Okay, I kind of grossed myself out with that title.  How are all of you?  Been a while, eh?  I’m sorry about that.  I really do love writing here, but I went a little crazy over the past couple of weeks.  You see, I took a big scary test, in preperation for a big scary future, and I just didn’t want to talk about it.  Still don’t, really.  Roller Derby was a nice distraction (and still is), but I’m not sure y’all would be interested in my tales of skating rinks and big, gnarley knee bruises.  I’ll talk more about it when tryouts (November 7th, y’all!) inch closer and I have more interaction with real derby girls. 

So what do I use this space for?  I was going to use it to talk about the advancements that I’ve made in certain aspects of my life; however, now that those things are progressing, I find that I don’t really want to come here and report on them.  Sorry.  I know you all were just dying to hear about my practice LSATs and lady workouts.  Roller Derby will be an interesting thing to report on, but I haven’t gotten to any of the interesting stuff yet. 

What about a trip back to basics?  The stuff that I can talk and snark about pretty much all the time.  Namely, TV and movies.  And I have some thoughts on current TV & film that I would like to discuss.  But then will I be slipping back into bad old habits.  Recidivism has dangerous consequences, you know.  But other than that, I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll think of fun stuff to write about.  Maybe I’ll bitch more about wanting to eat some Blue Bell Ice Cream, even though it’s abruptly cold outside now.

So, future posts to watch out for:

-Why I didn’t think 9 was so great, even though some (thankfully not most) intelligent critics are dying over it.  I normally agree wtih Bitch Magazine, but this is one place where our opinions diverge.   Although, I guess my opinion isn’t all that controversial.

[<sidebar> the easiest way to make me dismiss your opinion and just get plain old mad is if you tell me that my reasons for disliking a book, movie, tv show, plotline, pairing, etc. is simply because "[I] JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND.”  No, most of time I completely understand what they were trying to do, but I still didn’t like it.  Get over yourself.  And if you use that argument, you lose a little bit of my respect.  Intelligent people can disagree about these things and both sides can still have valid opinions.  Being told that “you obviously just don’t get it and that’s the only reason you don’t like it” is one of the most dismissive and insulting statements that one person can say to another, especially when both sides are actually presenting good points.  I don’t have to agree with your opinion, but I can accept why you think that, as long as you do me the same courtesy.]

-Why I like True Blood almost in spite of myself.  Proof that I can never hold a grudge against Alan Ball.  Y’all, it’s like candy–not necessarily something you want to contemplate for hours, but still a satisfying and tasty treat. 

-A report on my foray into a (melodramatic gasp) pseudo-Romance novel.  How I was suckered into it, and why I’m still reading it, in spite of myself.  I’m spiting myself quite a bit these days, I guess.

-Decoating my room and why I can never get a tattoo. 

I’m sure I’ll think of more stuff.  But that’s it for now.  I really do want to start writing here again.  Honestly.  This time I mean it.  Oh, and I’m probably going to try to figure out some more of this website business.  I want to streamline this site in the near future, because I’m well aware of how slow and clunky it currently is.

I just realized that I posted an entry after I started work on that draft.  It goes back in time a little and still doesn’t tell you much that’s new.  Whoops.  Hey, at least it’s an update.

So, I kinda did all the things that I needed to do last week.  [eta: this has been a draft for over two weeks. sorry guys.]  And in doing so, I realized that I am turning into a 50s housewife.

Let me be perfectly clear. When pressed, I like doing dishes.  I like cooking.  I like baking.   This is the extent of my housewifely duties.   I scoff at the ability to mend clothing.  I really hate doing laundry.  But what I hate more than anything else in the world is cleaning.  This is why I often live in some degree of squalor.  As long as I don’t get tetanus, I don’t really care.  I may not have people over because of it, but I don’t really want to deal with clutter, especially since I am a packrat without proper organizational skills.  Every new apartment is an attempt to fix this, but until I shop at the Container Store more, I’ll just have to deal with piles of stuff. [eta: now I have containers and no piles o'stuff.  I need to get a bookcase and then I'll be pretty much good to go as far as the squalor goes]

My last apartment was the worst.  It was a tiny little apartment with two cats who went more stir-crazy than I did.  Because they hated the apartment so much, they ripped up all of my blinds and wrenched the radiator cover out of the wall.  Aaaaand now I have to clean the place.  I have to make sure this little apartment is spotless, or else I don’t get my money back.  And with a cat with serious dental problems, the need for more furniture, and a higher monthly rent, I seriously need the majority of my security deposit returned.

