"Kermit the Blog"

14-0

2012-01-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

I'm still pretty new to being a sports fan, so I'm sure there are aspects of the game I still just don't understand, especially when it comes to Olypmic qualifying games and things like goal differentials. And I suspect that I should be excited to have watched (even online) a game that broke records. But honestly, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The US WNT built up a lot of goodwill with the World Cup, between snatching victory from the teeth of Brazil in the quarterfinal and their ultimate honorable loss to Japan in the final. Total domination of an up-and-coming team like the Dominican Republic by an American team already established as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, in the world really takes away some of that goodwill, I feel. The whole game I felt like I was watching the big kids on the playground mopping up the field with the little kids.

Personally, I always tend to lose interest with a soccer game when the score gets to around 5-0. At that point, the teams are so obviously mismatched that it gets boring to me. The only reason this game held my interest is because they were so *appallingly* mismatched. 5-0 is a rarity in soccer, and I like it that way. The fewer goals that are scored, the more exciting it is when someone scores. 14-0 is so rare as to be virtually unheard of. 5-0 could be the result of one team being slightly stronger and having a really good day, and one team being slightly weaker and having a really bad day. 14-0 can only happen when one team is extremely strong and the other is so much weaker as to be essentially helpless in the face of their opponent. You could even see the power disparity in their uniforms: US with their crisp, properly fitted uniforms and the DR with their baggy, ill-fitting uniforms. I guess the US had their reasons for continuing to push for more and more goals even after it was painfully obvious that DR was not a fair match for them, but as an observer rather than a member of the team, it came across as needless bullying.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I would rather watch 80 minutes of keep-away after it was obvious in the first 10 that there was no real contest than what actually ensued. I love Amy Rodriguez, but 5 goals in one half (your team having already scored 7 before you hit the field) just seems uncalled for. What I especially don't understand, more than continuing to score goals after it becomes obvious that it is unnecessary, is that we continued to celebrate. Maybe not as garishly as we would celebrate scoring against a stronger team, but still. It boggles my mind that you could hear fans groaning in dismay when we missed a scoring opportunity even in the second half. My girlfriend and I pretty quickly started cheering DR's saves rather than US's goals. It's not that we wanted the US to lose: we still love this team and desperately want to see them take home Olympic gold when the time comes. But if DR had been able to score a goal or two against our juggernaut, you'd better believe we would have cheered.

Honestly, I would rather watch our team lose in a fair fight (US v Japan) than watch them slaughter and demoralize a team that lacks the training and resources that our team has been so fortunate to have (US v DR). I felt much, much better about that loss than I do about this win. US v Japan was the cleanest, tightest game our team ever played, and although I was sad to see us lose, we lost with skill, heart, and class. It could hardly even be considered a loss. A win of this epic proportion is, in a way, a greater loss. It potentially loses us goodwill and respect by making us look like bullies, and it has the added risk of making our team potentially overconfident going into subsequent matches. When we played Japan, we saw their incredible skill level and stepped up our own to match it. And we came damn close. After totally dominating DR, our team has no real incentive to put on their best game moving forward.

And none of this is even the worst part. The worst part is that, in this totally lopsided game, we still sustained injuries. In the case of Ali Krieger, possibly a quite serious injury. Just to be clear, I IN NO WAY FEEL THAT KRIEGER'S INJURY WAS HER FAULT. I couldn't find a clip to review, but my memory of the incident is that she had possession and a DR player gave a bad tackle that missed the ball completely and hit Krieger's knee instead. If it were any other match, I probably would have screamed for a yellow card, but in this game it would have been pointless. Although the injury is not Krieger's fault, I do suspect that injury would have been less likely had US not continued to play with such intensity against an opponent that didn't require it. Not to mention, it seems tragic to suffer an injury in a game like this, where one really doesn't need to be playing with a high level of intensity because your team already won in the first few minutes and the rest of the game was essentially a formality, and to then have to miss out on however many games Krieger is now going to have to miss, games where she really might have made a huge difference. Again, I do not blame her for her injury; I just think it's a damn shame and a waste.

Which is pretty much how I feel about this game as a whole. I just hope that, moving forward, our team is sufficiently challenged (without being overwhelmed, at least not in a game that could keep them from playing in the Olympics) and gets back to playing with their hearts as well as their boots.

You're doing what now?

2011-09-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

As first semester madness prepares to die down (it hasn't actually died down, technically: I've got a final exam on Monday, a final exam Tuesday morning, and a final eval Tuesday afternoon) and clinic madness prepares to commence, I realize that I haven't actually blogged about massage school much. Granted, I haven't written much of anything in general, or drawn anything, or any of that fun stuff, because I've been too busy learning bony landmarks, muscle attachments and actions, and how to give a killer (and ethically safe) Swedish massage. But I figure the end of my first semester is as good a time as any to reflect on what's been going on these past three months that doesn't involve sweaty women in uniforms running amok on a field.

So, massage school. It's both harder and easier than I imagined. Touching people daily is a strange and sometimes wonderful (and sometimes incredibly awkward) thing. I've learned that I can still give a really good massage to people I find irritating, which is good. I've learned a lot about bones and muscles, which is probably my favorite part, oddly enough. I've learned that I don't really like being on the table for too long, which is unfortunate. I'm pretty sure I've done something awful to my knee, which is REALLY unfortunate. I'm pretty sure the something awful has something to do with giving two back to back 90 minute massages, plus driving on the parkway in the dark for the first time the next night. Plus STILL being unable to find satisfactory shoes that fit me properly and don't make me look like a nurse. A nurse with a lazy mohawk, to be sure, but still a nurse. Seriously, why are wide width shoes so hard to find, and so ugly when you do find them??

But I digress. I started clinic on Thursday, which was sadly kind of a big bust. I got myself all nervous and excited, and I set my little massage cubicle up all nice-like and found my client's file (eventually) and worked out what I was going to say when she got there and everything... and then she never showed up. Bleh! Disappointing. Especially since I had to wait out the full hour anyway before I could go back into the room to get my stuff, since that would be disturbing to the clients who did show up. But at least I still get credit for the hour since she didn't cancel. Also, she appears to have re-booked for the same time this coming Thursday, and I'm assigned to her. So I (hopefully) will get the chance to work on her after all. (And no, I'm not going to ask her why she didn't show up last week. that would be rude) So clinic has been a whole lot of nothing so far (nobody booked me for Friday), but the graduating class is leaving really, really soon, so things will soon be totally out of hand. I really want to try to find some time to squeeze in a visit to my family and friends in New York, but I'm starting to doubt if that's possible between clinic, a half marathon I'm interested in working for clinic hours, and Amanda's class schedule. Which sucks, because I really miss my family, and things are only going to get busier from here.

