March 2003 Archives

So, night before last was the Oscars, and so (since I'm on the letter M in my AlphaBytes blogs) I'm gonna talk about 'em. Actually, more about past Oscars than this year's, but never mind that...

I've written previously about how much I enjoyed Gangs of New York. I thought Daniel Day-Lewis was phenomenal and that the movie made for riveting viewing.

That being said, I'm psyched that Adrien Brody won Best Lead Actor. I was pretty enthused about all the big acting awards, but in this case, more than most. All the other nominees in the category had won Oscars previously (more than one in the case of two of them) and I like to see an underdog win. So, while I haven't seen The Pianist, and while I loved Daniel Day-Lewis, somewhere in my heart of hearts I was pulling for Adrien Brody. I really loved him in The Thin Red Line, if that counts for anything at all.

(That was my civil review of this year. Now I start to rant...)

I'm in a blogging mood today... and so I am going to start by taking a This-or-that quiz that is NOT related to the alphabetical thing (though I'll get back to that in a few minutes, because I'm way behind, and I'm crap). First...

1. Poetry or prose? Prose.
2. Funky modern art or the older, "classic" variety? Saying both is cheating, so I am going to say classic art because some of the modern art I've seen just seems to be saying, "Look!! Look at me!! I'm funky and new and different and I'm rocking your wordl!!!"
3. Sculptures or paintings? See, now I'm torn. I like modern sculpture, but classic paintings. I guess I'm saying I just like art.
4. Theatre: exuberant musical or serious drama? Oh, now, these questions are totally unfair. Depends on my mood, really, but I guess more often than not, I tend to be a musical gal.
5. Ballet or modern dance? I'm gonna go with modern dance but I'm torn on this one too.
6. Movies: major studio or indie? Let's be honest, in this day and age, it's sometimes tough to tell the difference. I'm going with major studio, I suppose, even though it makes me feel somehow bad for not supporting independent film.
7. Authors: Shakespeare or Dr. Seuss? Again, unfair! I love both... and it's a mood thing, but I'm going with Shakespeare, I guess. But not the histories!
8. TV: PBS or A&E? These questions are IMPOSSIBLE!! Argh!! PBS!
9. Music: Beethoven or Beatles? Finally, one I know the answer to!!
Beatles. Beatles Beatles Beatles.

10. Thought-provoking question of the week: You are a contributing member of your favorite art museum, and visit on a regular basis. They announce a new, temporary special exhibit by an artist surrounded by controversy...this person's work and/or political views offend you. Do you stop supporting the museum, or just stay away during the time the exhibit is there? See, now, the thought-provoking question is easy. You just don't go while it's there - OR! You take the opportunity to see what you're missing, what others see in the artist that you may not have appreciated until now, and you go check out the exhibit. Maybe you'll learn something!

As I walk to the T each morning, I pass by a digital time and temperature sign. It's big, it's prominent, and yet I don't really use it to tell time, at least, not time relevant to anything. This is how I determine on-time-for-work time:

I know I'm late if I see the guy walking the French bulldog.
I know I'm on time if I see the man smoking a pipe.
I know I'm a couple minutes early if I see the girl in the blue baseball jacket with the really long hair.

Yesterday, I was en route to the T, and I saw the French bulldog, the pipe smoker, and the long-haired girl. I was confused for the rest of the day.

War sucks.

Today I am having a shit day. (Yes, I know I didn't say shitty, I said shit. It's a grammatical thing that for some reason makes me happy on my truly bad days. For some reason, making it into two nouns instead of an adjective and a noun makes it a worse day. Shut up, that does not make me weird.)

Anyway, so I'm just in a bad mood today and there's no real reason for it. Nothing has gone terribly wrong today (outside of, you know, war with Iraq), it's just your basic not-great-day. But I'm just in a mood, I can't pinpoint why, but I just want to go home and curl up and sleep. I haven't had a day off in forever - on weekends I either have shows or my improv proctice group or whatever - and I just want to take a day to lie on the coach and eat popcorn and read.

But what irks me is this... every once in a while I will be in a bad mood and someone will say to me, "You're not living up to your name today, Joy." This bugs the CRAP out of me. I don't get to go up to folks and say, "Boy, Charles... your name means manly but you're kind of a wuss, aren't you?" or "Mary, that means bitter, and you certainly DO live up to your name!" Why do people who crack on someone's name think they're funny? Or appreciated? Or human?

During my first year in college, people constantly sang "JOY (pump it up pump it up) and PAIN! SUNSHINE and RAIN (give it to me Rob Base)" at me. Throughout the Christmas season, I get "Joy to the world!" At various times I get "Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea," "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun," "I got the joy (joy) joy (joy) down in my heart," and the list goes on ad infinitum.

I also get, "It's a JOY to meet you (chuckle snort)." This does not endear a new acquaintance to me, but rather makes me stare daggers while maintaining a fixed smile. If that's how you're going to interact with me, just... don't.

Sorry. I'm just having a shit day.

So, last night I was walking down the street, coming back from the supermarket, and I see this guy lying on the sidewalk. He was about a block away when I first noticed him, and from my angle I wasn't sure if he was a person or just a pile of clothing. THere was a guy walking by him at the time, so I figured, hey, if it's a person, he'd stop, right?

WRONG.

