When I was in high school we had a debate in History class. I forget the specific topic now, but it had to do with race. I was debating an African American classmate who said that my ancestors had oppressed hers.
Furious, I countered that in fact while her ancestors were being enslaved in America, my ancestors were in Ireland being oppressed by the British, and how dare she make such an accusation. I thought I'd really made my point.
Technically I was correct: my maternal grandparents arrived in America in the 1930s, my father in 1960. I don't know of any earlier ancestors of mine being here at all. But that wasn't the point.
I was wrong.
I didn't see it then. I only looked at the literal argument and not the larger context. In my offense at the suggestion that I and/or my ancestors had benefited from being white, I had dismissed the point my classmate was trying to make about the generations of difference between our experiences as Americans.
I don't know if that classmate remembers that exchange, but I think about it a lot. It's embarrassing to me that I said something so short-sighted and defensive.
Fast forward to today. After last weekend's marches all over the world, the takes have been coming hot and fast: first we celebrated the unity, the activism, the peaceful protest. Then other voices piped up: those who pointed out that police don't react to protests the same way, that women of color and trans women felt excluded.
And a lot of us didn't like hearing that. Feminism, controversial in general for reasons I will never understand, has its own internal controversies as white women forget to include others in our movements when we should be working together.
But we need to confront that: will we be at the next BLM march? Can we own that white women voted over 50% for Donald Trump? Will we listen when trans women, women of color, disabled women speak about the issues they face?
Unless we can say an enthusiastic "YES!" we're burying our heads in the sand just like I did in high school.
If we really want a movement that makes change, we can't just expect that everyone will come together and sing with joined hands while we state the terms. We need to listen. We need to show up for them the way we expect them to show up for us. We need to confront our own biases and learn from our mistakes.
I don't believe in letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And I think the Women's March was a good thing – the sight of women coming together all over the world was incredible and inspiring and I spent all day wishing I was there instead of at work and thinking about what I can do to be a part of the change I want to see in the world. It wasn't perfect – but what that means is we have the chance to be better. We can listen, and we can learn. And we can be better.
Because if we want to be taken seriously as voices for progress and change, we need to stop being held back by our own fragility and privilege. We need to face the hard truths and stop shutting down criticism because it ruins our good feelings. And honestly, if we want to really get anywhere, we need to listen to the people who have been struggling against systemic problems for generations already. They probably know what they're talking about.
Post title bastardized horribly from the Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Thursday, November 17, 2016
An Immodest Proposal
This is going to come as a surprise to a lot of you. It will seem like a total betrayal of my views, but I've had some time to reflect and I just can't ignore the simple moral equation at work here any longer:
I firmly believe that we should stop providing funding for insurance or research of erectile dysfunction aids in all forms.
I know, I know, that seems drastic. But as you know I'm a person of great faith and I just can't square my conscience with this subversion of nature! God created man and women to work exactly as we do – and if God decided that your penis shouldn't work anymore, than who are you to defy the will of God? This nation is on a downward spiral right into Hell and we can't keep putting our own will above that of the Almighty. Perhaps you think it's your right as a man to procreate, but I say this to you: God has made another choice.
It is the height of selfishness to expect me to allow my tax dollars to pay into any insurance program or research of a product that so strongly goes against my values. In this melting pot of a nation I should never have to be accepting of anything that is not personally within my own standards.
And speaking of selfishness, erectile dysfunction largely affects... let's say men of a certain age. Don't you think you should be more responsible? How can you be so short-sighted as to possibly father a child you may not be able to provide for until adulthood? Is society supposed to bear that burden for you just because you want to retire before the age of 80?
What's that you say? You think you have a right to have sex without the sole focus being the conception of a child? Absurd. This is exactly the kind of morally devoid thinking that is sending this nation straight to Hell! Perhaps you should keep an aspirin between your knees and give some thought to your choices instead of running around corrupting everyone's daughters with your filth. You're probably some reckless gigolo; do you expect us to approve of that type of behavior? To make it easier on you? How dare you.
This is the problem with allowing men to run wild: you get these ideas about what you want being acceptable instead of just following the norms of a polite society. Who are you expecting to have all this sex with, anyway? It's not as though women are going to risk bearing your children when you're so immature and entitled. Clearly all these dangerous erection drugs are altering your ability for reason.
And do we really need men getting any more emotional, anyway? Who can keep up with the mood swings? Your silly sports team makes a mistake and you're shouting and carrying on, and the next minute you're laughing again! Can you really be expected to handle your disgusting "sexuality" responsibly when you can't even control your emotions?
Now I know what you're thinking. You think this is all terribly unfair and I just don't understand. Please calm down. You're just not thinking clearly, as usual. You're getting all hysterical again. If you can just be rational you'll understand that these drugs are dangerous for you and for society as a whole.
