I've been cheating on you

with LiveJournal.

I don't like it really. It's filled with quirks and is kind of a pain in my heinie to navigate. It's almost impossible to find stuff I want and my formatting choices are lame (if I want to stick with a free account).

And yet.

I had written before how I love fanfiction. For some reason, I go through phases with it, wherein sometimes I like to read it. Sometimes I don't think about it for ages. Sometimes it even enhances my enjoyment of certain movies and TV shows. Sometimes I write it. Now is one of those sometimes.

Well, except for the writing part. Haven't gotten to that yet. Yet.

Anyway, it seems anyone who writes the stuff has a LiveJournal page. And as I am someone who likes to compliment good writing, I set myself up with an account so I could leave comments. And since I don't want the people I'm leaving comments for to think I'm a troll, I put in a few entries. And then I remembered how much fun fandom can be. How crazycool and open and friendly writers are. In short, it's been a sort of therapy.

I don't have much there, and what I have mostly talks about slash. And if that bothers you, I don't much care, so consider yourself warned. But if you're interested, here you go.

Have I mentioned how much I love my friends?

I do. I love all of you. Some of you may find this weird. Especially those of you who have never actually met me. But here's the deal: I either like you well enough, in which case you are a friendly acquaintance, or I love you to pieces. I don't just LIKE my friends, they are everything to me. I am someone who is constantly seeking connections with people. Even the briefest moments can fire a spark that draws me to you. And then it's all over. I love you. Your well being becomes important to me. I will want you to be happy. I live for moments when we click. This is who I am. Get used to it.

About a year ago, I met a friend of The Husband's from work and was instantly crazy about him. I don't know how to describe the feeling, but it is akin to what most people mean when they say fall in love, except without the messy would we or wouldn't we? sexual tension (a wonderful way to fall in love, by the way, especially if one is happily married). I don't get to see Chris too often, but when I do, I am left with a happy feeling, warm fuzzies, and aching cheeks from laughing so much. Chris used to have a myspace page and his blogs always made me chuckle. He recently decided to take his page down (I don't know why, but I applaud his decision as I've come to despise most social network sites). In his honor (and with his permission), I am reprinting one of my favorites.



Boycott Chick-Fil-A!

A brief conversation between the Chick-Fil-A cow and Prince:


CFA: hay prinss!

Prince: What do U want?

CFA: can i ask yoo a qweshun?

Prince: Make it quick. Eye have 2 run.

CFA: yoor noo CD sux.

Prince: That's not a question.

CFA: i no.

Prince: What do U mean U know? Eye don't have time 4 this.

CFA: yoor right. im sorree.

Prince: Whatever.

CFA: hay!

Prince: Yes?

CFA: the last wun sukd too.

Prince: Really? Well, U R a cow.

CFA: thats not funnee.

Prince: Eye will never eat here again...4ever!


Neither will I, Prince...just 4 U.

Possible Squick Factor

It truly depends on how one feels about reading of someone else's personal matters. Consider yourself forewarned.

After posting my not-so-kick ass review of last night's LOCI, it occurred to me I have been out of sorts lately. Not writing as much as I used to; and when I do it usually struggles to come out and makes little sense, or lacks the spark my writing tends toward. I don't like the feeling that comes with struggling to write. Communicating with others is one of my all-time favorite things to do. And while I had never before thought of myself as a blogger, my separation from those I usually communicate with has found me comfortably using this medium to get my thoughts across to the point of loving it.

Around the fourth of July, though, it all seemed to leave in a rush that has me sort of emotionally gasping and unable to find purchase. I don't even feel the need to email people I used to (Music Wench, I have several choice thoughts on Barbie vs. Bratz. Perhaps one day I'll share them. By then, of course, it'll be a non-issue for you), as evidenced by my very kind friends who send me emails that sound more like personal APBs ("you still alive?") than the chatty missives I'm used to receiving.

Of course this gets into one of the things about electronic communication that drives me nuts: the absolute give and take nature of it. If I don't send out emails regularly, how long will my friends go before ceasing all attempts? Does that sound pathetic? I don't know that I care. Mostly because most of you would still send me email even if you hadn't heard from me in 2 weeks (as I've recently found out - and thank you!).

