i had a pretty good weekend. on friday after work, i did some german homework, and then mouse and i went to south philly to make dinner and hang out with jeanne and mike. they're the best? we made two delicious pizzas and one okay pizza- one for mouse that was vegan and was basically a hot open faced bell pepper sandwich (he seemed to like it though ! but i cruelly starved him for hours and hours before he got to eat it), a fresh spinach pizza, and the aforementioned potato and olive pizza (i used black olives but should've used kalamata, and should've salted the potato water more !). so we ate pizzas and watched the monster squad.
seriously, what a beautiful creech. i agree with mike who said something along the lines of, "omg that is the flyest creech on earth" and snapped his fingers. maybe i'm remembering it wrong? i also got to hang out with vinegar the cat (fig only made a brief appearance) who has grown into one of those perfect cats who is like a limp noodle when you hold him.
with his buddy, the wolfman
mouse has a sore back from jiu jitsu and had to work in the morning, so we left before the movie was over and i came home and finished my german homework. on saturday, i worked on my history homework and read the ghost next door
the ghost next door by wylly folk st. john
i actually really loved this book. i've read tons of spooky ghost is haunting stuff until someone solves its murder/lays its soul to rest books for young adults (i'm looking at YOU, betty ren wright !) and there were a few pretty unique characteristics in this book.
1) the existence of ghosts is left ambiguous and there is a healthy amount of skepticism and arguments both for and against ghosts
2) the main character largely involves her parents and other trusted adults in her investigation of the ghost. this was super refreshing because, while i always advocate a healthy amount of secrecy from your parents, i'm a reasonable adult now and appreciate the portrayal of other reasonable adults who take children seriously and believe them.
3) the book contains seances and psychics and spiritualism which some of the adults are into, and are involved in psychic societies, and it isn't presented as weird ! like even the skeptics are polite ! and i love that as a skeptic because i love a good hoax seance !
i almost made it through the entire book before i got to the gross fatphobic part (the medium was so disgustingly fat she could hardly walk and the couch was buckling under her fat disgusting body), but it was still there. bummmmmmmmmer.
after that, mouse and mike g. came over so we could watch back to the future, because i'd never seen it. it was really cute and funny, and has one of my favorite movie elements: unexplained shit ! like, why was a cool high school teenager buds with a mad scientist? who cares ! just roll with it !
i really did like it and think it holds up in a way a lot of 80s movies don't, but i wish i'd seen it as a kid because it was hard for me to shake certain elements of it? like... bif tries to rape mrs. mcfly? and then later in life the mcflys have a dude who attempted to rape their matriarch doing odd jobs for them? that said, tom f. wilson's performance as bif was amazing and he was so villainous and i'm sorry being such an a-hole ruined his career. or maybe being a big beefy doughface ruined it because he's basically like the archetypal character actor.
by the way, mouse usually laughs when mike g. ruins movies for me by talking and talking and talking and asking questions (ex. when christina was watching sabrina, asking "is that sabrina?" about every person on screen. or when marty mcfly sits down at the breakfast table and his sister is sitting there, asking, "WHO IS THAT?"), but the shoe was on the other foot this time. mouse's blood pressure jumped like 100 points ! it was great.
on sunday, i mostly hung out and did errands. lazslo came over in the morning because he was here for a show the night before and he and christina got brunch ! it was nice to see him, he is my brother in weird al (besides my real brother. and mike b.). i got a car share car even though there was a big gigantic storm and went to trader joe's, the first of 29390283 errands. i found everything i needed, it wasn't too crowded, the handsome tall guy i like to look at was working, i got in and out in 20 minutes, and then... my car wouldn't start. i got soaked trying to figure out what the problem was, and realized i left my cellphone at home, so i had to go back inside soaking wet and sheepishly ask to use a phonebook and their phone. it took about a half hour, and the battery was totally dead, so i just had to return it and not run my other errands. fuck you, prius !
i came home and had some food and watched tv and knitted with my main man, christina. she was watching mad men, which i have to admit i don't really get. it's basically like having a shitty job and a shitty life in real time? like it's super dull and the thought of having to spend so much time and money on clothes and grooming stresses me out. i think it would be eased a little if i found jon hamm attractive but i think he looks like someone's dad. or like a future stepdad for me, since my mom thinks he is hot (you have some competition for my mom's affections, antonio banderas !).
hambone. not pictured: flippy
after that, i retired to my room to watch a movie on my xbox. i ended up watching the edukators, a daniel bruhl movie about anti-capitalist activists who accidentally kidnap a businessman.
it was surprisingly non-annoying for a movie about young radicals ! daniel bruhl is the handsomest, though he had really unfortunate facial hair and i can't tell if he's a good actor cause he wasn't speaking english. i surprisingly understood a lot of the german dialogue too ! the only element that bothered me on a personal level was one dude "stealing" his best friend's girlfriend because nothing makes me feel shittier and sicker (i can't even watch daria anymore or the episode of MSCL where rayanne bones jordan catalano). i also felt myself feeling strangely sympathetic for the rich asshole they kidnap because it's probably really scary to be kidnapped.
blehhh. that's about it. totally demolished my weekend to-do list, except i didn't start my history reading so i'll have to put my nose to the grindstone today. i also need to bring some papers to LPS tomorrow to complete my fall application. i'm still pretty nervous about that. other than that, i'm wearing a sleeveless dress today.
though i'm generally self-confident and utterly unconcerned about peoples' feelings about my appearance i do have a slight hang-up about showing my arms. but like... i don't think fat arms are unattractive or weird or unacceptable on other women, so... why would that be the case for me? it feels pretty good to feel good today.