Sorry, men. But we simply cannot allow you to pollute our society any longer. And this is without even mentioning the deeply unfair concept of asking half the nation's population to fund a product we will never need! I think it's best that you should have to raise the exorbitant price for these drugs yourself, which will force you to think about the consequences of their use rather than just having free erections all willy nilly. And if you can't afford them, then it's for the best as you couldn't afford a child anyway, and as I said before, that's the only good reason to have sex, ever.
***
If any part of this offended you, yay! That was the point. Now please consider that these are all things women are told constantly about why we shouldn't have access to birth control. Even women who need it to treat health issues, even women for whom pregnancy would be a health risk, even even even. And that shouldn't matter anyway. You want the abortion rate down? Birth control. You want welfare costs down? Birth control. Or we could keep slut-shaming women in a society that teaches men they are literally entitled to sex though for god's sake I can't figure out with whom since women aren't supposed to have sex ever unless it's for babies.
Just know what you're buying into when you put your two cents into that jar.
I firmly believe that we should stop providing funding for insurance or research of erectile dysfunction aids in all forms.
I know, I know, that seems drastic. But as you know I'm a person of great faith and I just can't square my conscience with this subversion of nature! God created man and women to work exactly as we do – and if God decided that your penis shouldn't work anymore, than who are you to defy the will of God? This nation is on a downward spiral right into Hell and we can't keep putting our own will above that of the Almighty. Perhaps you think it's your right as a man to procreate, but I say this to you: God has made another choice.
It is the height of selfishness to expect me to allow my tax dollars to pay into any insurance program or research of a product that so strongly goes against my values. In this melting pot of a nation I should never have to be accepting of anything that is not personally within my own standards.
And speaking of selfishness, erectile dysfunction largely affects... let's say men of a certain age. Don't you think you should be more responsible? How can you be so short-sighted as to possibly father a child you may not be able to provide for until adulthood? Is society supposed to bear that burden for you just because you want to retire before the age of 80?
What's that you say? You think you have a right to have sex without the sole focus being the conception of a child? Absurd. This is exactly the kind of morally devoid thinking that is sending this nation straight to Hell! Perhaps you should keep an aspirin between your knees and give some thought to your choices instead of running around corrupting everyone's daughters with your filth. You're probably some reckless gigolo; do you expect us to approve of that type of behavior? To make it easier on you? How dare you.
This is the problem with allowing men to run wild: you get these ideas about what you want being acceptable instead of just following the norms of a polite society. Who are you expecting to have all this sex with, anyway? It's not as though women are going to risk bearing your children when you're so immature and entitled. Clearly all these dangerous erection drugs are altering your ability for reason.
And do we really need men getting any more emotional, anyway? Who can keep up with the mood swings? Your silly sports team makes a mistake and you're shouting and carrying on, and the next minute you're laughing again! Can you really be expected to handle your disgusting "sexuality" responsibly when you can't even control your emotions?
Now I know what you're thinking. You think this is all terribly unfair and I just don't understand. Please calm down. You're just not thinking clearly, as usual. You're getting all hysterical again. If you can just be rational you'll understand that these drugs are dangerous for you and for society as a whole.
Sorry, men. But we simply cannot allow you to pollute our society any longer. And this is without even mentioning the deeply unfair concept of asking half the nation's population to fund a product we will never need! I think it's best that you should have to raise the exorbitant price for these drugs yourself, which will force you to think about the consequences of their use rather than just having free erections all willy nilly. And if you can't afford them, then it's for the best as you couldn't afford a child anyway, and as I said before, that's the only good reason to have sex, ever.
***
If any part of this offended you, yay! That was the point. Now please consider that these are all things women are told constantly about why we shouldn't have access to birth control. Even women who need it to treat health issues, even women for whom pregnancy would be a health risk, even even even. And that shouldn't matter anyway. You want the abortion rate down? Birth control. You want welfare costs down? Birth control. Or we could keep slut-shaming women in a society that teaches men they are literally entitled to sex though for god's sake I can't figure out with whom since women aren't supposed to have sex ever unless it's for babies.
Just know what you're buying into when you put your two cents into that jar.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Good Intent
There's about 150 think pieces right now about whether wearing a safety pin is a great show of solidarity or an empty gesture of the privileged. This is not one of those, although the safety pin movement did set the train of thought out of the station. And look, wear a safety pin or don't; I'm not here to judge you either way. We all have to do what we think is right and helpful.
That said, the safety pin movement made me realize how much we love our symbols. The yellow ribbon magnet on the car. The safety pin. The temporary Facebook profile pic overlayed with the flag of whichever nation (of white people) had a recent calamity. Whether we do anything concrete or not, we feel the need to advertise our good intent.
