today is my first day off in six days. tomorrow i've got a job for davis studio's at hallen elementary in bridgeport. i plan to bring disinfectant, along with a book to read. the only reason i took the job was because its not the same kind of work as target, there'll probably be a lot of downtime. in target news, i'm generally working around 35 hours a week now on average. i'm considering changing my availability to only mornings except for a few days so that i could have, you know, a life. my crush has also done a bunk on me and left. i'm quietly devastated, more than i'd like to admit actually. i was planning on writing the whole thing out, but halfway through realized that it really did make a good story even when nothing happened, so that's what i'm going to do. i want to fictionalize it, so that i can exaggerate some things, take a different approach than typical nonfiction, but i feel extremely self-conscious about it. i feel a bit like i'm taking something that doesn't belong to me. there's also that with target being my world right now, i have developed this paranoia that all who work there see and judge everything i do. even the stuff that only my computer could possibly see. i've been thinking about changing my hair, coloring it or cutting it, and i found myself not wanting to because the only people who would see it would be my family and every one at target. i could do it for myself, but i don't need anymore than a studded belt and make-up to keep me happy. i really desperately need a life.

i was reading over some of my old stuff from nonfiction class. it came about because i watched the original halloween recently, so i wanted to compare my reaction to what i wrote about the new version. i really don't like my writing from back then much, which is a little disturbing because i can't imagine that i have written enough in the time since then to have improved that much. and everyone seemed to like that stuff at the time, even i did. the nonfiction style strikes as me too snarky, too satirical to suit me, which is probably why i want to turn this recent experience into a work of fiction. this girl made me want to start writing again. if she had stuck around a little longer, she might've even gotten some poetry out of me. so now i'm just going to steal the idea of her and make her into a character. it feels wrong, almost disrespectful, but if i do it right i think i could make something great. i just have to shoo away those imaginary eyes that keep hovering over my shoulder and i can start.

for all those not paying attention, the video for "bad romance" is out. i feel like its a bit rougher around the edges than the other videos, there are so many different seemingly unrelated scenes and visuals, but i like the story from what i can discern. gaga is a newborn monster (her in the tub, nearly naked with big doe eyes and twitchy uncoordinated fingers) who is kidnapped and dolled up for a cynical and perverted viewing audience. she's sold to the highest bidder, but not realizing the monster she is, she fucking blows his mind. we of course see the clues throughout the video - we see her as the greedy narcissist, in black before a mirror; we see her naked, pure human side as well as several different forms of her monstrous alien side. and it all adds up to her bursting into flames and leaving a crispy black bed and skeleton behind, which made me laugh. i want to always think of myself that way, as a newborn monster, a sum of many parts but ultimately whole and unbreakable. as for the song, i love it, but i'm not as addicted to it as i thought i would be. i'm kind of preferring the italo, ace of base reminiscent "alejandro." i'm excited for the new album, it'll be another record that i'm actually willing to shell out money for. though its probably going to get pre-ordered from amazon, because i'm not so nostalgic that i want to wander over to fye to get it.

in the past week or so my k-pop obsession reached new heights, halloween came and went with a little less attention than the changing of the clocks, grandma's surprise party went off extraordinarily well, and my aunt and uncle from california were here for six days and were wonderful company and made us wonderful food. on the down side, the computer's back in the shop, mom lost her engagement ring, and vidal may or may not have swine flu. woot.

being back in grandma's church was bizarre. there were faces and rooms and walls i remembered distinctly, but everything was so much smaller than i remembered. the night before mom was kind of freaking out because things were very much not going according to plan, but when we got there in the morning we were able to set up with plenty of time and surprise grandma by showing up for the sermon. it was a pretty awesome place, not gonna lie, a much better experience than being in a catholic church for emily's wedding. the walls were a barren white, and aside from the stained glass windows there was one work of art and that was the painting of christ on the cieling, which i remember being slightly disturbed by as a kid, i think mostly because the wonky proportions the curved ceiling gave to jesus' head. the sermon itself was enthusiastic and passionate, there were tambourines being shook and the pastor's wife danced down the aisle with a red sash. and i wasn't completely out of the loop because they had earpieces for an english translation, which wasn't very good honestly but at least i knew what was going on. the chunk of the talk was about eagles, and how people often remain in their nest all their lives without allowing god to teach them how to fly. i always find it interesting when people relate faith to freedom, and non-belief to close-mindedness. it reminds me a bit of john donne, but with less awareness obviously. but anyway, afterward, everyone headed downstairs for the party. there were three delicious cakes from costco (seriously amazing cake), and not enough mini sandwiches for everybody but it worked. i got to see lourdes, marsial and david for the first in fucking ever. lourdes looked exactly the same, maybe she sleeps in formaldehyde i don't know, and marsial and david were totally recognizable despite being much taller and differently shaped than when we last saw them, especially david.

there were plenty of people who said they knew me when i was little but i didn't remember. plenty of people that commented on my resemblance to grandma, based on the old pictures of her we put up on bulletin board there. i don't see it exactly, though i recognize that thing about my smile that i dislike. i also got comments about how i look younger than i am, which i've been hearing for a little while and it still weirds me out. i know that with people like myself who got mistaken for older when they were young get it turned around later in life, but i didn't think it would happen so soon. one woman said i looked fifteen, how is that possible? when i actually was fifteen people said i looked 21. i hear it a lot at work, but i don't mind if people think i'm 19 there, that way people will wonder less.

i weighed in at 126.4 yesterday. again, i'm not sure how, though it'd be nice to think that its my trips on the elliptical at planet fitness. i like going there, i get cravings to go, and it annoys me that my work schedule keeps me from going. i'm working around 37 hours a week now, and while i have the mornings to myself i would be too burnt out after exercising to spend the next eight hours hours on my feet. but i'm going to try keep up with the ab exercises i learned - from the personal trainer who graduated from shelton high three years after i did - and get back into the habit of exercising while i watch the view in the mornings, if i can stomach elizabeth for more than ten minutes.

a little while ago, i heard one of my coworkers talking about her crush on another coworker, her anxiety about not being his type and whether he could possibly have feelings for her. i listened to her and thought to myself "god, i so do not miss that." crushes usually involve maybe a week or two of giddiness at finding someone you're interested in, and the rest is just endless pining and angst. i found myself looking back on some of the crushes i had in college and high school today - so much wasted energy, i don't know how my brain didn't explode. not that i'm incapable of it now, in fact i do have a sort of semi-crush on a coworker. wouldn't even call it a crush really, just a vague smirking intrigue that amuses me more than anything. it'd be kind of funny if anything happened there. a good story at least. but i have no interest in wistfully following someone with my eyes or painting pictures of picket fences in my head. i'm having a good time the way things are.

my birthday was last week and with it came october and some cool weather. we ate out at bertucci's and my cake was shaped shaped like a reese's peanut butter cup.