On the plus side, I'm going to be moving closer to campus soon (still need to work out the exact date... why is my two week break seeming so much more stressful than the semester??), which will enable me to work more clinic hours more easily. I'm hoping this move will be a good thing. It's not going to be easy getting used to not living in the same house as my girlfriend again... But I really need to take care of these clinic hours, and taking some of the stress off my driving knee and a whole lot of time off my commute should help.

So, that's life right now, mostly. Too much stuff, not enough time. So what else is new?

Closest Game Ever?

2011-08-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

It was like US v. Brazil all over again... if Brazil had won. Still and all, as sad as I am that we didn't win, I am immensely proud of my Cheesesteaks. It was an incredibly close game (seriously: tied in regular time, no goals in overtime, Flash just barely got 5 out of 5 penalty kicks in the shootout and Independence got 4 out of 5), especially considering how many severe thrashings we were dealt from the get-go. I mean, Flash was VIOLENT. And our girls were HARDCORE. The Western New York Flash should be renamed the Western New York Bash... YourNoseInWithOurElbowAndNotGetCarded. Kai should have gotten a medal just for staying in the game. What with the bashed in nose (I really wasn't joking about the nose bashing) and the concussion and all. And everyone should buy Amy Rodriguez a drink for how many shots she took (even if she only made one. hey, she tried really hard). I wouldn't be surprised if it went into the double digits. Our girls may be limping back to the bus without medals, it's true, but they should be limping back with pride.

"It's the Standard Grandpa Drill"

2011-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

In a way, I was very lucky to grow up without television. When the weather was bad, I could be blissfully oblivious to how much everybody was freaking out and just take it as it came. So right now I'm having a hard time telling if this hurricane's really going to be THAT BAD, or if I'm just so unused to crazyweatherhype that it seems scarier than it really is. I mean, the weather channel made the rain last week look crazy scary, and I only encountered slightly more puddling than usual. Know that they're truly whipped up into a full fever pitch frenzy, I'm having a hard time deciding just how hysterical I should be. Television has me wanting to evacuate the whole damn state and write it off as a loss, but my girlfriend assures me (as she stockpiles giant jugs of water and canned goods and tarp) that the worst her house is going to get is maybe some flooding in the basement and a power outage. Oh, and I should maybe move my electrical stuff away from the windows. Y'know, just in case they shatter. No big deal.

Still and all, it could be worse. My school has already canceled classes for Monday, so I don't have to worry about missing another day (I already missed Wednesday and Thursday due to severe vertigo and then severe exhaustion from the medicine I was put on for the vertigo). My team is playing the Championship game in Rochester instead of on their home turf, so it shouldn't be canceled due to flooding. Plus Amanda and I won't be so tempted to go and end up getting stranded in Philly in a hurricane. And if the storm is really as bad as the hype, I've got valium now! Yes, apparently they can treat vertigo with valium. Who knew?

On a down(er?) note, my mom has informed me that apparently our surviving cat, Gracie, went out early Wednesday morning and has yet to return. She's pulled stunts like that before, though not often and not recently, so I'm trying not to panic yet. But if she doesn't return before the storm, I don't like her odds. She's a scrawny little thing, nineteen years old, arthritic... Very spry still, but I don't like her chances against hurricane force winds. Even if nothing bad's happened to her yet, I doubt she'll make it through the storm without someone taking her in, and I doubt she'll let herself be taken in. So here's hoping she's okay and that she comes home before the storm hits.

Dear Righty

2011-08-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for breaking your claw off. It was very pretty and blue. It was an accident, I promise. Hope we can still be friends.

p.s. I tried to throw you another hot dog, but the seagulls stole it.

I kind of like a sport now.

2011-07-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

I will at some point write a post about moving to New Jersey and starting massage school, but right now I'm so tired of thinking about bony landmarks and trying to remember which is a tubercle and which is a tuberosity that I'm just going to focus on the part of my life here that will probably be the hardest for people to believe: I kind of like a sport now.

Don't worry, old friends, it's only women's soccer. Baseball still bores me to tears, basketball doesn't hold my interest, I'll watch hockey only if Amanda really, really wants to, and even men's soccer doesn't do much for me. Although I did enjoy the men's World Cup, so I guess I like it when it's international and/or there's something at stake. We'll see if I still like women's soccer when it's all US teams on college soccer fields. I suspect I still will, and if you've ever seen pictures of Megan Rapinoe, Abby Wambach, or half the players of the Philadelphia Independence, you'll understand why.

That's actually how Amanda and I picked the team we would follow after the World Cup (from the six teams in the WPS. seriously, there are only six teams to choose from). We were cruising the WPS website and a banner popped up with this amazing looking butch with chunks of bleached hair, and I said "OOOH! What team does SHE play for?" We are now in her fan club and are going to get our picture taken with her after the game next weekend. There are several other fabulous gay-looking players on the Philadelphia Independence, so even if she should leave the team, we should still be good. We were really stoked that Rapinoe was on the Independence, but it turned out that she was only with them briefly before being traded to magicJack (not the magicJack or the Washington magicJack. Just... magicJack.) But she was with them long enough to sign balls and jerseys, apparently!

After much analysis, Amanda and I determined that she's the big M and R thingie with the 11, since her initials are MR and her number was 11 with the Independence, and there is no 11 on the roster currently. Also cool, right above her signature is Amy Rodriguez, who was also on the US team (and I believe is still with the Independence, so bonus points) and is also awesome.

We swore never to be fans of magicJack, because what the hell kind of a team is sponsored and renamed by a sham product like magicJack, anyway? But since they've got Wambach, Rapinoe, and I think a bunch of other awesome US team players, we have had to reevaluate. I'd still rather see the Washington Freedom vs. the Philadelphia Independence (Freedom vs. Independence. It's ON.) than magicJack vs. the Philadelphia Independence, but I'll take what I can get.

At any rate, go team go, and may the better man win as long as he's a woman with a butch haircut.

Shirley

2011-06-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

My great-aunt Shirley passed away last night. I have to admit, it hasn't really hit me yet; I think I already did a lot of my mourning last week, when I first realized that she probably didn't have long left. I am sorry I didn't get to see her again, and I'm really sorry my brother didn't get to see her. My dad is pretty upset that we hadn't visited her much in the past few years. For a while there we were spending a fair amount of time with her, and I think we were all getting something good out of it. There was a distance over the past few years for reasons I've never really understood, I think more to do with distance in my dad's family than with Shirley herself. It's a shame, really, because Shirley was great. I'm sorry we didn't get to see her more, but I'm glad we got to see her one more time.

First Day

2011-06-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

So my first day of freedom has set me off to an odd start. The morning was very nice, lots of sun and running around in the yard to make up for the years I spent working in a mold-encrusted, windowless bomb-shelter of an office. The afternoon not so much, because I spent most of it crying. My great-aunt Shirley's daughter called to tell us that Shirley isn't doing well, which was very distressing, since Shirley is amazing. We went to see her briefly, and although she definitely is not doing well, she still recognized us and was happy to see us, and actually asked after my brother by name. This was particularly touching because his grandfather couldn't remember him at all in his later years even when he was in the same room, much less halfway across the country.

