Stupid moments in television!

I witnessed two this evening, beginning with what was quite possibly the stupidest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the history of all realities.

Apparently Buffy's "Scooby gang" thought it wildly unreasonable that they should attempt to attack the villain they've been preparing to attack all season. So unreasonable that they voted her, one of their most powerful and valuable allies, out of the gang. Honestly, she could've stumped all of them with, "What else're we gonna do?" Given that the Caleb guy appears to be nigh-omnipotent and merely toying with them or something before killing them.

I realised to-night how much better the writing on Angel is where, even if logic goes out the window on occasion, at least it's still all in good fun. The difference is most marked by the behaviour of Faith, a character who has recently been on both series. On Angel, she was a pragmatic, complicated and interesting ass-kicker. On Buffy, she's a confused, faux teen-pop speakin' girl who can be beaten up by regular human police officers.

The second bit of televised stupidity witnessed by me this evening was X-Men: Evolution, where Storm conveniently forgot that she's able to control the weather.

Oy. Why didn't she just look at her name tag and ponder for a moment why it says what it says?

Bright spot this evening was that Justice League featured Superman and Wonder Woman fighting in a three story mall. That was nice. That was very nice.

I'm back, and I'm a-watchin' Justice League.

Class to-day involved attending a rally--er, reading starring an author named Victor Villasenor or something.

He didn't read from his books. He did paraphrase them quite a bit. He was kinna interesting when he talked about his family history, like about how his great grandfather was in a Mexican army and was ordered to kill Native American women and children. Which he did. But then he saw a little Native American girl running towards him with her hair on fire, and he suddenly realised that she was not a demon creature as he'd been taught, but a little girl. He not only spared her, but shot his companion who tried to shoot her, and adopted her. She ended up being Victor's grandmother.

Victor was kinna interesting when he discussed his life in an anthropological sort of way, but when he got into talking about how everyone in the world should recognise that there is one earth and one god, he kinna lost me. He also had an annoying habit of asking the audience questions he already knew the answer to, or thought he knew the answer to ("How many of you have parents?"). All in all, the guy had too much of "a message" for my tastes, even if I for the most part agreed with him.

(Now watching X-Men: Evolution. By no means the best X-Men incarnation . . . I love Storm. I've always really liked her for some reason, I'm not sure why).

I was so irritated by the guy that when he had us all turn to our neighbours and say "God bless you" I turned to Trisa and and said "Gods damn you". I immediately felt guilty about it though, and took it back.

Perhaps karma caught up with me on the way home when I noticed that my battery light had come on, and so had my airbag light. After arriving home, I discovered that my car won't start anymore.

I called Tim and he suggests that it's probably my Alternater. The same thing'd happened to his car, and getting it fixed cost him four hundred dollars. And as always seems to be the case when my car goes kaputz, I happen to be broke at the moment.

Oh well. At least it didn't die in a parking lot or on a strange street corner somewhere.

...

Last night Trisa and I watched a movie called The Red Dwarf. It was strange and funny. We also had some cinnemon ice cream which, you know, really ought to be more commonly available. That and Green Tea are probably my current favourite flavours.

Ugh. I feel like crawling into a giant turtle shell. But I've got things to do . . .

I'm in a bit of a hurry because I dilly dallied too long watching the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula and hanging out with a cat. So I need to leave a few minutes ago.

New page of Doll Merchant up though.

Saw a coupla bands last night (Cursive and Appleseed Cast) who sounded as if they've spent lots of time listening to The Cure. They weren't bad, certainly weren't hindered for having good taste.

Trisa and I discussed things with Cryptess on the phone whilst we ate at a new Denny's. Cryptess impressed everyone with her adorability over the telephone device.

I actually played some Morrowind last night for the first time in quite a while. And I felt okay about it because I'd done Stuff earlier in the day. The outline for part 8 is progressing. I think I need to find a quiet coffee shop in which to write it all down. Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen to-day thanks to my inordinately busy schedule. As I told Cryptess last night, this day has three events written in its calender square, which is quite a lot for me. But I'm gonna eat first.

Currently listening to Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime."

They're right. This ain't no party, nor is it a disco, and etc. And, you know, really, this just plain ain't no foolin' around.

Worked a lot on the outline for part eight of my novel last night. A lot of the time was spent just staring into space and thinking. I think I actually only wrote down about two short sentences.

Trisa and I saw a movie called Divine Intervention which was not a courtroom drama directed by John Waters. Rather, it was an interesting comedy on the relationship between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Also watched Run, Lola, Run, which turned out to be another vehicle for the old Sci-Fi standard of alternate timelines, but I guess, in this case, made palatable for people who don't like seeing Vulcans in movies.

