Just finished watching two seasons of Weeds on DVD, and apart from the drama and suspense of the ending, it's a very affecting show to watch because it features some very fine actors who are all are very good at portraying men in love. The older son with his deaf girlfriend, the DEA agent, her business partner Conrad, even Councilman Doug to some extent.
I was thinking this and it led to the following musing, "All these affecting portrayals of men in love, and yet the series was written by a woman. Wait. She wrote those parts for those talented men to portray. It's wish fulfilment!"
Perhaps the reason there aren't more affecting portrayals of men in love on TV or in the movies is that there haven't been enough women in senior enough writer/director positions to impress our world view and observations and desires on the creative media. I'm glad there is now, though. Because Weeds is wonderful to watch.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Doubles
Tonight I was at Pearl Vision buying a pair of reading glasses - just got the cheap pre-prepared ones at this stage, to see how I like taking them on and off when I need to see something. If I decide to commit, there were some quite fabulous square Ray-Bans I could go back and invest in.
A woman came in towing her two daughters in a blue wagon, I guess the wagons are available from the mall. One of the girls was named Champagne.
When I was waiting to pay I looked up at a UPS package that was sitting on a shelf up behind the cash register, all addressed and ready to go, and the sender's name was Brandy Fish.
Driving home, I saw a family out for a walk, a sister, a Dad, and a little brother. The Dad was pulling the little brother behind them in a red wagon.
A woman came in towing her two daughters in a blue wagon, I guess the wagons are available from the mall. One of the girls was named Champagne.
When I was waiting to pay I looked up at a UPS package that was sitting on a shelf up behind the cash register, all addressed and ready to go, and the sender's name was Brandy Fish.
Driving home, I saw a family out for a walk, a sister, a Dad, and a little brother. The Dad was pulling the little brother behind them in a red wagon.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Eyes
A few months ago I caught myself trying to read the back of a vitamin bottle and having to hold it away from myself to do so.
Oh, no.
This has happened to all my friends, one by one, but now it's my turn - I'm over 40, and I'm starting to lose my ability to read fine print up close.
Finally, this morning I went to the eye doctor, had all sorts of drops and tests (later, because my eyes were so dilated, a work colleague said I looked like a Japanese manga character), and found out the details. And they've got me thinking.
Sure enough, I have lost my near vision and will need one of the following:
But then got a more rock and rolly boyfriend, dyed my hair black, and the cut I had didn't look so good with the glasses on so I just stopped wearing them. And my eyes got better. I didn't need prescription lenses again until I started following Rugby League and found it easier with prescription sunnies to see the names on the players' backs at the games.
And then today, I find out that I've gone back the other way again. The eye doctor said that deterioration can happen if you do lots of close work - the muscles that focus the eyes on distant things can lose tone and not work so well. It's not the lens of the eye changing shape, it's the muscles that drive them that are changing. And I got those first glasses right after finishing my PhD, so that would fit. Gave them up when I was spending heaps more time galavanting around Brisbane with the new rock and rolly boyfriend than working - in fact I was just about to quit academia altogether. Needed them a bit again with all the dot-com computer jobs. And now that I spend more time in meetings than in front of the screen, and now that I drive a lot so I have to look further than three Surry Hills-blocks away, my distance vision is coming back.
I've got a poem in mind to write about this, something about how some changes are like water on a river stone, causing gradual change and reshaping (40 year old eyes) but other changes are created by one's own actions (existentialist theme).
But you know, it's easier for me to write a blog entry.
Oh, no.
This has happened to all my friends, one by one, but now it's my turn - I'm over 40, and I'm starting to lose my ability to read fine print up close.
Finally, this morning I went to the eye doctor, had all sorts of drops and tests (later, because my eyes were so dilated, a work colleague said I looked like a Japanese manga character), and found out the details. And they've got me thinking.
Sure enough, I have lost my near vision and will need one of the following:
- Lasik surgery. No thanks, don't need to mutilate my eyes for vanity, I'm unhappy about being 40+ but not that unhappy.
