Catch Up Post!

I haven't written very much lately, which is silly because I have things to write.

Some things I've been doing:

1. I went to the Long Beach Aquarium and fell head over heels in love with a deep sea isopod. It's just SO cute, like a scaly kitten. I bet it likes hugs.

2. I went to Catalina Island for a day, and had the BEST time because I got to be on a boat. I LOVE being on a boat and I spend every second being thrilled and leaning way over the guardrail. I got the craziest boat hair. Full of tangles!

3. I'm being courted by a very nice man named Alexander who calls me Princess and let me name his new truck Potato.

4. I finished the Queen of Egypt book series by Michelle Moran. Actually, I think only Nefertiti and The Heretic Queen were companion books. Cleopatra's Daughter didn't seem to be- and it was also the weakest of the three, even though it was really good. I think what I'll read next is Poison Study and its two sequels.

The ear saga continues...

I wrote about my watery ear and how it hurt and how FUCK WON'T SOMEONE JUST MAKE IT STOP? And lo, it did not just magically drain itself and so I had to use wax softeners which was painful and made a crackling sound. And my ear wax melted and drained out and I had to be careful not to get it all over my loved ones because it was STICKY. So that happened for four days, and then I had to use a giant syringe of warm water to flush out my remaining chunks of ear wax and I'm writing about it because I'm the most alluring thing on earth.

But then... oh! It felt like there was water stuck in my goddamn ear ALL OVER AGAIN. So I used the Swim Ear drops and it burned and hurt and I felt like I was going to pass out from the pain, which hasn't stopped, and now I'm just going to leave my ear alone.

I've been kept company by The Other Boleyn Girl, and a new book that is eerily similar to The Other Boleyn Girl- Nefertiti by Michelle Moran. I've been in the mood for books about cunning women. All the best books are about cunning women, in my opinion.

I (h)ate everything.

Last night I made a decision that I didn't want to make and don't want to stick with, but I have to. Then I went and tried to eat enough to fill the gaping hole where my heart used to be. And then I woke up with heartburn. OH HOW THE COMEDY PRACTICALLY WRITES ITSELF. Also, there's water in my ears that won't come out, and I want someone to just suction it out for me, and I never sleep because of the all-night horrorshow I'm fortunate enough to experience in my dreams and that's catching up with me. My god, I'm just so sick of my watery ears. Apparently nothing bad can happen, even though I was freaking out last night that I wouldn't get it out before infection set in and I'd go deaf. I'm pretty sure that clawing at my ears was bad for them, though. I'd like to channel my whining into writing, but I have terrible PMS and I'm dead inside, so that seems like a pipe dream.

I watched The Walking Dead and it was mildly scarring because it's really a scary show, but also really fucking sad. Like, those zombies? They're dead. They had lives and families and now they don't, and I wonder if it hurts and if they're just hungry and in pain all the time, with no way to stop it and no idea WHY this is happening to them. And it's upsetting because it's NOT and us vs. them kind of situation- everyone on that show is the victim of a horrible tragedy. Also, this is why I'm no fun to watch zombie things with, because it makes me sad and upset for everyone, even the people who shamble around decaying and looking for food.

Toxic

Last night I backcombed the hell out of my hair (because it looks best when I've damaged it horribly). Didn't take it down when I went to bed, and then today I went swimming in a saltwater pool, so basically I have a huge salty matted mass at the back of my head.

I also did a lot of thinking. Some of the hardest things I've ever had to do were deciding not to talk to someone, either temporarily or permanently- but you know that even if you say "It's not forever", there's a chance it will be. I don't like not talking to someone, or not returning texts or reminding myself that no, I am NOT going to call. I remember when I was younger, if someone was being an ass, my mom would tell me not to talk to them, and I could never make myself. As I've gotten older, I've realized that my mom was right, and sometimes, it really is the best way.

Being right doesn't make it easier. I'm not someone who connects easily, so when I find someone who, for whatever reason, I connect to, I don't want to let them go.

But what if that's the best option?

Happy Fourth! (Fifth??) I saw fireworks! I'm like a firework with my short fuse and explosive personality. Today I realized that I'm not single because of my looks, it's 100% my personality. I'm kind of an acquired taste or... god, can you even acquire a taste for honey and rattlesnake venom?

I was mean to someone I care about (even though every single nerve I have is set on FIRE just from admitting that I care). I feel pretty justified right about now, but I'd bet I feel differently when I get up in the morning. I usually do. I don't like being cruel, like really cruel, not just bitchy and snappy like I often am. It means that my feelings or my pride or something was hurt and I'm just lashing out. It's not the right response. It isn't mature or really even in line with my code of ethics. It's not even something I usually do.

Usually, I just say goodbye in my head and walk away.

I do that when I feel like someone isn't worth my anger, or the effort it would take to explain or try to repair the damage between us. When I don't care to lash out, when I don't want to let any additional venom out into the world, because cruelty poisons the well we all drink from. Being a scumbag is bad for EVERYONE, and when you mistreat someone, they take it with them and it affects them, even if they don't know it. So, no, being vicious is not my first choice. But sometimes it's unavoidable, when I don't want to say my silent farewells; when I don't want to move on without looking back.