But I have been blue lately and I feel I need to figure out why before I can move on. I have this strange disconnect happening between myself and the rest of the world and I can't seem to shake out of it. I know it will pass, but part of the beautiful complexity that is me insists on believing that if I'm not entertaining people constantly, then they will seek others for friendship. So panic sets in because you are all so very important to me. I get that from my father, by the way, the need to entertain, which is why I'm not as annoyed at him as my mother becomes when he does it.

I'm also someone who feels and inordinate amount of responsibility for everything. If something goes wrong - no matter who is actually at fault - if I can find one thing I should have done that may have prevented it, then I will blame myself. There's a certain amount of arrogance to that assumption as well, don't get me wrong, but the weight of the world is exhausting and I would like to just put it down for a bit.

So around the fourth several things happened: my training class - which I loved - ended, my dearest cousin - who had been visiting for 2 weeks - left, my visit home went exceptionally well, and my work situation reached the pinnacle of suck. Cue in music for downward spiral. If I could grow a beard, it would rival Bobby's. And now I feel I have no entertainment for anyone, my thoughts are as mundane as can be, and who gives a fuck anyway?

And I really really want to write that piece about how The Dark Knight was such a strangely hopeful film I couldn't get it out of my head the whole day. But that is a movie that deserves all my mental faculties to talk about, and right now I ain't got it.

Sorry, folks. The show will reopen when the scripts are tightened.

Back on Track? Or possibly not. (some LOCI thoughts)

Yes, it was fun to see Bobby acting like a little kid, all excited with the magic, reliving some happy memories of his childhood (which I've believed all along did exist). It warmed my heart to see him smile and play around with Eames (though I don't think she's completely forgiven him, and that's okay). I'm ready to bid adieu to the beard, though I think that's more because I now equate the beard with Depressed!Bobby, so whenever I see him in it, I keep waiting for him to snap. But then again, why shouldn't he be depressed? It's not as if matters are back to normal. He has his job back, and his partner is speaking to him, but his personal life is still pretty much downward bound. Add to that the moronic nature of the cases he keeps getting and who knows what'll break him?

Don't get me wrong. I'm certain in some part of his weirdly tanned soul, David Copperfield does want to kill Criss Angel/David Blaine(as the murder victim was a strange crossover of both - I suppose representing the new breed of magic they're peddling which involves less flash and more mind-fuck) as well.

I usually try to watch an episode and let it stew for awhile before putting my thoughts down, but when "Vanishing Act" ended all I could think was, so?

Usually when a person is murdered on LOCI for reasons other than pure selfishness or evil, the viewers learn to understand why this happened. We were encouraged to even feel compassion sometimes. It wasn't a time too long ago; even the reviled season six had "Silencer." But did Copperfield-lite kill Criss Blaine wannabe because he was more popular? because he broke the Magician's Code? because he got laid more? It kind of went all over the place on me. In fact, I was kind of hoping Christopher Lloyd was the killer because he was the most entertaining part of this episode. One can never go wrong with Reverend Jim Ignatowski:




Overall I didn't dislike "Vanishing Act." It just seemed unfair that it was on opposite some of my favorites on Bravo ("Acts of Contrition" and "In the Wee Small Hours"), and I had to be reminded of how good it used to be. I do believe it can be great again - there is always some hope. It carried me through season seven of The Gilmore Girls, the fourth season of Angel, and this season's lackluster post-writer's strike network TV.

Those are my thoughts for now. Scattered on this Monday morning of Doom (as all Mondays are of Doom for me). Possibly later I will have some equally unintelligent thoughts about The Dark Knight (which I loved, by the way).

ETA: Music Wench has posted her thoughts on her page (somewhat different from mine, but that's way cool). Plus, she has some lovely caps!

Mash Game: Just like when I was 11!

		I will marry Gil Grissom.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in Venice, Italy in our fabulous Apartment.
		We will have 5 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a Purple GTO.
		I will spend my days as a Professor, and live happily ever after.

Coolest person I've never met

Music Wench's stepson's maternal grandmother.

No lie.

Frivolity (not the one from Music Wench)

The brain isn't firing on all cylinders this week, and you can tell because I'm not making fun of the questions. Most of my answers are totally off-the-cuff (on-the-cuff answers require more sleep than I'm getting these days:

1. What movie have you seen the most time in the theater? How many times?
I saw Coming to America and the first Batman 3 times.