- Some freaky weird program of "monovision", where you wear only one contact lens, and so one eye can see close up and the other eye sees distance and your brain eventually learns which eye to use for what. This sounded like many days of splitting headaches to me, and lots of alarming blurry distance vision while driving. No thanks.
- Bifocals, that have reading glass on the bottom and clear glass on the top. Maybe, but would mean a commitment to a glasses-wearing look full-time. We'll see.
- Reading glasses that you wear just to read and then take them off. All the managerial ladies at work have these, so I have lots of role models and it's the favorite option at the moment.
- Or half-glasses that you peer down your nose into and can look overtop of. Also possible, if I find some cool ones.
But then got a more rock and rolly boyfriend, dyed my hair black, and the cut I had didn't look so good with the glasses on so I just stopped wearing them. And my eyes got better. I didn't need prescription lenses again until I started following Rugby League and found it easier with prescription sunnies to see the names on the players' backs at the games.
And then today, I find out that I've gone back the other way again. The eye doctor said that deterioration can happen if you do lots of close work - the muscles that focus the eyes on distant things can lose tone and not work so well. It's not the lens of the eye changing shape, it's the muscles that drive them that are changing. And I got those first glasses right after finishing my PhD, so that would fit. Gave them up when I was spending heaps more time galavanting around Brisbane with the new rock and rolly boyfriend than working - in fact I was just about to quit academia altogether. Needed them a bit again with all the dot-com computer jobs. And now that I spend more time in meetings than in front of the screen, and now that I drive a lot so I have to look further than three Surry Hills-blocks away, my distance vision is coming back.
I've got a poem in mind to write about this, something about how some changes are like water on a river stone, causing gradual change and reshaping (40 year old eyes) but other changes are created by one's own actions (existentialist theme).
But you know, it's easier for me to write a blog entry.
Monday, August 18, 2008
A corner turned, in two parts
Part 1
When Dr. Phil had guests who were engaging in some self-destructive behavior or other and in denial about it or saying it was impossible for them to change, he used to get right up in their face and ask what payoff they were getting from their behavior. "Wha-what?" they would say, all confronted, but he would insist, you wouldn't keep doing it if you weren't getting some payoff from it.
There's a positive thinking exercise common to many different self-help disciplines (Scientology, "The Secret", various strands of feminism and meditation) of imagining, vividly, the thing you want to happen. I have long thought that this was a very effective and powerful way to achieve your dreams, not because it sends out any "energy" into the "universe" or etc. spiritual explanation, but because it helps you recognize the thing you want when it comes along (or turns out to be standing right in front of you), and also because it helps you get through any blocks or nervousness that imagining yourself in that position brings up.
I have been trying to imagine someone wonderful coming into my life, and as it turns out that was a bad thing to imagine because it made me all obsessed about being single and way too preoccupied with boys, and when that happens I never get any philosophy done. But today I expanded this exercise. I was trying to imagine myself happy in Appleton. And I realized I was blocked in imagining it, and I think it was some sort of weird stage of grief, one of the end stages, but where you are almost afraid to feel happy because it seems disrespectful to your grief. I don't have a dead loved one to fear disrespect to, but I suppose I have an atmosphere of loss and exile, and today I noticed that when I tried to imagine a rich, happy, fulfilling, fun life here, I stopped myself and imagined myself sitting very still in my empty apartment, and that seemed more respectful to the past loss and the sadness of it. Well, that's dumb, isn't it? So...
Part 2
Tonight after work I:
- Stopped by City Park to play with my new video camera
- Stopped by the independent bookstore to ask about their Poetry Group, which as it turns out meets tomorrow, and it sounds like you don't have to read your own stuff, although you can. Will totally go there tomorrow evening.
- Was on my way to the Harmony Cafe to check it out as a venue for a new Philorum.
