Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Baby Talk
NIGHT - Ext.
ME
I think I want to be a baby
YOU
That'd be alright
ME
I'd learn 15 languages but I wouldn't have to use them just because I knew them. I could just cry and gurgle and smile.
YOU
But no one understands that. Why do you think colic is such a headache and rage inducing mystery?
******************************************
What!? Another post? But Vnss, you have so many other things to do. This is true. I made a list of them this morning. But maybe I am not the multi-tasker I always thought I was. I want to think about this problem I have with not talking. Sometimes I don't want to talk, or I don't have anything to say, or I don't want to share what I have to say. I can understand how this can be difficult for people, and by people I mean the Russian. But for anyone. I think my sister finds it hard sometimes too. It must be, to know there is something and then to have it not communicated to you, as if I don't trust you enough, or it was mean, or that I am holding back, or I thought it was too stupid to mention. This must be difficult, namely because the other person doesn't know the reason I am not talking. It is usually as simple as there is nothing to say, or I don't think whatever it was that passed through my mind was worth it, but they don't know that.
In truth, sometimes that isn't true, sometimes I don't think it is worth the hassle of responding to something that I think is going to inspire a conflict that I don't think is worth having. Or if it is worth having, I am not ready to have it because I don't know how I feel about it or what I think of it. Simultaneously, I do feel something else. I don't want to defend how I respond to things. I don't have to talk about everything, or respond to everything just because people expect it or desire it, and I don't have to feel guilty about not meeting those expectations. I do, anyway, but...
When I was in Spain with my mother, I would often have this little dilemma in my head, about talking or not talking. And I realised over time, and this is what makes me think that I should communicate more, that people around me can sense that I am having this argument with myself, because the tension escapes me and affects them, through my body language, my facial expression and what I do say and how I say it. My mother is the same way, but with less control over her verbalizations. I didn't always want to have a hard conversation with her when we were walking but we would end up behaving as if we had had it anyway, except with no resolution. When you spend that much time with someone, in the end, talking always seems better. I guess it is the same with living with someone.
It's a question of judgment though, I think, and if I don't even have the to talk or not to talk argument in my head, I think I should be able to keep my mouth shut just because I want to.
Why do I occupy the fence all the time? How do I learn how to be bold and right or bold and wrong?
We made hamburgers, or the Russian made hamburgers last night, with Kettle Chips. Delicious. Though we had a lamb, pork, beef mix, and I think all beef would be best. Would have been better without fruit flies everywhere? Is it me that smells like overripe fruit or are there just way more fruit flies than usual? Gross me out. Such a busy weekend coming up. J sent me money for an Osheaga ticket to see Josh Ritter. Wow. Continually overwhelming. The Russian's friend is staying with us this weekend, as well, and it is Bby's birthday. We are having some peeps over on Saturday, as well, to housewarm.
Nice to be busy. But I should get to!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Deadgirl
I spent the day with J today, wandering around, very relaxed, ending up in the Old Port to have coffee with Bby and P. I drank a lot of different things today, finally found an excellent matcha smoothie which satisfied me. Met CM, the head of Forward House, this morning, and it was an excellent meeting. He has such an extraordinary capacity for speaking without expectation, for sharing I guess. I tried to talk about my recent desire to try and communicate on different terms with people, treating logic and reason, and emotion, as if they are equally valid and valuable. Not to say that I think people should run their lives ralphing their emotions onto others with no prep, but I do think it would create a kind of compassion and care for other people that is often lacking when you approach something from a rational and logical perspective only. I think it lends what could be an important and wrenching conversation a sense of detachment that is destructive or at least can obscure.
This didn't come out of nowhere, obviously. I was thinking of a conversation the Russian and I had about this movie we saw on Friday, Deadgirl. The plot is: two teenage boys, outcasts, who find a living, but unkillable nubile and naked girl chained to a table in an abandoned asylum. One wants to use her as a sex slave (and punching bag, as she can't be killed), and the other wants to free her, or save her, but is confused by the fact that this bad guy is his best friend. Goriness, rape, and violence ensue.