it was very sweet, but i think i prefer the more traditional kind of ice cream cake. but no matter, plenty of birthdays coming up. grandma paquita's 90th is nov 2, and mom, her brother and grandma's friend aida have been trying to put together a party that won't frighten her. so far they're not succeeding, because the guest count at the moment is rather overwhelming. grandma doesn't fair well with surprises, but we can't tell her about the party or she'll just make up some excuse to not go at the last minute. should be an interesting day in any case.

mom and dad bought me a membership to planet fitness as my birthday present. i've been so focused on my strong desire to burn calories and make some muscle, that i temporarily forgot about my anxiety about gyms and exercise equipment. and now its giving me a headache. i went there today to scope the place out and the woman giving me the tour wasn't really that informative. at least the guy who showed me around at the edge was good looking. i guess i'll get over it somehow because i badly want to get into shape.

i watched wild at heart last night. way better than i expected it to be, and fairly straight forward for a lynch film. nonetheless, i've requested my old textbook from my comparative directors class from the library (i'm still mad at myself for selling that book back) so i can get a more solid idea of what the hell was going on. but just watching the movie and commentary reminded me of the principles david lynch runs on, and its funny that its so similar to a conversation i've been having on okcupid. the whole concept of letting go of the ego, of our structures. the conversation started with island, and now she's told me that there are people who use the whole mutual adoption club concept. it kind of blew my mind that there are communities here that act on those principles, i thought it would always just be a dream i would have.

i've been doing some existential remodeling. and by that i mean, remodeling in small materialistic ways that have a positive existential effect on me. kind of like putting on more make-up when you're in a bad mood so you feel a little prettier and thus better. i put the new comforter on the bed - its purple and green and has lots of velor, which i've realized isn't that comfortable on bare skin directly after a shower, but is still nice to pet every once in a while. i'm thinking of joining the edge up the street in shelton square. i want megan fox's waistline, or at least to get my buns and thighs to stop jiggling. i'm curious if its possible for me to ever be happy in a pair of skinny jeans, or if it won't matter what size i get down to, they just aren't shaped for legs like mine. i've also been researching tattoo parlors. i like excalibur downtown, and i was tempted to check it out in person when i was out dropping off a library book earlier but i couldn't work up the nerve. maybe tomorrow. i think next on the list is a new journal layout, something that reflects the new season. its good to be in new england in the fall, everything's so pretty. at target i get the merchandise effect - orange and black striped knee socks, shelves of halloween candy and decorations. can't complain about not feeling the vibe now, even if it is slightly off-set by the christmas lights on the back shelf. there is of course an aspect to the fall that comes strictly from academia and youth. eight days from now i'll be 23. did i mention i bought a pair of thigh high socks? i need more of them, and some skirts for them to go with.

we've figured out what may be the source of our internet problems, why the tv and internet connect would crap out all of sudden and most of the time in the evening. its the lights. when we turn on the living room light, the tv freezes, turn it off, it comes back. turn it on as well as the family room light, or the front porch light, and the tv remains fine. our energy saving bulbs may be saving us a bit on our electrical bill, but apparently they're creating power surges that cause the cable tower to fail (the guy from at&t who came last night confirmed it). go figure. so much for us being carbon efficient.

i don't read much these days. lolita took me forever to get through. its a great book for its main character and its pitch perfect portrayal of how powerful lust and emotion is, not to mention how wonderful his use of words is. as chris corner said earlier today in his most recent blog post, "science and emotion are gods. that is all." but it is kind of boring book at parts. i was going to watch the movie again after i finished it, but i haven't been so inclined. i was going to watch towelhead yesterday - which is of the same vein, in case you were wondering why that came up - but that's when we figured out the lights/internet/tv thing, so i decided to watch the premieres of bones and house that i had recorded instead. i have been writing a lot though, i use my breaks at work to write in a old notebook that i hadn't used in a while. i had a couple pages of the novel idea i had, and then i switched to a short story idea that i don't know how i'm going to manage to finish. i find when i write i kind of fall in love with my own handwriting, and try to make it as neat looking as possible. of course, once i get more excited about the actual subject matter, the script turns to shit i feel almost disgusted by it. i wish i had a little portable word processor, a computer that allowed me to do nothing but write. i think there'd be a decent market for that in college students, don't you?

i need some perspective, i think working in retail is making me myopic. 8.25 an hour is not worth this kind of angst. i feel bipolar, one second i'm blissful because i've managed a shift where no one has rubbed me the wrong way, but as soon as something does not go according to plan, i want to hide in a hole for the next ten years. my brain keeps making me mumble to myself almost incoherently, trying to find the right keyword to make it all better. for what its worth, last week was indeed very good, and that had less to do with work and more to do with what i did with my time off. went window shopping on tuesday, met up with a guy on wednesday, friday i dressed st joseph's senior girls in their drapes for their school portraits for $9 an hour and then that evening went to see 9 with d. by friday night i was floating, and then two days later i'm in the dumps again. it isn't right, its stupid of me to let trivial shit get to me, but its hard when you've got nothing else. you do feel closed off when you're working in a place like target, maybe its the monochromatic color scheme, but you lose focus of the outside world. you don't have to be your job, but i don't feel like much of anything otherwise, so what else can i do.

lets stop brooding and talk about entertaining things. the season finale of true blood was last night, but so was the women's us open final and the vmas. i recorded the vmas, watched the match and hoped that i could get a decent download of true blood by tomorrow morning. the last one worked according to plan, it was downloading when i went to bed and i watched it first thing. as for the women's match, i got to see the first set and then our tv crapped out yet again, despite having at&t come several times in the past couple days to fix our problems. so i didn't get to see clijsters win, just a few glitchy images of her celebrating. and as for the vmas, my recording probably got messed up by the tv cutting out, i haven't checked yet. all i'm hoping is that i got lady gaga's performance. oh hell, i'll probably end up watching it off youtube in a minute anyway.

but anyway, true blood. the season was kind of lame and i've realized that now that with bill's marriage proposal their is a very solid divorce from the canon of the book and the canon of the show, i really am not that attached to the characters in the show at all. every fangirl and her brother has been obsessed with eric/askars, but while i like looking at him and the character's kind of interesting, i am really not that attached. i wasn't even that crazy about him in the books, i only found him interesting in the context of his relationship with sookie. its kind of weird to be surrounded by all the crazy hype of fandom and suddenly realize that you're not nearly as rabid. and to another form of media, 9 was very good. a little cheesy, i guess that's a requirement of animated films even when they are very obviously marketed towards adults. but it had a lot of cool ideas and images, i have a feeling the creators had aspirations to go much bigger and deeper, but weren't able to either because of budget constraints or pressure from the studio to keep it mainstream. good flick though, maybe i'll be able to keep this friday night movie thing going with jennifer's body coming out this weekend.

