Christmas Pterodactyl!

To begin, if you don't watch Community, my title will make no sense whatsoever.  Also, shame on you, it's the best thing on t.v.  Watch it.  Seriously.  Right now.

Anyway, my point is not actually Christmas Pterodactyl!.  I've been thinking about ritual a lot lately.  For as much as I've always been a bit of a non-conformist, I have to admit there's a deep-seated yearning in me for all the nerdy traditional stuff...  Singing carols, going sledding, spending all day baking cookies with family, that sort of thing.  But it doesn't come easy to me.  As a non-christian, non-pagan, there's no spiritual history.  I don't have a thick cultural influence with a wealth of time-honored tradition to pull from.  And without kids of my own yet, I feel a little silly trying to make a big deal out of kitschy holiday things.  So how do I decide what's important without getting burned out until I just quit the whole thing all together?

Which brings me back to Community.  I love Abed's Christmas revelation: 'The meaning of Christmas is the idea that Christmas has meaning. And it can mean whatever we want.'  Simple enough statement, but it sums it right up for me.

So, back to this year.  I bought a new Christmas tree, one so effort-free that even my lazy ass can't procrastinate putting it up.  I hung garland and stockings and decorated over the t.v.  That's the extent of my domestic effort.  And it's perfect.

I also got to test drive some new family events (snacking on Christmas cookies made with Chris and her family as I type) which has me looking forward to the things I might make important 'someday'.  Things from my childhood, like home-made pajamas to open on Christmas Eve, and things that just seem worth it in my mind, like a fresh-cut fir filling the house with pine scent.

And as for right now, tomorrow I'm going to get a delicious coffee house latte, make waffles, open Christmas presents with Kitsu (Yes, I bought presents for my dog.  It's ironic.  Don't judge me.), and then I'm going to pop open a bottle of Martinelli's and play Xbox until it's time to leave for my mom's.  That last part is weird, I know...  Non-conformist and all.  But I like it.

Ghost Hunting 101

  A few months ago, I enrolled in a ghost hunting class through the local education district.

  The first class I attended was an introduction to the subject. The instructor was a member of a local paranormal research team, who shared a whole slew of deliciously creepy photographs and EVP recordings from his previous excursions. My super-skeptic brain had no trouble explaining each one logically, but I enjoyed the goosebumps they raised on my arms nonetheless.

  After that, we took our cameras and recorders to explore Capitol Theatre. After a bit of a history lesson, we were set loose to record whatever paranormal activity we could find.

  For the next hour or so, I meandered contentedly along the darkened hallways of the theatre, camera in hand, snapping pictures of any spot that seemed like it might be ghost-prone. To be honest, my artistic tendencies probably took over any paranormal sense I might possess; I took a lot of ill-lit shots from dramatic angles, pictures that would undoubtedly look just right with a ghostly figure in the frame...

 

 

  ...and at the end of the day, not a ghost to be found.
  Although I had expected exactly the results I got (super-skeptic and all) , I was disappointed.  So much so, that I didn't even attend the last investigation.  I felt like a little black raincloud, fogging up all the paranormal energy with my disbeliever-ism. 
  I have to say, though, it's not that I believe ghosts DON'T exist.  I just don't necessarily believe that they do.  I'm one of those types who wants proof, proof that unfortunately didn't coalesce at Capitol Theatre.
  But maybe next time...

