Perfume: the movie

I really didn't expect them to keep the orgy at the end.

Really, really didn't expect that.

But, there it was, in all its glory.

Actors were so-so, nobody was very well characterized, and I didn't much care when anyone died, but the images were pretty and it's an interesting sort of fable.

Still has the same problems as the book, which I know I blogged about at some point, but can't find in my archives. Suffice to say, the whole "random murder of random women" thing gets old. Why are all 13 scents the scents of women? Would it have had the same effect if he distilled men? Why not? And, you know, I get bored with movies where all the female characters are bought, sold, captured, killed, locked up, mutilated, and/or distilled.

It gets old.

Quote of the Day

"So I've never gotten the bad boy thing... I like good boys. Nice, earnest ones with a scary intellect and a heart of pure tempered carbon steel.. So why did it take me until I was 36 to realize that this is because I'm not a good girl?"

Suddenly, my dating history makes a lot more sense.

Hitman

You know, a lot of this guy's problems would be solved if he just wore a fucking hat.

Also, worlds that include women who are more than just whores are generally more interesting than the ones that don't.

I'm just saying.

Other Reasons to Love Gymming

Cause while you're doing your 40 minutes of cardio before you yourself descend into the weights area, you can do so on the second level of the gym, which overlooks the weight training area....

...and all the folks in the weight-training area.

Yum.

And, of course, there was also the Amazon chick, who was like Nyx on crack, dude. All I could think was, "Hot damn, I could so totally have muscles like that and then I could crush armies with my mighty fists!! Crush, I tell you!!!"

It was most excellent.

One For the Road

Nothing but Angst and Dirty Words Since 1996

Get a Cash Advance

If WWII was an MMORPG

I don't know why I find this so damn funny, but I do.

Maybe cause I'm a history major who spends way too much time with gamers.

Gymming

In an effort to combine all of my various interests into one easy payment, I went to the gym at the Greene today to check it out. On their little survey of things you'd like to accomplish with your gym membership, I noted that they did not include "health reasons." They did, of course, include, "weight loss" and "weight gain." I suppose "health reasons" should have been covered by "cardiovascular fitness."

Whatever.

When I sat down with my poor little just-out-of-college gym monkey sales guy who showed me around, he checked over my reasons for coming in and did a double-take. I watched him do it, skipping over "weight loss" and coming back to it, stuttering, going back to "building strength" and "cardiovascular fitness" which I had checked, talking about those, and then warily coming back to fat loss.

"Are you interested in reducing your fat percentage or losing weight?" he asked, tentatively.

"Not really," I said. "If I lose weight while increasing my fitness level, great, but if I don't, it's really no big deal."

"Oh," he said. Long pause. I realized he had no script for that, particularly when talking to a female client. How often does a woman come into a gym and say she *doesn't* want to lose weight?

And it was like: Honey, I lost way too much of my life to that dull pursuit. I learned the thin=fit=good lie first hand, when I lost weight and everyone thought I was somehow spiritually good and greater, when in fact, I was dying. I got to eat like a normal person for the first time in my life, eat and not worry a moment about my weight, and you know what? I could only do that cause I was dying.

Not interested in that anymore. It's lost a lot of its luster.

I want to be strong.

"Oh, OK," he said, and moved on. But did, in fact, bring it up again some time later as we were walking around touring the pool and the squash courts.

"We do have personal trainers. I know you say you aren't interested in losing weight, but if you're interested in a nutrition plan or anything like that, our personal trainers can really help with weight loss."

"Great, thanks for telling me," I said. I'm polite when I need to be. He seemed terribly nervous about the whole thing, though, so I projected strength and competence, and talked about Chicago, South Africa, the rec center in Alaska.

What I'm looking for is someplace to go when I'm bored and it's cold and dark outside. Our house is pretty small, and with two jerks, two dawgs, and the Boyfriend coming around all the time, well, it gets crowded in here. I've been extra bitchy toward my roommates and the Boyfriend, and I have a feeling it has a lot to do with the fact that now that it's cold and dark, and I don't get outside enough, I don't ride my bike around as much, and just generally... yeah. I need some room to kick around.

I was actually pretty happy with the look of the gym. It reminded me a lot of the rec center at U of Alaska, where I pretty much lived for much of my dorm life. Alaska's pretty damn boring unless you're willing to get outside, and when it's fucking cold, you don't want to go outside. The problem I've discovered with my kickboxing gym is that it's not on a bus line and I'm paying a lot for classes without a lot of variety. I need someplace I can live all winter.

This place has a pool, tons of equipment, an indoor track, spinning classes, kickboxing classes, strength training classes, and much more. It might be the best place for me to spend the winter.

