"Love turns to hate... Why is that?"

There's nothing sadder than when the ongoing plotline of a shlocky crime scene investigation television show (which, yes, you are in the lame habit of watching and you don't really care who knows it) starts to mirror recent events in your life, especially when your life doesn't have the added bonus of dead people and sweet-ass surgical autopsy tools.

-------

Autumn

That soft twist, that knot
where your knee proclaims its ending
never entering the beginning
of that curve of shin and ankle.
Always I fear this terrain
of twisted flesh, evidence of some
lacking, some loss,
caught in my gut like a tight pale pear.
But I am amazed
at how you arrive again and again,
amputee of summer, with a slight wobble,
the light crooked and dispersing
with a limp against sky these days.
How you offer a tight smile each evening
into this clenched stump of sky,
the lump of absence heavy
upon you, wanting
to have someone, something,
just to be anything but alone.

-------

The Tree and the Sky

The tree is walking around in the rain
moving past us in the squishy gray.
It has a job to do. It picks life out of the rain
like a blackbird in a cherry orchard.

As soon as the rain stops, the tree stops too.
It simply stands, motionless in the clear nights,
waiting just as we do for that moment
when snowflakes will throw themselves out in space.

--Tomas Transtromer (translated by Robert Bly)

-------

Brokeback Mountain

So despite some sarcastic comments I've seen making fun of the upcoming Brokeback Mountain, I am looking forward to seeing this movie quite a bit. (You can check out the previews HERE.) In it, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play two gay lovers. The premise is such (stolen off of yahoo movies):

"Set in Texas and Wyoming, this is the romantic tale of two male cowboys from very different backgrounds who meet and fall in love while working together as sheep ranch hands near Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain the summer of 1961. Their lives take different courses, however, with Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) becoming a rodeo cowboy while Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) remains a ranch hand, and the film follows their lives as they see each other again over the next 20 years. Their relationship is rocky, however, as they must deal with the challenges posed as the intolerance of pre-(and post)-Stonewall rural America rears its ugly, violent head against the two lovers. (Williams plays Ledger's wife; Hathaway plays Gyllenhaal's wife; Quaid plays a ranch foreman.)"


Interestingly, many of the movie descriptions I've read only allude to the fact that the main characters in the movie are two men who fall in love with one another (yahoo's description is thankfully more bold), and I wonder if the television previews will be the same--tiptoeing around the topic of homosexuality enough that they can get mainstream audiences in to see it. For once, I might support this trickery. *IF* the movie and its portrayal of two gay lovers is a good one.

Now why am I gung-ho about this film without having even seen it yet? Well, here is a mainstream film where gay men aren't going to be portrayed as big flaming 'mo's and aren't simply just there to be the butt of the joke in some craptastic comedy. Is that not enough? I mean, tell me the last mainstream movie you saw where a) it focused on the love story of two gay folks instead of yet *another* lame-ass pair of nauseatingly sweet straight folks, and/or b) there were gay characters in it that were in fact fully-developed characters who weren't completely flat stereotypes of what mainstream America apparently perceives gay men to be like?

Yeah, good luck with that.

Maybe Brokeback Mountain looks a bit hokey--maybe if it were the same story but with a male and female lead instead of two males, most of us film geeks would roll our eyes and turn up our noses and vomit in our mouths a little--but you know what, even if it IS a slightly syrupy love-story in the end, IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING LOVE STORY ABOUT TWO GAY MEN THAT'S BEING MARKETED TOWARDS MAINSTREAM AMERICA and that's enough for me.

I mean, it's nice to see a movie that doesn't get all uncomfortable about the topic of gay love. It's also nice to see two good actors not "afraid" to step up to the roles (and man, those boys are foxy--I should leave my personal yammerings out of it, but all Gyllenhaal has to do is give those sad puppy-dog eyes and I'm mush). And it's DAMN nice to see a movie that (even if it fails to bring straight Christian America into the theaters but at least inundates them with the sight of unstereotypical gay love in television previews alone) breaks down our damnable media stereotypes of the gay male.

Granted, there are big flaming 'mo's out there in the world and there are gay boys who deserve to be the butt of a joke or two. And there is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with these kindsa gay boys--it's just that they're not the only TYPE of gay men in existence, so they shouldn't be the only way gay men are represented in mainstream media. So it makes me ever so happy to see a movie that's attempting to do damage to these silly stereotypes and remind us that there ARE different types of gay men just like there are different types of straight men.

