not relevant questions.
Student: But what if we have to puke?
Me: Um, do you have to puke?
Student: No, but, like, that's not a question, so could we tell you that?
Me: …you can tell us that. It is related to what we are doing this very instant.
Student: But you said…
Me: HORNS UP!

-After that week I spent a week recovering, planning a trip, and doing a lot of work on my Super Extra Awesome Top Secret Internship that I can't actually tell the internet about. If you need to know about it, you already do. It's not Pajiba, that's my Super Extra Awesome Internship that everyone knows about.

- On July 2nd I packed myself and far more clothes and shoes than were totally reasonable and drove down to Nashville to see how I liked the city, as I'll be needed a real job soon (cue panic attack) and I wanted to see if I could see myself in Nashville, which has a much lower cost of living than New York or LA and a much better selection of cowboy boots. I had a lot of fun for several different reasons, but I'm ambivalent on Nashville as a city.

- After I returned from Nashville, I spent 16 hours at home, repacked, and drove down to meet most of my family at the beach. I did not take more clothes and shoes than were reasonable, because I was going to Ocean City, Maryland and I've still got about 100lbs and 30 years before a bathing suit and flip flops is considered inappropriate attire. Also, sharing a hotel room with two teenage girls going into their sophomore year of high school? Tiny bit painful.

- Then I came home, where I am now and that about brings us up to this very moment.

Anyway, I'll be doing my best to post a bit more frequently, though that may be a mixed blessing when you get to the inevitable rant about apartment hunting in a city where you aren't actually located and maybe I'll just hijack a dorm room from an unwitting freshman. Welcome back!

CBII: Book #34 - The City of Falling Angels

2010-07-11T21:01:00.002-04:00

Venice is a funny place to visit. I went there when I was doing my semester abroad and I really only had about a day and a half there. After wandering around the city (and getting hopelessly lost while looking for the Peggy Guggenheim museum) I came to the seemingly contradictory conclusion that the perfect amount of time to spend in Venice was either less than 48 hours, or more than a month. Anything in between would leave you bored, because there's not a ton to do touristy wise in Venice, but also unfulfilled because you'd know that there was a different city lying just out of reach.

John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, attempt to uncover that Venice in his novel The City of Falling Angels. He arrives in Venice in the immediate aftermath of the devastating fire that destroyed the Fenice opera theater as it was being renovated and decides to explore Venetian society while keeping up with the investigation into the fire at the Fenice. The picture he paints is one of a city with deep secrets, long memories, and a simmering resentment towards the changes that "outsiders" are imposing on the city, even when they're positive.

The structure of The City of Falling Angels is scattershot. Berendt does keep coming back to the investigation into the fire at the Fenice, which moves back and forth between accusations of negligence and accusations of outright arson depending on who's doing the accusing. In between, however, he spends time with prominent citizens involved in Venice detailing personal feuds dating back to the early 20th century in some cases and a general overview of Venetian society as it stands at the time of the fire and subsequent investigation. He also covers the debate over rebuilding the Fenice, and the various interests being represented at those meetings.

Berendt's approach to the characters and conflicts he encounters around Venice is masterful, he'll present one side of the story that makes it look like the other side is entirely the villain and then calmly present the "villain"'s side with basically no comment. There was only one situation where I believe that the aggrieved party was actually aggrieved after reading both sides of the argument. He's not afraid to let his characters be themselves, even when it's not especially convenient to the narrative. It makes for a disconnected but interesting read.

The City of Falling Angels is not the best book to read if you're looking for a focused and concise overview of the case following the Fenice fire. If, however, you're looking for a snap shot of a city dealing with it's global reputation and fame while attempting to keep true it itself and its history, this is the book for you.