[ETA: Full security deposit back, since the handy man of my building did the walkthrough and not the landlady.  He gave me full marks, chewed up blinds, radiator ripped from the walls and all.  It was pretty sweet.]

This is now in current time.  Whoa!  Time Warp!  Remember that song?  Remember that movie?  Those were crazy times.  What else has been going on? Copious LSAT studying.  AND I just found out that even though I’m still on the waiting list to take the test, that doesn’t mean that I won’t get to.  It’s an issue with Chicago not assigning people quickly enough.  The lady I talked to on the phone was very patient (I was kind of near tears)  and told me that every person on the waiting list will be assigned to a testing center, but that Chicago has been slow about it.  Don’t they realize that there are scores (SCORES) of panicking potential law students who are freaked out about the assumption that they may not be able to go to law school in the fall if they don’t take the September test?  Am I the only one panicking?  Also, when I typed assumption there, my brain froze a little, because that’s totally an LSAT idea.  Finding the necessary and sufficient assumptions in arguments.  I halfway had a heart palpitation.

The plan for roller derby is still going strong.  I’ve ordered real skates from the rink, Riedell R3s.  They are good starter skates, and when I tried them on for a test spin, I could really tell the difference.  They were pretty awesome.  And I can only assume that the skates that the real derby girls wear are significantly better than these.  Speaking of, check out the website of the Windy City Rollers, Chicago’s main roller derby league.  The site is fun, and you get to check out the skaters and learn more about why I would ever want to do this.  The best part is that I actually do enjoy skating.  It’s fun, without even thinking about my motivations for it.  And I think that’s the best sign so far.  I like going fast.  I already got a major bruise on my knee from falling on Sunday.  It doesn’t hurt but looks hardcore.  Feels appropriate.

And really, the best part about doing this now is that it takes the edge off of my panic about the LSAT.  I have another thing going for me and I don’t just have free time to spend worrying and stressing myself out about a test.  Yes, I’m still studying to do my best on the actual test.  No, I’m not a manic mess yet.  I’m sure it will happen soon, though.

I have more to say, but I honestly can’t think of it.  Everything’s going well.  I’ll try to update more regularly, I swear.  I have a couple of other drafts that I need to finish up.  But here, enjoy Weezer.  I really love both this song and the music video.  And yeah, I was reminded of it when I was showing a coworker the Whip It! trailer, and it’s really the perfect song to go with that movie.  It’s certainly made my Tuesday more fun:

Pork and Beans [They wouldn't let me embed it ]

I’ve been meaning to write another entry for like two weeks.  Sorry to those of you who like to read this at work.  I also like to write this at work, so I’ll try to be a bit more prompt.  But there really is loads going on these days.  My neverending lease of the tiny, overpriced apartment was finally up, and I am officially a one-apartment gal.  (Gal?  Who am I?)  In an attempt to be as miserly as possible with my security deposit, I was cleaning the old place like crazy and doing stupid things like buying replacement blinds and stressing out when I couldn’t put them up myself. 

But the place is FINALLY clean.  And finally no longer mine.  I was fortunate enough to do the walkthrough with Scotty, the handyman in the building, and he doesn’t really care.  Which is hilarious since he’s the only person to fix the damaged/filthy apartments.  I thought the radiator cover, which was ripped out of my wall would cost me, but he took one look at it and said “oh that’s fine; that sort of thing happens all the time.”  All he wrote on the sheet was “Okay.”  He told the landlady that the apartment was fine and looked really nice, broken radiator cover, chewed up blinds, yellowish tub and all.  And yesterday I received my entire security deposit + $7.77 extra in the mail.  I can’t tell you how great that makes me feel.  I had assumed that my cats screwed me out of the entire deposit, which is paranoid, I know, but I like to prepare for the worst.  Two days after my walkthrough, I got everything back.  It was hard to not do an incredibly embarrassing happy dance.