This guy just walked by a man lying FACE DOWN on the sidewalk. Didn't stop to check and see if he was breathing or anything. Just kept walking, because hey, he probably had to be somewhere, right? Or, you know, maybe common human decency was just beyond him.

Sometimes, people suck.

So I stopped, a couple cars drove by, and finally one stopped, and we tried to get the guy up. He was homeless and drunk and just a mess. We got a cop, and he called a shelter, and all was good.

Sadly, I was too busy trying to make sure that the guy didn't freeze to death lying on a Cambridge sidewalk, so I couldn't go beat up the jackass who ignored him.

There's a new girl in my department. She's cute, she's smart, she seems very competent.

She also seems like about 80% of the snotty upper-class Catholic girls I went to high school with.

Two days ago, I walked over to her in a group of people and she gave me the eye - the up-and-down appraisal of my clothes, assessing what I was wearing and whether I was worth her time. And once she'd finished her appraisal, she gave a little sneer - just a little one - but just enough to make me want to smack her.

Then yesterday, I was coming over to talk to her about something and she did the same thing, but when she brought her eyes back up to my face, her lip quivering in readines for her sneer, she saw I was staring at her. She sort of looked me up and down again really quickly, her eyes widened, and she stammered, "Um, nice skirt."

Yeah, right. Nice cover, Miss Thing. Hoity-toity bitch.

And now, not two minutes ago, she appeals to my boss about something and he gives her an answer which, if the advice is followed, will cause a whole lotta bitching from the analysts that will just result in them being forced to discard a whole lotta work, and when I told her what the result would be she just shrugged and said, "Vinny said to do it." Um, yeah. He's inept. And you're annoying.

On Tuesday I promised myself I would do a blog entry every day until the end of the month so that I wouldn't have to do two letters in one day. Yesterday I was busy. Grrrrrr.

I don't like any of the F words listed. None of 'em. Feh.

Here they are: Fable, Face, Fault, Fearsome, Flight, Forbidden, Foreign, Fragmented, Fuck, Fuzz. How do I do a whole entry on any of those... I'm blocked. Watch me try to come up with an entry...

The letter of the day was E. One of the words given on the AlphaBytes list was etcetera.

PET PEEVE ALERT!

Et cetera is two separate words. They are two Latin words that we have simply borrowed in their original form to use in English. We abbreviate them into etc., because we're a lazy people who can't be bothered to write out the words "and so forth" and thus resort to a three letter abbreviation. But if you're writing out the whole darn thing, it's 'et cetera,' damn it!

Another thing. If you look it up in the dictionary, you will see that the word is defined as, "and others of the like kind; and the rest; and so on." Thus, if you write (or say) "and etc.," you are a nincompoop.

And don't get me started about people who abbreviate et cetera as "&c." Because that's just plain dumb.

As you may well guess, deranged is not actually one of the AlphaByte list words, but I'm using it because of something that happened yesterday on the T.

So, I was running late yesterday, trying to get to North Station via the green line. So (to explain logistics) I had to take the red line to Park Street and switch to a Lechmere-bound train, which I needed to take four stops. There were a lot of people getting on the train at Park Street and it was pretty much packed. But at the next stop, a few more people managed to squeak their way on. The doors started to close and I thought we were about to leave the station when I heard a voice say, "This train is not moving! I have my foot in the door and I will not take it out until you make room for me!!!"

What the hell is that about????

He railed on and on about how he could see a space and we would have to move in because he had waited for four trains and it was his turn, dammit, his turn, and we couldn't stop him from getting on the train because we had no T authority, we hadn't been to T school, and he saw the space, HE SAW THE SPACE.

At that point, T cops came and dragged him away.

Ah, life in Boston. Gotta love it.

So, yesterday I did my C AlphaBytes entry and basically went off on my fiance's roommate. There was reason behind it - he had a blog entry about us, I was hurt, I decided to hurl a whole bunch of vitriolic sentiments his way. It was very junior high. And it was just supposed to be an entry about clutter.

In any case, there have been apologies and there will be talking further, no doubt, and now I have to redo my C entry, because I thought it only fair to take the initial entry down. But that entry took a lot out of me, from a purging the poison in me standpoint, and now I am just going to leave one C word as my hope for the end to this saga.

Catharsis.

Cross your fingers.

Another AlphaBytes entry... with my thoughts on bravado...

I started thinking about my entry from a couple days back about my epilepsy and I realized that I didn't really give remotely the full story. It's all well and good to put a brave face on, cheerio, pip-pip, I had a seizure, and I have a sense of humor, ha ha ha... but that doesn't show you what happens, not really.

This is what happens. This is what my last seizure was really like:

So, I have to do an AlphaBytes entry for the letter A, and one of the words is Anger, and I found this Seven Deadly Sins quiz on one of the blogs I lurk, and it was like, woohoo, serendipity, and since I like me some quizzes, here I go.

ANGER
1. With whom did you last get angry? Myself, actually... but outside of me, a co-worker.
2. What is your weapon of choice? Silent rage, then venting to others.
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex? Depending on circumstance, yes.
4. How about of the same sex? Yes again, depending on circumstance. I used to hit people with some regularity but grew out of that. Boy, that doesn't make me sound too good, but hey, that's why they call 'em sins, right? I guess I just didn't know how to handle my anger outside of lashing out physically.
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you? I'm guessing my mother.
6. There apparently is no #6.
7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily? It depends on the situation. I think forgiveness is a hard thing to master.