And mostly that's fine, except when it gives us the little feel-good charge of having helped without actually helping. Then it's the activist equivalent of taking off our shoes at the airport – nice theater, but pointless in practice.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. I retweet voraciously, I Facebook fervently. But my concrete actions are fewer: I donate to an animal shelter and a local NPR station every month and volunteer at the same shelter. And... right now, that's about it.
So I'm not willing to pin on a safety pin and pretend I've done something. The country – and possibly the world – became less safe in a very real way for a lot of people last week. (And by the way, if you deny that or think protesters are just "whining," you'll probably be happier unfollowing me now because I'm not shutting up any time soon.)
Like I said, I'm not here to throw stones at anybody from my glass house. I'm just saying that it's easy for us to get caught up in our symbols and forget that without action behind them they mean very little. That's something I forgot. And I was raised by activists, so I have no excuse for my complacency save the fact that my life has been mostly comfortable and easy.
I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to focus all the animus in me. But I know that my complacency has to end, because I have friends and loved ones that need more than symbols right now.
Post title courtesy of Kimbra.
That said, the safety pin movement made me realize how much we love our symbols. The yellow ribbon magnet on the car. The safety pin. The temporary Facebook profile pic overlayed with the flag of whichever nation (of white people) had a recent calamity. Whether we do anything concrete or not, we feel the need to advertise our good intent.
And mostly that's fine, except when it gives us the little feel-good charge of having helped without actually helping. Then it's the activist equivalent of taking off our shoes at the airport – nice theater, but pointless in practice.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. I retweet voraciously, I Facebook fervently. But my concrete actions are fewer: I donate to an animal shelter and a local NPR station every month and volunteer at the same shelter. And... right now, that's about it.
So I'm not willing to pin on a safety pin and pretend I've done something. The country – and possibly the world – became less safe in a very real way for a lot of people last week. (And by the way, if you deny that or think protesters are just "whining," you'll probably be happier unfollowing me now because I'm not shutting up any time soon.)
Like I said, I'm not here to throw stones at anybody from my glass house. I'm just saying that it's easy for us to get caught up in our symbols and forget that without action behind them they mean very little. That's something I forgot. And I was raised by activists, so I have no excuse for my complacency save the fact that my life has been mostly comfortable and easy.
I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to focus all the animus in me. But I know that my complacency has to end, because I have friends and loved ones that need more than symbols right now.
Post title courtesy of Kimbra.
Monday, November 14, 2016
The American Jesus
“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
That quote is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, though my research seems to dispute its veracity somewhat. But whether he said it or not, it's a truth.
American Christians, we need to talk.
The conservative politicians in this country claim to be our last bastions of Christian morality against the Godless liberals who want to have orgies in the streets with ISIS. Let's examine that, shall we? Because I was raised by some pretty old school Catholic parents and I was never taught the things you hear from these "moral leaders."
Let's start with the guns. We Americans sure love our Second Amendment. "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Leaving aside the fact that a "well-regulated" militia has no bearing on whether every private citizen has the unconditional right to a personal arsenal, it's always been weird to me that the American right bangs this drum so hard while professing America to be "a Christian nation."
Really? You think Jesus would be into your guns? "Thou shall not kill," remember that?
While we're on the topic of killing, let's talk about abortion. Because the same people who will vehemently defend every person's right to own a device designed solely to kill things will tell you that abortion should be absolutely outlawed in every circumstance because it is murder, and a moral evil.
And to a Christian that's true. But I have some trouble reconciling that outlook with the worship of guns, and the promotion of the death penalty ("Thou shall not kill!"), and the bloodthirsty zeal with which we espouse war.
That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. To be pro-life is to be concerned with life at all of its stages, which means letting go of your bloodthirsty worship of death. But boy, we love our death.
Oh hey, that brings me to something else. These American "Christians" want to tell you that we should get rid of "entitlements" like welfare and education assistance and affordable housing initiatives and healthcare. Pro-life, remember that. Pro-life until you're born, and then you're on your own, you lazy whiner.
Let's see what the Bible says about that.
"In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me."
Doesn't sound like Jesus is super into our American "I got mine, screw you" philosophy. Remember the Corporal Works of Mercy, Catholic kids? Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the prisoners, bury the dead, give alms to the poor. Not a mention of bootstraps to be found.
