font of useles knowledge & meaningless information

We watched Jennifer's Body tonight. It was something we both wanted to see, but it kind of fell through the cracks until a day with us both home sick and figuring out how to work On Demand came along. I'd read about it before the mainstream publicity really went into overdrive (and tried to sell it as a sexy exploitation horror comedy: the marketing team should be shot), mostly from feminist and geek insider sources, so I knew the territory the writer and director were staking out. I will say, though, that it was way better than I expected.

I'm a sucker for angry, angry subversive movies hiding out as something else, and Jennifer's Body has that in spades. It walked a fine line between homage and parody, but pulled it off very well, because all joking aside, teenaged years are a special hell that too many people seem to want to sugar coat and ignore. Not so much here. I can't say the right things about it, but I want to mention compassion for the complexities of lateral hostility, for both outsiders and the popular kids. All the cast did an excellent job; I believed all the characters. I was very impressed.

From io9.com:The Long Tentacle of H.P.Lovecraft in Manga (NSFW), a long essay with references, clips and pics to support the pretty exhaustive cataloging. Enjoy.

I just found out, much to my amusement, that it can mean the difference between calling my son's caregiver, and calling a gay hotline...

The only thing worse than shaving is not shaving. Why can't someone invent a pill that will remove all hair below my eyelashes once and for all?

Yep, home with a fever and what looks like a cold on the first Monday of the new year. I hope this is just a release of the last of the toxins of 2009 and not a portent of the year to come.

Black tea with soy cream (x3 or 4)
Crusty biscuits
Weak miso with shredded broccoli, carrots and purple cabbage
And soon, nap

I really hope I'm not getting sick; I didn't even do anything fun to get exposed to new virii.

But, it has to be done.

Thank goodness for free mp3 downloads of CBS Mystery Theater, which I use to stay up late and listen to in jr. high.

There really is something to be said for strictly audio media.

Forces your mind to imagine the appearance of the characters, and the setting, and the facial expressions...oddly helps me focus on the menial tasks around the house.

Video may have killed the radio star, but I *do* like the occasional haunting of its ghost from time to time...

Today the reorganization of interior space in our home was the big thing. I've moved two desks and a bookshelf, as well as wrestled a disassembled table through bizarrely narrow interior doorways (that still took removing one of of the doors from the hinges). Space is different, but hopefully more functional. The aesthetics are not perfect, but increased utility counts for a lot.

Atlanta is one small fucking city, despite it's alleged population size. We went to the party at CoLab (a shared woarehouse/work/community space run by some of the Alchemy burn folks) last night, and I ran into a surprising number of people I had no reason to expect to see, including beckett, dustyskinandall (who I finally met in person), my ex-brother in law and some folks from the Mt. Arabia gatherings. I wonder if all subcultures are this small, or if it's something unique to Atlanta.

Happy queasy, headachey New Year, everyone.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm gonna try my best to make this one the best yet, for me and those close to me.

Cheers! :)

New therapist gave me a homework question, and here's my answer:

"Be who you want to be, fuck how you want to fuck, and know that I will always have your back."

Speaking to new therapist today, I realized I carry two seemingly contradictory ideas/stances with me whenever I'm around another person or people. The first is that I am small, weak, in danger, and always have to be tense enough to form up armor against the damage that will inevitably fall on me. The second is that I am very large, ungainly, built to a different scale and trying to interact with people who are 30-40% of my size, fragile, and completely unaware of the danger I could accidentally pose if I slip up for even a second (I call this feeling 'tissue paper world', and hate it).

We talked about family, pain, (mal)adaptive strategies and more pain. She asked if I had an idea of what it would look like if I were kinder to myself, and I had to answer that I honestly didn't know, but that even considering it felt dangerous.

I feel so incredibly messed up right about now.

From Pandagon:Attack on Married Privilege, Not Gay Rights

Dream about navigating my insurance and doctor referral system for an injured back. I lost forms, and had to call in to get information, but could barely understand someone on the phone, and had to go over some information almost letter by letter to get it right. The sense of dread as I saw the fees add up was almost sickening.

k_navit recently asked me why I bothered to retain any contact with my family when they treat me so poorly and appear to offer little I value. It was a good question, and one I've considered myself frequently over the years. My answer, and the answer I gave her in person, is that if there is to be an end to things with them, I don't want it to be because things have been allowed to drift and slowly fade; if there is to be an end, I want it to be because I ended it, said what I need to say and then walked away.

