Sunday, January 29, 2006

9:00 AM - why can't I ever write a normal film review?

Brokeback Mountain

...finally made it to Brattleboro. And I finally had time to see it.

I've read about 440 pages so far in a book that talks about homosexuality in different cultures throughout history. Because the book spends most of its time in Europe, the history isn't pretty. Queer people have been burned alive, beaten, tortured, exiled, and mutilated for the past 1700 years, mostly based on the writing of one guy from Egypt. One of the more humane tortures was to tie a man's hands behind his back with a rope that was connected to a pulley in the ceiling. The torturers would hoist the man up to the ceiling, then drop him but catch the rope right before the man hit the floor. The sudden stop would dislocate the man's shoulders and elbows, and the torture was considered humane because it didn't involve blood or broken bones. By comparison, the rack was considered gentle.

This was the frame of mind I had going into Brokeback Mountain. It's relevant because that history of prejudices and pain has become indoctrinated in society, unspoken and taken for granted, and that's where most of the problems for the characters in Brokeback Mountain come from. In Ancient Greece, Buddhist China, or Japan before they started internalizing the "values" of the West, two men could have fallen in love without the stigma and danger and self-loathing that's central to this film.

Everything that I realized about Heath Ledger's character triggered a parallel realization about myself. So when I said goodbye to my friends with a numb smile, stumbling on icy sidewalks and choking back my tears until I got home, I wasn't upset for the fictional characters so much as for myself. After growing up with my society, my family, and my former religion, and my resulting fears and isolation and unwillingness to show vulnerability, I wonder if I'll ever not be lonely. I've never been in love, and I'm terrified that maybe I never will.

I do recommend seeing Brokeback Mountain, but I still think it's like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and is more relevant as a snapshot of our current attitudes than as a timeless classic. As for me, I'm not a character in a story, and my path through life is not a set of train tracks that lead inevitably toward a pre-written ending that has been crafted around my flaws. Brokeback Mountain has tragic protagonists, but I don't have to be one. The more I learn about the way my psyche operates, the more I learn about myself and my world, the more I can change things and work towards my own happiness. That's the most optimistic thought I have at the moment.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

9:27 PM - elf needs food, badly

I made some bad cookies

I had a really fantastic week. This was the first week of circus classes after the holiday break, and I seem to have made a bit of progress. I was looking good and strong in fabric, did some great handstands in acro, and made an awesome first attempt at the side planche that Serenity introduced in trapeze... so all in all it was a good week. There was a moment where I thought I broke the vacuum cleaner, but I've learned how to fix that issue.

At the grocery store this week, I made a spontaneous decision to get supplies to make chocolate chip cookies. This afternoon I tried actually baking the cookies. Utter disaster. The first group of cookies all glommed together into a giant slab of cookieness. The second batch actually looks like cookies, except only the top half of the cookie will come off of the cookie sheet, meaning I've got gooey sheared half-cookies. I kept having to wash the cookie sheet and spatula in between turns in the oven, and I eventually decided to scrap the rest of the dough and forget that I even tried. Originally I had wanted to surprise my co-workers with some cookies, but bringing these abominations in would be anything but a gesture of good will.

Last weekend I spontaneously started playing World of Warcraft again. I quit in June or July of 2005, but when AJ kept talking about playing Final Fantasy online with her friends.... well... I originally wanted to buy a computer and buy Final Fantasy and play that, but I was able to convince myself to satiate the urge with some World of Warcraft. And you know what? It's just as dumb as when I left it. Instead of sucking my soul out through my eyeballs, the game has actually helped me to adopt a healthier life pattern. Inner monologue: I'm bored! Let's go play World of Warcraft! What should we do today in the game... actually... there's nothing fun to do. Doing the same thing over and over is boring. Let's go have fun with some chores and then go to bed early so we can rest and exercise tomorrow! Signing up for this game again has inspired me to do more chores and exercise than I have in the past month. So I'll probably stop at the end of the month that I paid for and find a diffferent way to wrangle my free time.

I really hope I can get that side planche thingie. And my splits! Can you imagine how awesome I'd be if I could do splits?

