Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Love or Not love

I love...

  • walking out to my car in the morning, looking through the trees and seeing Orion perfectly framed by the branches (yes, I leave early enough to still see the stars clearly)
  • learning a new skill
  • exploring my inner craft goddess
  • crispy leaves
  • Mint Moose Tracks Ice Cream
  • engaging in interesting discussions on topics I am passionate about
  • listening to the ordered chaos of a lively family dinner
  • new socks

I do not love...

  • waking up long before the sun comes up
  • the lock of the driver side door of my car is broken and I have not had the time/energy to deal with it yet
  • allergies that make my nose red and raw
  • the days seem to get away from me

Friday, September 17, 2010

Dark and Twisty

We all have our dark and twisty moments. Moments where we doubt ourselves, doubt each other, question what we're doing with our lives. I recently went to my dark and twisty place... very dark and twisty. We're talking creepy Putty Caves dark and twisty. The place where the government had to seal it off because people kept dying, dark and twisty. There were several triggers for it, school, beauty and sense of self, friends, boys, family, work...teeny tiny crisis of faith.

I have had a rather complicated relationship with food most of my adult and pre-adult life. I have dabbled in various diets, work out routines, a youthful indiscretion with disordered eating. I love food, I do, but it seems to me that the ambiguous "they" seems to tell me that's bad. I shouldn't love food the way I do. I eat a cookie and I feel guilt for hours after. I want to eat pizza or pasta and there's the voice inside my head that worries what people will say about the heifer eating the carb heavy extravaganza. I just want to eat my bread in peace. Can't you just let me, oh creepy voice in my head? It's gotten to the point where I have started to equate my happiness and prospects in life to a slice of pizza or a delicious fudge brownie or ice cream. If I eat that ice cream, I'll gain 300 pounds and the I'll die alone and no one will know until the fire department is called in because of the smell. (Putty Caves).

In my rational, feminist, go me, thought process, I know this is ridiculous. I do. I know that eating that cookie or that plate of pasta isn't going to damn me to a lonely unfulfilled life of doilies and cats. I know this...but I still can't seem to shut up the voice in my head. I sometimes wonder if it's something in my head and no matter what my previous experiences, are I would still feel this way or if it had never even been an issue, if I would still have such a complicated relationship with food.

I had originally planned a fantastic, scathing, diatribe about the social construct of beauty. I even started writing it several times. It was going to raise a righteous indignation in the masses and start a grass roots movement to change how the media portrays beauty and the double standard of physical attrativeness between men and women. (Anyone seen Hitch?) Obviously, that didn't happen.

Last night I mentioned my dark and twisty moment to a roommate and she didn't know I had gone to my personal Putty Caves. In her defense, since school has started I tend to hybernate in my room, so not too much changed in my general behavior. It really was a mental shift. The comment was made that she didn't know that I wasn't a subdued person in general. That made me sad, I know that wasn't her intended purpose, but it made me sad, nevertheless. Somewhere along the line I've slipped into survival mode. I've diverted all excess energy to keeping the main functions of life moving forward. School, work, eating, bathing...breathing some days. It's sad that I don't have the energy to get all agitated and passionate about the topics I love. If I don't think about it too much I can almost pretend that everything is alright and the scary thing is, most of the time I believe it. We all have our personal Putty Caves. Our dark and twisty places.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

This never gets old..

LIE! LIE! LIE!

Boys Will Be Girls

Have you all seen this?

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Dumbest.Book.Ever

I have been very disappointed in books lately. I read Mockingjay and I enjoyed it but thought the first book in the series was better. I wasn't seriously disappointed but mildly let down in my desire for a fantastic ending to an interesting and entertaining trilogy.

I then moved on to this book. Again, the premise sounds so interesting, especially considering society's preoccupation with beauty and the thriving beauty product industry - surgical and otherwise. I think I made it about a third of the way before giving up. I just didn't care about the story the author was trying to tell. I was interested in characters that didn't play a major role and I wanted to know more about some of the secondary characters rather than the primary characters. Needless to say, I stopped reading. It has been placed back on the shelf...possibly for another day, but probably not.

And then there's this book. Why in heaven's name, why?! I'm sure you've all seen this book and others like it..like this book. No? What about this one or perhaps this one. I've passed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies enough times in the bookstore to have gotten over the initial urge to cringe each time I saw it. As I saw more and more of these types of books pop up lately, I'm sorry to say my curiosity got the better of me. I just had to see what all the fuss was about. I want my $10 back. Oh and those several hours I spent reading it...yeah, want those back to.

Now, I know I'm a bit of a purist (ok...a lot of a purist) when it comes to the traditional English Literature Cannon but I can appreciate creativity and ingenuity when I see it. But I had to draw the line when after killing three of Lady Catherine De Bourg's ninjas, Elizabeth Bennet killed the third by pinning it to the wall with her Katana sword (huh?) and then finishing him off by punching her hand through his chest and ripping his heart out of his body and then eating it. I'm sorry...what?

Where is all the humor and satire? It seems the "author" (i use that term very loosely here) took out all the wonderful aspects of Austen's story and inserted Zombies, muskets, ninjas and dojos. Obviously he's catering to a very different audience but then why use Austen at all then? Or Tolstoy? or Shakespeare? The more I think about it, the more it irritates me. I suppose I should just be happy people are reading the "classics" but are they really?

I'm not saying that one has to read Austen or Tolstoy or any other of the "classics" to be an intelligent, well read person but if you're going to read them, at least read the original. And if Mr. Grahame-Smith had been in the least bit clever in his approach I probably would have enjoyed it. However, the only similarities between the two were character names and places. He would also occasionally insert some of the original dialogue...sometimes and very small portions.

I know Zombies, Vampires and werewolves are hot right now but really....? Enough already!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Late Night Internet Window Shopping


So cute...