We are SO dirty

This cool little tool rates blogs. How did ours do? Well, I certainly wouldn't invite my mom to read it if this is true:



Yipes. I have to take this with a pretty hefty shaker of salt, however, as this was the explanation: "This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words: shoot (3x), death (2x), crappy (1x)."

I guess "Britney Spear's vagnia" didn't concern them.

so, what do you do?

does anyone else get sick of answering that question?
i've been thinking about employment lately so that gets to be our topic for the week- career/job/something to keep one busy or whatever, and why people do the jobs they do. the point of most of my thinking has pointed out that the vast majority of employment positions today are purely superfluous, and don't provide much (if any) actual life-sustaining value. i excuse of course, doctors, ummm, doctors, farmers, and for some reason, movie stars from that generalization.
seriously, i work in hr. imagine trying to explain to a cave-person that i shuffle around papers with information about other employees...(i don't think i could even begin to explain employment, let alone a corporation).
or that my husband is a personal trainier. yes, he helps people be healthy - people like me who don't do any real manual labor for their sustenance, and need his help not to get fast food diseases like high blood pressure and atherosclerosis that they wouldn't get if they would go shovel some dirt or rake hay in the great outdoors instead of typing.
don't get me wrong, i love my job pushing papers, and i don't mean to be hypocritical - but i used to get paid for hard work, and i just can't help but notice that i've gotten in worse shape since i got my desk (as opposed to moving furniture at the job i used to have). i wonder what i'd do if our society hadn't turned in the direction it has. i know that i make lots of references to "back in the day" but the past just fascinates me. for thousands of years, humanity had so few employment options: serf, soldier, farmer, hooker, blacksmith, butcher, baker, candle-stick maker... you get the idea. notice how these are all what we'd call "blue collar jobs"?
it's like we've made our whole society into the aristocracy. back then, most people lived in shacks and wore fleas. now we've all got internet and a place with carpet, and if we hate a job and walk out, well, we could probably weasel our way into some government funds to tide us over until we get another job.
so i like the fact that our society lets people pay people for handling their funds and paying other people who help people that are in bad shape because of not working with their body get in better shape. (can anyone say run-on sentence?) i like that we have money instead of getting paid in sheep or clam shells. i like the way things are going - for the most part.
of course, then we get into unions and labor laws, and i go off on angry rants. i love what unions were able to do for the poor abused workers at factories back in the day. i hate that unions run practically every grocery store now and that joining them is mandatory, and then they tell people when and what for to strike.
i like that labor laws exist. i hate the loopholes, that they're so difficult to enforce, and that management, for the most part, doesn't care. has anyone out there ever worked somewhere that they got to take all the breaks they should have? i think that if i ever get high enough up in management again, that my budget will suck, but dammit everyone will follow the labor code with breaks at all the right times and overtime pay and the whole bit. dammit.
did i mention that we're in the middle of a who-gets-what-break-when conflict at my ymca? blah, i tell you - BLAH! if everyone would just follow the rules like they taught us in sesame street, everything would be hunky-dory and i'd skip off into the sunset, at least until i ran out of breath.

Legolas!!!

I have been a huge fan of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings since I was a little kid. In many ways I had a crush on all of the Fellowship (well, except Boromir) as well as Eomer and Eowyn. However, my crush on most of them was pretty platonic - I simply would have loved to have hung out with them, gone adventuring with them. (One of the biggest problems with LOTR is its lack of kickass female characters, although Eowyn is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I also have to admit that I didn't fully understand her until I was 19 and went through my first serious case of heartbreak. And really, what was Aragorn thinking?) But when it comes to fantasy crushes, I must admit that I have always been rather obsessed with elves. And not the type of elves that hang out with Santa (those are more like Tolkien's dwarves), but the tall, androgynous, other-wordly beings of Middle Earth. (There are certainly other fantasy writers who have depicted elves in a similar fashion, but none with the beauty and elegance of Tolkien's. After all, in the Tolkien mythos, elves were the first of Eru's (er, "god's") flesh and blood creations. I'd had quite a dreamy crush on Legolas, as the elven representative in the Fellowship, and when I first heard that Peter Jackson was going to film the LOTR trilogy, my first thought was a worry that Legolas would be presented in a way that would simply kill my longterm crush. Luckily for me, Jackson's choice was perfect:

And speaking of hotties with bows and arrows, I know I mentioned a while back that I quite enjoyed Season One of the BBC's latest incarnation of Robin Hood, and am avidly awaiting Season Two. Anyway, I have crushed on Robin Hood pretty much all of my life, although I must say that the choice of Jonas Armstrong was most excellent.

And, of course, this is my original crush right here.

Now, something I should probably mention... I've also had a bit of a thing for The Bad Guy over the years. When I was a kid, watching Star Wars for the first time, I totally thought that Leia should get with Darth Vader and turn him from the Dark Side. That was, of course, before I saw Return of the Jedi and learned that Vader was her father. Whoops. Believe me, that fantasy went away right then and there.

Since I frequently imagined myself as a tenth member of the Fellowship when I read LOTR, I also managed to create a Sauron-converting fantasy. It wasn't a particularly long-lasting fantasy though.

Now I wouldn't really call this a fantasy, but the dude is hot and his character - despite being an evil bastard - actually has depth and I found myself feeling rather a bit sorry for him. I can totally understand fantasizing about changing him... although luckily for me, I've grown out of that phase. Dating one "bad guy" in real life was enough for me.