The Birthday Dinner

  So tonight, family dinner was my birthday dinner.  I was really excited because my step-mom was making delicious fish tacos for dinner, and then we were going to have cake and ice cream, plus s'mores toasted over the fire-pit in the backyard.  (I <3 s'mores.  I <3 them so much.) 
  As we were sitting in the kitchen before dinner, Chris suggested I open my birthday present, which was weirdly heavy and sounded like sand when I shook it.  (My dad is notorious for doing wacky things with presents, so I figured he'd filled a box with sand and put a present inside.)  Anyway, I opened it up, and drumroll please...!  It was a box of dishwasher detergent.  Now if you happen to be up on my current events, you know this is a REALLY weird present, as my dishwasher broke some time ago, and fixing it is on the very bottom of my to-do list.  I gave my dad a bit of a quizzical look, but before I could ask what the deal was, he said it was for my new dishwasher.
  I must have still looked confused, and at this point my brother Tony jumped in.  Apparently, he and my dad got into my house on Friday while I was at work and replaced my old dishwasher with a MUCH nicer edition, only a couple years old with twice as many features as the one I'd had.  They did this on Friday.  FRIDAY.
  I hadn't even noticed.

  At this point, everyone could tell that I had no idea what my dad and Tony were talking about, and I got deservedly teased quite a bit.  But honestly, I didn't feel so bad about not noticing the new dishwasher.  (After all, why would I pay any attention to a broken appliance?  It's not like I randomly load it every few days just to see if it magically works again.)  I couldn't help feeling guilty, though, about how epically AWESOME my dad is.  I have been a little bummed out this weekend, like my birthday wasn't important (Which normally doesn't bother me at all...  I don't know why this year was different.).  And then I find out I have been walking past this amazing gesture all weekend, and didn't even notice.  Not to mention the sushi dinner on Wednesday and s'mores over an open fire...  I really, really <3 s'mores.

  I guess the moral of my crazy story is just that my dad is pretty much the best.  I don't feel like I even deserve all the help he gives me.  But if I try to tell him that, he always tells me he's proud of me anyway...  And I know he means it.  That's actually better than a dishwasher any day. 

I love snowboarding

On a related note, I SUCK at snowboarding.  :)

  It's funny, though...  I didn't intentionally make any New Year's Resolutions this January 1st, but I did take stock of things at the end of last year and I was disturbed by how little I experienced in twelve whole months of living.  And so I recently have been trying to take every opportunity that comes along, no excuses.  I am half-way through SCUBA certification.  I took a snowboarding lesson yesterday (and my whole body is still aching as I type this...).  I am doing a Ghosthunters class, for which I am nerdily, gleefully excited.  My requisite flashlight has already been double-checked for battery power and put in my purse.  It's only half-way through March, and I am exhausted.  I feel better already.

Alice in Wonderland Review

Costumes- Want.  Want want want want.

'Sets'- Perfectly Carrol-ian.  Want want want.

Helena Bonham Carter- quirktastic, laugh-out-loud expressive

Anne Hathaway- dainty and darling, a perfect caricature

Johnny Depp-  He's Johnny f***ing Depp.  I want him, even with the orange wig on.  Endearing, heroic, and quite, quite mad.

Mia Wakikowska (Grown-up Alice)-  Dewy and lovely, a bit wooden but she blooms towards the end

Mairi Ella Challen (Young Alice)-  Darling!!  Want want want a darling little Burton-esque daughter someday.

Alice in Wonderland, almost perfect overall.  They wove a few pieces of Carrol's work seamlessly together, displayed it in the most GORGEOUS computer rendered settings possible, added Burton's go-to cast of faces (and voices), and left with a simple, sweet moral for the someday-daughter who will someday watch this movie with me:  You are enough all on your own, as long as you choose to be so; live your life unfettered by other's expectations; believe in your imagination, but don't cling to delusions that hold you in the past;  and, of course, try to dream six impossible things before breakfast each day.

Shutter Island Review

  I love going to the movies.  There's just nothing like settling into a cushy movie theater seat with a giant over-priced coke as the lights go down, and being absorbed by whatever story is being presented on the giant screen.  Part of the fun though is all the litte asides you share, the discussion with friends; and I unfortunately have reached the point where I have zero contacts in my phone I can call late on a saturday and say 'hey, wanna go catch a movie?'  So when I saw Shutter Island tonight, I felt a little bit gypped, muted even, though I liked the movie quite a bit.  Therefore, I am un-muting myself via this bloggy movie experience review.  Enjoy!