Granted, it is an awesome premise, and I liked the movie, I really did. But there was definitely something fundamentally disturbing about it. Beyond the rape, and the violence these boys inflict on this monster, who may or may not be a woman, or was once a woman, what really cut me was the way in which the movie completely silenced the female sex. The undead girl can't speak, she can only growl and hiss and fight back (not enough to free herself, but enough for the movie to have some intense and creative gore), and the only other female characters are a pretty, popular girl with no character except as a fantasy object for the good kid, and a woman the evil kid and another guy try to kidnap to create another deadgirl. The latter's brief appearance is actually awesome, but exists as a kind of aside to the narrative, or maybe, and this is what I hope, as a reminder that not all women are cum repositories or trophies, just in case anyone in the audience was getting the wrong idea.
This silencing made it much easier for me, as the audience, to accept the premise that the deadgirl was a thing, a monster, and not a girl, not a human. And this must have been even easier for male members of the audience. This, in turn, facilitated thinking about all the male oriented aspects of the film, and forgetting that they were all based on the subjugation of women. So I found myself talking about the teenage male social hierarchy and how the deadgirl becomes a means for the outcasts to improve their station, and how her body is a literal representation of teenage male desire/fantasy (or male desire more generally, regardless of age), male friendships, and the importance of power, dominance and ownership to all of these things.
I think the movie was pretty great in that I got a sense of all of those things. And yet, and yet, where are the women in all of this? Women are the people (and can I just emphasize that they are in fact, people, voiceless or not, vacuous or not) that those hierarchies are built on, they are the people being fought over and dominated and owned and fantasized about and desired. And that this does not define them, they are not defined against something else (a male something else). So when I was talking about this movie, I didn't want the Russian to relate to the deadgirl more than the teenage boys, I wanted him to relate to me. I wanted to be able to communicate the feeling of relating to the deadgirl, the fictional undead girl, instead of to the fictional teenage boys, and I wanted him to feel that. I didn't want to talk about it in way writing this demands me to, in a logical and rational way. I wanted to communicate that I didn't think it was right, that it didn't feel right, to talk about this movie the way we were talking about it. I told him that I wished I could slice open part of me and part of him, and press the raw parts together, and transfer the sick feeling the movie and the resulting conversation gave me. It was a feeling of voicelessness, not because I couldn't speak, but because the words were incapable of communicating what I wanted to say. I wanted to speak with something else.
The Russian said something really interesting, though maybe I am not remembering it correctly. It was about the impossibility of relating to another person or their experience or soemthing close to that. "Except, this movie did that." And it's true, it did, kind of, for both the teenage boys and for the feeling that I have had, sometimes acutely, and sometimes in a more foggy way, that as a woman, I am more accessible to men than men are to each other, as in, they think they have access to me that is their right, because they are male and I am female. Film is amazing that way. Or I guess, art is kind of amazing that way.
Anyway, it was a horror movie, and it scared me. Scared me good. I wonder what other women in the audience felt.
Ehm. Since the last post, I have traveled to Spain, met the Russian's family in Calgary, moved in with said Russian, been funemployed, gotten a job at Forward House, and graduated. Blanks to be filled in.
This didn't come out of nowhere, obviously. I was thinking of a conversation the Russian and I had about this movie we saw on Friday, Deadgirl. The plot is: two teenage boys, outcasts, who find a living, but unkillable nubile and naked girl chained to a table in an abandoned asylum. One wants to use her as a sex slave (and punching bag, as she can't be killed), and the other wants to free her, or save her, but is confused by the fact that this bad guy is his best friend. Goriness, rape, and violence ensue.