- But veered into the music shop on the corner instead, and picked up some music magazines that have gigs and things listed in them, and was then gazing at all the electric guitars. Harold, one of the shop guys, came up and started helping me, and we looked at a few electrics and then looked at the acoustics, and he asked what kind of things I play, and I said, "I don't...actually...play at all yet," and he expressed surprise, and said since I came in and picked up the magazines I fooled him, I looked like I knew what I was doing. Harold didn't seem like the slick salesman type, but he knew the right thing to say - if I already look like a veteran electric guitar player, what the heck is stopping me? By the time I left I had learned three chords, played two Fenders, a Gibson knock-off and something else called a LTD, and was committed 100% to going back, next paycheck, getting my mid-life crisis axe, and signing up for beginner lessons.
- After that, at the Harmony Cafe, I saw a lady I recognized from the monthly independent foreign films I've been going to, sponsored by the Multicultural Society. She pointed out the sign advertising the multicultural food fair this Saturday, and I totally want to attend, and this is enough notice that I can invite lots of people - all my multicultural friends in particular.
The box on one of the Fender starter kits (guitar, amp, headphones, who knows what else, all included), had a message printed on the side that said "Stop dreaming, Start playing!" Well, yes. I can do all these things. I imagine it, and then I just do it.
When Dr. Phil had guests who were engaging in some self-destructive behavior or other and in denial about it or saying it was impossible for them to change, he used to get right up in their face and ask what payoff they were getting from their behavior. "Wha-what?" they would say, all confronted, but he would insist, you wouldn't keep doing it if you weren't getting some payoff from it.
There's a positive thinking exercise common to many different self-help disciplines (Scientology, "The Secret", various strands of feminism and meditation) of imagining, vividly, the thing you want to happen. I have long thought that this was a very effective and powerful way to achieve your dreams, not because it sends out any "energy" into the "universe" or etc. spiritual explanation, but because it helps you recognize the thing you want when it comes along (or turns out to be standing right in front of you), and also because it helps you get through any blocks or nervousness that imagining yourself in that position brings up.
I have been trying to imagine someone wonderful coming into my life, and as it turns out that was a bad thing to imagine because it made me all obsessed about being single and way too preoccupied with boys, and when that happens I never get any philosophy done. But today I expanded this exercise. I was trying to imagine myself happy in Appleton. And I realized I was blocked in imagining it, and I think it was some sort of weird stage of grief, one of the end stages, but where you are almost afraid to feel happy because it seems disrespectful to your grief. I don't have a dead loved one to fear disrespect to, but I suppose I have an atmosphere of loss and exile, and today I noticed that when I tried to imagine a rich, happy, fulfilling, fun life here, I stopped myself and imagined myself sitting very still in my empty apartment, and that seemed more respectful to the past loss and the sadness of it. Well, that's dumb, isn't it? So...
Part 2
Tonight after work I:
- Stopped by City Park to play with my new video camera
- Stopped by the independent bookstore to ask about their Poetry Group, which as it turns out meets tomorrow, and it sounds like you don't have to read your own stuff, although you can. Will totally go there tomorrow evening.
- Was on my way to the Harmony Cafe to check it out as a venue for a new Philorum.
- But veered into the music shop on the corner instead, and picked up some music magazines that have gigs and things listed in them, and was then gazing at all the electric guitars. Harold, one of the shop guys, came up and started helping me, and we looked at a few electrics and then looked at the acoustics, and he asked what kind of things I play, and I said, "I don't...actually...play at all yet," and he expressed surprise, and said since I came in and picked up the magazines I fooled him, I looked like I knew what I was doing. Harold didn't seem like the slick salesman type, but he knew the right thing to say - if I already look like a veteran electric guitar player, what the heck is stopping me? By the time I left I had learned three chords, played two Fenders, a Gibson knock-off and something else called a LTD, and was committed 100% to going back, next paycheck, getting my mid-life crisis axe, and signing up for beginner lessons.
- After that, at the Harmony Cafe, I saw a lady I recognized from the monthly independent foreign films I've been going to, sponsored by the Multicultural Society. She pointed out the sign advertising the multicultural food fair this Saturday, and I totally want to attend, and this is enough notice that I can invite lots of people - all my multicultural friends in particular.
The box on one of the Fender starter kits (guitar, amp, headphones, who knows what else, all included), had a message printed on the side that said "Stop dreaming, Start playing!" Well, yes. I can do all these things. I imagine it, and then I just do it.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
The need for narrative
These are just thoughts jotted down to be fleshed out later. An argument strung here experimentally to see if it hangs together.