It's about time we see two gay men placed in a hyperly masculine setting instead of flouncing around in drag or moing it up with hyper-effeminacy (my complaints are with the stereotypical portrayals of ALL gay men as such, not with the 'mo's and flouncers themselves, I again point out, lest I wrongly offend)--Texas/Wyoming cowboys, I mean, you can't get any more "Masculine American Male" than that. And perhaps this may be the source of skepticism from some (the idea of a movie about two gay cowboys, of all things) but at least it's offering up an alternative for these stupid little pigeonholes that we've been jamming gay men into for so long in the media. (Ha ha ha--no pun intended)



The fact that this movie appears to be directed at mainstream America (if I remember correctly, my sister saw the previews for it at a non-artsy-cinema place) also makes me a bit afraid for it though. This means a lot more pressure is going to be placed on it in how it portrays gay men--both good and bad pressure--and I hope that it comes out on the other side relatively unscathed. But I fear fear fear that the movie will somehow fuck something up, and as it IS sort of a momentous occasion (a mainstream film dealing with homosexuality without fluff stereotypes and whatnot) it scares me that it might. I mean, one tiny wrong turn, and it could find itself reinforcing all of the stupid straight white Christian boys of America's views about homosexuality. Or one wrong turn and you've got all of straight white Christian America (or at least those who go not realizing what the movie is about) beating everyone down with their typical anti-gay, anti-morality bullshit. Or throw in enough shlock, and the momentousness and major topic of the movie gets lost among triteness, and a huge opportunity results in a flop. Any which way, that is a scary responsibility.

Promising is the fact that Gus Van Sant was attached to the project for quite some time, and (given the topics of previous films) I doubt he would've eagerly attached his name to it if it was COMPLETE stereotypical gay drivel. Promising also is the fact that Focus Features puts out damn good movies (and yes, this is a Focus Film)--think Eternal Sunshine and Punch-Drunk Love among others.

So dammit, I can't wait til it comes out in December. It's gotten me excited. I don't care whether it sucks or not, I think the cause is a noble one. It's about damn time.

-------

The Local House to Hell?

-------

My Apartment is Haunted...

By the ghost of Murphy's Law. Over the last few months, my cd burner has been in the process of drawing out a long and painful death. So finally this weekend, I decided to buy a new one. I get it home, we hook it up, and lo and behold, the computer doesn't recognize it. After a day's worth of troubleshooting at work and a telephone call with the Microcenter help-hotline which involved much disappointingly UNKINKY discussion of "masters" and "slaves," I finally figured out the problem and got the damn thing hooked up *ALL BY MYSELF* so neh. It took me a while of fiddling but I did it.

Pleased with myself, and basking in the glow of accomplishment, I returned downstairs to find that my apartment was ice cold and getting colder. My furnace had apparently stopped working. The gas company will no longer come out if you are not a) on fire, b) calling in the midst of a huge explosion, or c) hopped up on gas fumes, and I (as per usual) could not get ahold of my stupid landlord. So I spent a very frigid night under 1800 layers of blankets and woke up to find that the thermostat has slipped below 50 degrees during the night. I got dressed as fucking fast as possible (my nipples could've slit someone's throat, they were that hard) and received a call and a promise from my landlord that my furnace would be on when I returned home. Which of course was a lie because he never gets ANYTHING done like he says. So I returned home to an icebox. I called and left several threatening messages on his machine (one other fantastic perk about him is that he lets his voicemail box fill up so no one can leave him messages--go figure--so I've taken to calling him on his personal line) and someone finally came out to fix it at 8:00.

Less than an hour later, I come to find that apparently my vcr will happily play sounds but not images, so I'm sitting there *LISTENING* to The Hills Have Eyes but not seeing a wit of it. A bit of shaking and cord-adjusting later, I fix it. But midway through the movie, I lose all video again, this time permanently. So I say again--apparently my apartment is haunted by the ghost of Murphy's Law--for the past 2 days, things have been crapping out on me, I've been managing to fix them, and within an hour, something else has crapped out...

What next, I ask? The television? The oven? The floor? Shit me up, you shitbag luck, and do it quickly so I at least have something weird to blog about.