Granted, it is an awesome premise, and I liked the movie, I really did. But there was definitely something fundamentally disturbing about it. Beyond the rape, and the violence these boys inflict on this monster, who may or may not be a woman, or was once a woman, what really cut me was the way in which the movie completely silenced the female sex. The undead girl can't speak, she can only growl and hiss and fight back (not enough to free herself, but enough for the movie to have some intense and creative gore), and the only other female characters are a pretty, popular girl with no character except as a fantasy object for the good kid, and a woman the evil kid and another guy try to kidnap to create another deadgirl. The latter's brief appearance is actually awesome, but exists as a kind of aside to the narrative, or maybe, and this is what I hope, as a reminder that not all women are cum repositories or trophies, just in case anyone in the audience was getting the wrong idea.
This silencing made it much easier for me, as the audience, to accept the premise that the deadgirl was a thing, a monster, and not a girl, not a human. And this must have been even easier for male members of the audience. This, in turn, facilitated thinking about all the male oriented aspects of the film, and forgetting that they were all based on the subjugation of women. So I found myself talking about the teenage male social hierarchy and how the deadgirl becomes a means for the outcasts to improve their station, and how her body is a literal representation of teenage male desire/fantasy (or male desire more generally, regardless of age), male friendships, and the importance of power, dominance and ownership to all of these things.
I think the movie was pretty great in that I got a sense of all of those things. And yet, and yet, where are the women in all of this? Women are the people (and can I just emphasize that they are in fact, people, voiceless or not, vacuous or not) that those hierarchies are built on, they are the people being fought over and dominated and owned and fantasized about and desired. And that this does not define them, they are not defined against something else (a male something else). So when I was talking about this movie, I didn't want the Russian to relate to the deadgirl more than the teenage boys, I wanted him to relate to me. I wanted to be able to communicate the feeling of relating to the deadgirl, the fictional undead girl, instead of to the fictional teenage boys, and I wanted him to feel that. I didn't want to talk about it in way writing this demands me to, in a logical and rational way. I wanted to communicate that I didn't think it was right, that it didn't feel right, to talk about this movie the way we were talking about it. I told him that I wished I could slice open part of me and part of him, and press the raw parts together, and transfer the sick feeling the movie and the resulting conversation gave me. It was a feeling of voicelessness, not because I couldn't speak, but because the words were incapable of communicating what I wanted to say. I wanted to speak with something else.
The Russian said something really interesting, though maybe I am not remembering it correctly. It was about the impossibility of relating to another person or their experience or soemthing close to that. "Except, this movie did that." And it's true, it did, kind of, for both the teenage boys and for the feeling that I have had, sometimes acutely, and sometimes in a more foggy way, that as a woman, I am more accessible to men than men are to each other, as in, they think they have access to me that is their right, because they are male and I am female. Film is amazing that way. Or I guess, art is kind of amazing that way.
Anyway, it was a horror movie, and it scared me. Scared me good. I wonder what other women in the audience felt.
Ehm. Since the last post, I have traveled to Spain, met the Russian's family in Calgary, moved in with said Russian, been funemployed, gotten a job at Forward House, and graduated. Blanks to be filled in.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Countdown
But what about the normals? What about all the people that are just okay and not exceptional. What do they do?
ME
Don't know.
YOU
I guess being exceptional doesn't mean driven. Okay-ness could be coupled with ambition, and you could have exceptional people living in a 2 1/2 with only a blood stained mattress and a three legged chair to call their own, working for Mr. B-.
ME
You shouldn't focus on material possessions. They don't make you happy.
****************************************
Signed a lease with The Russian. It's official, we are moving in together. I know he doesn't have a good track record with the living together, and that I will be broke and jobless when I get back from Spain, and that we will have to live together for a month in his miniature den of filth (I exaggerate, a little), but it still seems like a good idea. And that is a comforting thought. Just have to make it through the five week separation without him, I don't know, not even sure what it is that I am afraid of him doing. But whatever it is, I hope he doesn't do it, because it will be a thing, a hurtful thing that will require reparation.