When you know the rational truth about life and experience, you know that life actually is just a series of disconnected experiences, one after another, until you die.
But if you write a screenplay of a film that is just a series of disconnected experiences, it won't sell, because people experience themselves as central, active protagonists who confront challenges and grow.
So, we tend to a narrative understanding of our lives. But do we need a narrative? For sanity, or whatever? (or, lesser, for a sense of purpose or meaning?). And ought we to need one? Should we overcome the desire for what we know to be a delusion using reason? And then, if we succeed, do we only enjoy really crap experimental films, from then on?
Is that a price worth paying for enlightenment?
No, but more seriously - the examples of the patients who can't lay down long-term memories (thanks, D-J). There was one who would fabulate stories that seemed to make sense of his surroundings and what had just happened. But then there was the composer who kept writing in a notebook, "I am now awake for the very first time." He kept having the sense of waking from a coma, but he had this sense every few minutes. He kept a notebook in which he wrote down, "I am now awake for the very first time," and when he saw a previous entry that said the same thing, written in his own hand, he would angrily cross it out. Was that no narrative, because he couldn't have continuous experience? Or was he so committed to constructing a narrative that made some sense of his experience that when he received evidence that went against it, it was extremely psychologically disruptive to him and he had to angrily deny its veracity?
Is this pushing my narrative thing too far, to make it fit to each long-term memory aphasia example?
I need to read some more about this. One day I'll thread it all together properly, with references and etc.
Love having a blog though where I can rough it out in progress.
When you know the rational truth about life and experience, you know that life actually is just a series of disconnected experiences, one after another, until you die.
But if you write a screenplay of a film that is just a series of disconnected experiences, it won't sell, because people experience themselves as central, active protagonists who confront challenges and grow.
So, we tend to a narrative understanding of our lives. But do we need a narrative? For sanity, or whatever? (or, lesser, for a sense of purpose or meaning?). And ought we to need one? Should we overcome the desire for what we know to be a delusion using reason? And then, if we succeed, do we only enjoy really crap experimental films, from then on?
Is that a price worth paying for enlightenment?
No, but more seriously - the examples of the patients who can't lay down long-term memories (thanks, D-J). There was one who would fabulate stories that seemed to make sense of his surroundings and what had just happened. But then there was the composer who kept writing in a notebook, "I am now awake for the very first time." He kept having the sense of waking from a coma, but he had this sense every few minutes. He kept a notebook in which he wrote down, "I am now awake for the very first time," and when he saw a previous entry that said the same thing, written in his own hand, he would angrily cross it out. Was that no narrative, because he couldn't have continuous experience? Or was he so committed to constructing a narrative that made some sense of his experience that when he received evidence that went against it, it was extremely psychologically disruptive to him and he had to angrily deny its veracity?
Is this pushing my narrative thing too far, to make it fit to each long-term memory aphasia example?
I need to read some more about this. One day I'll thread it all together properly, with references and etc.
Love having a blog though where I can rough it out in progress.
Sunday a new beginning
I hardly did any more today than I did yesterday, but somehow this morning I woke up with optimism. I was having some dream where I was accomplishing something or organizing something, and somehow it made me feel when I woke up like I could do things and it wasn't so bad. I got the dishes done, laundry mostly done, and went to the big gym. It's easy to get motivated at the gym when the Olympics are on the TVs.
I went to the store and grabbed breakfast food for tomorrow and frozen vegetarian dinner, but this time I didn't feel bad about it. That's what I do, is eat frozen vegetarian dinner, and throw the box in the recycling, damn it, and get wasteful nutrition, because I'm a busy woman and I don't have more time than 2x2:30 minutes to cook anything. But it seems fine, today, somehow.
And I'm feeling optimistic about my Philorum plan, which I was trying to talk myself into last weekend. I just need a venue really. I can work the publicity machine once it's set. So, how hard could it be? As long as there's one person committed to showing up - me - then it will work. That's what the man said.