Saturday, January 14, 2006

2:54 PM - sweet dreams

bits of optimism

The studio is officially open again, after a several-week hiatus while people were away on tour and the studio itself was under construction. I really missed the community and being able to train. Well, hopefully things are back in action.

My neck has been hurting some on and off, but here's the good news: I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow! I'm going to do nothing but relax and pamper myself between now and then. My new bed has finally been delivered and sleep is heavenly.

12:00 AM - Wow, this is the most crude language I've used in my blog, ever.

Hooray for politics.

I just want to go on the record as stating that I am 100% against military action against Iran by the United States. Maybe if we hadn't spent the last 5 years invading countries for the benefit of oil CEOs, maybe if Bush hadn't telegraphed his intentions years ago with the "Axis of Evil" speech, maybe if every major crisis under the Bush administration hadn't revolved around energy issues (invading Afghanistan and installing oil-friendly leaders there helps oil companies move forward on a pipeline project to export newly-discovered oil from Uzbekistan; energy issues in Iraq or the fake California energy crisis are even more blatant), maybe if the government had shown any competence at protecting its people from Hurricane Katrina or in helping them rebuild, maybe if the Project for the New American Century hadn't eeriely pointed out that their aims could only come to fruition after a "Pearl Harbor-like event" on American soil only a year or so before many of their members became cabinet members of the Bush administration, maybe if we hadn't just caused the senseless deaths of over 12,000 people by invading a country where we have no fucking business in the first place, maybe if the United Nations decided that it was necessary to use force in Iran and the United States was only filling a supporting role, then maybe I would grit my teeth and believe that Iran poses a true nuclear threat to world stability and that in this time of great peril we need to send a force in. As things are, I'm fucking tired of being a fucking aggressor nation, and I want no part of it. Stay the fuck out of Iran.

On a lighter note, I found this site for one of the more honest political candidates out there. And yes, he's definitely out there.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

12:47 PM - I guess they can't really head the ball...

I'm useful!

Everyone likes to feel useful at work, and for today I am no exception. We're working on some character set conversions and it was up to me to create some fake Chinese-language books and authors to test out the bookstore software. Of course, I have thrown myself into the project with gusto, and here are the books I made about Chinese unicorns:


  


I'm sure if AJ reads this post, she can tell me how I did.

I had prepared a whole rant for today, but after a couple of good productive hours at work, the venom and vitriol has drained away and I am just left with ordinary saliva. There's even some good news: my bed is finally arriving after being on order since early October. Luckily the store gave me an ugly loaner bed, otherwise I'd have been sleeping on hardwood floors for months. Crikey.

Happy birthday, Lauren!

Monday, January 02, 2006

11:59 AM - where "special" is a euphemism for "nerdy"

A very special new year

One of my insightful co-workers has pointed out that this year is actually 20X6, where X=0. That would be a nerdy and exciting thing, if they would ever bother to update the Homestar website. Heh.

I'm afraid that the Nerdular Nerdence of this post doesn't end there.... this year for the New Year I had my own personal Lord of the Rings marathon. It was the extended edition, except that I skipped quite a few of the "Frodo and Sam and Gollum" sections, because Frodo and Gollum are irritating to me. It still took forever, but I wasn't glued to the screen every second. I was also exercising and stretching and doing chores, etc. This was the first time since 1999 that I didn't have to go into work for the year rollover, and I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I don't usually do a lot of drinking and whooping it up to have fun anyway, and this year it just felt appropriate to have a quiet celebration. I was also strangely inspired on two fledgling creative projects, both related to elves. Heh.

Tonight I get to do laundry, which is always terribly exciting.

Today at work I'm writing a course outline and syllabus for a Web Applications course that we are teaching at a graduate school here. Ultimately, this is hilarious. At the beginning of 2005, I didn't even know how to use CSS. At the beginning of 2006, I am preparing to teach a course on Ruby on Rails and AJAX. If you don't know what those words and acronyms mean, don't worry-- I didn't either. They are basically the current fads in web technology. I should probably... you know... read about them. Or something.