CBII: Book #33 - The Prisoner of Azkaban

2010-06-21T00:24:00.004-04:00

For a boy who's extremely aware that there are people trying to kill him, Harry Potter really enjoys running away from where he's supposed to be. And, every so often, running in exactly the direction of the people he's supposed to be avoiding. The Prisoner of Azkaban is a prime example of this, as Harry runs away from his aunt and uncle's house, sneaks out of Hogwarts castle multiple times, and follows a mysterious dog down an unfamiliar passageway, the second two after he's been informed that there may be a lunatic out to kill him. If he were my 13 year old, I'd probably have a hard time refraining myself from locking his over confident, danger seeking ass up in the house all summer but I appear to have lost some of my sense of whimsy as I've grown older.

The Prisoner of Azkaban begins the trend of the books getting steadily darker as they move towards the actual return of Voldemort in Goblet of Fire. Dementors are introduced, the creatures which feed on the sadness of humans, and the conditions at the wizarding prison Azkaban are spelled out. We learn more about the inherent prejudices of wizards and witches through Professor Lupin, a werewolf who takes over the perpetually rotating Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position.

Overall, Prisoner of Azkaban works to set up a lot of the necessary relationships, backstory, and tension that will be needed later in the series. And begins to set up some of the personality flaws that will plague Harry for the rest of the series. Looking back on this whole series, I'm struck by a deep desire to buy Hermione several large fire-whiskeys and letting her vent for about a month. Girl may have had her annoying moments, but she had a good head on her shoulders and was frequently used for her intellect and abilities by boys who never listened to her ENTIRELY LOGICAL suggestions. But again, see above re: loss of whimsy.

Things Which Bug Me

2010-06-17T20:56:00.002-04:00

- When you tell someone "I've got another call coming in" and they draw out their wrap up long enough that the other call goes to voicemail.

- Those icky little deodorant balls that form in your armpits.

- Cats that steal your seat while you're in the bathroom.

- People who either don't know how to load a dishwasher or who refuse to do it out of spite.

- Geography keeping me from people I want to see.

- Auto-correct on text messages. I really did mean "fucking", not "ducking" but thanks for playing.

- Having leftovers I have no interest in eating.

- The sad state of my liquor cabinet.

- Ants.

- Dogs that drool on the floor.

- Cats that drag pizza crusts around the counter while trying to pull the cheese off them getting crumbs everywhere.

- Having no money.

- My parents being in Las Vegas and me being stuck on the farm.

- Whatever the hell that giant creepy bug that attacked me the other night that I killed with a tissue box was.

- Blog spammers.

- Cats that kill baby bunnies and leave them for us to find on the deck.

- Arranging music.

- CD cases without the advertised CD in them.

- Needy dogs.

- The perennial "So, what are you doing with your life?" questions that accompany every trip home.

- Cats that kill bats and leave them on the front walk.

- The sore shoulder I have from the tetanus booster I got more than 24 hours ago.

- Being tired at completely inopportune times.

- Not being tired at appropriate times.

- Long, self indulgent lists of other people's pet peeves.

CBII: Book #32 - Red Dragon

2010-06-15T21:41:00.002-04:00

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a legendary villain, mostly thanks to Anthony Hopkin's masterful performance in the film version of Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs. I find him a far more frightening character, though, in Red Dragon where he is first introduced. Unfortunately, there is no truly great film version of Red Dragon* so it's just one of those things you'll have to read for yourself.

Red Dragon tells the story of retired FBI profiler Will Graham who is called back into service to help track down a killer known as "The Tooth Fairy" who slaughters entire families. Will had left the FBI after he was brutally attacked by Dr.Lecter, who he helped catch. In the course of chasing down The Tooth Fairy, Will has to face Lecter again to find out what insight the man may have into the killer's mind. Meanwhile, we're also treated to the mind of The Tooth Fairy, Francis Dolarhyde, as he plans his next attack while simultaneously working to overcome his inner demons that drive him to kill.

This is a hard novel to put down, but it's not for the squeamish or easily frightened. The last 50 or so pages, in particular, are best read in the daylight in a well lit area that's not near any good hiding places. All the characters are interesting, even if a couple are repellant at the same time. At one point, Harris actually manages to give you a reason to root for The Tooth Fairy, which is a tall order for a character who kills children while they sleep without a trace of remorse. Will Graham is probably the weakest character, he has none of the visceral draw of Lecter, none of the internal struggle that marks Dolarhyde; he's just a man with an ugly level of insight into the minds of serial killers who hates doing the thing he's best at. There's also some family drama for Will, which I suppose is meant to humanize him but which really only drags on the momentum of the story.