I ended up canceling drinks with my co-workers because I didn't know how long we would be at the nursing home and doubted I would be much fun to be around. But then I ended up still going out for drinks with my team and Betsey, which was probably better tonight than going out with the whole mob. Especially since I found out that one of my co-workers received a promotion months ago without it becoming public knowledge, despite the fact the he is a lousy employee, makes frequent offensive comments, and does not have a college degree, which is a requirement for the position he was promoted to. I was already galled by the thought that I was recommended for that same promotion half a year ago and yet was still making the same money he was, despite having a college degree and being a harder working and more skilled employee. So finding out that for much of that time I was actually being paid LESS was like a slap in the face. And had I found out while he was present, he may have actually gotten slapped in the face.

And had I found out while I still worked there, I probably would have made a huge stink about it to anyone who would listen, and anyone who wouldn't, and then some.

On the bright side, if I ever had any doubts about Mercy being a horrible place to work and thought maybe I shouldn't leave, this has erased them. If someone who is commonly acknowledged as being a crap employee and who does not meet the qualifications for a position is promoted over someone who is commonly acknowledged as one of the best and most dependable employees in the office and who is qualified for the position, there is something seriously wrong going on. Not that there being something wrong there is a new concept to me. There are many, many things seriously wrong with that place. This is just the most personal insult.

At any rate. It's been a mixed day, and a strange one. Sweat, tears, hail stones, and alcohol. I'm hoping things will improve from here.

Two Weeks

2011-05-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

Today I finally gave my two weeks notice at my job. The anticipation was really the worst part of it. I think I either made myself physically ill this week from fretting about it, or I picked up a stomach bug. Or both. I definitely feel a good bit better than I did (I was pretty sure I was going to puke for a while there), but not great. Although I'm still pretty anxious, so it could still just be nerves.

So far everyone who knows has been really good about it, and very encouraging. Except I guess for my boss Jeff, but he's... Jeff. He just kind of said "okay" and asked me when I wanted my last day to be. Which is better than it could have been (especially since I'm leaving right at the start of the worst part of the year for our department), and it was probably about as much as I could handle right then anyway. Karen and Kim have been really supportive and fantastic. And my teammate Sara is jealous, but she's on her way out in August anyway, so she won't have to be jealous long.

And so. Onward and upward, moving right along, and all of that goodness.

History

2011-05-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

I recently read Billy Bragg's book, the Progressive Patriot, something I've been meaning to do for a good while now. It was different from what I guess I expected, but not in a bad way. A mixture of personal and familial history, general British history, music history, and reflection on what this "Britishness" actually is that apparently everyone is feeling the loss of but which no one bothers to define. I was especially interested by his use of diary excerpts from previous generations, which made me think about how different diaries were then from what passes for diaries now. It's not even that they were more introspective or anything; most of the entries seemed to be statements of fact about the wars, how many lives lost, how many bombs dropped, one day that was remarkable simply because there wasn't an air raid. There didn't even seem to be any personal reflection, just statements of fact and that was all that was noteworthy. Compare that to my own diaries over the years... just whining and grousing and talking about pepto bismal and contradictory statements and complaining about my brother and on and on ad nauseam. Or even to most blogs I've seen (or written) which are nothing but personal reflections and completely ignore what's going on in the world. If future generations by some misfortune stumbled upon any of my blogs, would they even know there's been a war going on? Or would they think the only things happening at this period of American history were bargains on videos (although I guess that could demonstrate the dire straits our economy is in).

The fact of the matter is, everything America's been doing overseas in the recent past is practically incomprehensible to me, so it's hard for me to reflect on it much. And I never thought war should be the only thing we learn about in history class, although that's how I remember everything being taught. Which may be why I was never all that interested in history until I started reading books about old movies. History needs to relate to something we can understand and appreciate, and I've never understood wars or power struggles. I can't imagine ever wanting something enough to kill or die for it, let alone enough to send thousands and thousands of strangers off to kill and die for it. And let's face it, at least in the history classes I've had, we were taught next to nothing about the Middle East anyway, so it's not like we were prepared to understand anything that's been going on. Because everything that's happened recently is tied to everything that's happened in the past, and since I don't comprehend the past I have trouble understanding the present situation.

I definitely didn't understand the general reaction to Bin Laden's assassination, for one thing. To be honest, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I don't see how people could be celebrating in the streets. Not only because I don't understand celebrating someone being killed, but also because I don't understand celebrating when you have to realize there will probably be very nasty consequences for killing him. That night I was actually over at a friend's house and near a tv (both most unusual), so for once I was able to see the news when it was still relatively fresh. We were all sitting around full of home-smoked meat and watching Super Troopers, when our host's sister came in and told us to put on the news. And while hundreds were probably shooting off fire crackers, we all had a collective "Oh, shit" moment.

Oh, shit, he's actually dead after all this time.

Oh, shit, WE killed him.

Oh, shit, this is going to piss off a lot of very dangerous people.

Oh, shit, how are people celebrating? Do they really think this is the end of it?

Oh, shit, what now?

But hey, maybe this will somehow be a good thing. Maybe this is a step toward peace and not a step toward even more war. You never know.

After all, I wasn't a history major.

Who Says Money Can't Buy Happiness?

2011-03-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

1 Blockbuster going out of business + $80 of hard-earned moneys = cinema happiness.

You know when people say "It was like being a kid in a candy store"? This is when a movie nerd like me says it. All those years when my family and I were actual card-carrying Blockbuster members (instead of the netflix consumers we have become. I mean, the nearest movie store was half an hour away; it was bound to happen), I dreamed of being able to walk down those aisles and just grab every movie I loved off the shelves and take them home forever and ever and ever. So as guilt-riddled as I felt showing up for the first time in years for the sole purpose of cleaning them out, it was a total dream come true. The sales clerks were good sports about it, even though I did buy Back to the Future 1, 2, and 3 out from under one of them (I didn't have the heart to tell him they're for my girlfriend. I'm sure I'll enjoy them too).

My glorious 15 or so new acquisitions + me buying Spaced online = happiness

So who says money can't buy you happiness? I can curl up with Simon Pegg, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and my girlfriend (hi, honey!) all in one weekend. Who could want anything more?

Illustration Friday - Swarm

2011-03-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've felt inspired by Illustration Friday. The word this week reminded me of a series of drawings I always wanted to do but never did, so I finally let one of these strange visions out. Lord only knows where or when I first started having this idea of butterflies as things of menace as well as beauty, but it's certainly been with me for at least the past few years. Someday I'll have to scan some of my etchings from my last year in art school. I started writing this whole visual fairytale about an androgynous girl being attacked by a faceless, tuxedoed magician figure and his butterflies...

They really do swarm, though. Seriously, type monarch butterfly swarm into google image search. Then tell me you wouldn't be terrified if you saw that gorgeous insect army descending.