Meanwhile when the President works to give healthcare to people who need it, he's fought tooth and nail by the "moral" right. The very idea of raising the minimum wage or making education more affordable is seen as pandering to the lazy and undeserving, even in an economy where quality jobs and education are ever harder to obtain. Refugees fleeing horrific conditions are excoriated as a threat we should reject out of hand. We're a "Christian nation" (by the way, no we're not) who looks at helping people as repugnant. We look down on our fellow man. We think those who are poor, or in danger, or disenfranchised deserve their fate.
It's been a long time since my Saturday morning CCD classes and I'm not the Catholic my parents would have liked me to be, but I'm still pretty sure none of that has a damn thing to do with a single teaching of Christianity. In fact it flies right in the face of the Jesus we claim to adore so reverently.
America, if we really want to be a nation of selfish, cruel, death and money -worshipping, scared children then I guess that's our choice. But it's time we leave Jesus out of it and admit that we actually don't like him that much. (He was a socialist Jew, after all.) Because we are not the people he teaches us to be, which gives us no right to invoke his name.
Title courtesy of Bad Religion.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Tough Love
Marvel, we need to talk.
You know I love you. I've watched The Avengers about 400 times (three times in theaters, approx 398 between DVD and Netflix), I've pleaded with you to give my favorite character some love, and so on. I've even tried to deal with the fact that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is kind of disappointing (though there's a related issue there that we'll get back to in a minute). And I couldn't possibly be more excited for Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier. Which is why we need to talk about this poster:
This thing is a hot mess. But we're not even going to talk about the orange and blue-ness, or the fact that an aircraft is careening straight for Robert Redford, or the general ADD-chihuahua-on-meth business of it all. We have bigger fish to fry. Two pretty big fish, in fact.
You know I love you. I've watched The Avengers about 400 times (three times in theaters, approx 398 between DVD and Netflix), I've pleaded with you to give my favorite character some love, and so on. I've even tried to deal with the fact that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is kind of disappointing (though there's a related issue there that we'll get back to in a minute). And I couldn't possibly be more excited for Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier. Which is why we need to talk about this poster:
This thing is a hot mess. But we're not even going to talk about the orange and blue-ness, or the fact that an aircraft is careening straight for Robert Redford, or the general ADD-chihuahua-on-meth business of it all. We have bigger fish to fry. Two pretty big fish, in fact.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
The Island
A terrible thing happened today.
It didn't happen to me, but it's touched a lot of people I know. Someone much beloved by many of my friends is gone and he left in a terrible, difficult to understand way.
I'm not going to tell you about my feelings because this isn't my tragedy. I never met Justin. We spoke once or twice in the RDA chat, but that's about it. I'm not going to claim ownership of this pain though I sympathize with that of his friends and family.
Instead, I'm going to talk about pain. The kind of pain that exists inside you like some terrible island on which you're marooned alone with someone who hates you and knows all your soft targets.
Maybe you don't know that place. Maybe you can't even imagine what kind of pain could make somebody want to take their life. I hope you don't.
I've written about depression a lot here. I've written about my personal battle with it, which is one I still fight every day. And the circumstances of my life of late – which I won't go into here – have left me in that place more than once lately. That horrible, "please don't let me wake up tomorrow, they'd be so much better off without me, I can't take it anymore" place.
What gets me out of that place? Different things. Sometimes a friend helps me, sometimes my family. Sometimes I just ride it out and hate myself for it. But part of me is always stuck on that island. Even on good days, the Smoke Monster* is lurking somewhere in that jungle waiting to reflect all my greatest failures back at me until I crack.
If you don't know that place, it's hard to even fathom it. Even if you do – if you live there yourself – it doesn't fully make sense. I know why I should be gone, but anyone else? It's insane.
And it is. It's insane. But it's also real.
Some of you do know that place. Some of you are there right now. And to you, I beg: don't suffer alone. Don't let that monster inside you who hates you be the only voice with whom you converse. Talk to someone. Reach out to a friend, or to family, or to a hotline. Because however hopeless it seems and however alone you feel, somebody in this world loves you. Somebody wants you here. Somebody will be devastated to lose you.
Don't get caught up in trying to get off the island for good. If you're like me, you'll wind up back there many times in your life. But what I've learned is that getting back there isn't failure – you just have to know that it isn't forever.
A lot of days right now my situation seems too much to bear. A lot of days I wake up only able to look forward to going back to sleep. I know how it feels to look down the tunnel and see no light. But I also know that my brain hates me and I can't always trust it. I know I have to ask other people for help sometimes. I know that if I can find it in me to fight it can get better.
If any good is to come from this, it's in the people who loved Justin (whether as a friend or as a personality) learning from the loss of him.
Don't suffer alone. Don't hide. Don't let it win.
*Sorry. Once the island metaphor happened, a LOST reference became inevitable.
It didn't happen to me, but it's touched a lot of people I know. Someone much beloved by many of my friends is gone and he left in a terrible, difficult to understand way.
