So there are typing tests at my job, even after you're hired. I was under the impression that it was every month, but apparently it isn't, because recently they've put up a result sheet for the past few months. I looked under my PIN, and have since looked at it several more times. Why? Because my score was 104 words/minute with 99% accuracy. That's right, bitches!

Of course, I had no idea which call it was that was tested, but someone told me a few weeks ago which it was- and now that the results have been put up, I've been hearing people get the next round every shift. I haven't gotten it again yet, but I know when I do I'm going to be all nervous and make ten billion typos like I do for my surveys.

In more interesting news, I wanted to know who had the best score, so I scanned all the results. And someone, someone got 128 wpm with 100% accuracy. Who the fuck was that?! Seriously. Are they a MACHINE? My only explanation is that they've been working there for years and know the test call by heart. That's seriously all I can think of. I bet I would type more quickly by heart, too. And more accurately.

It might be Tuesday night, but today's my Friday! Woohoo! Weekend!

So...because of my schedule this month, my two days off are Wednesday and Thursday. I do not like this, and not just because Tuesday is effectively my Friday. First of all, it's five days of work in a row, without giving my hands any significant rest. Secondly, after getting used to having a break every couple of days from my previous schedules, I dislike feeling like I have to wait a whole week in order to get anything done. For example, I have a story that was handwritten in the middle of October. It has yet to be typed up and edited. I would now like to point out that it is the middle of November. And so? When I typed out "ELF vs. VULCAN" my hands were sore and shaky for days afterward. I. Do not approve. Of this schedule.

Add to that the fact that today I got yelled at, called a name, and/or called a liar no less than 5 times today. Seriously, I, people. Seriously. Is it so hard to believe that I might need to ask to repeat a number once in a while? Or, you know, use a couple homophones in my typing?

*sigh* I know I shouldn't be complaining. The insurance finally kicked in this month, and I've got to be grateful for that. But it's just so frustrating when I've finally got the creative juices flowing again and I can't tap the barrel and let them pour out. I actually felt like writing poetry today, if that's any indication as to how I was feeling. I got...hmm...I think six and a half stanzas in before I lost the thread of it and got disgusted with myself. THEN I got the urge to draw, which is always a bad sign for my mental health. I did draw...a person...

Now, my drawing style isn't in any way learned or honed, but I can do passable sketches of things. Until you get to the face. Humans, horses, dogs- the species doesn't matter. I cannot draw faces. Then the sketches go from passable to CARTOON, which is awesome if you're going for that, but I'm usually not. So then I had a person on the page, fully formed except for eyes, nose, and mouth...a blank face...non-staring at me...and then I spent the rest of my shift contemplating whether or not that was a metaphor for my difficulty in artistic expression, a difficulty that my professors at school had easily seen and pointed out.

So that was my work day! Now I shall retire, since even after this short bit, my hands and wrists are protesting mightily. Good eve.

I've been reading like a fiend this week! Awesome. Since starting in college, I'd sort of forgotten what it was like being on a roll like that. My appetite is slowly building up again, as it were. I finished The Road after one shift at work. One shift! It was a quick read. And now I'm reading some Gaiman! But let us begin with the beginning; I read Das Parfum first. I will also here add that I'm a bit sick of my own verbosity, so I'll to be a little less longwinded with this. Hopefully. For the sake of my overworked knuckles.

Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind

This book, copyright 1985, is a story about a boy born in 18th century France. This is not just any boy: this boy gives off no kind of scent, but has the best sense of smell that ever there was. His name is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. And he is a megalomaniacal genius.

I'm really not one for what people consider postmodern literature. I'm also sure I'm biased, because I loved reading it in the original German, but this book was really, really good. Truly. It has the benefit of being a historical novel with an omniscient third person narrator from the present, which at times gives some necessary commentary. It also allows to not only enjoy this portrait of an artist, as it were, but a collage of lives and other people that he affects in his self-serving journey; we learn not only that Grenouille meets them, but we learn who they are and why they're there in the first place. It's at times sad, horrifying, hilarious, and mystifying. Indeed, Das Parfum has the dubious honor of being the only book that has ever inspired one of my nightmares. It was obviously therefore weighing heavily on my mind after I finished it. These are the basic categories of thought that I pondered whilst reading it:

1) Scent and Beast; Scent and Man; Scent and Language
2) The Artist and his Work
3) Is Feminism Gonna Hafta Choke a Bitch (Back)?
4) The Postmodern Fairy Tale


( spoilers herein )
Final Verdict: A must read. The film version, with Dustin Hoffman (who I would guess is the Baldini character....?) and Alan Rickman (perhaps the father of the last girl?), is definitely next on my netflix list. But I really, really can't imagine anyone making a good movie out of this book. It's a medium that is exclusively visual and auditory; no real sense of the olfactory at all. Reading allows you to imagine all the senses. Well...that will be a review for another day.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Written in 2006, The Road is about a father and son trying to survive in a grey and desolate post-apocalyptic world. They do not have names, and I actually didn't really notice that until about halfway through the book. They don't need them. They are us and we are them, struggling to keep on keeping on in a world of forgetfulness, grief, and hardship.

This book is almost 300 pages, but as I said before, I read it during my downtime at work. In one shift. So it's a really quick read. That doesn't mean it's an easy read or a light read, simply, a quick one. I...liked it more than I thought I would. I certainly appreciate it more than I thought I would. It's just really not my bag. But the film is coming out soon and I suppose I need to broaden my literary horizons, so I read it. It made me think, though, and that's the best praise you can give any work of art.

This review won't be nearly as long, I promise. Categories:

1) What if?
2) Grammatical Structures
3) Descriptors
4) Everyone is a Philosopher and a Prophet

( spoilers here too )
Final Verdict: Well-executed, but not the best read. If you're into those kinds of "what if" scenarios, then you couldn't really ask for a better example. If you're looking for something that will fufill you, then...no. Though I did really enjoy drinking warm, delicious soup after I finished reading it. That's for sure. Anyway, I look forward to seeing what Viggo does with the piece when the movie comes out...next week is it? Indeed, I shall spend my money on it.

Other comments, having no real review value and mostly on a personal note:

Das Parfum: So, that nightmare it inspired? I was Grenouille. Not literally, I mean, but I was in his position. I, for whatever stupid, pointless, dream-logic reason, was wearing his masterperfume. I was driving in a car, and I was covered in green paint (Reznor's Deep music video, anyone?) and wearing the masterperfume. People started chasing me so I was trying to escape. I turned onto a major road and started gunning it, but then all of the oncoming traffic in the other lane started to slow down and stop. It was night, and their headlights were glaring. Semis, cars, trucks. Shit, I thought. Don't get out of the car. Keep driving. But what the fuck do I do? I park the car in a dark parking lot and get out of the car. Because I'm an idiot. I started running away, and there were some people in the distance behind me. But suddenly, a girl jumps out into my path and starts slashing at me with a knife. I back off a little and we circle each other a bit. Finally, when I think she's going to lunge to get a piece of me, I start to use the perfume and ordered her around. Sort of like...if I got her occupied, she wouldn't try to hurt me. She didn't want to follow my commands, she knew that she was being coerced, but she couldn't help but love me and do it anyway. It was just a really awful situation all around and finally, finally I became lucid and woke myself up. Because no.

The Road: I know this is because I've been much too involved in the Star Trek fandom lately, but I couldn't help but be convinced that the father was like Dr. McCoy. It's never really stated explicitly in the book, but I'm about 95% certain that he was a doctor, or elsewise somehow involved with medicine. Obviously that profession didn't mean all that much anymore, but it helped when he needed to give himself stitches, etc. It's not just the profession, though. Dr. McCoy is an old-fashioned doctor, a sort of family man that was pulled into a dangerous, space-exporing mission that was both his fault, and not his fault. He is undoubtedly the conscience and compassion of the ship. His wife, the few times she's mentioned, is painted as an ambiguous figure at best, and of course he has a child that he cares for (though in this case, from afar). He doesn't believe in the new technology, and he carries a phaser because he must. Likewise the father must carry a pistol, and he sort of...carries the past with him...as best he can....as much as he dares...when everyone else just moves headlong into the next thing. I think it's actually a somewhat nicer characterization than the father deserves, but because I saw him as a gruff-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside sort of man, a man McCoy could become in the same situation...well...it was that much more painful for me to read. (Not to mention my own father is of the older generation of doctors, not the new ones in it for the prestige and the money...god I hate the current generation of doctors...)

