My husband and I were watching Oz: Great and Powerful a few nights ago. While the movie was pretty terrible (green screens and meandering plot and shitty dialogue, oh my!), it got me thinking about the Land of Oz. Much like with Dorothy, the characters in the Land of Oz look an awful lot like the people the wizard knew before he got swept up by the tornado.
And like that, my pseudo-stoner mind went into overdrive: what if the Land of Oz is the collective unconscious? And Oz was so much of a megalomaniac that he imprinted on it first, naming it after himself?
It's not too much of a jump: Dorothy does end up waking up back in Kansas, surrounded by people who played the characters in the Land of Oz. And, much like Dorothy, part of Oz's story involves interacting with the Land of Oz versions of people he was having conflicts with.
Maybe I'm just too much of a Jungian, because I love the idea of the collective unconscious and archetypes (and his findings on extroversion versus introversion). But thinking about this made the movie incredibly entertaining -- even after Mila Kunis's lackluster acting took center stage.
These are the posts you can expect to get after a late night, followed by a really weird dream that switched back and forth between "zombie apocalypse" and "demon apocalypse".
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Day 124 of 365: Funny Swearing
Once upon a time, I spent an absurd amount of money on concerts, seeking out my favorite bands and jumping on every single time they entered the Boston (or New England) area.
Now I'm an adult, and, while I still enjoy the occasional concert, my focus has now shifted to comedians. If I've laughed at their stuff on the comedy channel on Pandora, I probably have them on Ticketmaster alert.
That being said, my husband and I are seeing John Pinette tonight. We were introduced to John Pinette during one of our Ohio road trips. We had our comedy channel on and could not stop laughing over his jokes. He has a gentle nature about him -- until he gets frustrated. Suddenly his voice changes and he goes, "Son of a bitch!"
Speaking of seemingly-non-sequitur, I prefer swearing in Spanish. While my Rosetta Stone classes have been slowly chugging along, my Spanish is still on par with a stuttering 2-year-old. However, I have an arsenal of swear words that would get me kicked out of any day care.
What does one have to do with the other? Other than it's my blog and everyone can sod off? Because, when I'm getting really frustrated, swearing in Spanish (or saying, "Son of a BITCH!" the way John Pinette says it) helps break the tension. I'll never really get while shouting, "¡Mas puta!" will help calm things down, but it does. Perhaps because there's a disconnect between the words and the meaning for me. The same way "Son of a bitch!" is said in such a comical way that I can't help but see the humor in the situation.
Heaven knows I said, "Son of a BITCH!" plenty of times when we were dealing with our painters. It helped when things went horribly over schedule, when they lost the knob to one of our light switches, and when they, gee, got the colors mixed up and didn't prime the area to fix it up.
Speaking of the painters: I got an email from them a few weeks back, apologizing for everything and saying they appreciated what I had to say on Yelp. Not the first time I had companies track me down for something I said on Yelp, but that's for another time.
Now I'm an adult, and, while I still enjoy the occasional concert, my focus has now shifted to comedians. If I've laughed at their stuff on the comedy channel on Pandora, I probably have them on Ticketmaster alert.
That being said, my husband and I are seeing John Pinette tonight. We were introduced to John Pinette during one of our Ohio road trips. We had our comedy channel on and could not stop laughing over his jokes. He has a gentle nature about him -- until he gets frustrated. Suddenly his voice changes and he goes, "Son of a bitch!"
Speaking of seemingly-non-sequitur, I prefer swearing in Spanish. While my Rosetta Stone classes have been slowly chugging along, my Spanish is still on par with a stuttering 2-year-old. However, I have an arsenal of swear words that would get me kicked out of any day care.
What does one have to do with the other? Other than it's my blog and everyone can sod off? Because, when I'm getting really frustrated, swearing in Spanish (or saying, "Son of a BITCH!" the way John Pinette says it) helps break the tension. I'll never really get while shouting, "¡Mas puta!" will help calm things down, but it does. Perhaps because there's a disconnect between the words and the meaning for me. The same way "Son of a bitch!" is said in such a comical way that I can't help but see the humor in the situation.
