Dewey Readathon - Intro Meme!

Hour 1!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

I'm at my friend, Janey Canuck's, in Guelph, Ontario.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Wildwood, by Colin Meloy.  I bought it just for today.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Cupcakes!  Beautiful cupcakes!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I'm tired!  I was up at  5:30 to get here on time.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

It would be nice if I could make it the full 24 hours.  Wish me luck!

Headphones

Headphones - meaning, little speakers you put either in or on your ears to hear music - have changed over the past few years.  They're starting to come in fun colours, in different sizes, all that fun stuff.

Here's the thing: no one seems to give a shit about sound anymore.  I was in a bookstore (of all places), with my sister-in-law the other day, and they now have an electronics section.  In the bookstore*.  So, we had already had our first encounter with the "electronics associate"**, and were wandering around looking at other stuff, when I see the headphones display:

Yeah, there's a fucking mirror.  The creepy associate comes around the corner and tells me to try some on and see how they look.  SEE HOW THEY LOOK.  I don't need headphones, so I declined, but I said to him "wouldn't you want to hear what they sound like?"

"Oh, yeah, you can plug them in and do that, too."  But the offer was secondary to see how they look. Maybe it's a sign I'm getting older, but I was just floored that they would even have the display like that.    The mirror gets more space then the headphones.  I can't imagine what people would think of my home headphones:

Built for sound quality and comfort, not unlike my own body.

The associate was constantly under our feet, so sister-in-law and I wandered off a few more feet, into the books, picked one up to suggest it to her, and the associate was right there again.

"I cannot recommend that book*** enough."

I set the book down, and we both just gave him an exasperated look.  Seriously, dude?

But yeah, mirrors, so you can see what you look like in your headphones.



* "We sell e-readers, so we have to have our dick in a number of other pies, too."
** these douchebags warrant their own post, to be honest.
*** The Help.

On Film: Part 1

Well, I've finally decided to write a post about movies.  It was this or my sixth episode of Mad About You this morning.

Those of you who know me in my personal life, know that I have a degree in Cultural Studies, but I've often over-simplified things and told people my degree is in film.  I should really stop doing this. One, it's a little disrespectful towards the literature and art I studied, and - two - it makes people think I have more technical know-how than I do.  Let me tell you what my degree got me.

It got me a job in a video store.  I will say this once: there is nothing wrong with working in retail*. However, while working at the store, I overdosed on movies pretty badly and didn't watch any for a few years.  Even now, watching a movie is a little rare for me.  I'm telling you this so you know my opinion on recent movies is worth exactly bupkis.  Also, honestly, my opinions and knowledge of the older stuff is lacking, too.  I'm out of practice.

Here's a short list of some of my faves, some with explanations or general comments.

Metropolis (1927)
I promise I won't go year by year, but this was another that was big for me when I was a kid.  This film influenced me more than I probably realize.  I don't know if I'd be as big a science fiction fan as I am without having seen it as a kid (and the "as a kid" part is important, though I couldn't say why).

The version I most enjoy of this one has a soundtrack by Giorgio Moroder**.  I would say this is because I'm a product of the 1980's, but the editing on it is fantastic.  It is actually the shortest version, but the clearest in narrative (of the handful I've seen).

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
Charles Laughton in a comedy.  I love him, and this movie is just fantastic.  Everyone in it is incredibly well cast.  It is a little "yay, America," but I feel it's justifiable here.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
I get genuinely disappointed at whichever rank this gets on the AFI top 100 list.  It always feels low to me.

Wings of Desire (1987)
This is the movie that made me change majors when I saw it in first year.  Hollywood remade it as "City of Angels," and removed anything worthwhile from the film***.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
My first serious Hollywood crush.  Still waiting on the sequel.

I'm gonna break the land speed record with the least aerodynamic design in existence.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
It's this perfect, little piece of candy, filled with lovely people (including Noah Taylor!)  I used to say this was my favourite film, but then Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) came out.  It's pretty clear that I really do like Wes Anderson, but I don't think I'm a blind follower by any sense of the word.  I haven't seen Darjeeling Limited since it came out;  it feels like an attempt to create a Wes Anderson film.  There's this thin candy shell around it, with nothing inside.  It is worth pointing out here, that Wes' brother, Eric Chase Anderson, was not involved in Darjeeling Limited.  In the other films, his design was such a heavy influence (the stage of the bisected boat in Life Aquatic was his design, all the drawings from Royal Tenenbaums).

This little list barely scratches the surface.  The truth of the matter is, there are probably at least 3 different lists:

• favourites (includes movies with drastic flaws, eg. Comic Book Villains)
• movies I think are important from a film standpoint
• movies I think are important from a legal standpoint (this would include mondo and some of the more extreme horror)

At some point, I realized that I didn't have any one favourite anymore.  I think this stands true for everything. For a 15 year period, if you had asked me who my favourite band was, I'd have told you Radiohead****. But there are so many worthwhile musicians out there.  Favourite author?  Spider Robinson, but there's a lot of other writers out there (he's still super high on the list, though).