DOME

I like that show Under the Dome, which is about a town trapped under a DOME, of all things. I like how during the first episode, everyone kept saying it was like a wall or a fishbowl, because apparently no one knows how a fucking fishbowl works. If it's upside down, you've read the instructions incorrectly. But I digress, and I'll get back to talking about how annoying I am to watch TV with, because every time someone mentioned a thing that WASN'T a dome, I corrected them.

And now, during the second episode, no one can stop saying the word "dome", and y'all, I get SO EXCITED every single time. Someone even used the exact phrase "under the dome" and I was like I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. Because they are UNDER THE DOME and the title is UNDER THE DOME and dome doesn't even look like a word anymore. I barely recognize it as a thing. It's more like an abstract concept, like religion or Australia. Like, I know it's there, but sometimes I have a really hard time believing in it.

1. I saw World War Z! The zombies were particularly disturbing because they sound and act like birds of prey. Birds are frightening, even when they aren't zombies. The movie was VERY different than the book, but that's pretty okay with me. I don't require my movies to be the exact same as the source material, because if I wanted something the exact same, I'd just reread the book.

2. Big Brother 15 started, and these people are some of the dumbest I've ever come across. I do not think they're edited to seem dumb, which is actually really depressing. You see, back in the day, people on reality shows often had somewhat interesting personalities. That's why they're called television "personalities". They would have weird habits and sometimes they'd even have career aspirations beyond "acting". They'd be able to come up with decent strategies and be capable of discussing something beyond cute boys. I can't believe I'm actually mourning the death of semi-intelligent reality TV, but really, I just wanna watch something besides a bunch of bros talking about their abs.

3. It's been so hot here that it's REALLY hard to go out and get some exercise, which is bad for business. I do a lot better when I'm active. So I'm going to try to go for a walk tonight and hope it's cool enough to avoid spontaneously combusting.

Bittersweet Symphony

Today I put together some bookshelves and then I figured out how to install new doorknobs. I was surprisingly adept at it, or maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe I just didn't give myself enough credit before.

It's interesting to find out that you can do something you couldn't do before.

Like walking away without getting the last word. Walking away without fighting to the death. I used to want to try to force things- now I'm much more content to sit back and wait until things reach their logical conclusion, because things that need to be forced mean less than nothing to me.

I never used to understand how utterly worthless words are. It feels blasphemous to say, as a writer. Yet here I am, realizing that words have no inherent value. They take on meaning when there's a driving force behind them.

I like to think that my words have value, because I treat them as if they do, carefully choosing each one. They don't come spilling out of my mouth, and I mean what I say. It has little to do with wanting to be trustworthy or honest, and so much more to do with never wanting to realize that my words are completely devoid of any meaning or worth.

"I have no heart, I'm cold inside"

This picture* is my favorite thing. I went on a long walk and giggled every single time I thought of it, while I did amateurish baton twirls with my hook-ended stick, and people gave me plenty of space on my walk. I never look scary, but I can TOTALLY look crazy.

I peeked at Supermoon, which was unimpressive. I am unimpressed, Supermoon. GO HOME SUPERMOON, YOU'RE DRUNK. I'm also unimpressed with the ice cream I'm eating to fill the void where my heart used to be, but since there's a whole bunch of it in my freezer, I guess I'll just eat all of it. Otherwise it's just wasteful, and I may be dead inside, but I don't let perfectly good, incredibly disgusting ice cream just go UNEATEN. It's s'mores ice cream, so there are graham crackers and I guess when I picked it out, I conveniently forgot that I hate graham crackers. But I hate everything, and it's hard to keep track. Ooh, sometimes I won't even KNOW that I hate something until it's mentioned, and then I'm like, "Actually, I DO hate that 'innocuous' thing that you're forcing upon me. Please take your blueberries and go." I didn't even know I hated blueberries until JUST NOW. I've even eaten them recently, though I didn't like a single moment of it.

The title is taken from Queen's Save Me, which speaks to me. For someone who bitches about music a lot, I sure do like to name things after songs. Books, too. I make literary puns and no one gets them. I've been thinking about doing a reading liveblog, but I'm not sure what I'd live-read. Everyone's done Twilight. If I could find my copy of Wuthering Heights, I'd do that, because I LOVE Wuthering Heights. I read it when I was like 14 and was like LOVE IS CLUTCHING YOUR BELOVED'S CORPSE because somehow that message is appropriate for teenagers. Everyone flips out about zombie shooting games and, like, I never liked video games, but everything I read in high school was about death or husband stealing or both. It was the start of my obsession with Anne Boleyn, which remains intact today, and is totally a subject for a different post. OH MY GOD ANNE BOLEYN'S LAST POEM, I HAD IT MEMORIZED AND I'D QUOTE IT.