Red Dragon is a tightly wound thriller that serves as an excellent introduction to the character of Hannibal Lecter. However, after reading this, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal I can understand both the instinct to focus more on the Lecter character and why it's so damaging to do so. Hannibal Lecter is a character who works best the less you know about him; a wildly intelligent psychologist who enjoys and is quite good at killing and eating people is pretty terrifying when you don't know or can't understand why he does those things. When you give him a background, though, he looses his mystique and becomes another misunderstood man with a bad childhood. We have enough books about those.

*Yes, I include the 80's Manhunter in this statement. I've seen it, and while it had a satisfying level of tension, the performances weren't spectacular, the art direction is questionable and the synth heavy score dates it terribly.

Coasting on Looks

2010-06-14T11:48:00.002-04:00

Most smart girls have families that encourage them to accomplish things on the merits of their intelligence; to go out in the world and make their mark with their intellect, wit, or cunning. My family, while well aware of the fact that I'm pretty damn smart as far as these things go, seems to be in favor of doing just the opposite. Observe:

(While working at Raven's training camp two summers ago)
Brother JJ: You know, you should date one of the players.
Me: I'm not especially interested in dating professional football players. They're not exactly known for their long term fidelity.
JJ: Yeah, but you could get some fancy dinners out of it.
Dad: And season tickets.

(While watching World Cup)
Sister Sheila: Cristiano Ronaldo's cute. And he has lots of money. How old is he?
Me: [Consulting Internet] He is… one year older than me.
Sheila: You should date him.
Me: You know he dates like, super models and actresses, right? I am not super model and/or actress pretty. I think he's dating Kim Kardashian now.
Sheila: Yeah, but you're smarter than they are. You could figure it out.

(While discussing poker)
Dad: You know, you should really learn to play poker. Men will trip over themselves to lose money to you.
Me: It seems cruel to abuse hope.
Dad: Yeah, but it'd be so easy.

The overall message seems to be "We raised you so that you didn't have to be dependent on good looks, which are more an accident than anything else. But since you've got 'em, why not use them?" Totally normal.

CBII: Book #31 - Fragile Things

2010-06-10T13:26:00.002-04:00

Neil Gaiman's short story collection Fragile Things is one of those books I find myself returning to over and over again after I've finished another book and have a gap until I can get to the library or book store for a new piece of reading material. The stories vary greatly in length from a couple that are long enough to have their own "chapters" to ones that are only a couple pages long. They run the gamut from the utterly mundane, like the story about a young boy and his string bass, to the firmly supernatural, like the Sherlock Holmes story told in a Lovecraftian universe.

No matter what the topic, though, Gaiman has a talent for creating extremely vivid pictures for the reader and for making his characters relatable, if not likable. Some of the stories take their inspiration from other sources, like Lovecraft, Beowulf or The Chronicles of Narnia, so it's useful to have at least a working knowledge even if you haven't read them.

It's hard to discuss collections of short stories in a review fashion; there's no overarching plot or characters to describe, and listing off each story and how you felt about it seems both self indulgent and tiresome. If you like sci-fi, fantasy, gothic horror, suspense, crime, mystery or coming of age stories, you will find something to like in Fragile Things. And take the time to read Gaiman's own reflections on some of the stories at the beginning of the book; they're worth it and list off several other short story collections some of the pieces originally appeared in that I'd love to look up whenever I reach the bottom of my current book pile. After I buy a new copy of Fragile Things too, since the copy I have is signed and I need to stop reading it before it falls apart.