I wonder if this half-and-half is good . . .

Good morning world thing! What's that you say? Oh.

Not too much going on so far. I'm extremely hungry and very much wanting some coffee. I'm not very lucid and stuff and having a hard time concentrating.

I found a CD I'd been missing for quite a while the other day. Very happy I found it.

I'd planned to do a bunch of work to-day but it's looking like I probably won't get to. La la la la!

Trisa said she'd pick up a coffee for me on her way here. I'm looking forward to this. I'll see if I can also interest the both of us in waffles.

My teeth hurt. I guess this Coca-Cola I'm drinking probably won't help matters. Nor, do I think, shall the third of a birthday cake I ate a half hour ago.

Talked to Cryptess on the phone for quite awhile to-day. Looks like she's gonna come down here rather soon.

She'd told me in an earlier phone call about some of the adventures she's had with cheese lately. We also talked about coat hangers, and people that resemble them, and are sexy for it. And also about men who have unfortunate masturbatory experiences with coat hangers.

Cryptess inspired me to eat a certain sandwich to-day--the Submarina vegi sandwich, the kind I used to eat across the street from my first job.

Good sandwich. Lotsa bread.

On Wednesday evening I also, with Trisa, watched The Princess and the Warrior, which was a very sedate and sensitive sort of action film. In a good way.

I want to get up early to-morrow.

I will get up early to-morrw.

I hereby set my alarum clock . . . for noon.

Early.

Coffee's been black and cold for six hours and I'm drinking it.

There's a cat sleeping in my bed, I've a headache from lack of caffeine, and right now I can feel reality conspiring all over the place. What, gods, are ye gonna do with me?

That is all.

Just watched a movie starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland that started out with a message saying that the film was fondly dedicated to vaudville, and proceeded, in the first half of the movie, to be a sweet little romance with singing and dancing. But the second half became peculiar war propaganda (for WW2, although the story was supposedly set during WW1).

Even so, it was cute, even though I have no desire to ever see Gene Kelly wielding a machine gun again.

I ate lots of candy as I watched and came away from the movie feeling giddy.

...

Listened to a bunch of people in class to-day talking about how "stupid" the short story I'd submitted was. Trisa tells me I shouldn't listen to them as they're all idiots. That could be true, although I think it might be more accurate to say that they are xenophobes. Which is certainly a kind of idiocy in my book.

It was all still a little dispiriting, but I think I'll live.

I got some nice compliments about another project in my inbox when I got home, which helped quite a bit.

Goodnight folks.

Imperial Star Destroyer.

Just felt like saying that, for all the use it's gonna do this damned world.

I feel deeply disoriented in a way. Trisa and I saw some marvellously horrid instruments of torture at the museum to-day. Some of the descriptions of people getting torn, mutilated, dismembered, coupled with the tangible evidence, got through to even my jaded heart.

Saw Far From Heaven to-day which, like most movies, starred Julianne Moore. It was fairly good.

I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

And now I feel like sleeping. And thinking about cold space. We'll see . . .

This sucks.

I'm really sleepy right now, and I have to get up early to-morrow.

And yet . . . I'd vaguely planned to get a lot of stuff done to-night, but now it looks like I won't. Just like last night and the night before and etc. (not to mention the days).

I feel like such a slug.

That's it! To-morrow, it all stops, it does. I'm gonna do shit, I am!

Trisa and I are supposed to go to Balboa Park. I'll try to talk her into going to read/write/study for awhile at Starbucks, before or after.

I gotta do some stuff soon before I go completely pla-ploookada!

Isn't it weird when a taste appears in your mouth, created by what you've just eaten, but resembles not said lately eaten food, but something entirely different? It's happening for me right now.

Let's see . . . what I ate was a bowl of ramen and a very, very large piece of chocolate birthday cake. And with this I drank some lemonade that'd been in my backpack for the past several days.

What I now taste is something like . . . pea soup, with pepper. Most peculiar.

Saw Cowboy Bebop: The Movie on Sunday night. 'Twas a fun experience.

Often times I think I like Cowboy Bebop more for what it tries to be than for what it actually is. It all seems like a very good concept but there's such an unintentional innocence to the execution at times that it just makes you sigh. But you want to play along.

Trisa gave me a Morrissey CD to-day. Very happy about that.

So Friday was my birthday and it wasn't so bad. It was pretty good actually.

I got candy and book and CD from Trisa and vinyl from sister and money from everybody else. And lots, and lots, and lots of cake. Still have plenty of cake left.

Trisa and I went to see the new Neil Jordan movie, The Good Thief, which was similtaneously sensually slow and excitingly fast pace. Very good. The Russian girl playing Anne was gorgeous. Was weird seeing a Neil Jordan movie without Stephen Rea in it. I wonder if they got in a fight?