Heaven knows I said, "Son of a BITCH!" plenty of times when we were dealing with our painters. It helped when things went horribly over schedule, when they lost the knob to one of our light switches, and when they, gee, got the colors mixed up and didn't prime the area to fix it up.
Speaking of the painters: I got an email from them a few weeks back, apologizing for everything and saying they appreciated what I had to say on Yelp. Not the first time I had companies track me down for something I said on Yelp, but that's for another time.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Day 123 of 365: Future Writing Projects
I haven't touched my third manuscript since NaNoWriMo. I think a break is due, especially since I was dragging ass for that last week. I just need a week or two to do a factory reset on my mind before diving back in. I want to have it finished by the spring, but I also won't beat myself up if it's not done by then.
During this break time, I've gone back to a previous writing project. This is the one I've been incredibly cryptic about, if only because I am leary of talking to much about hypothetical futures (what's that saying again? Man makes plans and God laughs?) but now that I'm at least halfway through it, I feel comfortable enough to talk about it.
Writing essays has been my thing for the last, gee, 123 days. Writing about what's on my mind and what has happened in my life has become a lot easier than it was in the past. Granted, this effortlessness results in a lot more grammatical errors (and weaker sentences and poor use of idiomatic phrases...), but, still, it has opened a lot of doors for me. As someone who has been toeing back into the world of modeling, I decided to get retrospective and look back on the funny, infuriating, embarrassing, and just plain interesting times as a model.
And I decided to write them all down.
I only have about 15,000 words worth of essays write now. The goal is to at least double it and then... we'll see. Again, I hate talking about the hypothetical future because it can all come crumbling down before you know it and suddenly you have egg on your face, but I have some high hopes. I'd like to think having a viral essay has given me a bit of a leg up, but, again, we'll see.
It's a murky day again. I've decided to fight fire with fire -- or, in this case, fight water with ovens. I'm cooking up the most aromatic foods I can imagine. If the outside is going to look like misery, the inside is going to at least smell like heaven.
During this break time, I've gone back to a previous writing project. This is the one I've been incredibly cryptic about, if only because I am leary of talking to much about hypothetical futures (what's that saying again? Man makes plans and God laughs?) but now that I'm at least halfway through it, I feel comfortable enough to talk about it.
Writing essays has been my thing for the last, gee, 123 days. Writing about what's on my mind and what has happened in my life has become a lot easier than it was in the past. Granted, this effortlessness results in a lot more grammatical errors (and weaker sentences and poor use of idiomatic phrases...), but, still, it has opened a lot of doors for me. As someone who has been toeing back into the world of modeling, I decided to get retrospective and look back on the funny, infuriating, embarrassing, and just plain interesting times as a model.
And I decided to write them all down.
I only have about 15,000 words worth of essays write now. The goal is to at least double it and then... we'll see. Again, I hate talking about the hypothetical future because it can all come crumbling down before you know it and suddenly you have egg on your face, but I have some high hopes. I'd like to think having a viral essay has given me a bit of a leg up, but, again, we'll see.
It's a murky day again. I've decided to fight fire with fire -- or, in this case, fight water with ovens. I'm cooking up the most aromatic foods I can imagine. If the outside is going to look like misery, the inside is going to at least smell like heaven.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Day 122 of 365: Female Athletes
Last week was the Ultimate Fighter finale. For the first time in UFC history, the main card was predominantly female. Although none of the fighters I liked won, I was so proud to see a nearly all-female fight night receive such favorable reviews.
Because female athletes have been discredited from day one. Everything from "but men are stronger!" to "but women aren't as entertaining!" has been thrown out. And the few branches of athletics where women compete on the same platform (namely, the Olympics) either requires the women to wear ridiculously skimpy outfits (like beach volleyball) or get derided because the women aren't sexy enough (like gymnastics or swimming).
I know my feminist soapbox is started to bow in the middle from all the times I've stood up on it, but I really don't care. The reasons to exclude females from athletic divisions are weak at best, sexist at worst. While I'm not here to say that women are, pound for pound, training hour for training hour, as strong as men (because biology is against us there), I still found it ridiculous to say that there are sufficient reasons to have sports be male-only.