Segue into my current concern which is now that I've finally gotten nasty with my landlord (though it was LONG overdue, trust me), I fear he will not be sympathetic to my cause of having cats in my apartment. I called about this the day of the furnace fiasco, actually joking on his machine that for once I wasn't calling about anything that needed to be fixed, just to ask if the folks who own my house would be flexible on the topic of pets (given that my front neighbors have both a dog and cat(s))--this comment about "not needing anything fixed" no doubt instigated the breaking of the furnace (I hate you Murphy).

I want to adopt the (possibly three) stray cats that have become my cat posse. They are all super-sweet and I worry about them being out in the cold now that autumn's come. This is a big step for me because I've always been rather afraid of having a pet, especially since I killed my pet hermit crab (his name was Mynheer Peeperkorn) back in college. I think this may have traumatized me a bit. For the same reasons I'm leery of buying a house or popping out kids or becoming a pilot, I'm also afraid of having a pet. It's a lot of responsibility--you have lives dependent on you, and your ability to up and vacation or move on short notice is a bit altered. That, and I don't like killing stuff.

I loved Mynheer Peeperkorn. I spent three or four hours one night when I bought him a bigger shell trying to catch him moving out of his old and into his new. I fell asleep and awoke in the morning to find that he'd been smart and waited until my eyes had fallen shut to do so. So when I sat him in his usual laundry basket on top of the table so he could climb around, not realizing that he'd gotten a TAD bit bigger than the last time and could navigate OVER the top rim, I was of course devastated when my roommate and I heard him hit the floor all the way from the kitchen. I knew there was no way he'd survive, but I hoped and hoped and hoped. I lived on a needle's head of fear the next 24-hours and realized he was a goner when I returned home to find him huddled in one corner and his shell in the other (they only ever leave their shells to move to new shells or to die--and they will almost NEVER do the former around humans). He was still half-conscious when my boyfriend and I decided to put him out of his misery--he scooped him up with my ladle, and we took him down to the pond nearby and gently placed him in the water as his final resting place. I was upset about this for months--it still upsets me.

Which is part of the reason I've never been eager to have pets or babies. I mean, what if I am stupid enough to stick my toddler in a laundry basket on top of the table and he manages to make it over the edge and fall out? That just wouldn't be right.

This is why it's always been a rule that I wouldn't be having any babies, any pets, or piloting any airplanes anytime soon.

But I think I'm finally all growed up, Ma, because I'm starting to think I may become flexible on the latter two--so pilot me and my kitties up, American Airlines, because here I come!

-------

Friday Night Out

-------

I just got yelled at by the lunch lady for eating Fruit Loops for lunch.

*sniffle*

-------

"Very superstitious, Writing's on the wall..."

While downing fierce bottles of Nosferatu beer at Queen Bitch Lush's Oktoberfest party this weekend, I had a Halloween decorating epiphany for my kitchen.

For those of you not familiar with my fiendish love of Halloween, lemme fill you in--during the month of October, I have a very difficult time watching anything that is not a horror movie. I have already watched eleven (twelve, if you're willing to count a documentary) horror flicks this October (you can check out my horror movie site HERE to see a complete list). I have stocked up on a variety of sundry Halloween decorations. I have perfected my "Halloween bloody-fingers cookies" which look disturbingly realistic. I have in my permanent collection a pair of gloves that have glow-in-the-dark eyeballs on them and a spider-web candle-holder. I have three different skull candles. I get super-geeked when I find fantastic deals on fake-spiderwebs ($1.19 for a huge pack at JoAnn Fabrics). I was actually tempted to buy a cauldron. I could go on and on. Translation: Halloween is my favorite holiday.

And yet, I realized last night when tempted to follow through on my kitchen decorating epiphany, that the decorating scheme is also something that I cannot bring myself to do any earlier than Friday and during daylight hours. I am as atheistic/agnostic as a person can get, and yet, here I am getting totally creeped out at the prospect of having to be around potentially, um, "satanic" decorations. I could NOT walk into the kitchen all week, in the cloak of darkness, and know that these things would be in there. *AND* I actually think I would be nervous that, like a person accidentally inviting a vampire into their home, it would be an invitation to introduce evil into my apartment...