I've been really busy and stuff with a billion random things for the past couple of days. I hope to get more time for writing in the days ahead.

I did manage a new page of Doll Merchant.

I want a sandwich.

I am at this moment at the home of my aunt and uncle, house sitting. I shall be here for several days.

I had this vague idea of using this strange place to get some mad writing done, but right now it's too interesting or something.

One of the cats here, named Macy, is extremely sweet. I just met her, and already she's jumping into my lap and stuff.

My original plan was to stay up until 6am to give her breakfast at her regular scheduled time, and then go to sleep. But now I'm thinking I might try going to bed now--sleeping for five hours, and trusting myself that I'll awaken at the right time. Why do I trust myself when I've burned myself time and time again? When will I learn?

I bought so much water to-day. Sixteen gallons. Lemme tell ya, it sure improves the coffee. I think the tap water was making me sick, and infecting me with a mild delirium.

My goodness, but the monitor for this computer is far away. It's a flat screen, and it's all the way at the other end of the desk, under a shelf. I feel like I'm looking at proscenium stage.

I see that this family bought into that most pointless of all computer accessories--the cordless keyboard. I hope the damn thing doesn't run outta batteries while I'm here.

I've never seen or read Astro Boy, but it makes me feel good knowing that a nation is this nerdy.

I did a new, rather saucy page of Doll Merchant.

I wonder if it says something about me? I hope I'm not derailing the plot with this sex scene. But, as with every page, I'm not really planning things in advance, so this is just where it seems to be going. I look at it, and I guess it works with the whole underlying scheme that seems to be going--especially as the Merchant seems to be examining Eyeball Pale like she was a doll . . . Why am I trying to interpret it? Shouldn't I know?

Again, I wonder what this says about me.

Sheesh.

Well. Spent most of the day with Trisa. We went and saw The Pianist, which I thought was okay. It made me realise how very jaded I am. I think. Or maybe it's how Roman Polanski had meant it to feel--which would be genius in a way.

Unlike in Schindler's List (a film which I was constantly, compulsively comparing The Pianist to), where every instance of a Nazi killing a Jew was devastatingly heartbreakingly horrific, in The Pianist, it got so it was regular. Horrible, but regular. People were dying in the streets, lying in pools of blood and filth. The dead were begged to awaken by their children . . . and it was all trees in the forest.

Adrian Brody's character, who we experience the movie through almost as if we were reading a novel written in first person, has a life to get on with and he often just has to adjust to Hell itself to try and get along. I unmistakably got the sensation of, "If I was there, this is probably how I would have reacted,"

A very, very good film.

I had this incredibally vivid dream last night that San Diego was bombed.

I was at a house with an enormous window that gave full view of the buildings in Downtown tumbling against eachother surrounded by orange fiery halos, the structures blackening. And this black and orange spread throughout the landscape, and towards me, until I felt all my environment shaking.

I also dreamt of the next day when I had to search through the rubble of Downtown for my car. I found it turned over on its side, and I was surprised to find that, when I put it back on its wheels, it still ran, although the driver's side door wouldn't stay shut.

I'm currently listening to David Bowie's "The Voyuer of Utter Destruction as Beauty."

W-ooooooow.

Billion things I meant to do to-day. Billion things I didn't do because I ended up getting caught in the garbage disposal of a billion other things.

I went to Trader Joes to-day to buy tamales and veggie buffalo wings. The people at Trader Joes are really scary. As I was telling Tim, they all seem like the sorts of people who have solid gold sinks in their bathrooms which they're terrified of getting toothpaste on. I could swear they knew me as an intruder in their world, and their sharp,, distrustful eyes seemed to aimed at me the whole time I was their, like spears in the hands of the cannibal people of the uncharted tropical island.

Monday night seemed like a string of things went wrong. Isn't it weird when bad things come in groups like that? They day had been feeling good early on, but even so, I ought to've realised something was off when they refused to sell me iced tea at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. The girl told me they were now only allowed to ring up hot tea.

After that it was misadventures of relationships with friends, strangers, and technology.

Maybe it was all to karmically offset the fact that a short story of mine got accepted in the Acorn Review. (yay?)

Judging from some of the negative reactions people had to it, I've realised that many people are far easier to confuse than I'd previously imagined.

Trisa did me a great honour by likening my "contraversial" storytelling technique to William Gibson's whilst defending me. Cool girl.

So now I'm extremely sleepy and I think I shall just sleep about it soon. I talked to Cryptess on the phone for a while to-night and she has perhaps the cutest voice ever in the universe.

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