I still think he's pretty damn attractive though!

Then there's Gaius Baltar of Battlestar Galactica. I don't hate him, per say, but I strongly dislike and wholeheartedly despise the self-serving little shit.

Frack you, Gaius.

Mary Jane (she's mah main thang)

Welll howdy doody gals and gents,

I think I'm just gonna make it a short one today considering I have already blown my perverbial wad in the comments section, but I cannot believe that no one has yet mentioned Mary Jane!!!

Although I was not as much into comics as a lot of you might have been, I was quite a spiderman junkie back in the day, and I can remember a number of VERY anatomicaly correct drawings of mary jane in her seemingly endless collection of revealing nighties that led me to my first ever character crush. She was HOT!

And whats more, she was smart, strong, and was married to spiderman. How cool is that? (Its pretty damn cool).

As far as Fictional characters that I despised, (and this is taking it waaaaaaay back) I'd say I really hated Cruella Deville. A puppy skin coat?!? COME ON!!!

That bitch was crazy.

And lets see.... man crushes... Well, I can't say that this really qualifies as a "crush" persay, but I thought Goliath from Gargoyles was pretty awesome. Intelligent, stoic, able to fly, a veritable master of whoopass, and capable of turning to stone in order to foil his enemies... pretty much exactly how I saw myself in the future. And I'm pleased to say, I'm not that far off.

Have a good week. Talk to yas next time.

MagDef

My First Movie Husband

In the wild hope that he will once again don his karate uniform, wax my car and croon Chicago's "You're The Inspiration" to me every night, I have carried a torch for Ralph Macchio since I was five years old.

It must have been that endearing, squeaky-wheel of a voice, but there was something very hot about that kid in 1986. I remember telling my parents that I would marry him. Oh, how they laughed. But they never realized the full extent of my love. And I would still have him, even without his preadolescent good looks, the bonzai tree and the crane kick that would have cost him in a real martial arts tournament. In twenty years my love has never wavered.

Well, that is not exactly true.

A few years after I swore fidelity to Daniel LaRusso, in swaggered Han Solo. I always did find him more appealing than Luke Skywalker, which was strange, considering the similarities between Vader's son (oops, I didn't give it away, did I?) and Mr. Miyagi's own dark apprentice. But who would a deny a guy with a sweet ride like the Millennium Falcon?

As you could probably imagine, my feelings for both the Karate Kid and Mr. Princess Leia left me quite conflicted as a child. What if they confronted me and demanded a decision? Would they have a duel, and if so, did Daniel-san know how to fire a laser gun? I imagine the recoil would bruise him a bit.

And most important, who would make prettier babies?

Now, as an adult, I still don't know who I would choose. No, actually, I would probably take Han Solo, who has remained foxy in his silver years and stuck with Leia throughout their trilogy. In comparison, Daniel-san got pudgy, went through three chicks and didn't even score with Jessica Andrews in the end. (Dude. She left him for Ohio.)

However, this realization is not without its own debate: Han Solo or Indiana Jones? Lord. I'm fairly certain this new dilemma will secure my future as an old maid.

Yes, Uhura. Everybody could probably guess that one.

I don't really know if I can say a whole lot about this topic and have it stay interesting. Obviously, I'm a big fat Star Trek fan. Maybe you don't know that about me, but it's true. So ever since I was a kid I have had a crush on Uhura. When I was 9 and Star Trek 5 came out, she had this scene in which she did a fan dance while supposedly naked. I really thought that was totally hot, even though in retrospect Nichelle Nichols was probably like 60 or something. Plus those Original Series miniskirts? Yowza!


[She can open my hailing frequencies anytime]

Anyway, that's boring for everybody. I have a few poet crushes. For instance, Jane Hirshfield is a big poet crush of mine. Mostly it has to do with how much I love her work, but she's pretty cute for a 54 year old hippie. If I wasn't lazy, I would link a picture. But you guys can do a google search probably. (Ok, I'm not that lazy. I did this on an edit).


[Kind of cute, right?]

And she's probably my favorite living poet. I just got done reading Sarah Fox's book "Because Why," and it was pretty terrific, and she also looks cute. So maybe if her second book comes out and is great then I will develop a full blown poet-crush on her, too. Well, I just looked up Sarah Fox to find a picture to link, and it turns out she's not really that cute in any picture other than her book photo.


[Cute book photo]

Poets are really fickle about their book photos. Carolyn Forche, who is a great poet, is using a twenty-five year old photo for her jackets. Ridiculous. Also, once in poetry workshop class with another older poet I mentioned that Louise Gluck looks pretty hot for a woman her age, and the professor got all indignant and said "That's called airbrushing, hon." Oh, I have a crush on Sylvia Plath, but she's dead. Oh, if we could have been a pair! I'd like to think that I wouldn't have driven her to put her head in an oven like ole Teddy, but then if she had been happy she wouldn't have written all those great angry poems. So it's good that Ted Hughes drove her into being a suicidal wreck. Nobody's favorite book by her is The Colossus, after all.

I've already mentioned my comic book habit on this blog, but reading comics during the Rob Liefeld heyday of the 1990s I was exposed to images of many women with meter long breasts. (I'm really not joking. That guy can't draw at all, but we all though he was great for some stupid reason.) Anyway, comics were in bad shape in the 1990s, so I guess I didn't really get a specific crush on any particular comic book woman. They were all written in pretty much the same way, and the drawings were virtually indistinguishable. Although I really liked Domino, because she carried cool guns. The mind of a 13 year old is pretty shallow.

