So...I only ended up working on the book twice last month. The first part of the month was spent celebrating many May birthdays. I think I know more May babies than any other month! The rest of the month was filled with an unseasonable, very nasty cold. It was going around at work, so it was kind of inevitable that I was going to get it. Some of my coworkers have joked that if someone even mentions sickness, I get it.
That's a little unfair. True, none of us had ANY idea that I had a permanent sinus infection until last year when I forced my primary care doctor to sent me to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) specialist; aka Otorhinolaryngologist (same thing, only fancier). It's funny. I've apparently had that issue for years. YEARS. In college I would always wheeze for like a 1/2 hour after running across campus. My junior year was when I found out that when I breathed in cold air while lying down, i.e. sleeping, I would be ill by the next morning. More than one doctor said that was impossible, yet it kept happening. And I had to be very careful because I would get, you know, a really bad sinus infection that would last for up to two months. Also, (this is T.M.I. and a little gross, so skip ahead if you'd like) one person told me that green mucus from your nose was a sign of infection. Mine was always green. At least one medical professional pooh-poohed the mere thought.
So, it's been hard trying to get the medical community on board with my seeming hypochondria. I *loved* that my ENT said that I'd gotten really good at fighting off my infection because I was functioning with that many germs hanging out in my sinuses. That's why surgery was essential. I'm still getting sick, but now I think my mounting stress is lowering my immune response. And I'm more run down than sinus-y. Sooooo much better than pre-surgery. Now I can sleep in cold air and NOT be sick in the morning. And I can run across the crosswalk and not wheeze at all. Woohoo!
Back to Memorial Day weekend, I was so sick with that stupid cold that the week before the holiday I missed two days of work, went in for three, and then had the three-day weekend with two vacation days I tacked onto the end. The holiday weekend was spent finally getting over the cold. I was so out of it on Sunday that I went to church with mismatching shoes. On a side note: when I texted my sisters about it, it rhymed. One of them pointed out that it was like Shel Silverstein poem. What do you think?
Dear Sisters Three, I just had
to share. I was so out of [sic] this
morning that when I threw on
my shoes to run to church,
they weren't a matching pair.
Ah, well.
So, I unintentionally rhymed, forgot "it" after "out of" and was so muzzy headed that I wore two different shoes. Someone else had to point it out. Sigh.
The last two days of "vacation" were me figuring out that what I thought was now stomach flu was just my ulcer making its presence known. Mightily.
So, despite all of that, I'm glad I actually worked on the book! And, really, I wanted to see if I'd write anything at all. I've re-read everything I've written so far and decided to completely cut the last chapter. It felt forced with the "happy" ending that a lot of people expected the book to lead to. But that version is inauthentic. And I think that you can have a happy ending even if the heroine of the piece does not end up with her own prince charming. Maybe that could be a sequel. Or not. They say "write what you know" and I'm still single....
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Setting a Deadline
May 31st. That's my first self-imposed deadline. And now I'm sharing it with you in hopes that I'll actually hold myself accountable. I have to finish the first draft of my novel by then. I've been a few chapters from the end for over a year. It's about being single in a marriage-minded society. I've been writing it for almost a decade.
But now it's high time to find out if I can cut it as a writer. Am I any good? No clue. Sure, I can be funny or contemplative in short bursts, but can I sustain any of that in a full-length book? I'm good at finishing short stories. By their title there's not that much to them. In one of my college fiction writing courses I was told by the professor that my short stories had so much meat in them that they could be longer. I guess some people were just wordy in the hopes of getting their story idea to the required length. I still remember that compliment! Thank you, professor, for the encouragement!!
I was talking to one of my dear friends yesterday who has always been supportive of my dream. When I told her that one of my roadblocks to finishing was a fear of failure, she pointed out that seeing where my "career" has led me, didn't I feel like I'd already failed? The worst has already happened! She's right. And she knows me very well, so she wasn't telling me anything I didn't know, she was just pointing out the obvious that I couldn't see. And she wasn't cruel, either, if you were wondering. It's great to have family and friends in your corner.
I do wonder if I'm publishable. I've read some pretty horribly written books and thought "hey, if they can get published...." But it's different when it's your own work. And you know that some people could wallpaper their home with rejection letters. And when you took that additional correspondence writing course after college--one assignment from the end your mentor was encouraging you to take additional courses so it felt more like marketing than an honest opinion, you never turned in your last assignment for a "class" with no merit. Though the writing exercises were helpful, my mentor was not very encouraging of my future publication success. Sigh. In the back of my mind I can hear the phrase "those who cannot do, teach." So, maybe a published author, rather than a writing teacher, might be a better mentor to have. Ha!
I once had aspirations of being a humorist like Dave Barry. He is truly funny and I enjoyed his column in the Sunday paper whilst growing up. And though I can be funny like that, my novel is not as funny as I would like. But that's okay. It's only the first draft. The second draft will be when I flesh out the characters and inject more humor. But the first draft has proven very difficult to write. Sometimes it's painful as it's based on my own experiences and observations. I'm hoping that just getting it down on the page will be the hardest part.
The funny thing is, I have a different book I'd been writing on (also for years) before I ever got this idea and it was going quite well until it didn't. While I've been working on this one, I realized where I'd gone wrong with the other. I can completely understand why some authors work on multiple projects. Sometimes just stepping away doesn't clear the writer's block. Sometimes it's only by working on a different idea that you realize how the other could be better. Perhaps it's a perspectival shift that's needed.