Ads.

2010-11-21T10:32:00.000-08:00

I am endlessly amused (and somewhat frustrated) that facebook is apparently convinced that I am: Christian, married/engaged, and pregnant. How it got any of these impressions is completely beyond me. I have tried to discourage it, repeatedly indicating that these ads are uninteresting to me, and yet they persist.

For the record, I am in fact: agnostic, of Jewish blood and heritage, in a relationship but neither married nor engaged, and absolutely not even a little bit pregnant, nor even in the market for any kind of sperm getting near me for any purpose.

Maybe since facebook is now apparently EVERYWHERE, not just on its own website (seriously, it creeps me out that I even have the option of "liking" things on facebook when I'm nowhere near the facebook website), they'll read this blog and get the hint. More likely, they'll just see the buzz words Christian, married, engaged, and pregnant, and inundate me with even more irrelevant ads.

Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off...

2010-11-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

I can't help it. Every time I go to Petsmart, I fall in love. But c'mon, wouldn't you? Look at her! There's even a little note on her cage saying to please not remove her bed.

{I think my surviving cat is jealous of how much I want this cat. As I was typing this post, she chased and devoured a cricket (pretty much my favorite insect) right in front of me. Beast.}

How to Recognize an Awesome Girlfriend

2010-10-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

This weekend, the only thing I really felt like doing was watching How to Steal a Million. It was one of the first movies I grabbed when I was helping my mom's library dispose of its VHS collection. We have two VCRs in my house, one of which is very reliable, and the other of which is total crap that is constantly malfunctioning and has a history of eating tapes. So obviously, I chose to watch it on the crap VCR, and it was instantly sucked in, chewed up, and spit out in a tangled mess. Being all PMSed up, and really loving that movie and wanting to see it, I was very upset. Two days later, I get a dvd copy in the mail, ordered by my girlfriend :)

Why procrastination is stupid.

2010-10-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

So I'm a hopeless facebook addict. Not so much for the social networking (who are these people again?), but for the games. Games like the highly addictive Restaurant City, which recently had a contest for Halloween-themed recipes. Which I slaved over all day Sunday, making four totally awesome recipes, the last of which I finished several hours before the deadline. Not thinking to check just how much earlier midnight happens in Greenwich Mean time as compared to when midnight happens in my time before proceeding to dick around for a couple of hours afterward instead of just posting the damn things to the forum. So when I finally went to submit my long-since finished work, I found that I had missed the deadline by an hour and a half and the forum was now closed. Thus demonstrating why procrastination is incredibly, painfully stupid. But just because Restaurant City is denied my Adobe Illustrator-driven "genius" doesn't mean you should be! Enjoy my spooooooky, delicious-looking efforts.

Contacts

2010-09-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

So my old phone finally slipped into the realm of "beyond repair" when it decided to no longer connect to the charger. I did manage to get all of the pictures and such that I wanted off of it, but I didn't have enough battery to download the software that would be required to move my contacts to my new phone. So I copied them all down manually, and in doing so I realize just how many numbers I've been carrying around for the past six years or so that not only do I never use, but don't even remember the people they belonged to. Seriously, did I ever know an Ashley well enough to put her number in my phone?? The last Ashley I remember was in High School, and I didn't even have a cell phone then. Eric? Justin? Who the hell are these people?? Not to mention the names I do vaguely remember but have no idea why I was given their numbers. Like Jessika. We had one class together, and we got along to the point that we traded prints (it was a printmaking class), but we weren't friend to the point of needing each other's numbers. Or Carrie. Again, one class together, maybe two. The only thing I really remember about her was that once when we were talking her false (but I didn't know it was false at the time) tooth came flying out of her mouth.

I was kind of sad to see that I didn't have Malcolm's number in my phone, even though I'm sure I'll never need that number again, and I only used it maybe twice when I had it. But she was a really cool chick, and she kept turning up in the strangest places. I guess that was my old, old phone. Too bad.

Well, at least this phone was laid gracefully to rest and didn't take a bath like the other two that had to be retired. Farewell, my little dinosaur. Hello, newfangled contraption with all your fancy, shiny, flashy things.

And Now the Good News

2010-06-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

So obviously (if you read my previous post), my vacation week was not all sunshine and roses. The world lost one of its sweetest and most beautiful creatures, I lost my best friend, and every chipmunk in the northeast heaved a collective sigh of relief... until they realized that I still have another cat.

But, surprisingly, the week was not all bad. I honestly expected that after we had to put Buster to sleep, I would spend the entire week wallowing in grief and misery and be a completely non-functioning creature. Mercifully, I had already arranged to take June 11th - June 17th off from work, so I didn't have to fake illness to get out of work and then spend the week alone crying into the couch. Instead I went away with Amanda to Cape May, as we had planned.

And it was... really nice. Wonderful, even. I didn't think I'd be able to enjoy anything so soon after losing Buster, but I really had a good time. I already feel nostalgic about it. It was very, very peaceful. Restful, even though we were constantly running around doing things. We had a pleasant drive, didn't even have to make a pit stop. Went to the naval aviation museum in Wildwood, which was fantastic. We took a couple of hundred pictures (with flash because hangars are not renowned for being well-lit) and almost completely drained Amanda's camera battery before we even left the museum. We crawled around in old cockpits and took pictures of engines and training bombs and bought lots of vaguely gay postcards of naval recruitment posters (I did, anyway). After getting a little lost (and getting a little ice cream), we found our way to the bed and breakfast. I've only been to a couple of B&B's before, but this was by far the nicest. The guy running it (an unmarried middle-aged guy living with his mother. gotta be family) was really friendly and social and had a million suggestions of places to go, things to do, and places to eat. A little exhausting, but highly entertaining and very nice.

Our room was great, too. Decent size, comfortably had a large bed and a couch, not quite as tacky as most B&B's seem to be in Cape May, a/c, ceiling fan, fake fireplace, white noise machine, spa music machine, private bathroom (with a good-sized shower/tub)... I played with everything provided except for the tv (somehow we missed that one). I liked the white noise machine more than I expected, especially "summer night" (loved the crickets, but it just doesn't sound like summer without katydids and the occasional peep frog). The B&B also had a really nice garden and off-street parking. No complaints at all. It felt like home... A home we could never afford, but still.

The museum was the coolest thing we did the whole time, but we still enjoyed everything we did. The shops weren't nearly as interesting as in Provincetown, but they were still fun. The coffeeshop where we had breakfast both times was really nice (though they did forget my food the first time we went there... Oops.) if a little sketchy looking when approached from the rear. The taco place next door to the coffeshop had the best damn tacos ever. Cool antique stores. Lots of beautiful sea-smoothed rocks on the beaches. Oddly, there wasn't much of that smell you expect near large bodies of water, that wind and salt and hint of fish smell. Metal detecting was a little uneventful, which I think disappointed Amanda. She did find a bottlecap and a weird rusty thing that looked like part of a fence and we probably should have both detected with our eyes without much help (and yet somehow didn't, despite it being about a foot long). And the trowel, which I would occasionally "hide" in the sand for her to "find."