Now that I don’t have to worry about money for a little while, I’m going to try to get things done around the ole apartment.  First, I gotta clean my room and organize my piles of crap.  So far they’ve been littering my floor and desk and window area, which will simply not do any longer.  I think I’m going to buy some plastic crates from Home Depot, which are good for my junk deposits.  Other than that, I still need to buy a lamp, another bookcase, more art and frame the stuff I have so I can hang it.  Ideally, I would like to buy a printer as well, but that can wait.  For the apartment as a whole, I saw a pretty cool looking kitchen cart at Home Depot that I’m thinking about getting for the random hole in our kitchen.  We don’t have much counter space, so I think that would be a perfect addition.  The apartment itself doesn’t look very lived in yet, which I kind of hate, but we can make it nice before the end of the year, at least. 

So that’s going to be an ongoing project, which I will start this weekend, since Alex is going to be out of the city for Labor Day weekend.  I may actually spend Labor Day, uh, laboring.  Whee!

What else?  I’m still studying for the LSATs.  I’m taking them September 26th, so it’s getting to be crunch time with that.  As soon as one thing eases up, another dilemma swoops in and takes its place.  Constant stress, yay!  But I’m generally hopeful about getting a decent score.  I just have to keep practicing Games and Arguments, and I really need to get back into the swing of being focused for a three-hour test.  I think that’s my biggest hurdle.  So more practice tests left to go.  I’ll keep y’all posted. 

What else? What else?  Well!  Remember when I got excited about Roller Derby and totally wanted to do it even though I can’t skate?  It’s happening again.  And this time I mean it.  Laura and I are actually going to try out.  I’m going to practice skating, so that I at least don’t look like a total idiot when I try out.  Even if I do get all the equipment and skate like every day and take speed skating classes, I still know that I’m probably not going to get on the farm team at the first tryout.  It seems pretty common that it takes two tryout sessions.  Not going to let that get me down, but I’m going to work my hardest so I don’t look like a total moron.  Just someone that probably needs a little more practice before she can get on the team.  I’m realistic.

In spirit of that, here’s the trailer for Whip It!  The Roller Derby movie.  Already excited about it.  Although I’m slightly concerned that trying out after the movie comes out will make me look like a poseur.  I’ll be prefacing everything with “I wanted to try out last year, but…” That should work, right?  As long as I’ve got some chops to back it up, then I won’t look like someone just jumping on the bandwagon.

Movie!

My knee is going to dislocate so fast, y’all. I can’t wait.

Nothing much to say here, but I’d like to recommend that y’all check out Sarah Haskins’ Target: Womenpieces on infoMania.  They are hilarious and true.  I’m on a feminism kick, sue me.  It also got me finally looking up the proper rules for Apostrophe use, where I learned something new.  Three cheers for proper grammar usage.

Check out this video:

It’s a little long, as it’s a compilation of many of her previous clips, but I really enjoyed it.  Check out the smaller ones if you don’t have time.  They are all worth it. 

(Oh shut up, I actually did some work so far today.  Don’t judge me, Judgey McPatronizing.)

I honestly have no idea if anyone is reading this. I think I’ve decided that I don’t care. Whatever this is, it’ll grow legs and scuttle all over the place until somebody smashes it with his shoe and then looks at it and sees the disgusting splatter. I’d like to work up to that. Let me be your disgusting splatter.

Updates, Updates, Updates! Since everyone is so very interested in me. Or maybe I’m just interested in me. Have you seen the About Me link at the top? I think I may be a closet narcissist. I have done nothing interesting ever! Listen to me talk about myself!

Home Life: Okay not much progress here, BUT I’m planning on it!  I may take Friday off to go clean my old apartment.  Nothing new with the current place, though.  I’m poor this month, leave me alone!  Um, I called my great uncle?  That’s not an update.  You haven’t met him, but he’s taken to talking about how he’s going to die soon.  But he says it quite happily (his wife died last year, and I think he’s ready), and I should be happy because I’m in his will.  Thanks Uncle George, but can we talk about something else now? 