I need to run out some of this excess energy, and I want to feel strong again. It's time.

To Do

Find out what the next book for the SF book club is. Check out both local area Writers' Groups (cause really, why not?). Check out the downtown boxing gym. Get certified on the local climbing wall.

etc. etc.

In short, be more social.

Also, write more.

You know... the usual.

Towards a Humanist Pornography

But what if there was another history of porn, one that was filled less with pneumatic shaven bodies pummelling each other into submission than with sweetness, silliness and bodies that didn't always function and purr like a well-oiled machine? The early origins of cinematic pornography tell a very different story about the representation of sex, one that suggests a way both out of the rubberised inhumanity of today's hardcore obsession but also out of the claim that pornography is inherently exploitative. What if porn stopped being such a brute and actually started to deal with the question of pleasure?

Lock & Load

In the spirit of more roller derby, less interpersonal squishiness, Travis and I went out shooting at his place yesterday. He lives out in the Ohio sticks, so when we got bored we holstered the glocks at our hips and went traipsing around the underbrush pulling useful things out of the creek and collecting interesting-looking rocks.

I've never walked around with a gun at my hip before, and I didn't like the idea of having it loaded, even if we were just wandering around some abandoned woods like a couple of Alaskan kids. So the magazine was half empty, and nothing was in the chamber.

Travis has a CCW license, and usually carries when it's legal (most public buildings, it isn't), but I've only been shooting a few times, and have no interest in carrying all the time (Ohio gun laws being what they are, you can carry a gun in full view without a permit. You need the permit for carrying it "concealed." They're weird laws).

See, if I'm going to get into a fight with somebody, I'm going to hit them in the face. Not enough people carry guns for me to feel in fear of my life when going around without one. I'm much more of an in-your-face type of fighter.

Still, shooting is a useful skill, and it does get me out into the woods, which, frankly, I really missed during my four years in Chicago. There's a lot I miss about Chicago, but I'm a country girl at heart. So it's been fun to hang out with a country boy.

When Travis clipped the holster into my pocket, it was an interesting experience, walking around with a gun at my hip. There is a certain rush of power, and I couldn't help but being reminded of the women in Bear's book, Carnival, all of them going around with their "honor" or their hip. It's a heady, powerful sort of feeling, one that comes with that cliched "great responsibility" thing. It got me to thinking about what it would be like to live in a world where everyone - men and women - was armed.

One of the things I've wanted to get used to and learn more about for the purposes of the GW books are guns and explosives. If you're going to write about a world that's been at war for three hundred years and has armed most of its population, it sure wouldn't hurt to get a taste of what it would feel like to go around armed.

When it got dark, Travis and I headed inside and I watched him go through the process of hooking up a new motherboard into a PC. After that he taught me how to take apart and clean a glock, which took a lot more time than you might think. Mainly because he's finicky about his hardware, and I was a noob who isn't so detailed with solvent and a toothbrush:



All this while we watched Black Hawk Down (which, as everyone's said, is indeed a fucking awesome movie) and talked about the evolution of PC processors.

It occurred to me then that it's not always a matter of spending lots of money to travel to far away places or take lots of equally expensive classes to learn stuff I don't know, it's a matter of surrounding myself with cool people who can teach me cool stuff. And being open and willing to learn.

It keeps my brain busy. And that keeps me happy.

We had a really good time.

Stuff I'd Like to Do in My Copious Spare Time

Definately.

Lars and the Real Girl

Went out tonight and saw Lars and the Real Girl at the indie theater downtown... It was well worth it.

The movie turned out to be much the way I expected it to be, which was a good thing. The beginning was a little rocky, and I worried over some of their pacing/narrative choices, but they smoothed it out and cleaned it up at the end and avoided some pitfalls and I think... I think it turned out Just Right.

For those who haven't seen the premise, a lonely recluse of a guy who has trouble dealing with his family and the people around him gets himself a Real Doll (not work safe!) for a girlfriend. The remarkable part of this story is that the small town he's in pulls together and supports his delusion. They treat "Bianca" like a real person, and by extension, they show their love and support for said recluse and his family, who are struggling through their own guilt over how to deal with some of his social awkwardness.

The movie was careful to make clear that there were deeper issues around his taking up a doll for a girlfriend besides him not being able to get a girlfriend. It was more along the lines of him dealing with a desperate need he had in a way that was emotionally and physically safe for him. This was why I was a little put-out by the ending, but not a lot. Worse would have been to do the birth/funeral simultaneously, and I think that would have ruined the point. The idea is to continue being afraid and to take the risk of real human companionship anyway.