I'm not going to tell you about my feelings because this isn't my tragedy. I never met Justin. We spoke once or twice in the RDA chat, but that's about it. I'm not going to claim ownership of this pain though I sympathize with that of his friends and family.
Instead, I'm going to talk about pain. The kind of pain that exists inside you like some terrible island on which you're marooned alone with someone who hates you and knows all your soft targets.
Maybe you don't know that place. Maybe you can't even imagine what kind of pain could make somebody want to take their life. I hope you don't.
I've written about depression a lot here. I've written about my personal battle with it, which is one I still fight every day. And the circumstances of my life of late – which I won't go into here – have left me in that place more than once lately. That horrible, "please don't let me wake up tomorrow, they'd be so much better off without me, I can't take it anymore" place.
What gets me out of that place? Different things. Sometimes a friend helps me, sometimes my family. Sometimes I just ride it out and hate myself for it. But part of me is always stuck on that island. Even on good days, the Smoke Monster* is lurking somewhere in that jungle waiting to reflect all my greatest failures back at me until I crack.
If you don't know that place, it's hard to even fathom it. Even if you do – if you live there yourself – it doesn't fully make sense. I know why I should be gone, but anyone else? It's insane.
And it is. It's insane. But it's also real.
Some of you do know that place. Some of you are there right now. And to you, I beg: don't suffer alone. Don't let that monster inside you who hates you be the only voice with whom you converse. Talk to someone. Reach out to a friend, or to family, or to a hotline. Because however hopeless it seems and however alone you feel, somebody in this world loves you. Somebody wants you here. Somebody will be devastated to lose you.
Don't get caught up in trying to get off the island for good. If you're like me, you'll wind up back there many times in your life. But what I've learned is that getting back there isn't failure – you just have to know that it isn't forever.
A lot of days right now my situation seems too much to bear. A lot of days I wake up only able to look forward to going back to sleep. I know how it feels to look down the tunnel and see no light. But I also know that my brain hates me and I can't always trust it. I know I have to ask other people for help sometimes. I know that if I can find it in me to fight it can get better.
If any good is to come from this, it's in the people who loved Justin (whether as a friend or as a personality) learning from the loss of him.
Don't suffer alone. Don't hide. Don't let it win.
*Sorry. Once the island metaphor happened, a LOST reference became inevitable.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Catherine the Great
 |
| Catherine Deenihan, 1941-2013. |
After a hard-fought year of unsuccessful treatments for the leukemia in her bones, and even after ceasing treatment and handing her life over to God, she still found the strength (and perhaps the stubbornness) to do it her way.
That was my mom. She was both fiercely independent ("Don't 'should' on me!" was one of her mantras) and made of grace. And she died the way she lived – with quiet resolve.
Mom (Kitchie to close friends and family, otherwise Catherine – never Cathy) was born in Islip, NY in May of 1941, the youngest of her parents' four children. Being the youngest child of a widowed mother who worked as a nurse taught her the value of service and hard work, and as an adult she became a social worker. (Independent even then, she rebutted my father's proposals of marriage until she could finish her degree at Misericordia University.) She worked in family services for years before spending most of my life working as a substance abuse counselor, first in county clinics and then in the county jail.
She had a special combination of hard and soft that made her able to do her job – my mom was one of the toughest people I have ever known, and I can barely recall her ever fearing much of anything. But she also possessed a heart filled with compassion and kindness and a faith that could fill a church on its own.
When Mom first got sick, I was beside myself with anger. It's so unfair, I said to her. You've barely had time to deal with losing Dad. Couldn't God give you a break? I'll never forget her reply: she told me not to be upset, that she was grateful for her many blessings.
"I only ever asked for the strength to take care of your father," she said. She told me that she had gotten that, and trips to Maine and Ireland after his death, and that she was going to be getting excellent care.
That was my mom too. No matter how bad things got, she was always grateful for what she had. And she always had faith that things happened for a reason, and that God would keep her on the right path. "God provides," she'd always tell me.
Mom taught me so much that I still carry with me, and so much more that I try to emulate with middling success. She raised my sisters and I to be ladylike but strong, to be compassionate and always consider the feelings of others, to be self-sufficient but charitable. She taught etiquette and decorum with such effect that to this day I cringe to see what most of my friends consider old-fashioned norms eschewed. (I'm the ninny who insists on covering my shoulders at a church wedding no matter how liberal the parish, because if I don't my mother will know.) If my mother knew you, she knew your birthday, anniversary, and any other pertinent occasions, and would make every possible effort to properly commemorate them and make sure you felt special.