i don't want to set myself any more goals. i'm tired of failing. dad keeps saying its important, but so far it hasn't worked. i just want to do things, be mindful and in the moment. i should start exercising in the mornings, but not because i want to get in shape but just because i want to run. i should finish these stories that i've been writing, not because i want to be a world famous writer but because i want to write and feel the natural flow of words. negative capability, the only clever thing keats came up with. wednesday afternoon i had a moment where i think i was the closest to being in the moment as i've ever been, and i want to try it again, but go further. stop thinking so much and just be.

the coolest/strangest thing happened in a dream i had. it was this morning, just before i woke up, and the sound of the cicadas outside started infiltrating my half-asleep brain. the story was something dark, having to do with gangsters or something, partly inspired by lolita probably another part by the vampire royalty of the sookie stackhouse books. in it a man, just as he seems to be about to shoot a woman in the head for attempting to defile his favorite girl, starts making a sound. it was something like "idkee idkee idkee," i don't remember that well i was half-asleep after all, but he says it faster and faster until it blends together into the sound of the cicadas. at which point i realized i was awake. so for a while i laid there, listening to the sound, trying to break it down the same way my subconscious did into a simple onomatopoeia and i kind of heard it and i kind of didn't. it amazes me that my dream state could do something so easily, that normally no one would ever notice.

when i took the job at target, i was happy that i would no longer have to waste my job hunting time on low level hourly jobs. i could work to work while i hunted for something i really wanted. now i'm thinking that that may not be the case. i'm not going to be looking for something at stop & shop, mind you. but all those administrative jobs, that i thought would be good to hold me over but wasn't really interested in committing to, those are back on the table. the target job is just as i said before - work to work, its easier to get a job when you have a job. its almost not even worth the money, except for short term goals like the external hard drive i just bought myself. but an apartment? a car? grad school? not likely. i need to get out of there as soon as i'm able, but no sooner. i've gotten a taste of what its like to actually do something with your time, and another couple of months of unemployment would drive me crazy at this point. i was actually formally reprimanded for spacing out on the job, a weak moment i admit, but target's tendency to exaggerate irritates me. a lot of things about this job irritate me. i spent months shoving down the clawing despair that came with joblessness, smiling and dancing through it all, and who would've thought that the thing that would give that little monster an edge would actually be a job.

i've been quite the perv lately, and unfortunately for the guys i talk to online, its not directed towards the opposite sex. the influence comes a lot from lolita, which i'm reading/rereading now, but really its just the coincidence of that book and that its the end of the summer. target is filled with pubescent girls, still wearing their summer clothes, gossiping, shopping and preparing for school. one was called adrianne, and had jet black hair, olive skin that looked like it hadn't seen the sun at all in the past four months, and a skinny skinny overbearing mother. adrianne was a little rounder, much shorter and just as surly. she wore a white long tank top that covered her short shorts, making it look like she had walked out of the house in a undershirt, which i'm sure was the intention. dangerous things, these girls, swaying their butts in front of men who are waiting outside the fitting room for the wives to finish changing, and never paying me any mind. next week i have a one day temp job for thursday, assisting the school photographer at st. joseph's high. is it weird that i thought it would be fun? i want to be around young people right now. i used to watch school buses go by and feel like they were just these doomed yellow torpedoes. that's still there, but a corrupted youth has its own kind allure, one that's more palatable in girls. boys are more pure, they are what they are for the most part, but girls are always trying to put something on, be someone else. the space between the little girl and the disguise she comes up with is the interesting part.

monitoring who watches your journal, hm? don't tempt the inner stalker in me, livejournal. you know who will win.

it is warm and sticky and the last of my three days off in a row this week. target called yesterday, asked if i could fill in for people that evening. i said no, that i had plans, and those plans were eating a nice salmon dinner with mom and dad (didn't say that part, obviously). but i grew bored by the end of the night and regretted it, probably should've told them i'd be there in an hour so i'd have time to eat and then go. ah well, next time. mom says i need some financial goals, which is true. i don't go out enough to really need/want a car. i of course want to move out but that's not as finite of a goal, as in save this much and you can get an apartment. rent is a consistent payment, i would need a much better salary. but mom says i could work on the car thing now, so that when i do end up moving out/getting a better job, i won't be paying for all those things at once. plus i should start building up my credit. ah being an adult. how glamorous.

i have nothing to read. i was hoping to read lolita next but its checked out from the library. i should just suck it up and request something. i've been watching lots of tv though. off my computer that is. christina brought me doctor who when she came up, and i've already made it to the third season. i always started watching the the riches via hulu though i'm having the same problem with it that i did originally - far too much second-hand embarrassment. i love it for the characters, but i don't know if i can handle two seasons worth of it. i'm basically watching it for noel fisher anyway, who is wonderful and almost entirely makes up for all the moments i have to cringe away from the screen. i also made a point to go down his history on imdb and watch all of those episodes he's been in of law and order, standoff and so on. well, not all of them, i heard his character on svu was lame so i only watched the end of his story arch, and it was indeed very lame. and that was all after i had seen a movie he did red, as well as his episodes of life, the mentalist, and bones. its kind of frustrating being randomly obsessed with a rather small time actor. but i said it in ontd_trublud and i'll say it again here, please someone send his resume to alan ball, please. he got deborah ann woll her break (and she was on the mentalist and life too), noel's has been a long time coming.

i did have something substantial to say, just so you know. i come up with these random tidbits here and there. maybe twitter isn't such a bad idea. i could get all my little moments of glory out right away, instead of trying to save them for an lj post, and by the time i get around i've forgotten them. but there was one thing i do remember - that when i was folding tables in the infants section in target last week, and found cans of peanut butter cookies amongst the onesies, i remembered suddenly how i used to hide things between the clothes at department stories as a little kid. i don't remember what, pieces of candy maybe or toys that i picked up at other places in the store. my little surprise presents. but instead of silently commiserating with the store employees who had to clean up after me, i was pleased to realize that my child self undoubtedly accomplished her goal. and it is for this reason that i am probably not good for retail, or any corporate environment, because there will always be that little kid in me that wants to undermine it, that wants to surprise everybody. maybe that's the part of me that wants to go into work with dramatic make-up, that can't help grinning when mom expresses her confusion as to why anyone would want a tattoo. ah. that's a good financial goal. not that a single paycheck couldn't take care of that, but once at least i've saved enough to feel comfortable forking over a couple hundred dollars for some ink. my birthday perhaps. a present for myself.

after my first two weeks at target, a whopping total of 28 hours of work, i found myself experiencing an existential panic that crept forward every time i passed baker's on the way to food court. all those pretty platform shoes and their extravagant straps and buckles taunted me as i went to buy myself lunch, saying "this will never be you." not that one can define themselves by the shoes they wear, but they can by the jobs they have, which is a sad thing about our culture, but who else are you but what you do for a living when its monday through friday, 9 to 5. so i decided to rectify the problem by painting my nails for the first time in years, a meager attempt but it helped a little. i've been experimenting with make-up a little bit too and just bought some lip color today at walmart. i can at least make myself feel a little pretty, even in khaki pants and a name tag.