So, stay tuned for what might be a better, less gloomy week.
E
I went to the store and grabbed breakfast food for tomorrow and frozen vegetarian dinner, but this time I didn't feel bad about it. That's what I do, is eat frozen vegetarian dinner, and throw the box in the recycling, damn it, and get wasteful nutrition, because I'm a busy woman and I don't have more time than 2x2:30 minutes to cook anything. But it seems fine, today, somehow.
And I'm feeling optimistic about my Philorum plan, which I was trying to talk myself into last weekend. I just need a venue really. I can work the publicity machine once it's set. So, how hard could it be? As long as there's one person committed to showing up - me - then it will work. That's what the man said.
So, stay tuned for what might be a better, less gloomy week.
E
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Saturday thwarted
In this town, everything's closed on Sunday. Everything interesting happens on Saturday. During the summer there are markets in the main street on Saturday morning. I saw just the edge of them on the day I went on the tour to Dallas Anderson's studio, and they looked vast and vibrant and active and fun (the street bearing no resemblance at all to the street that I usually see on Sunday afternoon, barren, windy, deserted, with shuttered shops and "closed" signs).
The markets only go until noon on Saturday morning, and they only happen during summer months which are nearly over. Every weekend I intend to get up and go to them - to participate in my town, see some people, see what's there for sale, maybe get some lovely fresh fruit or cherries or something, then stop for lunch and coffee at the Harmony Cafe where they have live music, then head out and see some sights and do other things all afternoon.
It's 2:00 pm exactly. I woke up this morning, checked email, and by the time I was making breakfast it was 12:15 and the markets were all over. Fine, so, I could still get out and do afternoon things, right? I had breakfast and read a magazine, a little bit. Is that so wrong? Two hours of unstructured time off, to just sit and read and not worry about anything? But now Saturday is nearly gone, I haven't got dressed or had lunch, the things to do around my house are staring me down and making me feel like a failure again (I can't have anyone over until the boxes are gone, but I can't go through the boxes because I should be going out and doing things and meeting people, but I can't go out because I'll never have time to do all the house things, and don't even talk to me about all the work stuff that's not done).
I have always slept in on Saturday mornings. It has always been my recovery time to make up for the sleep deprivation I inevitably develop during the week - and now even more so with the 5am starts. I remember the murderous disruption I used to feel in the early days of my relationship with S when we'd be at his parents' house and his kid used to wake up at 5am, singing and needing attention. They didn't have rooms with doors at their house, it was an old Colonial Queenslander so all the rooms had transoms and the guest room had only a curtain between it and the sleepout porch than ran along all the bedrooms and to the bathroom, which had heavy traffic and a noisy door and shower sounds and flushing sounds and the rest. No sleeping in. She was only a little kid, I was supposed to love her, I was supposed to be there supporting him in his parenting, I was supposed to feel like a member of the family, but Saturday mornings were crucial for me to sleep until I woke up and turn my mind completely off for that many hours, and by being awoken before that process was complete I really did feel like I would go mad, and I really did want to kill somebody. I decided if I ever had my own kid, I would have to bring in help Friday night, to be there to wake up with the kid and deal with Saturday because my life did not work with an early Saturday morning.
So I shouldn't be suprised that I'm still the same way. But the cost is very high. Nothing in this town is open on Sunday. By the time I'm ready to dress up and go out and experience experiences and be part of things, it's all closed and deserted.
I'm not sure about this Appleton thing. I'm not sure a 45-year old single woman, with as eccentric interests as I have, can actually make a go of it. I've had too many pyjama days. I spend too much time in my living room watching TV series on DVD. I can imagine going places, starting clubs, joining groups, doing stuff, but it's not happening. And I've ruined another weekend, and got that much further from achieving these goals.