*I don't know how said picture will be formatted.

I'm Just Bothered

I'm moody and tempestuous, which is kind of average for me. There isn't even some kind of mental condition I can blame. It's mostly just being a cranky bitch, because the sun is too bright, and I feel weirdly anxious and kind of bored while not caring to DO anything about it. I should write, since my book is my one true love, but my book won't take me for ice cream topped with gummy bears, even though I'm WAY past the age where that's considered acceptable. I just really like gummy bears, especially when they're cold.

I suppose my ennui comes from being mildly upset of things that are decidedly NOT my business. The kind of vague feeling that lives in the background and has no name. The only way I can describe it is, "Well, this just sucks." Because if you're pissy about things that aren't your business, you can't get indignant or properly furious, because you're the one with the problem. And you don't even realize you're upset until you start getting annoyed that someone else sounds happier than you are, and you want to ask your mom if she's too busy with her boyfriend REDBOX to return your calls and then you realize that YOUR boyfriend is a book that you aren't even writing so fuck everything. This is all because I am an ARTIST and a CREATIVE INDIVIDUAL and I FEEL so MUCH and [insert more whiny bullshit here].

I'm writing just to prove a point.

I carry a big wooden stick with a rusty hook on the end when I walk- her name is Zelda and she's my beatin' stick. I live in a Walking Neighborhood, so a lot of the people around me ALSO have sticks. They're all inferior to Zelda, but I always feel like people with sticks just fucking Get It. They understand me as only a stick person can.

Also, men hate the stick and frankly seem kind of put off when some girl in a full face of makeup and carrying Zelda smiles at them, like they wouldn't WANT a pretty lady who could fuck them up.

My favorite thing about Zelda is that she looks like some kind of post-apocalyptic weapon- she LOOKS threatening, so I don't actually have to BE threatening. I feel the same way I do when I'm walking with someone I trust to keep me safe- a swagger in my step, a confidence in my own safety. I don't usually have those things. Strangers are threatening when they get aggressive, and I am afraid of dogs. I often feel like a mouse trying to evade hawks.

Not so with Zelda.

Wrath

I had a dream that I was hopelessly in love with someone, and he totally broke my heart and also killed my horse and I'm still kind of upset (read: horribly fucking offended) about the whole thing, which makes no sense, but I'm a woman and I don't let something stupid like "making sense" fuck up my being angry. I really loved that horse. He was my everything, and he was beautiful and he had a shiny coat and wore hats and took me everywhere I wanted to go and nuzzled me and someone KILLED HIM and I'm tearing up just thinking about it. (Note: I do not have a horse and never have.)

So anyway, there's that, and I've had a headache literally for days and I just want someone to take it all away and just FIX it, for fuck's sake. This morning I was getting increasingly annoyed by the noise from the coffee maker until I realized that I was the one making coffee, and then I was just annoyed for no reason. The only thing for such a mood is pop-country music and even the love songs sound pissed off, like all these romantic verses are just being spat out. It almost sounds better that way. Maybe love just sounds better when it's angry. Taylor Swift would totally agree with me.

Angst

Angst is defined as a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity.

To me, angst feels a lot more like enthusiastic despair or melancholic anger. It feels like the world is too bright and too loud, like everyone just needs to maintain a distance of at least three feet and use their "inside voices", like I just need some quiet time because my head hurts and there's never time to cry properly and life is moving at a horribly uneven pace, where things are happening too fast and too slow. I feel like being mean and lashing out. I feel like writing horror stories full of characters that everyone but me will love, just so I can fuck them over. I feel like being spiteful. I feel like hating everything.

I feel like apologizing when I've been too mean. I feel like sending out cards- "Sorry I've been vile!" I feel like sucking the poison out and having a cupcake and going for a walk and listening to something happy and feeling like myself.

It hasn't been possible today. Today I've been a vicious, whiny, irritable, overemotional mess. Maybe it's hormonal. Maybe I'm just having an off day.

If I could shed it like a silk nightgown, I would.

I'm still up because there is no god, but also a little because at some point in the evening, I was like, "You know what sounds tasty? Sugar." But anyway, I managed to tear myself away from the sugar and spinach dip (I'm like a fucking crack addict with the spinach dip) long enough to post this, mostly in honor of a very special person who asked me to write more, but also because the ice cream is out in the garage fridge and it's way too scary to go out there and get some. I should move everything except for, like, celery and diet coke out to the garage and I'd lose a million pounds. Fuck Weight Watchers, the best diet is FEAR.

Anyway, I had intended on working on short fiction pieces to submit to publications that accept that kind of thing, but now I have a REALLY good idea for a much longer (as in, this could turn into a series) piece. I love/hate the word "piece". I hate it but I seem to just love love LOVE using it. I'm tired and I have to get up in a while and give a cat an IV drip. That cat is getting a raw deal. I should ask my vet to move in with me. I don't care if she's married, I can love her better because the bond forged by giving a cat subcutaneous fluids is a special one indeed.