Because the "men are stronger" argument is completely invalid. If that were the case, we'd only have heavyweights in boxing and MMA. We'd only have linebacker-looking guys in football. Only the absolute biggest, most-muscle-y guys in baseball. Nothing but the biggest, strongest men, because who would want anything else?
Because different strengths bring something different to the table. You need the running backs, you need the flyweights, you need different body types to get certain things done. They all bring something that can be just as entertaining as the biggest, strongest guys.
Actually, there is one sufficient reason why sports are male-only (and the few female-included sports have the women dressed up super skimpy): people still treat sports like a man's club. We have terms like "pink hatter" for the women who pretend to like sports for the attention, but no term for men who do the same (and you know there are men who pretend to love the Patriots but couldn't tell you what offsides are to save their skulls). We have websites like WhileTheMenAreWatching.com, which is so insipid and patronizing that I actually lose a few IQ points whenever I think about it. We are so wrapped in what we've been told since we were kids -- sports are for boys to play and watch -- that we have a hard time changing our thinking, even when we see what female athletes can do.
Patrick Rothfuss (one of my favorite authors) brought up similar mindsets. His main message was that it's okay to have these mindsets -- you are told things as a kid, your brain develops around them, and it's hard to even realize you're thinking them because they're just that ingrained -- but it's not okay to realize that the mindset is wrong and refuse to do anything about it because "that's just the way things are".
And, really, if you're that comfortable in your masculinity, seeing women enter the mainstream athletic world should not threaten it. Even if they could kick your ass any day of the week.
Because female athletes have been discredited from day one. Everything from "but men are stronger!" to "but women aren't as entertaining!" has been thrown out. And the few branches of athletics where women compete on the same platform (namely, the Olympics) either requires the women to wear ridiculously skimpy outfits (like beach volleyball) or get derided because the women aren't sexy enough (like gymnastics or swimming).
I know my feminist soapbox is started to bow in the middle from all the times I've stood up on it, but I really don't care. The reasons to exclude females from athletic divisions are weak at best, sexist at worst. While I'm not here to say that women are, pound for pound, training hour for training hour, as strong as men (because biology is against us there), I still found it ridiculous to say that there are sufficient reasons to have sports be male-only.
Because the "men are stronger" argument is completely invalid. If that were the case, we'd only have heavyweights in boxing and MMA. We'd only have linebacker-looking guys in football. Only the absolute biggest, most-muscle-y guys in baseball. Nothing but the biggest, strongest men, because who would want anything else?
Because different strengths bring something different to the table. You need the running backs, you need the flyweights, you need different body types to get certain things done. They all bring something that can be just as entertaining as the biggest, strongest guys.
Actually, there is one sufficient reason why sports are male-only (and the few female-included sports have the women dressed up super skimpy): people still treat sports like a man's club. We have terms like "pink hatter" for the women who pretend to like sports for the attention, but no term for men who do the same (and you know there are men who pretend to love the Patriots but couldn't tell you what offsides are to save their skulls). We have websites like WhileTheMenAreWatching.com, which is so insipid and patronizing that I actually lose a few IQ points whenever I think about it. We are so wrapped in what we've been told since we were kids -- sports are for boys to play and watch -- that we have a hard time changing our thinking, even when we see what female athletes can do.
Patrick Rothfuss (one of my favorite authors) brought up similar mindsets. His main message was that it's okay to have these mindsets -- you are told things as a kid, your brain develops around them, and it's hard to even realize you're thinking them because they're just that ingrained -- but it's not okay to realize that the mindset is wrong and refuse to do anything about it because "that's just the way things are".
And, really, if you're that comfortable in your masculinity, seeing women enter the mainstream athletic world should not threaten it. Even if they could kick your ass any day of the week.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Day 121 of 365: Seasonal-Affective
It's getting more and more difficult to get things done. I find myself dragging ass to do anything that isn't outright required of me by outside influences (like classes or go-sees). I find myself calling it a day long before the dinner bell. Part of me assumed it was because I was running at maximum speed with NaNoWriMo, but, as Day Three of murky, cloudy weather settles in, I realize that it's way more than writing a ton.