Health: I am on my fifth cup of water so far today.  I figure that’s as good a place to start as any.  I went shopping on Saturday and bought soy milk!  I’ve decided that I’m maybe going to cut actual milk out of my diet and just drink soy milk.  There is no actual reason for this.  It isn’t a health thing, since I’ll still be eating plenty of cheese and butter.  It just makes me feel like I’m doing something.  I predict it will last through this one container of soy milk.  Um, I made foods!  I made tuna salad for lunches this week, which is always a tasty option.  I made this great sautéed chicken in white wine.  Good diet, Drunky!  See, y’all, my brain is still picking fights.  Some things won’t change.  But yeah, goal for the week is to cook something for myself every night, and check out the Lincoln Park Farmer’s Market on Saturday.

Career/Future: Did some LSAT review on Saturday, which was fun.  I am currently focusing on proper strategies for doing the Games portion of the test, since that is the weakest part for me.  It’s not that I can’t reason it out, but that I just don’t know the best way to display the information, so I often end up horribly confusing myself.  And I tend to overthink things and complicate matters, which is very bad when it comes to doing these games.  Gotta work on that.  Goal for the week is to get through the rest of the games chapter and take another practice LSAT this weekend.

Social: Move along folks, nothing to see here.   I guess this is okay, but considering everything else I am doing, this may just simmer.  On the back burner.  I’ll go out late night this weekend.  How about that?

And, ahem, In Conclusion: I think I’ve decided to get a subscription to Bitch Magazine.  Because there’s nothing that my apartment with Alex needs more than some Bitch on the coffee table.

Wow, I really don’t seem to care too much about this now, do I?  I went to the trouble of creating a new webpage, paying lots of money to get myself set up, and now I’m at a total loss for what I should be talking about.  I guess an official webpage is something a bit more serious.  It’s not just a place where I can vent to people about crap that I probably think way too much about–now it must have a real purpose.  It must be some kind of specific chronicle.  I need to have consistency.  Purpose.  Maybe that’s what my previous blog was lacking.  Hell, the mood wasn’t even consistent. 

I get into these self-reflective moods every now and then, but nothing ever really changes.  I bitch and moan, and then just continue about my way.  I think I’ve even discussed this attitude and vowed to change before.  Hrmm.  Okay. 

Well something happened.  I don’t exactly know what the deal is (okay, I do, but don’t really feel ready to discuss it here), but today I woke up feeling strangely proactive.  I think I’ve now experienced what it’s really like to just go with the flow, not trust my instincts, and let something else dictate what I’m doing.  And you know what?  I got hurt.  Mostly I’m just mad at myself for being so stupid, but damn it really sucks.  And I’m done.  Done.  Screw impotent rage.  I’m over it.  And when I sat down to write another entry today, I finally figured out what this blog is going to be about.  What it should have been about this entire time.  Not TV and film reviews (well, okay, I can still do that, just not all the time).  Not me talking about weird interactions and letters to people from my past.  Not even me arguing with my brain and displaying feminist rage.  I’m going to use this space to track my actual life progress.  I’m going to be as frank and straightforward as I am able, and I think writing everything here will keep me honest.  If  I have to stare at my lack of progress and see all of you staring at it too (all, uh, five of you or something?), that would just be depressing.  Okay, fine, I’ll still argue with my brain.  I have fun writing those, after all.

I’ve decided that a staple for this webpage will be tracking my “progress” or rather just sharing with y’all how I’m doing in various facets of my life.  Facets that I have admittedly been coasting in for a couple of years.  August is the beginning and end of many things for me, so this would be a perfect time to do this.  Here we go:

Home Life: Currently have two apartments.  Both are too messy.  One needs to be seriously cleaned by the end of the month, so that I get my whole security deposit back.  I need to buy blinds to replace the ones the cats ripped up, and I’ll need to put them up myself.  Need to make sure that place is shining before I turn my keys back in.  Find some way to fix the radiator cover that my cats broke by walking all over it.  My current apartment is too cluttered.  I need more organizational materials.  I have to wait until next month, when I don’t have to pay two rents, but that place will be cleaned dammit.  Also, look into getting a counter space for kitchen.  There’s apparantly a good one at IKEA (thanks for at least one thing, Joe).  Look into buying more art when I actually have money.  Frame the art.  Why is living life like a real person so expensive? Goals: Start living like a real person before the end of the month.  Ensure I get my whole security deposit back on my old apartment.  Organize my new life.