So...the 31st of May. It's on!
But now it's high time to find out if I can cut it as a writer. Am I any good? No clue. Sure, I can be funny or contemplative in short bursts, but can I sustain any of that in a full-length book? I'm good at finishing short stories. By their title there's not that much to them. In one of my college fiction writing courses I was told by the professor that my short stories had so much meat in them that they could be longer. I guess some people were just wordy in the hopes of getting their story idea to the required length. I still remember that compliment! Thank you, professor, for the encouragement!!
I was talking to one of my dear friends yesterday who has always been supportive of my dream. When I told her that one of my roadblocks to finishing was a fear of failure, she pointed out that seeing where my "career" has led me, didn't I feel like I'd already failed? The worst has already happened! She's right. And she knows me very well, so she wasn't telling me anything I didn't know, she was just pointing out the obvious that I couldn't see. And she wasn't cruel, either, if you were wondering. It's great to have family and friends in your corner.
I do wonder if I'm publishable. I've read some pretty horribly written books and thought "hey, if they can get published...." But it's different when it's your own work. And you know that some people could wallpaper their home with rejection letters. And when you took that additional correspondence writing course after college--one assignment from the end your mentor was encouraging you to take additional courses so it felt more like marketing than an honest opinion, you never turned in your last assignment for a "class" with no merit. Though the writing exercises were helpful, my mentor was not very encouraging of my future publication success. Sigh. In the back of my mind I can hear the phrase "those who cannot do, teach." So, maybe a published author, rather than a writing teacher, might be a better mentor to have. Ha!
I once had aspirations of being a humorist like Dave Barry. He is truly funny and I enjoyed his column in the Sunday paper whilst growing up. And though I can be funny like that, my novel is not as funny as I would like. But that's okay. It's only the first draft. The second draft will be when I flesh out the characters and inject more humor. But the first draft has proven very difficult to write. Sometimes it's painful as it's based on my own experiences and observations. I'm hoping that just getting it down on the page will be the hardest part.
The funny thing is, I have a different book I'd been writing on (also for years) before I ever got this idea and it was going quite well until it didn't. While I've been working on this one, I realized where I'd gone wrong with the other. I can completely understand why some authors work on multiple projects. Sometimes just stepping away doesn't clear the writer's block. Sometimes it's only by working on a different idea that you realize how the other could be better. Perhaps it's a perspectival shift that's needed.
So...the 31st of May. It's on!
Friday, April 26, 2013
Unreality Dating
I've been watching Ready for Love which, sadly, has ALREADY been cancelled. So much for all the time and effort (and money) spent in producing and making it if a network doesn't want to give it time to find an audience. However, I'm glad that they are still going to release one a week online until the episodes are all aired. I would like to know who the guys end up picking. I don't hold out much hope that they'll find true love, though. There are many dating shows out there and they all have horrible track records for actual marriage. Survivor seems to have had more marriages than The Bachelor.
I have a theory. Yes, how could I not? There seems to be something primal in a man's nature that screams for competition. When a guy feels like he has won the love of a woman, he is more likely to stay with his proverbial prize. This is why guys like the girls that are hard to get. When we make it too easy, apparently we aren't seen as desirable, no matter how perfect we are for each other. That is the part that sucks. You can be absolutely wonderful, but if no one is dating you, rarely does someone see you as dateable. Silly. But I have known girls who announce they are moving or engaged or leaving the country for almost two years and guys come pouring out of the woodwork to woo said woman. Huh? So, the otherwise taken girl is suddenly popular, while all of the available girls are chopped liver.
You know, pâté is made of chopped liver and it's expensive and I guess a delicacy. So all those available girls are special treats and for some reason the guys are ignoring their labels. Okay, that was a forced metaphor. But I hope you get my drift.
I think The Bachelorette is more successful as a dating show. They should all be like that where several men compete for the heart of one woman. With the way the male brain works, it seems like it would be a more successful outcome.
At the singles groups at church, where there are more girls than guys, it's always like The Bachelor when lots of girls compete with each other, all hoping for one of the few guys to like them. You know, since the guy gets to choose who he wants, it's rather pointless to claim you saw him first. He doesn't have to like you just because you're a victim of happenstance. And if you're all feeding him and macking on him and boosting his ego, does he ever have to choose just one? He may be having the time of his life and doesn't want it to end. I think all the single girls should band together and make the guys work to impress them. It's how it works in nature. Those animals are doing everything they can to impress the ladies in the hopes that one of them will agree to mate.
I personally would love for a guy to fall all over himself in order to win my heart. As long as he's not creepy. I used to have a list of what I wanted in a guy, but it's slowly gotten smaller and smaller. So, now I'm not looking for things like a great sense of humor, likes dogs, or has good earning potential. I just want a guy crazy enough to take me on while sane enough for me to want.