so i had a second date with another guy from okcupid. its rather strange - he's good looking, we have a lot in common and we get along. but when i'm not talking to him, i don't think about him much. and when i am around him, i find myself assessing him in a far too objective manner - that he would fit in nicely with my group of friends and whatnot. but other than that there isn't much draw. it makes me wonder if i'm capable at all of being attracted to someone who is within grasp. it also makes me feel like a tease since i keep agreeing to see these guys when my intentions end up being purely platonic, but it seems silly to dismiss what could be a good friendship.

christina was here last weekend and we saw half-blood prince, went for walks and talks and watched a lot of doctor who, which i actually rather enjoy. half-blood prince was probably the most forgettable of all the harry potter movies. there was some great imagery and shot composition, and the acting was surprising fantastic, tom felton nearly stole the show. but for a story that was already extremely difficult to adapt to the screen, they took a completely wrong approach to remedying that problem. there was no rising action or climax, and all the plot points were barely strung together effectively, if at all. when it was originally announced that there weren't going to include the battle at hogwarts, i understood their original reasoning, but now having seen the movie i can't understand why professional film makers would make such a odd decision. sure the last movie needs its climax, but so does this one. but overall, i didn't feel particularly strongly about it. like i said, it was forgettable, though to me that is the worst thing a film can be.

i also saw public enemies on my date last night. it was an enjoyable time, i liked watching johnny depp and he did well with the character. it had an almost slice of life feel to it, which was probably accentuated by the hi-def cinematography. spill.com's review of it claimed that it glorified dillinger too much and demonized the investigators chasing him, but i just thought it made him seem normal. an ordinary man doing what comes naturally to him. the fame that he had in the public eye was only touched on a few times and never overwhelming. and for the bad behavior on the part of the good guys, i just saw that as a result of the newly forming organization that would be fbi that had yet to define its character and policies. not to mention that the two sides seem to parallel each other - the criminal sociopath nelson with the investigator who is far too enthusiastic during interrogations. so the movie wasn't the best thing i've ever seen, but feel like it did have a purpose and an objective, and it was fun to watch.

its such a ridiculously nice day out, but i don't know what to do with myself. i can only dance around my room to beyonce for so long. and for once i don't like sitting around and reading.

so i am now officially employed by target as a soft lines team member. means i work the floor, organizing the clothes racks. i didn't really know how much that entailed, it seems like a pretty lazy job, but when half the stock is going on clearance there is in fact a lot to do. and best of all, it doesn't interfere with the harry potter plans. i'll be able to see it this saturday with everybody and hopefully christina will be able to come up for it too. oh and i have a lunch date for tomorrow, guy i met on okcupid. been talking to him for a couple weeks, pretty cool, cute, and local. i kind of wish we could've met today, but he had work. plans plans plans, and here i am bored out of my mind.

my anticipation for half blood prince is at a kind of weird level. i couldn't maintain the momentum of excitement from last fall when it was originally supposed to come out, so now that its near and here i'm just kind of mildly looking forward to it. i've avoided most of the preview clips, and mostly skim reviews though i know they're mostly very positive, one suggesting that it could be an oscar contender now that best picture will now have ten nomination slots to fill rather than five. but then jim texts me last night as soon as he got out of the midnight showing (btw, being woken up by a text and falling abruptly back to sleep can be the trippiest thing sometimes, you wake up the next morning feeling like you talked to someone but can't remember when or how) saying simply "hated it." even buttfacemakani's review was rather lukewarm. she said she enjoyed herself, but didn't seem terribly moved. so i'm just going to keep myself at this nice neutral level, and look forward to it for the social aspect.

i'm told writing down your goals is a big important step in seeing them come to light. so i'm going to try doing that instead of letting it stew around in my head. i want to write a novel. ok fine, i'm going to. its kind of an odd desire even though its something i wanted/planned to do through most of my adolescence, but i never had any good ideas. i thought i did, but i really really didn't, and then of course i lost interest pretty fast. but this one i think i can do. it is character driven, yes, but there's enough layers going on to create a central storyline. the concoction of outside sources that is continuously happening in my brain finally came together in a way that i can actually use as my own (i'm not ashamed to say i steal my ideas from other people, how do you think progress happens?), but even though its underdeveloped right now i'm still trying to keep it loose. i want to be able to surprise myself. if i know the story too well before i start writing, the real thing will never live up to the standard i create up in my head, and i'll decide its better off staying up there. which means i should get started very soon. maybe that's what i'll do with my afternoon, though i still don't feel like sitting around much. jesus it isn't even three o'clock yet.

this year's trip to p-town was better than last year's. i actually got not one, but two chances to get sunburn which were taken advantage of, as a result i have a rather dramatic tan line on my thighs where i waited too long to take off my shorts while reading from dead to worse on the beach. only played tennis once, and it was a short attempt because while the sun was warm most of the week, the wind was harsh. oh and i actually got in the pool. just for a few minutes, and i found that i'm so unaccustomed to swimming - its been about two years i think - that i actually experienced an unexpected but mild panic when i went under. we went downtown thursday afternoon, and while there were some old shops that were closed, there were a few new ones too. not to mention a new trend in jewelry.



they're made from real butterfly wings. i saw some at a shop called sparks, they had a pair of earrings that were an iridescent blue. they were about $80, as you can see in the picture those are around the same price. the necklace was probably like $200, since its pretty much a whole damn butterfly.





i want them. its kind of creepy, yes, but at least they're prettier than fish scales, and i like those too.

so after about two months of it sitting in the netflix envelope, i finally brought myself to watch martyrs, which i had heard about through rich from fourfour. i was a tad disappointed in myself - many of the die hard fans of this movie say that it's best to watch when you know as little about it as possible, going in a virgin as the director said in his introduction. but they also said it was one of the most horrifying movies ever made, and i am bad with the horror movies as much as i love them, so i needed to be sure. so i spoiled myself by reading rich's post about it in full, and even though he had to tell the whole story to properly discuss it, i was effectively convinced that i needed to see it. and now seemed like an appropriate time for it. i've been reading a slew of vampire books, i've started reading j.g. ballard's crash, which the david cronenberg movie was based off of. sick and disturbing things seems to be the kick that i'm on, so i figured it was as a good a time as any.

