Telephones. That’s the prompt for this Sunday’s Scribbling. I suppose there are three things that I think about when I hear the word. I might as well tell you about them.
The first is magic. Telephones are magical. They can take your voice and instantaneously transmit it to the other side of the world, as clearly as if you were standing next to the person on the other end of the line. Obviously, this can only be attributed to magic. I’m sure that someone somewhere could explain to me (very probably in a condescending tone that would get on my nerves) that really telephones work by sending out electrical impulses that are received by the other end or what have you. I don’t know how they actually work, as you see. I think it’s magic. Because even if it were little electrical impulses and suchlike, how the hell do all the wires stay connected and the impulses all go the right places and furthermore, how do they travel that fast, and even further, how can they replicate my voice? I mean, they’re little electrical impulses. They don’t have vocal cords!
Oh, and mobile phones and internet telephony? You know, where it goes out over the wireless? How come that doesn’t get misdirected ever? Or does it? Do we send out signals in expanding spheres so that maybe sometime, some hundreds of years from now, archaeologists of the future will do their research into the more eclectic areas of our ancient culture by taking spaceships out a few hundred radio-years and tuning in with signal interceptors? I wonder if they’ll be able to reconstruct my social security number from the signals my mobile gave out when I pushed the buttons to enter it into the substitute-teaching network.
But anyway, like I said, phones are magic, without a doubt.
The second thing that I always think about when I actually think about phones, actually stop to consider them, is how much they’ve changed. I remember when mobile phones were these huge things as big as a couple of cucumbers stuck together. I’m 23, but I have a good memory. They were the thing back then, these giant mobile phones, and the coolest people in the movies had them. You knew they were cool because they had these high-tech phones. But today? Someone with a phone like that would be laughed at! These days, mobiles are as big as a couple of sheets of paper stuck together. And the things they can do! I have an iPhone, and it’s like having an extremely small laptop. Incredible. I wonder what those people with huge mobiles in the late eighties and early nineties would have said if they had seen it.
And the last thing about phones that always strikes me is this: Why are so many people married to them?! It’s like mobiles are the most important thing on earth. So many times I’ve been talking to someone and their phone rings and it’s “Oh, excuse me, I have to take this now.” What is that all about? If that happened in a personal conversation, it’d be considered so rude. You’re talking to your friend and suddenly another friend comes up and taps her on the shoulder, and they have a conversation between themselves, before the other friend leaves without so much as a hello. It’d be so rude. But it’s okay if it happens on a phone, because everyone seems to understand that phone calls must be taken. And I’ve gotten into cars with people, only to have to turn around and drive back fifteen minutes later because they forgot their phones. Because, you know, a person wouldn’t survive three hours without a phone.
But even despite this fanatical devotion that phones inspire in some people, I really have to say that I like them very much. They give me something to ignore that won't have its feelings hurt when I do. And they’re magic. You have to love magic.
12 May 2008
10 May 2008
The Rorschach Dust Cloud
Ok. Maybe I'm juvenile (actually, I know I am, but I consider it as one of my best traits) but... does anyone else look at this Dust Cloud and see something other than a dark tower?
It's the Dark Tower in Scorpius, a cosmic dust cloud formed by things that I don't understand and can't explain. Dark tower. It's not a dark tower!
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Cosmic Penis!
It totally is! I swear! This is not just in my dirty mind!
It's the Dark Tower in Scorpius, a cosmic dust cloud formed by things that I don't understand and can't explain. Dark tower. It's not a dark tower!
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Cosmic Penis!
It totally is! I swear! This is not just in my dirty mind!
04 May 2008
Sunday Scribblings: Family
I’ve decided to start up Sunday Scribbling again. Good practice. It’ll flesh out my blog. I might not make it every time, but hey, it never hurts to try. The prompt this week is Family. What does the word family bring up for you?
Not a good question to ask me, because if you’re asking about the word as it pertains to most of my relatives that are not in my nuclear family, the answer is “my lunch.” Harsh, but honest. I could go into details, but there’s this thing called “family loyalty.”