There's a church-related singles conference in my area next month. I could go and mingle with people who come from all over, but I don't enjoy those events anymore. Usually they have inspirational classes (which some used to be more about dating and/or scriptures), but now they're about earthquake safety and finance. Um, what? And since going to the dances kills my ego when no guys ask me to boogie on the dance floor, I'm going to skip the entire drama/torture. I might go if they had classes like For Women Only: Stop Chasing the Guys, For Men Only: How to Be a Man and Choose Already, How to Tell if Your Dating Standards are Impossibly High, If She Doesn't Like You Then Move On To Someone Else, and If He Doesn't Like You Then He's Not Worth It. Those are probably the classes that the older singles should be getting. I've also come to the conclusion that sitting in classrooms does not help us meet and get to know each other, neither does a dark room with loud music.
I'm making it harder for men to meet me, but that's okay. Isn't playing hard to get what I'm supposed to be doing? Except when I make myself so scarce that they don't realize I exist...?
I have a theory. Yes, how could I not? There seems to be something primal in a man's nature that screams for competition. When a guy feels like he has won the love of a woman, he is more likely to stay with his proverbial prize. This is why guys like the girls that are hard to get. When we make it too easy, apparently we aren't seen as desirable, no matter how perfect we are for each other. That is the part that sucks. You can be absolutely wonderful, but if no one is dating you, rarely does someone see you as dateable. Silly. But I have known girls who announce they are moving or engaged or leaving the country for almost two years and guys come pouring out of the woodwork to woo said woman. Huh? So, the otherwise taken girl is suddenly popular, while all of the available girls are chopped liver.
You know, pâté is made of chopped liver and it's expensive and I guess a delicacy. So all those available girls are special treats and for some reason the guys are ignoring their labels. Okay, that was a forced metaphor. But I hope you get my drift.
I think The Bachelorette is more successful as a dating show. They should all be like that where several men compete for the heart of one woman. With the way the male brain works, it seems like it would be a more successful outcome.
At the singles groups at church, where there are more girls than guys, it's always like The Bachelor when lots of girls compete with each other, all hoping for one of the few guys to like them. You know, since the guy gets to choose who he wants, it's rather pointless to claim you saw him first. He doesn't have to like you just because you're a victim of happenstance. And if you're all feeding him and macking on him and boosting his ego, does he ever have to choose just one? He may be having the time of his life and doesn't want it to end. I think all the single girls should band together and make the guys work to impress them. It's how it works in nature. Those animals are doing everything they can to impress the ladies in the hopes that one of them will agree to mate.
I personally would love for a guy to fall all over himself in order to win my heart. As long as he's not creepy. I used to have a list of what I wanted in a guy, but it's slowly gotten smaller and smaller. So, now I'm not looking for things like a great sense of humor, likes dogs, or has good earning potential. I just want a guy crazy enough to take me on while sane enough for me to want.
There's a church-related singles conference in my area next month. I could go and mingle with people who come from all over, but I don't enjoy those events anymore. Usually they have inspirational classes (which some used to be more about dating and/or scriptures), but now they're about earthquake safety and finance. Um, what? And since going to the dances kills my ego when no guys ask me to boogie on the dance floor, I'm going to skip the entire drama/torture. I might go if they had classes like For Women Only: Stop Chasing the Guys, For Men Only: How to Be a Man and Choose Already, How to Tell if Your Dating Standards are Impossibly High, If She Doesn't Like You Then Move On To Someone Else, and If He Doesn't Like You Then He's Not Worth It. Those are probably the classes that the older singles should be getting. I've also come to the conclusion that sitting in classrooms does not help us meet and get to know each other, neither does a dark room with loud music.
I'm making it harder for men to meet me, but that's okay. Isn't playing hard to get what I'm supposed to be doing? Except when I make myself so scarce that they don't realize I exist...?
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Typical Human + (Finite Time x Impossible Workload) = Unavoidable Failure
I have been playing a shell game at work. Today I admitted it to two managers, which gave them pause. What I said was, "Every time the yearly review comes and I'm asked to improve on a different item, I have to drop something else." This made one of them highly annoyed. See, he's asked me to work on different things, things he believes are important, without doing worse elsewhere. How is this possible? My workload has been overloaded for years.
So...we're being audited on our business practices. You know the things someone high up believes we should do with the lawyer-ese to back it up. Then these high ideals get shuffled down the line until they end up on an assistant's desk. Then that assistant is expected to do all these things, so, get this, the company and managers look good. Whatever it is the managers are actually doing, they are not managing my time or workload with any finesse.
After quitting time I was asked into one of the offices to go over an audit item that if we fail, we get "dinged" on pretty badly. Guess what, it's what I had to fail at the last two years to get any semblance of work done. Now that one of my immediate managers knows the extent of a) what I've let slide and b) what I will have to do before July, the concern is that I won't be able to do it all in time. They are understandably worried. All our collective rears are on the line for work I'm unable to accomplish. Whose brilliant idea was that?!?
Once we looked over the list of items for that manager, I pointed to the other part of the combined spreadsheet for my second immediate manager which was the same type of work I am expected to do before *that* audit in June. His jaw figuratively dropped and he's going to ask someone to help me get all that work done.
And yet, the powers that be feel we're overstaffed.
It's funny when people who are in charge of you really have no idea what you do. They see the piles of work on my desk and think I'm just unorganized, not the obvious thing that I have too much to accomplish in too little time. I get sent to a class on time organization. By the way, that was a class for managers, not admins. It was a waste of my time and didn't apply to me at all. I have to be available to our clients whenever they need something, so I am constantly reading my new emails. Apparently, to organize your time better you are to ignore your emails except for maybe twice a day in the hopes that when someone didn't get an answer from you that they'll have gone elsewhere or figured it out themselves. Hmmmm.