The Setting: my great aunt's house on halloween

The Cast: my great aunt, one of my first cousins (once removed), my regular aunt, my mother, and one of my sisters

The Conversation: my first cousin is discussing a previous halloween when there were a few people dressed up as witches, and there was much drinking

she: "So at that point we were all, you know, three pointy hats to the wind."

me: "I guess it was just the ghosts who were three sheets, right?"

*pause*

everyone else: (BELLY LAUGHS)

Seriously, people don't usually find my stupid comments funny, so that made me really, inordinately happy.

At any rate, due to unforseen circumstances last week, I went out of town and did not return until yesterday. This means there was no starting on NaNo. While I might have had the time to complete it had I been able to begin on time, I really don't think I have the time to play catch up for the several days I missed. It's sad, yes, but I'm happy to announce that I have one story completely written, and another that's almost completely written, I just have to squeeze on a bit of a coda. Of course they both must be rewritten and typed up and edited and all that sort of thing, but the point is, the hard part is over. And that hasn't happened for a very, very long time. Getting closer to a year, in fact.

It's nice to be veering back towards the track. :)

So I just came across an article saying that a movie has been made about the Donner party.

Let's get this straight, okay? Maybe cannibalism is just a squick of mine, since I'm really squicky about meat anyway, but it is NOT an acceptable main element of a film.

But what about Silence of the Lambs? you ask, and yeah, yeah I hear ya. The difference between Silence of the Lambs and a historical epic about a bunch of people eating their loved ones is plot. The former is about a serial killer and the agent who's working against him. We have someone to root for, and the hope that the killer will get taken down in the end. He's just a fucked up guy who likes to fuck with people, and some audience members love getting fucked with and squicked out. While this is not me, I get it. I get why people love Silence of the Lambs and its lame-ass sequels.

And yet! A movie about the Donner party cannot be anything like that. Sure we laughed when Robin Williams said, "Donner, party of four!" whilst moving a skeleton's jaw, but that sort of joke falls under the category of "too soon," after it's not "too soon" anymore. We all know the outcome of their fateful trip. How much they suffered. How completely unimaginable for us it must have been. But they lived it. THEY WERE REAL PEOPLE. They froze and died and ate each other because some fucking dumbass duped them into taking a 'shortcut' through the mountains. What the fuck lesson is there to be learned except not to trust people when they say they "totally know" a shortcut? SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT IT? I emphatically do not accept the reasoning that it's for people who love depressing movies or want to be squicked out.

Therefore, since the first five minutes have been officially released online, I decided to watch it. I needed to know how they were treating the subject matter. I was pleased to see that they were treating it with all due seriousness, but that's pretty much the only thing I was pleased about. It began with the opening credits, the names scrawled next to sketches of Independence, MO and various landmarks along the Oregon Trail. It already made me sick thinking of what they had to go through to get that far. Then the movie proper began with a sort of intro typed over a snowy mountain background about how they left Missouri in 1864(?) yadda yadda yadda, and how they were now stuck! And then a dude showed up and started voice-over narrating whilst making a fire! Do you get this? Are you reading this? IT STARTS WITH THEM ALREADY STUCK IN THE GODDAMN MOUNTAINS. It's not like Titanic where they can make a funny or two with their bad scriptwriting before the disaster strikes! Oh no! We're starting in media res, LOVELY.

There were a couple minutes left, but I had to shut it off. I seriously felt like I was going to puke up the food I just ate, even though there was no meat involved in my dinner. Just...no.

And then, they're remaking Short Circuit. I remember that film. It was a favorite of my childhood. Ergo, it is too new to be remade.

Why, movie industry? Why?

"D:" has been my favorite emoticon for a while now. ":(" is just sort of sad or disappointed, and variations on ":o" are more shocked or surprised. But "D:", ever since I first saw it, has perfectly expressed everything on the Horror Spectrum, from dismay, to disgust, to ineffable terror. I loves it, precious. When a couple of enterprising writers titled one of their stories as simply, "D:", I was no little intrigued. And the story lived up to its labelling: I suffer from sometimes-paralyzing secondhand embarrassment, and for most of the story I was torn in two from convulsions of both laughter and horror. Indeed, throughout most of my reading, my countenence was contorted thusly: "D:". Not only did one of the characters regularly get referred to as wearing his, what was dubbed, "D-face," said emoticon also eloquently expressed the "FML" road the protagonist's life was taking. So clearly, "D:" has range.

