Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Donnie Darko edition

via thechocolatebrigade on the tumblr.

I know this guy who claims controversially when drinking in a crowd that he doesn’t like the film Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001). This guy will say he happens to think that it’s a dumb, boring, pretentious piece of crap that tries too hard, and people only pretend to like it because they’re afraid of looking not-hip. I geniunely love the film Donnie Darko, but it’s okay, because I happen to think that this guy is a dumb, boring, pretentious piece of crap who tries too hard, and people only pretend to like him because they’re afraid of looking not-hip.

Haters to the left.

Tonight, tonight won’t be just any night, or, Ready to get “Lost”

When I overhauled my life last year, I discovered that I am not a big guy for the television (except for 30 Rock, though even that I just periodically catch up on using the hulu), so I — without fanfare or officialdom but just mainly and casually — quit it nearly altogether in favor of holing up under the covers with a book or lurking in the batcave on the computer. However, the one show I stopped watching but have never stopped thinking about is Lost, the final season of which begins tonight.

Nevermind the crisp and bullocks. Give me that rum. Mmm — Dharma Initiative-y.

I had not seen the last few episodes of last season, but the rabid fandom of the show means that excruciatingly detailed episode descriptions (and conspiracy theories) abound on its very own wiki, so I read all those and I feel pretty caught up — and both smug and confused as to what it all means.

Who is a pretty princess?? Daniel Faraday is a pretty princess! I ♥ this character in an embarassing way, the sort of way for which I would mercilessly mock others.

The plan for tonight’s reintroduction of E’s regularly viewing television, just like an actual social human being, is this. Gorgeous George and the kidlet and I are going to meet up for dinner at the pub, come back here and enjoy us some geeky season premiere action, and then I am hitting the hay early because I have my first sub job tomorrow, about which I am very nervous. Catch you on the flip side! (“See you in another life, brutha.”)

Edit: “4 8 15 16 23 42 are all Yankee retired numbers.” via RiverAveBlues on the twitter, one of my most trusted, beloved, good-humored and APPARENTLY like-minded baseball resources.

Daily Batman: Friendohs!

Cesar Romero as the Joker and Lee Meriwether as Catwoman/Miss Kitka (remember, Jul-Newms was washing her hair, so a former Miss America stepped in as kitteh-lady) in the 1966 film version of Batman.

Dearest and weirdest old friendohs with common interests — they are a Thing!

Ghost post; I’m pubbing it up with the Cappy right now. Woohoo!

Star Wars shenanigans

Last night was supposed to be Star Wars and Indiana Jones trivia night at the pub, but there was a snafu with the printer and we did regular trivia instead. Total folklore!

It’s been rescheduled for next week. So, if you are in the area, come down to P. Wexford’s in Modesto next Tuesday starting at 7pm for cheap Irish pints and a no-holds-barred*, bloody-knuckles-trivia-showdown. Prize is a free round of beer for the winners! And the knowledge that you are the geekiest person in the pub. Which is saying something, believe me!

*okay. Some holds barred. Boob honks and throwin’ elbows are just plain not allowed.

The evil eye, lasagna, and daddy issues

Paging Dr. Freud. I’m making lasagna right now. Here’s why.

Okay. So. I have a recurring dream that my father is shot and killed by someone wandering on to the campus where he teaches. In the dream, I am always at my parents’ home in their room, taking care of laundry (the curtains are always down in the dream, I get the impression they are being washed as well) when the kitchen phone rings and a call comes to report that he’s died.

Just before the phone rings, I am always thinking two things: first, that once that load of laundry that’s in the washer is done, I’m going to shower, and second, I wonder what the Detwiler twins are doing lately? — these are two girls around five years younger than me that we used to babysit in San Jose, who moved to the Valley around the same time we did. This is very consistent, no matter how many times I dream it: I am always thinking those two things as I fold sheets.

Right when I think the last bit of that thought about the twins, a weird presentiment of dread comes over me, like I am remembering already that I’ve dreamt this, and the phone is about to ring with terrible news. The dream is very vivid, down to the dim light from the overcast sky and the muggy, heavy feeling in the air through the open, uncurtained windows. I look up from my folding and the phone rings. I hear my mother pick up the kitchen extension and I know that she’s being told my father has been killed. I wake up.