Anyway, as far as real people that I have baseless love and hate for (poets are actually fictional characters), I guess I really hate Jack White. Well, I know everybody probably hates me now, which is fine, but I determined I hated Jack White long before I'd even heard a White Stripes album. Everybody kept talking about what a genius he was, and every time I heard him interviewed he seemed like a gigantic douchebag. And so I decided I wouldn't like any White Stripes album I would ever hear. Which worked out ok, since the only album I've ever heard by them, Elephant, really did suck. Also, the White Stripes segment in Coffee and Cigarettes was fucking terrible.

Man crushes? I guess Captain Kirk. Maybe Clive Owen. Oh, man, what if they got Clive Owen to play Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie? That would probably blow my wad. I mean mind! I meant mind, not wad!

My Rage Keeps Me Alive

I can't say that I share everyone's Ben Affleck obsession. At all. He comes off as some kind of doofus and his buddy Matt Damon (say that like in Team America, please) just looks like a little boy...still. However, Johnnny Depp was a crush of mine growing up and now he's the crush of a new generation of girls. On the one hand, that's really kind of cool. On the other (unwashed, malodorous) hand, it's kind of wrong.

But the topic this week is love/hatred for FICTIONAL characters. I think all of us have had assigned reading in high school and uni -- probably way too much of it -- and I have always turned a bad read into a hate fest, so I thought I'd share a few examples:

1) What the fuck is up with Charles fucking Dickens? What an asshole! I have only read one of his novels (one was more than enough), but the characterization was so lame as to make it unreadable. I speak, of course, of the worst of books: A Tale of Two Cities. I hate every character in that damn thing, except that guy who died at the end. If that's what Chuck was going for, then maybe he really was a genius.

2) Musicals ruin everything. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the MUSIC of "Les Mis," but I also really hate the fact that suddenly, when it's sung to catchy tunes and involves jazz hands, that excellent book becomes a love story. Les Misérables is about hating Cosette and Marius, not about cheering them on! Hello! You're supposed to sympathize with Javert, marvel at Valjean, and get the hots for Enjolras. In other words, you're supposed to be just like me. Curiosity started me on that book, and my hatred for Cosette and that wussy boyfriend of hers kept me going through 1300 pages.

3) Death in Venice. It should just be called Death, because, if there is a hell (let's assume I am going to it), it probably feels like reading that novella. This isn't hatred, really. It's mind-numbing apathy. That stupid book was assigned to me three times, in three different courses, at the same university. And I never finished it. Because I just didn't care.

As for LOVE, I have to confess to this as well. I'm not the angry person I seem to be.

1) Darcy. That is all.

2) Special Agent Pendergast. If you like scifi (I don't), the supernatural (we know all the original SuperGroupers do!), and "thrillers," the novels of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are for you. Pendergast is American aristocracy from New Orleans in the form of a consummate weirdo: genteel, mysterious, practically asexual, ridiculously talented at everything. He's the world's geekiest superhero. And I think I love him.

3) Will Ladislaw. Oh my goodness. Politically engaged, artistically gifted, prone to yelling...he's some kind of 1970's cult leader god, but from the nineteenth century. You should really read Middlemarch.

4) Dalgliesh. Ok, so he's like in his 60s now, but when PD James first started on her long career as a crime writer, more than 40 years ago, he was just a youngster. The poet policeman: tragically widowed, emotionally unavailable, and not at all your stereotypical, vice-addled, asshole fictional British detective. (Incidentally, good old PD wrote the novel Children of Men, made into the movie starring dreamy Clive Owens.)

And...I'll leave it there. Girl crush? Becky Sharp.

Introducing Caitlin

Caitlin is finally living in Canada after a 7 month on again/off again stint of living back here in Lake City. Before that she lived in Switzerland for a year teaching English, and before that lived in Montreal and went to McGill University. Thanks to her, I've gotten to do a bit of traveling.

There's more to her though, than where she's lived. She's a former band nerd (with Glenn, Jane, and Melissa), and we were in chorus together as well. She's really into gems and jewelry, and can make some pretty kickass stuff. She's super smart (and obviously in good company here), and quite a smartass (and again). She's also developed this strange talent for picking up stuff at antique stores and flea markets at a cheap price, only to turn around and find they're quite valuable.

I know she's read this blog since the beginning, and will be a great addition! Welcome Caitlin!

Laurie - my apologies for not introducing you - I didn't know you were going to post, or else I would have done it. I think your own intro was great, but if you would like me (or Glenn) to do one, I'd be more than happy to.

hatred/crushes

I have to comment on something nick said... about falling for a character rather than the actor (or 'tress). i experienced a similar thing in high school drama. yes, it was a long time ago, but hear me out.
the play was "bye-bye birdie" and the character was albert peterson, the english teacher wannabe. i was about 14 and the guy who played albert (his name is raul) was "so great". the thing is, the albert role rubbed off into real life just enough that i almost transferred the crush to raul himself, even though his real personality was not what i was into. then i noticed that whatever theater role i was playing would rub off into my life - which was kind of fun when i was "wench #2" (once upon a mattress), but not so hot when i was marian the librarian (the music man). it defiinitely made a differnce in who i dated during each play. so i don't think i'm the only one who fell for a character back then.

