Halloween preparation

Oh yeah, we’re getting ready.  First off, we have very kindly been invited to a party hosted by S, so this year we actually have somewhere to go.  And this is not the kind of party you show up to sans costume.  I mean, they dig fresh graves in their yard every year I’ve been told.  That kind of necessitates some effort on our part as well.

I am going as a Bloody Mary.  Not the ghost, the drink.  I’m wearing a red shirt, dying my hair red(der), and painting my nails red.  With bloody makeup.  And a nametag that reads “Mary.”  AND and and, a piece of celery.  Not a real piece of celery, oh no.  C made me a big ole celery stalk out of cardboard and paper and even meticulously cut out leaves and attached them.  The stalk curves the way celery does.  The leaves are awesome.  I colored, because that is my only artistic skill.  C totally rocks because how many people would sit there for an evening constructing an oversized piece of vegetable?

She is going as a zombie.  As she was going through her clothes looking for the ratty ones and ones she doesn’t mind getting dirty, she picked up a belt.

Me: You need a belt?
C: Yeah, definitely.
Me: Why not just use a piece of rope?
C: They’re not hillbillies, just dead!!!

Don’t throw your flip-flop at me

I’m going to rant here.  Which seems like a silly announcement because it’s a blog and that’s what it’s for but, hey, I can make completely pointless and redundant proclamations if I feel like it.

Anyway.  This is about children.  Actually, no, this is about parents.  And their children.

Let me start at the beginning.  C and I went to dinner a couple of nights ago at a Mexican restaurant.  The weather has been spectacular lately, so we ate on the patio of said restaurant.  We were having a grand time and were soon the only patrons on the patio (not because of anything we DID, geez, just timing).  Suddenly, a group of women comes out onto the porch.  Each woman is followed by at least 3 children a piece.  Can you do the math on this one?  5 women, at least 3 children each.  That is at least 15 children.  Running rampant.  As if we were attending a picnic on a playground.

What are the mothers doing?  Drinking margaritas, naturally.  And the children?  Well, they are performing the following activities:
1) turning chairs over
2) quite literally attempting to climb walls
3) putting straws in their shoes
4) screaming
5) taking off their wee little flip flops and heaving them in random directions, including in the path of the waitress and quite near to my table

The mothers continue to drink their margaritas.  Also!  I watched two of the mothers hand the waitress some Tupperware containers and request that they be microwaved so some of the toddlers could eat.  Seriously.  They brought their own food.  And it wasn’t even baby food.

We requested the check and then, because we couldn’t take it any longer, went inside to pay.  I had to ask a bevy of girls to please move their little recital practice so that I could make it to the door.  C felt so bad for their waitress, she was tempted to give her some money (as an ex-waitress, C knows that these people won’t tip that poor girl nearly enough to compensate for her annoyance and pain).

Now, I don’t think all children are evil.  Take B’s kids–they’re great.  But I also guarantee that the minute B’s kids act up in public, she either stops it immediately or removes them from the situation.  So the overriding question is: Who in the hell decides to go out drinking with all their kids?  Who does this?!?!?

Asking too much

I’m willing to teeter-totter, but I won’t see Saw.

Yeah, that’s just me being stupid.  Seriously though, C keeps begging me to go to the movies to watch Saw V.  I’m not doing it.  I watched the first one and thought it was just gross.  Parts of it were funny, like when Cary Elwes detached his own foot and threw it across the room with a kind of “ARGHUHNNN” noise/grunt.  But other than that, I couldn’t stand it.  And I can’t believe that a fourth sequel is coming out.

This is the thing: I don’t mind scary movies.  In fact, I kind of like them.  But I don’t enjoy gore.  That’s not scary, it’s just disgusting.  Feeling nauseated is not the same as being frightened, unless you have a phobia about throwing up.  C thinks I’m crazy for not seeing the movie—I think she’s deranged for wanting to pay money for it.  Anyone willing to go with her to see it?  Because I’m not budging on this one.

Seasonal music

I’m making a Halloween playlist for myself.  Not for the specific day, but mostly to enjoy the rest of my favorite month and get into a spooky mood.

You can go listen to it here:

Any suggestions on songs to add?

I almost horked from the laughing

Yeah, I know I post a lot of things for yall to watch, but they’re all good.  So stop complaining.

First up, I saw this from a Pajiba link and fell in love:

And now there’s another one!

Hilarious

The fact that someone actually sat down and engineered this, I mean wrote code and programmed the thing is just . . . spectacular.

Google and Gmail now offer a feature to help stop the email equivalent of drunk dialing.  Seriously.  During the late hours of the weekends (when you’re mostly likely to get drunk and stupid) you may have to answer some simple math problems before firing off an email.