*except for dealing with snarky customers, am I right, folks?
**also, he composed "Danger Zone" for all you Top Gun fans.
***Separate the wheat from the chaff, and be sure the chaff is released as a movie.
****But please don't put me in a room with a bunch of other Radiohead fans

Retail Therapy

I had an incredibly trying day yesterday.  There are a number of big changes coming at work, and I'm not sure how I feel about them.  At the end of the day, my stomach was churning.  I left work feeling very determined.  I got in my car, and drove off wish a purpose in mind:

Retail Therapy.

It's not an activity I've ever really engaged in, but yesterday, I thought that spending a good chunk of change and buying myself something nice might make me feel a little better.  The plan was to go out and buy a new purse/briefcasey type thing.  I drove all the way across town, to the "nice" Winners (shopping at a Winners was a sign that I wasn't really all that serious, I should have seen that immediately).  I think I was interested in the hunt of looking for a bag, not the bag itself.  I could have just walked into a place like Danier and be done with it.  Also, I wanted to spend money, but I don't think I wanted to spend Danier money.

The drive across town was the nicest part of the trip.  Some days, I forget how much I just enjoy driving.  I had Blur on shuffle (all albums, all songs).  It's neat to hear a band you like switching back and forth between phases*.

As anyone could predict, the bags were all shit.  After all that wandering around - not really looking at things, but thinking about work the entire time - I still felt the need to buy something, in order for it to have felt like retail therapy.  This is what I came home with:

Posh candy and measuring cups? And you say you actually need the measuring cups? You suck at this bro.

I wandered around Bed, Bath, and Beyond for a bit afterwards.  I spent less than $20, and I still feel guilty for spending it. The fact that I'm bad at wasting my money on cute things feels like the icing on the cake, like I just failed at failing.

Anyway, time to shower and dress for work.

*but only if you like all the phases.  If I did this with the Kinks - who I totally love, honestly - I'd still end up skipping a few of the more modern tracks.

The big issue I have with betterment.

It can be easy to feel like you truly know someone through reading their blog, but I think this is quite false.  There are any number of reasons why someone's blog can fall to the wayside in their life.  When things are busy and going very well, it's difficult to turn back to the blog.  When you're turned your bed into a nest and have trouble getting out of it, it's difficult to turn back to the blog.  While I haven't turned the bed into a nest yet, I've certainly been teetering on the edge lately.  I'm not depressed by any means, but if I don't act, I may be soon enough.  I want to use the word "malaise" or "ennui" here, but I think those words are generally reserved for people cooler than me.

While I don't like talking about work on here (although, I touched on it in my last entry as well), the fiscal year end has me completely run off my feet.  In addition to regular 'year end' stress, my particular role is running one body short, effectively doubling my workload.  For the past two weeks, I've been arriving home much later than usual, and just vegging out until bedtime and then getting up and doing it all over again*. 

The real culprit here, though, is the weather.  I like snow, but I can't remember when we've last had a winter so long.  It's severely bummed me out.  This weekend seems to finally be showing true signs of spring, so I'd like to shape up and get myself back in order.  I haven't stepped on a scale in awhile, and I'm a little worried that I might be back up to my university weight, which I swore I'd never return to.

There is an entire in industry dedicated to pulling up your socks and facing issues head on.  And in some ways, it's hard not to try and reach out and see if any of them will help. 

The pile on the left is what I feel I should be reading.  The pile on the right is what I plan to read.  Both piles will be put off.

My relationship with these books is strange.  It is important to note the following: of the self-help books shown above, I've actually only purchased one of those myself ("It's your money" by Gail Vaz-Oxlade. Given that she's more finance oriented, I'm not including her in the below indictment).  All the others have just shown up, dumped on me by well meaning friends and family who were trying to clear their houses of clutter**.  I always approach these subjects with such indifference; so many of them have let me down in the past I look for the similarities in all these books.  For example:

Give it up to a higher power

So many of these damned things have a pervasive thread of religion/spirituality running through it.  God is like herpes for self-help books.  You could write a self-help book that doesn't mention God at all, but as soon as it's set on the shelf with others and it'll break out in God faster than you can say "Abreva."  This element doesn't expose itself until you've reached a level of commitment with the book, around chapter/step/aura 3 or 4 of the book.

My favourite of these are the books that insist you can do without this element.  "Just focus that energy on something else, like a rock," they'll say, effectively insulting theists, atheists, and anyone who dabbles in good sense.  Fuck you and fuck your book.

Dedicate your life to this book.  Teach it to others.

Speaking of herpes, once you've jumped through all the hoops of a self-help book/system/lifestyle change, most of them will encourage you to go out in the world and tell people about it.  Whatever you do, don't give them a copy of your book (you'll need it for reference should you fall back into old habits!), make them buy their own.

The book tells you this so that you'll help people, not to sell books.