as far as celebrities are concerned:
i can't stand affleck (sorry). there's this song on the team america soundtrack with a few lines that say: "i need you like ben affleck needs acting school; he was terrible in that film. i need you like cuba gooding needed a bigger part; he's way better than ben affleck."
i love team america. i guess one could say that i have a puppet-crush on chris. that foul mouth just does something for me... shoot, if i was single i'd probably go for trey parker - hilarious, decent looking, and he cracks a lot of great mormon jokes (for the record, i am officially a mormon myself. don't tell anybody).
i'll admit to woman-crushes on, oh say jennifer garner (which goes great with my not being able to stand her husband... i hope they break up). i might be "into" gwen stefani too - i'm still deciding. the pink hair was a low point, but she seems to have gotten past that.
i really have a problem with michelle pfeiffer. i have no idea why. shoot, i don't know why people have these weird love/hate things. my best guess has something to do with an experience i had back in the day. so, in high school (yeah, i get a lot of stories from there) there was a girl who i could not stand. i really hated her. now, i was not the type to get in trouble - i was an honor student, national honor society blah blah blah, and we got in a fight in the hallway once - i got clawed and she got punched, but it broke up pretty fast. so then i found out that the soccer team opposing her soccer team needed more players, and that it was the kind of soccer where no blood = no foul. so i had some fun slamming her into walls and such until the coach said i had to stop or i couldn't play any more... but i digress. the point is, she was a total bitch and drove me up the wall. so, years later, in a differnt country, i meet a co-worker who could pass as her twin. i am not kidding. the co-worker was nice enough, but i found it literally impossible to like her. i had a pretty hard time just being civil, just because of what she looked like (and no, i am not racist or anything like that - this was a single incident).
so maybe us non-famous types latch on to the famous types because we like their looks, or because we want to be like them (maybe just be them). seemingly that would make all self-esteem issues just dissappear - "man, if i were as cool as so-and-so, i'd have it made..."

No one crushes on Coulter

Ann Coulter on Hardball.

I know most people don't watch all the political shows; that's what I'm here for. But, I could not watch Hardball today because, when I switched it on, I saw that Ann Coulter was there. Well it turns out I should have watched it after all. That link will show you why (hint: the wife of the guy she called "faggot" and said she hopes he "dies in a terrorist attack" and whose dead son she made fun of in the '04 election cycle called in- as far as I'm concerned, Elizabeth Edwards could run for president herself).

No one crushes on Cheney

This is certainly off the topic of crushes (but maybe not so much from celebrity hatred). If you haven't been reading the Washington Post's series, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, I highly recommend it. They're long articles, but packed with information I didn't know before. The final section comes out tomorrow.

So what are you saying? When you get divorced you turn in your library card? You get a new license? You stop being Jewish?

I can't say I've ever truly hated someone based solely on their body of work. I mean, I could name celebrities that I disdain (it might be easier for me to name those that I don't). Tom Cruise comes immediately to mind; but that's not based on his films per se, of which, arguably, there have been one or two decent ones (the only one I would count as such is Magnolia, and if anyone has seen his character in that movie, there's a reason probably why that one is good). John Travolta also comes to mind, but mostly for being an idiot, besides doing crappy movies. But Pauly Shore comes to mind (don't ask me why) as having done really bad movies that I have just absolutely hated, but he seems like a decent enough guy. Brendan Frasier is someone whose name used to make me recoil, but I'd probably argue he redeemed himself with Gods and Monsters (and, especially, with The Quiet American). But I can't say I really dislike people that I don't know based on their entertainment work alone. Usually the celebrities that I dislike, like a Paris Hilton or whatever, I dislike because of their "real-life" persona.

That mindset seems to extend somewhat into having crushes on actresses. I mean, sure, when I'm watching a movie, I might fall for the character in the movie, like Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Ann in My Life Without Me, or Charlotte in Lost In Translation, or, on TV, Donna on The West Wing or Juliet on Lost, but that ends when the credits roll, or shortly thereafter. Because why would I have a crush on Kate Winslet or Sarah Polley or Scarlet Johannsen in "real life?" That's just attributable to the storytelling of the movie or the actresses portraying a roll. But I will admit to having very much "fallen" for those aforementioned characters as I was watching the movie or TV show, which could tell you something about me I guess. The closest I've come is having a very slight infatuation with the actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg, though that's more attributable to her music appealing to me so much, rather than her looks (she's not very physically attractive). Oh, I remember when I was little- does anyone remember that Nickolodeon show Salute Your Shorts? When I was young, I had a pretty big crush on the hippie girl on that show (I will be heading over to Wikipedia to look that up!).

I'd like to introduce a sort of sub-topic here: the man-crush. I know all of the males who post here are secure enough in their heterosexuality to admit to having had or still harboring man-crushes. I'll admit my biggest is probably John Cusack. I'll watch anything he's in- and he mostly picks good movies, I'd argue. I've also always for some reason been drawn to Ben Affleck- though he, in contrast to Cuscak, usually seems to pick shit movies to act in. Or, for the females, maybe there are some woman-crushes here? I think that might be more commonplace among women, at least for them to admit it. I think any Star Trek fan probably has or had a man-crush on Captain Kirk (or, for those Next Gen fans, Picard). That seemed to have been the whole thing beneath the surface of the movie Free Enterprise, if anyone here besides Glenn has ever seen that.