So I think that story is the eptiome of that emoticon. Little did I know that last night, I would have a dream that was an epitome of that icon. To wit:

I'm not sure how the dream got to this point, but some bad guy was after me or something, and he was all about alligators. I don't think it was magic and they were his animal to call or anything, he was just obsessed with them, I don't know. Anyway, the authorities has procedures for these types of bad guys, because obviously, all bad guys have favorite animals, and so they put me outside near a lake that had a gigantic-ass alligator in it. They assured me that they'd neutralized the alligator somehow, and it wouldn't be able to hurt me. RIGHT. Every time I got in the water, it totally started coming toward me. But I kept trying. The last time, it was chilling on the shore, I jumped in, pushed away from the bank, and started kicking quickly away, sort of like a backstroke without the arms. Immediately I knew it was the wrong thing to have done, because it could totally catch up to me in the water. And indeed, it speedily slipped into the water and made a beeline for me.

D:

At this point I regained some lucidity and redirected the dream (I'm often able to do this when I'm about to get killed). Suddenly, I was inside the grand brick building that was on the same property as the Alligator Lake. It was like a hostel, sort of. But a nice one! Homey and cozy and sort of like tiny restaurants you see in Little Italys around the States. There were definitely traces to the one we often go to in Cleveland. Anyway, I was there along with my mother and on of my sisters. The place was pretty crowded. However, the place, which was sort of more like a hotel, I guess, because there was a wedding party upstairs making a shittonne of racket and demanded all the attention of the owners for the preparation and all the guests and whatnot. This put everybody else in a pissy mood. But that was okay, because I could entertain my family. Because obviously, this was FERRARA, and I am an expert. Indeed, the top floor of the cozy/hotel/hostel/thing was apartments, and my apartment had been one of them. I would take everybody up to see it! Share that important bit of my life! No one cared. They rolled their eyes, because clearly, no idea was more ridiculous on earth.

D:

So I tried to take them around shopping in the district but there were slim pickings because it's sort of a small place. We return to the hotel where my sister laments the pointless trip outside we had just taken. Then I get a brilliant idea! I would take her to Venice! Venice wasn't that far away! It was filled with shiny things like masks with jewels and feathers! She would love it! I voiced my enthusiasm and gave my assurance that it would be awesomesauce. My sister gave me one of those, "Oh, my annoying little sibling" looks, said, "Yeah, maybe," in a manner which clearly meant NO, turned her back, and walked away.

D:

I was at a complete loss. Who wouldn't want to explore the wonders of new places and things? Didn't everybody want to see Venice? My family's dreamed about doing stuff like this forever, and here I was offering it to them on a platter, but they didn't seem to care at all. They didn't appreciate it at all. They didn't want me to share. I returned to our hotel room, which was empty. I stood between the little white beds and looked out the window, directly onto Alligator Lake, lamenting the state of affairs. Then the woman who owned the place with her husband walked in. We knew each other from my time studying in Ferrara. She apologized that all her guests' stays weren't the best because of all the wedding stuff going on. I was so relieved that there was someone else in the world that I knew that appreciated the places and things that were around us, and that spoke Italian, and that was, I don't know, talking to me, that I threw my arms around this woman and cried.

D:

Then my mother came in. My mother is always in a sour mood when things at hotels aren't just so, and this was obviously no exception. Then the owner-woman whipped out the coup de grace: all the dinner reservations for the hotel dining room had just been cancelled because the wedding party had demanded that all of their people should eat in the dining room that eve. Then she left, and I could see my mother getting really angry. But I knew JUST the thing to render this situation awesome! "Don't worry, mother," I told her. "There are a lot of great places to get cappellacci around here. I know just where we can go!" My mother turned and looked down her nose at me disdainfully. "I don't want cappellacci," she spat, in a tone which clearly screamed, PLEBE PICKINGS.