Another time I'm told my priorities are out of whack, so I sit down in long meetings to prioritize my time (which could be better used by not being in a meeting) and, guess what, ALL of it is important and it all needs to be done and I'm not allowed overtime. I'm told it's okay and work will be there tomorrow and get done what you can. Until the audit and reviews come around. Then I'm lambasted for not doing enough.
Because I actually care about the quality of my work, all of these things stress me out. I'm starting to joke that my job is killing me, but I think it may be true. The more admins and managers that don't get replaced add to my workload by the "spread the work around" method. How, if I have more work than ever before, am I expected to get anything done beyond the basics? I will say this for the manager who wants to get me help, when I mentioned that I do, in fact, care about the work and I don't like disappointing people, he said I haven't disappointed anyone.
I know that's not entirely accurate, but it will have to do. And the fact that I've dedicated an entire blog post to what transpired specifically today for half an hour, but has been coming on for years, just shows how concerned *I* am about it.
Though now I'm also concerned because the same suggestions are coming out of this manager's mouth of "set aside a certain amount of time to accomplish this." Yes, it's on my calendar weekly and it's been pushed aside by other "urgent" things every week. Also, "when you find some time" (HA!) please write down your typical week so we know how much you're doing. I could do that if I had time. Unless he has the ability to get me a time turner like Hermione Granger had in Harry Potter, I don't see anything changing about anything, except now I will be even more stressed about it. This assistant needs an assistant (or three).
So...we're being audited on our business practices. You know the things someone high up believes we should do with the lawyer-ese to back it up. Then these high ideals get shuffled down the line until they end up on an assistant's desk. Then that assistant is expected to do all these things, so, get this, the company and managers look good. Whatever it is the managers are actually doing, they are not managing my time or workload with any finesse.
After quitting time I was asked into one of the offices to go over an audit item that if we fail, we get "dinged" on pretty badly. Guess what, it's what I had to fail at the last two years to get any semblance of work done. Now that one of my immediate managers knows the extent of a) what I've let slide and b) what I will have to do before July, the concern is that I won't be able to do it all in time. They are understandably worried. All our collective rears are on the line for work I'm unable to accomplish. Whose brilliant idea was that?!?
Once we looked over the list of items for that manager, I pointed to the other part of the combined spreadsheet for my second immediate manager which was the same type of work I am expected to do before *that* audit in June. His jaw figuratively dropped and he's going to ask someone to help me get all that work done.
And yet, the powers that be feel we're overstaffed.
It's funny when people who are in charge of you really have no idea what you do. They see the piles of work on my desk and think I'm just unorganized, not the obvious thing that I have too much to accomplish in too little time. I get sent to a class on time organization. By the way, that was a class for managers, not admins. It was a waste of my time and didn't apply to me at all. I have to be available to our clients whenever they need something, so I am constantly reading my new emails. Apparently, to organize your time better you are to ignore your emails except for maybe twice a day in the hopes that when someone didn't get an answer from you that they'll have gone elsewhere or figured it out themselves. Hmmmm.
Another time I'm told my priorities are out of whack, so I sit down in long meetings to prioritize my time (which could be better used by not being in a meeting) and, guess what, ALL of it is important and it all needs to be done and I'm not allowed overtime. I'm told it's okay and work will be there tomorrow and get done what you can. Until the audit and reviews come around. Then I'm lambasted for not doing enough.
Because I actually care about the quality of my work, all of these things stress me out. I'm starting to joke that my job is killing me, but I think it may be true. The more admins and managers that don't get replaced add to my workload by the "spread the work around" method. How, if I have more work than ever before, am I expected to get anything done beyond the basics? I will say this for the manager who wants to get me help, when I mentioned that I do, in fact, care about the work and I don't like disappointing people, he said I haven't disappointed anyone.
I know that's not entirely accurate, but it will have to do. And the fact that I've dedicated an entire blog post to what transpired specifically today for half an hour, but has been coming on for years, just shows how concerned *I* am about it.
Though now I'm also concerned because the same suggestions are coming out of this manager's mouth of "set aside a certain amount of time to accomplish this." Yes, it's on my calendar weekly and it's been pushed aside by other "urgent" things every week. Also, "when you find some time" (HA!) please write down your typical week so we know how much you're doing. I could do that if I had time. Unless he has the ability to get me a time turner like Hermione Granger had in Harry Potter, I don't see anything changing about anything, except now I will be even more stressed about it. This assistant needs an assistant (or three).
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Self-Reflection by Identifying With Fictional Characters
I think you can tell a lot about yourself by which made-up characters you identify with. I had a dear friend whose favorite anybody was Disney's Cinderella. She was an adult woman who loved buying Cinderella ornaments for her tree, etc. I finally realized why she loved Cinderella so much: my friend had a horrific stepmother and jerky stepsisters. In a way she identified with Cinderella--never the bell of the ball at home, but destined for happy things one day. I asked her about it and she said, yes, that was why she loved buying themed items. It helped her cope with a bad situation (that she fortunately moved away from). She had no fairy godmother to help her out, but she did have friends who tried to watch out for her, and her stepmother eventually passed away. Now she never needs to see those girls with whom she was never related! And she got married and has a child of her own that she cherishes. So, in way, she got a happy ending. For those of you who are married with children, you may now belly laugh until you cry.