Also, has anyone ever fallen for a character in a book? Or a cartoon character? (Jessica Rabbit, anyone?) That'd be interesting to me; I mostly read non-fiction, but I would wonder if someone has read a book and fallen for a character in the book; it'd be interesting to know why, and how someone constructs a character in their mind based solely on reading words on paper-- I'm sure I have, but I'd have to think about that one a bit.

back to addictions for a minute

Disclaimer - i think stephanie's post posted while i was typing, so i'll do a separate post for this week later.

hi all.
i missed my day - at least i think i did. i finally got jane's email about posting order a few minutes ago. not that i don't have internet, but my dialup at home has been downloading some accounting software for two days and then some personal training software for some more days... i had about a billion spam emails to delete. it was great.
i guess that proves that the internet is not an addiction for me- i didn't cry, and i didn't go to the neighbor's house and ask to use theirs (our neighbor is actually pretty cool and probably would have let me, but i didn't NEED to).
i think i'm addicted to chai lattes with soy milk. i give them up every so often, but then i just gotta have one and whoops, they're a daily thing again. i got into them because i was trying to get off the white mocha (which i'd used to get me off caramel frappuccinos). i think i see a vicious cycle. it's weird how the addiction transferrs though - i've tried decaf, and they satisfy the craving, so it's not that. i'm sure the beverages serve as some kind of comfort food (okay, drink). i just feel better when i'm sipping one. mmmmmmm. good.
i'm also seriously addicted to sleep. i was insomniac for YEARS!! and then normal for a while, then i got insomniac again, and this time i over-recovered and need about 10 hours a night. if i don't get that much sleep, i'll fall asleep anywhere, any time until i fill the quota. shoot, i fell asleep at the beach yesterday - people who know me will know that i just don't do that. the beach usually gets me all hyper and i play in the water... and then one day at lunch i crawled under my desk so nobody would see me snoozing. i woke up snuggled to the computer connector thingy because it was warm. so yeah, addiction if not disorder. again, i think it's a comfort thing.
so now that i've gone off on tangents about my two biggest addictions, i get to go off about addictions in general, right? different people get involved with different things: by choice, or chance, or whatever. my husband is addicted to running. he got teased into training for a marathon, and now he can't stop even if he wanted to. he gets all jittery and grumpy (ish) until he goes out and runs about a billion miles.
i can't imagine wanting to do that. then again, i can't imagine wanting to snort weird stuff that would most likely eventually kill me, but some people do that too...
i think our brains respond to what we usually do by deciding that's the way things ought to be. i slept too little for a while, so my body decides that's enough. then i sleep a lot, and my brain changes its mind.
some people have a special blanky, some shop all the time, and some have annoying habits like sticking their hands in their armpits and then smelling them. the point is that if you do a certain thing enough times, you're addicted. if your brain decides it's the "right" thing. i also think that different people have either learned or genetic tendencies to easily addict themselves to certain things (i know that's been pretty much proven with alcoholism...). my husband's family have cigarette and alcohol tendencies. one of either and they're hooked. numerous times one brother or the other has tried to quit something, but it just ain't happening. i, on the other hand, did the cigarettes until i noticed that soccer wasn't as easy, and stopped immediately. since that day i've taken one puff -just for shock value (i somehow always get this goody-two-shoes reputation, so i had to refute it). similarly, i've tried multiple kinds of booze, but i hate them all. i can't imagine wanting to drink it enough to become comfortable with the situation.
i think it would be cool if scientists figured out a way to trigger the addiction centers in our brains so we could addict or un-addict ourselves at will. it would probably be good for me if i were addicted to some form of exercise for a while, or maybe i'd want to cancel my sleep addiction so i could be more productive. i wonder if anyone is studying that.
so that's my fifty-two cents. i didn't quote anyone cuz i'm too lazy to look stuff up, but hey, now you'll get my own thoughts, and not what i read that someone else thinks. yay.
i'll try to post in the right order next time.

Fictional Love and Unconditional Hate

This week's topic is inspired not only by a conversation we've had in the comments of this very blog, but also by a conversation I had earlier this week. (Or maybe last week - the days are blurring together). It's fictional love and hate, or to expand the topic somewhat, inexplicable love or hate for someone you don't know and have never met. Need examples?

Well as far as hate for someone I've never known or met, mine is Jaime Pressly. Some of you may argue that you hate Ann Coulter even though you don't know her, and have never met her, but you DO know some of her values (or claimed values), and can justly despise her for them. I know nothing about Jaime Pressly, but have had this weird hatred of her for awhile. It's only remedy has been My Name is Earl - she is perfect in the role of a white-trash bitch, and its hilarious.

Another example would be that my former roommate Lindsey refused to watch The Cell because J-Lo was in it. (Hopefully she's changed her mind and watched it, as it's a fantastic movie)

The flip side of this is being in love with or having a crush on someone you've never met, though specifically what comes to mind are fictional characters. I was having a conversation with some of my fellow costars (Midsummer Night's Dream) about the Harry Potter movies and series, when I said that I had a crush on the Weasley twins - and Lupin. Danielle pipes up, "Me too! But only Fred, not George, though I have no idea why." This later led to a conversation about other fictional characters we had crushes on at some point in time. I said something about Darien from Sailor Moon. (But there's also Gambit from Xmen and Trent from Daria). The conversation then moved to anthropomorphic characters. I brought up Disney's Robin Hood, and I think every girl agreed that he was a "fox" (ha ha).