Here I am, queen agnostine, and I'm freaked out that the devil might pop his head in and try to possess me or something. *sigh*

I think there was some sorta weird hiccup in my genetic makeup that allows me to make absolutely no sense in this regard--to not believe a wit in God and yet to avoid walking under ladders, to not stand too long in front of a mirror hanging in a dark room, to say "God bless you" to sneezers, to love the notion of All-Hallow's Eve (which has strong Christian roots). This discrepancy is such a weird one. I mean, even when I was little, I felt no connection with a "God" and no impending sense of faith at all. So how'd I inherit all these freak-outs in the realm of the devil and superstition?

Am I a hypocritical atheist? Or just a nonsensical one? The answer is unclear.

But either way, I'm sure it's just another reason I'm most certainly going to hell.

-------

Centering

So I was thinking about this the other day, and I now offer it up as food for your thought as well...

I've noticed that horror movies utilize perfectly centered camera shots on a fairly regular basis, think The Shining or even Halloween (I can't find any sample stills from Halloween, but in the opening scenes, the first outside shots of the house are perfectly centered). And somehow it adds to the spookiness of a film:









But even moving beyond the realm of horror flicks, the perfectly centered shot (or the perfectly symmetrical shot) seems to me to often lend an air of uncomfortability or unsettledness to a scene, as evidenced in a number of Kubrick films most predominantly (he seems to be the master of this shot--it's one of the reasons that The Shining is so fricking creepy).





And I wonder, why is this?

Is it because the movie is trapped within a frame and our natural vision is only SOMEWHAT trapped in the same way, so when we look around, we rarely see things that are naturally occuring as perfectly centered in our line of vision and/or perfectly symmetrical (or at least to the point that they stand out as such to us)? Does the brain recognize it as something unnatural? And if so, does this offer into our subconscious the reminder that we are watching a movie and reinforce the idea of the gaze in such a way that we feel unsettled in our role as "voyeur"?

One essay on symmetry in film states that symmetry can focus the attention on important characters or important scenes (Source), so perhaps if we are inundated with symmetrical shot after symmetrical shot (such as in The Shining) it becomes oppressive and confusing? The same source also states that "Symmetry is a very obvious form of composition, which of course offers opportunities but at the same time can cause a situation to seem artificial, stilted, and thus shatter the illusion of the fiction. This is possibly the reason that a lot of filmmakers try to avoid symmetry." This reinforces the notion of the gaze and would make sense in explaining why the use of symmetry within horror movies is so creepy--because it is sort of placing us in the role of "witness" to any number of horrible atrocities while we sit back and do nothing about them...

Maybe all of this is just foolish musing. I don't know, but I sure dig the thought.

What thinkest you all, my movie nerd friends?

-------

Last night, when I went to bed, I kept picturing a boat struggling to chisel and crunch its way through completely frozen waters and letting loose a low and labored belly-moan of agony as it forged ahead.

For some reason this made me happy.

-------

MacGyver Tip #347

How to Make a Dominatrix Whip Out of a Candle and Electrical Tape

You've gotten yourself into a situation where the only escape is to beat your way out.



Have no fear--MacGyver's here... And he's got the solution for you!

Needed:

One tapered candlestick:



One roll of electrical tape:



One head of feathered hair that would put even Farrah Fawcett to shame:




Directions:
Take the electrical tape and wrap the candle with it carefully from bottom to top. Once you are done, place two short pieces of tape over the bottom of the candle to cover it, in a sort of X. Now tear off about five strips of equal-sized tape--perhaps about 6 inches long or so. Fold each piece in half, width-wise so that they are still 6 inches long, but much skinnier, and so none of the sticky part of the tape is still showing. Carefully place the end of each piece around the top of the tapered candle and begin to roll the electrical tape around them and the tip of the candle so as to adhere them to the base of the "whip." Continue to wrap the electrical tape around the candle again, this time from top to bottom, carefully tearing off the tape at the very base, once the ends of the X you made at the bottom are covered.

Voila--a dominatrix whip.



Begin beating and listening to the tortured ecstasy as you make your escape.

-------

Things I Learned This Weekend

I am too big a fidget about permanence and anything else long-term, and this makes most folks horribly nervous.

Cats will sleep in anything, including garbage cans.

Goat cheese is really good.