Check it out: Mail Goggles

Mighty fine

Another very good Sunday.  I love Sundays.

Woke up late, got some coffee.  Received a text from M inviting me over.  Made myself a pumpkin latte to go and headed to her place.  Upon my arrival, was given a mimosa and Greek yogurt sweetened with agave nectar and topped with fresh raspberries.  Spent the next six hours drinking mimosas, taking a quick break to fetch Osso Bucco and panne cotta from Mandola’s.  Sat on her porch all day, giggling, listening to music, drinking more mimosas, and staring at the dogs next door.

A very fine Sunday indeed.

Research

My Hughes research is going really well.  I’ve taken three poems and set them to rhythm using a music notation program.  This gives me a much better visual of the timing differences in syllables.  After that, extensive lists were made of EVERY SYLLABLE IN EACH POEM (seriously) and categorized according to timing (half, quarter, eighth notes) and syllable structure (open, closed, complex/simple onset and coda).  And then I started looking for patterns.  Thank God, I found some.

Really, this is interesting to no one else.  But I will be presenting on November 7 in San Antonio.  Scary!   I’m actually very nervous about it.

However, and this is the good part.  While meeting with my advisor/professor, M, she suggested that I extend my Hughes work a little and use it for my Master’s thesis.  This hadn’t even occurred to me!  It’s a great idea.  First, I’ve already done so much work on this.  Second, I won’t have to travel to do research.  Third, I still don’t have a solid idea for the sociolinguistic work around Hurricane Katrina.  Fourth, and the best reason of all, I won’t have to make a research proposal for IRB.  I hate IRB.  I hate research proposals.  I can’t believe the one for our film project is so complicated and convoluted and taking so long.

I’ve been working non-stop on this research, from 7:30 yesterday morning to 3:00 this morning.  I took breaks to eat and I watched most of Ghostbusters because I thought my brain might explode.  But I love it!  If I have to work this hard on something, at least I find it enjoyable.

Surreal

Went out with M after dinner to specifically get dessert.  At the counter we were singing and dancing to Lola.  So was our female to male counter help.  That is spectacularly awesome.

Blindness (the movie), and a comment on women

There are spoilers here, so move on if you haven’t seen the movie or read the book already.

Last night C, M, and I went to see Blindness. I had heard such great things about the book from both M and G, and the trailers looked promising. Everyone mysteriously goes blind except for one woman, and it focuses on a large group that has been quarantined. Sounds interesting!

First of all, this movie had some of the worst pacing. It was almost agonizing. And I understand that it was probably mimicking the pace of the book, but it just didn’t translate well to the screen. Some of the acting was a little over the top, and the whole thing just kept, on, going.

And then, and then, the rape scene. The extended, prolonged rape scene. One group has taken all the food and they are trading with other groups for it. Money doesn’t mean anything, possessions have already been bartered, what’s left? The women. And while in the context of the story, which is examining the degeneration of society, it makes sense . . . it was repulsive. It made me physically ill. I was more disturbed by that than most things I’ve seen in any other movie.

And I just couldn’t stop thinking about this. About all the issues it brings up. It’s a sad fact that the destruction of women’s bodies is a common war tactic. Rape the women to demoralize the men. In this instance, rape the women to feed the men. It at once brings women down to a commodity but also, it oddly highlights exactly what a women’s body is worth. And that worth is what seems to bring about the most punishment. This sounds strange, and maybe it is, but I almost wonder if . . . if women suddenly all realized this worth and used it, what could be accomplished? Is this what the second wave of feminism and “consciousness raising” was all about? My god, sometimes it is astonishing to realize the power that women hold. Which makes it all the more depressing to realize that it goes unused, ignored, or stolen.

Yeah, this is me having a feminist moment. I used to have a theory: It is a general rule that women have a higher pain tolerance than men. It may not seem so, but when it comes down to can’t-escape-it-no-getting-around-it-grit-your-teeth pain, women can last longer. Perhaps it’s a biological response to the pain of giving birth. My theory was that men know this, even on a subconscious level, and some are jealous. So jealous that they try to test the limits of what we can take.

I don’t know. But I know that I hated that movie for a whole bunch of reasons. I know that the rape scene was intended to be disturbing, to show how far they had fallen. I know that half the point is that the blindness is a blessing. The curse falls upon the one woman who can still see the atrocities around her. And I know that this movie is supposed to cause this kind of thinking. But I also know that watching that rape scene was like a punch to the gut and instead of making me feel angry and self-righteous (which is how I feel today) I felt a little scared and ashamed of being a woman. I felt nervous. I felt expendable. And that’s not what I want when I go out to see a damn movie.