New York, New York: 2

2010-06-09T16:22:00.002-04:00

After beers, Sofí and I wandered uptown towards where she was staying, looking for somewhere to eat and/or grab another drink. We stumbled across a Mexican restaurant that was reasonably priced and looked popular, so we put our name on the list and proceeded to sit at the bar and shamelessly ogle the boyfriend of the girl sitting caddy-corner to us. I mean, I'm not proud of that, but he was REALLY pretty.

There weren't really any other big events of the night, but we spent about eight hours together just chatting and wandering around Manhattan and I only wish we had been able to spend more time together. Not to get all mushy, but one of the things I love best about the internet is all the incredible people I get to meet who I'd never know otherwise.

Friday I'll get back to petty annoyances. Promise.

New York, New York

2010-06-04T13:24:00.005-04:00

I spent this past weekend in New York City, which is not entirely unusual for me because I have family there. What WAS different is that I got to meet the completely awesome Sofía who was in town from Santiago for the summer.

Embarrassingly, I was almost late to lunch because I was down in the Garment District shopping for fabric with my mom, and I knew how far uptown I had to walk, but I completely how far CROSS-TOWN I had to go, and that nearly killed me. Miraculously, I managed to get there at least close to on time

Once we met and got some lunch we exchanged gifts, she gave me some Alfajors and a lollipop called a Pico Dulce. Somewhat unremarkable but for the fact that the Chilean slang for penis is "pico" which is good for a few giggles*. I gave her a laptop case I made for her out of my infamous shirtless gay cowboy fabric.

After lunch we ended up wandering back up through Times Square, where we spotted the actual Naked Cowboy, and continued walking till we got up near NBC studios because then we found a bar called Heartland Brewery and parked ourselves there for a few hours drinking things called Raspberry Blondes which were wheat beer mixed with raspberry liqueur and totally delicious. We also managed to attract the attention of the guy sitting next to me when we were discussing Harry Potter and some random dude who came up to tell Sofí how much he loved her beautiful deep voice. Even in a city full of people who are professionally beautiful, Pajibans still light up the room.

Tomorrow! Walking blocks and blocks uptown to get dinner and scamming on some other girl's boyfriend.

*Unless you're my brother, who finds the whole thing incredibly hilarious and who wants a whole case of these lollipops so he can give them to his friends, utilize them to hit on women, make people uncomfortable, etc. Every time he sees the damn thing he makes a joke and cracks himself up again.

CBII: Book #30 - The Court of the Air

2010-06-03T12:20:00.004-04:00

I'm going to start this review by saying that I am not a fantasy person, overall, so that when you disagree with what I have to say I've already pointed out what fans of this book are sure to.

The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt is a fantasy/sci fi epic that takes place in the fictional kingdom of Jackels. The novel focuses on two different characters, Molly and Oliver, who are both being chased by shadowy groups with evil intent that we learn more about as the novel progresses. Through their journey, the reader learns many details of the history of Jackels and the religious and supernatural forces at work there.

That is an incredibly brief and unspecific description of what happens in the book, which is long, complex, and somewhat overstuffed. Molly and Oliver end up at the same place fighting the same battle, but in getting to that climactic scene there is nearly no overlap in their stories. The titular Court of the Air is barely explained, and at the end of their novel their intentions and purpose are left (I believe deliberately) vague. The jumps between the two stories chop up the action in a way that caused me to loose momentum with my reading. It's explanation heavy as well, which is not unusual for a first novel but which can make for tiresome reading in what sets out to be a chase story.

I feel like The Court of the Air may have been more digestible if it had been split into two different novels, or at least two separate novelettes in the same book; the back and forth nature of the narrative makes the action and the insights into Jackelian life and mythology harder to keep straight. And Molly and Oliver's stories aren't very connected at all, which means that sticking them both in the same novel is just confusing and, at times, cluttered. That's not to say I didn't like the stories, I did. And I thought that the world was a interesting place and well explained by Hunt, it's the structure I had the most problem with.

The Court of the Air is an interesting start to a series I would like to see more of, but the narrative structure interferes with the reader's ability to connect with the characters and action. But hey, I'm not a fantasy person so what do I know.