I truly believe that the seasons affect our behavior. It's why New Englanders are so rough and brazen, but southern Californians are so laid back. It's why we feel super productive in the spring and just want to snuggle in the fall. It's why most of us love sunny weather and feel morose when it rains.
My trepidation for winter was only intensified as a preschool teacher. Winter (and bad weather) meant no playground time, which meant an entire day filled with high-energy kids who seriously just needed to run around for a bit. It meant naptimes that weren't really naptimes (all the while, administration saying things like, "Well you can obviously can get that done during naptime."). It meant watching the skies go black before the kids even got picked up.
Now that I'm out of the early education world (and my teaching schedule is a lot more scattered), I assumed that this feeling would go away. But it's still there. I'm not stressed and anxious, but the desire to just stay in my PJs and screw writing, screw practicing, screw contacting studios for potential employment, is strong. And days like today, where the fog is still settled even at 9:30 in the morning and I haven't seen the sun in almost a week, just depletes my energy even further. It's dark at 4:00 and, if I'm not careful, I mentally check out on the day at 4 as well.
For some, that's okay. Just watch a lot of TV, go on a ton of websites, and enjoy a slow-paced life. But I'm not like that. I'm the type of person who can't sit and watch more than a show or two at a time. I like doing stuff. And that part of me isn't completely quelled by the weather. In fact, that part of me is losing her damn mind because the rest of me is in slow motion.
But, referencing a super-old post, sometimes you just have to kick yourself in the butt, say, "it's not a choice," and continue on. Time to clear out a sink of dishes, get a good yoga practice in, and log some running miles.
I truly believe that the seasons affect our behavior. It's why New Englanders are so rough and brazen, but southern Californians are so laid back. It's why we feel super productive in the spring and just want to snuggle in the fall. It's why most of us love sunny weather and feel morose when it rains.
My trepidation for winter was only intensified as a preschool teacher. Winter (and bad weather) meant no playground time, which meant an entire day filled with high-energy kids who seriously just needed to run around for a bit. It meant naptimes that weren't really naptimes (all the while, administration saying things like, "Well you can obviously can get that done during naptime."). It meant watching the skies go black before the kids even got picked up.
Now that I'm out of the early education world (and my teaching schedule is a lot more scattered), I assumed that this feeling would go away. But it's still there. I'm not stressed and anxious, but the desire to just stay in my PJs and screw writing, screw practicing, screw contacting studios for potential employment, is strong. And days like today, where the fog is still settled even at 9:30 in the morning and I haven't seen the sun in almost a week, just depletes my energy even further. It's dark at 4:00 and, if I'm not careful, I mentally check out on the day at 4 as well.
For some, that's okay. Just watch a lot of TV, go on a ton of websites, and enjoy a slow-paced life. But I'm not like that. I'm the type of person who can't sit and watch more than a show or two at a time. I like doing stuff. And that part of me isn't completely quelled by the weather. In fact, that part of me is losing her damn mind because the rest of me is in slow motion.
But, referencing a super-old post, sometimes you just have to kick yourself in the butt, say, "it's not a choice," and continue on. Time to clear out a sink of dishes, get a good yoga practice in, and log some running miles.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Day 120 of 365: Paul Walker
The fact of the matter is that there really isn't anything else I want to talk about. Say what you want about feeling deeply about celebrity deaths, but, oh well.
Paul Walker died a few days ago in a tragic car accident. I'm a huge fan of the Fast & Furious franchise, I recognize the horrific irony in the situation, and I don't find the jokes all that witty.
I might be completely wrong. Hollywood is all about image and faking it, but Paul Walker seemed like a pretty stand-up guy. He was under-the-radar involved with a ton of charities. He saw an army serviceman looking at rings with his to-be-fiancee and he told the jeweler to put their purchase on his bill -- a story that didn't come out until after he died. In a world where pretty boys in Hollywood become the biggest douchebag party-goers, Paul Walker seemed to keep a pretty low profile. And I respect the hell out of that.