Fuck.

1. I suspect I'm as bitchy and mean as I am because a few days out of every month, I'm in horrible pain that I wouldn't wish on anyone, even people I hated, even though I wish all kinds of terrible things on people who deserve it. I almost want to have children because the idea that this is all for fucking nothing makes me want to scream, except I don't actually think "having children" is a solution to anything, ever. EVEN TO JUST WANTING CHILDREN. I don't even know. People breed too fucking much.

2. I actually swing wildly from psychotically mean to overly affectionate and incredibly loving. I imagine it's a lot of fun to live with me.

3. I watched some of the Haunting in CT documentary (because apparently that shit was based on a true story). No one was clawing at the walls, so I was mostly just irritated by the whole thing until I saw Ed and Lorraine Warren, because I really just love them. I bet they would've been a lot of fun to go on some kind of double date with. I wonder if when mediums die, do ghosts react the same way I do when my phone isn't working?

4. As I write this, the Aleve is kicking in so I feel nicer. Sometimes when I feel remorse/a desire to be nicer, it feels like someone reaching into my solar plexus and tearing out whatever they can grab. It happens when I'm being a jerk and it hits me that wait, I actually WANT to be nice to this person and OH GOD NO NOT THE FEELINGS.

I don't even know why this is a post

Went out to dinner last night, had a lovely time. Wore my corset, so I enjoyed how I looked, but not nearly as much as I enjoyed my companion.

I am so beyond rusty, it's not even funny. It's like my post-relationship brain is like a post-baby body, because that shit did NOT just snap back to how it was. I have no moves, because apparently my brain fucking broke and now I have to BE MYSELF, which is moderately terrifying because I actually want to be myself for the first time ever. So I WANT to share myself, but my way of sharing things is to force them on people, and my ex did NOT like that, so part of me is like "OH GOD I AM SO SORRY FOR MAKING YOU LISTEN TO WEIRD THINGS THAT I SAY." But I know that is absurd, so I just keep SAYING weird things and I don't think it'll ever stop even though I actually DO know how to hold my tongue. And then I think about all this stuff when I'm watching Revenge and I'm like, "You know what? Victoria Grayson totally would want me to just be myself, the way she was with that artist dude from way back in the day before she married for money." All my best ideas come from fictional characters. I don't even know. I'm way less anxious these days with way more disorganized thoughts. But BETTER thoughts, like if you had a box full of beautiful, tangled chains. How poetic. I have the soul of a poet. I keep it trapped in a ghostly mirror. Frankly, this post is garbage, but it's also very honest, except for that part about having the soul of a poet. I would never trap something in a mirror, in case it got out and tried to steal my life.

In My Life

I've often described myself as having "low music tolerance". I can't talk when music plays in the car. I sometimes just CAN'T tolerate music playing... it's not because I hate music. I love it. It's just that sometimes lyrics (like all words) affect me deeply. Words are NEVER just background noise for me. They set the mood and influence how I feel.

The song I've been particularly affected by tonight is Ozzy Osbourne's cover of "In My Life". The song was never a favorite of mine. The lyrics seemed depressing- I felt like he was singing about all the loss he's been through, and I didn't understand why he would sing about past loves in a song that was, ostensibly, being sung to his current love. And then I heard it with new ears- he's NOT singing about loss, or about past loves. He's singing to the person he loves and telling her that every single thing he's been through has made him love her more. It's made him see her as even more precious. He's not denouncing his past, he's not saying it doesn't matter- he doesn't have to, in order to be deeply in love with this person.

It's possibly the most beautiful love song I've ever heard. Everyone has a past, and everyone has scars. Your memory isn't erased the moment you meet "the one", and if it were, you wouldn't be able to realize how impossibly wonderful that person was. I used to think that shucking your past was something you did when you met someone right for you, but that's not what love is.

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more

I woke up at 4am because I had literally the dumbest nightmare ever- I was out on a date with someone I really didn't like, he was getting pushy and stalker bananas toward me and then there was a HUGE interlude about how there wasn't enough hot sauce on my burrito, and frankly, even now that I'm awake, that's still the most upsetting part of that dream. This is particularly weird for two reasons- one, I frequently have very intense nightmares about stalking, date rape, etc, and they're horrible and really fuck with me; and two, I don't even LIKE a lot of hot sauce on my food. I like some, but I'm never ever like, "THIS BURRITO IS SEVERELY LACKING IN THE HOT SAUCE DEPARTMENT" the way I was in this dream. And now I'm awake and the goddamn birds are singing outside, and I don't even have words for how much those smug chirpy pricks irritate me sometimes. A while back, there were these mockingbirds that stayed up and sang all night long, which seems horribly unfair because one of the nicest things about nighttime is that there are no birds. Plenty of coyotes, but nary a bird. I can understand the beauty of a nice-looking bird, but in general, they unnerve me. They stare, you know. And they communicate in loud chirps that I can't really understand, but I suspect that they're signalling each other to attack.