I don't mind bees at all--I'll even play with them after they land on me--but I'm not a fan of them flying in hordes at me when I'm at the apple farm trying to eat a nice fresh apple danish. All the swatting and cursing and running so as not to accidentally eat one makes me look like a girl.

Shadows are fun:

What looks looks light on my computer at home will look dark on EVERY OTHER COMPUTER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.

If you don't want your neighbor to think you are stalking her, you should not a) sit outside her house with a camera in your hand, waiting for the groundhog to pop its head out from under her porch and then have her come home while you're sitting there and be unable to TELL her this is why you're sitting there for fear that she will call someone to exterminate the poor thing, and then b) awkwardly skulk around the yard looking for the cute tiny kitty only to have her bump into you again as she goes to get her second trip of groceries from the car, and finally, c) when she introduces herself finally, you should not respond by stating that you really like the new candles that she put in her front-room windows and tell her that you noticed them the other day when you were staring out your window at their house.

There is nothing more exciting then finding huge bags of fake Halloween spiderwebs for $1.19 apiece (12 glow-in-the-dark spiders included).

-------

-------

Pussies and Cocks

I am a bit distressed because I've fallen in love... with a goddamn little kitten that's taken to hanging around my house. She's snotty, loud, absolutely fucking adorable, and could care less about me. And when it comes to boys and cats, that snags me, hook-line-and-sinker.

I know I'm doomed when I start going out of my way to wander around areas that I normally wouldn't wander around in, in the hopes of bumping into her... when I go out and buy treats just in the hope that I might see her again and present her with one... and when I sit at stupid work and find myself thinking about her like some lovesick little girl.

I fear that it will be just another unrequited love to add to my list. And if not, I fear instead that it will be yet another love that will leave me broken-hearted, only to come home from work one day and fail to see her bumbling around in the ivy once the chill of autumn and then winter lays itself down on top of everything.

Right now, as we speak, I have a bag of kitty treats in my purse in the hopes that I might see her and woo her when I get home from work.

God, I'm sick and twisted.

Boys and cats are gonna be my downfall.

-------

Sidenote

I feel well-hung today.

In reality, I think my tights may actually be children's tights, causing the crotchal area to hang down surprisingly low and close to my knees.

Now I finally understand what it must've felt like to be John Holmes.

-------

Nee!

This weekend I bought a digital camera. It's bizarrely strange how such a purchase can completely alter your world-view. No matter where I go now, I find myself constantly casing the joint for good pics and twirling my handlebar moustache. I wonder, will I ever be normal again?

It's strange though how cameras give you a whole new view of the world. I have not quite decided if I find it healthy or slightly unhealthy for me to be constantly seeing things through the lens of a camera. So many folks I know take rocking good pictures with their digital cams--yeah and oh yeah. I've watched them whip those tiny things out and start snapping away left and right, mercilessly stripping the world of image after fantastic image. I don't know if it's just me, but I have a hard time doing this. It seems to interrupt the moment when I'm constantly whipping it out and taking pictures. You know what I'm saying? But I wanna. But what does this mean?

When I start getting panicky about this, and nauseatingly philosophical, I find myself thinking back to a quote from The Blair Witch Project:

"It's not the same on film is it? I mean,
you know it's real, but it's like looking
through the lens gives you some sort of
protection from what's on the other side."

And it is. And it does. And I can't decide whether I want to embrace this distance and detachment or not. And I can't decide if I want the camera to become my third eye or not, if I want to constantly be looking at everything as picture-taking opportunities, if I want to view the world in this new and different way. Sometimes I just want to experience it as an experience, rather than as a series of picture-taking opportunities. I keep thinking of myself turning into Tetsuo the Iron Man as I'm swallowed up by technology. But then I see the fantastic photos that folks take, and I shout internally to myself, "To hell with that! I want me some perty pictures!"





I mean, already I've started looking at things differently everywhere I go--would this make a good pic? Oh, if only the sky were a bit lighter, that would be lovely! Etc. etc. This is a bit mortifying to me. I am torn between wanting to live a normal, camera-free life where I can walk down the street and just walk down the street, instead of constantly finding myself constantly admiring the symmetry of sewer grates or the steely gray of the sky and how that would look ever so nice framed and on my wall.