In other news, going to be a certified archivist in about two weeks, that's pretty exciting. But I am not so excited about it. I don't really feel capable of taking on a professional position. Iapply for them nonetheless, but so far Emory has sent me a polite letter telling me thanks, but no thanks, and I haven't heard from Washington, so I take they are giving their $6000 stipend to someone that is not me. But I will remain hopeful until Monday.
Something that is getting my juices flowing is thinking about opening up my own business. Not in the archiving business, but film distribution. Bby and I talked about it yesterday and it seems like an extraordinary amount of work, but interesting and worth it and something I could feel passionate about. I am going to research it more thoroughly to see if there is space for that kind of business in Montreal. I think the answer is yes, because I am always finding movies that I wish would be here and which never are. And if I like them, there must be other people who would like them too.
Anyway, it is an interesting time right now. Have to move, have to buy a bunch of stuff for Spain, have to finish all my school shit, and really all I want to do is read about film distribution, hang out with my peeps, spend days in bed with The Russian, and celebrate the little dude's birthday on Sunday with my family (The Russian is coming! Meeting the folks! Gah!).
I feel pretty relaxed, although I guess the fact that my eye has been jumping for about a week and I am not sleeping all that well probably means I am just not processing my stress all that well, but...
At least I don't have to think about Electronic Records Systems after next week. That'll be sweet.
I don't really have a good photo to post, but this is something that Bby forwarded to me the other day which tugged at my heart a little: http://www.billythekiddocumentary.com/
In other news, going to be a certified archivist in about two weeks, that's pretty exciting. But I am not so excited about it. I don't really feel capable of taking on a professional position. Iapply for them nonetheless, but so far Emory has sent me a polite letter telling me thanks, but no thanks, and I haven't heard from Washington, so I take they are giving their $6000 stipend to someone that is not me. But I will remain hopeful until Monday.
Something that is getting my juices flowing is thinking about opening up my own business. Not in the archiving business, but film distribution. Bby and I talked about it yesterday and it seems like an extraordinary amount of work, but interesting and worth it and something I could feel passionate about. I am going to research it more thoroughly to see if there is space for that kind of business in Montreal. I think the answer is yes, because I am always finding movies that I wish would be here and which never are. And if I like them, there must be other people who would like them too.
Anyway, it is an interesting time right now. Have to move, have to buy a bunch of stuff for Spain, have to finish all my school shit, and really all I want to do is read about film distribution, hang out with my peeps, spend days in bed with The Russian, and celebrate the little dude's birthday on Sunday with my family (The Russian is coming! Meeting the folks! Gah!).
I feel pretty relaxed, although I guess the fact that my eye has been jumping for about a week and I am not sleeping all that well probably means I am just not processing my stress all that well, but...
At least I don't have to think about Electronic Records Systems after next week. That'll be sweet.
I don't really have a good photo to post, but this is something that Bby forwarded to me the other day which tugged at my heart a little: http://www.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Wisdom in a Baggie
DAY- Int.
DENTIST
Oh good, you aren't wearing any nail polish. It interferes.
ME
I feel a little...
(2 hrs later)
DENTIST
You can let her eat anything soft: pudding, yogurt, smoothies, pasta
ME
Emgh...KD!
********************************
Oh good, you aren't wearing any nail polish. It interferes.
ME
I feel a little...
(2 hrs later)
DENTIST
You can let her eat anything soft: pudding, yogurt, smoothies, pasta
ME
Emgh...KD!
********************************
I got my three wisdom teeth removed on Friday. I remember very little because of the drugs. I think I may have exaggerated my metabolism or something, because I am pretty sure the surgeon (pointed canines, looks you in the eyes, doesn't know how to not sexualize conversation) overdosed me on sedatives. I was supposed to silly but aware; I was, in fact, basically unconscious. I ralphed chocolate soy milk on the way home (my sister was the best...she picked me up and got me some mac n' cheese, and put me to bed and let me sleep over) somehow mostly into a bag, though also on my jeans and a bit on the car seat. It is very strange to think I could lose actual hours. As if they never existed.