On Writing

Today I wrote a short story/flash fiction kinda deal. It felt nice. I like being able to write again, and now that I've started, it's very hard to stop.

Something that's always been a stumbling block for me is feeling something like stage fright, while also being terrified that no one will come watch the show I'm putting on. "What if no one comes?" I think. "Or what if they do?!" It's stifling.

But I have a solution. I write to someone, the way I'd sing to a friend in the audience, even if I'm perfoming for an entire stadium. I never thought about it until now, and now that I have, my words are back, and I can write again.

This one's for you, wherever you are

Like three years ago, I bought a corset that JUST BARELY fit, and then I gained a bunch of weight that didn't come off until recently, because I eat maybe once a day and I take a lot of walks. But being nauseas all the time* has a plus side, because the corset fits! FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I BOUGHT IT. My jeans fit too, which basically means I'm reasonably satisfied with my body, even though I do want to lose more weight. I bet that super pretty retro bathing suit I got last summer fits too. I wore it once and now I have no pool, and I can't even sunbathe because I'm so alarmingly pale. Like "can't use camera flash" pale, because my skin reflects light and I look like a ghost. Sometimes I get interested in sunbathing, but what will that even do to my skin in the long run?! I don't actually burn easily, but I'm paranoid about sun damage causing premature aging. REALLY PARANOID. I carry a parasol and wear a giant hat if I'll be in the sun long.

Also, I packed up all the things my ex gave me and put them away, because at least then they aren't on my nightstand. It was weird, but less weird than looking over every morning and seeing a Valentine's card from him next to the remains of my dead cat. So now it's just my cat that's on my nightstand. And my body lotion. I'm not really sure that I'm doing any of this right, kind of like how I wasn't sure I was doing things right when I started dating him, or when things got more serious, or any of it- but I have to do what feels right. Sometimes that's the hardest thing to do, because doing what feels right often also feels like doing what requires a lot of justification. I've been analyzing this stuff a lot in my "pre-writing" phase.

Ooh, so this is way less hideously personal, but earlier I went for a walk and this guy and his 10-ish year old daughter had these two HUGE dogs and were kinda just hanging around this path. I suspect they were waiting for me to leave (incidentally, I was waiting for THEM to leave, because people need to fucking quit it with their dogs**). And then I notice that the dog the guy has, the bigger dog, was off the leash and GROWLING... at someone's fence, because the guy was kind of making the dog stay by the fence? I don't even know; it seemed like a socialization thing, but possibly also a creepy-ass dude thing.

*I suspect I'm nauseas because instead of saying things like, "Why, YES, a salad and grilled fish sounds delightful!" I want stuff like hot wings and oreos. And also soda.

**I don't hate dogs, but people in my area seem to really not give a shit about keeping them confined. Like there's this Chihuahua that I had to chase out of my house the day I moved in and this other dog that's basically leash-free all the time. And like I said, I don't hate dogs, but I'm definitely afraid of them, and I've had experiences that make that fear seem WAY more sane than not being afraid; but even if you don't give a shit about my fears, you should care about your beloved family pet wandering into the street or a pack of coyotes, or fucking up and biting someone and having to be put down. I'm very passionate about this and so I sound like a PSA, but please, keep your pets where they belong. It absolutely IS your fault and SHOULD be considered abuse/neglect if your "free range" domesticated animal gets itself killed because it was wandering.

My boyfriend broke up with me, which absolutely bites, but I'm writing a book, so you know, silver linings. Oh, and I lost some weight, even though I eat and everything, which means I'm probably dying. That's really just incentive to write faster, because I don't want children so my words are my legacy. Thank god I've written important things about Twilight.

Yesterday I watched He's Just Not That Into You, which was fucking horrible and I can't recommend it enough, if you like stories about legitimately terrible people all being terrible together, or if you like Ginnifer Goodwin, because I like Ginnifer Goodwin in the same way that I just really like nuns. I'm especially fond of her on Once Upon a Time, and I want the new season to come on Netflix NOW because I've been watching the same 22 episodes for a year and I want more. Also on Netflix is the X-Files, but no one else shares my intense passion for it, and it's really not as much fun if you have to watch it alone. MY RINGTONE IS THE X-FILES THEME AND SOMETIMES WHEN PEOPLE CALL, I JUST LET IT PLAY FOR A WHILE. Once I tried to embroider a replica of Mulder's "I want to believe" poster, but it turns out that I hate embroidery, no matter how wonderful that would have been.

Testing?

I got locked out of my old email, so will try posting from my new one.

I just wrote a long post about how all of my phone problems, after buying a new (defective) battery and doing a factory reset and everything came down to having plugged my phone charger in the wrong outlet and also about how in my head, books have feelings and I pet my e-reader because I feel bad for not using it more and also I hoard notebooks, but I post via email and I sent it to the wrong address. I'm kind of okay with that, because in hindsight, it actually made me look nutty as all hell.