I also suffer from performance issues--I've found myself unsure of whether or not I suck at taking pictures or my camera does. I am hoping that it is neither and that, once I get to downloading these pics onto my computer, I'll see that they look much better when not on the goddamn thumbnail screen. And I'm hoping that it's just a matter of time and practice until I master how the fuck to work this damn thing. But I still have performance anxiety. Mostly just because I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to work this thing. Shutter speed? Aperture? Fellatio? I've been reading up on these things, but they still confuse the piss out of me. And my damn apartment is so haunted-housingly dark that every picture I take is either punched in the face by the glaring glow of the flash or completely awash in darkness.

So musings of the day: Camera=detachment from reality? How do I take better pictures? Will my life ever be the same? Why did I dream about a Monty Python card-game the other night where when you completed a hand you had to shout Nee?

This blog entry is mildly incoherent, but I blame Burger King's yummy but jitter-inducing coffee for that, as well as the fact that I cannot get that damn Fiddler on the Roof song out of my head today. If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. (Those are the actual lyrics--I swear to god. I looked them up.) Thank god that, even when OCDed with picture-taking, my brain always leaves room for randomness.

Purple monkey toothbrush.

-------

Scars & Burns

So I realized this weekend that it is a *damn* good thing that I'm not a chef because, as is, I've already chalked up way too many burn scars for my own good while cooking. I remember exactly where most of them came from--they're like time-lines of recipes. Except for one random one that appeared out of nowhere like stigmata or something--that one I chalk up to demon possession.

Burns:

Left arm (top)--cooking potacos for a dinner guest;

Left arm (bottom)--cooking a really goddamn good dinner of toasted orzo with spinach, tomatoes, and almonds AND croissant sammiches with roasted red pepper, tomato, mozzarella, basil, and pinenuts this weekend (well-worth the burn);

Right arm (side)--mystery burn.

Scars:

Right knee--my sister left out a frameless mirror that she won at a carnival (it had like a panda bear and hearts on it or something lame) which, when I was kneeling down to pick up something or another, sliced straight through my knee;

Right eyelid--chickenpox scar that lengthens the crease in my eyelid, making me look as though I'm constantly quizzical or suspicious. I have several other chickenpox scars scattered across random parts of my body;

Right elbow--scar in the shape of a K; from when I tried going no-handed on my bike while standing up and pedalling (a physical impossibility which I didn't realize at the time) and then fell off and then almost got hit by the fella down the street who was on his moped;

Eyeball scars--I have a scar or two from a bout of corneal ulcers I had--they are not discernible to the nekkid eye, just to my eye doctor; I also have a creepy yellow spot on the white part of my left eye--my doctor says it's not abnormal though he failed to explain what it is.

Other malfeasances:

Crease under my nose--this is not actually a scar, despite it being mistaken as such once or twice; it is actually a happiness crease--you will get to see it if I am really and sincerely smiling at something you say. It is kind of like a sincerity-thermometer--if I'm only laughing or smiling out of politeness, it doesn't really show up;

Chipped bottom front tooth--I bit down really hard on a fork-tine at a Bob Evans on my way home from some road trip or another while eating this delicious brownie ice-cream dessert. I get way too excited around ice cream sometimes.

Freckle moustache--I am constantly being told that it is not noticeable, but bah humbug--it's there, I can see it, and I just think people are trying to appease me. When I was on my second brand of "the pill," it suddenly started appearing, a weird freckliness tight against my upper lip. I thought nothing of it, figuring it was just some cute weird freckle-spattering. But then it blossomed to take over most of the skin between my nose and mouth, looking from a distance like a dark patch of hair when in reality, it is just a mass of freckles. It darkens over the summer as I get tan and it lightens back up in the winter. I think it's called melasma. But at least it ain't that freaky vitiligo shit.

-------

Taking on the Squared Circle

Recently, I have found myself fantasizing about pinning down someone I know and just punching the shit out of them, Fight Club-style, wailing on them with raw-knuckled fists, until their face was a bloody mess of a pulp and they just lay there mewling. I have fantasized about it and ENJOYED the fantasy. Strangely, I am not ashamed of this fact. There is an anger there, and it is a justifiable one.

I know I have pent-up aggressions in me. I come from a VERY hot-tempered father. I come from a family where parents and siblings have taken out anger on one another physically. For these reasons, I feel like I should be afraid of these feelings. And I am to some degree--I want to steer clear from a path of abuse.