Health: I keep making half-hearted gestures concerning this, so I think I’ll start a little more slowly and build to an appropriate apex this time.  In the spirit of the movie (and real-life blog) Julie & Julia (omigod I want to see this movie so badly, it’s embarrassing), I should try to make more real food.  The intention is always there, but I have a nasty habit of becoming too lazy and not wanting to cook.  I’ve got those cookbooks, though.  And I really do love cooking.  And baking.  So I think I’m going to start making real food for myself.  Experiment more.  Make coffee every day.  Use those muffin tins I bought myself.  Buy more fresh vegetables from the Farmer’s Market.  Also, working out.  This is getting to be a tough one.  The will is there, but it’s so easily thwarted.  I keep talking about 6/7, because I know me.  If I work out fewer than 6 out of 7 days, I’m much more likely to find excuses to not go to the gym.  I’m likely to put it off indefinitely.  I don’t like that I’ve gotten this way, but it’s the truth.  So I’ve got to do something to force myself to go.  Bribe myself even.  I’ve decided upon the one thing that will make me go to the gym for 6/7 days.  The one little pleasure that I allow myself.  The one thing that I can always enjoy no matter what.  If I go to the gym for 6/7, on the 7th day, my day off, I can buy myself a book or dvd or other novelty item.  If I don’t, well, I don’t get one.  Simple as that.  And I mean it.  People, slap my hand and make me go run if I buy something and haven’t earned it.  It’s the only way I’ll get my act together.  Goals: End this month cooking myself 90% of my meals, shopping every other week, and going to the gym for 6/7 days of the week.

Career/Future: Okay, this is the stuff that really needs to get going.  And luckily, it’s the one thing that I can control the most in this coming month.  The LSATs are coming up, and I need to seriously study.  I took a practice LSAT this past weekend and realized that while I have a good start, I need to get my score up by at least 12 points before I take the real thing at the end of September.  I think I can do it, if I practice my games and do tons more practice tests.  I also need to figure out how I should treat my current job.  Should I just stay here, or casually look for work elsewhere?  I think that if I see something cool, I should go for it, even though I’ll have to leave the job in a year.  Because, yeah, GOING TO LAW SCHOOL.  The more I say it, the more it’ll happen.  Goals: Boost my LSAT score by hardcore studying, so that I can kick ass in September.  Apply to awesome law schools.  Figure out what I want out of my job for this coming year.

Social: This is a bit more flexible than others, I guess.  I just want to keep having fun?  Go out with people more.  Go have a beer with my cute neighbor.  Don’t have any expectations and don’t be too hard on some people.  But also, I should make sure to trust my instincts.  They are often smarter than I am, and listening to them will help me avoid pain and humiliation.  So, uh, trust people and yet don’t?  I guess?  This is very sketchy, I know.  Um, take chances?  Be spontaneous?  Try not to be a recluse?  Why are all of these questions?  I’m starting to feel uncomfortable.  Uh, Goals: Try to have fun, while still being responsible.  Don’t do anything that you don’t immediately feel comfortable doing.  Do try to meet new people, though.  Wear more jewelry. And get some more clothes that aren’t t-shirts and jeans, already.  Do that with your next paycheck.  Geez.

So, yeah, people.  I’ll let y’all know what the deal is.  I also have a few miscellaneous ones that I’ll talk about later.  Join me on my journey to become a real person with a real life!

Okay, so I got myself a new webpage and I haven’t even bothered writing on it yet.  I guess I thought that I would use a real webpage to talk about real things, instead what got thrown on my random Blogspot one.  I fail.  Guess this webpage will have some of the old stuff.  As well as argument between me and my brain, of course.

Now, where would this webpage be if I didn’t talk about my Very Important Opinions regarding film & TV?  Because I just realized another one this past weekend.  This may seem like nothing overly surprising, but I really can’t handle clichés anymore.  They just kind of piss me off.  I think that I may have gotten sensitive to them due to diligent reading of Tv Tropes (see sidebar for links)  This past weekend, though, I realized just how much I hate clichés when I was pleasantly surprised by two wonderfully original films.