and honestly, the gore and violence is not what effects you about martyrs, though it does make you want to dig your nails into your own skin to stop it from crawling. see, the reason why the ring had such a nasty effect on me was because it was so unnervingly scary but had no substance. its like being beaten and left out in the rain for no reason. but with martyrs, everything had meaning, every bit of blood spatter and gore and violence had weight behind it. there was nothing gratuitous about it, everything had a purpose. it is for torture porn what funny games was for family siege suspense thrillers, except while funny games made its point by taking away reason, martyrs does it by laying it on thick. and that's what's so disgusting, that's what makes you angry. and its what i'm looking for in my movies, especially horror. i was freaked out enough that i had a really hard time sleeping the night after but i didn't regret watching it at all - hell, i watched parts of it over again, though i restrained myself because i didn't want a repeat of that night. when i watched funny games, i was disturbed while watching but it went out of my mind as soon as it was over. that's a consequence of making a self-reflexive film (or meta, as the cool kids are calling it now), you point out what you're doing and it takes the viewer out of the film. but martyrs is all about dragging you in and keeping you there, making you understand what it is to be a victim in the first part of the film where you are dunked headfirst into a girl's severely damaged brain, and then what it is to be a martyr (as its defined in this story, which is not the typical use of the word, otherwise i wouldn't like this movie nearly as much) through the girl that tries to save her. in so many horror and torture porn films, the violence is purely for the viewer's benefit - they come up with creative and bizarre ways to fuck people up physically for your entertainment, to keep you guessing as to how far they're going to take it. this film doesn't try to do that, its not about getting your blood thirsty rocks off, its out to show you what it really takes to completely ruin someone, which as it turns out is not a hell of a lot. but it makes you understand the despair that it induces, its both in the moment, in that it spares you none of the graphic details, and in the aftermath at once. i don't know, its one of those movie's i really feel like i have nothing to say that the movie doesn't already (imagine what i'd think if i really had gone into a virgin). so if you feel like you can handle it, don't read anything else about it, just download it or put it at the top of your netflix queue right now.

and not surprisingly, i've managed to combine this input into my obsession with andre and the southern vampire mysteries. i really wish i could stop fixating on characters so much, i want to be one of those fantasy writer's that come up with elaborate worlds and stories where the characters are an afterthought - the kind of stuff that i actually hate reading, its a shame so many dragon's bait fanfic writer's are like that, but i guess that's why they write more than me. its so much easier to get a story on paper when you actually have a plot, as opposed to my situation where i have people in my head with all their motivations and angst but nothing for them to do. all i know is i want to play around with some combination of andre and draykonis' lorcan scamander (or is it malakai now?) and a girl with mylene jampanoi's eyes and who rides a motorcycle. witness indeed.

dad keeps on trying to lecture me on the not-so-secret secret, like the reason why i've spent the last year bumming around the house is because i don't get it. i've been sending vibes out into the universe since i was a little kid, and even though the idea took on several mutations, the core of it was the same. i know the kind of person i want to be, always have. the problem is that after 18 years of school, i still haven't the slightest clue as to how to be that person aside from just being really lucky. seriously, how does that happen? on the plus side, i've been falling back in love with literature and writing. so then i wonder if it would be completely useless to get a masters in media studies, and if i should just spend the next two years studying to be a physical therapist's assistant, and work and get married and make babies and one day when i get bored start writing again. but then that sounds completely useless as well. ah, if only my great and terrible ambition was to be in a field that was in constant need of fresh meat. like nursing. or porn. speaking of which, wouldn't sasha grey make a perfect sophie-anne leclerq? too bad the part already went to evan rachel wood, a casting that i'm liking less and less the more i think about it. oh well.

went to my cousin emily's wedding last saturday. as dad put it, it was the classiest wedding he'd ever been to. the reception was held at the branford mansion on the uconn campus in groton, which holy crap if i had known that a part of uconn looked like that i wouldn't have been as eager to get out of connecticut for college. i took a bunch of pictures which i haven't loaded up on the computer yet so i guess you'll have to use your imaginations. there was ocean view, a white tent, and a stone patio. very pretty. the ceremony itself was, well, catholic. mom liked the church but i thought it was a rather clumsily gaudy. no one will ever persuade me to get married in a church that's for sure. and while dinner was outside where it got cold and foggy really fast, the dance party was held in the mansion afterward. if only pictures captured the severe dorkiness of my extended family rocking out to "vogue."

starting saturday i'll be in cape cod, until hopefully the saturday after. and i will be able to see the true blood season 2 premiere and perhaps get a tan that will probably have to last me the rest of the year. i'm reading dracula now, its rather silly to be perfectly honest, but it makes me want to watch the coppola version again. the next books i have lined up are from dead to worse and j.g. ballard's crash. and i'll bring the novel and short story writer's market too and see if i can make some headway with it. i have a goal to finish the sophie-anne/andre fic i started by friday - yes, jen, i am writing one - but at the rate i'm going it probably won't happen, so i might change that goal to the end of vacation. oh and i hit 126 pounds last week, and was there consistently for a while. i've been back up to 127 for the past two days which probably has something to do with these horrible digestive problems i've been having. i still want ice cream though, so so badly. i guess i'll settle for a cookie.

this has been quite possibly the most active two days i've had in a while. i even rode my bike for the first time in years. i couldn't even push myself forward for a while, because i was so unused to it, i was riding on the lawn, and the gear was too high. eventually i managed to get it moving long enough to switch to a lower gear and road a couple laps around the house, making a point to double back a few times so i could remind myself how to do sharp turns - i nearly crashed into the house the first time i tried it. had a job interview yesterday morning, really hard to gauge though, i spent most of the time talking to the woman who currently has the position. she told me about everything from the kind of work it entails to her fantasy of retiring to a farm in ecquador. the actual interview was very quick. and then this morning i went up to danbury with dad to move out some of vidal's stuff before he officially has to be out of the dorm tomorrow. they apparently had a big party last night - i was still smelling garbage and beer even after we got back, i'm hoping it didn't get absorbed into my clothes.

and i finished the gargoyle. i was debating whether i wanted to write my goodreads review for it first, or my more personal one here, because for some reason i really want it to be established that i officially finished it, but i figure the more unhinged, disorganized review should go first. my feelings on it are a bit strange, because its really not as a good of book as it wants you to think it is, but i did enjoy it. i just didn't really get anything out of it. in the author's biography, its boasted that andrew davidson researched for seven years in order to write the book, and you can tell. unlike writers like donna tartt who have this amazing ability to use research and information like a single golden thread in a large elaborate tapestry, interweaving it in all the right places so that it is integral to the entire work but not obvious to the person looking at it, davidson seems to want to you to see his work. in fact, what gives this story life is all the exotic information it holds, because the rest is rather hollow. the narrator (who is nameless, which kind of irrationally annoyed me since i had read rebecca not long before, so in my head the character was named andrew) while possessing some sarcastic wit and cynicism, is not terribly complex. the story of his pre-life-altering-car-accident self i wanted to buy, but until it was spelled out that he was just so goshdarn guarded and never allowed himself to be attached to anyone, i kept on thinking, "so, wait, what was so bad about this guy?" and as result the whole concept of penance and redemption that the story rides on was kind of lost on me, nevermind that those are themes that don't really interest me. it made me realize why i like j.k. rowling so much - her writing is decisively godless and unsentimental. characters die suddenly and randomly, no redemption, no great final words. and if anyone's characters could use some salvation its hers, but when its revealed why davidson's character, marianne engel, must carve gargoyle's for hundreds of years it didn't really make sense to me. and as for the love story, well, its not as bad a twilight where i'm still bewildered as to why bella and edward give a shit about eachother, marianne and the narrator at least have chemistry. but i wasn't exactly feeling the great epic love either. as said, the narrator doesn't have much meat to his character, and while a ton of information is given on marianne, again as said, it doesn't seem to fit together properly (though she's supposedly schizophrenic so maybe that's the point). *sigh* they just don't write love stories for people like me, because i always want to understand why, but love is not supposed to make sense. but hey, anne rice can do it, her couples always seem perfect for eachother to me. i guess true wuv is as hard to write as a good ending.