Previews-  Green Zone looks good.  Wall Street looks good.  The Sorcerer's Apprentice looks so tragic that I giggle every time I see the preview.  Dear Nicolas Cage, you look like a hobo.

People who bring children into a movie should be immediately removed.  (Sorry to any of you who do that, but SERIOUSLY.  Rent it when it comes out, it's rude to make the rest of us pay eight bucks to listen to your kid cry so you could have date night without springing for a sitter.)  People who bring children in to a violent, graphic, disturbing R RATED movie should be drawn and freaking quartered.

I have serial wanderlust.  As the movie is starting, the screen is filled completely with a forboding, cliff bordered island which houses the mental institution, and my first thought is, 'Ooh, I wonder where that is...  I'd love to go there.'

Leonardo DiCaprio can't pronounce the word 'escape'.  Dear Leo, there's no x in that word.  Other than that, you are AWESOME.

Dear music director:  Are you, by any chance, related to the music director for The Lovely Bones?  Because you both have a very similar style, I believe it's called 'heinous overkill'.  DUN DUN DUNNNNN!  Seriously, you suck.

Being institutionalized would be pretty much the worst thing ever.  I would rather get thrown off a bridge than be in the situation of any of the people in that film.

Mark Ruffalo is darling.

I love old cemetaries.  Directors use them to be creepy, but I love them and it gives the scene the wrong vibe.

Shutter Island is quite well done and I would highly recommend it, UNLESS you are easily disturbed. It's a little violent and a LOT weird. Artistic and mind-twisty (although it's predictable) and WEIRD.

On the way home, I nearly got side swiped by two separate suspiciously weave-y cars.  One was a taxi...  Ironic!  The end.  (Love, Tanya)

The Year in Between

  It's weird how the little things can make a difference.  I have been having a CRAZY long week, very busy and very tiring and very stressful.  It's left me in a blah mood recently.  But today in the mail, I got the calendar I worked up of random shots from '09 (in lieu of an SMG calendar...  RIP, awesome photo project).

  After showing it around (because I am a narcissist), I hung it on the wall and got back to the billionty things I had to do.  But every few minutes, I would find myself glancing at the New Year's Masquerade collage I picked for January.  And those familiar faces, done up all pretty and aesthetically arranged, made me happy.  No less stressed or tired, but it literally brightened my day every time I looked up.

  This is point one.

  A few days ago, my talented friend Angie started her own blog.  I highly recommend you check it out, but in the meantime I want to quote a part of it-

A "belief window" is basically an invisible "window" hanging in front of a person's face and through which he or she perceives the world. Each person's window contains written statements of their own beliefs, and those statements are created by that person's own experiences. For example, if I had been bitten by a dog when I was small, the words "dogs are dangerous" would be written in my window, and I would view all dogs through it. Whether or not the statement is true doesn't matter...

When I read that, I had an actual flash of inspiration.  I should mention that I always have a photo or three floating around in my head; but this idea was different.  I felt compelled to photograph Angie through that 'window', and instantly knew just how I wanted it to look.  Not only that, I instantly knew why I wanted to create that picture.  It wouldn't be the first time I've photographed something intentionally emotional, honest, maybe even painful.  The last such project was hard on me, and although I still get a pang of nerves every time someone sees them, I'm proud of the non-traditionally beautiful results.  It was cathartic. 

  And that's point two.

  Thus ends my official hiatus of my un-official obsession.  Not only am I planning a way to get to Houston and photograph Angie and her window, I'm working on a personality-specific version for some of myself as well.  Other ideas continue to pile up in my head of course, but I want to do this one project first.  I think a little open expression is probably just what I've been craving.  But after that, who knows?  I'll need another whole years' worth of perfect shots, once 2011 rolls around...  If only to liven up my desk when I have two mondays in a row.

P.S. Special thanks to my wonderfully eccentric friend who took the quirky New Year's shots used above.  Love ya, Raighe!