D:

At which point I became lucid, said AH, FUCK NO! and forced myself to wake up fully. Honestly, I get lucid in dreams when really awful things are happening. Like, I'm dying or about to, or people around me are, etc. That was the extent of the mindfuck that was this dream. It was so emotionally violent that I became lucid. It was so turbulent to my state of being that it took me a good half an hour to fall back asleep, even though I was really tired.

My subconscious is always so full of surprises.

It's been a while since I've had a full time job that isn't "being a student." So...I'd sort of forgotten how much time it just eats up...I am so incredibly behind on everything! I need a couple more hours in the day, or something. But when I opened up the envelope with my paystub in it and I saw the amount, I just about cried. I'd forgotten what it felt like to not worry about how many groceries you're buying. I mean, I made more money in two weeks than I've had in my bank account since I returned from Italy. Probably from halfway through my sojourn living in Italy. Of course, I start paying back college loans this month! It's going to take the rest of my life! For joy! For exultation and joy!

I shall share what I've been up to in my offtimes, but first, a couple conversations with my mother:
( Thermostats, Bush, and Animal Body Parts )
Anyway!

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO:

( Books, Bubblewrap, and Impulse Buying )
WHAT I'M ABOUT TO BE DOING:

( Curses and Lit and the Idiot Box )
AWESOME MOVIE AND TV NEWS:

( Grave Robbers, Gucci, and STEPHEN FRY )
And yeah...tha's all for now. See, I am so behind on my friends list and my news sites and my email that after getting home from work and making dinner and not even getting done with the several pages of posts I've missed, it's already after 5am. I am so screwed for getting up in time for lunch.

....But then again, I now have the money to buy myself lunch!

Lastly, I had a strange dream last night. Usually I dream strangely, but this was even more strange because generally my dreams don't include characters and/or famous people. Now, I have never been in the Pirates of the Caribbean fandom. I love the first movie, hate the second, and amusedly tolerate the third. Yet in this dream, a great adventure was taking place, and Will and Captain Jack and Elizabeth were all there among the shenanigans. As I was involved in said adventure, I was watching the dynamic between all of them, and then eventually Will does something stupid and single-minded and heroic per usual, saving Elizabeth's life gallantly, when he glances back toward Sparrow. And then my dreamself got it, in that sort of, "Oh. Oh! Ohhhhhh."-type way. Yeah...so my subconcious ships Will/Jack. Unrequited, even. Angsty. Not being able to go against the status quo. WHY, FREUD, WHY? I don't even find either of them very attractive! I can't even blame it on my libido!

I need sleep.

So....a sequel to the Laramie Project has been written. And it's being performed in LA. And....because it's LA and not NYC, tons of awesome actors that I recognize and respect are going to be in it...from Heroes and NCIS and The Big Bang Theory etc, etc, usw. It's just...ugh. I have always wanted to see the Laramie Project, and now they've got a sequel going on, and I just have this mantra in my head that murmurs soonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoon - SOON I will be somewhere not here, SOON I will be able to enjoy theatre, SOON I will just...have money to be able to go experience things.

I know I'm lucky and have so much more than most people and there's nothing wrong with working and doing nothing else if working all the time is what helps you to survive, but I can't help it. I'm human. I want. I need. (And because of the different volume and type and origin of the calls, I feel like I'm on an emotional  rollercoaster every shift. It wears me the fuck out. Human life is so...predictable and trivial and ultimately sad.)

MAJOR CULTURE WITHDRAWAL.

Getting it through the internet is like...is like mainlining sugar for a high when you're used to crack. 'Sall I'm saying. And the internet can tell me where the venue is and who's going to be there and it will show me a satellite photo of the street if I felt so inclined to search for it, but it can't actually portarmi there.

I will...get there...soon. Wherever 'there' is...soon.

I just...I just saw someone advertising NaNoWriMo. Holy shit it's almost Novermber. I mean, I know October just started, but geez. And yeah...it's getting colder out (fall's always been my favorite, but I must admit it's not the same with out those campus trees).