And she was fun. She had a quick and often wicked sense of humor. She loved to laugh – and no one could make her laugh like her grandchildren, who she prized above any possible treasure this world could offer.
 |
| Mom with her four favorite people: Holly, Patrick, Keira, and Dan. |
It's funny the little details you remember of a person. I remember riding in the car with my mom years ago – I've long since forgotten where we were going, but I remember her singing along to the Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" on the oldies station. I remember how much fun she had imitating the Bopper's deep voice. And a ponytail, hanging doowwwnn...
The past year was a trial for her. But what's struck me more than anything is how calm, how strong, how grateful she remained all along. She didn't give up and she didn't linger in despair. Instead she gave thanks and clung to her faith for strength. She took comfort in her family and friends, and fought every second to live with dignity and grace to her last breath. And she left on her own terms, at peace with her life and with her death.
Watching her has made me want to follow her example. I try. I don't know if anyone can ever truly fill my mother's mold, but the best way I can think of to honor her is to try. And to always be thankful for the many blessings life has given to me.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The Show Must Go On!
It really must!
Last year many of you were generous enough to support my IndieGogo campaign to buy equipment to start my own webseries. With that money I got a camera, software, a microphone, and some other accessories. (I already have a green screen and am trying to figure out what one does with footage shot in front of it.)
Since then a lot of you have asked me when the show will be up and running. And the answer is... I hope very soon.
I could tell you that I started a new job a month ago and have been adjusting to a new schedule, and that I'm trying to do home repairs and eventually move, and that there have been various other distractions. And all of that is true. But the simple truth is that the hold up boils down to one thing:
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I've never done this before! I've never used a camera this advanced, or edited footage beyond that one vlog that one time, or used a green screen, or converted screencaptures to footage, or, or or... and it's all sort of intimidating and overwhelming. And when I get intimidated and overwhelmed I have this awful habit of procrastinating. Aaaaaaand that's really what's been going on. I've been looking at all this stuff and tinkering with it and then going OMG SCARY! and backing off.
Which is pretty silly, isn't it? There's only one way to figure out how to do this, and that's by doing it.
So I'm making a game plan. I'm making up a list of dumb questions to ask the producers I know. I'm reading user's manuals (exciting!). I may do some off-the-cuff livestreaming to try and tinker at some point.
And with any luck this will yield a web series for all of you to heckle and/or enjoy pretty soon. My goal date is to have something to show you by the 4th of July. That gives me a month and a half to do some studying and make something. And maybe that something will even be half decent!
I also have about six or seven blog posts kicking around my head that I haven't written because I don't spend nearly as much time at the computer as I used to these days. (And yes, the meatspace is scary. But sometimes it's also fun and sometimes it also pays you money. Sometimes both.) But I'm going to try and update this little corner of the internet more often as well.
All of that said, thank you again for your generosity and patience. I shall endeavor to make it worth your while in as many non-porny ways as I can muster.
Last year many of you were generous enough to support my IndieGogo campaign to buy equipment to start my own webseries. With that money I got a camera, software, a microphone, and some other accessories. (I already have a green screen and am trying to figure out what one does with footage shot in front of it.)
Since then a lot of you have asked me when the show will be up and running. And the answer is... I hope very soon.
I could tell you that I started a new job a month ago and have been adjusting to a new schedule, and that I'm trying to do home repairs and eventually move, and that there have been various other distractions. And all of that is true. But the simple truth is that the hold up boils down to one thing:
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I've never done this before! I've never used a camera this advanced, or edited footage beyond that one vlog that one time, or used a green screen, or converted screencaptures to footage, or, or or... and it's all sort of intimidating and overwhelming. And when I get intimidated and overwhelmed I have this awful habit of procrastinating. Aaaaaaand that's really what's been going on. I've been looking at all this stuff and tinkering with it and then going OMG SCARY! and backing off.
Which is pretty silly, isn't it? There's only one way to figure out how to do this, and that's by doing it.
So I'm making a game plan. I'm making up a list of dumb questions to ask the producers I know. I'm reading user's manuals (exciting!). I may do some off-the-cuff livestreaming to try and tinker at some point.
And with any luck this will yield a web series for all of you to heckle and/or enjoy pretty soon. My goal date is to have something to show you by the 4th of July. That gives me a month and a half to do some studying and make something. And maybe that something will even be half decent!
I also have about six or seven blog posts kicking around my head that I haven't written because I don't spend nearly as much time at the computer as I used to these days. (And yes, the meatspace is scary. But sometimes it's also fun and sometimes it also pays you money. Sometimes both.) But I'm going to try and update this little corner of the internet more often as well.
All of that said, thank you again for your generosity and patience. I shall endeavor to make it worth your while in as many non-porny ways as I can muster.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Oz is so pretty, oh so pretty... vacant.