Lots of walking. Lots and lots and lots of walking. Not so much sun, but not nearly as much rain as predicted, and too much sun probably would have been worse anyway. Also learned that if I ever want to sit and stare at the beach for more than a minute while on vacation, I'll either have to slip Amanda a sedative or sit alone. The girl cannot keep still once she's got a plan in her head. Ah, well.

Fair bit of shopping. I still think P-town is more fun store-wise (and by fun I mean supergay), but pretty decent. Some cool antique shops (with some very nice - and very expensive - military garb). A store full of loose teas and tea accessories. Lots of touristy places. Good times. I got a very nice cane for six bucks, some shoelaces made from kimono fabric, cheese for my parents, tea and strainer, very cool chopsticks, and a little Bast figure.

So that's about it, I'd say. I'm already ready to go back. Of course, I'm always ready to be as far away from my job as possible. Yeesh. But anyway. Good times, fond memories, and all of that. Now, back to life.

The Last Days of Buster Keaton

2010-06-18T16:30:00.001-07:00

That which we most feared and dreaded has come to pass. My beloved beast of the past 18 years, my best friend, the four-legged love of my life, has left us. When I left work for my vacation on June 10th, Buster was very hard of breathing and had to be rushed to the vet. He barely made it through the night (in fact, none of us expected to take him home that night, and all of us quietly wished that he would die in his sleep so that he could at least die at home and end his suffering), but shocked us all the next day when he made a rapid recovery. His breathing returned almost to normal and he was out and about, sitting in the sun and even eating some treats. When Amanda came up, I even got to indulge in my favourite pass-time: watching bad tv while curled up with my girlfriend, with my cat purring on my chest.

Saturday, June 12th, was my 26th birthday. I spent most of it in the City with Amanda, so I didn't get much Buzzy time, but my mom tells me he had a good day. Sadly, it did not last. By the time I saw him that night, he had had what the vet believes to have been a stroke. He could no longer hold his head up properly, and his eyes were wide and staring, his pupils seeming to have difficulty dilating. His condition worsened overnight to the point that he could not eat and could barely stand without stumbling. Even lying down, he seemed to have trouble supporting his head. As little as we all wanted to, my parents made an appointment with our vet for that afternoon, and we said our goodbyes as well as we could. Even in his weakened state, even with his trouble lifting his head, he still managed to rub his face all over my hands and forehead. The love of that boy.

June 13th was possibly the hardest day of my life. When we took him out of the carrying case, he dove straight into my arms. He stayed there to the last. My mom told me that when her cats had been put down when I was younger, the vet just gave them the final shot, which is apparently painful and I imagine doesn't give you much time to digest what's happening to your loved one. Our vet gave Buster a strong sedative first so that he wouldn't feel the final shot. I got to hold him in my arms until we were "ready" - not that we would ever have been ready, really.

The vet and his wife/receptionist were very, very good. Very sympathetic. And Amanda was wonderful as well. I told her I would understand if she waited outside, but she stayed with us the whole time. I'm glad. There's strength in numbers, and it was all we could do not to go to pieces as it was.

So that's how it ends... I have many more pleasant stories to tell about this past week, some wonderful stories even, and I will tell them soon, but I had to give Buster his own post. It just wouldn't have been right any other way.

Illustration Friday - Slither

2010-06-03T19:08:00.001-07:00

Something a little different this week.

Illustration Friday - Early

2010-05-26T16:17:00.001-07:00

Appropriately enough, I'm getting this one in early. Well, early for me. Frankly, posting one of these any sooner than Thursday around 11pm is early for me. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any black ink on hand, so rather than risking butchering the drawing with a mixed black or with pen, I've temporarily added the blacks using Photoshop. I'll do it properly when I buy some black.

I'm still kicking myself for last week's adventure. I poured everything I could into Fearless, pushed dinner back to 11, was just about to post it to Illustration Friday... and then realized that somehow I had gotten the weeks mixed up, missed the deadline for Fearless, and finished Fearless just in time to meet the deadline for Equipment. Sadly, there was no equipment in my fearless drawing, so I just posted it to my blog and sat on my hands... I'm still glad I made it, though, because it's a million times better than any equipment drawing I could have done. And I did it in tribute to my little lion, and you know everything I do for him is a labor of love. Even when it involves getting up at four in the morning because he's decided he needs wet food immediately.

Illustration Friday - Fearless

2010-05-20T19:14:00.001-07:00

In honor of my own little lion. He is, incidentally, still with us and is responding well to his new meds. And he still has the most kissable nose in the world.

Last Night

2010-04-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

Last night, when I went to say goodnight to Buzzy (he was sleeping on the porch), I noticed his breathing was a little labored. This continued on and off during the night. For an hour or two I couldn't sleep, just watching him breathe on the blanket next to the couch and trying to decide if it was bad enough that he needed to go to the vet. When my parents got up, they gave him a dose of antibiotics and he seems to be doing well enough. I decided I wouldn't be able to get any more sleep on the couch, and he didn't really need me there if my parents were up, so I went upstairs and konked out.

because it was late, either nine or midnight, and I really wanted to sleep and I knew they would be loud.Whereupon I had a horrible dream. I don't really follow the plot, but I think I was playing/living video games with my girlfriend Amanda, and we spilled cherries on the sheets and the blue robe she gave me, and they left violent red stains that were sometimes cherry and sometimes blood that we had to wash out. Then I was going all around the house locking the doors over and over because there was someone I didn't want to come in, and I had to keep unlocking them to let the cats in and then relock them. The doors were essentially like the ones at my real house, but the locks were strange and different, and I had to lock some windows as well as they were like doors. He got in anyway (I think he was the one I was trying to keep out; it's hard to tell in dreams sometimes), along with a bunch of his friends carrying amps and speakers, and I was upset because it was late, either nine or midnight, and I knew they were going to be loud no matter what they said, and I really wanted to sleep. I guess none of this sounds too nightmarish, but the really horrible part was that in the dream, not only was Buster still sick, but Amanda had the same condition.

I guess that's about the only way this situation could possibly be worse right now.

The Fall of 2010

2010-04-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Working in a college, I've been thinking of "the fall of 2010" as no more than a semester we're still entering applications for (and still will be well into the semester... but I'm hoping to be many miles away from this job by that time). Weekend before last saw a redefinition of "the fall of 2010." It is now something my friend Betsey and I will be commemorating next year by, among other things, heavily tipping the spikey-haired waitress at the Post Office Cafe in Provicetown.