This of course has gotten me thinking...should I do NaNo this year? I do type at work all day, but...I have been writing during my downtime at work. This means that I've gotten a dozen or so pages written in the past couple days, which is nice, but it is a parody. A musical parody, in fact. So my dozen pages are actually all the songs that I've rewritten (I have two more left in the musical to go). Which could be seen as lame in one sense, but on the other hand- I just opened up iTunes and it started playing the last song from the musical! So perhaps it's a sign. (What are you talking about? iTunes never lies!)

Actually, I've written a lot of parodies. People can't see the tag since I only use it for my fiction, but in my unfinished archive I already have 20 parodies tagged. Natch. Apparently it's an addiction?

Though I must admit that my fingers and wrists do hurt. I'm typing really slowly right now, well, slow for me. I tested at 90-some words per minute to get the job and that was super-nervous and making a lot of mistakes, so. This feels like crawling when it's probably like 60 or something. Still.

NaNo? I could. I've several long stories I need to write. And maybe if I make it a fanfiction I can post it in relative places and therefore have to post it promptly and on schedule? And now I keep ending sentences with a higher pitch? Like Brian's girlfriend? I'd look for the Family Guy clip but I probably couldn't find it quickly? Anyway I can't keep using homework as an excuse? I can't even use theatre as an excuse?

I...should. I need to prove I can finish my long projects when I start them. Because I totally can. I wrote over a hundred pages single-spaced size 10 font in Ents before I petered out. I can finish a long project.

Maybe.

They're making a movie about Facebook. Really, they are. And I'm not talking about those stupid romcoms where people use the internet to find lovers. Oh, no. About Facebook. The website. Not like a documentary detailing how it came about. That would be too...logical.

THERE WILL BE ACTORS PLAYING THE PEOPLE WHO FOUNDED FACEBOOK. AND ONE OF THEM IS JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.

WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? WHAT, I ASK YOU? WHAT?!

*throws head into arms and sobs* There...is so little artistic integrity left...so little...

PS- They're also going to be making a live action Barbie film, but upon reading the above news, well...that just sort of seemed normal.

I was just on the website en.akinator.com , in which you think of a character, and like that 20 questions game (which I own and totally works, if you're thinking of something PG), it guesses who you're thinking of. It can be a real person or a fictional one. I decided I was going to stump this mofo, so I decided to think of the Witch King of Angmar, from The Lord of the Rings.

And it guessed correctly.

Shut. Up. Fucking amazing, yo.

And then I realized, the Witch King is badass and recieved excellent sound editng and mixing in the film for Return of the King. Not to mention armor design. So, I decided to choose someone less badass. Namely Butterbur, the innkeeper at the Prancing Pony.

It guessed "Baron Vladimir Harkonnen" which is confusing on several levels because 1] I don't know who it is and 2] he has a Russian first name and Finnish last name. What?

At any rate it's a win. Or is it? I beat a computer. But...that also means I know a lot of details about a particular fandom. Of course it turns out because it lost, I had to type in who I was thinking of, and it searched its database...and I am not the first person to guess him.

So in the end, I have not tread a path that no geek has tread before. Perhaps there is hope for me yet!

In other news, internet games are addicting. This isn't as addicting as, say, Bookworm or Chuzzles or Peggle...but still. Noooiiice.

So, work is...work. Like, I mean, like, you know, am I right? Though there's this one section of the call floor they call 'The Bridge' to which I responded with the mental mantra, thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not laugh until our leader admitted, "It's a bit of a Star Trek theme, I guess," at which point we all felt free to laugh.

And there are motivational posters on the walls. They are hanging there in all seriousness. No irony in sight. Who does that? Really?

But best of all, today we had to go through DESENSITIZATION. Yeah, you read that correctly. This means that we all had a heart-to-heart about what strange things people say on the phone. Things like swear words and racial slurs and sex. Not going to lie, the racial slurs made me feel extremely uncomfortable, but the rest of it was no biggie. But there were ROLE PLAYS and the people that our leader picked to act out the role plays were homegrown, midwestern, Twilight-merchandise-carrying good girls who stumbled over announcing their wetness and completely lost it when one had to announce the possibility of allowing anal penetration later that night. Oh, sorry, "I have a surprise for you. I may let you in the ass." HAHAHAHAHA! They couldn't even say it. That made my day, I'm telling you. And that wasn't even the weirdest thing, either...talks of splinters and cheese and really, some of the most hilarious made-up dialogue I have ever seen. Literally. That I have ever seen.