It's rare for me to go to a movie and not enjoy something about it. I'll happily re-watch movies I know to be terrible because they're aesthetically interesting to me (see: Hannibal), or because the lead actor makes great eye candy and there are some great performances wrapped in crap (see: Wolverine: Origins), or because they're just ridiculous and fun (see: Shoot 'Em Up, Bring It On, Transporter 2). Most of the time I can find something about a movie to enjoy. So it was a weird feeling to be sitting in that theater last night feeling completely disconnected. Bored, even. The Land of Oz should never be boring, and neither should anything involving Sam Raimi and/or Rachel Weisz. But this movie somehow manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
From here on in there will be spoilers, so consider the page break your warning. Follow the yellow brick road at your own peril...
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Irish Fairy Tales
I mentioned in an earlier post that I took a trip to Ireland late last year. If you're lucky enough to have been to Ireland you know what a beautiful place it is. But even if you haven't visited you're probably aware of Ireland's rich history of folklore and storytelling. And it just so happens that on our trip, we created a few stories of our own.
I promised my mother I would write these down for her. I've been slacking on doing so. So, Mom: sorry this took so long! I hope I did justice to these fun anecdotes from our trip.
The cemetery is very old, and sits in a quiet little section of Adare away from the tourist destinations and shops. The church around which the graveyard sits has long since crumbled to ruins, and for years the place was overgrown with brush and greenery.
Only recently has the old cemetery been cleared – and that is, perhaps, how the Ghost escaped.
You wouldn't expect a German ghost in a small Irish cemetery. And though you'll hear many stories of how he came to be there, no one person can say for sure. All that is known is that on one grey, windy day, the tumbled tombstones inside the crumbled church were disturbed.
It was quiet enough at first that you could easily think you had imagined the sound, or that the wind had rattled something and caused the noise. But soon the quiet mutterings grew louder and there could be no mistake. Something was awake inside...
The clouds darkened, and the wind whipped, and a lonely face appeared between the stones of one long-fallen wall.
"I'm a long way from home," you might have heard him say, if you were close enough. (Or you might not. The voices of ghosts are soft and easily carried away on the breeze.) "How will I get out of here?"
And the Gruber Ghost began to climb. He tested each wall, until finally he found a very tiny opening that spilled out onto a very tiny path.
And the Gruber Ghost began to crawl, and to squeeze, and finally he tumbled to the ground.
And had you been there, you may have seen the clouds part just the slightest bit. You may have seen the sun break through for a few seconds between drizzles of rain. You may have felt the gusts calm to a quiet whisper of a breeze carrying a lost traveler home.
I promised my mother I would write these down for her. I've been slacking on doing so. So, Mom: sorry this took so long! I hope I did justice to these fun anecdotes from our trip.
The Gruber Ghost of Adare
Only recently has the old cemetery been cleared – and that is, perhaps, how the Ghost escaped.
You wouldn't expect a German ghost in a small Irish cemetery. And though you'll hear many stories of how he came to be there, no one person can say for sure. All that is known is that on one grey, windy day, the tumbled tombstones inside the crumbled church were disturbed.
It was quiet enough at first that you could easily think you had imagined the sound, or that the wind had rattled something and caused the noise. But soon the quiet mutterings grew louder and there could be no mistake. Something was awake inside...
"I'm a long way from home," you might have heard him say, if you were close enough. (Or you might not. The voices of ghosts are soft and easily carried away on the breeze.) "How will I get out of here?"
And the Gruber Ghost began to climb. He tested each wall, until finally he found a very tiny opening that spilled out onto a very tiny path.
And the Gruber Ghost began to crawl, and to squeeze, and finally he tumbled to the ground.
And had you been there, you may have seen the clouds part just the slightest bit. You may have seen the sun break through for a few seconds between drizzles of rain. You may have felt the gusts calm to a quiet whisper of a breeze carrying a lost traveler home.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
A Brief Interlude
I do not like you, 50 Shades.
There are far superior marital aids.
I do not like your hacky prose,
In fact I think it really blows.
And though I would like slimmer hips,
I doubt I'll get them by biting my lips.
So take this "workout" thing and shove it –
even if the sheltered housewives love it.
I do not like you, 50 Shades of Grey,
When oh when will you go away?!
(Actual content coming later this week. Promise.)
There are far superior marital aids.
I do not like your hacky prose,
In fact I think it really blows.
And though I would like slimmer hips,
I doubt I'll get them by biting my lips.
So take this "workout" thing and shove it –
even if the sheltered housewives love it.
I do not like you, 50 Shades of Grey,
When oh when will you go away?!
(Actual content coming later this week. Promise.)