All right, I told you that story so I could tell you this one:
After I finished school and moved to Portland with my husband, I figured I was off the hook forever from this dream coming true, as I was a married lady and all grown’z up and would never again be in a position to be home, folding laundry on my parents’ bed, when the kitchen phone would ring and someone would say he’d been killed.

Then I took this lovely nerve-wracking break from marriage and moved home with the kidlet. Things have been pretty good with my folks considering they’ve taken in an adult child and her child, but he and I argued last weekend and things have been “off” since then. I said passionate and unfair things to him like, “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment. I know you think I’m a failure and that my feelings are only an inconvenience to you,” and I even managed to bring up the time that he told me offhandedly that my mom loved me more than he did.

That always stuck with me because I am one of those sick women that believes their father hangs the moon and would never steer me wrong, say something false, or make a wrong decision, so if I perceive that he disapproves of me or thinks I am not living up to my potential, as he is God, that makes him right, which makes me crap. To get mad and yell at him is like throwing rocks at Heaven, for me. (Yes, I am aware that I need to acknowledge his flaws and humanity if I want to have any kind of ordinary relationship with men other than him. Why don’t you suck it? I’m working on it!) Anyway, we dropped a whole strafing series of bombs rife with psychological napalm at one another for a while. We eventually ran out of gas, apologized, and made up. But it’s hung over my head since then.

So, now, I told you that story so I could tell you this one:
I was folding laundry about an hour ago and the phone rang. It was not sheets, the curtains were up, my mother was not home, and I answered the phone; not the kitchen extension, but an extension they have in their room now. It was a robo-call from my father’s school district offices. It was a recording of his principal, reporting that the school had been on lockdown earlier because of an adult intruder, and the lockdown has now been lifted and parents can come get their kids if they want. I know, right?! I freaked out. Apparently, it was necessary because of some jerky vagrant who came on campus, got in a fight with security, and was quickly apprehended by police and never even got the chance to enter a classroom.

I called my father immediately on his cell phone and he didn’t seem too shaken up, but he did ask that I not go out with Panda Eraser tonight, as I’d been planning. I am okay with that; this week has been so-so for me other than going to mall with Miss D, so I’d have been not very upbeat company, anyway, probably. She wouldn’t mind, she’d understand, but I’d have felt bad for being a downer. So I texted Panda to see about making it up to her by treating her to sushi on Monday, which is her day off from the Cosmetology School That Shall Not Be Named.

Finally, I told you that story so I could tell you this last one:
I’m making him lasagna now. I’m much more shaken up than he is. I have a couple scheduled posts that will appear later. That’s it from me today, though. I am way too much of a Daddy’s Girl to do anything but sit around cooking for him and fretting. I feel like if something had happened to him, I would’ve done it somehow via the evil eye, like invited the retribution from the fact of being so rude and ungrateful as to get sucked in to a fight with him this weekend. In general, he’s kind of a grouchy, contentious, loveable curmudgeon and I try to ignore the baiting, which is good-natured more than anything else, but I was on edge and lost my temper, a total lapse in grace. Naturally, that means that fight we had makes this all my fault. You see? Hence the lasagna. That will make it all better.

“Evil eye tree” by Isarao on flickr.

I’m such a superstitious freak, I swar to gar.

Gal pals: they are a Thing

I adore my guy friends, but I vowed recently to work harder on my special female friendships, and so far I am really loving it. And I recently had a very shocking experience that brought painfully home to me how much I need to work on this issue of judging women based on their appearances. I will get to that in a moment. Really knocked me out. Let me get to it in a proper order. This may take a few posts strung out over several days because I got a lot of dogs in the fire these next few days, stanimal. (Totally pointless Frisky Dingo reference.)

First things first!, my breasts wanted to let you know that there is a girl named Panda Eraser and she makes things all crafty style and has a blog, and that is kind of a big deal, mmkay?

That night was an adventure, eh, madame? By the way. Be Nice or Else. (This is legitimately one of the slogans at the not-to-be-named cosmetology school through which Panda Eraser is slogging with admirable style and elan despite their attempts to drag her down; e.g. ‘Whoa, how do you make purple? Mix red and blue? Are you serious?’ and a poster which said ‘Your Amazing’. Don’t let the turkeys grind you down, Virgo Vixen — with god, Guinness, and Ekitty as your copilot, you will triumph.)