I have large amounts of this, possibly too large. I never talk about the things that have gone seriously wrong in my family to outsiders. I sometimes don’t talk about some of the things that have gone wrong even with people in my family, out of respect for the cohesion of the family unit. Why break people’s trust with old wrongs when everyone’s fairly happy as is? I keep a close lid on problems in my immediate family.
It’s mostly the same with my extended family, only this is out of respect for my parents. The people in question are their brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces, so it seems discourteous to my parents to spread around dirty laundry about their siblings while they’re still living. Except that I will brush the snow off the tip of the iceberg and say that women are very well suited to be mathematicians, Uncle, thank you very much, and how dare you tell your daughter that she’s only good for making more children to bring into the church?
However, I don’t have problems boasting about my immediate family, and I don’t have problems talking about my dead relatives. I decided that since I boast about my family on a regular basis, today I’ll tell you about the dead relatives instead. I have three relatives that have died, a shockingly small number when you consider that my mum comes from a family of four and my dad from a family of six, and each of their married siblings (which number includes all but one) has a minimum of two children, usually three or four, and one aunt has seven. So to tell you about my dead relatives, which is not the same thing as my dead family.
There was my cousin, Sean. He died in a car accident when he was sixteen, some years ago. I only met him once before then, and I was a young child. I don’t have a very good memory of him. This is what I remember: He smiled, and I thought he looked kind. I also remember I was too young to go to the funeral. I would have been happy to consider him family, I think.
There was my grandfather, Orville. He died some years ago as well. He was the most awesome grandfather ever, even though biologically speaking he wasn’t my grandfather. He was the second husband of my mother’s mother, and he loved her so obviously that… well, it was kind of painful to see the disparity in the levels of affection. He was one of those marvellous people that you always remember for the rest of your life. I have nothing but the best to say of him. I remember that he never raised hand or voice to anyone, he always listened when I talked to him and took me seriously, he always knew how to make things better, and he knew how to make zillions of interesting things like Möbius strips and cooty catchers. I wrote letters to him when he moved and I drew pictures of the animals from Bambi for him and he always wrote back and said what he particularly liked about the drawings. I could keep on in this vein for pages and pages and not finish singing his praises. He was the best grandpa ever. He was family.
And then there was the other grandfather, whose name I don’t remember and whose face I have forgotten. That bastard died not so many years ago, and good riddance to him. I moderate my language out of courtesy to those reading this, and suffice it to say there was no worth in him, no good thing about him, and that if I had my way, he would not have died the relatively peaceful way that he did. Even though he didn’t actually stop breathing all that many years ago, he was dead to me long before that; specifically, when he fled the state right ahead of the police. And no, the crime wasn’t anything to do with me, but it was to do with those close to me, and it cannot be forgiven, not if I were Jesus himself. Especially not when I keep finding out about more and more ways that he blackened this earth with his presence in recent years, all just as horrible as that. This man, though related to me, was never family. I will not have him called that.
I realise I haven’t fully answered the question in the prompt (I’ve just told you about some of my family, brought up by the question), but then, I will never be able to. The word family brings up too many things to ever be properly explained. Family is security. Family is trust. Family is pride. Family is pain. Family is joy, success, value. I could tell you many things that family is not, as well, but principally, blood relation is not equivalent to family. You are not born with your family, you choose your family. It might take many years before you realise it, and people often choose their blood relations as family, but everyone chooses their family.
You choose what the word means for you. It’s not a given.
Not a good question to ask me, because if you’re asking about the word as it pertains to most of my relatives that are not in my nuclear family, the answer is “my lunch.” Harsh, but honest. I could go into details, but there’s this thing called “family loyalty.”
I have large amounts of this, possibly too large. I never talk about the things that have gone seriously wrong in my family to outsiders. I sometimes don’t talk about some of the things that have gone wrong even with people in my family, out of respect for the cohesion of the family unit. Why break people’s trust with old wrongs when everyone’s fairly happy as is? I keep a close lid on problems in my immediate family.
It’s mostly the same with my extended family, only this is out of respect for my parents. The people in question are their brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces, so it seems discourteous to my parents to spread around dirty laundry about their siblings while they’re still living. Except that I will brush the snow off the tip of the iceberg and say that women are very well suited to be mathematicians, Uncle, thank you very much, and how dare you tell your daughter that she’s only good for making more children to bring into the church?