and so for my other great excitement. i received iamx's newest album kingdom of welcome addiction in the mail thursday night, and since then i've been listening to it consistently. this was the first physical cd i've bought in about three years, so i almost didn't know what to with it after unwrapping it (which is another thing i seem to have forgotten how to do). my long unused stereo wasn't even plugged in. but it was good to hear the whole thing from beginning to end, in sequential order, filling up my little room for the first time. if the first album was synth heavy, the second guitar heavy, then this one is definitely beat heavy. with every song the percussion seems like the most prominent feature, making the album feel like a march, or at least a waltz. it's as different from chris corner's previous work as kiss and swallow and the alternative were from eachother, this time taking the ambiance of previous songs like "president" and "bring me back a dog" and smashing and extending them into eleven whole tracks. as a result, this album does not have as much variety as the alternative did, but this way feels more complete. there are more songs that feel like singles, such as the title track, "the great shipwreck of life" and "nature of inviting," but just because their catchy doesn't mean they lack weight, because they are nothing if not forceful. and then there are anti-singles like "you can be happy" which defies a thumping beat and addictive melody by replacing a typical chorus with a woman speaking and adding a haunting synth quality, giving it a creepiness that seems at war with the song's name. "tear garden" and "an i for an i" are songs that i keep going back and forth about, i can't actively listen to them, i have to be playing them in the background to realize that i love them. "the stupid, the proud" i didn't take to at first, but i could tell it would the type of song that i would become obsessed with later on, and i'm already acknowledging how much i like it. the big surprise was "my secret friend." when i heard that this album would feature a duet with imogen heap, i wasn't that impressed - i like the music of hers that i've heard, but i wasn't that interested in hearing iamx's sound meshed with anyone else's. what i didn't anticipate was how perfectly their voices are suited for eachother, or that they would find such a beautiful melody to showcase that. its probably my favorite song, though like everything else i'll probably go through phases. so, unlike the gargoyle, this album actually feels epic, even though there are less love stories than in the previous albums. it feels like music that marches through time with passion and love, and fortunately has on its way come to me.

an hour ago i had an idea to come on here and complain. adam lost, the eurovision high is finally slowing down, and i don't know if i'm doing anything right. yesterday i went to a fed ex recruitment thing with dad, a lot of signing my name and social security number over and over again. the thing that bugged me about it was that morning, an hour or so before i had to go, i got a call from accoutemps, the temp agency i signed up with, saying the had a data entry job that started that day. besides having plans, that involved seeking full time employment, i was pretty intimidated by the idea of running out the door for a job i knew hardly anything about. and i was groggy, the call was what woke me up thirty seconds before my alarm was supposed to. so i was fretting about whether i messed things up royally by turning it down until i got another call today about a much better possibility. not the same kind of get up and go situation, i will need to, you know, get the interview and whatnot, but it feels good that this start/stop thing that the job market has been is starting resemble a regular flowing stream again. its good to see some activity, know that i'm not wandering around in the ether.

so as much as i like the gargoyle, i'm finding myself really missing miss sookie. and i'm aching for true blood to start. i'm so tuned into it that i don't even have to turn around to know that a commercial for it is on tv, i recognize the music. i'm thinking i might get the first season on dvd, its the kind of thing i can see myself watching several times over. i wish goodreads was more like myanimelist in that there's features for listing your favorite characters and whatnot, because i think sookie would end up on there for me, along with will perry and milton's satan. goodreads isn't so much about the list obsession though, i've gotten used to it, but its really doesn't have that great of a format. but anyway, i wish i wasn't trying to finish the gargoyle just so i can move on to dead as a doornail as quickly as possible, but i can't help it, the gargoyle is plenty interesting and sick and romantic, but it doesn't have the same kind of addictive fire. i don't know what i'm going to do when i finish the series.

as for the idol finale last night, i know that it doesn't really matter that adam lambert is not the american idol, he's going to take over the world anyway, but it just would've been a nice cherry on top, the perfect climax to the season. and i feel for those that are hurting because of it, it does feel a bit like if someone as dominant, creative and engaging as adam can't win, then what openly gay person can? but as said, it doesn't matter much really except as a symbol. tonight i have the so you think you can dance premiere, and after that is the fashion show, which makes me miss project runway more than anything, but its still pretty good. what would i do without my competitive reality tv?

i'm feeling kind of grumpy this evening. that stuck feeling is bearing down again, and my current reading, the gargoyle, isn't really helping. not that it isn't a great book, when i sat down with it earlier today my nasty headache vanished after reading barely a paragraph. and that's not to say that my situation is comparable to that of the main character, a man who finds that he is no longer a gorgeous, wealthy porn star but now thanks to a car accident that was undoubtedly his fault he is a limping bundle of scar tissue and lives with a crazy woman. but it does feel like a kind of sick parable. and even though i know my current situation isn't permanent, it feels like it is, almost the way being scarred for life can be.

thankfully, there's eurovision, which surprise surprise actually came up with some good music this year rather than just entertaining performances. maybe i didn't thoroughly peruse the song list last year, but i feel like there's more subtlety and variety to the music of eurovision 2009, as opposed to 2008's flashy extravagance that i can't deny that i shamelessly adored. its why i was looking forward to this year's competition so much. but there was something very refreshing about this year. i think bosnia & herzegovina's entry was my favorite.



its in a language i don't think i've ever heard before in my life, but whenever the chorus comes in my tear ducts start to feel a little warm. its followed very closely behind by portugal and lithuania, the latter of which i think suffered from the double standard that if your song is in english it has a big advantage, but if it sounds too "american," it backfires on you. germany i think had the same problem, since it too didn't place nearly as well as it should've. estonia probably did the best considering its "disadvantages." besides being more alternative sounding, it also was the highest ranking song that isn't in english. and it has cellos *drools*. probably the strangest entry was from the host country itself, russia, a song that is the furthest thing possible from last year's first place hamfest. its strange, angsty and totally wrong for something like eurovision and i really really like it.