The morning after I took that picture, Miss D and I had a hotty boom botty date to pick out the flowers for her and Paolo’s wedding (t minus: TEN DAYS eeeek). I was reading a Lally Weymouth article in Newsweek before she pulled up, and, as I climbed in the car, after a hug and greeting, my opening salvo was, “Man, I was reading this interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and they asked him how could he deny the Holocaust. I have to say, his answers were really surprising.”

Aren’t I just the socially smoothest? Like, “Hello and oh, I’m very excited to be part of picking the flowers for the happiest day of your and Paolo’s lives, and we just got over worrying about P’s mom’s recovery from freaking double masectomy possibly conflicting with the wedding day (surgery was postponed), and we’re taking care of thousands of details this week for this important step in the path of your life’s journey together but, hey, can I take a moment of your time to talk about Iranian holocaust deniers? That’s cool, right?” Like, way to stomp on the beautiful shiny optimism of the morning, Elizabeth.

Thank god she is a woman of intellect as well as heart. Not missing a beat, Miss D said, “What did he say? I’m curious.” We agreed we’d only heard ignorant American perspectives on Holocaust denial, but nothing from a Middle Eastern politician. Because that is all normal ladies’ behavior of a Wednesday morning on your way to get wedding flowers. Actually, he did have interesting responses, interesting in the sense of I-had-not-heard-of-that, but it is the same old anti-Semitism you can find in any country with jerks in it which is to say humans in it (total bullshit). Obviously he has a unique perspective because of Iran’s relationship with Palestine and he was positioning himself very diplomatically based on that, but he was saying disgraceful and inexcusable things about Israel, Judaism, and the behavior of Jews in Germany during WWII, to my mind, but that is neither here nor there. (Read the interview online here at the Newsweek website.)

Anyway, having discussed international politics and effectively hammered that shit out, we turned our attention back to the domestic front and went and got the flower situation all nailed down, is the point. Although at first we are pretty sure they thought we were marrying each other, and while watching them stammer to be PC and glance back and forth between us constantly was fun, I eventually clarified, “She is the bride. I’m just a friend who’s helping.” When I told Christo this, he suggested we should have kept them going and tried to muscle a discount from their obvious discomfort. Central Valley’s nearly benignly generic homophobia = just peaches and cream.

Shoot, I need to go for right now. Got to smog my car. I’ll schedule this to post for later and hopefully I’ll be able to turn right back around and finish up. I have more to say, it involves big hair and blondes and me being a terrible reverse discriminator who needs to step down off my aren’t-I-so-cool-for-not-being-cool high horse before the altitude makes me ill in the Bad Way.

Asked and answered, but more questions are raised

Yes, I was at the pub! No, we did not win at trivia. Mr. Kite and friends won the first round, and I’m not sure what strangers won the second, although I got a nice video of Ronald giving us his patented glowery, sardonic Death Stare during the questions, which I will try to get around to uploading eventually. I let the Gentleman talk me in to the artichoke jalapeno dip, by which I used to swear, but I’m old now and my stomach is not the efficient and merciless iron machine that it once was. It’s angry at me today.

“Yeah, I was feeling pretty crappy today, too.” –thus spake the Gentleman, purveyor of artichoke jalapeno dip and stomach acid trips

The evening ultimately raised more questions than it answered, as there was the following new item on the menu:

This lead to broad and snickering speculation as to precisely what the what a “Tahoe Snoopy” is: it sounds like some kind of voyeuristic sex act. If anyone has an explanation for this, I’d love to hear it. Because that is simply not a term in widespread enough use to get thrown on a menu and not explained.

Ghostamus Postamus

Am I at the pub, winning at trivia? Who knows! All I know is, I sure hope they still got some Boddington’s, and, if they have, I am just wreckin’ it! I hope it is writing letters home to England, all like, “Dear Mummy and Daddy, everything was going decently until this woman showed up, she is some kind of crazy writer and she calls all her friends by aliases, I think her name starts with an E — she keeps making feral cat noises and drinking pints of me. I fear I shall never see Manchester again!” And it will be right, and its parents will come to me seeking vendetta, but I will just drink them too.

Mmmmm…….

I left the following liberated negative spaces behind last week, I wonder what I’ll be called to pass along tonight?

I was thinking of no longer liberating negative space at the pub but we’ll see if I can keep that resolution.