This system WORKS

There's a really great element to the entire trend of self-help.  Say you start reading one of these books, and it has a lot of great advice in it***.  Then, your life gets a little busy.  Maybe you're helping plan a wedding, in a custody battle, doing hostage negotiations, or the most recent girl you've locked in the basement is proving to be a handful****.  It doesn't even have to be this extreme, the end result is you can't dedicate as much time to the book as you had intended. 

Even if you do dedicate your time and energy to it - following the directions as closely as you can - things don't go as well as you'd expected.  There's no way the book has failed you, you must have failed the book.  All of these books (even the good ones), have this way of making people feel like shit, when they should be getting people to feel safe, or even excited.  These books are like douchebags at the bar that all women should try to avoid*****. 

A photo of a dick on the back cover that you can compare your life with

"In addition to Better, Faster, Stronger,Clive McEnvy has written three bestsellers and two failed erotica novels.  He lives in the east-central district of Toronto (read: the beaches), with his wife, matching Volvos, and two chocolate labs.  He is better than you, and your purchase of this book is going towards owning a third racehorse that he never sees, due to his horse allergies." 

I don't know if I'm actually bitter, or if I just want every book to have a barefoot Shel Silverstein on the back.

Everything's going to be okay.  I was torn between a picture of him or Tom Baker.

I know that at least a little of my problem with these books, is me (I guess the "negging" works on me, too).  It's very hard to want to absorb and move forward with something when every fifth page inspires you to wail and gnash your teeth.  I won't go so far as to say that I think all of them are frauds, as I think a number of them are simply misguided (like psychics).  Most are bad writers, and I think the ratio of bad to good is higher in this genre than others. 

We need to stop publishing these guys, and I, for one, need to stop reading them.  My big problem is focusing on what's important and doing the work.  Self-help bullshit is just another way for me avoiding focusing on the things that will really enable me to move forward, not just give me the illusion of progress.  The time I spend sneering at these books stops me from reading more interesting things, and in the long run, stops interesting things from being published.

Well, that file box isn't shrinking anytime soon, and I've got somewhere to be later.



*Not to mention that I should be working right now.  I've brought a filebox of items full this weekend, and I haven't touched it yet.
**which is probably a step in at least one of those books shown.
***I'm not denying that there's probably a lot of good advice, maybe a nugget of truth every 30 pages or so.  What I am denying is the thought that most of these books are worth the money.
****or, say, it's fiscal year end.
*****also, those kind of vicious douchebags only fuel the idea that being a "nice guy" means you're somehow entitled to sex.  There's so much sexual cluelessness in the world lately it hurts my brain.

I took a vacation day yesterday.

I don't like to write about my work on here*, I took a vacation day yesterday to try and relax and it seemed to have the opposite effect on me.  One of the people I work with even texted me with a work related question while I was off.  Like, seriously, you can't wait one fucking day? Why do you think I'm not at work right now?  Do you think I'm just off, pining to hear from you and just daydreaming about being at work?  Well, I kind of was, but it wasn't the good kind of daydreaming.

Knowing I had today off, I logged into the network on Saturday and did about 4 hours of work.  Regardless of the time off, I knew I was going to be doing it.  It's the kind of work that you need uninterrupted time for, which I was just not getting at work at all.  So, I successfully ruined my Saturday.

On the bright side, I babysat my niece and nephew that night, which meant my nephew kept getting out of bed until I stopped trying to put him back in it and he fell asleep against me while watching Thomas.  I don't mind it when he does that.  I love my niece and nephew, but sometimes it's difficult not to resent them a little.  The amount of energy I put into being a great aunt might be better spent talking to other people and maybe trying to start my own family**. 

On Sunday night, I went to bed with fantastic visions of sleeping in the next morning while everyone else went to work like a sucker.  Instead, I woke up at three am to a horrendous nightmare of me working in a grocery store during the zombie apocalypse.  I was in the upstairs office and they just kept coming.   I woke up incredibly stressed out, but also disappointed in my brain, because I'm getting pretty sick of the zombie craze, with sleep being the only place I could normally find to get away from it.

Now, I don't want to go back, because there's going to be a tonne waiting for me.  Also, I'm in a course this morning***, so this morning's garbage will have to be added on top of all that.

Hi-ho, off I go.



*for several reasons, including "don't bite the hand that feeds you", complaining gets you nowhere, and "oh, you're that kidAmy?"  That last one is kind of funny, because I'm pretty sure I'm not that difficult to track down.
**which is, of course, the best thing you can say to a man during your first coffee date.
***my workplace is really great that way.  :)

Fucking idiot

I talk to a number of people through the dating site on a regular basis.  It's not that I'm not shy, I'm just used to the online dating scene.  The one who seemed most promising to me just told me moments ago that he has a wife, and that he hopes that's "not going to be a problem."

YEAH, I'M DONE WITH THIS ONE! BRING IN THE NEXT GUY!