but of course eurovision did what it does best, delivering cheese upon cheese in the most delicious ways, and of course that came in the way of ukraine. i don't even know what to link you to first, the performance with the half naked men and some contraptions that look like something from cirque du soleil, or the music video that while ridiculously exhibitionist, seemed to be unable to decide what concept to go with. dipped in chocolate? strip club orgy? live performance? target commercial? hell just throw it all in, bitch is smokin so its all good to me. and yet she still only came in 12th. as usual the top places went to wimpy ballads and insubstantial pop tracks that will be forgotten in a few months. ah well. but seriously, once you get hooked on this stuff its hard to remember why anyone gives a shit about american idol (go adam).

hmm, i was planning on writing about other stuff that was going on, but that was a lot more work than i expected, and i'm not grumpy anymore so now all i really want to do is watch the idol finale and eat some raspberry sherbert. peace peoples.

been feeling kind of fuzzy. maybe its the pollen count. i just have a need to do something, which is odd because i'm actually doing more than usual. i've been exercising more regularly, i cooked a dinner that i came up with myself yesterday, go me. maybe i'll go shopping sometime soon, i do have a family wedding coming up in a little over a month and i need a dress. something to match my red shoes maybe. hopefully it'll be warm again this weekend so that i can go play tennis.

been reading the sookie stackhouse books, i've already gotten through the first two. i took the opportunity to download them when someone posted them on ontd_twatlight's sunday swap, which is convenient because i can plow through them pretty fast and i wasn't able to find them at the library. the inconvenience is i think the pdfs i got are unedited manuscripts, which makes charlaine harris' writing come off as even more clumsy than it already is. they're actually rather addictive, so i'm glad that there are many of them, even though i'll probably have them finished by this time next week. i was so surprised by how faithful the show true blood is to its source, even though it has very obviously lifted story lines from later books and fleshed out minor characters in order to fill out the first season. i'm looking forward to see how they adapt living dead in dallas for the second (june 14th, woohoo). what really surprised me though was how faithful they were in casting. i mean, with something huge like harry potter, they make sure the main characters look the part, but even that only stretches so far. so with a tv show, i wouldn't think that they take care to match the hair color of a background character to her description in the book, but they did. bill is pretty much exactly as he's described, as is eric, which is particularly extraordinary since eric is so far still a background character for one, but also enormous. not that its that hard to find a giant scandinavian man, but finding one that can act and actually wants the part is another thing. that show seriously must have the best casting directors.

i really dislike reading ebooks though. words do not express how good it feels to sit down with a book, to hold it in your hands and turn the pages. reading one through a computer feels deeply false, and it annoys me that it keeps me tethered to the living room when i should be outside tanning my legs on the porch. maybe that's where my restlessness has come from. maybe i'll start volunteering to do the yard work while i listen to jeremy irons narrate lolita on my ipod. or maybe i really will start running more often in the mornings. i felt kind of terrible after i did it last week, the first time in a while. but the after effects, the soreness, though painful felt really good. it felt like i was finally putting my body to some use. there's more than one kind of atrophy that i need to look out for.

i've had a good feeling lately that pops in and out. maybe its the onset of spring that finally made itself known this weekend, but there is a sense of coming out of a long dark tunnel going on right now. i hope its not just a feeling, i hope it amounts to something. its funny reading about other people's stress, because while i worry and fret i don't lose sleep over it. and i have very simple dreams about sex and breakfast cereal. the only upsetting one i've had recently was one where i was back at school, but didn't go to any classes because i had seemingly forgotten about them. i used to have dreams like that all the time in school - that there was always one class that i never remembered to go to or something. i was reading a few days ago that dreams about "unpreparedness" indicate issues of self-worth, which i suppose fits. lately in my dreams i've had incredibly long hair, so often in fact that i'm starting to see myself that way in my mind's eye.

the final trailer for half blood prince has been released - after many, many trailers, seriously is that normal? - and sent me into an hp tizzy. i watched order of the phoenix and when that wasn't enough i started skimming through every book after prisoner of azkaban, and i think i may understand now the weird effect deathly hallows had on me. it wasn't that i didn't like it, i thought it was a fantastic book, but then closing it just felt like "oh, well, ok, i guess that's that then." talking about it with other people didn't hold the same excitement as the afterglow of the previous books. the fandom seemed to have the same response - the usual flood of fic, art and essays seemed to immediately diminish to a trickle, its not till recently that things started to pick up again. it wasn't that i felt too detached from it, like what usually happens after completing a series - i think it was because i didn't feel detached enough. deathly hallows wasn't cathartic, the whole thing just felt like a slow burn that fizzled around in your head until it eventually faded away. usually that's a good thing for books and movies, it keeps you in that world, but when its the final installment in a seven chapter series, not so much. with all the earlier books, jkr takes you round and round on a journey and finishes things off with a nice bang (which, i've realized, is an onomatopoeia that jkr really likes to use) that leaves you somewhat disoriented but still thrilled. but with deathly hallows the bangs were more in the middle, and the final one just didn't have the impact of the rest. i mean, we all knew voldemort had to die, we just didn't know how. once we figured out how, the actual moment didn't mean much. no bang, no catharsis. just that epilogue.

and now my conception of the future hogwarts is getting all kinds of discombobulated, because i've been reading draykonis's fic, rock on, featuring the new cast of hogwarts students introduced in the epilogue, who she affectionately calls generation hex. her characterizations are so complete and interesting, the idea jkr might come back and make use of these characters is almost a painful thought. the days where fandom was scrambling for more fodder from jkr's brain i think is mostly over, it is a self-sustained entity now. and hopefully some of the fandom best writers like draykonis or themostepotente will use their talents for some original writing. and then the process starts all over again.

today was gray and cool, it made me think about writing. but that's all i could really do, think about it. i opened up a few stories, did some editing, but couldn't put down anything new. then i wanted to read something flat and stupid, so i read the article in vanity fair on gisele bundchen. she's irritatingly happy, by the time i got to the end i was just skimming it. its not just jealousy - even though the issue sparked a conversation with my dead about goal-setting - its just that happy people are not very interesting to read about. even her modest roots she talks about with glee. give me some angst, man, something to fight for.

speaking of which, i finished rebecca. i found that it was occupying my mind a lot, so once i got past the part that i was dreading, i just decided to plow through the rest as fast possible. the last hundred pages or so was a bit tedious - it was like a play, where everyone is in one room discussing things for an overly long period of time. it created a lot of tension, but felt flat after a while. as a whole, i can't really tell if i really liked it, all i know is that i want to ramble about it. a lot.