So I finally made my yearly journey to Provincetown. It didn't pan out quite the way I'd envisioned. It felt a little strange from the start, actually: I normally feel totally comfortable and at ease in P-town, completely at home, but I felt a little awkward this year. I chalked it up to the fact that it was closer to the in-season, and there were more people around, which may be all it really was. At any rate, something felt a little off. I still had a wonderful time, at the start. My friend Betsey and I had a pretty good drive there with a lot of great music, the bed and breakfast was nice, we took pictures of the ocean and bought lots of wonderful queer, arty things. Then the day we were to leave, as we were doing one last tour of Commercial Street, Betsey twisted her ankle on an awkward curb and plowed face-first into a brick sidewalk. Someone called an ambulance, they looked her over and cleaned her up a little but didn't think it was too bad. She didn't get to look in a mirror, and I couldn't really assess the damage very well (what I thought was a nosebleed was actually a mass of cuts below her nose), so she declined to go to the hospital. Being very resilient, she attempted to keep hobbling down the street until her ankle became too painful and she got a glimpse of her reflection in a storefront window. The aforementioned waitress saw us from across the street, came out of the cafe, and offered to let Betsey use their bathroom to clean up. She also helped us across the street, brought her a first aid kit and some ice, told us what hospitals were in the area (not many, unfortunately), and called a friend of hers who's a cabbie to drive us around the corner to our rental car for free so she wouldn't have to walk to the car. Hence, the large amount of tipping she will be receiving.
The rest of the day was spent in the hospital and on the road. Fortunately, Betsey didn't need stitches, but it's too soon to tell about scarring.

Then, as we were about to pull out of the hospital parking lot, my mom called me and let me know about the nightmare she and my dad had been living through all weekend in my absence. Apparently, my cat Buster (aka the light of my life) had developed extremely labored breathing and had to make an emergency trip to the vet. The vet discovered he has an enlarged heart and a heart murmur. One of his suggestions was to put him down, but fortunately it did not get to that point. He gave him a shot of antibiotic, not really expecting it to work, but it helped significantly.

Today we took Buster to a cardiologist (everybody was shocked that there's such a thing as an animal cardiologist, but I'm really not surprised), who confirmed the enlarged heart and heart murmur. He's given us prescriptions for heart medicine which should help Buzzy feel better. Nobody's given us a timeframe of his life expectancy at this point, so we're just trying to appreciate every day we get (secretly hoping that those days will stretch into years, but he's 18 and has heart problems, so I don't know how realistic my dreams of him living forever are...). Pretty much the good thing he told us is that it's not degenerative like cancer, so he'll most likely look good on the outside and maintain his personality up until the end. Which is good, because it's hard enough without having to watch my little boy waste away. My cats have always acted very healthy and very young for their ages. It's very hard to think of them being this old, or being sick. And it's very easy for me to be in denial, since I wasn't here for the worst of his illness. I have changed my treatment of him, though. I'm careful not to scoop him up or hug him too firmly. And I've been sleeping downstairs on the couch to keep him company. Sometimes he sleeps on me, but mostly he's been sleeping on a warm spot on the floor next to the couch, first on a pair of my pajama pants, now on a fleece blanket my mom put there for him.

Supposedly, I'm there to comfort him, but really he comforts me.

subterranean - Illustration Friday

2010-03-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

They used a word I submitted this week, so I kind of felt obliged to submit a drawing to go with it. Not my best effort, but more than I've been doing lately.

http://illustrationfriday.com/

Provincetown

2010-02-16T18:36:00.001-08:00

Every year around this time I get this incredible urge to go to Provincetown. I've really only been there a small handful of times, but even the simplest memories there run deep. Sometimes, especially in February and March, I'm completely consumed with longing for the empty streets, the vast expanses of cold sand and water, the feminist craft shops, the queer bookstores, the art galleries, the hundreds of bizarre and beautiful things everywhere you look...

It almost hurts, I want to go back so badly.

Murphy's Law as it applies to comics.

2009-12-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

You're familiar with Murphy's law, yes? The rule of the universe which dictates that everything that can possibly go wrong will? I think Murphy is deciding to have a little fun with one of my comic book projects. I had this odd but intriguing idea for a comic a few months ago. One of those ideas that just pops into your head out of the blue without any of the usual struggle and hassle you get when you're actually *trying* to have an idea. And with the way the images popped into my head, it was immediately clear to me that it could only be made properly if it were made using scratchboard. Those (if any) who have read my previous posts will know what difficulties I've already been having with locating usable scratchboard. After failing to locate my usual brand in any stores (well, to be fair, I've found the brand in stores quite easily... just not in plain blank black and white. if I wanted to do this comic in black and rainbow or black and copper I would be having no such difficulties), I ordered some scratchboard from Dick Blick and was severely disappointed in the quality. Then my mom bought me a different brand in an art store in New Paltz, which was slightly better quality... but still unworthy of the project at hand (it scrapes pretty smoothly and doesn't flake off in chunks exposing grubby paper like the other stuff, but because of the way the black was applied to the white, it is impossible to get a totally clean white space without light black lines running across it).

So eventually I broke down and ordered the scratchboard I wanted all along from the one place in the US that still seems to stock it in that particular flavor: the official brand website. This morning it came in the mail.

Well, technically, I guess it came in the mail yesterday... During the torrential downpour. And it was left outside of the mailbox. In a paper package. Absolutely no plastic. Completely exposed to the elements. (Despite the fact that with the money I paid for shipping on two packs of it, I could have bought a third one, USPS apparently can't be bothered to provide their workers with cheap plastic bags for delivering priority mail in pouring rain)

So essentially, after all of that, after months of searching for a suitable scratchboard, I finally got exactly what I wanted all along, and it was completely and utterly destroyed before it even made it into my hands. And it costs a dollar a sheet, and I paid out of my own pocket. And I was really excited to get some actual work done on this rare week of freedom from my fulltime job.

So yeah... Apparently Murphy hates comics. Or maybe just scratchboard comics. Who knew?

Illustration Friday - Undone

2009-12-24T15:33:00.001-08:00

This week's Illustration Friday word is "undone." My response is inspired by the jackassery of my neighbor, who has recently decided to raze dozens of beautiful trees along the property line to build himself a driveway to the creepy little barn he lives in (in the middle of a vast, empty field which he can easily drive over and in which he has never grown anything). (see my previous post below for further ranting) The whole thing is senseless and repulsive, and the damage sadly cannot be undone. Hence my sketch.

I feel like I'm going to be drawing a lot of trees for a while...

More Sad Things

2009-12-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

Speaking of things that are sad: my landscape is changing in the most awful ways. All my life, I've lived in the middle of the woods and loved it (despite it sometimes being a little creepy). Now my creep neighbor has decided to build a second driveway so that he can drive right up to his sketchy little barn (where he lives. never trust a man who lives in a barn, raises no animals, and grows no crops) without having to drive over the vast, empty field he normally just drives right over judging by the tire tracks. The tire tracks which are now painfully visible, because he's decided that paving over part of his vast, empty field, in which he has never grown a damn thing, would just be too easy, cheap, and quick, and that instead he must cut down trees. Dozens upon dozens of trees. It's tree genocide over there. Senseless tree butchery. And now there's no barrier between our properties. We used to have a protective veil of beautiful trees. Now he has a straight line of sight right into our windows. It's truly creepy. And infuriating. And stupid.