First despised cliché: Angsty Law Enforcement Personnel.  This one has gotten ridiculous.  It seems as if most screenwriters these days honestly believe that every cop who pursues criminals needs to become almost suicidal regarding every single case.  GUYS!  It’s their JOB.  Yeah, it can be crazy stressful.  Yeah I’m sure some of them do take their work home sometimes.  I guess I just don’t understand why every cop story has to involve some horribly traumatic case in which the cops become personally involved as the only reasonable way to solve the case.  If that happened in reality, those cops would be pulled off the case so fast, you couldn’t even say “conflict of interest.”  The cop that has issues with being a dad and gets really sensitive to children being abused maybe shouldn’t take the child abuse cases?  **coughElliotcough**  Certainly not if all he’s going to do is punch out the potentially abusive father.  Just sayin’.  Most cops are professionals and are trained to deal with pretty horrific happenings.  IT IS THEIR JOB.

With that in mind, this weekend I saw Fargo for the very first time.  And, Y’ALL!  Y’all.  I loved it so much, I can’t even handle it.  First of all, great movie.  Script, acting, cinematography.  All of it worked.  Frances McDormand was indeed fantastic as the pregnant police chief handling the case.  William H. Macy was great as the typical “William H. Macy role,” of course.  It was hilarious, and the Minnesota accents & regionalisms were pretty awesome; however, the thing that really struck me about the movie was the fact that the police chief was simultaneously professional, competent, and hilarious.  And didn’t take the case personally until a minor moment towards the end, where she let herself question the perp on why he would do such horrible things for a small bit of money.  And after that scene, she was back to normal, in bed with her husband talking about his work.  In fact, she was really the only character in the whole movie that was presented as being competent and in control.  And she solved the case almost completely on her own.

Nowadays the “disintrested” cop who doesn’t have a personal stake in the case is often depicted as an uncaring, unfeeling automaton who will never get close to solving the case because he doesn’t feel it as much as the obsessed one.  Or that somehow lack of personal attachment means the cop is corrupt?  It has become that the only way to be a good cop is to do inappropriate things and let the (often incredibly disturbing) case into your personal life.  Now that’s just messed up.  Cops can’t get involved on a personal level, because those scars would never heal.  When I interned with ATF here in Chicago, these agents didn’t seem world weary.  I sat in on a trial which ended up not having the desired outcome for the agent in charge.  She later said that she was pretty upset all weekend, but still had hope for the future.  So it’s not like they don’t care.  It’s just they can’t let it run their lives.  You’re a better cop when you can treat all situations as business as usual.  Unlike every Law & Order ever shown.  Ever.

Now, some movies which I really like do fall into this category.  They are often salvaged by good scripts, or protagonists who aren’t full of fail (or don’t get ridiculously deep into the case).  Silence of the Lambs & Se7en both feature law enforcement officers getting way too close to their cases, but manage to pull it off.  On the other hand, Hannibal just doesn’t. 

I have great respect for the law enforcement officers out there.  I think they have some of the hardest jobs in the universe, and receive mostly hate in return for simply doing their jobs.  The fact that they can keep cool heads under such incredible pressure should be applauded, not degraded.  Hollywood has given us an incredibly awful viewpoint of “screw the cops, they’re corrupt assholes.  UNLESS they overstretch their jurisdiction, lie cheat and steal to solve cases, and maybe sleep with witnesses.  You know, because they care.”  Awful.  YOU GO, Fargo.  I may just have to purchase you.

Second despised cliché: Angsty “True” Love Story.  I think y’all know how I feel about this already.  ANGST DOES NOT EQUAL TRUE LOVE.  I’m sorry.  Nobody can convince me of this.  And no, this isn’t a rehashing of certain awful clichés on BSG.  Yes, I have been rewatching 4.5.  No, I’m not going to bore you with my feelings on some clichéd plotlines and other surprisingly refreshing ones.  Even though I maybe want to. 

*coughKaraandLeearenotsoulmates&isaclichédRomanticComedyplotlinecough*

Anyhoo…it seems as if somewhere along the line love stories have been warped to be cute cute ANGST ANGST cute WOE PAIN cute MANHERO SAVES DAMAGED WOMAN OR FIXES TERRIBLE SITUATION cute.  And I’m so damn sick of it.

