muchtooarrogant

I mentioned that we saw Deliver Me from Nowhere, but I didn't have time to get into my thoughts on it, so here are some.

"One of the things that confuses me about this film," D said in his review, "is who it's for, other than cosmolinguist." And I can't help him there, but it definitely is for me. It takes place around the time I'm being born, only a few years before this man would become my favorite musician (I was about three when I could locate and play "Born in the U.S.A." from my dad's record collection, holding the LP carefully and putting the needle down in a way that wouldn't scratch it).

I love that it's about men and masculinity in a way you don't normally see them: I love how the relationship between Springsteen and Landau is portrayed, it's intense and it's emotionally savvy. I don't love the way that women are such secondary characters in this movie that I don't even know Mrs. Landau's name, but I also love the way Jon came home at the end of some of these difficult work days and talked to her about Springsteen's big ugly feelings that were driving the direction his work and life was taking at that point.

I love that the single-mother girlfriend -- who as I suspected was a conglomeration of multiple real-life people -- seemed to confront him with the force of all those real women when he told her he was leaving for California: he's messed up and he's stuck and he seems unwilling to do anything about that. (The road trip and arrival in California shift the dial more toward "unable," but you can't blame this woman for assuming it's "unwilling"; this is clearly not her first experience of young men disappointing her.)

I feel weird because I'm the biggest Springsteen fan any of my friends know with one or two possible exceptions -- more than one person has told me they're relying on me to let them know whether the movie is worth seeing or not -- but compared to the real devotees I feel barely a casual fan. A lot of my favorite songs are older than me, or close to it, so absorbed in that contextless all-at-once haphazard way that previous culture can be without time to spread it out or an expert to steer you in it. Born in the U.S.A. rocketed Springsteen from success to superstardom, and my dad was apparently part of that wave because he had that record and no others. I found it on my own, noticed Springsteen's songs on the radio on my own, re-discovered him (after a teenage period of being mortified that I'd ever loved music so uncool as to turn up on classic-rock stations) with "The Ghost of Tom Joad" on my own...

I say all that to say that I'd never realized how entangled Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. are as albums. I liked that the movie portrayed them as so intimately bound up their creation is in each other. We couldn't have had the stadium-filling without the bedroom-recorded demos that were never meant to be heard by anyone else getting out of their way. That really struck me: a lot of my younger years were about me trying to skip the weird confusing maybe-ugly fixations of my brain and heart, I wanted to get right to the likeable if not successful bits. But of course you can't do that. The only way to the cool successful thing is through the ugly private things.

And you don't have to; the weird confusing ugly stuff might be able to be loved too.

I want to talk about Frankenstein and Breaking the Code too, but this is probably enough for today.

roina_arwen

I wake in a deep dark despair,
Bolt upright in bed, shuddering
My mind obsessed, possessed by
Unknown demons demonstrating
Their violent vigor with my dreams,
Deadly thoughts to depress desire,
Like a nail through a tire.

Trepidation of trepanation—
Expose my skull, bore a hole,
Remove a piece of my soul.

Sleep is for the weaker set, and yet,
Hours left until the sun ignites,
Blankets wrapped taut all about,
I wither within and shiver without.
My brain just might settle and chill,
If only my demons look and see,
That in the end…there’s only me.

Current Mood: thoughtful

drippedonpaper

"I definitely think you should..." Why, after so many years, does that phrase rise so easily to my lips? Only now, more often than not, I need to bit them back. No one is asking what they should do very often, and, honestly, honestly that could be a good sign. Do I know what they should do?

All I know is that once upon a time, there were three children and a mother who loved them very much.

At the time, I did not foresee the changes in store for that mother and those children. For now, I find myself living in "Once upon a time there were three adults and a mother who loved them very much."

This second story is one with less guidebooks. In the child version, you have certain criteria, such as:

1. Keep them safe.
2. Keep them fed.
3. Everyone needs sleep.

Now everything is much more topsy-turvy. Now it's:

1. They should choose to be safe and what degree of risk to tolerate.
2. They decide what keeps them fed.
3. Everyone needs sleep, but how, where, and when is mostly out of your control.