Summer Projects

2010-06-01T13:01:00.004-04:00

Now that Memorial Day weekend is over, here in the States we consider it to be officially summer, which means it's time for me to find an official summer project to work on. Some summers it's expanding my mind (last summer one of my goals was to learn the whole ASL alphabet by heart, and I did for a while but I need to brush up on that again.) sometimes it's more tangible improvements. This summer it's the bedrooms of myself and my sister.

Both of us suffer from the same problem; our family moved into this house in 2000 and most of the decorating decisions for our bedrooms were left up to us. Well, in 2000, I was 13 and my sister was 4. So my room was pastel purple and featured a lot of butterflies, and my sister's room is 100% pink. My sister, as she has aged, has addressed this problem by scribbling all over her walls at will and allowing her friends to do the same. At some point, they also moved onto the carpet. I've responded to my room by basically spending no time there and then going to college and grad school 1,100 miles away.

So I've already started digging out my carpet so I can traipse from my bed to my closet without stepping over anything, and my sister has hauled about five trashbags full of junk out of her room. I've also changed out the white with butterflies curtains for dark blue ones, which made a much bigger difference than I thought it would. When my sister gets home today, we're going to pull everything off one of her walls so we can bust out the primer and cover over all those emo-y poems and "TRISHA WAS HERE!!!! LOLZ!!!!"

Anyone else out there got summer projects planned?

You're So New

2010-05-26T21:49:00.002-04:00

I got a new phone earlier this week and I'm still trying to get comfortable with it. It's the first phone I've ever had with a touch screen, and so while I have dainty fingers perfect for using said touch screen for typing and navigating, it's taking me a while to train myself so I don't accidentally touch the screen anywhere else where I'm typing. This leads to a lot of me cursing at the phone and aborting messages, tweets, and other things because I just get frustrated and decide to wait and do it on my laptop.

Of course, half my frustration with the phone may be that I'm on my dummy pill week so my uterus is fighting back against my continued childlessness with a vengeance. I'm seeing some of that stashed codeine in my immediate future.

Anyway, for any tech geeks out there, it's an HTC Eris running Android 1.5, although the guy at the store said that I should get an upgrade pretty soon so it'll be running Android 2.0. For you literary geeks out there, I have quite obviously named it "The Phone of Erised" and will be taking photos of things I want with it and using them as the lock-screen background for funsies.

I have to make some large lifestyle decisions now, like… do I want to get foursquare? I think it's clever, but it also sounds a lot like something that'll enable stalking and as a semi-famous internet personality (heeeeheheheheheheheeeheeeee) maybe that's not a good plan for me.

We're So Lost

2010-05-24T16:39:00.002-04:00

Uttered to either my family or the online watch party I was attending last night while watching "Lost." Of my family members only my brother, J.J, had ever seen a single episode prior to last night.

Me - Man, Merry took the loss of Frodo pretty hard, right?

J.J - It is over, Anakin! I have the higher ground! (At the scene where Jack and Locke-But-Not-Really are standing on the rocks)

Me - You were the chosen one!! (immediately after previous)

Me - Oh, so it's like the end of "Desperation" when they go down in the scary stone hole and blow up the portal. Gotcha.

My Dad - This is why I don't believe in democracy. All these people writing goodbye letters to characters on a TV show can vote. (On seeing the "Final Transmissions" from fans.)

Me - Didn't that guy just have a tree on him? (In reference to Ben sitting up and talking on the walky talky after the previous scene had him stuck under a tree.)

J.J - No, seriously, what happened to the tree?

Me - Oh, so it's like "The Langoliers" with the planes and the alternate dimensions and stuff.

My Mom - This is so strange.

All - BATMANUEL! (Basically anytime Richard was on screen.)

J.J - I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I get the sense that I'm a little… Lost. Get it!

Me - Oh, so it's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." I'm super glad I didn't wait through six seasons to find that out.

However, I can forgive all of it because it resulted in the following 50 seconds of television which, in my completely uninformed opinion, is the best thing "Lost" has ever given anyone: