*Sigh* I started the week before last pretty excited. Joblessness has been getting me down lately, but I got some advice that pushed me to go ahead and start purueing volunteer opportunities, then adjust my scheduling if/when I got a job. I decided on signing up to volunteer with an animal shelter (the same one where I got my older cat) and the metro LGBT community center. All the while, I would continue to do work for my folks and apply for jobs, including jobs I might not normally apply for.
Well, two weeks later and I'm pretty much nowhere. Which is where I started. So at least I didn't move backwards.
I filled out the application to volunteer at the animal shelter Monday before last. I still haven't heard from them. I checked out the website and it said that, because they have a large number of people who want to volunteer, it often takes 2-3 weeks for them to get back to anyone. Selfishly, I was hoping to be able to fill some time up sooner.
In what I thought was a good sign, I heard back from someone at the LGBT community center the day after I sent them an email and was invited to join their membership committee meeting last Sunday. It was a great meeting and I felt energized and hopeful. I was only supposed to contact two other LGBT groups, go to one of their meetings, and tell them about our upcoming activities. The one group doesn't meet for a few weeks, but going to talk to the other group is more complicated. I took the women's football team during our meeting and it was suggested that I ask if I could come speak to them just before a practice. I never heard back from them. I also didn't hear back from the committee's leader, who had said he would provide talking points when we went to talk to these groups. Last Sunday, we had a specific event that we were supposed to be promoting, which was supposed to happen next Saturday. It has now disappeared from the website. I sent another email but it isn't looking so good....
I'm still applying for jobs. I even applied to a few housekeeping jobs. And one of them sent me an email back saying that they were going with more qualified applicants. I know, I know, I know. This means that they are looking at candidates who have previous housekeeping exprience. But what I read was that I'm not even qualified to be a housekeeper. Ever feel like you'll never find a job? Then, you start to look back at times where you messed up on jobs, and you start to think that you don't deserve a job. Today Mom said that they don't call it a "down" economy just because all those numbers are down. It's the people that are down too. In my head, I keep imagining our cities and towns turning into those dark, dirty, scary places of late-1970s and 1980s indie movies. I watched Repo Man last week. Wow....... That movie is crazy.
Helping around the house was going well, but health issues have derailed that the last half week or so. Sorry if this is TMI but- Well, my period started up today, so I'm guessing that my need to sleep for 18 hours a day was some lovely PMS. So I haven't gotten out to do the shopping that I was supposed to do for my folks and we don't have alot of food around right now. But I did manage to be awake to go with my mom to her eye appointment today, as she was worried they would dilate her eyes and she didn't want to drive herself home. Yay me!
Lastly, there's the love life. Meh. What love life? My regular lover has been out of town for work and, when home, too tired and overloaded to hang out. And my other dating relationship seems to be at a standstill. Partly because of lack of privacy, also because of a lack of sexual aggression on both our parts, and well other stuff. I don't want to push anything and I really don't think either of us know exactly what we want so it's kinda just where it's at.
So, no lovin', no job, and no selfish selflessness. Let's hope next week is better.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Economic Paradigms
Before I jump on my soapbox, I’d like to beg your forgiveness. While I’m not sure that I could have made this all make sense when I was at my best, I am really afraid that this might be incomprehensible, as it seems like my IQ has dropped 20 points since I started this medicine, but I feel like I need to try to get it out anyway, whether or not it makes any sense or any difference.
Next, I should say that I don’t understand the economy. I’ve never really wanted to. I’ve never taken a class on it, or even read a book on it. I have an IRA that I don’t pay attention to that I got from my high school graduation. But I do have a love-hate relationship with politics and news, so it is hard to avoid economics these days. And I know, generally, what each side is fighting for and against, the principles and theories that each side says is guiding them. But I can’t claim to have any idea what is best.
But it isn’t just a lack of education and understanding of economics that prevent me from feeling like I can claim what option is “best.” It is that there is also the question of “What is BEST for what and for whom?” For someone who holds the belief that the country is best as a strictly capitalist economic structure (which it hasn’t been for a long time, but whatever), then they would think that it would be a necessary evil for people and corporations that couldn’t hack it to go under, for the country to go through more economic strife if it meant maintaining and/or reasserting a strict capitalist structure. Most of these people think that capitalism is best for the general good, that capitalism provides the best opportunity for innovation, for people to rise through the work force, for individual and group liberty, etc. And many also believe that it is what is best for them. Even if they aren’t rich now, they still think they could be rich, could run a successful company that they don’t want heavily regulated, and that they don’t want to give more of their money to the government in the form of taxes. This goes for every theory. The theory that a person or group prefers benefits them in some way, just as it also benefits the greater good. I used capitalism as an example, but it is true of all these theories and, also, it is almost impossible to follow one of these economic or political-economic theories completely. There’s always a mix of something else in there too.
But I guess what’s been bugging me lately is the attitude around me. “Both my parents taught me about goodwill and I have done well by their names.”-Ani. We’ve never had a ton, though we’ve never wanted, but my family always encouraged the idea of spreading it around. I remember my stepdad inviting guys he worked with over for Thanksgiving when they didn’t have family nearby to spend the holiday with. This Christmas, I overheard him in the other room telling someone about how all the guys he worked with pitched in to get the poorest among them proper clothing to shovel show in. It was all second-hand work gloves and boots, but it made all the difference to him. So, how can this same man unsympathetically advocate throwing people on the streets if they face foreclosure, without any recognition that some people were tricked into ARMs or the simple economic fact that it would be net a lender more to change the terms of the mortgage than just foreclose? Who calls those to use government help, not just welfare but even unemployment benefits, bums? Who doesn’t want to pay more in taxes, to have less personally, because he says that, even if it were to JUST go to create more jobs, those jobs would only go to the same old people, not actually employ those who are currently unemployed? I could go on, but it’s depressing.
But the fucked up thing is that, if I present a specific example, he usually agrees with me, has a more compassionate stance, based on the reality of the situation. When I asked him if I was a bum, as I’m currently living off of him and my mother, he said that I wasn’t a bum, that I was just going through a difficult time, but that it was different because I was relying on family. When I pointed out that, if for example I went on disability for one reason or another, I would be taking money that I had paid in on my paychecks, which is also what unemployment benefits are. These things are part of why we pay taxes. When I asked him if he didn’t think that the government should take taxes that go to public education, he said that he thought that was ok. So, he obviously doesn’t think that the government shouldn’t do anything. Or he at least believes that there is not a current privately funded system to do those things for us. But the big picture answer stays the same. No higher taxes. Let companies and corporations fail. Let us go through what we’ll go through, as a country.
One of the high-profile liberal bloggers that I read regularly, John Arvosis, recently wrote about how tired he personally is of the sob stories surrounding home foreclosures, especially as he’s worked hard, sacrificed, and maintained his payments on a condo he bought after saving a sizable down payment and doing his homework on loan terms and interest rates. His biggest point is that he might care about home foreclosures if the news stories he read didn’t use people who did stupid things or were planning on flipping the house for more than they originally paid as examples, but instead showed real people that had been taken advantage of by fast-talking, misleading mortgage brokers. While John got a lot of flack from commentors, a few did share their personal stories of being mislead or outright lied to, while others pointed to stories in their local paper or on their local news stations that highlights real people who had been mislead or lied to about the terms of their loans.
To me, the lesson seems to be that when one gets down to specific examples, to the level of the individual, the story can often change. One part of me things that this means that the best way is to bring up a specific real life example of an individual to sway someone who might only be thinking of themselves or sticking to their larger economic and political views, rather than the good of those currently less fortunate, along with the reminder that they could be that less fortunate person at any time. An example of this might be to talk about the real life person I know who was just laid off from his job at a small company that didn’t have to give him any notice during which he could look for another job and doesn’t currently have much saving because he just paid for the burial of his son. If he doesn’t take the unemployment benefits, which he has been paying into all of his working life, he and his working wife could lose their home and cars while he is looking for a job. There is no reason this man shouldn’t take the benefits available to him and he is not a bad person for making use of this safety net, which seems to me like a mass savings account. And I do think that this might be able to sway the person, get them to agree with you in the moment, maybe even make them change their idea on a vote, but I’m not sure it’ll make any long term difference. I suppose as I think about the larger liberal movement and also all the –ism movements that I follow, the real argument needs to be about everyone, what rules and rights and privileges should be afforded to everyone, not just a few, based on what one thinks a human is entitled to from their government and from other people. For example, saying that no recently unemployed person who is eligible for unemployment benefits under the current law should be denied them, have it made difficult to get them, nor should they feel a stigma attached to taking a security net benefit that they have been contributing to for the duration of their working lives. Unfortunately, that broader argument is going to be more difficult to sway someone on, as they already have their own view of what a human is entitled to. So I’m not really sure how to answer this or fix any of this, except to share it with others, knowing most people won’t change their mind.
I’ll leave you with another Ani song. I guess I paid attention to it for the first time tonight when she was playing on PBS. It highlights what I feel right now, the difference in my head and my stepdad’s head between what is right and what is wrong in this situation, when I learned a good deal about helping others from him.
Sorry, it's sideways. What do you expect from youtube?
Paradigm - Ani DiFranco
I was born to two immigrants
Who knew why they were here
They were happy to pay taxes
For the schools and roads
Happy to be here
They took it seriously
The second job of citizenry
My mother went campaigning door to door
And holding to her hand was me
I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening
But I suppose like anybody
I had to teach myself to see
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to church
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to school
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to the house of my family
All that stuff that was not lost on me
Teach myself to see each of us
Through the lens of forgiveness
Like we're stuck with each other (god forbid!)
Teach myself to smile and stop and talk
To a whole other color kid
Teach myself to be new in an instant
Like the truth is accessible at any time
Teach myself it's never really one or the other
There's a paradox in every paradigm
I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening
Next, I should say that I don’t understand the economy. I’ve never really wanted to. I’ve never taken a class on it, or even read a book on it. I have an IRA that I don’t pay attention to that I got from my high school graduation. But I do have a love-hate relationship with politics and news, so it is hard to avoid economics these days. And I know, generally, what each side is fighting for and against, the principles and theories that each side says is guiding them. But I can’t claim to have any idea what is best.
But it isn’t just a lack of education and understanding of economics that prevent me from feeling like I can claim what option is “best.” It is that there is also the question of “What is BEST for what and for whom?” For someone who holds the belief that the country is best as a strictly capitalist economic structure (which it hasn’t been for a long time, but whatever), then they would think that it would be a necessary evil for people and corporations that couldn’t hack it to go under, for the country to go through more economic strife if it meant maintaining and/or reasserting a strict capitalist structure. Most of these people think that capitalism is best for the general good, that capitalism provides the best opportunity for innovation, for people to rise through the work force, for individual and group liberty, etc. And many also believe that it is what is best for them. Even if they aren’t rich now, they still think they could be rich, could run a successful company that they don’t want heavily regulated, and that they don’t want to give more of their money to the government in the form of taxes. This goes for every theory. The theory that a person or group prefers benefits them in some way, just as it also benefits the greater good. I used capitalism as an example, but it is true of all these theories and, also, it is almost impossible to follow one of these economic or political-economic theories completely. There’s always a mix of something else in there too.
But I guess what’s been bugging me lately is the attitude around me. “Both my parents taught me about goodwill and I have done well by their names.”-Ani. We’ve never had a ton, though we’ve never wanted, but my family always encouraged the idea of spreading it around. I remember my stepdad inviting guys he worked with over for Thanksgiving when they didn’t have family nearby to spend the holiday with. This Christmas, I overheard him in the other room telling someone about how all the guys he worked with pitched in to get the poorest among them proper clothing to shovel show in. It was all second-hand work gloves and boots, but it made all the difference to him. So, how can this same man unsympathetically advocate throwing people on the streets if they face foreclosure, without any recognition that some people were tricked into ARMs or the simple economic fact that it would be net a lender more to change the terms of the mortgage than just foreclose? Who calls those to use government help, not just welfare but even unemployment benefits, bums? Who doesn’t want to pay more in taxes, to have less personally, because he says that, even if it were to JUST go to create more jobs, those jobs would only go to the same old people, not actually employ those who are currently unemployed? I could go on, but it’s depressing.
But the fucked up thing is that, if I present a specific example, he usually agrees with me, has a more compassionate stance, based on the reality of the situation. When I asked him if I was a bum, as I’m currently living off of him and my mother, he said that I wasn’t a bum, that I was just going through a difficult time, but that it was different because I was relying on family. When I pointed out that, if for example I went on disability for one reason or another, I would be taking money that I had paid in on my paychecks, which is also what unemployment benefits are. These things are part of why we pay taxes. When I asked him if he didn’t think that the government should take taxes that go to public education, he said that he thought that was ok. So, he obviously doesn’t think that the government shouldn’t do anything. Or he at least believes that there is not a current privately funded system to do those things for us. But the big picture answer stays the same. No higher taxes. Let companies and corporations fail. Let us go through what we’ll go through, as a country.
One of the high-profile liberal bloggers that I read regularly, John Arvosis, recently wrote about how tired he personally is of the sob stories surrounding home foreclosures, especially as he’s worked hard, sacrificed, and maintained his payments on a condo he bought after saving a sizable down payment and doing his homework on loan terms and interest rates. His biggest point is that he might care about home foreclosures if the news stories he read didn’t use people who did stupid things or were planning on flipping the house for more than they originally paid as examples, but instead showed real people that had been taken advantage of by fast-talking, misleading mortgage brokers. While John got a lot of flack from commentors, a few did share their personal stories of being mislead or outright lied to, while others pointed to stories in their local paper or on their local news stations that highlights real people who had been mislead or lied to about the terms of their loans.
To me, the lesson seems to be that when one gets down to specific examples, to the level of the individual, the story can often change. One part of me things that this means that the best way is to bring up a specific real life example of an individual to sway someone who might only be thinking of themselves or sticking to their larger economic and political views, rather than the good of those currently less fortunate, along with the reminder that they could be that less fortunate person at any time. An example of this might be to talk about the real life person I know who was just laid off from his job at a small company that didn’t have to give him any notice during which he could look for another job and doesn’t currently have much saving because he just paid for the burial of his son. If he doesn’t take the unemployment benefits, which he has been paying into all of his working life, he and his working wife could lose their home and cars while he is looking for a job. There is no reason this man shouldn’t take the benefits available to him and he is not a bad person for making use of this safety net, which seems to me like a mass savings account. And I do think that this might be able to sway the person, get them to agree with you in the moment, maybe even make them change their idea on a vote, but I’m not sure it’ll make any long term difference. I suppose as I think about the larger liberal movement and also all the –ism movements that I follow, the real argument needs to be about everyone, what rules and rights and privileges should be afforded to everyone, not just a few, based on what one thinks a human is entitled to from their government and from other people. For example, saying that no recently unemployed person who is eligible for unemployment benefits under the current law should be denied them, have it made difficult to get them, nor should they feel a stigma attached to taking a security net benefit that they have been contributing to for the duration of their working lives. Unfortunately, that broader argument is going to be more difficult to sway someone on, as they already have their own view of what a human is entitled to. So I’m not really sure how to answer this or fix any of this, except to share it with others, knowing most people won’t change their mind.
I’ll leave you with another Ani song. I guess I paid attention to it for the first time tonight when she was playing on PBS. It highlights what I feel right now, the difference in my head and my stepdad’s head between what is right and what is wrong in this situation, when I learned a good deal about helping others from him.
Sorry, it's sideways. What do you expect from youtube?
Paradigm - Ani DiFranco
I was born to two immigrants
Who knew why they were here
They were happy to pay taxes
For the schools and roads
Happy to be here
They took it seriously
The second job of citizenry
My mother went campaigning door to door
And holding to her hand was me
I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening
But I suppose like anybody
I had to teach myself to see
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to church
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to school
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to the house of my family
All that stuff that was not lost on me
Teach myself to see each of us
Through the lens of forgiveness
Like we're stuck with each other (god forbid!)
Teach myself to smile and stop and talk
To a whole other color kid
Teach myself to be new in an instant
Like the truth is accessible at any time
Teach myself it's never really one or the other
There's a paradox in every paradigm
I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Update to "More freewrite..."
This is what BT posted as a comment to this post on Myspace:
So I don't know what to write or say to that. It seems to be to just be more "woe is me" without ever taking credit for anything or asking what one could do to make it better. What fucking bullshit. You know, no one makes me want to hurt myself like him....
And SERIOUSLY- you care about me??? Where was all this caring when you left me less than a week after I got out of the hospital and promptly moved another woman into your place? Where was that caring when you demanded that I do all the work for a divorce and beg my parents for money so that I could pay for it, so that you could marry that woman, so that her and her children could get your military benefits when you re-deployed, despite all your claims of horrendous PTSD? Caring is about what you actually DO, all the time, not just a phone call here and there, not just words that don't mean anything when not backed up by actions, and not just when the newest crazy bitch allows you to talk to your female friends and exes. And I fully allow that you can and probably should hate me forever for what I did to you. That's why I left you alone once I got that you were really gone, except to talk about the real issues of the divorce. But you don't seem to want to allow me to have my pain over what happened. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! "They say time heals everything but I'm still waiting."
All that I wanted was to let yo know that I still think about you, still
care about you, and still worry about you. I am very sorry if all that upsets
you, so do not fear, I will be gone from Kansas in about 3 months, back to
active duty, and another state, and hopefully back to Iraq. I am very sorry if
my calling you upset you, but something inside me told me to call you, and you
know that I always follow those instincts. But you may rest easy, as you just
said, you are not sure you want us to remain friends, so I will not contact you
again, and if you wish, my phone will always be on for you, as I do still care
for you.Goodbye Ava
So I don't know what to write or say to that. It seems to be to just be more "woe is me" without ever taking credit for anything or asking what one could do to make it better. What fucking bullshit. You know, no one makes me want to hurt myself like him....
And SERIOUSLY- you care about me??? Where was all this caring when you left me less than a week after I got out of the hospital and promptly moved another woman into your place? Where was that caring when you demanded that I do all the work for a divorce and beg my parents for money so that I could pay for it, so that you could marry that woman, so that her and her children could get your military benefits when you re-deployed, despite all your claims of horrendous PTSD? Caring is about what you actually DO, all the time, not just a phone call here and there, not just words that don't mean anything when not backed up by actions, and not just when the newest crazy bitch allows you to talk to your female friends and exes. And I fully allow that you can and probably should hate me forever for what I did to you. That's why I left you alone once I got that you were really gone, except to talk about the real issues of the divorce. But you don't seem to want to allow me to have my pain over what happened. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! "They say time heals everything but I'm still waiting."
More freewriting than writing...
Can't sleep because of my "restless leg syndrome". Ok, so it probably isn't that but I don't know what the hell to call it and it sure as hell feels like what the commercials describe. Keep thinking that I should have stolen some of my Gram's meds for RLS when I was visiting last week. And a few Vicoden while I was at it.
Laying here wondering why you called me. St Patty's Day. You were between bars. I can't deny that a part of me envies those who can and do go out to bars, drink, smoke, have a good time, though I also have to admit that I wasn't that wild when I was drinking, mostly due to a lack of designated drivers. But I think I kinda rained on your parade when you called. I didn't have much to say, no recent good news in my life, and I wasn't happy and drunk myself.
But I'm not sure what you expect to hear. I don't exactly feel comfortable telling you about seeing and fucking my ex-bf while I was out of town visiting my grandmother, the one who really dislikes you, the one who just got out of jail and still owes me money that I got from you. And I know you don't want to hear about the only consistent friendship and bed partner that I do have, a man you despise and think stole me from you, among other crimes. And you've known that for the past couple of weeks I've been too depressed to really do much of anything, including hang out with most of my other friends or do anything constructive, like get a fucking job. Thankfully, just the driving and singing of my road trip helped that some, but.... I don't really feel like you want to hear about me being happy. Hell, I didn't feel like hearing you all happy-drunk, especially because of issues that were between us about alcohol. Not that I begrudge you happiness, but I just wish it felt like it was a little more real and lasting, instead of something that can only fuel more drama in your life.
The day before this call, while sitting at a red light, the driver of the car next to me lit up a cigarette. The weater was beautiful and we both had our windows down. I caught a long, lingering whiff of her cigarette smoke before the light changed. It reminded me of you. One might think that, after a childhood living with my grandparents who both smoked like chimnees, I would associate the smell of cigarette smoke with them. And I guess I do, but I usually associate them with the smell of stale, lingering cigarette smoke in a too-small room. But fresh cigarette smoke..... Hell, if it wasn't for the interest of another man, memories of you might have ruined my experience at a day-before-Valentine's-Day party. One of the other players at my Spin The Bottle table was a smoker. He tasted like you. Hell, he even kissed kinda like you. And a Juggalo to boot.
So I'm still wondering what you expected when you called last night. I guess I just think it is all a little too soon for all this. Even if I wanted to remain friends with you, which I'm honestly not sure I do want to, because it hurts to fucking much still, I'm not sure I'm in a place to do that. When people are friends with their exes, they usually end up trying to get back together. Unless they have significant others at the time, in which case they just cheat. The prime example being my ex-bf I just saw and all your ex-gfs who crawled out of the woodwork once you were married and gainfully employed. Just don't know what the fuck you wanted or expected. Not sure any answer will actually make me sleep any better.....
Laying here wondering why you called me. St Patty's Day. You were between bars. I can't deny that a part of me envies those who can and do go out to bars, drink, smoke, have a good time, though I also have to admit that I wasn't that wild when I was drinking, mostly due to a lack of designated drivers. But I think I kinda rained on your parade when you called. I didn't have much to say, no recent good news in my life, and I wasn't happy and drunk myself.
But I'm not sure what you expect to hear. I don't exactly feel comfortable telling you about seeing and fucking my ex-bf while I was out of town visiting my grandmother, the one who really dislikes you, the one who just got out of jail and still owes me money that I got from you. And I know you don't want to hear about the only consistent friendship and bed partner that I do have, a man you despise and think stole me from you, among other crimes. And you've known that for the past couple of weeks I've been too depressed to really do much of anything, including hang out with most of my other friends or do anything constructive, like get a fucking job. Thankfully, just the driving and singing of my road trip helped that some, but.... I don't really feel like you want to hear about me being happy. Hell, I didn't feel like hearing you all happy-drunk, especially because of issues that were between us about alcohol. Not that I begrudge you happiness, but I just wish it felt like it was a little more real and lasting, instead of something that can only fuel more drama in your life.
The day before this call, while sitting at a red light, the driver of the car next to me lit up a cigarette. The weater was beautiful and we both had our windows down. I caught a long, lingering whiff of her cigarette smoke before the light changed. It reminded me of you. One might think that, after a childhood living with my grandparents who both smoked like chimnees, I would associate the smell of cigarette smoke with them. And I guess I do, but I usually associate them with the smell of stale, lingering cigarette smoke in a too-small room. But fresh cigarette smoke..... Hell, if it wasn't for the interest of another man, memories of you might have ruined my experience at a day-before-Valentine's-Day party. One of the other players at my Spin The Bottle table was a smoker. He tasted like you. Hell, he even kissed kinda like you. And a Juggalo to boot.
So I'm still wondering what you expected when you called last night. I guess I just think it is all a little too soon for all this. Even if I wanted to remain friends with you, which I'm honestly not sure I do want to, because it hurts to fucking much still, I'm not sure I'm in a place to do that. When people are friends with their exes, they usually end up trying to get back together. Unless they have significant others at the time, in which case they just cheat. The prime example being my ex-bf I just saw and all your ex-gfs who crawled out of the woodwork once you were married and gainfully employed. Just don't know what the fuck you wanted or expected. Not sure any answer will actually make me sleep any better.....
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Minefields
I don’t tend to “date”, as such. Until the past two years or so, I would get deep into a relationship early on, usually before the previous relationship ended, and stay in that relationship long-term, until the next one came along. For all that practice at relationships, one would think that I might have gotten good at it, but that was not the case. But at least I had experience in that. I didn’t have experience at the whole dating thing.
Actually, I don’t think I really do have much experience with the whole dating thing. After the confidence boost and push to control my own sexuality that MP gave me, I hopped around a bit, but I wouldn’t call that “dating” either. There was a “date,” meaning there was a meeting in a public place, usually for a meal, so we could scope each other out, then there was usually sex. Basic sex in a box set-up. Most guys tended to come back, as I was discreet and not clingy after the sex. Guys don’t usually pass up free sex. A few guys either just disappeared or faded away, some of them I’d slept with, some of them we didn’t get the chance. Some of them I developed a modicum of friendship with, and I usually paid them the courtesy of a message here and there, at least let them know when I stopped being interested in fooling around. But for the most part, everyone knew what was what and, while I was sometimes disappointed when someone would just disappear, I accepted that was what it was and just let it be. No calls or emails. While explanations are always appreciated, they don’t owe me one and, really, I don’t owe them one.
But “dating” is different. It’s all bullshit and calculation and façade, even when one attempts to really be real. I’m not the most social of people. I’m ok once I get to know people and can usually come off well with small groups of people. But I don’t really like doing it for very long. It’s too much work. Hell, sometimes even people I know, people I’m close with, are too much work. I remember how relieved I was to get to just BE, be myself, be nothing, with TyRoy after a four-hour car ride with my grandmother. You know, that might be a good simile for dating: Dates with new(-ish) people are like a long car ride with my grandmother, only I know where I shouldn’t step with my grandmother. Dates are wholly new minefields.
But we brave the minefields because sometimes the treasures we find in the fields and on the other side of the fields are ones that complement our own. But I think we can always find treasures there. Also, I guess the sex in the box relationships, the dating relationships, and the LTRelationships all present different minefields. I’m just more comfortable navigating the sex in the box and LTRelationships. But back in December, knowing that I didn’t really want to bed hop as hosting is rather uncomfortable for me right now and the meds somewhat alter my sex drive, and knowing that I wanted a LTRelationship, eventually, though probably not completely monogamous and I wouldn’t want to jump right in, so I started “dating.” I don’t think I’ve been what one would term successful.
I think the most successful I’ve been is more in developing a friendship that may never become physical with the woman I’ve been dating. In my experience, dating or even just fooling around with women, especially, usually, more femme women, there’s a problem getting the physical aspect going. I’m really just not that sexually aggressive. Also, I know what it’s like to have someone who is too sexually aggressive be all over me, making me uncomfortable, but be too stupid to get my hints for them to back off. I don’t want to be that person. And currently we both have issues hosting the other. But I really do enjoy her company. She is one of the few women that I know who really gets and agrees with my non-monogamy. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband is very very much like my own ex-husband. Blah blah blah. You get the picture. We get each other. And I think we are both pretty much ok with not labeling or limiting what we are or aren’t to each other.
Now, I’ve had less luck with the boys. Things just not fitting. Not bad guys, though. Now I’m trying to navigate that part of the minefield I had only really seen in sitcoms and romantic comedies. You know, I’m not really sure if it has a title. It’s not really a “break-up” because you were never together as a couple. Calling it “the brush-off” sounds mean, but it might be the most accurate. In LTRelationships, I’m used to the drama-filled break-up with someone you still love very much and who still loves you and the gradual process of trying to become friends, because you both know each other in very close, intimate ways. And, with the sex in the box, as I wrote above, you accepted that no one owed anyone anything, and just let it be.
But ending a “dating” relationship, especially early on, is different. I’m probably putting way too much thought into this, though. I went on a couple dates around the beginning of the year with a guy I was sorta interested in, but we had a couple weeks where our plans fell through and we didn’t really communicate very much, then he kinda disappeared. I sent a text or two, saying hi and asking if he wanted to hang out. When I got no answer I stopped. No need to stalk, right? Now, I have absolutely no idea why he stopped communicating with me. But I would guess that he didn’t struggle for days with if he should stop seeing me and how he should do it. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good guy who didn’t appreciate my company. But I really doubt it.
I, on the other hand, spent days thinking about how to end things with someone that I had a few dates with recently. [NB: I probably sound like a completely patronizing ass, especially if he happens to read this, but I can only write from my side and to get across the point I am attempting to make. Sorry if I step on any toes. But, then again, everyone I date knows about my blog so….) For the most part, I don’t think two people are ever equally interested in each other at any given time. It might be close but it’s never equal. And when you are in a situation where you just don’t fit, where you just aren’t “feelin’ it,” but the other person did nothing wrong, I don’t see any reason not to at least try to minimize any hurt feelings. This is even more true if you think that the other person is already more invested in the relationship than you are. But, on the other hand, it isn’t fair to anyone to continue when you know it isn’t going anywhere, especially not where they want it to go.
Grrrr….. But I’m still so torn. Do most people have this same dilemma? Is it different for men and women, generally? Do men and women prefer different methods, namely does one gender prefer to be disappeared on vs. getting as nice and civil of an explanation as one can honestly give them? And do most people put more thought into one or the other? Is there a possibility that the guy I was dating around New Year’s really thought about it long and hard before he stopped returning my text messages? This shit is too fucking hard. Not sure I’m up for this stupid shit right now. I have loving friends, and I get sex regularly at this time, so I think I’ll just let a LTR find me, if it’s going to. And keep a first aid kit handy, in case I stumble upon any more minefields I want to walk through.
Actually, I don’t think I really do have much experience with the whole dating thing. After the confidence boost and push to control my own sexuality that MP gave me, I hopped around a bit, but I wouldn’t call that “dating” either. There was a “date,” meaning there was a meeting in a public place, usually for a meal, so we could scope each other out, then there was usually sex. Basic sex in a box set-up. Most guys tended to come back, as I was discreet and not clingy after the sex. Guys don’t usually pass up free sex. A few guys either just disappeared or faded away, some of them I’d slept with, some of them we didn’t get the chance. Some of them I developed a modicum of friendship with, and I usually paid them the courtesy of a message here and there, at least let them know when I stopped being interested in fooling around. But for the most part, everyone knew what was what and, while I was sometimes disappointed when someone would just disappear, I accepted that was what it was and just let it be. No calls or emails. While explanations are always appreciated, they don’t owe me one and, really, I don’t owe them one.
But “dating” is different. It’s all bullshit and calculation and façade, even when one attempts to really be real. I’m not the most social of people. I’m ok once I get to know people and can usually come off well with small groups of people. But I don’t really like doing it for very long. It’s too much work. Hell, sometimes even people I know, people I’m close with, are too much work. I remember how relieved I was to get to just BE, be myself, be nothing, with TyRoy after a four-hour car ride with my grandmother. You know, that might be a good simile for dating: Dates with new(-ish) people are like a long car ride with my grandmother, only I know where I shouldn’t step with my grandmother. Dates are wholly new minefields.
But we brave the minefields because sometimes the treasures we find in the fields and on the other side of the fields are ones that complement our own. But I think we can always find treasures there. Also, I guess the sex in the box relationships, the dating relationships, and the LTRelationships all present different minefields. I’m just more comfortable navigating the sex in the box and LTRelationships. But back in December, knowing that I didn’t really want to bed hop as hosting is rather uncomfortable for me right now and the meds somewhat alter my sex drive, and knowing that I wanted a LTRelationship, eventually, though probably not completely monogamous and I wouldn’t want to jump right in, so I started “dating.” I don’t think I’ve been what one would term successful.
I think the most successful I’ve been is more in developing a friendship that may never become physical with the woman I’ve been dating. In my experience, dating or even just fooling around with women, especially, usually, more femme women, there’s a problem getting the physical aspect going. I’m really just not that sexually aggressive. Also, I know what it’s like to have someone who is too sexually aggressive be all over me, making me uncomfortable, but be too stupid to get my hints for them to back off. I don’t want to be that person. And currently we both have issues hosting the other. But I really do enjoy her company. She is one of the few women that I know who really gets and agrees with my non-monogamy. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband is very very much like my own ex-husband. Blah blah blah. You get the picture. We get each other. And I think we are both pretty much ok with not labeling or limiting what we are or aren’t to each other.
Now, I’ve had less luck with the boys. Things just not fitting. Not bad guys, though. Now I’m trying to navigate that part of the minefield I had only really seen in sitcoms and romantic comedies. You know, I’m not really sure if it has a title. It’s not really a “break-up” because you were never together as a couple. Calling it “the brush-off” sounds mean, but it might be the most accurate. In LTRelationships, I’m used to the drama-filled break-up with someone you still love very much and who still loves you and the gradual process of trying to become friends, because you both know each other in very close, intimate ways. And, with the sex in the box, as I wrote above, you accepted that no one owed anyone anything, and just let it be.
But ending a “dating” relationship, especially early on, is different. I’m probably putting way too much thought into this, though. I went on a couple dates around the beginning of the year with a guy I was sorta interested in, but we had a couple weeks where our plans fell through and we didn’t really communicate very much, then he kinda disappeared. I sent a text or two, saying hi and asking if he wanted to hang out. When I got no answer I stopped. No need to stalk, right? Now, I have absolutely no idea why he stopped communicating with me. But I would guess that he didn’t struggle for days with if he should stop seeing me and how he should do it. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good guy who didn’t appreciate my company. But I really doubt it.
I, on the other hand, spent days thinking about how to end things with someone that I had a few dates with recently. [NB: I probably sound like a completely patronizing ass, especially if he happens to read this, but I can only write from my side and to get across the point I am attempting to make. Sorry if I step on any toes. But, then again, everyone I date knows about my blog so….) For the most part, I don’t think two people are ever equally interested in each other at any given time. It might be close but it’s never equal. And when you are in a situation where you just don’t fit, where you just aren’t “feelin’ it,” but the other person did nothing wrong, I don’t see any reason not to at least try to minimize any hurt feelings. This is even more true if you think that the other person is already more invested in the relationship than you are. But, on the other hand, it isn’t fair to anyone to continue when you know it isn’t going anywhere, especially not where they want it to go.
Grrrr….. But I’m still so torn. Do most people have this same dilemma? Is it different for men and women, generally? Do men and women prefer different methods, namely does one gender prefer to be disappeared on vs. getting as nice and civil of an explanation as one can honestly give them? And do most people put more thought into one or the other? Is there a possibility that the guy I was dating around New Year’s really thought about it long and hard before he stopped returning my text messages? This shit is too fucking hard. Not sure I’m up for this stupid shit right now. I have loving friends, and I get sex regularly at this time, so I think I’ll just let a LTR find me, if it’s going to. And keep a first aid kit handy, in case I stumble upon any more minefields I want to walk through.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Oscars 09- (Belated) Post 3
I know, I know, I know. I’m late. I’m always late these days. But I wanted to finish what I’d started and write about the movies I had forgotten I had seen (and the one I saw after I wrote the first two posts.) Here goes:
The Dark Knight
The nomination (and win) from this movie went to Heath Ledger for his performance as The Joker. I thought that it was a brilliant performance. From everything I’ve heard, Ledger came to director Nolan with a head full of ideas about how to play this Joker. I have to state for the record that Tim Burton’s Batman, with Jack Nicholson as The Joker, was one of my first favorite “non-kid” movies. And while they are very VERY different, I do like both Joker performances.
Unfortunately, I do not think that anyone will ever know if Dark Knight was a success because of our morbid fascination with Heath Ledger’s death, or if it would have been just as successful without that event. Just as I’m not sure we’ll ever know if Ledger would have won this Oscar for this performance if he had not died before the release of the film. I also wonder if there wouldn’t have been a deeper discussion of Dark Knight’s themes of privacy vs. surveillance, certainty vs. chaos, etc, if so many people hadn’t been focused so closely on Heath Ledger’s performance, viewed posthumously. So I’m not sure if it deserved to win outside of its current context, but I do think it was still a great performance and great film.
Tropic Thunder
I was pretty surprised that this movie was nominated for any of the main Oscars. So to see Robert Downey Jr. nominated for Best Supporting Actor was pretty surprising. Especially when he was “the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!” One of those dudes being a white Australian man playing an African-American man. From the beginning, I had a weird feeling about the “black-face” aspect of Robert Downey Jr.’s performance, but, when the movie came out, I just couldn’t pass up what I was hearing from everyone was a hilarious satire of both war movies and the Hollywood movie-making system. I even went with an African-American male, who seemed to enjoy the movie a great deal.
I would say that I would like to submit a few new categories to the Oscars. One is stolen from a friend, who suggested that there should be a special category for people playing real people in biopics. Often these actors and actresses are nominated in the general category. But I think that there is a difference between measuring how good Marion Cotillard is as Edith Piaf (for which she did win Best Actress 2008), when she has recordings, writings, and pictures of the woman, and how good Julie Christie or Ellen Page were in their films, when they don’t have those things. In some ways, it is harder to play a real person, not just to look like them, but to act, move, talk, etc, like them, while still seeming real. So I submit that there should be a “Best Actor/Actress portraying a Real Person” category.
I also submit a “Best Cameo” category. There would be a limit to the amount of screen time that an actor/actress could have to be considered for this category. But I have heard of several instances when someone put in a performance that was amazing in a pivotal role that gave them very little screen time and other were upset when they got nominated for “Best Supporting Actor/Actress.” It is often thought that those nominations should go to people with more screen time, who put in “more work” on their movie. Thus, the “Best Cameo”. I’m bringing this up in discussing Tropic Thunder because, if there was a category for “Best Cameo”, I would have nominated Tom Cruise for his role in Tropic Thunder. He is all kinds of greasy, fat, smarmy, and gross. He plays the role with his whole heart. And anyone who can dance like that, like no one is watching, when in reality millions will see it, should get some kind of an award.
Wall-E
I bought this movie for my mother for Christmas and watched it with her. I thought that it was an incredibly cute, animated, good for kids, but has something for every age group kind of movie. It was beautifully realized. It had positive “female” roles, ones that weren’t just a princess or a girlfriend. It was also a message movie where one can take the message to heart or just enjoy the movie, unlike, say, Happy Feet, which annoyed even this liberal-commie bastard. I would recommend the movie for a light-hearted night but, while visually stunning, I’m not sure it ranked for screenplay or any of the big categories.
Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films
These were all very interesting. I went with a man I met recently, we’ll call him “White Shadow.” He told me that, during the Oscar ceremony, the filmmaker of one of the shorts said that he had worked four years for that fourteen minutes of film. Some of these short films are really a labor of love. A filmmaker has to tell a complete story in a very small amount of time. I think the most fun of the nominated shorts was “Oktapodi” about an octopus using the terraced seaside of Greece to rescue his/her mate from a truck heading to a restaurant. It was brightly colored, fast-paced, and cheerful. I also really liked “This Way Up”, about a father/son funeral home workers who go on a very strange journey just to ensure that their client gets to her rightful resting place. Strangely, though, it was the other animated shorts included in the collection, the ones that got “highly recommended” but not nominated, that I liked the most. There was one about a man who was ?not? hit by a meteor, resulting in his conscious and visible body being 90 cm. away from his physical, able to act, but invisible self. Yes, it sounds weird, but I totally dug it. I think it was French. That would explain a lot, huh?
Milk
Ok, so I actually didn’t get to go see Milk like I had planned. I had intended to take Obsedian (a young woman I’ve been dating recently) to the film, so that I could ensure that these young folks get some education in Gay History. But we ended up going to see something else. Which brings me to…..
Rachel Getting Married
This was a very good movie. Not for everyone, granted. It is shot with hand-held digital cameras, in everyday settings, with no added music. It is just the story of the weekend of Rachel’s wedding. Well…actually… it is the story of Rachel’s sister, Kym, getting a weekend-long furlow from rehab so that she can attend her sisters wedding. Now because she was in a movie about Nazi’s and the Holocaust, where she was naked much of the time, I can understand why Kate Winslet won Best Actress. But, of the performances that I’ve seen, I think that Anne Hathaway’s raw, emotional, expressive performance should have won. Honestly, I would not recommend this movie to anyone having difficulty dealing with an addict because, to me, it hit so close to home. The character Rachel states over and over again throughout the movie how Kym has made things all about herself, which, in my mind, is just typical addict behavior. The biggest example of this is that the movie’s title is “Rachel Getting Married´ and yet the main character is Kym. I think that this has been my favorite of the movies that had major Oscar nominations.
Oscar Show
Ummmm…..Well, I kinda didn’t watch the show. Usually I will flip back and forth between the show and something else. Usually I am alone and at my own house where I have control of the remote. I did get to see some of the acceptance speeches. Overall, I’m fairly happy with winners. But, honestly, I enjoy seeing the movies a great deal more than I do watching the awards show.
Let me know what you think about any of the movies you have seen, or just any opinions you have. Nighty, night, kids.
The Dark Knight
The nomination (and win) from this movie went to Heath Ledger for his performance as The Joker. I thought that it was a brilliant performance. From everything I’ve heard, Ledger came to director Nolan with a head full of ideas about how to play this Joker. I have to state for the record that Tim Burton’s Batman, with Jack Nicholson as The Joker, was one of my first favorite “non-kid” movies. And while they are very VERY different, I do like both Joker performances.
Unfortunately, I do not think that anyone will ever know if Dark Knight was a success because of our morbid fascination with Heath Ledger’s death, or if it would have been just as successful without that event. Just as I’m not sure we’ll ever know if Ledger would have won this Oscar for this performance if he had not died before the release of the film. I also wonder if there wouldn’t have been a deeper discussion of Dark Knight’s themes of privacy vs. surveillance, certainty vs. chaos, etc, if so many people hadn’t been focused so closely on Heath Ledger’s performance, viewed posthumously. So I’m not sure if it deserved to win outside of its current context, but I do think it was still a great performance and great film.
Tropic Thunder
I was pretty surprised that this movie was nominated for any of the main Oscars. So to see Robert Downey Jr. nominated for Best Supporting Actor was pretty surprising. Especially when he was “the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!” One of those dudes being a white Australian man playing an African-American man. From the beginning, I had a weird feeling about the “black-face” aspect of Robert Downey Jr.’s performance, but, when the movie came out, I just couldn’t pass up what I was hearing from everyone was a hilarious satire of both war movies and the Hollywood movie-making system. I even went with an African-American male, who seemed to enjoy the movie a great deal.
I would say that I would like to submit a few new categories to the Oscars. One is stolen from a friend, who suggested that there should be a special category for people playing real people in biopics. Often these actors and actresses are nominated in the general category. But I think that there is a difference between measuring how good Marion Cotillard is as Edith Piaf (for which she did win Best Actress 2008), when she has recordings, writings, and pictures of the woman, and how good Julie Christie or Ellen Page were in their films, when they don’t have those things. In some ways, it is harder to play a real person, not just to look like them, but to act, move, talk, etc, like them, while still seeming real. So I submit that there should be a “Best Actor/Actress portraying a Real Person” category.
I also submit a “Best Cameo” category. There would be a limit to the amount of screen time that an actor/actress could have to be considered for this category. But I have heard of several instances when someone put in a performance that was amazing in a pivotal role that gave them very little screen time and other were upset when they got nominated for “Best Supporting Actor/Actress.” It is often thought that those nominations should go to people with more screen time, who put in “more work” on their movie. Thus, the “Best Cameo”. I’m bringing this up in discussing Tropic Thunder because, if there was a category for “Best Cameo”, I would have nominated Tom Cruise for his role in Tropic Thunder. He is all kinds of greasy, fat, smarmy, and gross. He plays the role with his whole heart. And anyone who can dance like that, like no one is watching, when in reality millions will see it, should get some kind of an award.
Wall-E
I bought this movie for my mother for Christmas and watched it with her. I thought that it was an incredibly cute, animated, good for kids, but has something for every age group kind of movie. It was beautifully realized. It had positive “female” roles, ones that weren’t just a princess or a girlfriend. It was also a message movie where one can take the message to heart or just enjoy the movie, unlike, say, Happy Feet, which annoyed even this liberal-commie bastard. I would recommend the movie for a light-hearted night but, while visually stunning, I’m not sure it ranked for screenplay or any of the big categories.
Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films
These were all very interesting. I went with a man I met recently, we’ll call him “White Shadow.” He told me that, during the Oscar ceremony, the filmmaker of one of the shorts said that he had worked four years for that fourteen minutes of film. Some of these short films are really a labor of love. A filmmaker has to tell a complete story in a very small amount of time. I think the most fun of the nominated shorts was “Oktapodi” about an octopus using the terraced seaside of Greece to rescue his/her mate from a truck heading to a restaurant. It was brightly colored, fast-paced, and cheerful. I also really liked “This Way Up”, about a father/son funeral home workers who go on a very strange journey just to ensure that their client gets to her rightful resting place. Strangely, though, it was the other animated shorts included in the collection, the ones that got “highly recommended” but not nominated, that I liked the most. There was one about a man who was ?not? hit by a meteor, resulting in his conscious and visible body being 90 cm. away from his physical, able to act, but invisible self. Yes, it sounds weird, but I totally dug it. I think it was French. That would explain a lot, huh?
Milk
Ok, so I actually didn’t get to go see Milk like I had planned. I had intended to take Obsedian (a young woman I’ve been dating recently) to the film, so that I could ensure that these young folks get some education in Gay History. But we ended up going to see something else. Which brings me to…..
Rachel Getting Married
This was a very good movie. Not for everyone, granted. It is shot with hand-held digital cameras, in everyday settings, with no added music. It is just the story of the weekend of Rachel’s wedding. Well…actually… it is the story of Rachel’s sister, Kym, getting a weekend-long furlow from rehab so that she can attend her sisters wedding. Now because she was in a movie about Nazi’s and the Holocaust, where she was naked much of the time, I can understand why Kate Winslet won Best Actress. But, of the performances that I’ve seen, I think that Anne Hathaway’s raw, emotional, expressive performance should have won. Honestly, I would not recommend this movie to anyone having difficulty dealing with an addict because, to me, it hit so close to home. The character Rachel states over and over again throughout the movie how Kym has made things all about herself, which, in my mind, is just typical addict behavior. The biggest example of this is that the movie’s title is “Rachel Getting Married´ and yet the main character is Kym. I think that this has been my favorite of the movies that had major Oscar nominations.
Oscar Show
Ummmm…..Well, I kinda didn’t watch the show. Usually I will flip back and forth between the show and something else. Usually I am alone and at my own house where I have control of the remote. I did get to see some of the acceptance speeches. Overall, I’m fairly happy with winners. But, honestly, I enjoy seeing the movies a great deal more than I do watching the awards show.
Let me know what you think about any of the movies you have seen, or just any opinions you have. Nighty, night, kids.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Oscars 09- Post 2
First things first. Yes, I have seen Heath Ledger's Oscar nominated performance in Dark Knight. I thought it was amazing, as was the movie iteself. I'll write it up soon.
But the gauntlet has been thrown down and I have been challenged to give my opinion on who/what should win and who/what will win. I don't think I'm particularly good at things like that, but I have been reading Entertainment Weekly for....forever so I know what it looks like. Here goes:
Best Picture
The Nominees are: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen) , Frost/Nixon, Milk (gonna see Saturday), The Reader (seen), Slumdog Millionaire (seen)
Who should win: Unless seeing the other two movies changes my mind, I think Slumdog Millionaire should win. It's a great fairy tale, well-shot, heart-warming.
Who will win: Slumdog Millionaire. It also has a great, almost didn't get distributed insider story.
Best Director
The Nominees are: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (seen), Stephen Daldry for The Reader (seen), David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant for Milk (will see Saturday)
Who should win: Obviously, unless seeing the other movies changes my mind, I actually think that David Fincher should win for Button. I think he brought a singular vision and visual style along with an impecable eye for detail to a unique story. Didn't like the movie itself- too long, narrative dragged, didn't like the narrative framing- but I did like what I consider direction.
Who will win: Danny Boyle
Best Actor
The Nominees are: Richard Jenkins for The Visitor, Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn for Milk (gonna see), Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler
Who I think should win: I think that Penn or Langella should win, even though I didn't see those movies yet, because, even just in the commercials, one can see that they really try to embody these real people.
Who I think will win: Mickey Rourke. Hollywood loves a come-back
Best Actress
The Nominees are: Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie for Changeling (saw tonight), Melissa Leo for Frozen River, Meryl Streep for Doubt (seen), Kate Winslet for The Reader (seen)
Who I think should win: Either Meryl Streep who I think gave an excellent performance in Doubt or Anne Hathaway who I hear gave an excellent performance, which I really want to see.
Who I think will win: Kate Winslet, because everyone knows you get an Oscar when you are in a movie about the Holocaust.
Best Supporting Actor
The Nominees are: Josh Brolin for Milk (gonna see), Robert Downey Jr for Tropic Thunder (seen- oh crap forgot about seeing that movie, gotta review that too), Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (seen), Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road
Who I think should win: I kinda think Heath Ledger. Not sure how much of that is swayed by his death, but what the hell. He'll never get another chance.
Who I think will win: Heath Ledger.
Best Supporting Actress
The Nominees are: Amy Adams for Doubt (seen), Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis for Doubt (seen), Taraji P Henson for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler
Who I think should win: I personally really liked Viola Davis' performance. I hope she wins.
Who I think will win: I really don't know. Maybe Amy Adams???
Best Original Screenplay
The Nominees are: Dustin Lance Black for Milk (gonna see), Courtney Hunt for Frozen River, Mike Leigh for Happy-Go-Lucky, Martin McDonagh for In Bruges, Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon for Wall-E (seen)
Who I think should win: Black for Milk. Maybe it's just because I know about the backstory of his writing of the script. He wanted to make a movie about Harvey Milk. There was already a book, The Mayor of Castro Street, about Milk's life and the rights to that book were already owned by a film studio, stuck in development hell. So he did the legwork, source materiel research, interviews, etc, to write the script.
Who I think will win: Black for Milk
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Nominees are: Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire (see), David Hare for The Reader (seen), Peter Morgan for Frost/Nixon, Ever Roth and Robin Swicord for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), John Patrick Shanley for Doubt (seen)
Who I think should win: Roth and Swicord for Benjamin Button. I saw that because, considering the short story that they had to work with and what they came up with from it, well, I think it's kinda amazing.
Who I think will win: Probably Slumdog Millionaire, just because I think that movie is going to sweep every category it is in.
And there you have it folks. My opinions on the biggest categories. We'll see how close I am come Sunday night.
But the gauntlet has been thrown down and I have been challenged to give my opinion on who/what should win and who/what will win. I don't think I'm particularly good at things like that, but I have been reading Entertainment Weekly for....forever so I know what it looks like. Here goes:
Best Picture
The Nominees are: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen) , Frost/Nixon, Milk (gonna see Saturday), The Reader (seen), Slumdog Millionaire (seen)
Who should win: Unless seeing the other two movies changes my mind, I think Slumdog Millionaire should win. It's a great fairy tale, well-shot, heart-warming.
Who will win: Slumdog Millionaire. It also has a great, almost didn't get distributed insider story.
Best Director
The Nominees are: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (seen), Stephen Daldry for The Reader (seen), David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant for Milk (will see Saturday)
Who should win: Obviously, unless seeing the other movies changes my mind, I actually think that David Fincher should win for Button. I think he brought a singular vision and visual style along with an impecable eye for detail to a unique story. Didn't like the movie itself- too long, narrative dragged, didn't like the narrative framing- but I did like what I consider direction.
Who will win: Danny Boyle
Best Actor
The Nominees are: Richard Jenkins for The Visitor, Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn for Milk (gonna see), Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler
Who I think should win: I think that Penn or Langella should win, even though I didn't see those movies yet, because, even just in the commercials, one can see that they really try to embody these real people.
Who I think will win: Mickey Rourke. Hollywood loves a come-back
Best Actress
The Nominees are: Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie for Changeling (saw tonight), Melissa Leo for Frozen River, Meryl Streep for Doubt (seen), Kate Winslet for The Reader (seen)
Who I think should win: Either Meryl Streep who I think gave an excellent performance in Doubt or Anne Hathaway who I hear gave an excellent performance, which I really want to see.
Who I think will win: Kate Winslet, because everyone knows you get an Oscar when you are in a movie about the Holocaust.
Best Supporting Actor
The Nominees are: Josh Brolin for Milk (gonna see), Robert Downey Jr for Tropic Thunder (seen- oh crap forgot about seeing that movie, gotta review that too), Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (seen), Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road
Who I think should win: I kinda think Heath Ledger. Not sure how much of that is swayed by his death, but what the hell. He'll never get another chance.
Who I think will win: Heath Ledger.
Best Supporting Actress
The Nominees are: Amy Adams for Doubt (seen), Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis for Doubt (seen), Taraji P Henson for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler
Who I think should win: I personally really liked Viola Davis' performance. I hope she wins.
Who I think will win: I really don't know. Maybe Amy Adams???
Best Original Screenplay
The Nominees are: Dustin Lance Black for Milk (gonna see), Courtney Hunt for Frozen River, Mike Leigh for Happy-Go-Lucky, Martin McDonagh for In Bruges, Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon for Wall-E (seen)
Who I think should win: Black for Milk. Maybe it's just because I know about the backstory of his writing of the script. He wanted to make a movie about Harvey Milk. There was already a book, The Mayor of Castro Street, about Milk's life and the rights to that book were already owned by a film studio, stuck in development hell. So he did the legwork, source materiel research, interviews, etc, to write the script.
Who I think will win: Black for Milk
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Nominees are: Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire (see), David Hare for The Reader (seen), Peter Morgan for Frost/Nixon, Ever Roth and Robin Swicord for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (seen), John Patrick Shanley for Doubt (seen)
Who I think should win: Roth and Swicord for Benjamin Button. I saw that because, considering the short story that they had to work with and what they came up with from it, well, I think it's kinda amazing.
Who I think will win: Probably Slumdog Millionaire, just because I think that movie is going to sweep every category it is in.
And there you have it folks. My opinions on the biggest categories. We'll see how close I am come Sunday night.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Oscars 09- Post 1
I am a big fan of movies, as many of you know. I think to call myself a cinephile might be taking liberties, however. I have taken a few film classes, which I loved, but I don’t feel like I’m well-“viewed” enough to be a cinephile. I do try however. I have seen many classic “classics” and have a ton more on DVD and even VHS waiting to be viewed. I also try to watch new classics as they come out. For the past two years, I’ve taken advantage of AMC’s Oscar movie viewing promotion. You pay a flat fee to see all the movies in a row in one day, and get a large popcorn and large drink to boot. It’s a good opportunity to see all the movies at one time, but no one ever wants to go with me and it’s always crowded with people. Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem seeing a movie by myself. In fact, I’ve done it quite often, especially since I see a lot of weird movies that no one else I know wants to see. But going to see five movies all by yourself in a crowded theater when almost everyone else has at least one companion can make for a long depressing day. And that isn’t even counting how depressing the films can be, though they do always seem to put the most fun, comedic movie last- Little Miss Sunshine year before last, Juno last year.
This year, however, I just couldn’t do it. I do want to see all the movies. That isn’t in question. What is in question is whether or not I can deal with a dozen hours alone in a cramped theater with loud strangers. I’m even more anti-crowd and anti-social these days than normal. I don’t think I can. And I don’t want to waste the money on something I bail on after only one movie. Also, as it is all day on a Saturday, I would be giving up one of the few days that the people I know, most of whom have regular Monday thru Friday day jobs, can hang out. On the other hand, I can catch the movies over a period of time during a weekday, or on a weeknight when I’m not busy. Oh, and, I really don’t think I could sit through all three hours of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button again right now.
But I thought I’d share my thoughts on the movies with Oscar nominations that I’ve seen so far. *******BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!********
Doubt
[Saw this movie over the Christmas holiday while in the suburbs of Slightly Larger Midwestern City, after visiting my grandmother in the hospital, and just after a particularly upsetting (to me) argument with TyRoy. I wasn’t in the best mental state.]
I wish I had written about this movie right after I saw it. It was one of those movies where, once I left, I thought “mmhmmm.” I would like to poll people who have seen this movie to see who they believed.
The movie is basically a war of wills between a very conservative, by the book, headmistress nun at a Catholic school and the liberal priest who serves the congregation, ostensibly over whether the priest had an inappropriate relationship with the schools one African-American student (set in 1960s). As the movie progressed, I found myself flip-flopping on whether I believed anything inappropriate had occurred. Despite the widely-publicized priest pedophilia scandals, I initially wanted to believe that the nun was just an overzealous reactionary who wanted to get the priest to leave, by any means necessary, and who would believe any horrible thing about the priest, because of his liberal views. But, in the end, the priest caves and leaves. Is he really an innocent man who just doesn’t think he will ever be able to overcome the suspicion of this nun, or is he really guilty? While I agreed with many of the points that the priest made, especially “Certainty is an emotion, not a fact,” I still don’t know if what I think really happened. I’m sure that is the point, though.
One of the things that struck me the most was how differently men and women were treated and how women, namely Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius, made the most of what little power they had in their situation. Time and again, throughout the movie, Father Flynn’s actions usurp Sister Aloysius’ power, whether he realizes it or not. Actually, in most instances, he doesn’t seem to realize that what he is doing could be viewed that way. His actions are rather heavy handed ways of demonstrating his privilege. The most obvious demonstration of this is how he takes the seat behind Sister Aloysius’ desk when brought in on the pretenses of discussing the Christmas pageant. The seat behind the desk is the seat of power, the seat from which Sister Aloysius reprimands bad students. But once Father Flynn arrives, Sister Aloysius is relegated to a less seat. Also, the priest assumes that she will serve him coffee. Like a woman who waits on a man to open the door for her, the priest waits for the nun to serve him. Though she has served longer and has worked to obtain a high position, it is obvious that she will never be considered as high as Father Flynn, even if he had had an inappropriate relationship with a student. That is not to say that she is not without power, however. A schoolyard of children is silenced just with a word. The nuns demur to her opinion. Parents are at her beck and call. This position does offer her power, just as the teaching positions offer the other nuns’ power and even more purpose. But they are constantly reminded that they only wield that power within a very small sphere.
The part of the movie that shocked me the most, however, was the discussion between Viola Davis’ Mrs. Miller, the mother of the student in question, and Sister Aloysius. When the Sister hints to Mrs. Miller that there might be an inappropriate relationship between Father Flynn and her son, Donald, Mrs. Miller reacts in a quite surprising way. Basically, in her own 1960s way, Mrs. Miller says that she puts her son’s ability to get into a good high school as a result of graduating from a good private elementary school above any other concerns and that she is not sure if a relationship that others might regard as inappropriate is really all that inappropriate. According to her, Father Flynn has been the only person who has shown interest in her son, when he is in an environment that is harsh to him as the first and only black student. She also suspects that her son is gay, so any “inappropriate” relationship might actually be consensual, in her opinion. While Sister Aloysius, the most of the audience, is quite shocked by this reaction, from anyone, much less the parent of the student, I can see where Mrs. Miller is coming from, when I really think about it. If you really wanted your child to get the best education, in the most accepting environment possible, especially knowing that he was facing discrimination on two fronts (being black and, at the very least, less masculine/more sensitive than other boys), do you think you might overlook something suspicious, especially if you felt that bringing that to light would destroy his chances?
I suggest watching it if you want a tense drama that doesn’t give you answers. Though you might not want to watch it with Catholics or Catholic-haters, or someone who was abused as a child.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
[Saw on a ‘date.’ Maybe not a good idea. Kinda killed any thoughts of romance, what with the whole theme of mortality.]
Bring caffeine. This movie is long. Most people that I’ve heard talk about it also talk about falling asleep during the film. Not that it is uninteresting, exactly. Visually, the film is stunning. The aging stuff is amazing, though just not-real enough to be a bit creepy to me, though I know I look way too hard. The scene late in the movie where Brad Pitt is made to look younger than he currently is…amazing. But, narrative-wise, it was a little slow. Also, I just couldn’t suspend my disbelieve enough. I wanted to know why the hell this was happening to him, what the purpose of his life and his backward aging was supposed to be.
Then it made me cry when it probably wasn’t intending to. At the end, when his body is that of a young teenager but his mind is that of an old man, when he can remember how to play the piano but can’t remember who people are, I was heart-broken. It reminded me so much of my grandfather, who, after his stroke, couldn’t remember hardly anything, but could manage to take apart anything you left near him, though he had no clue what it was, what it did, or remember how to put it back together.
Watch it at home, so you can pause for bathroom breaks, if you want to kill three hours on beautiful visuals.
The Reader
[Watched last night. Decided to watch it first since the other movie I was planning on seeing was supposed to be more uplifting.]
First, if Kate Winslet wins an Oscar for this movie, with its Nazi backstory, fans of the HBO show Extras will be laughing their asses off.
****BIG SPOILERS*****
WTF? She’s illiterate???? I had read reviews of this film and they all talk about how her lover accidentally finds her again by coming to her trial for crimes committed during WWII while she was a Nazi but that that she hides an even bigger secret. Early in the movie, when she makes him read aloud to her during their affair, I picked up that it was probably because she couldn’t read, but I was really hoping that wasn’t the big secret. It was. Stating that she is illiterate would have gotten her a much lighter conviction, but she is too ashamed to say it, just like her cowardly ex-lover is too afraid to say that he has figured out that she is illiterate and talk about all the things he saw when they were involved because he now knows that she worked for the Nazi’s, though he never knew anything about it when they had the affair. So she spends decades in prison and doesn’t want to live on the outside.
Grrrrrr. I really did like the questions about culpability and justice and rule of law that the movie hints at but it was completely derailed for me by the illiteracy thing. It asks a great many questions about who should really be punished and why are the people that are being punished being punished. In the movie, a mother and daughter are the only survivors out of 300 women who were locked inside a church to sleep overnight during a death march and the six guards, who did not open the church doors after an Allied bomb hit the church and started a fire, are on trial for murder. It is pointed out that the six guards are only on trial because this book has brought publicity to this particular incident, where as the thousands of other guards at the hundreds of other camps who were complicit in deaths have not been brought to trial. In her own defense, Kate Winslet’s character Hannah, frustrated, asks the judges what they would have done in her position: Should she never have taken this better job opportunity as a guard? I think the best thing to come out of this movie for me is that I now want to know more about, perhaps read a couple books on, how Germans, psychologically, as a group, have been effected by the knowledge that Nazi’s committed atrocities, while also knowing that many/most Germans at the time were Nazi’s.
Honestly, skip it.
Slumdog Millionaire
[Second movie tonight.]
I’ve been hearing about this movie for awhile and was torn in how I felt about it. I have liked Danny Boyle’s, the director, previous films. The story seemed interesting. Most of the reviews of the film were very good. On the other hand, there has been some backlash. First of all, ‘slumdog’ is not an Indian phrase used to describe people from slums. It actually doesn’t appear to be a phrase used by anyone anywhere, except in this film. (In fact, many Indians find this made up term quite offensive.) Also, I have heard it criticized as “poverty porn”. (I’ll get to that later.) Also, I’m just a little suspicious of a white Western director making a movie centering on people of a different culture in their culture.
But I have to say that I liked the movie. It was both dark and gritty and a feel-good romance, rise up out of poverty story. It is a fairy tale in the older sense, that there is tragedy, terror, and loss for our hero on his journey, but that it mostly works out well. I personally liked how the story was told, with flashbacks explaining how the main character, Jamal, gained the answers to the questions through his hard-knock life experiences. I also think that it might behoove more subtitle-ists to look at how the subtitles on this movie are not just placed at the bottom of the screen and highlighted so that they stand out. It would help make some movies more readable. But I came out feeling pretty happy.
But, of course, there are flaws. I just didn’t get how everyone started speaking English all of the sudden. I think the audience is supposed to assume that Jamal and his brother learn it from the English-speaking tourists, but I just don’t buy that they learn to speak perfect British English from tourists, nor do I buy that they would speak English amongst themselves, other Hindi speakers, and on Indian television. Also, the movie makes me want to ask someone who has lived in India if it is plausible that the final question on a game show of intelligence would be about a French book. Finally, though I know this is supposed to be a fairy tale, with a happily ever after, I find it hard to believe that the main character’s love interest, Latika, will be able to just live happily ever after, after she’s (presumably) been raped by Jamal’s brother as a young teenager and then given to a crime boss who abused her.
As for some of the criticism I’ve read online, especially on blogs about race, well, I’m still thinking about it. Of course, the one blog that had several posts discussing it is down right now, so I can’t look back at what others have written, now that I have the experience of seeing the movie for context. Generally, I’m not sure how I feel about the issue of “poverty porn”. It seems to me that, since silent films, there have been films about people living in poverty. Extremes are inherently dramatic, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are many movies about poor people and many movies about rich people, and fewer about the people in between. I think that “poverty porn” is viewed as bad is because it is PRIVILEGED people getting ENJOYMENT out of other people’s, already marginalized people’s, supposed misery and, especially in making it from a “far off” country, eroticizing that misery. I have to acknowledge that I’m still trying to understand this particular concept and do not know how I feel about it.
I would mostly suggest going to see it, if you don’t mind a couple subtitles.
Ok, kids, that’s it for now. I’m supposed to go see the Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films today and I’ll probably catch a couple more before the big show. Let me know if you’ve seen any films that have nominations and what you thought. Thanks.
This year, however, I just couldn’t do it. I do want to see all the movies. That isn’t in question. What is in question is whether or not I can deal with a dozen hours alone in a cramped theater with loud strangers. I’m even more anti-crowd and anti-social these days than normal. I don’t think I can. And I don’t want to waste the money on something I bail on after only one movie. Also, as it is all day on a Saturday, I would be giving up one of the few days that the people I know, most of whom have regular Monday thru Friday day jobs, can hang out. On the other hand, I can catch the movies over a period of time during a weekday, or on a weeknight when I’m not busy. Oh, and, I really don’t think I could sit through all three hours of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button again right now.
But I thought I’d share my thoughts on the movies with Oscar nominations that I’ve seen so far. *******BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!********
Doubt
[Saw this movie over the Christmas holiday while in the suburbs of Slightly Larger Midwestern City, after visiting my grandmother in the hospital, and just after a particularly upsetting (to me) argument with TyRoy. I wasn’t in the best mental state.]
I wish I had written about this movie right after I saw it. It was one of those movies where, once I left, I thought “mmhmmm.” I would like to poll people who have seen this movie to see who they believed.
The movie is basically a war of wills between a very conservative, by the book, headmistress nun at a Catholic school and the liberal priest who serves the congregation, ostensibly over whether the priest had an inappropriate relationship with the schools one African-American student (set in 1960s). As the movie progressed, I found myself flip-flopping on whether I believed anything inappropriate had occurred. Despite the widely-publicized priest pedophilia scandals, I initially wanted to believe that the nun was just an overzealous reactionary who wanted to get the priest to leave, by any means necessary, and who would believe any horrible thing about the priest, because of his liberal views. But, in the end, the priest caves and leaves. Is he really an innocent man who just doesn’t think he will ever be able to overcome the suspicion of this nun, or is he really guilty? While I agreed with many of the points that the priest made, especially “Certainty is an emotion, not a fact,” I still don’t know if what I think really happened. I’m sure that is the point, though.
One of the things that struck me the most was how differently men and women were treated and how women, namely Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius, made the most of what little power they had in their situation. Time and again, throughout the movie, Father Flynn’s actions usurp Sister Aloysius’ power, whether he realizes it or not. Actually, in most instances, he doesn’t seem to realize that what he is doing could be viewed that way. His actions are rather heavy handed ways of demonstrating his privilege. The most obvious demonstration of this is how he takes the seat behind Sister Aloysius’ desk when brought in on the pretenses of discussing the Christmas pageant. The seat behind the desk is the seat of power, the seat from which Sister Aloysius reprimands bad students. But once Father Flynn arrives, Sister Aloysius is relegated to a less seat. Also, the priest assumes that she will serve him coffee. Like a woman who waits on a man to open the door for her, the priest waits for the nun to serve him. Though she has served longer and has worked to obtain a high position, it is obvious that she will never be considered as high as Father Flynn, even if he had had an inappropriate relationship with a student. That is not to say that she is not without power, however. A schoolyard of children is silenced just with a word. The nuns demur to her opinion. Parents are at her beck and call. This position does offer her power, just as the teaching positions offer the other nuns’ power and even more purpose. But they are constantly reminded that they only wield that power within a very small sphere.
The part of the movie that shocked me the most, however, was the discussion between Viola Davis’ Mrs. Miller, the mother of the student in question, and Sister Aloysius. When the Sister hints to Mrs. Miller that there might be an inappropriate relationship between Father Flynn and her son, Donald, Mrs. Miller reacts in a quite surprising way. Basically, in her own 1960s way, Mrs. Miller says that she puts her son’s ability to get into a good high school as a result of graduating from a good private elementary school above any other concerns and that she is not sure if a relationship that others might regard as inappropriate is really all that inappropriate. According to her, Father Flynn has been the only person who has shown interest in her son, when he is in an environment that is harsh to him as the first and only black student. She also suspects that her son is gay, so any “inappropriate” relationship might actually be consensual, in her opinion. While Sister Aloysius, the most of the audience, is quite shocked by this reaction, from anyone, much less the parent of the student, I can see where Mrs. Miller is coming from, when I really think about it. If you really wanted your child to get the best education, in the most accepting environment possible, especially knowing that he was facing discrimination on two fronts (being black and, at the very least, less masculine/more sensitive than other boys), do you think you might overlook something suspicious, especially if you felt that bringing that to light would destroy his chances?
I suggest watching it if you want a tense drama that doesn’t give you answers. Though you might not want to watch it with Catholics or Catholic-haters, or someone who was abused as a child.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
[Saw on a ‘date.’ Maybe not a good idea. Kinda killed any thoughts of romance, what with the whole theme of mortality.]
Bring caffeine. This movie is long. Most people that I’ve heard talk about it also talk about falling asleep during the film. Not that it is uninteresting, exactly. Visually, the film is stunning. The aging stuff is amazing, though just not-real enough to be a bit creepy to me, though I know I look way too hard. The scene late in the movie where Brad Pitt is made to look younger than he currently is…amazing. But, narrative-wise, it was a little slow. Also, I just couldn’t suspend my disbelieve enough. I wanted to know why the hell this was happening to him, what the purpose of his life and his backward aging was supposed to be.
Then it made me cry when it probably wasn’t intending to. At the end, when his body is that of a young teenager but his mind is that of an old man, when he can remember how to play the piano but can’t remember who people are, I was heart-broken. It reminded me so much of my grandfather, who, after his stroke, couldn’t remember hardly anything, but could manage to take apart anything you left near him, though he had no clue what it was, what it did, or remember how to put it back together.
Watch it at home, so you can pause for bathroom breaks, if you want to kill three hours on beautiful visuals.
The Reader
[Watched last night. Decided to watch it first since the other movie I was planning on seeing was supposed to be more uplifting.]
First, if Kate Winslet wins an Oscar for this movie, with its Nazi backstory, fans of the HBO show Extras will be laughing their asses off.
****BIG SPOILERS*****
WTF? She’s illiterate???? I had read reviews of this film and they all talk about how her lover accidentally finds her again by coming to her trial for crimes committed during WWII while she was a Nazi but that that she hides an even bigger secret. Early in the movie, when she makes him read aloud to her during their affair, I picked up that it was probably because she couldn’t read, but I was really hoping that wasn’t the big secret. It was. Stating that she is illiterate would have gotten her a much lighter conviction, but she is too ashamed to say it, just like her cowardly ex-lover is too afraid to say that he has figured out that she is illiterate and talk about all the things he saw when they were involved because he now knows that she worked for the Nazi’s, though he never knew anything about it when they had the affair. So she spends decades in prison and doesn’t want to live on the outside.
Grrrrrr. I really did like the questions about culpability and justice and rule of law that the movie hints at but it was completely derailed for me by the illiteracy thing. It asks a great many questions about who should really be punished and why are the people that are being punished being punished. In the movie, a mother and daughter are the only survivors out of 300 women who were locked inside a church to sleep overnight during a death march and the six guards, who did not open the church doors after an Allied bomb hit the church and started a fire, are on trial for murder. It is pointed out that the six guards are only on trial because this book has brought publicity to this particular incident, where as the thousands of other guards at the hundreds of other camps who were complicit in deaths have not been brought to trial. In her own defense, Kate Winslet’s character Hannah, frustrated, asks the judges what they would have done in her position: Should she never have taken this better job opportunity as a guard? I think the best thing to come out of this movie for me is that I now want to know more about, perhaps read a couple books on, how Germans, psychologically, as a group, have been effected by the knowledge that Nazi’s committed atrocities, while also knowing that many/most Germans at the time were Nazi’s.
Honestly, skip it.
Slumdog Millionaire
[Second movie tonight.]
I’ve been hearing about this movie for awhile and was torn in how I felt about it. I have liked Danny Boyle’s, the director, previous films. The story seemed interesting. Most of the reviews of the film were very good. On the other hand, there has been some backlash. First of all, ‘slumdog’ is not an Indian phrase used to describe people from slums. It actually doesn’t appear to be a phrase used by anyone anywhere, except in this film. (In fact, many Indians find this made up term quite offensive.) Also, I have heard it criticized as “poverty porn”. (I’ll get to that later.) Also, I’m just a little suspicious of a white Western director making a movie centering on people of a different culture in their culture.
But I have to say that I liked the movie. It was both dark and gritty and a feel-good romance, rise up out of poverty story. It is a fairy tale in the older sense, that there is tragedy, terror, and loss for our hero on his journey, but that it mostly works out well. I personally liked how the story was told, with flashbacks explaining how the main character, Jamal, gained the answers to the questions through his hard-knock life experiences. I also think that it might behoove more subtitle-ists to look at how the subtitles on this movie are not just placed at the bottom of the screen and highlighted so that they stand out. It would help make some movies more readable. But I came out feeling pretty happy.
But, of course, there are flaws. I just didn’t get how everyone started speaking English all of the sudden. I think the audience is supposed to assume that Jamal and his brother learn it from the English-speaking tourists, but I just don’t buy that they learn to speak perfect British English from tourists, nor do I buy that they would speak English amongst themselves, other Hindi speakers, and on Indian television. Also, the movie makes me want to ask someone who has lived in India if it is plausible that the final question on a game show of intelligence would be about a French book. Finally, though I know this is supposed to be a fairy tale, with a happily ever after, I find it hard to believe that the main character’s love interest, Latika, will be able to just live happily ever after, after she’s (presumably) been raped by Jamal’s brother as a young teenager and then given to a crime boss who abused her.
As for some of the criticism I’ve read online, especially on blogs about race, well, I’m still thinking about it. Of course, the one blog that had several posts discussing it is down right now, so I can’t look back at what others have written, now that I have the experience of seeing the movie for context. Generally, I’m not sure how I feel about the issue of “poverty porn”. It seems to me that, since silent films, there have been films about people living in poverty. Extremes are inherently dramatic, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are many movies about poor people and many movies about rich people, and fewer about the people in between. I think that “poverty porn” is viewed as bad is because it is PRIVILEGED people getting ENJOYMENT out of other people’s, already marginalized people’s, supposed misery and, especially in making it from a “far off” country, eroticizing that misery. I have to acknowledge that I’m still trying to understand this particular concept and do not know how I feel about it.
I would mostly suggest going to see it, if you don’t mind a couple subtitles.
Ok, kids, that’s it for now. I’m supposed to go see the Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films today and I’ll probably catch a couple more before the big show. Let me know if you’ve seen any films that have nominations and what you thought. Thanks.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Now That It's Over - Everclear
Now That It's Over - Everclear
Yeah right!
One, two, three, four
Break down, shake for me
Nothing ever is the way you want it to be
Nothing even tastes right now that it's over
Break down, shake for me
Don't write words unless you want me to read them
Nothing really matters now that it's over
Maybe we can be friends
Now that we're older
We can have fun like we did in the early days
Now that it's over
Yeah right!
Break down, shake for me
Nothing ever seems the way it ought to be
Nothing ever seems right now that it's over
Yeah, now maybe we can be friends
Maybe we can be closer
We can have fun like we did in the old days
Now that it's over
Oh yeah...
My bad dreams just don't seem the same
Baby without you
I wish you were willing to accept the blame
Yeah, for everything you do
My nightmares just don't scare me now
Baby without you, yeah yeah
I wish that I could find the words to tell
In the best way possible, you and your friends to go to hell
Yeah right!
Whoa, breakup time is never easy to do
Nothing ever ends the way you want it to
Nothing seems to make sense now that it's over
Yeah, now maybe we can be friends
Yeah, now that you're leaving
You can be nice to me
Maybe I'm dreaming
I am a lot better now than just okay
Maybe I am just wakin' up in my own way
Now that it's over
Now that it's over
My bad dreams just don't seem the same
Baby without you
I wish you were willing to accept the blame
Yeah, for all the shitty things you do
Nightmares just don't scare me now
Baby without you
I wish that I could find the words to tell
You to politely go fuck yourself
Yeah, now that it's over...
Every break-up has two sides. I made lots of mistakes, huge mistakes, heart-breaking unforgivable mistakes. I won't say I fucked him over as bad as he fucked me over, but I think that it'd be hard for a stranger who heard both side, or just watched it like a movie, to say who did worse. Either we are both villians or we are both victims. But it doesn't mean that we both don't still have, and shouldn't have, a shitload of pain and anger. This song could come from either of us or both of us.
I never thought I'd be divorced before I was 30. I never thought I'd be divorced. I never thought I'd be married.
Yeah right!
One, two, three, four
Break down, shake for me
Nothing ever is the way you want it to be
Nothing even tastes right now that it's over
Break down, shake for me
Don't write words unless you want me to read them
Nothing really matters now that it's over
Maybe we can be friends
Now that we're older
We can have fun like we did in the early days
Now that it's over
Yeah right!
Break down, shake for me
Nothing ever seems the way it ought to be
Nothing ever seems right now that it's over
Yeah, now maybe we can be friends
Maybe we can be closer
We can have fun like we did in the old days
Now that it's over
Oh yeah...
My bad dreams just don't seem the same
Baby without you
I wish you were willing to accept the blame
Yeah, for everything you do
My nightmares just don't scare me now
Baby without you, yeah yeah
I wish that I could find the words to tell
In the best way possible, you and your friends to go to hell
Yeah right!
Whoa, breakup time is never easy to do
Nothing ever ends the way you want it to
Nothing seems to make sense now that it's over
Yeah, now maybe we can be friends
Yeah, now that you're leaving
You can be nice to me
Maybe I'm dreaming
I am a lot better now than just okay
Maybe I am just wakin' up in my own way
Now that it's over
Now that it's over
My bad dreams just don't seem the same
Baby without you
I wish you were willing to accept the blame
Yeah, for all the shitty things you do
Nightmares just don't scare me now
Baby without you
I wish that I could find the words to tell
You to politely go fuck yourself
Yeah, now that it's over...
Every break-up has two sides. I made lots of mistakes, huge mistakes, heart-breaking unforgivable mistakes. I won't say I fucked him over as bad as he fucked me over, but I think that it'd be hard for a stranger who heard both side, or just watched it like a movie, to say who did worse. Either we are both villians or we are both victims. But it doesn't mean that we both don't still have, and shouldn't have, a shitload of pain and anger. This song could come from either of us or both of us.
I never thought I'd be divorced before I was 30. I never thought I'd be divorced. I never thought I'd be married.
D-I-V-O-R-C-E
"Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today."-Tammy Wynette
October 2007 to February 2009. That is as long as my marriage lasted. It's bittersweet.
I've been trying to pickup and organize my living space (basement) lately, a little at a time. Last night, I finally got around to putting honeymoon pictures into the photo albums I'd bought for my mom and I. Yeah, I've been either distracted or lazy for at least a year. I had put photos into albums for BT's grandmother and mother, even sent a small album overseas to BT himself, just never got around to doing my own. And I'm guessing Mom won't want hers now, but I wanted to get it done and then put away. It was nice to remember that short but amazing time we were together, the things I probably never would have done without him, but they were just memories.
I tried to get to bed early. That didn't work so well, but I still got myself up early to get ready for court. Shower. Dress. Passed up wearing the black dress slacks that I got married in. Put on a necklace and perfume bought with love by someone else, makeshift amulets to protect my heart and spirit. Make-up to cover the acne caused by the new drugs and to make myself look more serious in front of the judge. I snap several pictures of myself before I go, to see if I look different after all of this is done.
Alone, by my own choice, I drove to the courthouse, parked, found the courtroom, and a seat in the gallery. It wasn't quite traffic court. More glossy wood than that. But not quite the courtroom of "Law & Order" either. I was early. I was trembling, shaking, nervous. I'd never been in a courtroom before. Settled in with a Newsweek on top of the bright yellow folder that held all my divorce documents, the signed decree of divorce that had arrived just the day before in the mail.
The judge was an older, slim, white haired gentleman, infinitely patient with the people who's cases were before him. Very few people had lawyers. The two cases before me were uncontested cases where only one party came to wrap things up, just as mine was. Just give the decree to the judge to sign and the settlement to him to review. Take the stand to answer his questions, full names, where and when the marriage occured, affirm incompatability, is the wife returning to her former name, do you think the settlement is fair and equable, thank you. Then file the papers with the clerk and send a copy to the other party.
It was pretty easy, all things considered, easier than many folks' divorces. Probably because we are both broke and poor and don't have children together. On the other hand, I have to say I feel like it shouldn't be easier to get into this contract than it is to get out of it. Then again, hopeless romantic that I am, I am a huge supporter of prenuptual agreements. Make arrangements when you love each other, to avoid fighting even more once you hate each other.
I left the courthouse feeling slightly more free and much more settled. I have a certain amount of closure, even though I'll always have unanswerable questions. I rode back home, listening to Ani, who he claimed was just another man-hating feminist singer, in response to my distaste for the unflattering, only-good-for-sex picture that one of the musical groups he liked painted of women. *Sigh* But it's over now. Back to the life that is my new normal. Change out of my dressy court clothes, so that I can do some yard work. I have to pick up more shit. Only this shit is from the four-legged variety of dog. It's smellier, but less emotionally toxic.
October 2007 to February 2009. That is as long as my marriage lasted. It's bittersweet.
I've been trying to pickup and organize my living space (basement) lately, a little at a time. Last night, I finally got around to putting honeymoon pictures into the photo albums I'd bought for my mom and I. Yeah, I've been either distracted or lazy for at least a year. I had put photos into albums for BT's grandmother and mother, even sent a small album overseas to BT himself, just never got around to doing my own. And I'm guessing Mom won't want hers now, but I wanted to get it done and then put away. It was nice to remember that short but amazing time we were together, the things I probably never would have done without him, but they were just memories.
I tried to get to bed early. That didn't work so well, but I still got myself up early to get ready for court. Shower. Dress. Passed up wearing the black dress slacks that I got married in. Put on a necklace and perfume bought with love by someone else, makeshift amulets to protect my heart and spirit. Make-up to cover the acne caused by the new drugs and to make myself look more serious in front of the judge. I snap several pictures of myself before I go, to see if I look different after all of this is done.
Alone, by my own choice, I drove to the courthouse, parked, found the courtroom, and a seat in the gallery. It wasn't quite traffic court. More glossy wood than that. But not quite the courtroom of "Law & Order" either. I was early. I was trembling, shaking, nervous. I'd never been in a courtroom before. Settled in with a Newsweek on top of the bright yellow folder that held all my divorce documents, the signed decree of divorce that had arrived just the day before in the mail.
The judge was an older, slim, white haired gentleman, infinitely patient with the people who's cases were before him. Very few people had lawyers. The two cases before me were uncontested cases where only one party came to wrap things up, just as mine was. Just give the decree to the judge to sign and the settlement to him to review. Take the stand to answer his questions, full names, where and when the marriage occured, affirm incompatability, is the wife returning to her former name, do you think the settlement is fair and equable, thank you. Then file the papers with the clerk and send a copy to the other party.
It was pretty easy, all things considered, easier than many folks' divorces. Probably because we are both broke and poor and don't have children together. On the other hand, I have to say I feel like it shouldn't be easier to get into this contract than it is to get out of it. Then again, hopeless romantic that I am, I am a huge supporter of prenuptual agreements. Make arrangements when you love each other, to avoid fighting even more once you hate each other.
I left the courthouse feeling slightly more free and much more settled. I have a certain amount of closure, even though I'll always have unanswerable questions. I rode back home, listening to Ani, who he claimed was just another man-hating feminist singer, in response to my distaste for the unflattering, only-good-for-sex picture that one of the musical groups he liked painted of women. *Sigh* But it's over now. Back to the life that is my new normal. Change out of my dressy court clothes, so that I can do some yard work. I have to pick up more shit. Only this shit is from the four-legged variety of dog. It's smellier, but less emotionally toxic.
Monday, February 09, 2009
To Work or Not To Work
This weekend we went to Slightly Bigger Midwestern City to see my grandmother and celebrate my uncle's birthday together. My grandmother asked me if I was applying for jobs yet. I confirmed that I was. I also told her, as I've told many people recently, that I'm trying to work extra hard to pitch in around the house and do things for my family. Right now, while my meds can impede things, I'm attempting to push through the difficulties, get used to a normal schedule, and to be more than the lump of flesh sitting on the futon. I know that if I went from just sitting around all day to working even part-time, I'd have a very difficult transition and even more tired than I usually am when starting a new job. I'm also acutely aware that all my bills are paid for by my parents, with no financial help from me. I figure that if I push myself to do what not ungrateful and not lazy people would do then I'll be seen as not ungrateful and not lazy.
But my mom threw me for a loop with some comments that she made on our way home. She mentioned that she had heard my comments to my grandmother about finding work, and that she had heard me say the same things the previous weekend at my uncle's house. My mom expressed to me that she was displeased that I seemed to put so much emphasis on finding a job. She pointed out that I wasn't in dire straits financially, as my parents are paying what bills I have and providing a place to live and food to eat. (Yes, somehow I now feel ungrateful for wanting a job.) But her bigger worry was that I would push myself too hard and either take a job that I liked but that I would end up losing because the meds that just settled down got messed up again or that I would take a job I didn't like that would cause me to spiral and lose that job. She would like me to just take it easy and allow myself more time on the current meds before I put myself out there too much.
It is not like I don't understand what she said or why she felt the need to say it. I'm well aware that I had what might have been a great job offer last month, which, unfortunately, coincided with when the Lexapro dropped off and the Prozac didn't pick up the slack, like it was supposed to. I couldn't even get out of bed in the morning to go to the job, much less see how bad I'd mess it up by being there. And, honestly, it isn't like I don't have a difficult time with the more mundane aspects of life. I get tired much more easily than I ever used to. Just one trip to one store, be it grocery or wal-mart, wipes me out. I also have weird... spatial disturbances.... I'm not sure how to easily describe it. It happens when I move my head to fast, either up or down or from side to side. It feels like what happens when you are just a bit drunk and you move your head too fast, only it doesn't last as long. I guess when a person is drunk, they expect it and they're already out of it enough not to care. When you are sober, it's disconcerting. In addition to the above, I still have the tremor, some times worse than other times, though the beta blocker helps. I also don't like too many people. Tend to get a little paranoid around strangers and need a larger bubble of personal space. All of these things combined, as well as all the others that I'm not remembering right now, and, now that I think about it, bad memory should be on that list too... where was I? Oh, yeah- all of these things combine to make me worry that I could keep a job, even if it was one that I really liked and tried my hardest at. Those things also tend to limit what I would even consider applying for. I probably couldn't do a job where I had to stand eight hours. I couldn't do a job where I had to have steady, precise hands. You get the picture.
I should also say that it isn't like I'm hurting financially or lifestyle-wise. I will grant that I would be someone's slave for a week if they would either fix my car or have it fixed. My poor car :( Like I said before, I have a place to live, food to eat, everyday needs met, and what few bills I have paid. I don't go out as much as I would like and tend to look longingly at books I want, but a little less consumerism could probably do us all good. And I have plenty of books and movies here to catch up on anyway.
But it brings up some questions surrounding my future employment that I've been trying not to think about lately. I worry about my ability to get and stay employed over my lifetime. I've never really been able to keep a job for a very long time, though most of my jobs have also been in high turnover, low pay, service industry jobs and some I quit when I moved to a different area. But I know that I have a problem consistently keeping a job. I also have a hard time starting a new job when I find one. I've also had long-ish periods of unemployment, especially during and after a hard time in dealing with my depression or during and just after a crisis in my life. (Wow. I sound so pathetic.) It isn't as if I am physically disabled. It isn't like my mental illness is debilitating either. It would seem that the only thing stopping me from working is my own laziness and self-defeating attitude. But, on the other hand, this has been the pattern of my whole life.
I don't want to give up on myself though. To quit before I've even started, especially now that I"m on not just a new medicine, a new anti-depressant, but a new set of drugs, who's combination, for better and for worse, have new effects. A new set of drugs that I'm sure my doctor is hoping will make me better able to live a more "normal" life. I also feel like my life can't move on really until I am more free and independent, or at least in a position where I can choose to be dependent or not, where it would be a choice for me to live with my parents, whether to save money or just to be close to family, or to live on my own here in this city or to start over again somewhere else or to shack up with a hot lover or ten.
So I'm left wondering what road is best to take. I've been trying to take life much closer to one day at a time, not have expectations but enjoy things, feel things, love while I can as much as I can, try to be good. But now.... well, I just don't know. Please feel free to give advice...
But my mom threw me for a loop with some comments that she made on our way home. She mentioned that she had heard my comments to my grandmother about finding work, and that she had heard me say the same things the previous weekend at my uncle's house. My mom expressed to me that she was displeased that I seemed to put so much emphasis on finding a job. She pointed out that I wasn't in dire straits financially, as my parents are paying what bills I have and providing a place to live and food to eat. (Yes, somehow I now feel ungrateful for wanting a job.) But her bigger worry was that I would push myself too hard and either take a job that I liked but that I would end up losing because the meds that just settled down got messed up again or that I would take a job I didn't like that would cause me to spiral and lose that job. She would like me to just take it easy and allow myself more time on the current meds before I put myself out there too much.
It is not like I don't understand what she said or why she felt the need to say it. I'm well aware that I had what might have been a great job offer last month, which, unfortunately, coincided with when the Lexapro dropped off and the Prozac didn't pick up the slack, like it was supposed to. I couldn't even get out of bed in the morning to go to the job, much less see how bad I'd mess it up by being there. And, honestly, it isn't like I don't have a difficult time with the more mundane aspects of life. I get tired much more easily than I ever used to. Just one trip to one store, be it grocery or wal-mart, wipes me out. I also have weird... spatial disturbances.... I'm not sure how to easily describe it. It happens when I move my head to fast, either up or down or from side to side. It feels like what happens when you are just a bit drunk and you move your head too fast, only it doesn't last as long. I guess when a person is drunk, they expect it and they're already out of it enough not to care. When you are sober, it's disconcerting. In addition to the above, I still have the tremor, some times worse than other times, though the beta blocker helps. I also don't like too many people. Tend to get a little paranoid around strangers and need a larger bubble of personal space. All of these things combined, as well as all the others that I'm not remembering right now, and, now that I think about it, bad memory should be on that list too... where was I? Oh, yeah- all of these things combine to make me worry that I could keep a job, even if it was one that I really liked and tried my hardest at. Those things also tend to limit what I would even consider applying for. I probably couldn't do a job where I had to stand eight hours. I couldn't do a job where I had to have steady, precise hands. You get the picture.
I should also say that it isn't like I'm hurting financially or lifestyle-wise. I will grant that I would be someone's slave for a week if they would either fix my car or have it fixed. My poor car :( Like I said before, I have a place to live, food to eat, everyday needs met, and what few bills I have paid. I don't go out as much as I would like and tend to look longingly at books I want, but a little less consumerism could probably do us all good. And I have plenty of books and movies here to catch up on anyway.
But it brings up some questions surrounding my future employment that I've been trying not to think about lately. I worry about my ability to get and stay employed over my lifetime. I've never really been able to keep a job for a very long time, though most of my jobs have also been in high turnover, low pay, service industry jobs and some I quit when I moved to a different area. But I know that I have a problem consistently keeping a job. I also have a hard time starting a new job when I find one. I've also had long-ish periods of unemployment, especially during and after a hard time in dealing with my depression or during and just after a crisis in my life. (Wow. I sound so pathetic.) It isn't as if I am physically disabled. It isn't like my mental illness is debilitating either. It would seem that the only thing stopping me from working is my own laziness and self-defeating attitude. But, on the other hand, this has been the pattern of my whole life.
I don't want to give up on myself though. To quit before I've even started, especially now that I"m on not just a new medicine, a new anti-depressant, but a new set of drugs, who's combination, for better and for worse, have new effects. A new set of drugs that I'm sure my doctor is hoping will make me better able to live a more "normal" life. I also feel like my life can't move on really until I am more free and independent, or at least in a position where I can choose to be dependent or not, where it would be a choice for me to live with my parents, whether to save money or just to be close to family, or to live on my own here in this city or to start over again somewhere else or to shack up with a hot lover or ten.
So I'm left wondering what road is best to take. I've been trying to take life much closer to one day at a time, not have expectations but enjoy things, feel things, love while I can as much as I can, try to be good. But now.... well, I just don't know. Please feel free to give advice...
Thursday, January 08, 2009
The Dog Dies, and other rantings
I'll get to the dog later. I'm just hoping that this is somewhat coherent, as I'm now fairly certain that the new anti-depressants aren't kicking in as the other one drops off, so I'm getting crazier by the minute. Or at least I feel like it. I've even caught myself curling up, from the cold in my bedroom before the heater kicks in, and stopping myself because I don't want to even look like the stereotypical tv/movie crazy lady, holding herself close, all alone. I'll freeze to death first, thankyouverymuch. *Deep breath* I keep trying to remind myself, and listen when those around me remind me, that I'm actually dealing with this better than I usually do, as I've informed the people around me within the first few days and called my doctor about the medication after the first few days and before I became suicidal. That is all a huge step up from what I usually do. Also, while I would usually worm my way into the bed and company of the closest romantic significant other when I started feeling bad (because somehow their love would magically protect me from myself and/or I could blame them when they didn't live up to my expectations/huge need and I hurt myself or made some suicidal gesture or attempt), I am trying really hard not to do that. I want to curl up with TyRoy and stay with him. I think if I asked, he would be more than happy for me to be there. But, as MP often reminds me, I'm alot for one person to deal with. I'm trying to spread it around and to delegate appropriately. TyRoy's friendship and love help a tremendous amount. We talk and write often. I'm sure I'll see him when he has time off. But I also lean alot on my mom right now. She knows how I'm feeling. She knows exactly where I am. She still holds my meds. She pushed me into not putting off calling the doctor until I was really awake, so I didn't waste more time. As it would be much easier for her to deal with any legal and medical issues if I was hospitalized (though she is still not my legal next of kin, until the divorce comes through), it's best to always be in contact with her, have her up on the situation. Even when I'm with TyRoy, he has all her numbers, just in case anything happens. And I'm trying to keep in touch with my other friends, because I know the isolation can get to me, even when I am the one doing it. I'm trying. Not sure if it's working or if it will work. Fuck. I think what makes me most upset about this is that I was just starting to feel like I might be getting closer to being a person living with a mental illness, rather than a person suffering from a mental illness. I've spent the last year and 3 months or so being someone suffering from a mental illness, feeling like I was controlled by it, feeling like my life was just fighting a losing battle against it. I was just starting to feel like that might not be it, like it might be something I could negotiate within a relatively happy life. But currently I feel like I'm battling just to not let it all slip away again.
But anger helps. Which brings me to the first thing I wanted to rant about. This evening, I was flipping through AM radio stations and decided to listen to a bit of the rantings of Michael Savage and his listeners. For those of you who don't know, I do listen to a bit of conservative and right-wing talk radio, mostly to know what the other side is saying. Know your enemy, right? One of his topics today was if pot should be legalized. A man training to be psychiatrist called in, decrying the evils of marijuana, as a gateway to other drugs, as a drug made infinitely more potent by chemists and growers which lead it to cause all kinds of psychiatric symptoms and illnesses. The psychiatrist-in-training also said that a high percentage (I think he said either 90 or 95%) of people prescribed psychiatric medications just needed a kick in the butt and a change in diet. OMFG! On the subject of weed: I would not go so far as to say that this man did not see people who smoked marijuana, especially the more potent varieties grown these days (as compared to the pot of the 1960s or even 1980s), and had a variety of bad trips, which lead to, as he said, suicidal attempts/gestures and visual and auditory hallucinations. I had a friend when I was a teenager who was only smoking marijuana on a very regular basis and started to get very paranoid, even when not stoned. But, for all the people I've known who've smoked marijuana, I've never known anyone who experienced LSD-like episodes. Maybe we just get skunk here in the Midwest. Also, I hate this whole "gateway drug" bullshit. Yes, almost everyone who does heroin has smoked marijuana. But correlation is not causation. Those people do not do heroin BECAUSE they did marijuana. I know I can't come up with a GOOD example that seems the same to me, but I have a bunch of things in my head. Being born is a gateway behavoir for becoming a homicide victim. Also, in terms of parsing out correlation and causation, maybe it isn't the drugs that caused the psychiatric problems, or at least not at first. It might have something to do with the fact that people who already have mental illnesses often self-medicate, even when they don't consciously know they are doing it. Then the drugs might exacerbate problems they already have with their brain functioning or just damage the way their body, especially their brain functions, causing even more illnesses, both psychiatric and physical. And they might have sought help if their psychiatrist wasn't a patronizing prick who wouldn't even try to work with them for a plan of medication but instead thought that they should change their diet and get a kick in the butt. I agree that medications get over-prescribed. But they get over-prescribed typically to people with insurance, who can pay, in communities (and of genders and sexual orientations) that accept that medicines can and do work for mental and emotional problems. The rest of people, sometimes people who really need it, don't have access to, or are taught not to take, the medications that could help them. Honestly, while I come from a therapy-friendly family and one that encourages the use of needed medications, I did not want to go on psychiatric drugs. It took a hell of a lot for me to start anti-depressants. But, you know what? I kinda wish the "psychiatrist" I went to in my mid-teens hadn't been so focused on how I was an idiot for what I wanted to take on my hypothetical deserted island and how the continued effects of the "Epstein-Barr" that he claimed I still had after my mono would go away once we bought this book and changed my diet. Because maybe he might have seen that I was suffering from depression, not Epstein-Barr, and I should be getting real therapy to help me learn how to manage it and possibly start the experimentation with drugs when I was 15 and had years and years and years left on my parents' insurance, before I was in college and paying for the education I was missing by not wanting to get out of bed. I bet that asshole loves Savage and his psychiatrist-in-training caller.
Speaking of conservatives, what is it about having a dick that makes people more conservative??? Ok, ok, ok-- correlation is not causation. I don't honestly know many women who are liberal either. And the ones who do claim to be liberal are in certain areas, but, because of their life experiences, or lack there of, don't often subscribe to a larger liberal feminist, pro-queer, anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-ablist, anything I'm ignorantly forgetting, agenda. And I'm sure that there are people out there who would look at my life or even just my writings and say that they don't see me going by that either. But I try. I don't try to say "I'm not anti-whoever but why do they insist on blank?" or "I have friends/lovers/relatives who are whatever so I can't be racist/sexist/whatever". I try to honestly listen to claims made about the privilege I enjoy as a white college-educated middle-class cisgendered able bodied (just looked it up and I guess that is the term out there but that sucks) female, to be aware of it, and to not accept it as something that is rightfully mine. There are lots of ways I've changed how I act and think and, I'm sure, more that I should change but do not yet know of. If someone points it out to me, I will try to listen and think about it without defensiveness, but I know it isn't the job of someone who is of a certain race or gender or class to teach me how to not be an ignorant bigot. I am not saying I"m perfect, but I try to be more fair and egalitarian and less prejudiced. But if I hear one more man who's never been in that position talk like he knows and everyone should get his opinion about the actions of a less privileged group he knows nothing about I'm going to scream. Just because you knew some lazy women on welfare does not make you an expert on all the myriad of men, women, and children who make use of welfare programs. Just because you don't like damned dirty hippies talking about how Tibet should be its own country, under the rule of its religious leader, autonomous from the Chinese government, doesn't mean that the religious rule of the Dalia Lamas was nothing but female child slavery and those hippies should shut up. Oh, unless you want to decry the male child soldier slavery in Africa and the rule of religious leaders in Iran. Just because you went to a school that had comprehensive sex education and passed out condoms doesn't mean that those things are the reason that girls at your high school got pregnant. Maybe there were other factors, like their self-esteem, like their socio-economic status, like the messages that society on the whole gave them, like the fact that their male partner may have pushed them into sex before they were ready and/or without protection. But whatever the reason, that doesn't mean that sexuality or sexual contact should be demonized all around. Also, no excuse for not reciprocating a sex act that can under no circumstances get one pregnant. You know, I know this is the "pussy" female answer but can't you guys just grow the fuck up and stop feeling like your privilege is so threatened that you have to piss on anyone you percieve as "taking what's yours"? Honestly, it's a HUGE TURN-OFF.
Finally, to the title- The Dog Dies. (Might be a little late but ****Spoiler Alert*********) Lately, I really hate how I can't seem to get away from movies that play on the shit I'm already dealing with. This Christmas, my mom, who loves movies with dogs in them, wanted to see Marley and Me. I knew it was based on a book, on a true story, but that's all the extra info I knew. I'm sure I would have gone with my mom sometime around now if I hadn't read an article about how not only does the dog die in the end of the film, but it is used to pull extra extra hard at the viewer's heartstrings. He nicknamed the movie "New Yeller." Well, for as much as my mom loves movies with dogs in them, she can't stand it when the dog dies. If she hears about it beforehand, she won't watch any movie where the dog dies. Needless to say, we will never watch Marley and Me. I'm really glad we didn't try to go see it over our Christmas holiday in Slightly Bigger Midwestern City, as my grandmother's 18 yr/o dog was at the time getting around very poorly and we were all afraid we would have to put him to sleep. I don't think I could have done that movie then. This all probably just means that people should be more aware of what movies they go see, though, to be fair, not all reviews of Marley and Me included that tidbit, which I'm sure parents who took their younger kids might have liked to know before they had to explain that their own dog would someday die. Yes, sometimes, people should just pay more attention. My mom and I decided to go see a movie the weekend after we found out that my uncle had cancer. She wanted to go to the new theater by her work so we just picked a movie that looked ok that was playing soon. We went to see In the Land Of Women. In which Meg Ryan's character has cancer. And loses all her hair. And looks painfully, unhealthly thin. I told Mom that I wasn't going to let her have the final say again.
Then again, sometimes nothing can really prepare you, even if you think beforehand that it might be sad, you sometimes can't guess how sad. I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight. I've read several reviews and knew what it was generally about. I thought it might be sad but I didn't think it would be as sad as it was for me. I should say though that it doesn't take a great deal for me to cry at a movie. It takes very very little, in fact, so I don't blame the movie usually. I don't here. And I made it through most of the movie without tears. But I started when Cate Blanchett's character, dying in the hospital, started to have breathing troubles and the doctor or nurse assured the daughter that it was normal, that her breathing would get shallower. It took me right back to being in the hospital room with my grandfather that last day and how those last hours and minutes are never as peaceful as movies make them out to be. I can still hear that noise, the sound of him trying to breath as his lungs filled with liquid. I cried because it was one thing I knew the movie would never convey. I continued to cry as Brad Pitt's Benjamin came back into Blanchett's Daisy's life, as she became an elderly woman and he didn't remember her. The innocence of people who've lost their memory was highlighted by the young (and thus innocent) appearance of Benjamin. For those people, who knew how old Benjamin truly was, it seemed difficult to take it to heart when he got upset and cursed at them because he didn't think they'd given him the breakfast he didn't remember that he'd just eaten. I think sometimes it's harder to not take it to heart in our reality when the person appears to just be an older version of the same person who once disciplined us. It's harder to remember that it's not their fault. It's harder not to want to WILL them to remember how to be who we think they should be. I think one of the things that really got to me was that the chronologically old/phycially childish Benjamin still had that magical twinkle of mischief and curiousity. The same one that I remember my grandfather having right up until end. There was always some little joke that he made you feel like was just between the two of you. And my grandfather loved to tinker with things, so, even after the stroke, when he couldn't remember exactly what he was doing or why, his hands still felt the need to take things apart, or attempt to. It was hell trying to get him to leave in the IVs and tubes at the hospital. Even once he got home, he'd take his feeding tube out of his stomach. Even when Grandma would try to cover it up with a weird girdle thing and two shirts, he'd find it and take it apart, after having forgotten about it, out of sight out of mind. Even though I'm crying right now, I'm also smiling because he could be such a little shit! But smart and sweet and I miss him.
I went with a woman for whom it should have been worse than it was for me, though I didn't see her cry. I don't know her very well and, in our conversation before the film, I found out that she had had a son, but he died in 07, when he was less than a year old. Somehow, she seems to be more ok with it than I am with my grandfather's death. In the movie, Benjamin dies, as an infant, in Daisy's arms. After the movie, my companion alluded to the fact that it was a bit hard, but that was nothing like how he'd passed. I didn't ask her to share anything more specific, though if she'd wanted to, I would have listened.
Well, with that, I think I'll go to bed. Don't take any of this too seriously. It's just the ravings of a mad woman.
But anger helps. Which brings me to the first thing I wanted to rant about. This evening, I was flipping through AM radio stations and decided to listen to a bit of the rantings of Michael Savage and his listeners. For those of you who don't know, I do listen to a bit of conservative and right-wing talk radio, mostly to know what the other side is saying. Know your enemy, right? One of his topics today was if pot should be legalized. A man training to be psychiatrist called in, decrying the evils of marijuana, as a gateway to other drugs, as a drug made infinitely more potent by chemists and growers which lead it to cause all kinds of psychiatric symptoms and illnesses. The psychiatrist-in-training also said that a high percentage (I think he said either 90 or 95%) of people prescribed psychiatric medications just needed a kick in the butt and a change in diet. OMFG! On the subject of weed: I would not go so far as to say that this man did not see people who smoked marijuana, especially the more potent varieties grown these days (as compared to the pot of the 1960s or even 1980s), and had a variety of bad trips, which lead to, as he said, suicidal attempts/gestures and visual and auditory hallucinations. I had a friend when I was a teenager who was only smoking marijuana on a very regular basis and started to get very paranoid, even when not stoned. But, for all the people I've known who've smoked marijuana, I've never known anyone who experienced LSD-like episodes. Maybe we just get skunk here in the Midwest. Also, I hate this whole "gateway drug" bullshit. Yes, almost everyone who does heroin has smoked marijuana. But correlation is not causation. Those people do not do heroin BECAUSE they did marijuana. I know I can't come up with a GOOD example that seems the same to me, but I have a bunch of things in my head. Being born is a gateway behavoir for becoming a homicide victim. Also, in terms of parsing out correlation and causation, maybe it isn't the drugs that caused the psychiatric problems, or at least not at first. It might have something to do with the fact that people who already have mental illnesses often self-medicate, even when they don't consciously know they are doing it. Then the drugs might exacerbate problems they already have with their brain functioning or just damage the way their body, especially their brain functions, causing even more illnesses, both psychiatric and physical. And they might have sought help if their psychiatrist wasn't a patronizing prick who wouldn't even try to work with them for a plan of medication but instead thought that they should change their diet and get a kick in the butt. I agree that medications get over-prescribed. But they get over-prescribed typically to people with insurance, who can pay, in communities (and of genders and sexual orientations) that accept that medicines can and do work for mental and emotional problems. The rest of people, sometimes people who really need it, don't have access to, or are taught not to take, the medications that could help them. Honestly, while I come from a therapy-friendly family and one that encourages the use of needed medications, I did not want to go on psychiatric drugs. It took a hell of a lot for me to start anti-depressants. But, you know what? I kinda wish the "psychiatrist" I went to in my mid-teens hadn't been so focused on how I was an idiot for what I wanted to take on my hypothetical deserted island and how the continued effects of the "Epstein-Barr" that he claimed I still had after my mono would go away once we bought this book and changed my diet. Because maybe he might have seen that I was suffering from depression, not Epstein-Barr, and I should be getting real therapy to help me learn how to manage it and possibly start the experimentation with drugs when I was 15 and had years and years and years left on my parents' insurance, before I was in college and paying for the education I was missing by not wanting to get out of bed. I bet that asshole loves Savage and his psychiatrist-in-training caller.
Speaking of conservatives, what is it about having a dick that makes people more conservative??? Ok, ok, ok-- correlation is not causation. I don't honestly know many women who are liberal either. And the ones who do claim to be liberal are in certain areas, but, because of their life experiences, or lack there of, don't often subscribe to a larger liberal feminist, pro-queer, anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-ablist, anything I'm ignorantly forgetting, agenda. And I'm sure that there are people out there who would look at my life or even just my writings and say that they don't see me going by that either. But I try. I don't try to say "I'm not anti-whoever but why do they insist on blank?" or "I have friends/lovers/relatives who are whatever so I can't be racist/sexist/whatever". I try to honestly listen to claims made about the privilege I enjoy as a white college-educated middle-class cisgendered able bodied (just looked it up and I guess that is the term out there but that sucks) female, to be aware of it, and to not accept it as something that is rightfully mine. There are lots of ways I've changed how I act and think and, I'm sure, more that I should change but do not yet know of. If someone points it out to me, I will try to listen and think about it without defensiveness, but I know it isn't the job of someone who is of a certain race or gender or class to teach me how to not be an ignorant bigot. I am not saying I"m perfect, but I try to be more fair and egalitarian and less prejudiced. But if I hear one more man who's never been in that position talk like he knows and everyone should get his opinion about the actions of a less privileged group he knows nothing about I'm going to scream. Just because you knew some lazy women on welfare does not make you an expert on all the myriad of men, women, and children who make use of welfare programs. Just because you don't like damned dirty hippies talking about how Tibet should be its own country, under the rule of its religious leader, autonomous from the Chinese government, doesn't mean that the religious rule of the Dalia Lamas was nothing but female child slavery and those hippies should shut up. Oh, unless you want to decry the male child soldier slavery in Africa and the rule of religious leaders in Iran. Just because you went to a school that had comprehensive sex education and passed out condoms doesn't mean that those things are the reason that girls at your high school got pregnant. Maybe there were other factors, like their self-esteem, like their socio-economic status, like the messages that society on the whole gave them, like the fact that their male partner may have pushed them into sex before they were ready and/or without protection. But whatever the reason, that doesn't mean that sexuality or sexual contact should be demonized all around. Also, no excuse for not reciprocating a sex act that can under no circumstances get one pregnant. You know, I know this is the "pussy" female answer but can't you guys just grow the fuck up and stop feeling like your privilege is so threatened that you have to piss on anyone you percieve as "taking what's yours"? Honestly, it's a HUGE TURN-OFF.
Finally, to the title- The Dog Dies. (Might be a little late but ****Spoiler Alert*********) Lately, I really hate how I can't seem to get away from movies that play on the shit I'm already dealing with. This Christmas, my mom, who loves movies with dogs in them, wanted to see Marley and Me. I knew it was based on a book, on a true story, but that's all the extra info I knew. I'm sure I would have gone with my mom sometime around now if I hadn't read an article about how not only does the dog die in the end of the film, but it is used to pull extra extra hard at the viewer's heartstrings. He nicknamed the movie "New Yeller." Well, for as much as my mom loves movies with dogs in them, she can't stand it when the dog dies. If she hears about it beforehand, she won't watch any movie where the dog dies. Needless to say, we will never watch Marley and Me. I'm really glad we didn't try to go see it over our Christmas holiday in Slightly Bigger Midwestern City, as my grandmother's 18 yr/o dog was at the time getting around very poorly and we were all afraid we would have to put him to sleep. I don't think I could have done that movie then. This all probably just means that people should be more aware of what movies they go see, though, to be fair, not all reviews of Marley and Me included that tidbit, which I'm sure parents who took their younger kids might have liked to know before they had to explain that their own dog would someday die. Yes, sometimes, people should just pay more attention. My mom and I decided to go see a movie the weekend after we found out that my uncle had cancer. She wanted to go to the new theater by her work so we just picked a movie that looked ok that was playing soon. We went to see In the Land Of Women. In which Meg Ryan's character has cancer. And loses all her hair. And looks painfully, unhealthly thin. I told Mom that I wasn't going to let her have the final say again.
Then again, sometimes nothing can really prepare you, even if you think beforehand that it might be sad, you sometimes can't guess how sad. I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight. I've read several reviews and knew what it was generally about. I thought it might be sad but I didn't think it would be as sad as it was for me. I should say though that it doesn't take a great deal for me to cry at a movie. It takes very very little, in fact, so I don't blame the movie usually. I don't here. And I made it through most of the movie without tears. But I started when Cate Blanchett's character, dying in the hospital, started to have breathing troubles and the doctor or nurse assured the daughter that it was normal, that her breathing would get shallower. It took me right back to being in the hospital room with my grandfather that last day and how those last hours and minutes are never as peaceful as movies make them out to be. I can still hear that noise, the sound of him trying to breath as his lungs filled with liquid. I cried because it was one thing I knew the movie would never convey. I continued to cry as Brad Pitt's Benjamin came back into Blanchett's Daisy's life, as she became an elderly woman and he didn't remember her. The innocence of people who've lost their memory was highlighted by the young (and thus innocent) appearance of Benjamin. For those people, who knew how old Benjamin truly was, it seemed difficult to take it to heart when he got upset and cursed at them because he didn't think they'd given him the breakfast he didn't remember that he'd just eaten. I think sometimes it's harder to not take it to heart in our reality when the person appears to just be an older version of the same person who once disciplined us. It's harder to remember that it's not their fault. It's harder not to want to WILL them to remember how to be who we think they should be. I think one of the things that really got to me was that the chronologically old/phycially childish Benjamin still had that magical twinkle of mischief and curiousity. The same one that I remember my grandfather having right up until end. There was always some little joke that he made you feel like was just between the two of you. And my grandfather loved to tinker with things, so, even after the stroke, when he couldn't remember exactly what he was doing or why, his hands still felt the need to take things apart, or attempt to. It was hell trying to get him to leave in the IVs and tubes at the hospital. Even once he got home, he'd take his feeding tube out of his stomach. Even when Grandma would try to cover it up with a weird girdle thing and two shirts, he'd find it and take it apart, after having forgotten about it, out of sight out of mind. Even though I'm crying right now, I'm also smiling because he could be such a little shit! But smart and sweet and I miss him.
I went with a woman for whom it should have been worse than it was for me, though I didn't see her cry. I don't know her very well and, in our conversation before the film, I found out that she had had a son, but he died in 07, when he was less than a year old. Somehow, she seems to be more ok with it than I am with my grandfather's death. In the movie, Benjamin dies, as an infant, in Daisy's arms. After the movie, my companion alluded to the fact that it was a bit hard, but that was nothing like how he'd passed. I didn't ask her to share anything more specific, though if she'd wanted to, I would have listened.
Well, with that, I think I'll go to bed. Don't take any of this too seriously. It's just the ravings of a mad woman.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
More Fun with Meds
First, I want to send you all to a post by a blogger I only recently started reading, but who makes me feel alittle less alone in this whole crazy mental illness thing, as she shares her experiences with seeking treatment for mental health issues without a great deal of censorship. Also, it feels good to know that someone so far away- she lives in London- can have such experiences so similar to my own. Hell, she even had an attempt in October, just like me. Her latest post is about her experiences on medications, which was also what I planned to write about today. Here's her post: http://thesecretlifeofamanicdepressive.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/puking-shaking-hair-loss-and-sexiness-medications-galore/
And now, selfishly, back to me. And my current med issues.
As I bitched about last week, my doctor's assistant called me on New Year's Eve, telling me that, after getting the results of my blood tests, the doctor wanted me to just stop the lithium. Not back down but just stop taking all three pills that I was taking at the time. At first, I had been against stopping, planning on staying on the current dose until I got a follow-up call, but an acquaintance, who has experience on psychiatric drugs, mentioned that I might have dangerously high levels and that if that was why the doctor wanted me to stop then I probably should. So I did. No lithium Wednesday night or all day Thursday. Friday morning, the doctor's assistant called me back and said that the doctor has misread his notes and I should NOT stop taking the lithium. While I was kinda pissed off about it and felt jerked around, I didn't think it was a huge deal that I had missed three doses. Well, it wasn't a HUGE deal but it did have some effect. Saturday afternoon, my mother, in St Louis visiting my grandmother, called me to see if I was ok, especially after the med thing. At the time, I felt fine and dismissed it as her being too worried. Then, around 8:30 pm, I started spacing out. By 9, I was completely out of it, back to the fogginess I had before. TyRoy and I were at his house, watching a movie, and I know I freaked him out when I just went blank. There was nothing that he could do. Mostly, I just curled into myself and tried to talk myself into not freaking out.
I also got a bit of the weird super-hearing that I noticed when I first got on the lithium. It is like how one hears just after their ears pop because of elevation. Of course, in TyRoy's still rather emptry house, the smallest noise sounds large anyway. Add to that the wild wind.... At one point, I thought there was someone in the house. Doing laundry. Ok, ok, ok. It sounds weirder than it seemed at the time. The wind outside and the settling of the house made it sound like there was something going on in the front of the house. Just a few seconds after, the furnace, which is below the bedroom and near the laundry area, kicked on. With my super-hearing, the furnace sounded like the washer and my crazy mind put it together that someone had gotten into the house and was in the laundry area doing a load of clothes. Ok, maybe it is as crazy as it sounds. But at least I had the precense of mind to know that it wasn't real, to not wake TyRoy and tell him that I thought there was an intruder washing clothes at 1am, and just make my own investigation so I could stop thinking about it. On the other hand, it does give me a better idea of what happens to people with psychosis or delusions. Your brain puts things together in a certain way. For most people, that is close enough to reality that it's ok for us to accept it as reality. But if your brain... misfunctions (?) and puts it together in a different way, how can you go against what your brain is telling you is reality? Especially when you feel like trusting your brain will save you from harm, as opposed to taking other people's word of what reality is. *Sigh* It's problematic at best.
And now I think I am having problems with my anti-depressants. Though it is once again it is hard to tell if the problem is WITH my head or IN my head. Monday I didn't want to get out of bed. I thought I was just being lazy. Then, I started eating everything in sight. No because I'm hungry, mind you. Honestly, on the lithium, I can't feel my stomach, whether it be empty or hungry or overflowing with stomach acid. It was emotional eating. Eating to fill a different kind of void. But still, maybe hormonal. Today I didn't want to get out of bed either. But more than that. Didn't want to get up, ever. Would have been happy to lay there until I faded away. Did I mention that I changed anti-depressants 2-3 weeks ago? *Sigh* See, I was on Lexapro, which is $130/mo without insurance. So I talked to my doctor about switching me to a cheaper anti-depressant. There are 3 that are on pharmacy $4/30pills lists - Paxil, Celexa, and Prozac. I took Paxil once and it didn't work. I used to take Celexa until it pooped out on me. So we have been trying Prozac. Um.... I don't think it's working. And I honestly don't want to wait until I'm completely suicidal either. Though I don't know how I'll pay for a drug that is $130/mo. I guess I just try to hang on, call the doctor tomorrow, and keep my fingers crossed.
Welcome to the wonderful world of mental illness and psychiatric drugs!
And now, selfishly, back to me. And my current med issues.
As I bitched about last week, my doctor's assistant called me on New Year's Eve, telling me that, after getting the results of my blood tests, the doctor wanted me to just stop the lithium. Not back down but just stop taking all three pills that I was taking at the time. At first, I had been against stopping, planning on staying on the current dose until I got a follow-up call, but an acquaintance, who has experience on psychiatric drugs, mentioned that I might have dangerously high levels and that if that was why the doctor wanted me to stop then I probably should. So I did. No lithium Wednesday night or all day Thursday. Friday morning, the doctor's assistant called me back and said that the doctor has misread his notes and I should NOT stop taking the lithium. While I was kinda pissed off about it and felt jerked around, I didn't think it was a huge deal that I had missed three doses. Well, it wasn't a HUGE deal but it did have some effect. Saturday afternoon, my mother, in St Louis visiting my grandmother, called me to see if I was ok, especially after the med thing. At the time, I felt fine and dismissed it as her being too worried. Then, around 8:30 pm, I started spacing out. By 9, I was completely out of it, back to the fogginess I had before. TyRoy and I were at his house, watching a movie, and I know I freaked him out when I just went blank. There was nothing that he could do. Mostly, I just curled into myself and tried to talk myself into not freaking out.
I also got a bit of the weird super-hearing that I noticed when I first got on the lithium. It is like how one hears just after their ears pop because of elevation. Of course, in TyRoy's still rather emptry house, the smallest noise sounds large anyway. Add to that the wild wind.... At one point, I thought there was someone in the house. Doing laundry. Ok, ok, ok. It sounds weirder than it seemed at the time. The wind outside and the settling of the house made it sound like there was something going on in the front of the house. Just a few seconds after, the furnace, which is below the bedroom and near the laundry area, kicked on. With my super-hearing, the furnace sounded like the washer and my crazy mind put it together that someone had gotten into the house and was in the laundry area doing a load of clothes. Ok, maybe it is as crazy as it sounds. But at least I had the precense of mind to know that it wasn't real, to not wake TyRoy and tell him that I thought there was an intruder washing clothes at 1am, and just make my own investigation so I could stop thinking about it. On the other hand, it does give me a better idea of what happens to people with psychosis or delusions. Your brain puts things together in a certain way. For most people, that is close enough to reality that it's ok for us to accept it as reality. But if your brain... misfunctions (?) and puts it together in a different way, how can you go against what your brain is telling you is reality? Especially when you feel like trusting your brain will save you from harm, as opposed to taking other people's word of what reality is. *Sigh* It's problematic at best.
And now I think I am having problems with my anti-depressants. Though it is once again it is hard to tell if the problem is WITH my head or IN my head. Monday I didn't want to get out of bed. I thought I was just being lazy. Then, I started eating everything in sight. No because I'm hungry, mind you. Honestly, on the lithium, I can't feel my stomach, whether it be empty or hungry or overflowing with stomach acid. It was emotional eating. Eating to fill a different kind of void. But still, maybe hormonal. Today I didn't want to get out of bed either. But more than that. Didn't want to get up, ever. Would have been happy to lay there until I faded away. Did I mention that I changed anti-depressants 2-3 weeks ago? *Sigh* See, I was on Lexapro, which is $130/mo without insurance. So I talked to my doctor about switching me to a cheaper anti-depressant. There are 3 that are on pharmacy $4/30pills lists - Paxil, Celexa, and Prozac. I took Paxil once and it didn't work. I used to take Celexa until it pooped out on me. So we have been trying Prozac. Um.... I don't think it's working. And I honestly don't want to wait until I'm completely suicidal either. Though I don't know how I'll pay for a drug that is $130/mo. I guess I just try to hang on, call the doctor tomorrow, and keep my fingers crossed.
Welcome to the wonderful world of mental illness and psychiatric drugs!
Friday, January 02, 2009
Same Shit, Different Year
Alright, so this didn't all just happen since the ball dropped and started 2009, but alot of the stuff happening right now don't really make me feel hugely optimistic for this new year. Also, as I examine my current biggest conundrum, I feel strangely like I've been here before. Oh, yeah, it's because I have.