If I continue to be the same mother I was to children, I will smother away the adults who my three children are growing up to be.

So I try to listen even more. I am no longer a guide and a revealer of what the world is and how they should move in it. For they have entered other worlds: other jobs, other schools, and now, now they are the experts, growing close to people I may never know.

At best, I can listen (if they choose to share their experiences and plans. I do mention ideas of safety "stay in a group, buddy up" when my teen talks of heading to public Halloween parties. But their safety? That's up to them now.

It's a struggle. Sometimes I fight the instinct to gather them up and lock the door. Even thinking it, I realize the absolute impossibility of that idea. They are all bigger and stronger than me. I tried to raise them without a cage of fear and disapproval, which means, unfettered, they are exploring and dreaming, seeing which part of life is a place to make their home.

I don't want to hold them back. I hope they live their whole life with wings. Birds don't always fly, but without clipped wings, any place can be a joyful choice rather than a dreary prison.

I didn't realize how much their growing meant that I, too, need to grow. I need to grow into a love that is given with an open hand. I seek to rejoice in their joys even when I do not understand them, even when they are not the choices I might have made.

I try to more often use the phrases, "What do you feel you are drawn to? I'm proud that you accomplished that. You worked hard."

Their lives are not for my glory. They are earning their accomplishments. My role is to stand in the sidelines and clap. To often hugs, soup, and blankets, and then, yet again, an open door.

Yes, I'm sending them into that great, big scary world full of bad people. But there's good people out there too and maybe, just maybe, if I'm one of those lucky parents, maybe my kids will be some of those good people that others find. Good people to work with, to have fun with, and no one knows what might happen next.

I hope I get to hear about it.

Current Mood: contemplative

drippedonpaper

"I am large. I contain multitudes."
-Walt Whitman

She lives within me, all of them do, the Marias, present and past. And each day, honestly, sometimes each minute, they will take turns in the driver's seat.

Survival requires compromise, as well as diplomatic skill. Constantly leading by brute force is ineffective. Everyone needs rest, and it's better to allow each their time rather than be ambushed, deposed, and tied up while those Marias who are oppressed rule with abandon. As I learn and grow, I can't always push aside the child Marias. The older ones can comfort and nurture the children, so they don't wreak havoc on days when adult priorities need tending.

Denial seems to only make the less desirable sides stronger. Life is compromise and within each Maria is strength, weakness, lessons, memory, and sometimes pain. Only by acknowledging that all exist is it easier to modulate them into a whole.

I cannot solve the world's problems, but if you try to roadblock something my family needs, my determined survivor Maria will drive for awhile, and is often successful. She takes a lot of energy and isn't the friendliest sort, (too little desire to people-please,) so she doesn't get a large share of the driving time.

I think we humans all seek wholeness, but at times, if you look, you can see the tantruming child lurching out within the bodies of grown adults at service desks and in long lines, ready to burst, and fuss, and scream that yes, yes, they matter. They have waited long enough why, why doesn't anyone care about their comfort? Why doesn't someone care? Does anyone care?

For many of us, I feel some ghosts of our pasts live within certain songs. I'll be pushing a cart in a grocery store and, boom, without warning, notes are tinkling down from the ceiling, and a sentimental Maria suddenly controls both my memories and my tear ducts. I don't think of certain memories often, but notes can quickly call forth: a heartache, a striving, a fading good-bye.

I used to subscribe to the idea that sudden emotional triggers indicate unfinished business. Now, I mostly feel that they represent the length of life. If you live long enough, there will be colors and smells, tastes and foods, feelings and hair cuts that become doorways and windows to the people that once inhabited your daily life. Because we change, oh my gosh, we change! And that is the glory and the sorrow of being human.