The Russian probably has some lost hours as well. He is in New Orleans, helping his old friend to escape Grey's Anatomy nights with his girlfriend and her friends. I think that essentially means a lot of drinking, some drugs and possibly strippers. I hope he didn't cheat on me. I won't be happy and I don't want to ask the question. I don't want to expect that to be the case. I can't imagine being apart for 5 weeks while I am in Spain, with little communication. It is going to be difficult.
I will be finished classes in about a month. It seems like I have a lot do, still. But it will get done. I am feeling kind of calm, even with all the work I have piling up. It will get done. I have learned how to ask for help, from the Russian, from Bby. I never used to. I don't really know how to ask for things.
In other news, I got into a tiff with my landlord, but I posted my apartment for May on craigslist and I already have about ten people interested, so I am not too worried about having to keep this place for May. Screw that guy. It is going to be a different story when I get back from Spain - I wonder if the Russian and I will have found a place and what it will be like. I wanted him close to me so much last night, it was overwhelming. I think about decorating and cooking and choosing between my stuff and his stuff. Salt and pepper shakers in duplicate.
This is the opening paragraph to a story I wrote a week or so ago:
The little boy squats on his haunches, watching the blood squeeze out of the scrape on his knee. He is bird-boned and porridge coloured, even now, during the height of summer. His hair flops in front of his glasses, soft and dirty. He puts a finger to a bead of blood and rolls it like a snot between his fingers until it thins and smears. He likes that it is quickly replaced with a new bead that thickens and darkens, and then he can do it again. He shifts forward into the sand, and squats again, examining the bloody crystals in the depression in his sandbox, and then the sand that his knee has collected. He carefully brushes a sample of the bloody sand into the cargo pocket of his shorts and then flops onto his back, eyes to the sunburned coloured sky. When the Power Rangers watch hanging off his wrist beeps he springs up, runs through the dry yellow grass, to the back veranda, and slips through the screen door and onto his seat before his mother has a chance to call him.
The Russian probably has some lost hours as well. He is in New Orleans, helping his old friend to escape Grey's Anatomy nights with his girlfriend and her friends. I think that essentially means a lot of drinking, some drugs and possibly strippers. I hope he didn't cheat on me. I won't be happy and I don't want to ask the question. I don't want to expect that to be the case. I can't imagine being apart for 5 weeks while I am in Spain, with little communication. It is going to be difficult.
I will be finished classes in about a month. It seems like I have a lot do, still. But it will get done. I am feeling kind of calm, even with all the work I have piling up. It will get done. I have learned how to ask for help, from the Russian, from Bby. I never used to. I don't really know how to ask for things.
In other news, I got into a tiff with my landlord, but I posted my apartment for May on craigslist and I already have about ten people interested, so I am not too worried about having to keep this place for May. Screw that guy. It is going to be a different story when I get back from Spain - I wonder if the Russian and I will have found a place and what it will be like. I wanted him close to me so much last night, it was overwhelming. I think about decorating and cooking and choosing between my stuff and his stuff. Salt and pepper shakers in duplicate.
This is the opening paragraph to a story I wrote a week or so ago:
The little boy squats on his haunches, watching the blood squeeze out of the scrape on his knee. He is bird-boned and porridge coloured, even now, during the height of summer. His hair flops in front of his glasses, soft and dirty. He puts a finger to a bead of blood and rolls it like a snot between his fingers until it thins and smears. He likes that it is quickly replaced with a new bead that thickens and darkens, and then he can do it again. He shifts forward into the sand, and squats again, examining the bloody crystals in the depression in his sandbox, and then the sand that his knee has collected. He carefully brushes a sample of the bloody sand into the cargo pocket of his shorts and then flops onto his back, eyes to the sunburned coloured sky. When the Power Rangers watch hanging off his wrist beeps he springs up, runs through the dry yellow grass, to the back veranda, and slips through the screen door and onto his seat before his mother has a chance to call him.