Danielle then mentioned a guy friend of hers had said something about having a crush on the girl dog from Balto, but she was grossed about because it was a dog - not even really anthropomorphic - all that was different was she could talk - still walked on four legs, didn't wear clothes. Maybe it's just one step away from beastiality.

There are other fictional characters I've fallen in love with - which may say something as to why I am single (other than the fact that I am choosy, and possibly elitist) - but to keep this brief, and to keep from making myself seem like an even bigger freak, I'll just leave it to the list I've already named.

So that's the topic, do with it what you will, and forgive me if it's not something you want to write about. (Note: I said something you want to write about - you're a liar if you say you haven't done either of these things)

a dictation

Sooo... I'm pretty sure its my turn to type again on this old merry go round of fun (I like filled with FUN, thats what I love~ thank you Tribe). And the thing I've noticed in my thinking about this addiction stuff is that there was a time some 70 thousand years ago or so when addiction wasn't really such a big issue as it is today. At that point, diction was far more "in vogue". I mean, back then most of the guys were hanging out by their caves waiting for some animal dumber than they were so they could club it to death, and they were a bit too busy trying to mouth words around those fumbling jaws they had to really be worried about how much wormwood they were chewing and how often.

And hey, there's a theory that language was born of hallucinogens. Seriously though. What is the monolith if not a trip? A gateway into a perception greater than oneself, an existence beyond what one ever dreamed of, an experience that is immediately both intangible and yet incredibly real, real enough that the first thing you want to do is describe it to everyone around you. "Look at what the WORLD is doing! Caves don't just DO that! It's like, everything I ever knew was just proven false in ten minutes. Physics, man, physics. Particles, the relative softness and hardness of objects, and its RIGHT you know, about energy. It can't be destroyed, only transferred. And did you see what the trees just said? Its like they were turning into themselves, but like the ideal representation of what trees ARE man, and thats ok, you know... thats... ok." Of course at the time of the inception of language, it probably sounded a bit more like "AAAARRRHGHGHGH! AKAKLALLLLLLLLL! AAAASHIIIIIIIII! RRREEREREREEEEEEEECKKKGHGH! FLLLULULUUULUUUBHGHHGHG!"

So now we've got some crazy ass Homo Floresiensis running around camp trying to figure out what to do with his tongue in order to explain this recent experience to his buddies who are all in various stages of clubbing women over the head to take them back to thier caves or killing, eating, or skinning something dead, and then a good seventy thousand years later, WE'RE all worried and arguing about why we should eliminate from society that which was gracious enough to bring us language in the first place. Where's the love there people? I mean here we are using what came second to describe what came first through machines that we ourselves have invented which have so simplified OUR language that it can all be broken down to a sequence of ones and zeros (which is actually kind of the way our brains work anyway... either the synapse fires, or it doesn't.) And all this thanks to drugs. Thats right, drugs. Thus, from diction to addiction and back again is quite a long path my friends, quite the perverbial RIDE.

But now that we've gone and done it, now that we've opened that can of worms, lets step inside and explore a bit, shall we? Addiction... hmmmmm.... addiction, addiction, addiction.... nope, can't say I've met the gal.

But if I had, she'd probably be attractive at first, you know, the kind of woman who shows up at a party and she's got a bit of a strange vibe around her, but she talks a lot and a good number of the people there end up feeling prety easy around her... she's handing out cigs and talking about other things, things she's done that no one else has, talks about them like she's some kind of 21st century goddess of experience. But thats all gradual man, gradual, you know, because first its all like, "hey I'm havin a few people up at the house this weekend and you're welcome to come along" and you can't really make up your mind whether or not to go, but as long as your friends are going, it can't be that bad.

So you go to this chicks party and at first you're not sure you like her so much. Yeah, she's pretty hot, but kind of rubs you wrongly, abrasive, just not in any tangible way. You know, cornering you in conversation, generally controlling the topic. And you can't make up your mind how much you really like this girl, but it seems like everyone else is having a good time, your friends who have known her longer want to stay at the party even when you're ready to go, but this chick, this whole hardcore act, is kind of growing on you. And before long you're over there every weekend, hanging out, just can't seem to get enough of her. And then you're in her room and there are hands everywhere and the whole thing is heavy and wet, hot like whats left of the rainforest, fast like motorcycles, slow like the slippage of time. And you stay there in her room for days, months, maybe even a year or two. And its not even that you laugh at her jokes anymore. Its not even that you really enjoy being around her at all after a while, but she's there, and you've gotten used to her, you know, she's what you know. And you like the sex. At least you used to like it. A Lot. Now you're just kind of living in the memory of what it was.

And then out of no where she kills your grandmother.

Needless to say you're pretty pissed. You stop calling her. And you stop going to her house. You stop talking to her, erase her pictures from your hard drive, try to make friends who are into surfing or climbing mountains. Try to meet nice girls. But one day you're feeling down about something and you remember how she used to talk to you and make you feel better, so you go to her house just once, just for old times sake. And after that its over. You can't stay away. When you're not over there, she's at yours. And next thing you know you're married to the woman who killed your grandmother. And you're next. And you know this, but you don't care. She's your wife, and you're willing to look past the little things.

Yeah, that's about what I think addiction would be like. She's dangerous, but only because she doesn't really seem like it.