But I don't think the feelings themselves are necessarily a bad thing, which is perhaps why I am not ashamed of them. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling so angry that you wish you could just hurt the person who is the source of this anger/hurt/disgust/hate. It's ACTING upon these feelings in an unhealthy way that is wrong. And a lot of times, people fear these feelings of aggression so much that they try to snuff them without acknowledging that these feelings exist--and I fear that this just allows them to build up to the point of eruption. In fact, I've seen it build up in that way and then explode into a mess of violence.

And I want to nip this in the bud. So I'd rather confront these feelings than fear them.

Sometimes my anger is just anger and nothing more. I get angry. Eh. I deal. But other times it gets rooted in this feeling of aggression, a feeling which can only be exorcised by being channeled into some sort of physicality. I can tell these feelings are there because they take on the sensation of flames burning hotly beneath my skin, a tightness riding up my spine and muscles like a lightning bolt channeled tightly through a lightning rod. I walk around all day, just wanting to be a human whip and bust my body into some sort of maddening mess of physicality, all fists and knuckles and knees whipping around every which way, taking out everything in my path.

The urge to spew that anger out physically not only stems from my desire to hurt the source(s) of my aggression in a way that I am perhaps unable (or unwilling) to do mentally or emotionally (I know this), but also stems from a desire to have that anger imprinted and stamped onto my OWN self physically in some form or another, to really really feel it and thus be forced to acknowledge that it is there.

Maybe this is because I am a stoic and deal with things by squelching them or zenning them out. I turn myself into a nice, cool, blank stone and let things just spill off of me, the eye of the storm in the midst of chaos. And although this is oftentimes a good way for me to deal with my problems (although it's been a source of admiration from others), sometimes I think I need to feel feel FEEL the weight of this shit to get through things, feel it like a 2-by-4 straight across the brick of my nose. I don't wanna slip into a path of complete stoicism, of not feeling at all. And so this aggression is not always a force that wants to be externalized on others, it's a force that wants to be externalized on MYSELF, forcing me to FEEL.

And what I wish is that I could channel these feelings into something healthy, like boxing.

Boxing with E on occasion helps--it feels good to "hurt" someone and be "hurt" back in a controlled setting. But I can't really wail on the boy like I'd like to--that just wouldn't be right (he bruises too easily ; ).

Boxing would be perfect because you have that energy shooting out your fists like lightning, directed at some outside source, but it's also great because you have someone else's fists shooting pain through you in a way that anchors your anger, that allows it to take on a physical sensation to you, to drape on your skin and hang there and remind you that it exists.

So what exactly am I saying? I don't know. Zen-ness is definitely a good thing. But I also think beating the shit out of a nice, brick-hard punching bag would be its own kinda zen. Lately, I've needed to pound on something, to shoot myself back into that spark-shot of pain that reminds me that I do feel and can feel and, goddammit, that there's nothing wrong with that.

And I guess it's just figuring out how to channel this anger and aggression in a HEALTHY way that's the tricky part...

This is my squared circle.

-------

Coasters and Carell

Last night I had a dream that I was at an amusement park with a bunch of friends and we decided to go on a roller coaster. I got the last car. We're going on the small hills of the coaster when I have the sudden suspicion that we're kinda Flinstoning the ride, using our legs and feet to propel ourselves along the track. I am not certain of this, however.

We reach the large hill which goes straight up, and I am literally being pulled up in a way that feels like a rope is connected to me around my waist. I am worried, because the chunk of metal that is my car (which really is just a chunk of metal wrapped around my waist) doesn't seem to be at all connected to the track which makes me scared that once we reach the top and take off down the hill, I'm a goner. I look down to see other folks behind me and realize that we're really just scaling the large pole that makes the hill with the big chunks of metal around our waists and that people's legs are getting worn out from doing this, including mine.

Suddenly, a construction crane pivots around and grabs the large pole, all of us dangling from it and shrieking. It lumbers towards the edge of nearby cliff which overlooks a marvelous view of the tops of fiery autumnal trees, and then it just falls over the edge... along with us.

But I am ok and suddenly standing nearby. I see that it is Steve Carell who was manning the crane, and he places his hands on his hips, superman-style, and shouts with boisterous and enunciated laughter, "Ah ha ha ha!"