I love Into the Woods and I'm very excited that it's coming to film. I just hope the wolf isn't anatomically correct! I love it because the "happy endings" appear in the first act and real life happens in the second when the (spoiler alert) narrator gets eaten by a giant and no one knows what to do anymore. The last time I saw the play I think half the audience left at intermission. They didn't want the fantasy to end, I guess. I also like the quote from the second half when Prince Charming says he's raised to be charming, not sincere. I can't tell you how true this has seemed on many an occasion. My mother used to say that if a man can sweep you off your feet, he's had practice. And the most charming boys I've known have never truly been honest. They were overly charming, though. I do know some very dear people who are simply charming and sincere. I think they're fabulous.
But back to me. I've pondered quite a bit recently about which fictional characters I identify with, and it's not a pretty picture. For example, I am always Eponine, never Cosette. This has happened oh, so many times. I thought the guy liked me, but really he liked my friend or I liked a guy and thought he might like me someday, but he thought of me as a little sister - repeated ad nauseam.
I am very fond of The Muppets. Who do I identify with? The Great Gonzo. I am weird, odd, and misunderstood and I never do anything the normal way. And in Winnie the Pooh? Pooh Bear. I am often hungry, looking for something snackish, and have a roundish shape. I've also been known to hum with happiness while eating something particularly tasty.
No, I don't see myself in anyone glamorous. I'm that girl in the back, the one that's mainly ignored by everyone. Now I know that's not exactly true anymore. I'm quick witted and I love to laugh, so I'm great at parties. And somehow people have gotten the idea that I dress trendy and with good taste (I'm still not quite believing that one). And I have the type of open personality that readily invites friendship in. No matter where I go I make friends (keeping in touch with them is a different matter, but that's all on my forgetful end when I only think of them far away from any communication device).
Ooh! I could be The Ordinary Princess whose sisters are so beautiful and she is very plain. However, my über fabulous younger sister has only recently told me that not only does she think I'm beautiful, too, but that I'm JUST AS beautiful as my sisters. I'm still wrapping my head around that. Could that really be possible? But they all got married young and didn't have over a decade of extreme awkwardness (and very buck teeth) or ever had a lack of understanding about what clothes did and did not flatter them. And were so beautiful that men fell at their feet. It seems that the only times men have fallen at my feet were if they tripped in their haste to run away. But that could have been my needy, co-dependent personality and not as much my looks (but I thought it was my looks at the time--and to some my looks may still make me ineligible [but we don't want those ones, do we]).
I don't know if I'll ever get to the point of believing myself worthy of patterning after an Elizabeth Bennet or an Anne Shirley (though I really would love my own Gilbert Blythe), but what I am doing is trying to be myself and not what I think might make me seem more attractive to the opposite sex. That is why in public I now embrace my geekiness. I don't want to pretend that I don't love science fiction in the hopes that some guy might like me. What, I'm going to admit it after marriage when I try to name our house after something silly like Bag End or the Kobayashi Maru (the latter has a certain subtext that wouldn't actually be good for a marriage...so maybe not that one)? "Oh, by the way darling, I'd love to attend Comic Con someday. I hope you still love me and aren't devastated that you didn't know this MONTHS ago."
And yes, I'm totally geeking out about the new Lego video game based on Marvel characters. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal! Pardon me while I drool with anticipation. It's not coming out for months!!! Must pre-order to get extra characters for the game (imagine that in a hypnotized-type voice).
So when you think about who you identify with, is it someone who is just like you or is it someone you'd like to be? I think I'll mentally chew on that for a while.
I love Into the Woods and I'm very excited that it's coming to film. I just hope the wolf isn't anatomically correct! I love it because the "happy endings" appear in the first act and real life happens in the second when the (spoiler alert) narrator gets eaten by a giant and no one knows what to do anymore. The last time I saw the play I think half the audience left at intermission. They didn't want the fantasy to end, I guess. I also like the quote from the second half when Prince Charming says he's raised to be charming, not sincere. I can't tell you how true this has seemed on many an occasion. My mother used to say that if a man can sweep you off your feet, he's had practice. And the most charming boys I've known have never truly been honest. They were overly charming, though. I do know some very dear people who are simply charming and sincere. I think they're fabulous.
But back to me. I've pondered quite a bit recently about which fictional characters I identify with, and it's not a pretty picture. For example, I am always Eponine, never Cosette. This has happened oh, so many times. I thought the guy liked me, but really he liked my friend or I liked a guy and thought he might like me someday, but he thought of me as a little sister - repeated ad nauseam.
I am very fond of The Muppets. Who do I identify with? The Great Gonzo. I am weird, odd, and misunderstood and I never do anything the normal way. And in Winnie the Pooh? Pooh Bear. I am often hungry, looking for something snackish, and have a roundish shape. I've also been known to hum with happiness while eating something particularly tasty.
No, I don't see myself in anyone glamorous. I'm that girl in the back, the one that's mainly ignored by everyone. Now I know that's not exactly true anymore. I'm quick witted and I love to laugh, so I'm great at parties. And somehow people have gotten the idea that I dress trendy and with good taste (I'm still not quite believing that one). And I have the type of open personality that readily invites friendship in. No matter where I go I make friends (keeping in touch with them is a different matter, but that's all on my forgetful end when I only think of them far away from any communication device).
