Saturday, January 24, 2009

I'm a silly girl sometimes, or... Pondering the deeper meanings behind the idea that maybe I've invested too much time in escapism.

So, now about those TV character crushes... I know these aren't real people, so don't get me wrong. But, part of the reason people like TV is because they fantasize and relate to the scenarios on some level and that's not real, either. I get it, don't worry. And so here follows a nearly exhaustive description of all the fictional guys (and a few girls) that I've crushed on. Here's my shallow, silly girl crush spoiler alert for this post. If you don't like this kind of thing, then quit reading.

My first TV character crush, as just a very little girl, was Mr. Spock. Man, he was just so cool, strong and brilliant. Next came Dr. Who (Tom Baker at the time) -- I was still a little girl. He, too, brilliant, cool, capable but with a more developed sense of humor. Yeah, okay, so they're both not human, but whatever; lots of my crushes weren't/aren't humans. I'm not humanoid speciesist, okay? And my profile says I'm a nerd, anyway.

Next came the teen years dominated by the typical popular hot TV stars (with a good dose of 21 Jumpstreet's Johnny Depp -- I've dug lots of Johnny's characters; I was fully in love with his Chocolat character. He's a primo hottie on my list - you know, the one that you and your spouse/partner both have of people who the other isn't allowed to object to if you ever get the opportunity to hook-up with; the list is basically always made up of celebrities and rockstar types you'll never meet, including fictional characters).

Now, as a 30-something, my faves are: Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds. I love those insanely brilliant types (sweater vests and a gun - rock on); back to the ol' childhood preference, I guess. Um, Eddie Cahill's Friends character from years of yore (yum - although I understand his desire to further his career via a more dramatic role in CSI: NY), Christine's brother on The New Adventures of Old Christine and the jaded alien-hunting cop on the too short-lived Special Unit 2 (SU2). O. M. G. and Colin whatshisname's Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Oh, Mr. Darcy. Yowza.

I also have a couple of girl crushes (nonsexual, duh) just 'cause I think they're cool: Garcia from Criminal Minds and Abbi from NCIS. Also, Kaylee, the cool girl mechanic from Firefly (TV series), Dee-dee from Spy Girls and Pam Anderson's Val from VP (man, that was a funny, campy, super-cheesy show; and I love cheese). Oh, and that awesome cyber-chick on that episode of X-Files who had all the conspiracist-nerd dudes in awe who came out to fight the VR AI who was attempting to take over the world through the love affair that she had with her creator, a kid in a trailer. I don't remember much else, except that she was cool. And Dark Angel and Aeon Flux (the cartoon character, of course), too. Speaking of cartoon characters, my sister says I'm Daria. Right. Well, they all have traits that I admire and I either would like to emulate, embody or just hang out with.

And when I was a little kid, maybe 2nd grade, I remember this episode of Love Boat (cue theme song) where one of the guests was this uber-smart lady who was beautiful when she removed her glasses, fixed her hair and hid her smarts. As soon as she got back to being herself, though, no one was interested. I remember being intrigued by her, and that she was a nuclear physicist, and so that's the third thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up (the first being a queen -- I wanted to wear the queen suit, and the second being a psychologist as influenced by the Bob Newhart Show ). None of that ever happened, but I'm still holding out hope for the professional position of Queen, somewhere. Anyway, she was cool.

Um... Maybe I've watched too much TV over the years.

Well, I also have had a number of book character crushes, too. The biggest, I think, was/is R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'urden. Mmmmm... Dark Elf Ranger. Next, Janet Evanovich's Ranger and I think I like: smart, broody and athletic. That must be it. But I like goofy humor, too -- that's a must. Well, there were lots and lots more book crushes (oh, the supporting Asian-sounding character who died tragically in the White-Ring Wielder series and Tolkien's Legolas and Strider, both), and little crushes on some of the authors just because they're so brilliant: Tad Williams and Neal Stephenson.