Most of all, though, this was a movie about love, and that's what really got to me. The way everybody loved this guy, the way the town pulled together and showed their overwhelming acceptance of him for who he was. That kind of love and acceptance is something you don't see a lot.

Overall, a worthwhile little feel-good movie.

400 Love Letters

Click the colored squares to view.

Next Up

Black Desert. Mmmmm juicy.

It also occurs to me that it takes more than writing and sex to sustain me.

Thing is, I spent so long judging my self worth based on what I could do, physically, on the things I'd done, my academic accomplishments, that when I stop actively reaching toward those things, challenging myself, I lose that vital sense of self, of strength. I don't get my strength from other people, or how others see me. Quite the opposite, actually.

I have to go out and push. And with all the health issues, the spastic plane jumping and angst and trying to hold onto this great job and wow everybody professionally (and personally - relationships are stressful), I haven't been doing the things that make me me. I think that's what's starting to hit me now.

OK, that and my sugar has fucking sucked for three months.

Yeah, well, there's that too. And they all feed into each other. I have to figure out how to physically challenge myself the way I used to. It's been a fucked-up three months, though. I've spent a lot of time running, surviving, you know? It's like, if I just stayed busy enough, I didn't have to think about anything.

Now I'm thinking, and I realize there's stuff missing.

Math is hard, yo.

"Too much boyfriend(s). Not enough roller derby."

Yeah. Just like that.

It Occurs to Me...

...that when I start out the day with a sudden, unexpected low cause I hit a vien while shooting up in the morning, my whole day is pretty much a wash.

ug.

About 15 Minutes...

There's a new girl at work who was introduced to us here in the IT room. She's quite lovely, petite, and blond, and the lot of us engaged her in our usual sort of introductory banter. As the boys and I chatted with her, I found myself thinking about how much easier introductions must be for the traditionally beautiful.

One of the assistant managers from one of our corp stores, also slim, blond, magazine-beautiful walked in earlier, and one of the guys commented that he now understood why it was one of the hardware guys liked to go over to that store so often.

How different it must be, I thought, to not have to prove yourself all the time, to be accorded a certain amount of respect, regard, and attention for being lovely. When I walk into a room, I feel like I have to measure everything. I have to stand tall, walk confidently, look everyone in the eye, be witty, quick on the uptake, breathtaking, interesting. In short, I try very hard to garner respect for myself because I know it's not going to just be there. I know I have to work harder to get looked at, and harder still to have my voice heard and my opinion valued.

This is not just the realm of those who don't look like the lad's mag ideal, either, of course. These women may be getting immediate attention, but real respect? People assuming they're smart? Not so much. They have to prove it as much as I do.

Sometimes, though, I feel like I have to prove a lot more.

If I can't be thin, I can be strong. If I can't be blond, I can still have great hair. If I can't get respect by sheer virtue of my loveliness, I'll get it by virtue of my wit and strength, cause we're all going to get old someday. Not all of us are going to look like spring chickens forever.

I suppose this is the stuff that spills over when you live in a culture obsessed with youth, boobs, and beauty. That's all very well and good a pursuit when you're 14, but when you're 22 you realize that if you ever had it, it's gonna go, and if you never had it, you're not going to get it. So if you haven't been cultivating a personality before 22, you sure as hell better start.

I know that there are people - men and women alike - who get by on youth and beauty and charm. God knows I've been stunned and tongue-tied by beauty quite often, and I don't expect that to go away, but you can only get by on youth and beauty for about 15 minutes... after that, you better know something.

I always get angry at myself for resenting beautiful people - beautiful women, in particular - because it's incredibly unfeminist. It's the old divide-and-conquer thing, and on top of that, it's all fucking bullshit. T&A doesn't really mean anything, though we've attached a shitload of bizarre cultural significance to it.

Whenever I catch myself straying off into that "Gosh I wish I was magazine-beautiful so life wouldn't be so hard" fairyland, I remind myself that it sure as hell beats having nothing but looks to go on, cause at 40 or 50 or 80 (or, in this culture, to be dead honest, 35), we're all pretty much in the same boat. We're all fucked by the same cultural assumption that youth and beauty are a religion, and that only those who've got it get love, respect, attention, devotion, compassion... all those terribly human things that we crave.

There's enough love and compassion to go around. Love's not just for beautiful people.

But sometimes it's hard to remember that.

What I Had For Dinner Tonight

Fried zuchinni with cheese and a slice of pumpkin pie.



Mmmmmm pie.

And then I put together all my paperwork for my endo appointment tomorrow:



MMMMMmmmm diabetes.....

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