Small shit first, though. As most people know, the economy sucks and the job market isn't good either. I'm registered with several temporary employment agencies, the state employment agency, and I fill out applications and send out resumes all the time. I've had very few interviews and the ones I do get go horribly wrong. My first interview at a local casino had to be rescheduled because I got lost attempting to get to there. I should have had at least 30 extra minutes. I had directions from online and a map printed from the same website. Still got lost. So lost that, by the time I figured out how to get there and got turned around, I was already late to the appointment while still 20 minutes away. Another interview went very well and I even had a second interview this week. They showed me their computer program for the specific job and we discussed specific hours and pay. Then, at the end of the interview, just before I left, when I thought I had this job on lock, the boss said that he thought it important to let me know that it was a Christian company and, while they didn't hire or not hire based on religion, that was how they did business. I said that I was more than fine with that, though I wasn't a Christian myself, and that the one thing I could see as being a potential problem is that I'm openly bisexual and involved in the gay and lesbian community, which I knew could be a problem for some Christians. That was the end of that interview and my chances at that job. Though the BIG issue might make having a job here a moot point. But I'll get to that later.
I had a doctor's appointment that I couldn't pay for at the time like I was supposed to because they wouldn't accept my mother's credit card without her there. I stopped keeping track of how much money I owe my parents at this point. It's too depressing and, realistically, I'll probably never pay them back anyway. Best just to attempt to make myself as much of a slave to them as I can, do as much of the housework and errands as possible. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about January's bills. My car needs some serious work and I'll be completely fucked when it breaks down on me after over 1 1/2 years of the "Service Engine" light being on.
Doc is playing with my meds again. Just before Christmas, I got a blood test to check my lithium levels and some other shit. New Year's Eve, my doc's physician's assistant called me and told me that the doc had gotten the test results in and I should just stop taking the lithium. She was very casual and nonchalant about it all. I was fairly speechless. I have this problem, especially around any kind of "authority figure" who tells me something unexpected or uncomprehended. Without proper time to collect my thoughts, I usually just agree and leave/hang up, only to realize within a few minutes all the questions I should have asked or the things I should have said. I did manage to ask her if I should step-down on the lithium or just go cold turkey. She did say that I should just stop all together, cold turkey, which contradicts everything I'd been told about the medicine previously. I called back and left a message, asking for more details, what the tests showed, why he wanted me to stop, etc, but I haven't heard back, obviously. I'm still just... very confused. Were the levels too high, dangerous? If so, wouldn't it be better to step down, hoping to avoid any crazy side effects from going from too high to nothing at all? Or were the levels too low to be therepeutic, so increasing the dose for effectiveness would increase my side effects to unbearable levels, when I'm feeling... a bit better anyway? I'm so frustrated!!!!!!!!! Why put up with all the bullshit side effects if he was just going to take me off it?!?!?!? Or are we going to try something else after this? Hell, I know this sounds completely superficial, but part of the reason I cut my hair off was because of how dry and unmanagable it had become since getting on the lithium. I assumed I'd be on it for quite awhile and I just couldn't do anything ok looking with my hair on this medicine. But now I'm off of it and my hair should go back to normal so I did it for nothing!?!?! I hate this stupid fucking medicine, medical, psychiatry bullshit!
Shouldn't complain too much about my social life and love life. Things are more settled down at the moment, though I somehow keep managing to pick fights with TyRoy and ruin all possibilities for good times. The rest of my friends seem to be luckier, as they are around alot less and are less close to me. I continue to date, despite other situations, and have made friends, maybe more, who knows.
So, for the big issue that's got me tied up in knots right now- taking care of family. Summer 2007 I was in Slightly Bigger Midwestern City (SBMC), taking care of my grandpa in the hospital and taking care of my overwhelmed but healthy grandmother. Early on, I started worrying about... well, to put it bluntly, getting stuck there. If anyone was going to stay there and help, it would be me because I didn't have any concrete ties, job, nuclear family, etc, that I had to stay in Slightly Smaller Midwestern City for. My mom had her job and my dad. My uncle, who'd just gotten his first surgery to remove a tumor, had to stay at his job and in the state to get medical care under his current insurance. Also all his friends, his support network, his partner are in the state. At that time, I had a couple of friends in SBMC and no job or significant other back in SSMC. I was supposed to start a new school semester and a new job in August but I could have skipped that. Ended up fucking both up anyway.
But I'm pretty sure that not all people feel this same kind of obligation to take care of family personally and directly. I think part of it has to do with how close we all are both emotionally and geographically and that we just aren't a big family. I'm an only child, thus I know I'll have to care for my parents, probably all three of them, and an only grandchild. For me, I think that part of it has to do with the fact that, as a female, it's been drilled into me by society that I should be the one to take care of family-related things. I vaguely remember an in-bed conversation with TyRoy about a co-worker who was having a difficult time deciding what to do about caring for her parents or in-laws when there were other siblings and family members, blah, blah, blah. I think HIS point was that there were so many more options than she was acting like there were, most especially putting the person or people in a care facility, and that she shouldn't be the only one making the decisions. Oh, and quit bitching so much. Sigh. I can understand his frustration and I don't necessarily disagree that she should have more family help and that there are options other than direct personal care. But I don't think that society puts the same pressure on him, as a man with a career that takes him all over the world whenever it wants, to take care of an ailing parent or grandparent in a direct personal way. He just doesn't see it as his JOB to be there, in person, to take care of his parents. And most (straight) (American) men do not.
On the other hand, when it started to feel like my grandmother might need someone living with her all the time when I was visiting for Christmas, I started to panic internally. On Christmas Eve, there were several times where she forgot things, messed things up, couldn't follow instructions, and things like that. I started to wonder to myself how we could trust that she was taking her medications on time and in the right amount and things like that. I tried to push it into the back of my head because things looked fine. She seemed to be taking care of herself and the house and the dog. Then she went into the hospital because she was having upper respiratory problems after a head cold the week before. While Mom seemed to dismiss the memory issues as just a lack of oxygen getting to the brain because of the respiratory problems, they seemed to continue while she was in the hospital. My uncle and his partner stayed because my uncle is currently on disability, unable to work with the cancer treatments, and his partner still had more vacation time. And while my uncle is planning on staying there a bit longer, when he and I discussed things, he made clear that he does not forsee himself being the one who stays in SBMC to care for grandma. He is of the opinion that no one should be forced to move, but that, since it is grandma who needs the help and grandma who complains about the house being too much for her, she should choose to move closer to all of us, as we'd be more than happy to help out in anyway we could. He doesn't think that I should feel like I have to go there just because I'm the only one who is in a position to. Physically, my uncle isn't in a position to do the things that my grandmother things he should be able to. But he stated, point blank, that he knew he couldn't mentally or emotionally and he was't going to try to make himself. After my experience in the summer of 2007, I know that I'd go fucking nuts if I had to live with my grandmother 24/7 and take care of her. I do love her, so much. And it might not be very grateful of me to say that I couldn't do it, because Goddess knows my family has put up with me being a major bitch for all my life, but I just know I can't. And I have lived in her house several times during my adult life, always as a stop-over before a dorm or my own place, without trouble. But at the time she had Grandpa to balance her out and I didn't have an obligation to care for her, just help to pull my own weight.
In the end, however, the problem is that, whether Grandma should move to be closer to us so we can care for her or not, I seriously doubt she ever will. Which means we'll have to collectively and individually decide at what point do we think she has to have someone there and, if professional in-home care can't be obtained, who will go and be with her. None of us want her to live alone if it is too much for her, for her living conditions to deteriorate. And none of us want her to have to go into "a home". If we had to make that decision right now, it'd be me doing it, if for no other reason than that no one else will. Honestly, I guess I still have just as little to lose by moving to SBMC as I did summer 07, except for the only thing I really passionately want is here and cannot move to SBMC. Oh, and those friends I had in SBMC? I alienated one. One thinks I'm too dangerous. And the other is in jail. So that's out too.
One of my short story teachers defined melodrama as arising from a situation where the character is in what appears to be a perfect trap, where the only ways out are suicide or homicide. I wouldn't go so far as to say that is how I feel here but I do feel a certain trap here. I don't have anything else important in my life, no good reason not to do this thing that I feel very very VERY obligated to do. But I know in my heart that doing it will probably make me completely miserable. It will also mean that I spend several years with my life on hold, working to prevent the only thing that will end my endentured servitude. When those years ended, I don't know how I could not be a bitter emotional wreck. And seeing as I'll probably have to work full-time and care for my grandmother, I'm not sure when I'd have time to make new friends, find new lovers, or even just have a little time to myself. *Sigh* Yeah, I feel trapped.
Well, sorry to bitch so much. But I needed to vent to someone who can't tell me that they don't understand or that I'm wrong while I was doing it. If you have a similar situation or concerns in your life or you want to talk about how you feel about your family aging and what you see your role to be, go ahead and comment. Thanks.
Small shit first, though. As most people know, the economy sucks and the job market isn't good either. I'm registered with several temporary employment agencies, the state employment agency, and I fill out applications and send out resumes all the time. I've had very few interviews and the ones I do get go horribly wrong. My first interview at a local casino had to be rescheduled because I got lost attempting to get to there. I should have had at least 30 extra minutes. I had directions from online and a map printed from the same website. Still got lost. So lost that, by the time I figured out how to get there and got turned around, I was already late to the appointment while still 20 minutes away. Another interview went very well and I even had a second interview this week. They showed me their computer program for the specific job and we discussed specific hours and pay. Then, at the end of the interview, just before I left, when I thought I had this job on lock, the boss said that he thought it important to let me know that it was a Christian company and, while they didn't hire or not hire based on religion, that was how they did business. I said that I was more than fine with that, though I wasn't a Christian myself, and that the one thing I could see as being a potential problem is that I'm openly bisexual and involved in the gay and lesbian community, which I knew could be a problem for some Christians. That was the end of that interview and my chances at that job. Though the BIG issue might make having a job here a moot point. But I'll get to that later.
I had a doctor's appointment that I couldn't pay for at the time like I was supposed to because they wouldn't accept my mother's credit card without her there. I stopped keeping track of how much money I owe my parents at this point. It's too depressing and, realistically, I'll probably never pay them back anyway. Best just to attempt to make myself as much of a slave to them as I can, do as much of the housework and errands as possible. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about January's bills. My car needs some serious work and I'll be completely fucked when it breaks down on me after over 1 1/2 years of the "Service Engine" light being on.
Doc is playing with my meds again. Just before Christmas, I got a blood test to check my lithium levels and some other shit. New Year's Eve, my doc's physician's assistant called me and told me that the doc had gotten the test results in and I should just stop taking the lithium. She was very casual and nonchalant about it all. I was fairly speechless. I have this problem, especially around any kind of "authority figure" who tells me something unexpected or uncomprehended. Without proper time to collect my thoughts, I usually just agree and leave/hang up, only to realize within a few minutes all the questions I should have asked or the things I should have said. I did manage to ask her if I should step-down on the lithium or just go cold turkey. She did say that I should just stop all together, cold turkey, which contradicts everything I'd been told about the medicine previously. I called back and left a message, asking for more details, what the tests showed, why he wanted me to stop, etc, but I haven't heard back, obviously. I'm still just... very confused. Were the levels too high, dangerous? If so, wouldn't it be better to step down, hoping to avoid any crazy side effects from going from too high to nothing at all? Or were the levels too low to be therepeutic, so increasing the dose for effectiveness would increase my side effects to unbearable levels, when I'm feeling... a bit better anyway? I'm so frustrated!!!!!!!!! Why put up with all the bullshit side effects if he was just going to take me off it?!?!?!? Or are we going to try something else after this? Hell, I know this sounds completely superficial, but part of the reason I cut my hair off was because of how dry and unmanagable it had become since getting on the lithium. I assumed I'd be on it for quite awhile and I just couldn't do anything ok looking with my hair on this medicine. But now I'm off of it and my hair should go back to normal so I did it for nothing!?!?! I hate this stupid fucking medicine, medical, psychiatry bullshit!
Shouldn't complain too much about my social life and love life. Things are more settled down at the moment, though I somehow keep managing to pick fights with TyRoy and ruin all possibilities for good times. The rest of my friends seem to be luckier, as they are around alot less and are less close to me. I continue to date, despite other situations, and have made friends, maybe more, who knows.
So, for the big issue that's got me tied up in knots right now- taking care of family. Summer 2007 I was in Slightly Bigger Midwestern City (SBMC), taking care of my grandpa in the hospital and taking care of my overwhelmed but healthy grandmother. Early on, I started worrying about... well, to put it bluntly, getting stuck there. If anyone was going to stay there and help, it would be me because I didn't have any concrete ties, job, nuclear family, etc, that I had to stay in Slightly Smaller Midwestern City for. My mom had her job and my dad. My uncle, who'd just gotten his first surgery to remove a tumor, had to stay at his job and in the state to get medical care under his current insurance. Also all his friends, his support network, his partner are in the state. At that time, I had a couple of friends in SBMC and no job or significant other back in SSMC. I was supposed to start a new school semester and a new job in August but I could have skipped that. Ended up fucking both up anyway.
But I'm pretty sure that not all people feel this same kind of obligation to take care of family personally and directly. I think part of it has to do with how close we all are both emotionally and geographically and that we just aren't a big family. I'm an only child, thus I know I'll have to care for my parents, probably all three of them, and an only grandchild. For me, I think that part of it has to do with the fact that, as a female, it's been drilled into me by society that I should be the one to take care of family-related things. I vaguely remember an in-bed conversation with TyRoy about a co-worker who was having a difficult time deciding what to do about caring for her parents or in-laws when there were other siblings and family members, blah, blah, blah. I think HIS point was that there were so many more options than she was acting like there were, most especially putting the person or people in a care facility, and that she shouldn't be the only one making the decisions. Oh, and quit bitching so much. Sigh. I can understand his frustration and I don't necessarily disagree that she should have more family help and that there are options other than direct personal care. But I don't think that society puts the same pressure on him, as a man with a career that takes him all over the world whenever it wants, to take care of an ailing parent or grandparent in a direct personal way. He just doesn't see it as his JOB to be there, in person, to take care of his parents. And most (straight) (American) men do not.
On the other hand, when it started to feel like my grandmother might need someone living with her all the time when I was visiting for Christmas, I started to panic internally. On Christmas Eve, there were several times where she forgot things, messed things up, couldn't follow instructions, and things like that. I started to wonder to myself how we could trust that she was taking her medications on time and in the right amount and things like that. I tried to push it into the back of my head because things looked fine. She seemed to be taking care of herself and the house and the dog. Then she went into the hospital because she was having upper respiratory problems after a head cold the week before. While Mom seemed to dismiss the memory issues as just a lack of oxygen getting to the brain because of the respiratory problems, they seemed to continue while she was in the hospital. My uncle and his partner stayed because my uncle is currently on disability, unable to work with the cancer treatments, and his partner still had more vacation time. And while my uncle is planning on staying there a bit longer, when he and I discussed things, he made clear that he does not forsee himself being the one who stays in SBMC to care for grandma. He is of the opinion that no one should be forced to move, but that, since it is grandma who needs the help and grandma who complains about the house being too much for her, she should choose to move closer to all of us, as we'd be more than happy to help out in anyway we could. He doesn't think that I should feel like I have to go there just because I'm the only one who is in a position to. Physically, my uncle isn't in a position to do the things that my grandmother things he should be able to. But he stated, point blank, that he knew he couldn't mentally or emotionally and he was't going to try to make himself. After my experience in the summer of 2007, I know that I'd go fucking nuts if I had to live with my grandmother 24/7 and take care of her. I do love her, so much. And it might not be very grateful of me to say that I couldn't do it, because Goddess knows my family has put up with me being a major bitch for all my life, but I just know I can't. And I have lived in her house several times during my adult life, always as a stop-over before a dorm or my own place, without trouble. But at the time she had Grandpa to balance her out and I didn't have an obligation to care for her, just help to pull my own weight.
In the end, however, the problem is that, whether Grandma should move to be closer to us so we can care for her or not, I seriously doubt she ever will. Which means we'll have to collectively and individually decide at what point do we think she has to have someone there and, if professional in-home care can't be obtained, who will go and be with her. None of us want her to live alone if it is too much for her, for her living conditions to deteriorate. And none of us want her to have to go into "a home". If we had to make that decision right now, it'd be me doing it, if for no other reason than that no one else will. Honestly, I guess I still have just as little to lose by moving to SBMC as I did summer 07, except for the only thing I really passionately want is here and cannot move to SBMC. Oh, and those friends I had in SBMC? I alienated one. One thinks I'm too dangerous. And the other is in jail. So that's out too.
One of my short story teachers defined melodrama as arising from a situation where the character is in what appears to be a perfect trap, where the only ways out are suicide or homicide. I wouldn't go so far as to say that is how I feel here but I do feel a certain trap here. I don't have anything else important in my life, no good reason not to do this thing that I feel very very VERY obligated to do. But I know in my heart that doing it will probably make me completely miserable. It will also mean that I spend several years with my life on hold, working to prevent the only thing that will end my endentured servitude. When those years ended, I don't know how I could not be a bitter emotional wreck. And seeing as I'll probably have to work full-time and care for my grandmother, I'm not sure when I'd have time to make new friends, find new lovers, or even just have a little time to myself. *Sigh* Yeah, I feel trapped.
Well, sorry to bitch so much. But I needed to vent to someone who can't tell me that they don't understand or that I'm wrong while I was doing it. If you have a similar situation or concerns in your life or you want to talk about how you feel about your family aging and what you see your role to be, go ahead and comment. Thanks.
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