Of course I was never chosen to be in a role play. My new buddy, C, and I were sitting in the back row going, "Why can't I role play? Fuck, I swear all the goddamn time. I would poker-face THE SHIT out of that crap." And I bet I could have, too. Which has led me to the realization that I do not need desensitization. This has happened for two reasons:

1) I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN TOO MUCH THEATRE. Oh, so we have to touch each other awkwardly now? I have to scream and yell for no reason? You want me to crawl around like a kitten? We have to kiss each other even though I hate your guts? So we're going to build a pool and choreograph incestuous sex to take place in it? DA, I CAN DO ZAT.

2) I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN TOO MUCH FANDOM. Especially since most of the fandoms I'm involved in are in either the 'fantasy' or 'scifi' genres. There are completely believable reasons, canonically speaking, for, I don't know, genderswapping [interesting], male pregnancy [never reading that shit again], time travel [fucking awesome], de-aging [cute!], and the ever popular ALIENS MADE THEM DO IT. Oh! And blood that can come in all different colors. And...you know...worse things. Things that I might never be allowed to erase from my brain, but in the end have left me unsurprised as to how far into the strange depths of imagination the human mind can plunge. [Don't ask. I mean, you can, I guess, and I'll tell you...you just won't thank me for it later.]

Sometimes I wonder just how naive and ignorant other people are. And how naive and ignorant I myself would be, without either theatre or fandom. MY WEIRD BRAINZ, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.

. . . .curse my mild agoraphobia!

It has been a decade to the day since my first dog died (9/9/99-9/9/09). We were born the same year. It's hard to believe I've lived so long without her.

Ah-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry. When I hear a pun, I have to share it.

I went to the park with my niece today, and I went swinging for the first time...in...many a year. Many years indeed. And you know you're still short when your feet still don't touch the ground. To my sisters and my bro-in-law, I was like, "Guys! Seriously. Guys. How do the kiddies brake if even I can't reach the ground? Seriously." And Adam answered, "They jump!" Which is probably truefax.

But what the fuck? Disney is buying out Marvel. DISNEY IS BUYING OUT MARVEL. What...what does this even mean? Why are they going to let awesome adult stories go the same way as the poor fairy tales? We were too late to save one genre! Is it now too late to save another?

( What follows beneath the cut is disturbing and should not be read by gentle, sheltered souls. )
My brain. Its logic escapes me.

I just read the news:

A while back, we learned that Leonardo DiCaprio's production company was developing a Gothic take on LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD alongside ORPHAN's David Leslie Johnson (details HERE).

Now comes word that a director has been found for that project: Catherine Hardwicke.

The "Twilight" helmer is signing on to Appian Way's "The Girl With the Red Riding Hood."

Werewolf movie, written by David Johnson, is a gothic retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story, with a teenage love triangle at its center.

 

...says Variety HERE.

In no universe can that be right. Ever. Ever! I mean, crappy fanfiction is bad enough without it getting a multi-million dollar budget behind it. It's like....what Disney did to fairy tales, but...worse.

I just came across the term "wordslut." Just...just let that sink in a bit.

Wordslut.

Hahahahahahaha! Apparently I travel in the right circles.

Finally, finally I have a page written for a story. A fanfiction, true, but that's all to the good when I haven't written in months and my mind's been going a mile a minute (because I've had so much sleep, fuck, I love sleep) even though my fingers have forgotten how to grasp a pen. It's not like riding bike, this. It's like pulling out a tooth and widening the gums so a new one can come in.

But reading over the frenzied half-finished paragraphs is a pain and embarrassment I can handle, because mmmmm, I love words. I'm a total wordslut that way.

See? Using new vocabulary already. :)

Rewatching season one of Heroes with not only someone who hasn't seen it, but someone who watches films/shows with plenty of gasps! and squees! and wtfs?! is thoroughly rewarding. On the other hand, since it's my mother, I find myself having to hide the ridiculous grins I get on my face when I know something particularly evil is going to happen. Because yo, that shit ain't cool. EXCEPT IT IS. She says, "Sylar gives me the creeps." I say, "That's the general idea, mother." But really, I am SQUEEING on the inside.