That's been my reason for years now, and I meant it, or at least thought I did. I probably did. But after this last time, even though it was way better than many previous family engagements, I'm not sure I can do it any more. I'm not sure I have it in me to sit politely while my requests and preferences are either ignored or forgotten, trumped by laziness or possibly the fear of being socially uncomfortable. I'm tired of being the unspoken secret, assuming anyone bothers to remember. I'm tired of giving even tacit support to the idea that these are my people, my place, where I belong. If this and all previous engagements are any indication, they're not my people, and it is no longer my place to beg for scraps from them.

It sounds like my mind is made up, doesn't it? And it's probably closer than I've ever been. But instead of feeling triumphant, or even righteously indignant, I feel... scared. Sad, hollow, bereft. It feels like I'm on the threshold of truly being outcast, of truly being alien from the one place we're all supposed to be able to go when chips are down. It doesn't matter that it's not true for a lot of people, or that it hasn't been true for me for a long, long time; what matters is that at the moment I'm prepared to walk away, I suddenly have a new take on what it is I'm dangerously close to leaving.

They won't understand. Honestly, I don't think many people will. It will be taken as me doing the rejecting, not finally dealing with the conditional rejection I've gotten all along. That bothers me, but I think I can learn to live with it. What really bothers me, though, is that I'll be pulling back the curtain, exposing the story of family as a place of belonging, of open doors and a place by the fire, as a story, and that, I fear, will be the unforgivable sin, not just with my family, but with anyone else who still partakes in that story. I worry that I'll become even more alienated for speaking the unspeakable, and that is a hard, bitter burden to pick up when it already feels like I'm carrying way, way more alienation than is my share.

But, I don't think I can do this much longer.

First one I recall had a weird feel, something like the north Birmingham of my youth (near my maternal grandmother's house) mixed with Stone Mountain. Something about me was ominously different; a curse, or something that made me nigh immortal, hard to kill, and something a touch removed or tragic. There was a gathering of people on a rocky outcrop, like a picnic or to watch something(?). Someone was talking about 'buy one, get one', an idea to which I'd been exposed and suggested to use as a conversational entry, so I was called over to talk to the slim German woman talking about it. As we were talking, I realized she (and a lot of others) were sitting under the cover of a low, large jutting cliff or balanced stone, and it made me very claustrophobic. I crawled out, just in time for it to collapse. With sudden urgency, I pounded on the rocky debris with the butt of my rifle(??), then began shooting the rocks to break them into smaller pieces only I could lift. The German woman eventually emerged, unhurt, and I realized she had become similarly nigh immortal and hard to kill, but by accident rather than whatever tragedy had befallen me.

Second dream I was in a large brick hotel/dorm complex. There was a large party in a public area, and at one point I'd wandered away looking for a restroom. I passed a very scantily clad dark skinned brunette woman, but she somehow avoided me in a way that suggested she was a part of another narrative. I found a restroom, but my eyes weren't working well, and I had trouble determining if it said 'men' or 'women' on the door. Based on number of characters, I thought it was the former and went in, but it was laid out like a women's restroom. I went back out, and somehow the door said 'ladies'. I managed to get out before anyone noticed.

I returned to the party and ended up near a strange, intense bunch of folks trying to work some phone/gambling system. The central figure was making insane, crazy predictions, they would make bets by phone or lottery, and then they'd win. It became clear by their conversation that they were all advanced math students, and the central figure was a complex systems theory genius who'd stumbled onto a pattern. As they got more and more caught up in the unbelievable predictions (some weird misfortune, weather, accident, etc. regarding sporting events), two of them peeled off and got romantic, and one pretty pale redhead with wide features ended up near me. We started talking, about math, and it became clear that the brunette in the hall may not have been in my narrative, but the redhead had just very much become so, and we very much hit it off. Math played a curious, strong part of the attraction.