( so that's what i'm going to do - spoilers abound, beware )

it's a bad day. a cloudy, frustrating april fools. a crawl out of your skin, shave your head, do jumping jacks until you can't breath day. its a very immature kind of despair. i just want to shake something and say "why does everything have to suck so much?" as if there were anyone to ask, as if anyone knew. goddamn you george bush for making my first year of liberation feel like a prison. a year, in one month it'll be one year, a year that feels like just a blur of repeated moments. maybe it wouldn't have been much better otherwise, but i could've at least been doing something, anything.

i think its perfectly realistic to be optimistic in a climate like this. because it will get better, i think that's a fact. it won't necessarily get better tomorrow, but it eventually will. but on days like this - which actually have been rather few and far between lately - i want it to be better right now. if i had prisoner of azkaban i would watch that, it always seemed to correct my mind when it was going off center. instead i have velvet goldmine, and since my computer decided it didn't want to cooperate a half a hour ago, its now too late to watch it. i know i can't have a solution right now, so i'm just looking for a band aid but i can't seem to find one, everything seems to hate me. i wish i had the tennis channel, and that they would broadcast matches without commentary so i can space out while watching the ball bounce back and forth.

i watched taxi driver the other day. good, but a bit in one ear and out the other. i've been reading rebecca, its good, but not gripping and its hard to attach myself to the main character. i'll probably go read it when i'm done with this because nothing else feels right. i should do some writing, but i've realized that i should probably suck it up and plan out my ideas a bit first, which is a strange concept because i've never really done it before, and anyway its not something to attempt with a raging headache and hatred for fate. i can't make anything connect right now. its like when i was little and i'd have dreams where suddenly everything started disintegrating, i couldn't hold anything together, even when i was sleeping. better have someone else think for me at the moment, and just tag along for the ride.

i'm magically losing weight it seems. i've never been able to appreciate something like dieting because it never seems that i'm in control of the pounds i put on or lose. sometimes they decide to wander off unexpectedly, and then other times they sneak up behind me and latch themselves before i know what's happening. but for the past week or two i have consistently been around 128, and today in fact i weighed in at 127.6 (squeee). my mom suggested that it might be because i haven't had any of my beloved ginger ale in a while, which i dismissed because i thought the weight loss had started before the unintentional soda shortage, but now that it seems to be suddenly dropping a lot faster than before, there may be some merit in that theory. so i guess its a matter of what prefer - having my sugary, bubbly ginger ale or being 128 (or 127, or 126...). granted, 128 doesn't really feel that much different from 132 right now. it looks a bit different, my lower belly may just be flatter than it used to be if i'm not mistaken. but my ass feels as gelatinous as ever. managing to feel thin and healthy can be a lot harder than looking it i'm realizing. i remember when i first gained those extra pounds after high school, the moment i noticed that i really truly was no longer at a happy body place was when i woke up in the morning and didn't feel skinny. i had always counted on that feeling, because usually by the end of the day i felt bloated from eating too much or carrying around water, but i knew that i could go to bed and wake up the next morning and that feeling would be gone. then one day i woke up and felt just as fat as i did the night before. i'm hoping that sense of dissatisfaction will not be permanent, i want to be able to feel like i can move effortlessly, feel lithe and toned.

so i went to see watchmen opening weekend with my dad and surprisingly have very little to say about it. i don't really care about faithfulness when it comes to movie adaptations, i'm well aware that keeping to the script is not what makes a good film. so that wasn't my concern really going in to it, even though i loved the original comic, i just wanted to be entertained and stimulated. i was entertained at least part of the time, but not very stimulated. i liked the approach to the different back stories, but whenever the movie had to switch gears to focus on someone else i would briefly become aware of my butt going numb, so flow isn't snyder's strong point when dealing with a plot this complex. the film was very pretty, i think it treated rorschach and manhattan pretty well, and i liked the guy who played ozymandias a lot. i wish that it closed with more of the comedian actually, he's the catalyst of the story and is integral through the first part of it and also integral to who the rest of the characters are (and jeffrey dean morgan was fantastic and hot), but his presence fizzles out by the end and all we're left with is nite owl and silk spectre 2 who have to be the least interesting characters in the entire story. and the change at the end...it sort of bothered me. but all in all, my feelings of indifference are just too overpowering for me to really be upset about it.

i am hungry, and need to do chores. mom has been hounding me to clean the refrigerator shelves and i keep forgetting, so she left me a note to remind me this morning. not that i have anything against cleaning the fridge but being told what to do always makes me feel a little slimy so i'm going to eat my lunch first and then pretend that i thought of doing some cleaning all by myself.

my hair is getting long enough that its starting to annoy me. it gets in my face all the time, and makes me feel too warm. i've been tying it back the way i usually only do in the summer. that said, i still don't plan on cutting it any time soon, though it could probably use some styling. i want it long and big, with some highlights somewhere down the line, and this season is a good a time as any. i could use some brightening up.

so i did some research last week, and even though i still much prefer to stick it out, the way things are i have to consider grad school. the idea does not seem as unappealing as it used to, perhaps because i hit a breaking point, or maybe i just needed time to warm up to it. i'm liking the new school's media studies program - i won't have to choose between theory or practice, i get to study both, and there are opportunities to get certificates in screenwriting as well during my time there. and all the research courses are available online, which could be helpful if i'm not able to get residence. i think one of the things that was turning me off about grad school was i felt like i was trapping myself on a course, but i have a lot of options with this. i'll keep writing, and if that works out then i'll at least have studied something was interested in and maybe i'll get to use it eventually, and if film works out for me then awesome. and if neither, then i can get my phd and become the next lucia, teaching able minds to see frames within frames as a sign of voyeurism and entrapment and to gain an appreciation for mise-en-scene. i've always liked the idea, but it would always get shoved down by my more greedy side. of course, i've already missed the fall semester deadline, which was actually only a few weeks ago. the deadline for application for spring 2010 is october, which gives me plenty of time to get everything together (and procrastinate). in the meantime, i have pretty much a year before i'd be taking classes, and that's a lot of time to do a lot of things. i'm getting tempted to take uncle dan and ana up on their continual invitations to visit them in california. finding work is always the priority, but there's a lot of projects i could get going in the meantime.

i've already finished dexter in the dark. thank god it was better than the third season of dexter. and christina, quit complaining and finish reading it, its actually really good. sure, the sudden shift from serial killer psychology to supernatural demon mythology is weird, but once you decide to chill and go with it, its actually a pretty enjoyable ride. the callous disinterest of the second book is replaced by a much more emotional, very invested dexter. don't worry, it works in context. like the other books, the plot is kind of loose and the police work is pretty terrible (seriously, why does deb even have her job when she seems barely capable of stringing two facts together?), but dexter keeps it together with figuring out how to educate his two mini-psychopaths in the way of harry and the deterioration of the bit of sanity he had now that his maker is on his tail. the funny thing is, jeff lindsay is really not much of a writer, he just is really good at writing from a certain perspective (because its not like the dark vigilante character hasn't been done before) and creating a character that is both viciously inhuman and endearingly innocent (as opposed to brooding and byronic, which is the mold with these types). in dexter in the dark lindsay is actually trying for something a little different, a little ambitious, and i think it works. if he hadn't established dexter as just a straightforward sociopath then it would've been easier concept to swallow, but once you get it down, its actually a really interesting addition to the horror/fantasy genre. and from the way it ended, there will probably more where that came from, and i don't really mind.