Oh my god, I feel like you just wrote my childhood into one post. I was obsessed with The Ghost Next Door after finding it on the "after your work's done" reading shelf in second grade, and it had such a grown-up, V.C. Andrews-esque cover (different from the one you posted) that I was convinced it ended up there by mistake, and was really a mom book. So I read it on the sly and hid it from my teacher and then re-read it all year.
ReplyDeleteI was also pretty into The Monster Squad when it came out, and had a crush on both Andre Gower, the Main Kid (wow I didn't know I remembered his name until I just typed it) and Ryan Lambert, the Cool Guy.
was the cover the one with the ghost of miranda holding the stone owl WITH LOVE IN HIS EYES in the middle of the pond?
ReplyDeleteYes! Sort of hovering, in ghostly outline? I tried to find that cover on Amazon recently when I was going to launch my Scary Book Club, but no luck.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about Scary Book Club. I should get on that. My first choice would be Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn, I think?
Roxy i bet you would really like the secret of the seven crows. I can bring you my copy when I come visit if you want!
ReplyDelete"he was so villainous and i'm sorry being such an a-hole ruined his career"
He was seriously the best awful person and i think this is why it took me forEVERRRRRRRRR to realize that he plays the coach on freaks and geeks!! watching him have like, tender moments with bill is such a mindfuck now cause he is bif forever to me.
i mean, he is a total doughy jock in f&g, but he's no bif.
ReplyDeletei can't wait, i'm totally gonna buy it on amazon for 1 cent !!!!!
ReplyDeletethe thing that inspired us to watch it was this video of tom f. wilson doing inoffensive singing comedy where he does a really cute song about back to the future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwY5o2fsG7Y
mad men is amazing, butttt you can't really jump in at any time or i can see how you would view it that way!!! in the previous seasons, it's really interesting how they worked the civil rights movement into everything (when basically the whole series is about the most privileged people possible during that time period). they also don't really glorify anything and there are constantly little things that show you what assholes these people really are. jon hamm/don draper is charming but boring, roger sterling is the sexiest dude, IMO.
ReplyDeleteas for sexist beauty standards, your own comfort in your own skin is the most important thing. and if you can't feel that way with unkempt brows, who caaaaresssss. it doesn't make you a bad feminist.
i think that's oversimplifying a little- i don't feel like a 'bad feminist' for not being 100% immune to societal pressure or history or sexism, but i also think it's important to be conscious, aware, and critical of the effects and powers those pressures have over me. like, i don't feel uncomfortable because i don't like how it looks, i feel uncomfortable because it is not part of the prescribed, rigid beauty standard for women, because i'm afraid it'll look unattractive, and i'm convinced that i like it better the other way because of those things. those aren't really great reasons to just do something to alter my appearance !
ReplyDeletei think the fact that the show is about the most privileged people during that time period is what makes it so boring to me. the manufactured problems of wealthy white elite people are less interesting to me than their real problems. i also think that the casual and unquestioned sexism is disturbingly explained away with 'THAT'S HOW IT WAS AT THE TIME !!!!'- like, with peggy they touch on it more than other characters, but overwhelmingly i just hear that betty is such a COLD BITCH and that joan is HOT and OMG HER CLOTHES and OMG HER TITS.
none of the men are particularly attractive to me because i'm not into ancient white rich dudes, sexists, or smokers.
I'm sorry if I seemed like I was simplifying things... I commented because it's something that I struggle with a lot. I love makeup, I love clothes and I like feeling beautiful. I don't live in a vacuum, so I know a significant degree of this is misogynist outside influence, but I don't know! So much of my identity is wrapped up in it. I just feel somewhat resentful when I get the impression girls like me feel judged or or are made to feel uncomfortable by other women for the degree to which they involve myself in the whole "femininity performance" thing (can border on Tina Fey-esque bimbo-bashing. Maybe this attitude makes a "feminist tom", I dunno.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with you about Mad Men! It became interesting to me because it's a field which I've seriously considered working in. I was in an advertising design program when I first started watching it and I pretty much dropped out because I was like "shit, I'm going to be working in a contemporary version of this except you can't drink at work anymore".
As for the sexism -- I think it's handled with brevity and rather gracefully and it's not glorified or gratuitous? Bar None, it wouldn't be realistic if they didn't portray it. If people interpret the female characters as flat or stock and reduce them to a serious of sexist female tropes, that's unfortunate and problematic, but I think all of them are shown as strong and complex (including Joan and Betty) to the degree that they would be able to be at the time period. Don and Betty's maid is really amazing too and some of the subtleties with her character are my favourite part of the series. Also the series of women that Don philanders with are pretty interesting characters, however short their story archs are.
Anyway, sorry if I went on too much about this shit, I get the feeling I'm sounding like too much of an appologist here.