I don't hate many people. But I truly, truly hate this man. Not just for this, but this really tipped the scales.

Engraving Art 2

2009-12-20T14:44:00.001-08:00

You remember that rant I had a while back on how hard it is to find Engraving Art scratchboard in anything but rainbow and coloured foil and pre-printed designs and useless (for me) things like that? Well I was searching for it again after disappointing experiments with other brands... and my rant came up in my google search. On the first page. Towards the bottom, but still. That's how hard it is to get a hold of this stuff. You get the official website (with no pictures, so it's hard to know what you're buying, and I'm dubious because white "foil" doesn't sound like what I use), a handful of British websites, and my blog.

Sad.

Illustration Friday - Entangled

2009-12-03T18:51:00.001-08:00

Been a while since I've had time to draw anything. It shows, unfortunately. Work is eating my life. I think that shows, too.

Good News!

2009-10-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

Three months ago, my girlfriend had an incident at work. She was performing a "finger stick" on a recent mother and the mechanism malfunctioned, causing the strange woman's blood to splatter on my girlfriend's face. Yesterday morning, my girlfriend got over the big three-month hurdle and passed her blood test with flying colours.

Congratulations, baby!

Illustration Friday - Pattern

2009-09-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't really felt much up to doing the art thing lately, between the car accident and the new job that gives me such little time and has me clicking a mouse seven hours a day... My hands have been hurting and I've just been too tired and dissatisfied with my ideas. But I did happen to check out illustration friday (illustrationfriday.com) this week, and the word of the week was "pattern," which instantly made me think of this drawing I made a ways back. Although I guess most of my drawings I've done for Illustration Friday involve patterns, this drawing is specifically *about* patterns. It's based off a picture I took of one of my old roommates with a classmate's painting.

At any rate... it's a way to feel productive without having to actually draw anything new.

Engraving Art

2009-09-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, I bought a bunch of plain scratchboard from Michaels. Just a blank black coating over a white surface. Same kind of stuff they gave us in art class in junior high. You'd think it would kind of be a standard thing that they'd keep in stock through the years... But no! For some odd reason, over the past few years this stuff has become next to impossible to obtain! Michaels now stocks nothing but pre-printed drawings over black coating over coloured foils or rainbow surfaces. And every art store I go to either doesn't carry scratchboard or else they only carry scratchbord (scratchboard's incredibly expensive cousin, which is a black coating over an actual board you could club someone over the head with). So it's either namby-pamby arts'n'crafts (with the emphasis on crafts) fare which is utterly useless for my purposes, or it's hardcore artist grade I can't afford and would be half-scared to use for fear of fucking it up. After months of searching I found what I thought I was looking for on the Dick Blick website, but what they sent me was thirty sheets of crap. Shiny, oddly textured black surface that flakes more than it scrapes, almost like a thin shell of nail polish, over white paper that just kind of peels at the first touch of the knife and gets all grubby from the black flakes.

I've since figured out the brand name of the decent-enough-for-my-needs board I used to use (Engraving Art). So now I'm trying to hunt it down online, so that at least I'll know what I'm ordering is useable. After far more searching than should be necessary for such a ridiculously basic art supply, I've located it. For roughly twice what I paid for the useless crap from Dick Blick. But I guess it's worth it if it actually lets me do what I need to do. I just resent that such a basic thing has become such a rare commodity. Seriously. It's infinitely easier to find glow-in-the-dark scratchboard than it is to find plain ole black'n'white.

I guess the point of this is... don't buy anything online if you haven't already tested the quality in person.

And buy a ton of black and white scratchboard from Engraving Art before it goes COMPLETELY extinct.

2009-08-07T12:26:00.001-07:00

It's been a big week for me, in good ways and in bad ways. I started my first "real job" on Monday, got my passport...

...and totaled my car this morning.

I've never done more than graze the occasional curb while parking before, so it was especially shocking. Not that I imagine it's ever NOT shocking to make a left turn and suddenly find your car being slammed right at forty-five mph. I still haven't figured out exactly what happened, if I thought he was stopped or going slow enough to give me time to make the turn, or if he was running a light or trying to beat a yellow or WHAT; I have no idea whose fault it was, but right now the insurance thing is for "no fault" so I'm guessing we both fucked up. I can't really imagine myself making a left turn onto a busy road if traffic was moving in both directions, which is why I wonder about him going through a light, but I couldn't really say for sure... I was very tired and stressed out (and furious at my GPS for fucking me up; if it had just said "take the next left" when it was supposed to and not "prepare to turn left in 100 yards" or whatever it did say, I wouldn't have changed lanes and missed my turn, and I wouldn't have had to turn around and pull back onto the road, and I wouldn't have been running late and anxious...), and it's entirely possible I "looked without seeing". I have no idea what happened; it was all so sudden and out of the blue.

In a weird way the scariest thing at first was not being able to find my glasses. They and my hat got knocked clear off me, probably by the air bag (suddenly finding that smoking up my car with that dentist-drilling-around-in-your-head kind of smell was a jolt too), but my gum was miraculously still in my mouth and not lodged in my throat. All I could think at first when bystanders were trying to get me out of the car was "Oh god I can't find my glasses"; all anybody could find for the first five, ten minutes were sunglasses, neither of which were my prescription ones, so not only did I total my car but I couldn't see what was going on.

Now that I have my glasses and am safely out of the hospital (mostly scrapes and bruises, no breaks or gashes, which was kind of surprising given the amount of glass I was picking out of my clothes at the hospital) what freaks me out the most is that my girlfriend hasn't been told. At the scene I only had time to call my mom and the friend who got me the job so she could tell them why I wasn't coming in today. Then at the hospital my parents persuaded me that it would be better to wait for Amanda to get here, since she's coming up tonight anyway, before telling her so that she doesn't drive worried and get herself into a crash too. Which makes sense, but I still feel awful not telling her right away. It's interesting how much things have changed since we've been dating... normally when something seriously bad happens I think "I want my mommy!". Today, even when I had my mom there holding my hand all I could think was "I want my baby!" Even if she'd been able to leave work straight away, I would have been discharged by the time she would be able to get up here, but still... I wanted her there. Now I think about how in four hours or so she's going to come up my drive and see my car's not there and she'll have no warning... but at least she won't be worrying about it during her drive, and I guess that's the important thing. But I still feel awful not calling her immediately, because I know she'd want to know.

Cars are frightening beasts. I've always felt that way. I always will. But all things considered, this could have been worse. I'm home. Bruised, scraped, aching, stiff, and abruptly car-less (which will make getting to and from my already overwhelming new job interesting), but home and relatively unharmed as far as these things go. I never managed to get a good look at the other guy, but as far as I could tell he was in roughly the same shape I was, so I'm hoping he too is safe and sound at home.