I guess I'll clarify the "books have feelings" thing. It makes me sad when I see a book just LANGUISHING, never to be read or loved properly, because that book WANTS to be read, you know? And I rarely use my Nook because I have enough things to charge but I feel sorry for it! I KNOW IT WANTS TO BE READ, and I think I even apologized to it once, a long time ago. I'm also afraid of being without something to write with, so when I see the college ruled composition books I like, I buy the shit out of them, but sometimes I get tempted by things called Ideal Books because I'm a slave to marketing, but I stop myself because that notebook would get bumped to the front of the line, but it'd have to wait until I finished my current notebook, and it seems really unfair to everyone involved. Everyone being, of course, myself and a bunch of blank books. There. THAT made me look crazy and I don't even care. I HOPE THE INTERNET IS HAPPY.

Movie Review: New Moon

New Moon starts where Twilight left off, which is to say the same place every one of these movies starts and ends because no matter what changes, no one really grows or learns anything because of it. It's Bella's birthday and she's freaked out about being a year older than Edward, even though she isn't really, because he's 109. No one actually seems to think about emotional age, except for Edward who's so emotionally stunted that he's afraid Bella will outgrow him someday. He's got nothing to worry about, because Bella doesn't care to think of silly little things like personal growth.

Anyway she celebrates her 18th with Edward's vampire family, and his brother tries to eat her, so Edward breaks up with her and leaves her alone in the woods. Happy birthday, Bella! She sits in front of her window watching the world go by for a while, and then eventually she decides to go and try to get kidnapped and locked in some dude's basement because she discovers that she hallucinates a vision of Edward when she does dangerous shit. I think that's one of the stages of grief. Anywho, she buys two broken motorcycles and has her friend Jacob fix them so she can hallucinate some more. Jacob's destined to turn into a werewolf and have his furry little heart stomped on by Bella, which is kind of a shame, because unlike Edward, Jacob actually does stuff with her, like share a hobby and talk about something besides how desperately he wants to kill her and feast upon the remains.

Then Bella goes cliff diving and Edward's psychic sister has a premonition that she threw herself off a cliff for suicidal purposes and not just to recreationally make herself hallucinate. And now Edward thinks Bella killed herself and is off to kill his own self by breaking laws and making the vampire police kill him. Being a vampire sounds pretty awful, especially for Edward because he's basically doomed to be a high school student forever and he can't eat people and now he can't even kill himself without going all the way to Italy to jump through hoops with the vampire police.

But Bella gets there in time and saves him and there's a showdown with the vampire police and they say that Bella has to become a vampire. Edward's brother later says that's a great idea so he can stop wanting to kill her so damn much. Then Jacob flips his shit and Bella says she loves him, but not as much as she loves Edward because she's kind of a terrible person.

New Moon is better than Twilight, but only by a little. There isn't much romance, and Bella spends a lot of it being horribly depressed. However, the werewolves are fun to watch and I've always liked Jacob's character, and it's nice to see Bella pal around with someone who doesn't want to kill her. It has a little more plot than the first movie, but the reason why the first two movies seem to be plotless is because almost all the plot is Bella's internal conflicts. The things that happen outside of Bella's head really do pick up steam from here on out, and even the book counterparts of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn are more exciting.

Movie Review: Twilight

I'm going to start off by bitching about my phone needing a new battery, because I have a phone fixation and can't help myself. I HOPE it's the battery, because I ordered a new one. Though I suppose if it weren't the battery, I have insurance on the phone, it could be replaced and I'd have a spare battery which wouldn't be the worst thing. I dunno, I've just had PHONE ANXIETY, which you know is bad because I wrote it in capital letters. "LET ME HELP YOU," I beg. "JUST TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG AND I WILL FIX IT." Frankly, I've had some charger issues for almost a year now and I'm thinking it might almost be time to pick up a backup again, even though now I'm starting to wonder if maybe the MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of chargers I've had to buy and either return or throw away in disgust weren't the problem, and it was the battery all along.