The toys we longed for as children still live in the shelves of our minds. And the good-byes never said, the co-worker who changed jobs, the classmate who moved over the summer, these ghost and memories pile up. The first ones feel like stabbing pains. Over time, we realize that each moment exists only for now. We don't always get to say good-bye. But we had that one summer, those lunches on a Friday, those smiles over a dinner with mutual friends. Perhaps that will be all there was. But it was something, and I'm allowed treasure the brief and transient. Not everything is forever. Worth and longevity aren't always equal units of measure, at least in the laboratory of my life.

Inside my mind, I do try to redecorate. I can't trash all the boxes of the past, but I can try to shift the floating giggle balloons a little closer to the front. I try to open the curtains of possibility even when my eyes are tired of the light. I used to feel glued into depression's couch, but now I try to practice movement, stumble down the hallways into something else, anything else. When in doubt, sometimes a book is an out, but I try to pick books with characters I can live with for awhile.

And onward and upward, and out to try again. I'm trying to encourage Adventurous Maria more. She got beat up too often in years past so it's hard to tempt her out. Unlike some of the others, she has to be coaxed into the driver's seat of my life, but I'm trying.

Who knew that life is actually a group project after all?

Current Mood: chipper

cosmolinguist

You ever look at all the tabs open on your work computer as you turn it off and think man, that's so much garbage that Tomorrow Me has to sort out, that poor guy, he's gonna hate me?

Had a kinda disappointing day at work today. I didn't get enough done, and next week is going to be busy so I really can't afford to do so little.

cosmolinguist

Somebody had brought their not-really-wanted nail polish to the queer social event I was at last night, encouraging people to use or take home anything they liked.

And just because I was sitting at the table near them for a while without much to do, and because I like bright colors, I ended up painting my nails. Bright yellow. (I was drawn to it because it looked like a fluorescent hi-vis yellow in the bottle. Once it was on it's "just" a nice bright primary yellow (someone else looked at it on me and said "I wore that color for a Simpsons drag show once," to give you an idea of what yellow it is), but that's still good.

I used to love nail polish, that and really chunky colorful jewelry were the only "girly" things I ever got excited about. And even then, my mom was always trying to steer me toward soft pinks and stuff and I chose more blue and green and the most "unnatural" colors.

But I haven't done my nails since before I left my old house. I was...busy, and then for a long time it felt too femme, like I struggled so much to get people to stop misgendering me, I didn't want to make that any more likely. And by the time that stopped being a concern I was well and truly out of the habit and all my nail polish that hasn't been touched in five or six years should probably be thrown away.

But here I did my nails very happily. It was nice that it didn't feel weird or feminine at all now. It just felt queer.

Also while making dinner tonight, I realized that when I'm chopping vegetables it's way easier to tell where my fingers end and the peppers or whatever begin if the ends of my fingers are bright yellow.

Not that I usually struggle with this, I'm used to doing it mostly by feel. It was weird that my eyes could help out!

That got me thinking about starting to acquire new nail polish (the old stuff I have needs to be thrown out really) based on what colors are easy for me to pick up!

The yellow has already half chipped off, so I'll have to see if there's any nail polish remover in the house that works! But this probably won't be the last time I paint my nails.

cosmolinguist

Queer club Halloween party tonight: the blood-red face paint dripping from one of the organizers' foreheads was in fact glittery.

There was also a LARP vampire, a few sets of fairy wings, some witches, somebody wearing a shirt he'd attached forks to and covered in fake blood to make it look like they were stabbing his torso and arms, who only belatedly realized that this meant he couldn't hug anyone, or squeeze as close to anyone else for the group photo as had been encouraged...

...and D and I as sheet ghosts, underneath fitted bedsheets that'd had the elastic taken out and holes cut for our eyes. D insisted on a slot for his mouth too, which he intended as a way to consume snacks, but the slot was too small to fit a cookie through. "I can see the crumbs on the mouth," from it someone later commented when he explained his costume.

V loves sheet ghosts and it was very nice to have costumes that they helped us make.

clauderainsrm posting in

therealljidol

Good Morning,

Well, it's far too early for it to be "good", but "Morning" at least!