2. What was the last movie you walked out of in the theater?
Mission Impossible III, a hailstorm cut the power after the first 15 minutes of the movie. I also left The Believers about half-way through because my friend was getting scared. We had to walk home because our ride wasn't coming for another hour.

3. What is the first movie you remember seeing in a theater?
I remember seeing snippets of Murder on the Orient Express at the drive-in theater in Lewisburg, Tennessee. My brother and I were, of course, in the way back of the family station wagon.

4. What is your favorite movie soundtrack?
Grease

5. Have you ever dressed up as a movie character for Halloween? If so, who?
No. Wait...no.

6. What was the first R-rated movie you ever saw? Were you allowed or did you sneak?
I don't remember, mostly because my parents didn't worry about such things. The R rated movies of my day are rated PG-13 now.

7. Star Wars (orig. trilogy) or Lord of the Rings?
Oh please. There would be no movie versions of LotR without the original Star Wars.

8. Pacino or DeNiro?
Pacino when he was younger.
Now it's Bobby DeNiro all the time.

9. Titanic...did it suck or was it great?
I enjoyed it the one and only time I saw it in the theater. I never needed to see it again.

10. What's your take on Cassavetes?
This just makes me think of that great Le Tigre song...that is now stuck in my head ("Genius! Misogynist! Aaal-coholic!"). True story: John Cassavetes's father was a travel agent and friend of my grandfather. My mother remembers Johnny's dad worrying that his son didn't want to go into the family business! Personally, I love him in Rosemary's Baby.

11. Favorite John Hughes character?
Any character that's NOT in Pretty in Pink. Fucking hate that movie.

12. What movie gives you a boner (or makes you tingle)?
I'll have to think on this one...
Okay, I remember getting all worked up watching True Romance. Not during the scene with James Gandolfini, though.

13. What movie always makes you cry like the big puss you are?
E.T.

14. What's the furthest you've ever gotten in a movie theater? (i.e, second base...)
I...like watching movies when I'm in a movie theater. I save the metaphoric baseball playing for the car.

15. Speaking of sports metaphors, what's your favorite sports movie?
I'm not one much for sports movies, but I remember loving Friday Night Lights.

16. (a) Favorite... teen movie?
When I was a teen: Sixteen Candles
Teen movie I've seen in recent (non-teen) years: Bring it On

(b)...Quentin Tarantino movie?
I could be oh so cool here, but I've never tried to be cool, so I'll have to say Pulp Fiction. I believe it far surpasses anything he's done before or since, mostly because it raised the bar of a type of filmmaking not seen before in the States. I would like to go back in time and kick him in the head, though, for putting John Travolta back in the spotlight.

(c)...Bill Murray movie?
Ghostbusters or Meatballs.

(d)...romantic comedy?
erm... Ghostbusters or Meatballs?

(e)...gangster movie?
...wow I suck at this

(f)...horror movie?
Evil Dead II or Night of the Living Dead ("They're coming to get you, Barbara!")

(g)...made for TV movie?
Anything on the Sci-Fi channel that doesn't feature a natural disaster. My current favorite is Heatstroke, starring D.B. Sweeney and Danica McKellar (who has made a career for herself as a math genius, but isn't above running around in a bikini for a few extra bucks).

(h)...director?
Sophia Coppola, Chris Nolan

(i)...drug movie?
Dazed and Confused

17. What movie have you seen already but will never, ever, ever watch again?
Oh this list is so long: anything directed by Clint Eastwood, Leaving Las Vegas, and Punch Drunk Love, for example.

18. What movie are you embarrassed to really like?
I'm not embarrassed by any bad movie I love (see question 16g). Bad movies have a higher re-watch value than most brilliant ones.

19. What movie should be remade asap?
NONE!!!! Stop remaking movies, for fuck's sake!

20. What the F happened to (insert answer)? He used to be so damn funny!
This question was tailor made for Eddie Murphy.

21. For the love of everything that's sacred, please someone stop (insert answer) from making another movie!
Michael Bay.
Michael Bay.
DAMN YOU, MICHAEL BAY!!!!!

22. What movie do all your friends love but you think is whatevs?
Knocked Up, Superbad, The Departed (I hang with a lot of guys, can you tell?)

23. What movie do you love but all your friends think is whatevs?
See question 16(g).

24. If you could hump/date/marry any movie character, who would it be?
Okay, I won't even get into the humping, and I would definitely spend some metaphoric time with Tony Stark, but I would marry Sam Deed (the first person- other than Val- who can name the movie gets kudos).