However, I don’t have problems boasting about my immediate family, and I don’t have problems talking about my dead relatives. I decided that since I boast about my family on a regular basis, today I’ll tell you about the dead relatives instead. I have three relatives that have died, a shockingly small number when you consider that my mum comes from a family of four and my dad from a family of six, and each of their married siblings (which number includes all but one) has a minimum of two children, usually three or four, and one aunt has seven. So to tell you about my dead relatives, which is not the same thing as my dead family.
There was my cousin, Sean. He died in a car accident when he was sixteen, some years ago. I only met him once before then, and I was a young child. I don’t have a very good memory of him. This is what I remember: He smiled, and I thought he looked kind. I also remember I was too young to go to the funeral. I would have been happy to consider him family, I think.
There was my grandfather, Orville. He died some years ago as well. He was the most awesome grandfather ever, even though biologically speaking he wasn’t my grandfather. He was the second husband of my mother’s mother, and he loved her so obviously that… well, it was kind of painful to see the disparity in the levels of affection. He was one of those marvellous people that you always remember for the rest of your life. I have nothing but the best to say of him. I remember that he never raised hand or voice to anyone, he always listened when I talked to him and took me seriously, he always knew how to make things better, and he knew how to make zillions of interesting things like Möbius strips and cooty catchers. I wrote letters to him when he moved and I drew pictures of the animals from Bambi for him and he always wrote back and said what he particularly liked about the drawings. I could keep on in this vein for pages and pages and not finish singing his praises. He was the best grandpa ever. He was family.
And then there was the other grandfather, whose name I don’t remember and whose face I have forgotten. That bastard died not so many years ago, and good riddance to him. I moderate my language out of courtesy to those reading this, and suffice it to say there was no worth in him, no good thing about him, and that if I had my way, he would not have died the relatively peaceful way that he did. Even though he didn’t actually stop breathing all that many years ago, he was dead to me long before that; specifically, when he fled the state right ahead of the police. And no, the crime wasn’t anything to do with me, but it was to do with those close to me, and it cannot be forgiven, not if I were Jesus himself. Especially not when I keep finding out about more and more ways that he blackened this earth with his presence in recent years, all just as horrible as that. This man, though related to me, was never family. I will not have him called that.
I realise I haven’t fully answered the question in the prompt (I’ve just told you about some of my family, brought up by the question), but then, I will never be able to. The word family brings up too many things to ever be properly explained. Family is security. Family is trust. Family is pride. Family is pain. Family is joy, success, value. I could tell you many things that family is not, as well, but principally, blood relation is not equivalent to family. You are not born with your family, you choose your family. It might take many years before you realise it, and people often choose their blood relations as family, but everyone chooses their family.
You choose what the word means for you. It’s not a given.
02 May 2008
Jane Eyre: A Cure For All Ills
I’m back to posting on my sadly neglected blog. Yay! Do people still read it?
I was supposed to post about Kristin’s visit to California before I did anything else, but I haven’t got words for how awesome that was yet. I’d give details, but I find when I try to write about it, my vocabulary becomes restricted to the superlatives-only section of the dictionary. Awesome. Fantastic. Life-changing, even. Hyperbole, you say? Hello! She came all the way to California, from Norway, to visit me (and my sister, but me is the part of it that I’m focused on), someone who’s always been told she was second-rate and further, had “friends” that would not bother to drive two miles to see her all through childhood and university (seriously, I always had to go to them, never them to me, ever. No one even asked if they could come over). It’s quite reasonable for me to be without words to describe the event of someone travelling 5,300 miles to see me.
So I’m writing about other things for which I have got the words. Jane Eyre!
A few days ago, I watched the 2006 BBC production of Jayne Eyre. This being the first time I watched it I was on the edge of my seat. I always am with films I haven’t seen before. But this was Jane Eyre, so it was a thousand times worse. Can you tell that I love period films yet? No? Go look at my list of favourite books, realise that there’s films only of the Victorian ones, and come back. I have to say that Jane Eyre didn’t beat out my all-time favourite miniseries, North and South, but it drew level with Pride and Prejudice, which is only a nose behind.