Slightly unscheduled

  I remember when I was a kid, I could make things happen just by wishing.  This isn't some weird half-memory of something that happened once when I was little, this is an actual fact.  When I really wished for something at the very bottom of my heart, it would come to me.  I remember eight inches of snow falling in one night, closing all the schools, when I had an unfinished book report due the next day.  I remember envisioning choosing the 'queen' card when my eighth grade english class was doing a mock royal court for our Shakespeare unit; and then I walked into class and it happened just the way I'd wanted.  (I probably should have imagined a bit longer on that one; it turned into a humiliation, but that's another story.)  I remember dreaming a perfect day, and then waking up to it, piece after piece just as I'd expected.  I thought I was a super-hero.
  I still daydream.  All the time, if I'm being completely honest.  But I haven't had a dream, a thought, even an inkling, effervesce into existence in years.  I don't like to think about why, but every once in a while something outside brings it all to the surface and I have to acknowledge the thought: I don't long for anything anymore.  All my dreams, all my wants, all my hopes are half-way. 

  Sometimes I feel like I want a really normal life.  Soccer mom/trophy wife with a white picket fence, two kids, a dog and all that.  But I can't wish for it.  The idea of a life defined by permanence and dependance on someone else stirs up the knee-jerk desire to rebel that I lived on as a teenager.  I rail against even the idea, in my own daydreams.  No matter how much I would like to be loved and love simply, I can't really give my whole self up to it.
  On the far other end of the spectrum, sometimes I want to sell my house and everything in it, quit my steady 9-to-5-with-benefits, and move to somewhere I've never been.  I don't know what I'd do there.  It wouldn't really matter.  (I'd like to say I would be a philanthropist, saving the world one child at a time like a rather inspring acquaintance of mine, but that isn't honestly me.  I think I would be more selfish, and create, and maybe if I was lucky my creation would matter to someone.)  But I can't wish for that either.  I've tried this route.  Though I wouldn't trade my time living in China for anything in the world, I don't think I could do it again.  It was wonderful, but torturous and trying.  I remember it proudly, rather than fondly.  And so I can't visualize the pieces falling in to place to try that route again.

  So instead, I zig zag through my own existence, reaching for one goal and then another without any certainty I'll want them once attained.  Time speeds by.  And sometimes I just can't remember what the point of life is.  And so, every so often, I have to boil it all down to bones and figure it out all over again.
  (And I have to make a sidenote here.  I don't mean to offend, but the answers I grew up with for this eternal human question simply don't work for me.  I don't see my life as a test.  And because no two people are the same, no two lives are the same, and therefore no two end-goals should really be the same.  Simply to 'be good and have a family' is not the answer for everyone.  Besides, I am good, and I will someday have a family.  It's still not enough of an answer for me.)

  So I remind myself: Experiences matter.  The days that you remember because they were wonderful, when you were sublimely content and everything ahead was clear for a bit.  The days you remember because they were awful, because life ground you into the dirt and expected you to give, and you didn't.  The stories you can tell once you're through.
  Passion matters.  Anything that makes you happy or angry or inspired enough to scream it from the rooftops.  Anything that makes you want to strive harder.  Everything that makes you love.
  Interaction matters.  All the little things that pass from one person to another; a glance, a touch, a confidence.  On a more basic level, the contact of two bodies. 
  Things that do not matter:
  money (except where it can be used to surround yourself with the people who bring you happiness, or create the situations which will force growth and make memories)
  the judgement or expectations of others
  fear (except when it drives you to overcome)
 
It's funny, but after I re-order these things in my head, I feel calm.  It doesn't make my future any easier to discern.  I won't wish for any certain thing with the single-mindedness I had as a kid.  I know I will still scramble after a million different goals, trying to cram a dozen endings into my one simple life.  And I know that there will be inevitable regret at the end, that I didn't have time for it all.  But I suppose that is my ultimate goal: to live so that, when I die, my only regret is leaving so soon.