The truth is, I've probably had my share of addictions, the worst of which has been cigarettes, and perhaps in college when I was into the Marlboro Green. That was a tough one to quit. But I did. And now I like to drink. But I wouldn't say that I'm addicted to it. Its not like I NEED that drink or anything. There's a fine like sometimes between exploration and addiction, and as far as I'm concerned anything can grab you by the balls and not let go, and that's when you've got a choice to make. You can either cut off the fingers and hope the hand doesn't grow back, cut off your balls and change your life completely, or learn to live with a monster on your balls. (substitute balls for boobs if you're a woman).

This is an impression of me on coffee

Coffee. Caffeine, but specifically coffee. That's my addiction of choice. Put me in a dark room with no communication or entertainment, but slip me a single mocha with whip once or twice a day and we'll get along just fine.

Compared to many people, I don't drink too much coffee everyday, but it's still enough to give me a headache on the weekends if I don't have it. This may be a psychological reaction, although it's certainly one I'd like to stop because I seriously don't enjoy it. Some of my friends say all addictions are just psychological reactions, and maybe there's some truth to that. I don't know. But I do know that a soda does not have enough caffeine to keep the headaches away and that, as far as coffee goes, Dunkin Donuts has very little caffeine whereas Starbucks has too much. Yep, addiction is what keeps you coming back. But Starbucks coffee tastes like dirt, so I go most often to a local DC place called ME Swings right near the White House. It's probably the consistently best coffee I've ever had, and it has the friendliest baristas. If you're ever visiting DC, this place is worth the extra stop.

Also, caffeinated soap exists!

I consider books a compulsion, not an addiction. I enter a book store and feel almost obligated to find something I could take home, which isn’t really hard. It’s sort of like sending an 11-year-old girl into a pet store and telling her to leave with at least one cute, furry thing. My book shelves are full, and I’ve begun stacks on top of my speakers, on my headboard, and on the floor. And I freaking love it. Even if I can’t read all these books, I lovelovelove to surround myself with them. I’m Scrooge McDuck in the Money Bin; I just like to wallow.

New and Improved

My, how Blog Supergroup has changed since I last graced its page. Well I'm back to darken the doorway of the Supergroup (which I see has now become even *extra* super!), albeit as a "guest blogger." It's been a while. But now that I got a few massive problems worked out- or, at least, begun to do so- I'm back in the bloggin' business.

I have no idea what the topic is right now. I guess I shouldn't try to get on the train while it's moving. I assume topics still start on Monday, so I'll get with the program then. I saw something about addiction (my addictions tend to be intangible, like drama- except that I can't sleep usually without taking sleeping pills). I'll come back around Monday and get into the swing.

Sorry for the extended absence- I got sick (as those originals here know) back in March, and the fallout from that (medication, which I have since pretty much quit; a devastating misdiagnosis that really screwed me up for a while; lots of stupid yet stressful and at times intrusive medical tests; etc.), as well as the end of a three-year relationship and the emotional and financial toll that takes. Plus I got a promotion, and it's new territory for me, so I'm still on the proving grounds- I've been working at times some massive hours. And I'm in school. But, the medical stuff is more or less figured out, work is being managed better as I settle in, and I'm slogging through the relationship change. So I can see the light of day once again.

Glenn, I see it's beard time. I know that guys do that when they hit those late 20s for some reason. I suppose I should start to prepare mentally for The Beard Era myself in the next year or so.

Oh, lastly, I have created a blog for my own personal garbage (the good kind of garbage). I hope you all will read it.

Bonus post

Well, after posting that last rambling entry, I came across this article while logging out of hotmail. I play a lot of video games, and while the closest thing to medical authority I have is to say that I was premed for two semesters, I'm pretty sure this is further evidence in my ongoing theory that AMERICANS ARE GIGANTIC FUCKING PUSSIES.

No offense, Americans. But really. Does there always have to be somebody else to blame for your problems? I mean come on. I'm sorry your stupid nerd son decided to stop studying and play World of Warcraft so much that he became violent when you took it away. But now you're going to try to get medical insurance to cover the expenses? And blame the video game companies?

Also, look at the picture in the beginning of the article. Those two kids are playing a Playstation One. That means it's either a ten year old picture, or the dinosaur game these two home schooled Aryan motherfuckers are playing is probably called "Strange Creatures That Never Existed According To God Part III," and the PS1 was the least Satanic of all video game consoles their mother's pastor recommended they buy.

Sorry for all the vitriol!

I guess I might as well face it

I'm addicted to comic books. That doesn't really fit the song I guess. I'm not really sure how to differentiate between an addiction and a hobby. In my monthly budget I actually set aside $100 for comics, and I enjoy reading them every week. Without fail, I pick them up on Thursday, the day after they come out, in order to avoid the Wednesday crowd. The comic book store people all know my name and talk nerd talk when I come in. I give them at least $1200 a year in business. But I don't really think that makes me an addict. On a side note, the books I mainly buy are big superhero books (Batman, Spider-man, Daredevil, etc). But being in a writing program, every time I say I buy comics people always say something like "Oh, Maus is good. Have you read 'Ballistic Cunt?' It's a graphic novel inspired by feminist readings of Foucault." (Idea copyright Glenn Shaheen, everybody, so hands off). Then I always have to explain that superhero books are not really as dumb as they think, or as dumb as they were in the early 90s, but it's pretty much like telling a creative writing grad student that you really love Stephen King. For those of you who don't know, creative writing grad students are really pretentious. It's probably a good idea not to socialize with them or admit to other people that you even know any. I usually tell people I'm getting my MFA in botany, or the science of socks, or something.