But anyway, onto the real topic, which is Twilight. The manpanion and I have been watching the movies, because I hate watching Twilight alone and he's super nice. (Twilight is like good spaghetti or any of life's other blessings- better when shared.) I'll be doing a review on each of the films, but I think I'll do at least this one a little differently than the Haunting in CT review, which is to say, I won't do a liveblog-style post. Basically all you need to know about the plot is that Edward is a vampire and Bella is in love with him. There's a plot about Bad Vampires who show up near the end and want to eat Bella, but that only lasts for about thirty seconds and generally has no impact on anything. God forbid there be an actual conflict to detract from the sparkling. I've seen Twilight about four times now, and while I like it better each time, I also kind of consider it to be a two hour prologue to the rest of the movies- literally, all it does is set up the Edward/Bella relationship and introduce characters you'll never really see again. I mean, I guess it also gave someone an excuse to make Robert Pattinson wear a lot of lipstick and at one point Rosalie has on these gorgeous shoes and there's a close-up, so that kind of justifies the movie's existence. All that being said, I'm going to focus on the part of the plot that seemed to matter- that Edward and Bella are in LOVE, and they don't need silly things like REASONS. At one point, my boyfriend pointed out that this was a bunch of bunk, as if to carefully gauge my grasp on reality, because Edward being a vampire isn't even the most unrealistic part of the movie. It IS a bunch of bunk- like, they don't seem to have any particular reason to want to be together, they literally just one day profess love and that's that. And the thing is, I could see reasons why they might love each other- maybe Edward would love someone who accepted him, and maybe Bella would like to be with someone interested in taking care of her and keeping her safe, but they both seem to hate things like that- Edward is vehemently opposed to the idea of Bella accepting him, or worse, becoming a vampire too; Bella seems disdainful when Edward wants to display generosity toward her. And you know, I don't think that the fans would've been completely opposed to watching them fall in love realistically, with compelling reasons and shared experiences that bring them closer- I can totally see how Bad Vampires hunting Bella would bring them closer! BEING SEEN AS PREY IS A BONDING EXPERIENCE. But it doesn't work that way, because their love was already as great as could be or some such tomfoolery. I do like that they're both horribly awkward around each other at first- I love how Robert Pattinson plays Edward, because he's weird and awkward and not all that great at socializing, which is EXACTLY how a vampire would be.

I guess the thing that I like about the films is that they're told through the Female Gaze. I'm not talking about the "eye candy", because I genuinely think that the only reason why women get hot and bothered for Edward is because of the way he looks at Bella, like every time he sees her, affection starts to ooze out of his pores, because it just can't be contained. Cleolinda Jones pointed this out in a post of hers once, and I 100% agree that what makes the movies (and books) so compelling is the massive amounts of tenderness that Edward displays for Bella. I think that what women want isn't a boyfriend who sparkles and desperately wants to exsanguinate them- they want that same tenderness directed at them. People love to holler about how ALL OF THESE WOMEN WANT TO BE MARRIED TO A 100 YEAR OLD STALKER BECAUSE LADIES JUST LOVE SPARKLY SHIT and I know that you're not cool if you don't make fun of Twilight, but it's not as though Stephenie Meyer just happened to tap into some secret fantasy coded into the DNA of anyone with two X chromosomes. Men talk a lot about how women are SO COMPLICATED while making fun of things women like without considering WHY they like it. It's not very hard to understand that women like when men are vulnerable enough to be honestly tender- and if you find that you can't do this, you're likely trying to do it for the wrong woman.

This is meandering, so I'll give my overall opinion. Twilight is my least favorite of all the movies, but I think it's still worth watching because not only do the movies get better as they go along (Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2 are honestly two of my favorite movies), but it also has one of the most romantic scenes I've ever watched- where Bella is asking to be a vampire, and Edward says, "Isn't a long and happy life with me enough?" Flawed as it may be, when this series gets it right, it REALLY gets it right. I feel like it's the right story told by the wrong person, which unfortunately means that the focus is pulled in completely the wrong direction.

Incidentally, while I would consider this movie the worst one out of all five, it's also the hardest for me to make fun of. I really think that Catherine Hardwicke was a bit tongue-in-cheek about things like Edward "dazzling" people- one of the funniest bits is watching him talk to Bella and her friends in this completely deadpan manner while the three girls act totally lovestruck. I give it five completely bloodless bodies out of ten!

Haunting in CT

Today I watched the 2009 masterpiece A Haunting in Connecticut. I LOVED it when it came out, and even saw it twice in theaters! Let's see how it held up.

The movie opens up with Virginia Madsen's character looking for rental properties close to the hospital where her son Matt is being treated for cancer. I do not like what she's done with her face. She picks out the perfect house- big and spacious and haunted as fuck- and moves her two neices, two sons and her drunken husband in. Matt gets first choice of bedroom, so naturally he picks the terrifying basement saying it picked him. Then he hallucinates his mom mopping the floor with blood as she says she doesn't understand why he picked the basement. I suspect it has something to do with how half the room is behind a sealed door. How cozy! He goes and hallucinates some more, which is a problem because if he hallucinates, he'll be dropped from the experimental treatment program he's participating in. Mom shows her older neice around the house. There's a ghost in her bedroom and the wallpaper is hideous, and I'm not sure which is worse.

That night, Matt has some old-timey dreams about the sealed door and some beardy dude writing on corpses with a scalpel and stealing their eyelids.. He tries to open the door, and it BURNS HIS HAND, but that doesn't stop him from trying to get in again. This time, he's successful and finds himself standing in some kind of embalming studio IN HIS FUCKING BEDROOM and oh my fucking stars, I would want a new room in a new house on a new planet. Matt seems pretty okay with it, though, and invites his brother to play with the eyelid cutter and take a spin on the embalming table. Alkie Dad comes in and looks at the bottles of god knows what and the tables full of IMPLEMENTS and freaks out because his wife knowingly moved their family into a former funeral home. I know that feel, Alkie Dad. I'm on your side. Matt has some old-timey visions about a seance and freaks out because that's apparently way worse than a mortuary in your bedroom. Everyone had their eyelids and everything! He goes to the hospital and hallucinates some more and meets a priest. There's some stuff about death and I really just wanna get to the goddamn ghosts already. TIME'S A-TICKIN'.