The new twist is up: therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1207947.html and so are the prompts  https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1208099.html

I've already gotten a question about the prompt situation so I'll clear it up here. YES. It's 2 entries. NO, it's not 1 entry where you incorporate both, unless, I dunno, you want to write 2 entries where you incorporate both. :D
No, if not a pick one of the other. It's 2 entries.
That's why you have a week. Well that, and my schedule. :D If the Wheel had chosen 5, yes, I would have given you even more time! (Although let's be honest - a week for 2 entries by traditional old school Idol standards is pretty good.)

***

I've had a few people ask about my arm after that blood donation. It's healing. Still is bruised and a little tender. I did have it confirmed this weekend by a friend who was a former nurse that this wasn't normal. She agreed with the theory that my boss raised that the needle was dislodged and went through my vein. Otherwise I would NOT have been in that much pain and wouldn't have the bruising I do.

So now I need to accuse someone in Idol of paying them extra to do that! :D

***
THE FEST was amazing. Because it's always amazing. <3

How was YOUR weekend?

clauderainsrm posting in

therealljidol

The Wheel said you get 2 prompts this week. So let's see what they are! *spins wheel twice*

a nail is driven out by another nail

and

ambuscade

The deadline to link BOTH of these entries in the thread below is Monday November 3rd at 7pm ET.

Have fun!

clauderainsrm posting in

therealljidol

*spins wheel* TWIST!

OK. Nice. But WHAT twist?

*spins the wheel again*

Multiple topics (random number generator 2-5 to determine how many)

Oh that's fun! I get to spin the wheel again!!

Oh come on, just 2?

Where's that Chekov's Gun? I want to shoot this wheel! ;)

***

There was a 5 way tie for the person with the fewest votes who wasn't eliminated. So I need to ask the Wheel how that will be handled. It came up as "Wheel Decides Who Is Eliminated", which in THIS case means that the wheel will select 1 of you to receive those 2 byes to hand out.

Who will it be? This isn't as suspenseful for you as it is for me, since I write these in real time!

4. *counts* Congratulations

hafnia ! Let me know where you want those 2 byes to go.

***
btw - Not sure if I mentioned it, but a vial WAS found this week. So make sure to send in your accusation and who you want to give the antidote to!

clauderainsrm posting in

therealljidol

I just got back from FEST in time for my therapy session and then to come close this poll! :)

(well OK, I posted a few things on FB too! But still, the point stands!)

There was one person going home this week and it's

legalpad819 !

Sorry to see you g... what are you doing? Why do you have gun? What are you.... oh... BAM!!!!

She just shot her own elimination with Chekov's Gun!!! The elimination is now dead.

(and the gun, having been used, disappears)

cosmolinguist

I got to see the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein tonight, and it was great. Not only did I enjoy it, I was also relieved because I was expecting more body horror and, after his Pinocchio left me emotionally devastated, more of that too. Luckily I found both much more manageable than I had feared! Not to demean it with faint praise, just to note that I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Sadly V wasn't able to come along with us tonight, but I'm already looking forward to the excuse this gives us to watch it on streaming in a couple weeks.

cosmolinguist

I woke up and looked at my alarm clock: 8.30. That's early!

Then I looked at my phone which said 7.30 - that's REALLY early!

"Gained an hour," but on the one Sunday in months when I have no plans at all so it doesn't do me any good.

I'm not normally bothered by the clocks changing -- I'm not normally bothered by eight-hour timezone changed -- but today once I got out of an excruciating conversation with my parents (they have their first laptop and they don't know what "browser" means and "the printer is in a file and I can't get it to come out!") all I could think was ah thank god it's bedtime and it was seven forty two pm.

8:42 I could accept as a typical time for me to go upstairs and get ready for bed. But this is silly.

And I was also very hungry and very overwhelmed by the time I ate dinner, because "the same time as usual" was in fact an hour late.

cosmolinguist

I got up early and went to the gym and then basically went right to the Springsteen movie, and now I feel physically and emotionally amazing but by 2pm on Saturday I'd done everything that I had planned for the weekend and it's a weird feeling!