The Russian said it was reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor, which might be true. I have been reading her letters a lot recently. She is a champion letter writer. Living in Milledgeville with her mom because of her lupous forced her to be a good correspondent, but I think it was probably a medium that suited her better than human contact. She was closer to her God than anyone else, I think. She is a warm and caring friend, but she also struggled to communicate her views on the world, especially the borders of the world, that get softened by faith and the unknowable.
I leave you with this:
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Plus Equals Minus
DAY- Int.
MOTHER
He's a hell of a kid
FATHER
It's true
MOTHER
I don't think he really needs a babysitter
FATHER
You're right. Let's just go. He probably won't wake up
***************************************
My guest lecturer has just blamed the recession on the immense surplus of information available to industries, the problems in processing this information and the resulting inability to make decisions. The recession, essentially, is the result of the paralysis of business and industry by too much information. Weird. But it makes intuitive sense, in way. On a tiny, personal scale, I am often paralysed when I can't block out incoming crap and focus on what I need to focus on. And in some ways, ionformation is deceptively comforting. Like, I feel on top of things when I have researched a bunch of articles for a paper and printed them out, and prioritized them with coloured paper clips. I haven't read the articles, and I haven't produced a paper, but just having the pile of paper in my hand...Or collecting links to job opportunities - I haven't applied to all of them, but I know they are out there because I have subscribed to the right listservs, etc, etc. As if a plan means something without the execution.
I feel like I am holding things together, but barely. I have applied for some jobs, namely this internship in Washington that I really want, I am handing in my assignments, I am keeping up, but I feel so many things piling up, a little out of control. My finding aid for the Quebec Gay Archives should really be finished up in the next two weeks, and I have to work on the online part of it. Essays, case studies, crap crap crap. And apply apply apply! There is a project archivist job available at Emory, near Miss J! which I applied for. I am not quite qualified, but it would be an incredible opportunity. Of course, convincing the Russian to move to Atlanta for 3 years would be tough beans. I mentioned it half seriously, and he replied quite seriously, 'I could do it for a year.' So, you know, whatever that means (duh, it means he could do it for a year, Sparks).
We are very happy at the moment. I feel...comfortable and challenged. It is a nice feeling. I like his creative influence on me. I have been writing for the first time in years, and there is some decent stuff coming out of me, I think.
And we had a really good time in Chicago. I like his friends a lot, although Nat was a bit reserved, but in a very sweet, kind way. Except when we went to a trivia night. The animal came out that night, but with reason: he is awesome at trivia. We also has a lot of fun playing balderdash. I bonded with his girlfriend Emmy, as we chose each other's answers and Nat and I both came up with a movie plot line involving an elephant named Twinky. The sleeping arrangements turned out to be totally fine (the Russian and I need an L shaped bed), and Chicago is just a really interesting city. Wide streets and the lake is just remarkable. It really changes the feel and the movement of the city. everything slows and grows as it gets closer to the water, although apparently the only reason there is no serious building on the banks of the lake is because they bulldozed the ruins of the city after the Great Fire towards the lake and couldn't build skyscrapers on a land fill. Dinner with the Jews for Jesus family was totally pleasant and pretty tasty as well, though it was pretty much exclusively Russian. I was too full to talk anyway.
This is the Cloud Gate, which I was like, whatev, what a stupid sculpture, but when you see it, it is really sort of fun and amazing:
Taxidermia: freaked me right out. It's a Hungarian movie about three generations of men each with a special sumpin sumpin. The grandpa has a penchant for inserting his penis into strange places, and sometimes ejaculates fire. After a psychadelic mating a baby with a pig tail is produced who grows up to become an almost champion speed eater, who in turn begets (thanks Pierre) a scrawny, sickly taxidermist. The final stuffing is one of the most insane things I have ever seen on film. It is remarkably well shot, and somehow manages to crawl in your brain and lay something a little fetid, but also unique.
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