Ooh! I could be The Ordinary Princess whose sisters are so beautiful and she is very plain. However, my über fabulous younger sister has only recently told me that not only does she think I'm beautiful, too, but that I'm JUST AS beautiful as my sisters. I'm still wrapping my head around that. Could that really be possible? But they all got married young and didn't have over a decade of extreme awkwardness (and very buck teeth) or ever had a lack of understanding about what clothes did and did not flatter them. And were so beautiful that men fell at their feet. It seems that the only times men have fallen at my feet were if they tripped in their haste to run away. But that could have been my needy, co-dependent personality and not as much my looks (but I thought it was my looks at the time--and to some my looks may still make me ineligible [but we don't want those ones, do we]).
I don't know if I'll ever get to the point of believing myself worthy of patterning after an Elizabeth Bennet or an Anne Shirley (though I really would love my own Gilbert Blythe), but what I am doing is trying to be myself and not what I think might make me seem more attractive to the opposite sex. That is why in public I now embrace my geekiness. I don't want to pretend that I don't love science fiction in the hopes that some guy might like me. What, I'm going to admit it after marriage when I try to name our house after something silly like Bag End or the Kobayashi Maru (the latter has a certain subtext that wouldn't actually be good for a marriage...so maybe not that one)? "Oh, by the way darling, I'd love to attend Comic Con someday. I hope you still love me and aren't devastated that you didn't know this MONTHS ago."
And yes, I'm totally geeking out about the new Lego video game based on Marvel characters. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal! Pardon me while I drool with anticipation. It's not coming out for months!!! Must pre-order to get extra characters for the game (imagine that in a hypnotized-type voice).
So when you think about who you identify with, is it someone who is just like you or is it someone you'd like to be? I think I'll mentally chew on that for a while.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Trying to Find Meaning in the Meaningless
Have you ever wondered why some movie critics seem to be so out of touch with the viewing public? That when they love a movie we know we won't like it or when they hate it we'll sell out the theater? If you're anything like me, you enjoy the escapism of a summer blockbuster. I like going to these big-budget-special-effect-laden-sometimes-low-on-plot movies because I get to "escape" reality for a short length of time before having to return to my humdrum life.
Critics who take their jobs seriously must hate escapist movies. They're forced to watch meaningless film after meaningless film and have to find something redeemable in them. These are the critics that I don't usually follow. They would rather we didn't have a fantasy to run to and watch something poignant and heavy that will change our world view. No, thank you. Reality is weighty and depressing enough for me. I'm not big into catharsis. I don't enjoy angst for the sake of angst or the soap operas that are filled with lust and murder and I'm-so-happy-I'm-not-them. I also hate when a character I identify with chooses the WRONG person to be with. Hollywood decided that romantic (or sexual) tension is necessary and we must keep the perfect matches apart or viewers won't be interested and stop watching. I have to say that I'm still enjoying Castle and Bones, despite the couples getting together. And The Office. Jim and Pam forever! I'm hoping that they're still together by the end of the series and I don't like the friction they're having, despite the realism of it. If PB&J can't make it, then no one can. See, Hollywood writers? Stop messing with my life by messing with theirs! And when you purposely keep the matches apart for several seasons we begin to believe they're never getting together and we give up because why watch.
I love a good movie based on comic books. I have several of them in my film collection. Perhaps my love of the comic book-based movies in particular derives from the long car trips my family would take during the summer to visit relatives in other states. There were comic book stands in several gas station stores and we'd stock up especially when we already read through all the books we'd brought. When I was really young I'd read the Archie comics and wish I was Betty or Veronica (I'm most likely Betty--you know, the perfect girl for Archie, but as she was the girl next door he never saw her true value and wasted his time with Veronica who could never decide who she wanted--romantic tension). We won't get into the psychology of those comics...today.
As I grew older I started to get interested in the comic books my brother was buying. So I transitioned from the antics of Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teen Aged Witch to Green Lantern and Captain America. When I started buying my own instead of just reading my brother's I started buying Wonder Woman and Supergirl. I also loved the Teen Titans and the New Mutants. It's true that I still have a box of those comics and I'm super thrilled that the next X-Men movie is "Days of Future Past." This was a specific storyline that was later put into its own graphic novel. I was first introduced to it through a German version that my brother had. I can't speak German, but I was fascinated by the pictures and was dying to know what was really going on. It took me awhile, but I found the English version. It's actually very sad and post-apocalyptic and how humans fear mutants and are trying to hunt them to extinction.
That's a common theme in all of the X-Men-based series: the fight between Xavier's "good" mutants and Magneto's "bad" mutants and how their war directly affects how the world sees them. Poor Magneto's actions were always self-fulfilled prophecies. By acting badly of course the world viewed mutants poorly when they're trying to take over the world and being all superior to regular mortals. So it will be interesting to see what kind of happy ending that they can tack on so we're not all depressed when we leave the theater. I think the X-Men series was created to make us really think about how we view others and that no one should be treated differently. It's a cautionary tale.