25. Best...movie....ever?
Jaws.
That one just popped into my mind. It could just as easily have been Pan's Labyrinth or Spellbound. This question ranks with the favorite book question. Instead of having a nice easy answer with a list ready-made (as the Husband would), my brain fries out just sorting through all the possibilities. Pretty soon one would think I hadn't seen a movie at all. So, Jaws.

26. Book you wish would be made into a movie, and who would direct it?
Literary adaptations generally suck ass, but I think a great director could do wonders with the Bangkok series by John Burdett. It would have to be someone with a very Eastern sensibility, though. I would also love to see a hardboiled adaptation of one of the early Burke books by Andrew Vachss. As long as Michael Bay doesn't direct either, I think we'll be okay.

Love it? Hate it? Violently disagree? Let me know!

fourteen days and squat

I need a meme, people. C'mon...most of you are on myspace, or facebook, or linkedin (do they do surveys on LinkedIn?), someone has come across a survey or "20 Random facts about me" meme I can answer to get the creative juices flowing (did that sound provocative? I didn't mean that...)

Any thoughts, plot bunnies, or hate mail may be directed to my inbox.

Slut, Bitch, Cu...

At one of my favorite book blogs, Jessa Crispin responds to criticism of her blog title.

Oh dear. Still processing, but I think it important to say that I understand some women have problems with the word "slut." I do not have that problem. Nor bitch. Cunt, maybe. Sometimes. But this woman's assertion that I am "a slut for Thomas Mallon" is really too funny to even respond to. My riled up inner feminist gets mightily pissed off at the assertion that I am harming women by running Bookslut, however. Maybe we should have a cleaned up version of the site for sensitive feminists, put some pants on the chiquita up on top, change it to Book Lady of a Certain Character. Bookladyofacertaincharacter.com is, believe it or not, available.

I respect the right to free speech. I even respect the right of free opinion. I am one of those sensitive feminists who does - on occasion - object to the word slut. My thoughts are complicated on this matter. I am a feminist, which, depending on your personal definition of the word, means I am either completely humorless, or I hate men (anyone who knows me knows neither is true). If one were to look up the official definition (of feminism) it would read as such:

NOUN:1. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. 2. The movement organized around this belief.

As I stated earlier, I do not believe we live in a time wherein the above is true. Still.

Words are powerful creatures. I love them. They hold so much within them. They convey small earthquakes of emotion. They can cause young women to hurt themselves. They can damage children without one hand raised against them. But they are also just a collection of letters whose meaning goes no further than the intent with which they are used. And that's where my complicated feelings come in. I think we may all agree that calling a young woman a slut because it is believed she has sex is not only detrimental, it is also hypocritical (as there is no comparative word for young men who have sex). Slut is a very popular word still thrown around too many social groups to imply how scared people are of women who own their sexual pleasure. And it's not just men who use it. So a bunch of sexually empowered women decided to take ownership of the word and embrace it. And because words are just a collection of letters with no more meaning than the intent behind them, I applaud that. Change the intent and you can change the word.

Except. Except. Except...

We still live in a sexually repressed, yet pornographic, society that sexualizes young women while shaming them for wanting to have sex. And I'm beginning to believe that ownership of the word isn't enough. Without actual social change (in which our culture's attitudes, values, and policies toward women are adjusted), calling myself a slut of any kind will do nothing except amuse those friends I have who already believe the same as I do.

So I'm stuck.

I applaud Jessa Cripsin for defending her right to call her website whatever she wants, for believing her personal ownership of the word slut (combined with her support of sexual pleasure for pleasure's sake) is enough. Perhaps it is. And I believe she has every right to make that choice. I honestly have no answers here. But I do know I have avoided buying a Bookslut t-shirt for this very reason. If I can convey my love of books and reading without using a word whose usual intent is to shame women, then that's my choice.

Another Note (and completely unrelated): I will be out of pocket for a few days as I go home to visit family. So no new blogs, no blog reading, barely email checking until Monday. Miss me?

I leave you with my favorite cartoon, sent to me by someone (AMC? Beka? - sorry I don't remember which. Sorry!).

Classic!

I totally stole this from The Intersect. Two things I am looking forward to: Hellboy II and the return of Chuck (and my favorite NSA agent).