My heart breaks for his family -- especially his 15-year-old daughter -- as well as the family of his friend, the driver of the car. My heart breaks for his co-star Tyrese, who visited the crash site and broke down. People are getting up in arms about how "speed might have been involved" and so on. But who doesn't disobey the speed limits? God knows there have been a few times that I've sped down the highway going near-80 when the speed limit was 55. And, if you're an avid car fan and used to driving fast cars, you don't think about those things twice. And, touching upon a very old entry in this blog, if we are going to act like they deserved to die because of something like speeding, then we all deserve to die for the stupid shit we do on a daily basis.
That's my post for today. That's how I feel. It might be made more intense by the murky weather but, again, oh well. Here's my chair, here's my opinion, take it or leave it.
Paul Walker died a few days ago in a tragic car accident. I'm a huge fan of the Fast & Furious franchise, I recognize the horrific irony in the situation, and I don't find the jokes all that witty.
I might be completely wrong. Hollywood is all about image and faking it, but Paul Walker seemed like a pretty stand-up guy. He was under-the-radar involved with a ton of charities. He saw an army serviceman looking at rings with his to-be-fiancee and he told the jeweler to put their purchase on his bill -- a story that didn't come out until after he died. In a world where pretty boys in Hollywood become the biggest douchebag party-goers, Paul Walker seemed to keep a pretty low profile. And I respect the hell out of that.
My heart breaks for his family -- especially his 15-year-old daughter -- as well as the family of his friend, the driver of the car. My heart breaks for his co-star Tyrese, who visited the crash site and broke down. People are getting up in arms about how "speed might have been involved" and so on. But who doesn't disobey the speed limits? God knows there have been a few times that I've sped down the highway going near-80 when the speed limit was 55. And, if you're an avid car fan and used to driving fast cars, you don't think about those things twice. And, touching upon a very old entry in this blog, if we are going to act like they deserved to die because of something like speeding, then we all deserve to die for the stupid shit we do on a daily basis.
That's my post for today. That's how I feel. It might be made more intense by the murky weather but, again, oh well. Here's my chair, here's my opinion, take it or leave it.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Day 119 of 365: No More NaNoWriMo
Weirdly, even without my computer crashing, even without teaching full-time, this year's NaNoWriMo was a hard one. At least 25% of the time, I thought to myself, "Well, today's the day I break my streak."
But somehow I did it. A thousand words a day on a novel I was sludging through, 50,000 words total. My characters did things that surprised me. I wrote sentences that I knew for a bloody fact I would have to rewrite someday.
I am far from done with this novel. Given wear I am in the story, I'd say I have at least 30,000 more words before the novel is done. And then I edit. And I edit. And I edit forever.
So what is next? First off: a break. Whether that means I take a full break from this manuscript or I shrink my daily word count to something a little more bit-sized, I don't know. Part of me wants to capitalize on my essay going viral, but the other part of me knows that agents hate December, because December is National Amateur Novel-Submitting Month (NaAmNoSuMo?).
But -- holy crap -- I am exhausted. If that's not abundantly clear by the scatter-brained nature of this post. I'm going to update my (crafts) blog, maybe read over an essay I want to send to Thought Catalog, and, for the first time in a month, breathe.
But somehow I did it. A thousand words a day on a novel I was sludging through, 50,000 words total. My characters did things that surprised me. I wrote sentences that I knew for a bloody fact I would have to rewrite someday.
I am far from done with this novel. Given wear I am in the story, I'd say I have at least 30,000 more words before the novel is done. And then I edit. And I edit. And I edit forever.
So what is next? First off: a break. Whether that means I take a full break from this manuscript or I shrink my daily word count to something a little more bit-sized, I don't know. Part of me wants to capitalize on my essay going viral, but the other part of me knows that agents hate December, because December is National Amateur Novel-Submitting Month (NaAmNoSuMo?).
But -- holy crap -- I am exhausted. If that's not abundantly clear by the scatter-brained nature of this post. I'm going to update my (crafts) blog, maybe read over an essay I want to send to Thought Catalog, and, for the first time in a month, breathe.
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