As far as other things go, I've been watching Star Trek lately, but I'm slowly just trying to work my way through the episodes, so that's not an addiction. Once a long time ago I smoked cigarettes for a year just because I hated those "Truth" adds they used to have on TV that implied smoking was worse than Hitler. Remember that one? Let me see if I can find it.



Hey, Youtube is great! Anyway, I guess watching it now it doesn't really imply that smoking is worse than Hitler, but it's still a pretty offensive ad by implying they're similar. And at the time I thought it would be poetic justice for me to start smoking when Truth wanted me to not smoke, since the ads were making me feel bad anyway. I showed them! Well, except I never told Truth about it, and they probably didn't care, and I quit after a year.

Wikipedia is pretty much an addiction. There are nights when I will be exhausted and I will just stay up for hours past when I am tired following a hypertext trail through wikipedia articles. Though on the bright side I think I could totally kick everybody's ass in Jeopardy! now.

Also I'm a huge porn addict. It was actually me who found this blog by looking for Britney Spear's vagnia. Sorry guys! I'll try to type more clearly next time I use google to search for naked celebrities, like Paris Hilton naked in jail, or Lindsay Lohan fully nude, or Hilary Duff topless, or Ryan Seacrest elephantitis , or Brad Pitt skin pendulum.

That last paragraph was just written to get us some more hits.

this is your brain on drugs...

Hi everyone, new guest blogger Laurie here. I don't think anyone has introduced me yet (where's the love, people?), but I thought I'd intro myself so I could weigh in on this topic. Obligatory blurb about me: Like many of the kiddos here on BSG, I grew up in L.C. Florida, but left after high school for college, subsequently earning a BA in English Lit and a BFA in Studio Art from Florida State University. I relocated to Brooklyn two years ago, and have loved every second of it. I currently work in business development at a mid-sized tv network that I promise you've never heard of, but I'll be starting as a student at Brooklyn Law School in the fall. You can check out my personal blog, Sleeping in Brooklyn, here. So on to the topic at hand!

Just last week I read a story in Elle (yeah, I know sorry but that's where I read it) that basically argued that most people who try or even regularly use narcotics and/or other drugs won't become addicts.* This of course, flies in the face of decades of "Just Say No Dare Common Sense" public education, but it's also much closer to the truth of drug and alcohol use than any of the terror filled edicts we're normally bombarded with by various drug "authorities." Having been around the block with a pretty wide range of drugs from alcohol to opiates I can attest than no, the average person won't become a raving drug fiend the moment they take a bump of blow at a party.

Traffic offers a great example. The pretty upper middle class WASP girl chases the dragon once and is whoring herself to her big black (so much to say about the race depictions here, but that's a topic for another day) dangerous drug dealer in the ghetto 45 mins later. I'd have to argue that this is an extremely unrealistic picture of addiction. I'd also have to argue that there is an inherent danger in miseducating the public with regard to addiction.**

The real trouble with drugs is when the tiny percentage of people who have "addictive personalities" get their hands on them. The New York Times had an interesting article recently about what personality traits are commonly found in addicts and it's worth checking out before they make it TimesSelect. One thing that I find strange is how difficult it is to find statistical evidence on the internet that indicates what percentage of the American population is actually addicted to drugs. An extensive internet search this morning turned up all kinds of "drug abuse up X%" kinds of things, but they always fail to establish what the benchmark was before the rise. If heroin abuse is up 50% but it still represents only .67% of the population then that's worth noting. The aforementioned Times article simply says "many millions." I can't remember where I saw it, but somewhere I came across a figure that stated that 20 million people in the U.S. Even if the number was actually 20 mil then that's only 6% of the population. However, I have the impression from other websites that even this is a gross exaggeration (that number probably includes cigs and alcohol, too). I found an interesting little blurb about this here where the author states that "obviously, the government can't say how many genuine addicts there are, and the 3.6 million number seems like a tremendous overestimate based on counting anything approaching regular use of heroin, crack, cocaine and other drugs, both actually measured and estimated."

So what's my big point, right? Well, my point is that we need honest facts about addiction in order to have an honest public debate about it's dangers. Slate has several articles about this topic that are worth a read, especially this one about "the best anti-pot ad ever." Do a keyword search for "drugs" to turn up more like these.

A couple of concerns here that I won't get entirely into (this is a blog after all and I've already written WAY too much here), but that I'd like to throw out there to get you thinking a bit:

- "Dangerous" things entice people, especially teens, and when you convince people drugs are super dangerous it only entices them more.
- People who choose to use drugs cannot protect themselves if they don't understand what the actual dangers of using those drugs are. This is related to...
- When people know you are lying to them about some things, they will assume you are lying to them about everything else. With drugs, this could lead some people to assume all the bad things they hear about drugs are false or exaggerated.

*They cited studies and I would throw in quotes here were it not for the fact that I left my copy of the magazine at a friend's place and he's in California all week and there doesn't seem to be a copy of the article anywhere online. Sorry but that's life.

**Actually I'm of the opinion that there's an inherent danger in miseducating the public on any topic. Educate your citizens well, give them the facts, and let them make their own decisions, I say. Don't get me wrong, I haven't become a Libertarian. I firm in the belief that the people should be governed, but I also think that the people should decide how they are governed, not the elite ruling class (hello almost exclusively rich, white, male Congress).