Anyway, I was going to tell you how it went.
I came home that day (which was Thursday, 28 April, 2008, if you wanted to know) feeling quite miserable because I’d just had to substitute for a classroom full of verminous creatures; ceramics was the subject. Every one thought they were making beautiful clay figures, but in fact, they were making ugly clay blobs. Too harsh, I should be more supportive, especially given my own experience? Well, I didn’t tell them their blobs were ugly. (I didn’t say any of them were pretty, either, though, because the last time I did that with this class another student smashed the blob of the student that I complimented on the floor. I told you they were verminous creatures.) And then, in fifth period, they started throwing clay at the walls.
Here’s the embarrassing thing: I didn’t catch them at it. I didn’t even notice the clay on the walls (it was about eight to twelve feet up on the wall) until sixth period students pointed it out to me. I heard fifth period slinging it about, but it was always behind my back, and I never saw anyone moving suspiciously, and no one looked guilty. And they never threw clay when I’ve subbed before, so I didn’t know what the noise was. And you really couldn’t expect me to think of looking for thrown clay because… well, because I would never think of throwing clay in the first place. Why would anyone do that? It’s so much more fun to make it into ugly blobs.
Anyway, as previously mentioned, the clay was stuck to the walls (because clay sticks to walls when it’s thrown hard enough, in case you didn’t know) from the eight foot height to about twelve feet and it took me forever to clean it off after the creatures left. Forever. I was tired and pissed and miserable.
And then I watched Jane Eyre with my sister, Jess. I swear, Jane Eyre could cure a person with cancer. All right, maybe not, but it lifted me right out of my funk.
I was continually squashing my sister. I was equally continually bouncing on my seat after the manner of an insane bus passenger or a small child that needs to use the water closet. The course of the movie went thusly:
It starts. I feel a kinship to the poor kid, punished by being put in the red room she hates. My funk from work gets worse as I see what happens to the child. We move along in the story and then! She comes to Thornfield. Yay! Everything’s looking up and then! Mr Rochester almost runs over her and then! What will happen next?! I probably look like I haven’t peed in a century by this time. Everything happens as it must: Mr Rochester falls in love, and Miss Eyre also. Of course I intrinsically know Mr Rochester will propose to Miss Eyre. I might as well just wait for it to happen. But all the same, I keep rooting for him to tell her he loves her, and he keeps not doing it, and I get this huge “AUGH!” feeling every time he fails to tell her. This happens without pause through the entire first disc and twenty minutes into the second disc, and then we get to the scene where Miss Eyre is in the garden with Mr Rochester.
She says she’ll advertise immediately, he tells her she won’t; he already found her a place. “As his WIFE!” I tell her for him, but she doesn’t hear. She remarks that Ireland is a long way from him. I have to pause the disc so I can make noises. “Heeeeehehehehe! Aaawwww! A long way from hiiiiim! Hmmmmhmmm, awwwwww!” Then he goes on about friends, so I have to remind him that she is really obviously in love with him, and ask him why he has to torture her like that. He doesn’t pay attention, the bastard. Then she says “I love Thornfield!” Like, hello! She’s telling him! Bouncing on the edge of my seat sadly makes no difference in the pace of the film, but soon enough we get to, “You will not leave me, Jane!” This necessitates more pausing so that I can make even more noises: “D’aaaaw! Bloooooobo! Eeeeee!” Finally! Yes! All right! He’s gonna do it!
Mr Rochester proposed to Miss Eyre. That was the point where I started making baby noises. I sounded like an infant. Jess mentioned that she could envision exactly how the conversation where my husband proposes to me will go.
Future Husband: I offer you my hand, my heart, and all my possessions.
Me: GOO!
And then when he kisses me, I’ll walk two fingers along his shoulder and croon, “Wooo-dee-doooo!”
Yes. It is a fact: I’m hopeless when watching these sorts of films. But I enjoy love stories so much that I don’t care!