Most love stories involve a dude  who realizes that he may be in love with this girl.  Sometimes she’s  a cold harpy.  Sometimes she’s just plain mysterious.  Sometimes she’s in a bad situation with some awful man who is OH SO WRONG FOR HER, she needs a hero to save her from making the worst mistake of her life.  And there is cuteness and ANGST but at the end, the guy fixes everything wrong with the girl and they live happily ever after. 

Y’all may remember my feminist rant on ye olde blogge, so it should not be a surprise to anyone that I’m sick of this Romantic Comedy structure.  And oh so delighted when it is broken.  Sometimes women need more than a good strong man to sort them out.  Sometimes they need to sort themselves out.  And I am so sick of angst that I can’t even handle writing the word.

Hence, when I watched Waitress, I ended up overjoyed!  Basic plot is this: pie genius (!) waitress played brilliantly by Keri Russell has an abusive, domineering just plain awful husband named Earl.  Which got this song stuck in my head for all of the next day.    Anyway, she starts the movie pregnant by him and hating it, and enters into a somewhat cute, but pretty messed up relationship with her new, kinda awkward Gynecologist played by Nathan Fillion.  They are both cheating on their spouses, yet the story is mainly from her point of view.  It shows how he is the first person to ever understand her, and basically becomes her only friend during these dark times, as she is pregnant with a baby that she doesn’t want by a man she hates. 

BUT!  The affair itself does not end up being the focus of the movie.  I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but I’ll just say that the love story isn’t about falling in love with the doctor, but rather falling in love with her baby.  The doctor isn’t the answer to her problems, and the only person in the world who could give her the strength to stand up to her loser husband ends up being her child.  It was pretty awesome.  And much better than the whole “you are my soulmate and I can save you” thing that lots of love stories like to do.  And I was kind of worried that this would be what Nathan Fillion would say at the end.  Spoiler alert: Not so.  I highly recommend this movie for its whimsical nature and creativeness.  The ending is a little…pat, but I didn’t mind that.  I really enjoyed it thoroughly.

And why does Hollywood seem to think that the only good love stories are those that involve UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension) and angst?  Romeo and Juliet and Heathcliff and Catherine make compelling tragedy because their love is so self-destructive and obsessive.  It just makes more sense that they don’t end up together, because it’s so clearly self destructive and ultimately wrong.  And that’s what’s so compelling about them.

Nowadays it seems as if they enjoy keeping that sort of structure of star-crossed lovers, yet somehow they end up together?  DRAMA DRAMA ANGST AWFUL BEHAVIOR TRUE LOVE?  Really?  I’m often overjoyed when the pattern gets broken, because it seems as if audiences eat up this kind of love story and it’s so much easier to give into what the audience likes.  For me, it’s gotten to the point where I can’t stand it. 

There is a slight misogynist slant to it, of course, since oftentimes it involves the man going after the woman and winning her hand or saving her from the big scary demon.  In a manner of speaking.  And yes, I do enjoy lots of these stories.  There are numerous Romantic Comedies that just make me all wibbly inside.  I have to watch Love Actually every Christmas.  Stranger than Fiction is one of my all time favorite movies, and the love story is a prominent part.  But those are earned.  I like Romantic Comedies that earn it, rather than those that just rely on the same old formula.  And I’ll like love stories that defy the formula almost on principle alone.

So, Hollywood, if you’re reading this, as a personal favor to me, please stop using clichéd stories.  They aren’t as interesting in the long run.  I know you like viewers, but I like quality stories.    And I think you know whose opinion really counts here.  Hello?

I don’t know how many people agree with me about this.  Whether or not these formulae are really that annoying or if I’m just making a big deal out of nothing.  I guess I just like surprises in my fiction?  And angst just for angst’s sake is seriously overrated, y’all.  I mean it.  If your main character is upset or angry at the world, he better damn well have a good reason for it. 

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!

INTERROBANG?!

This is the test post for the new blog.  As of now Well, Here I Am will no longer be updated.  I’ll miss it, but this place is much nicer. 

I’ve got a crazy amount to do today including cupcakes & ice cream, lady workouts, returning Comcast equipment, Symphony & Scrabble, and cupcakes.  I’m sure I’ll report on at least some of those in the future.  In the meanwhile, my Twitter Feed is still going strong, and I’ve got a new About Me section with those shiny new buttons at the top.

Welcome to fullstinahead.com!