I'm not sure about this Appleton thing, and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's 2:09 now and I still have no plan and no direction. My inclination is go just go back to bed, but that won't help me be prepared for what I have to do in the next weeks. And I'm coming, rapidly, up on my anniversary, one year since I've lived here, and what to show for it. Bookcase in pieces, face down on the spare room floor. Living room full of boxes. No table. No dinner parties, no housewarming, no clubs, no group. One very long whingey blog. Failure. Pointlessness. And it's sunny out, and supposed to be nearly 90. I SHOULD be out there. I HAVE to go experience it, because before you know it, it will be dark at 4pm again and snowy and so cold you can't spend more than a minute outside. And two years will have passed. I have no life. I don't live in this town. I can't work out how to get out of bed, get out of my house. But I have to have Saturday mornings, to recover, to do the work that I do that pays for me being here.
I don't know what to do. But I have to shake this up, somehow or other.
The markets only go until noon on Saturday morning, and they only happen during summer months which are nearly over. Every weekend I intend to get up and go to them - to participate in my town, see some people, see what's there for sale, maybe get some lovely fresh fruit or cherries or something, then stop for lunch and coffee at the Harmony Cafe where they have live music, then head out and see some sights and do other things all afternoon.
It's 2:00 pm exactly. I woke up this morning, checked email, and by the time I was making breakfast it was 12:15 and the markets were all over. Fine, so, I could still get out and do afternoon things, right? I had breakfast and read a magazine, a little bit. Is that so wrong? Two hours of unstructured time off, to just sit and read and not worry about anything? But now Saturday is nearly gone, I haven't got dressed or had lunch, the things to do around my house are staring me down and making me feel like a failure again (I can't have anyone over until the boxes are gone, but I can't go through the boxes because I should be going out and doing things and meeting people, but I can't go out because I'll never have time to do all the house things, and don't even talk to me about all the work stuff that's not done).
I have always slept in on Saturday mornings. It has always been my recovery time to make up for the sleep deprivation I inevitably develop during the week - and now even more so with the 5am starts. I remember the murderous disruption I used to feel in the early days of my relationship with S when we'd be at his parents' house and his kid used to wake up at 5am, singing and needing attention. They didn't have rooms with doors at their house, it was an old Colonial Queenslander so all the rooms had transoms and the guest room had only a curtain between it and the sleepout porch than ran along all the bedrooms and to the bathroom, which had heavy traffic and a noisy door and shower sounds and flushing sounds and the rest. No sleeping in. She was only a little kid, I was supposed to love her, I was supposed to be there supporting him in his parenting, I was supposed to feel like a member of the family, but Saturday mornings were crucial for me to sleep until I woke up and turn my mind completely off for that many hours, and by being awoken before that process was complete I really did feel like I would go mad, and I really did want to kill somebody. I decided if I ever had my own kid, I would have to bring in help Friday night, to be there to wake up with the kid and deal with Saturday because my life did not work with an early Saturday morning.
So I shouldn't be suprised that I'm still the same way. But the cost is very high. Nothing in this town is open on Sunday. By the time I'm ready to dress up and go out and experience experiences and be part of things, it's all closed and deserted.
I'm not sure about this Appleton thing. I'm not sure a 45-year old single woman, with as eccentric interests as I have, can actually make a go of it. I've had too many pyjama days. I spend too much time in my living room watching TV series on DVD. I can imagine going places, starting clubs, joining groups, doing stuff, but it's not happening. And I've ruined another weekend, and got that much further from achieving these goals.
I'm not sure about this Appleton thing, and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's 2:09 now and I still have no plan and no direction. My inclination is go just go back to bed, but that won't help me be prepared for what I have to do in the next weeks. And I'm coming, rapidly, up on my anniversary, one year since I've lived here, and what to show for it. Bookcase in pieces, face down on the spare room floor. Living room full of boxes. No table. No dinner parties, no housewarming, no clubs, no group. One very long whingey blog. Failure. Pointlessness. And it's sunny out, and supposed to be nearly 90. I SHOULD be out there. I HAVE to go experience it, because before you know it, it will be dark at 4pm again and snowy and so cold you can't spend more than a minute outside. And two years will have passed. I have no life. I don't live in this town. I can't work out how to get out of bed, get out of my house. But I have to have Saturday mornings, to recover, to do the work that I do that pays for me being here.
I don't know what to do. But I have to shake this up, somehow or other.
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