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

cosmolinguist

"I saw an ad for the talking dog car movie on the toilet that came up out of the ground!"

That's a real sentence that I heard diffrentcolours say this afternoon.

cosmolinguist

I went to the gym after dinner tonight.

Not only did I get through work (I forgot to re-set my normal alarm after not needing it yesterday and woke up eight minutes before my first meeting, oops). Not only did I get a flu shot (I was very brave). Not only did I make dinner even though I was exhausted (I made the broccoli and halloumi thing because D really likes it and he's had A Bad Day at work).

But even after all that, I still was awake and energetic enough to go to the gym. And I even walked both ways (waiting for the bus would have taken a lot longer).

I didn't make it at all last week, and after losing the first two days of this week to the stupid away day, I wouldn't have blamed myself if I wasn't up for it now. But, surprisingly, I just about was.

Which is great. I was despairing that the whole winter might be like last week was, where I'd just work and sleep, or fail to sleep, and that's no kind of life. Especially when work is making you miserable like mine is.

clauderainsrm posting in

therealljidol

A few words from

clauderainsrm:

Another week, another poll! *spins wheel, watches as it goes by* We are losing 1 contestant this week! Apparently the Wheel is deciding to drag this out! :D Maybe it likes torturing you.

The poll will be closing Monday, October 27th at 8pm ET. I’ll be at FEST (as is usual for this time of year. So long time for voting, probably a shorter window for writing next week… or an extra long one! Who knows! The Wheel hasn’t told me yet!!)

Good luck to everyone!

Poll #33751 ’WheelofChaos-Week13’

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 38

Vote For Your Favorites!

alycewilson's entry
12 (31.6%)

bleodswean's entry
12 (31.6%)

drippedonpaper's entry
13 (34.2%)

flipflop_diva's entry
12 (31.6%)

hafnia's entry
12 (31.6%)

halfshellvenus's Bye Week - Votes Do Not Count
4 (10.5%)

inkstainedfingertips's entry
20 (52.6%)

legalpad819's entry
8 (21.1%)

l0lita's entry
18 (47.4%)

muchtooarrogant's Bye Week - Votes Do Not Count
3 (7.9%)

roina_arwen's entry
12 (31.6%)

unicornfartz's entry
16 (42.1%)

clauderainsrm posting in

therealljidol

Another week and another shot at ending the evil plans of the Killer(s)!

First, let's dispense the antidote. This is now voted for by everyone left in the competition. Which makes it more interesting to see where everyone else is looking for potential targets. The vote wasn't even close this time around - the antidote goes to

inkstainedfingertips - who enjoys a refreshing beverage. But not much else other than that.

The vote for the Killer was even more lopsided. Every single vote, except two (for different people), that came in all identified the same person. That diabolical mastermind who has been pulling the strings, and killing off the competition one by one!

The group have finally come together in the strongest possible way to accuse

muchtooarrogant of being a Killer!

The silence feels the room as people wait for what will come next... the next dramatic exposure...

and they wait... and wait... and then start swearing because the Killer(s) got away from them one more time!

hafnia

( beneath the jump. )

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Aimless Ramblings

Only 7 Chromosomes

Reading

It has been a great week for snuggling up next to diffrentcolours and watching some Art.

LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos, 14a: A Nail is Driven Out By Another Nail

LJ Prompt: A Nail Is Driven Out by Another Nail

LJ Idol- Prompt: Ambushcade

Problems for tomorrow

The Accessibility Nails Collection

So gay we bleed glitter

The Wheelhouse - Week 14

Prompts- Week 14

Twist Reveal - Week 14 (and the Week 13 tie)

Results - Week 13

Creature feature

My body clock is never on time

Weekend goals

Database maintenance

Powerwash Simulator 2...spoilers?

Stronk

Voting - Week 13

Week 13 - The Accusation

therealljidol, wheel of chaos: prompt 13, "happiness pump"

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