And I think I'd also like to meet Keanu Reeves. I dig all the sci-fi stuff he's done and think he sounds like a cool person from interviews and such. And he's cute. I'm just putting that out there to the universe because of something I read in one of the gossip mags that someone had at the office. It reported (and I use that term loosely) in its coverage of Josh Duhamel (yum, too) & Fergie's wedding, that Josh just mentioned that he'd love to meet her, and look -- 7 years or so later, they're married. So, there. I pick Keanu Reeves to meet. Oh and Orlando Bloom, too, just because he's a hot elf and because one of those stupid "which celebrity is your best date match" games matched him up with me. ;-D

Don't get me wrong, I love my boyfriend. Also, we have not had, and continue to not have, any intention of finalizing anything by getting married -- even though we have our 15 year anniversary this August. Whatever, we just kind of go with the flow. And, if I were ever seriously going to consider dating anyone else, then Troy and I would have to call it quits, first. I'm not the philanderin' type and I'm also quite happy with our relationship the way it is at this time. I am, however, the pondering, speculative type. So, now, where was I?

Lastly, a few more characters: Daphne DeMaurier's pirate (Frenchman's Creek), Last of the Mohican's Uncas, Babylon 5's Marcus (the Ranger), Edward Scissorhands (there's Johnny, again), Han Solo, Professor Z (from something like Black Hole High), and Stargate's Dr. Daniel from when he wore glasses (glasses on rugged-looking men earn bonus points for me). Those smart, dark, tall-ish, athletic, studious or broody men with glasses and guns always get me; I don't think they really exist, though, and they'd also have to be kind inside with a weakness for animals to really be the end all. And if one ever came around me in real life, I'd be highly suspicious -- too good to be true, what's the catch...

Well, after re-reading all that, I can see why I'm not married. Huh. I'll just have to wait until Dr. Josh Stein and I meet (Another unreal person -- that's a name from a dream that I had a few months ago where that was the name of the man I was going to marry -- I have no idea who that is and didn't find anyone when I googled the name who looked likely to match, so maybe my subconscious drummed that up from a TV show, movie or book or something that I don't consciously recall).

There. That's much better than that crappy nightmare I woke up with. And now I can do homework. Yippee.

I just woke up from a bad dream...

No really, I did just wake up from a bad dream. Sometimes I'm just absolutely appalled by what my subconscious mind can drum up. This was something horrifying about some old woman living in... the Turkish countryside? I mean, I don't even know anything about Turkey except that it struggles to maintain a secular goverment and it was petitioning to join the EU a couple of years ago. I certainly don't know finer points like if it has monkeys, but I'm getting ahead of myself... The old woman lived a basic 3rd world existence. But, let's get back to the beginning.

Anyway, the dream actually starts here in the U.S., in Oregon where I live, in a small town like Woodburn or something. It starts with a call for help on TV to find a mountain lion who would nurse a litter of 9 kits whose mother had never returned for them. I was thinking they should be taken to the zoo, but there was some reason why that wasn't possible (of course, otherwise the horrible, old, monkey lady wouldn't have entered the dream). So, then they cut to footage (except that I'm seeing it as if I were there -- it doesn't appear on a TV screen in the dream), of this horrible old woman who insists that they have to go to the monkeys. I don't know what the monkeys would do with the kits, the dream just forgets about the kits once the monkey lady comes in.

She lives her life with monkeys milking them and harvesting their fur. Did I mention that monkeys freak me out? They scare me. Anyway, the old woman wears those big, dark brown, woven type of robes that cover her from head to toe that my preconceived notions think are so very popular in the region. Oh, and I always dream in color. She sits squatting in a big-tent-like place that has hay covering the dirt floor and she just goes to the bathroom wherever/whenever and claims that this is how the monkeys do it and it is the best way because then you just have a lackey come and clean the hay. This is incidental -- she doesn't explain this in detail, it's just something that I glean from the scenario. I'm just elaborating here to add to the layers of how disturbing this was.

She's got a medium-dog-sized monkey wrapped up in a thick, dingy, white blanket and it's squirming so she keeps having to overpower it and reposition it in between times when she yanks out handfuls of its grayish hair, which causes bloody, hairless spots to appear and then there's another woman (this one also robed, but young) who silently squats across from her and pours a clear liquid from a clear, plastic bottle on the monkey's wounds creating a flood to rinse away the blood into the towel in between bouts of when the old crone rips out another handful of hair. The monkey screams and tries to get free every time this happens. Since this is TV, all I can do is watch in horror and feel impotent and sad for the torture that this poor monkey endures. The crone obviously has no issues with it for she just goes on ripping out handfuls of hair as this is her vocation. Again, this is a dream, people. Not real.