I think to myself that, yeah, I DO actually think Steve Carell is kind of a fox. As long as he doesn't open his mouth. Though I suppose it's the same with most boys.

-------

Marketing Minions of a Skanknation

So I coulda sworn that Ms. Peppermint recently blogged about the horrificness of the Bratz Dolls line, but search as I might, I could not track the post down. Anyways, for those of you who've seen the whores that are the Bratz dolls



there's now even more reason to be afraid:

This past weekend, I saw a commercial for Bratz Babyz. Apparently Bratz is so into promoting a skanknation of children that they now have Bratz infant dolls that are dressed up as "hoes." (Check out the pics of them in their undies, under {BRATZ BABIES} on the main page--I mean, is this nauseatingly suggestive or what? Their fricking pelvises are jutting out as they stare at us seductively in their underpants. *Hork*)



Is it just me, or is there something mildly terrifying about seeing a toddler doll skanked up in a crop-top, knee-high boots, and a mini-skirt? I mean, what CHILD do you know that actually DRESSES like that? (And please, that was a rhetorical question. If you answer with the affirmative answers that I'm sure are out there, I know I will probably just end up squatting in the corner of my room and shaking and drooling in horror.)



Now go run inside, and arm yourself against the encroaching army of skanks.

-------

Lunacy, Lycanthropy, and Menstr-oo-ation (Yeah, You Heard Me Right)

So. Fellas, shut your ears and hum real loudly.

I had my first period off the pill this last month. My first, back-to-nature cycle in a damn long time--7 years at this point, I believe? And man, do I love it. It was like having my very first period all over again. Yip yip. It was not when it was supposed to be. It came about two weeks late. But I dug this too because it was like my body was revolting and shouting a big FUCK YOU to the processed hormones that had been dictating the ebb and flow of its natural movements for nearly the past decade, shouting SEE, GODDAMMIT, NOW I CAN DO WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT. I had old-school cramps. I bled up a storm. It was great.

Ok, fellas. You can unplug your big-baby ears now.

So here I am musing on menstruation and stuff because of my return to the natural, and it's fascinating to me. I mean, I really dig the thought that the ebb and flow of our blood is so similar to the ebb and flow of the moon's cycles--how much more connected to nature can you get, really? And since out of anything in nature, the moon drives me to states of awe most often, I dig the idea of having some sort of connection to such a magical thing.

It's interesting too when you think about all the things that have been connected to the moon: madness, menstruation, werewolves, etc. Etymologically, "lunacy" referred to "intermittent periods of insanity, such as were believed to be triggered by the moon's cycle."

lunacy -- 1541, "condition of being a lunatic," formed in Eng. from lunatic (q.v.). Originally in ref. to intermittent periods of insanity, such as were believed to be triggered by the moon's cycle. The O.E. equivalent was monaðseocnes "month-sickness." **

This makes sense in the context of werewolves as well--the moon brings out a lunacy in humans; this "lunacy" also sometimes takes the form of a werewolf. But this is also amusing in the context of women--is the fact that we ebb and flow like the lunar cycles supposed to explain away the "intermittent periods of insanity" that come with pms and menstruation each month? This is both simultaneously laughable and yet typical of how menstruation and the female body's reaction to it is viewed, historically and even nowadays--as something to be shunned and to run away from when "that time of the month" rolls around. It's amusing that we're looked at like madmen or werewolves, to be frightened of and avoided at certain times of the month.

This is why the movie Ginger Snaps is a favorite horror movie of mine. It playfully and skillfully makes all these connections--between menstruation/puberty and madness, and--even more awesomely--lycanthropy. Ginger snaps, tumbling into the curse of a werewolf, right at the time she is reaching "sexual maturation," and the movie ever-so-skillfully toys with these connections. If you haven't seen it, you really should rent it, as it's a phenomenally smart and spooky movie.

The same can be said for Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber (specifically "The Company of Wolves," which the Neil Jordan movie was based on, and "Wolf-Alice"). Carter plays with the connections between womanhood/menstruation and werewolves in similar and interesting ways, so if you're looking for some good Halloween/fairy-tale-reading, you should pick her book up.

So all that being said and done, here I am again, back on my own lunar cycle--madwoman, werewolf, and menstruator. And I dig it.

All in time for Halloween.

-------

The Hello Kitty Series

-------