I'm also super excited about Iron Man 3 (go Tony Stark) and the next Star Trek installment. Yea!!!!!! May is going to be an awesome month for movie-goers even if those are the only two movies we see. Over and over. In 3-D and/or IMAX. Or 2-D. And then we preorder the Blu-ray/DVD combo packs and wait impatiently for that lovely Amazon.com box to show up. Squeal of excitement! For some reason I'm getting the urge to watch The Avengers. Marvel studios, I love you. Disney, thank you for taking them in and letting them work on the interconnectedness that is the comic book world.
There was a brief time as an adult that I would go on Tuesdays to the comic book store and buy the latest installments of my favorite series. What I learned was that current writers are ruining my beloved comic heroes. Instead of leaving our heroes on pedestals they are making them flawed. Very flawed, in fact. And fallible. And sleeping around and unwed pregnancy in Teen Titans. I don't even want to address what they've done to Wonder Woman's home Themyscira (Paradise Island). Again, I wanted to escape reality, not revel in it. I'll not be seeing the last Batman movie. I don't care how wonderful people thought it was. It's dark. Too dark for me. I want funny and hopeful. I want the Hulk punching Thor for no reason. I want Alan Quatermain rising from the dead at the end of LXG. I want Superman and Lois Lane to be together (sorry, Superman Returns--I didn't like the unwed pregnancy--hated it, in fact). Heroes should be people we aspire to be, a better version of us, not exactly the same but with super powers. Stop ruining my escapism! Or I'll have to start creating my own.
Critics who take their jobs seriously must hate escapist movies. They're forced to watch meaningless film after meaningless film and have to find something redeemable in them. These are the critics that I don't usually follow. They would rather we didn't have a fantasy to run to and watch something poignant and heavy that will change our world view. No, thank you. Reality is weighty and depressing enough for me. I'm not big into catharsis. I don't enjoy angst for the sake of angst or the soap operas that are filled with lust and murder and I'm-so-happy-I'm-not-them. I also hate when a character I identify with chooses the WRONG person to be with. Hollywood decided that romantic (or sexual) tension is necessary and we must keep the perfect matches apart or viewers won't be interested and stop watching. I have to say that I'm still enjoying Castle and Bones, despite the couples getting together. And The Office. Jim and Pam forever! I'm hoping that they're still together by the end of the series and I don't like the friction they're having, despite the realism of it. If PB&J can't make it, then no one can. See, Hollywood writers? Stop messing with my life by messing with theirs! And when you purposely keep the matches apart for several seasons we begin to believe they're never getting together and we give up because why watch.
I love a good movie based on comic books. I have several of them in my film collection. Perhaps my love of the comic book-based movies in particular derives from the long car trips my family would take during the summer to visit relatives in other states. There were comic book stands in several gas station stores and we'd stock up especially when we already read through all the books we'd brought. When I was really young I'd read the Archie comics and wish I was Betty or Veronica (I'm most likely Betty--you know, the perfect girl for Archie, but as she was the girl next door he never saw her true value and wasted his time with Veronica who could never decide who she wanted--romantic tension). We won't get into the psychology of those comics...today.
As I grew older I started to get interested in the comic books my brother was buying. So I transitioned from the antics of Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teen Aged Witch to Green Lantern and Captain America. When I started buying my own instead of just reading my brother's I started buying Wonder Woman and Supergirl. I also loved the Teen Titans and the New Mutants. It's true that I still have a box of those comics and I'm super thrilled that the next X-Men movie is "Days of Future Past." This was a specific storyline that was later put into its own graphic novel. I was first introduced to it through a German version that my brother had. I can't speak German, but I was fascinated by the pictures and was dying to know what was really going on. It took me awhile, but I found the English version. It's actually very sad and post-apocalyptic and how humans fear mutants and are trying to hunt them to extinction.
That's a common theme in all of the X-Men-based series: the fight between Xavier's "good" mutants and Magneto's "bad" mutants and how their war directly affects how the world sees them. Poor Magneto's actions were always self-fulfilled prophecies. By acting badly of course the world viewed mutants poorly when they're trying to take over the world and being all superior to regular mortals. So it will be interesting to see what kind of happy ending that they can tack on so we're not all depressed when we leave the theater. I think the X-Men series was created to make us really think about how we view others and that no one should be treated differently. It's a cautionary tale.
I'm also super excited about Iron Man 3 (go Tony Stark) and the next Star Trek installment. Yea!!!!!! May is going to be an awesome month for movie-goers even if those are the only two movies we see. Over and over. In 3-D and/or IMAX. Or 2-D. And then we preorder the Blu-ray/DVD combo packs and wait impatiently for that lovely Amazon.com box to show up. Squeal of excitement! For some reason I'm getting the urge to watch The Avengers. Marvel studios, I love you. Disney, thank you for taking them in and letting them work on the interconnectedness that is the comic book world.
There was a brief time as an adult that I would go on Tuesdays to the comic book store and buy the latest installments of my favorite series. What I learned was that current writers are ruining my beloved comic heroes. Instead of leaving our heroes on pedestals they are making them flawed. Very flawed, in fact. And fallible. And sleeping around and unwed pregnancy in Teen Titans. I don't even want to address what they've done to Wonder Woman's home Themyscira (Paradise Island). Again, I wanted to escape reality, not revel in it. I'll not be seeing the last Batman movie. I don't care how wonderful people thought it was. It's dark. Too dark for me. I want funny and hopeful. I want the Hulk punching Thor for no reason. I want Alan Quatermain rising from the dead at the end of LXG. I want Superman and Lois Lane to be together (sorry, Superman Returns--I didn't like the unwed pregnancy--hated it, in fact). Heroes should be people we aspire to be, a better version of us, not exactly the same but with super powers. Stop ruining my escapism! Or I'll have to start creating my own.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
May pawns leave a chessboard of their own volition?