I woke up very distressed and disturbed. I mean, that's fucking sick. My newly awoken self was dwelling on what the liquid in the bottle was. I decided it must just be water because if it were anything else I think the reaction would have been much worse. And then, because I'm me and I analyze and problem-solve by nature, I started thinking about why the hell the old crone had to harvest monkey hair that way. I was vaguely thinking about how much suffering could be spared if she just had the right tools to do the job and how to communicate that and get some shears over there.

And then I really awoke and decided that that dream sucked and that I'd think about my TV character crushes, instead. But I want to talk about them in another post because I don't want to sully them by putting them in this one.

In an attempt to attach meaning to this dream (because I know that Jungian analysis states that everything in the dream is an aspect of one's self, and this was a pretty disturbing dream), I googled around a bit. The best site I found is this dream dictionary and it says (among many other things) that emotions are important. My emotions were/are: disgust, distress, horror, confusion, compassion, impotence, anger. Yikes, that's quite a list.

Symbolic meanings given are (excerpted directly from the site "http://unclesirbobby.110mb.com/dreamdictionaryo.php"):

KITTEN a gut feeling fresh in your mind
KITTEN a strong sense about your direction in life
KITTEN new ideas and confidence in yourself as a woman
KITTEN newly aquired magical and pyschic powers
LION strong and courageous - really standing up to someone
LION very ferocious - intimidating - someone who scares you
LION something or someone you would rather avoid
LIONESS female courage
(I couldn't find Mountain Lion reference and I couldn't find what it means that there were nine kits, although the number 9, as far as I could tell, universally has spirital or prayerful meaning. Whatever, though. The kits resolved themselves and while they started out as a point of interest in the dream, the did not end up as the focus.)

BOTTLE current experiences and thoughts
BOTTLE depends on whats in it - your thoughts
BOTTLE looking for inspiration from some external source - a need for stimulation
BOTTLE your thoughts in a bottle / your courage
DEFACATE purify your thoughts by through bad emotions
HAY hard work
MONKEY devious character
MONKEY monkeying around
OLD LADY feeling old and tired or run down with illness
OLD LADY using your own intuitive experience and gut feeling
POUR flowing freely
ROBE formally dressed
ROBE loose and adaptable image
ROBE mytholigical struggle
TENT new and fresh environment
TENT temporary home
TENT temporary response
WATER BOTTLE emotional thoughts on some remark
WATER emotional resolve - motivation
WATER flows of energy both good and bad - your ability to motivate yourself for something
WATER focus your mind and energy to some creative project or emotional issue
WATER trying to use the power of the unconscious mind to work out some problem
(Uh, duh.)

The end result is I don't know what the hell that was all about, but I must really be working on something in the ol' psyche...

Now about those TV crushes...

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Dr. Horrible's just misunderstood

Man, you know, sometimes I just wish Neil Patrick Harris wasn't gay; he has a fantastic mouth on top of being pretty talented and I adore that he's lighthearted and embraces the cheesy side of life. But I guess the gayside needs fab guys, too, although it seems like they get their fair share, if you ask this hag. Well, whatever.

What I meant to post on (*quickly and succinctly* -- yeah right, I can't even remember the last time I did anything quickly or succinctly, but I digress -- which is just about status quo. Now... what was I saying?) was my latest discovery of Dr. Horrible and how much I like him and how he's just misunderstood and how I want to take him home and take care of him and nurture his burgeoning leadership skills (they're so obvious) so that we can have a prosperous and happy life together. (And Dr. Hammer, does, in fact, do a fine job of portraying the total tool that he is.)

Here, look (from Hulu):



I was out having dinner tonight with friends at North Bank (one of THE best places in Eugene to have a leisurely -- and I mean leisurely; service is always nice, but in my experience never fast-- and exceedingly comfortable, satisfying meal and/or good drinks, too), and also taking a break from my homework.

Did I ever mention about how much I'm procastinating on my homework this term? I just have a hard time getting into my business classes. I know, I'm the one who picked that minor, and I really only have 3 classes left in it, but they're just not that captivating to me. Ah well, hopefully it'll be useful info. I do keep reading professional level position job descriptions that talk about 6 sigma and whatnot, and it's cool that I even know what that means, but it just doesn't get me all riled up like the Ed. Tech stuff, but maybe that's a phase and/or lack of experience talking. Anyway, dinner...

So we had this lovely dinner with friends and my one friend mentioned this Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog online show and I LOVE IT! So, I hope that you love it, too. Go to the website or Hulu and get a full 42 minute eposide (actually, 3 - 13 minute episodes with about 30 secs of commercials in between, but certainly well worth it). And, if you can, support all of your artists, of course, and buy the damn thing. I'm going to try to, I can tell you that.

TTFN -- must get back to the stupid eminently enlightening homework.

Friday, January 2, 2009

If not perfection at least an attempt at adequacy, please!

My first official blog full of stuff from my very own head. Wow. Okay, well, so as unoriginal as it is, it's late and I have to go to work in the morning, so I'm going to take a shortcut and just copy and paste here what I wrote to a friend of mine in an email message earlier. But, this missive was original, like, 5 hours ago -- I promise!

Okay, so my friend David has this email that he sends out to all his friends (lots and lots, he's a really cool person) on a regular basis just asking people a "question of the week." Today his question was about what horrible thing would you take pleasure from seeing happen to someone else. Here's where it led...

"Thank you. :-D (spoiler alert -- meandering email below...)

And, well, yes, I might pants George Bush. Poor tool. I'd feel kinda petty and guilty, but it would be kinda funny, too, because he's so completely oblivious to his evils.

You know, when I used to get upset with some stupid person (a long time ago before I realized what torture one can put one's self through) I used to wish for a person's fiery demise. Now, I wish for them self-realization and self-recrimination in how idiotic they are along with full awareness of all of their flaws, inanities (insanities, too, for that matter), shame and embarrassment, and to see that in their present incarnations they're really not even worthy of the very precious air that is wasted by the respiration that perpetuates their so very meaningless existences.

In this way, then, there are three paths the fates can offer as choices to this enlightened individual: to continually strive to become an ever better person, to choose to spare others from one's unfortunate presence through informed suicide (enter my proposal to allow criminals to choose death over life in prison), or to simply continue to suffer one's self internally, infernally and eternally. And it's all one's own choice. See, I figure that a lifetime of self-recrimination, awareness and change is a way better punishment and possible gain for the world than a few minutes of humiliation.

So, I suppose what I would prefer to have happen to George W. is for him to receive a bout of clarity and conscience... Although pantsing would be funny -- I have to admit that I laughed pretty heartily (then guiltily) when I saw the video of him dodging shoe projectiles. But, really, it's not so much the humiliation, but humility that I'd want him to acquire -- yup, that would be a way worse penalty than pantsing.

Yeah, it's not so much that I'm mean, as that I don't really like people in general all that much. I was just thinking about writing a blog on most people's lack of desire to strive for perfection -- or at least precision -- in everyday tasks. I was thinking of this while driving home tonight as I dutifully used my turn signal to change lanes with no one around to see (that's the true sign of goodness, you know, if you're good even when no one's around to see it), when lo and behold I saw headlights approaching going the wrong way on the one-way street I was on. I mean, WTF?! Why don't people care about whether or not G-d and the whole world know that they're stupid? And, they're also completely obviously inconsiderate because they could kill someone -- like me, and I'm so totally not ready to die and I try very hard ALL THE TIME to be good and do everything perfectly so that everyone will clearly see that I'm not a complete moron. And I also think that other people should, too! Yeah, this may mean that I have some issues, but if everyone had the same issues, I think things would probably move along pretty smoothly with fewer accidents and whatnot.

Okay, so what was I saying? Oh, yes. So, after that rant, I think that my thing would be for stupid people to receive self-awareness. I might not get pleasure out of it, but vindication is certainly close. And I wouldn't even need to feel guilty because it would really have nothing to do with me. So there.

Oh, geez, now I'm all self-aware of how petty that all is, yes, yes, I know, and I don't usually put it out there -- it's generally a private thing. So, well, welcome to my head and a glimpse of my own personal demons. I do try to be good, I try very hard, but sometimes, the stupid humanity thing gets in the way. Hence the anxiety disorder and complete inability to really relax and enjoy too much of anything. Maybe I surround myself in cats because I just really want to absorb their complete and utter lack of concern about conscience. They just are and they like it that way.

Well, whatever. I'm going to lose myself in some escapism like a book or TV. ;-) Later, dudely!

Suze"