Later that night, the younger neice is playing with dolls when a carved-up hand appears right by her hand and a shadow runs through the hallway. She calls for the lights to be turned on, and the ghost obliges, which is polite, I guess. The next day, everyone plays hide-and-seek and Matt follows a ghost down into his personal embalming studio, and when he gets there, there are bodies laying on the tables. Predictably, they've been visited by the eyelid snatcher and his scalpel. They surround Matt, who screams and scares his family, so he calls the priest. I'd call a realtor. After seeing the preist, Matt does sit-ups, like anyone else on death's door, and a burned up zombie appears. Then later his family comes home to find him in a fort fashioned out of all their chairs, clawing at the walls, and that's why I never do sit-ups- I don't have enough chairs to make a proper fort. Alkie Dad drinks while mom prays for something new to inject into her face. Matt keeps scaring the hell out of everyone by being creepy. Then everyone plays hide-and-seek again! That worked out well last time. Little brother hides in the dumbwaiter which is stupid, because the only thing those are used for is a hiding place for mummified babies. Except for THIS dumbwaiter, which contains a burned up zombie. The younger neice goes up to the attic and falls through the floor and comes across a box of eyelids. Don't lose those! Someone might be looking for them. Along with the eyelids, there's some old photos and Matt recognizes the subjects as people from his hallucinations, so he heads to the library to research. He learns about a deranged mortician (is there any other kind?) and the priest comes back to talk about necromancy and pray with the kids. Where the hell are mom and Alkie Dad? Mom barges in (presumably from shooting spoiled mayo into herself) just as Matt's having a vision, and throws the priest out.

That night, the hideous wallpaper comes to life and there's a ghost bird and a zombie, then mom finds a zombie in her room. It's like night of a thousand zombies. Alkie Dad comes home and drunkenly shouts about everyone sleeping with the lights on, so he steals the lightbulbs and leaves. The ghosts make the missing lightbulbs flicker on, which is kind of nice of them. They're HELPING. The priest comes back and makes the house angry, but says he fixed it. He leaves and Matt gets all carved up like the eyelid snatcher's cadavers, so he goes to the hospital. All the food is SUDDENLY ROTTEN and older neice gets attacked by a shower curtain while the priest calls saying OOPS THERE'S ALL KINDS OF BODIES HIDDEN IN THE HOUSE AND Y'ALL SHOULD GET OUT.

Matt's parents are informed that he's dying fast, but before they can see him, he runs away and goes back to the house, axe in hand, ready to chop shit up. Bodies come tumbling out of the wall- the preist wasn't kidding. There are DROVES of bodies. No wonder there are so many zombies. Anyway, he sets that mother on fire and finds himself surrounded by bodies before being pulled to safety and making a miraculous recovery. The lesson here is that ghosts are a better cure than experimental treatments.

What's the verdict? I feel teased by the promise of necromancy, but all I got were some fucking eyelids. I don't want eyelids! I want Dark Arts and voodoo curses! Also, there's a saturation point for eyelidless carved-up zombies, and I've reached it. Overall, not bad, but I'd rather hear less about praying and drunkenness and more about that beardy dude and his nefarious purposes.

I took a rather long hiatus, but I'm back now! Someday I'll blog regularly. My life is different than it was last time I wrote. I'm in a healthy relationship and I moved and I changed my hair to a Zooey Deschanel inspired look. (Spoiler alert: I do not look like Zooey Deschanel.) I feel a lot happier and healthier and that makes writing hard, which scared me off for a while- but then I realized that if I never try, I'll never get back into the swing of things.

Tonight I'm waiting for my computer to fix itself, and watching My Strange Addiction and now I am hopelessly addicted to talking about the people on My Strange Addiction. One lady was "addicted" to a stuffed lamb and apparently it really freaked everyone out that she carried it around, and I don't understand why she didn't like, stuff it in her purse and carry on being addicted to it. It's not like anyone would stop her on the street and demand to search her for the lamb.

I'm also going to try rag curls in my hair because if I don't, I'm going to become addicted to my curling iron, which I guess wouldn't tear apart my family the way Stuffed Lamb Lady's lamb tore apart hers, but it is awfully damaging to my hair. At least I'd have the common sense to put my curling iron in my damn purse instead of carrying it around and cooing at it. I could TOTALLY just coo at it if it were inside my purse, and I think that'd be okay until someone wanted to know who Betsy was and why she's a pretty girl and then I'd just lie and say I had a baby in my purse, because carrying a tiny human that screams and smells bad is more socially acceptable than carrying my curling iron WHO NEVER HURT ANYONE. Maybe all those people who carry around babies should be on that show. Parenting? More like "in the clutches of a horrible addiction"! Someone ought to be staging interventions for those poor lost souls.