I...do not believe that should be one's general response to all things ZOMG EEEVILLL!!!!11!!1!...though perhaps, that is being rather hasty. For example, I know of no one who squees over, say, Professor Umbridge. That woman is pure evil. There was not one point whilst reading Order of the Phoenix during which I felt anything but utter contempt for her. On the other hand...

( Major spoilers for Heroes season 1...and possibly 2...and also the last couple Potter books, briefly. )


TL;DR / "Let me 'splain. No, that would take too long. Let me sum up!":
~I adore the first season of Heroes. It is my belief that I giggle when evil things happen because I love the writers so much. I must share their sense of humour, or something.
~Sylar is an excellent villain because he is utterly human and relatable. Even though I think I'm reading way too far into it, I would say he's one of the best villains I've come across in any medium. And he's funny. He's funny, guys!
~Sylar, Peter Petrelli, and HRG are the coolest characters. (In fact,  ***SPOILER*** I'm usually quite adept at staying away from spoilers, but I still run into them sometimes, and someone said of the upcoming [4th?] season: "I hope this year it's no longer the Bennet-Sylar-Petrelli hour" and I was like WHY NOT THEY ARE MY FAVORITES and clearly the writers agree. Even if they supposedly suck after the first season, oh well. ***END SPOILER*** )
~There are many parallels between Peter and Sylar. I should write an essay to that effect that's more coherent than this drivel.
~I should also explore further how HRG can still be so in character though he continually goes off the charts in either direction.

I am rather depressed I hear so many bad things about the later seasons. Season 1 is so good. And Amazon wasn't making it easier on me, either. They just offered me the second season for $5. Just $5!! But I was strong. I will not watch the other season, I will not!

Oh my goodness it is five in the morning and I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. I think I started this in hopes of writing something intelligent about villains or something. And then it became picking apart performances for a review and then it devolved into pure conjecture and opinion.

AND and and and, what is WRONG with me? I'm finally done with school and all I'm doing is writing poorly organized essays with rampant colloquialisms. What the fuck, self?

Last night, as I was telling this to a friend who FREAKED OUT, I realized this was not yet common knowledge:

I'm no longer going to grad school. I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED!

Never say 'forever,' but for now I am fucking done with that shit! No more homework, no more assholes who think their opinions are facts, no more staying up 36 hours at a time because I have too much to do. DONE.

When I was discussing this with aforementioned friend last night, she said, "But...you're smart."

"Yeah, so what?"

"Well...I guess just because you're hung like Ron Jeremy doesn't mean you should start making porn."

And was like, yes! Yes, that's it exactly! You see, I have the college degree to prove that I can do the academic thing if I must. But I'm not going back because I'm sick, so freaking sick of pining for a life I can't have because I have too many immediate responsibilities. No more! I'm going to find a job here and earn enough money to move somewhere else. And in the meantime - time that would have otherwise been spent doing homework - I can edge towards that life I've been dreaming about.

I wasn't so sure about this until a few days ago when my mother was forcing me to discuss it, finally ending with, "Tomorrow I'm going near the office [for that one small local school, St. Mary's, something like that] so you can stop with me and we can go in."

And that was it. That was it. "No, I'm not."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, NO, I'm NOT." Which basically escalated into her asking who was 'whispering in my ear,' which made me realize that I must still let her control me an awful lot, if she automatically assumes that someone else has been vying for that position. Not to mention that I was completely, utterly insulted by the insinuation that I can't think for myself, nor found my own opinions.

Like...my sisters haven't let my mother control them for years, and neither of them have as good a relationship with her as I do, but maybe...maybe that's the sacrifice I have to make in order to 'hold the wheel and drive.' It's not like she isn't talking to me anymore, anyway; she's going to make me start paying rent once I find a job, but she's still letting me live under her roof and is paying for groceries and shit, so that's something.

And I totally just got her into Heroes and she's hyperventilating every night when she gets home from work to watch a couple more episodes from my DVDs. Natch. Good writing conquers all!

I'm just...I'm just so happy, so happy. I've been moving around constantly these past four years - my bedroom is half taken up with boxes still - and it's so comforting to know that I'm going to be somewhere for awhile, and that I have a plan. A plan, you guys. A motherfucking plan.