So, a week of uncertainty has passed at work. It's uncertain because they announced major changes in that meeting on Monday morning but forgot to arrange for the little changes caused by the big changes. By "big" I mean upper management level and by "little" I mean everyone else in the company. And there are a LOT of "little" changes because of the rearrangement of departments and such, so much so that they still haven't decided all of the decisions. Um, who are my bosses and who are my clients and how many more am I getting? And am I staying in my present office or being moved across the way? And what shall we do now that one of the managers who was being moved to my office has decided to put in their two weeks notice?
It's unpleasant being a pawn in someone else's game. They move me from square to square and I swear I'm the one they keep sacrificing and then putting back in when it starts all over again. It reminds me just a bit of Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carrol. This companion piece to Alice in Wonderland (and often bound together as if it's one book) is written like a chess game. There's even an explanation of the moves at the beginning of the book. Upon looking out across the Looking Glass World at the top of a hill and noticing that the land stretched out and looked like a chessboard, Alice says excitedly, "It's a great huge game of chess that's being played--all over the world--if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join--though, of course, I should like to be a Queen best." And off she goes in a mad game of chess in which (spoiler alert) she becomes a queen at the end.
I wouldn't mind playing if I could ever graduate from being a pawn to a queen. But now that I know for a surety that I won't in this company, that I'll always be sacrificed or taken somewhere mid-game, I'm pretty much done. I never learned chess. I felt the rules were far too complicated to keep straight. Checkers I was okay at, though Chinese Checkers was my favorite.
I've now taken a couple of assessment tests to find out where my skills and interests might join together to find a career path I might not hate. I'm going to talk to a career counselor, too, just because I am so burned out that just looking through employment listings makes me want to cry in despair that I'm never going to find something that I might actually like...that pays money...in a poor economy.
Should I set up a fund for people to support me while I finish my novel I've been barely writing for almost ten years? Should I move to a commune? Should I homestead in Alaska so I can't be kicked out for not paying rent because I ran out of money trying to chase a dream? I hate being practical.
However, I will giggle a little that this last test says things like: avoid adventuring, develop woodworking, explore office practices (what I'm trying to avoid), and pursue science and the creative arts. I knew the creative part would come into it, but science? I didn't get those super-smart logical genes. I take issues with scientific "laws" which are really just guesses that haven't yet been disproven. And scientific subsets that disagree with one another. And that color is merely the way light is reflected and/or absorbed so when there's no light, there's no color. Tell you what, I will concede that some things may not have color in the absence of light due to merely the reflection/absorption issue, if you concede that some things have color as part of its properties. And if there's no light, how can you actually prove your theory?
Though I have read what the news sees fit to report on obvious studies that somebody funded proving facts everyone already knew. Perhaps it's the perfect job after all! Or not. We'll see.
It's unpleasant being a pawn in someone else's game. They move me from square to square and I swear I'm the one they keep sacrificing and then putting back in when it starts all over again. It reminds me just a bit of Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carrol. This companion piece to Alice in Wonderland (and often bound together as if it's one book) is written like a chess game. There's even an explanation of the moves at the beginning of the book. Upon looking out across the Looking Glass World at the top of a hill and noticing that the land stretched out and looked like a chessboard, Alice says excitedly, "It's a great huge game of chess that's being played--all over the world--if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join--though, of course, I should like to be a Queen best." And off she goes in a mad game of chess in which (spoiler alert) she becomes a queen at the end.
I wouldn't mind playing if I could ever graduate from being a pawn to a queen. But now that I know for a surety that I won't in this company, that I'll always be sacrificed or taken somewhere mid-game, I'm pretty much done. I never learned chess. I felt the rules were far too complicated to keep straight. Checkers I was okay at, though Chinese Checkers was my favorite.
I've now taken a couple of assessment tests to find out where my skills and interests might join together to find a career path I might not hate. I'm going to talk to a career counselor, too, just because I am so burned out that just looking through employment listings makes me want to cry in despair that I'm never going to find something that I might actually like...that pays money...in a poor economy.
Should I set up a fund for people to support me while I finish my novel I've been barely writing for almost ten years? Should I move to a commune? Should I homestead in Alaska so I can't be kicked out for not paying rent because I ran out of money trying to chase a dream? I hate being practical.
However, I will giggle a little that this last test says things like: avoid adventuring, develop woodworking, explore office practices (what I'm trying to avoid), and pursue science and the creative arts. I knew the creative part would come into it, but science? I didn't get those super-smart logical genes. I take issues with scientific "laws" which are really just guesses that haven't yet been disproven. And scientific subsets that disagree with one another. And that color is merely the way light is reflected and/or absorbed so when there's no light, there's no color. Tell you what, I will concede that some things may not have color in the absence of light due to merely the reflection/absorption issue, if you concede that some things have color as part of its properties. And if there's no light, how can you actually prove your theory?
Though I have read what the news sees fit to report on obvious studies that somebody funded proving facts everyone already knew. Perhaps it's the perfect job after all! Or not. We'll see.
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