"Shaky" - Illustration Friday

2009-07-09T19:55:00.001-07:00

The word this week for Illustration Friday (http://illustrationfriday.com/) is "shaky". I've been experimenting with scratchboard lately for a comic I want to make, so that's what I used to make this shaky little guy. Poor lil' feller.

How I know Ingrid Bergman is one of the most beautiful women ever to have lived:

2009-07-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

She can make "Liverwurst" sound entrancing.

Seriously. Go watch Spellbound. I've never heard anyone make such an ugly word sound so beautiful.

"Drifting"

2009-06-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

My entry for this week's Illustration Friday (http://www.illustrationfriday.com/). I actually finished it really early this week, but for some reason I'm still posting it on Thursday... Lazy.

At any rate. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Everything just sort of came together really quickly and easily. The only thing that really bothers me is that I didn't know how much I would like it, so I drew it on a sheet of paper that tore wrong, so now I'm stuck with this awkward tear in the corner (I photoshopped it out, but believe me, you'd notice it if you saw it in person). Another life's lesson learned: treat every drawing like it's going to be a masterpiece.

You can get a larger view or see other drawings of mine (warning: not everything is PG, so if you're under 18 you might want to stick to the Illustration Friday section) at my website: http://sites.google.com/site/altheakeaton/Home/drawings

Mutton Chops.

2009-06-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I'm really craving mutton chops tonight. Not food-y type mutton chops. I'm talking Wolverine style mutton chops. Old time-y guy mutton chops. Free-flowing facial hair you can get your fingers into.

I would so be loving running my fingers through my facial hair right now.

Father's Day

2009-06-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed by the selection of father's day cards out there. Except for the schmaltzy ones, everything was geared towards dads who love A) sports, B) power tools, C) boobs. My dad has no interest in sports, likes power tools okay but seems to see them mainly as a means to an end, and isn't a pig. My dad cooks and cleans. He isn't lazy, and he doesn't like sitting around watching tv. He takes good care of himself and his family. He doesn't have a particularly bawdy sense of humour.

So where's the card for THIS kind of dad?? I'd've gotten him one of the disgustingly sentimental ones, but I always feel uncomfortable giving somebody *else*'s sentimental words to someone I love.

So I ended up giving him something with a puppy and a poo joke, because it was the only "funny" card that actually made me laugh. And who doesn't love a good poo joke? (and, of course, I added my own personalized schmaltz, which is the important part anyway)

Seriously, though, it makes me wonder about other people's dads... Are sports-lovin', beer-chuggin', boob-ogglin', power-toolin' dads really such a majority that it justifies the overwhelming majority of father's day cards being geared toward them? Or are the people who make greeting cards really just that unoriginal?

At any rate... Thanks for all the home-cooked meals, for the emotional and financial support, for being more sympathetic about my menstrual cramps than most people of any gender, and for twenty-five years (and counting) of unconditional love, Da.

And thanks for not being a stereotype.

Coraline: the Musical

2009-06-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

And we're off!

So... I don't normally read the theater reviews in the New Yorker, but the June 22nd one caught my eye. Now, when I found out that they were making Coraline into a movie, I was really excited, and when I found out it was being directed by Henry Selick (the guy who did the Nightmare Before Christmas) I was even more excited. My excitement was justified when it came out. Beautifully animated, best use of 3-D I've ever seen, artistic, creepy, just... perfect. Completely did justice to the book, which is not something I often say about movies based on books. (and my girlfriend took me to see it as a Valentine's Day treat, which made it extra-special)

Well, apparently now they've made it into a stage musical. When I learned this I was... intrigued. Then I found out that the music was being done by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields and went beyond intrigued into excited. This discovery was all the more exciting since just a few weeks ago after watching Across the Universe and listening to a lot of Magnetic Fields, I decided it would be really great to build a musical out of their songs. And then I flip open the New Yorker and voila! A musical with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt. Based on a really great Neil Gaiman story. Which is especially perfect because I've been re-reading a lot of Neil Gaiman and listening to a lot of Magnetic Fields lately, so it caught me at the best possible time.

And yet... I don't know. A bad review isn't usually enough to put me off of something. After all, the New Yorker hammered the hell out of Fight Club and I love that movie. But something about this musical just seems... off. Actually, I can pinpoint exactly what it is: the casting of Coraline herself. All the other complaints didn't ruffle me, but when I found out the lead character, a preteen girl, is being played by a middle-aged woman... Yeesh.

What a horrible, horrible idea. The story is all about childhood. And as much as I hate child actors as a general rule, the idea of Coraline being played by a fifty-five-year-old just really puts me off. There's just no way to make that work. A grown-up playing a child is always very tongue-in-cheek, wink-and-nod-to-the-audience. It's far too camp for a heartfelt story that's all about the perspective of childhood. Also, many of the women are played by men, which I'm normally all far, but it makes the whole thing even more needlessly campy. It's not really a story that lends itself to drag, be it gender-drag or age-drag. Not to my mind anyway. Clearly, there are those who disagree.

I guess it was too much to hope for, that musical theater could tell a story without killing it with camp, but still I'm disappointed.

Neil Gaiman has a tremendous gift for female characters, something very rare for a male writer. Too bad the story seems to have passed through too many hands which don't share that gift.

Starter blog.

2009-06-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Ah, blogging. The pure pleasure of talking about yourself endlessly to bored strangers and bored friends alike. For months I'll be content to just think my thoughts quietly to myself, maybe jot down the odd note or send the occasional random text message. Then I see someone else's blog, boldly posting the fruit of their brain-loins for all the world to see while they're supposed to be at work...

And I'll think, "Damn, I wish I had a job."

But blogs are easier to come by than jobs, so here we are.

Before we get started, I'll give you all a brief introduction so that those who don't know me can pretend they do, and so that those who do know me can kill some more time at work. My name's Althea, if you couldn't guess by the blogging address. I just turned twenty-five, which was much less of a big deal than I was led to believe (quarter of a century is a pretty superficial landmark anyway when you consider that few people actually live to be a full century). As you can tell by the name of my blog, I'm a huge Jim Henson fan (and please don't complain that it's not an original blog-name: I'm well aware that there are probably hundreds of others called Kermit the Blog, and I'm not about to let that stop me). I have a soft spot for the muppets in particular, but I have a general fondness for all Jim Henson creations. I'm an artist and a writer, and I frequently like to combine the two disciplines to make comics. I'm queer, mostly girl-gay with a splash of boy-gay for flavour (I was actually really excited to see that blogspot included gender identity as well as sexual orientation in its non-discrimination text; you don't see that everywhere, sadly).

I was going to go on about taste in music and movies and books and all of that, but that should all be pretty easy to pick up on as we go along. So that's it for my introduction. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to read it.

Now get back to work.