I just watched it for a second time, by the way, which is why you’re reading this post. Upon this second watching I noticed something that I didn’t particularly note the first time: Mr Rochester is, of people in films that I’ve seen, the man who actually looks the most impassioned when he kisses his girl. He just presses his lips to hers, like he has to touch her, like he has to let her know he was serious that he loves her. His mouth is very nearly closed. It’s not like he’s trying to eat her face off, as I’ve seen other heroes in other films do.
I’m going to digress here to say I’ve always thought face-eating kisses really gross-looking. I have to say ‘gross-looking’ because I’ve never been kissed and thus have no basis to talk about feeling gross-looking—yes, you read that right, ‘never been kissed,’ at 23 years of age. ‘Ye gods! How did that happen?’ I hear you say? Very easily: I never went out with someone I wanted to kiss. I have met a couple, but neither of them showed any signs of wanting to kiss me. So sad. Anyway, back to the original digression… Perhaps I find face-eating kisses to be gross-looking because I associate them with pubescent creatures in high school hallways, but in any case, I just think they’re nasty. Maybe they’re absolutely fabulous things to experience, but when you see a fourteen year old drooling on a thirteen year old, it kind of puts you off your food, never mind that kind of kissing.
Any rate, Mr Rochester kisses very romantically, to my way of thinking. I’ll nominate him for MTV’s Best Kiss any day.
And now that I’ve blogged your attention span away, I’ll quite raving about Jane Eyre. Except to say that you must watch it. Even you types that find such things boring. Rochester almost gets burnt up twice! That’s gotta be enough excitement for you. Watch it.
I was supposed to post about Kristin’s visit to California before I did anything else, but I haven’t got words for how awesome that was yet. I’d give details, but I find when I try to write about it, my vocabulary becomes restricted to the superlatives-only section of the dictionary. Awesome. Fantastic. Life-changing, even. Hyperbole, you say? Hello! She came all the way to California, from Norway, to visit me (and my sister, but me is the part of it that I’m focused on), someone who’s always been told she was second-rate and further, had “friends” that would not bother to drive two miles to see her all through childhood and university (seriously, I always had to go to them, never them to me, ever. No one even asked if they could come over). It’s quite reasonable for me to be without words to describe the event of someone travelling 5,300 miles to see me.
So I’m writing about other things for which I have got the words. Jane Eyre!
A few days ago, I watched the 2006 BBC production of Jayne Eyre. This being the first time I watched it I was on the edge of my seat. I always am with films I haven’t seen before. But this was Jane Eyre, so it was a thousand times worse. Can you tell that I love period films yet? No? Go look at my list of favourite books, realise that there’s films only of the Victorian ones, and come back. I have to say that Jane Eyre didn’t beat out my all-time favourite miniseries, North and South, but it drew level with Pride and Prejudice, which is only a nose behind.
Anyway, I was going to tell you how it went.
I came home that day (which was Thursday, 28 April, 2008, if you wanted to know) feeling quite miserable because I’d just had to substitute for a classroom full of verminous creatures; ceramics was the subject. Every one thought they were making beautiful clay figures, but in fact, they were making ugly clay blobs. Too harsh, I should be more supportive, especially given my own experience? Well, I didn’t tell them their blobs were ugly. (I didn’t say any of them were pretty, either, though, because the last time I did that with this class another student smashed the blob of the student that I complimented on the floor. I told you they were verminous creatures.) And then, in fifth period, they started throwing clay at the walls.
Here’s the embarrassing thing: I didn’t catch them at it. I didn’t even notice the clay on the walls (it was about eight to twelve feet up on the wall) until sixth period students pointed it out to me. I heard fifth period slinging it about, but it was always behind my back, and I never saw anyone moving suspiciously, and no one looked guilty. And they never threw clay when I’ve subbed before, so I didn’t know what the noise was. And you really couldn’t expect me to think of looking for thrown clay because… well, because I would never think of throwing clay in the first place. Why would anyone do that? It’s so much more fun to make it into ugly blobs.
Anyway, as previously mentioned, the clay was stuck to the walls (because clay sticks to walls when it’s thrown hard enough, in case you didn’t know) from the eight foot height to about twelve feet and it took me forever to clean it off after the creatures left. Forever. I was tired and pissed and miserable.
And then I watched Jane Eyre with my sister, Jess. I swear, Jane Eyre could cure a person with cancer. All right, maybe not, but it lifted me right out of my funk.
I was continually squashing my sister. I was equally continually bouncing on my seat after the manner of an insane bus passenger or a small child that needs to use the water closet. The course of the movie went thusly:
It starts. I feel a kinship to the poor kid, punished by being put in the red room she hates. My funk from work gets worse as I see what happens to the child. We move along in the story and then! She comes to Thornfield. Yay! Everything’s looking up and then! Mr Rochester almost runs over her and then! What will happen next?! I probably look like I haven’t peed in a century by this time. Everything happens as it must: Mr Rochester falls in love, and Miss Eyre also. Of course I intrinsically know Mr Rochester will propose to Miss Eyre. I might as well just wait for it to happen. But all the same, I keep rooting for him to tell her he loves her, and he keeps not doing it, and I get this huge “AUGH!” feeling every time he fails to tell her. This happens without pause through the entire first disc and twenty minutes into the second disc, and then we get to the scene where Miss Eyre is in the garden with Mr Rochester.
She says she’ll advertise immediately, he tells her she won’t; he already found her a place. “As his WIFE!” I tell her for him, but she doesn’t hear. She remarks that Ireland is a long way from him. I have to pause the disc so I can make noises. “Heeeeehehehehe! Aaawwww! A long way from hiiiiim! Hmmmmhmmm, awwwwww!” Then he goes on about friends, so I have to remind him that she is really obviously in love with him, and ask him why he has to torture her like that. He doesn’t pay attention, the bastard. Then she says “I love Thornfield!” Like, hello! She’s telling him! Bouncing on the edge of my seat sadly makes no difference in the pace of the film, but soon enough we get to, “You will not leave me, Jane!” This necessitates more pausing so that I can make even more noises: “D’aaaaw! Bloooooobo! Eeeeee!” Finally! Yes! All right! He’s gonna do it!
Mr Rochester proposed to Miss Eyre. That was the point where I started making baby noises. I sounded like an infant. Jess mentioned that she could envision exactly how the conversation where my husband proposes to me will go.
Future Husband: I offer you my hand, my heart, and all my possessions.
Me: GOO!
And then when he kisses me, I’ll walk two fingers along his shoulder and croon, “Wooo-dee-doooo!”
Yes. It is a fact: I’m hopeless when watching these sorts of films. But I enjoy love stories so much that I don’t care!
I just watched it for a second time, by the way, which is why you’re reading this post. Upon this second watching I noticed something that I didn’t particularly note the first time: Mr Rochester is, of people in films that I’ve seen, the man who actually looks the most impassioned when he kisses his girl. He just presses his lips to hers, like he has to touch her, like he has to let her know he was serious that he loves her. His mouth is very nearly closed. It’s not like he’s trying to eat her face off, as I’ve seen other heroes in other films do.
I’m going to digress here to say I’ve always thought face-eating kisses really gross-looking. I have to say ‘gross-looking’ because I’ve never been kissed and thus have no basis to talk about feeling gross-looking—yes, you read that right, ‘never been kissed,’ at 23 years of age. ‘Ye gods! How did that happen?’ I hear you say? Very easily: I never went out with someone I wanted to kiss. I have met a couple, but neither of them showed any signs of wanting to kiss me. So sad. Anyway, back to the original digression… Perhaps I find face-eating kisses to be gross-looking because I associate them with pubescent creatures in high school hallways, but in any case, I just think they’re nasty. Maybe they’re absolutely fabulous things to experience, but when you see a fourteen year old drooling on a thirteen year old, it kind of puts you off your food, never mind that kind of kissing.
Any rate, Mr Rochester kisses very romantically, to my way of thinking. I’ll nominate him for MTV’s Best Kiss any day.
And now that I’ve blogged your attention span away, I’ll quite raving about Jane Eyre. Except to say that you must watch it. Even you types that find such things boring. Rochester almost gets burnt up twice! That’s gotta be enough excitement for you. Watch it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