Thursday, December 13, 2012
And I'm ready to suffer, and I'm ready to hope.
This last week has been a total roller coaster. And while I'd love to go into specifics, since writing about things is sort of how I process and organize them and make sense of this big crazy world as best I can, pretty much everything going on is of a nature too private for blogging. (I know this seems like a weird thing to say given that I've written several detailed posts about the state of my mental illness. But there are some things even I won't broadcast to the open internet. Plus those posts had the capacity to incite helpful discussion, where going on about my current state of affairs would really just be airing dirty laundry.) Suffice to say I've hit some euphoric highs and some crushing lows, and it's all been sort of mentally exhausting, especially coupled with working retail at The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
And all of that sort of got me thinking. 2012 has been a rough year. I have this ridiculous apocalypse phobia – always have. Since I was a kid I worried senselessly about seeing the End of Days and being crippled with fear as the skies go black and the seas boil. (I was a melodramatic kid.) So you can imagine how awesome all this Mayan calendar business has been for me. And since I am also blessed with an advanced case of apophenia, every time some lunatic shoots up a public place or a massive hurricane devastates some place or someone starts making nuclear threats the shiny red CRAZY button in the back of my head gets hit.
There's a point to this rambling, I promise.
Is the world ending? Probably not. But in a lot of ways, my personal world as I knew it ended in 2012. I lost my father. The end of my marriage was finalized. Other little things along the way. 2012 was a year of (often painful) endings for me.
So with that in mind, Ive decided to approach this "phoenix in the ashes" style and make 2013 a year of beginnings. I've taken a few hits and been surprised at the fact that I was able to pick myself up and dust myself off. But before my standard of living somehow gets stuck on survive, I want to take charge a little. There are things I want to do. There are things I need to do.
I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions. There's no real reason for this; I'm not morally opposed to them or anything. I just don't do them. So this isn't a list of New Year's Resolutions. This is just... a wish list of sorts, I guess. But it's the kind of wish list where no one can really give you the gifts on it but yourself.
• I need to move! I'm too far from my family, and that needs to change. This one involves a lot of work, but it's time to get to it.
• I have a web series to get off the ground! This one terrifies me, as I know not the first thing about scripting, filming, or editing such a thing. But I've got tons of support of which I shall endeavor to prove worthy. First step is learn how to use this cool-looking camera I now own...
• I need to be a better daughter/sister/aunt. Family, I love you. I don't see you enough, or help you enough, or call enough. You've all been there for me when I needed it and I can never really tell you how grateful I am to have you. But I love you immensely and aim to be better at showing you that.
•••
There are more things, but it gets all weird and way too personal and detailed and it's mostly stuff the open internet wouldn't care too much about anyway. The long and short of it is this: 2012 put a period on a lot of things for me. I'm looking to make 2013 the start of the next chapter.
There's a particular Counting Crows song that I always tend to listen to a lot this time of year. It suits the frozen melancholy of a New England winter really well, and in my most depressed of states it speaks to a certain wistful hope for a better future. But it's also a bit passive. So this year I'm going back to my girl Florence. (You can never go wrong with Florence. This is a great truth of my life.) This song lifted me up during some of my darkest moments this year, so it seems a more fitting theme going forward:
It's also where the title of this post comes from.
Whatever kind of 2012 you had, I wish you a successful, awesome, and scary in the best of ways 2013. That's the kind of year I'm aiming to have.
And all of that sort of got me thinking. 2012 has been a rough year. I have this ridiculous apocalypse phobia – always have. Since I was a kid I worried senselessly about seeing the End of Days and being crippled with fear as the skies go black and the seas boil. (I was a melodramatic kid.) So you can imagine how awesome all this Mayan calendar business has been for me. And since I am also blessed with an advanced case of apophenia, every time some lunatic shoots up a public place or a massive hurricane devastates some place or someone starts making nuclear threats the shiny red CRAZY button in the back of my head gets hit.
There's a point to this rambling, I promise.
Is the world ending? Probably not. But in a lot of ways, my personal world as I knew it ended in 2012. I lost my father. The end of my marriage was finalized. Other little things along the way. 2012 was a year of (often painful) endings for me.
So with that in mind, Ive decided to approach this "phoenix in the ashes" style and make 2013 a year of beginnings. I've taken a few hits and been surprised at the fact that I was able to pick myself up and dust myself off. But before my standard of living somehow gets stuck on survive, I want to take charge a little. There are things I want to do. There are things I need to do.
I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions. There's no real reason for this; I'm not morally opposed to them or anything. I just don't do them. So this isn't a list of New Year's Resolutions. This is just... a wish list of sorts, I guess. But it's the kind of wish list where no one can really give you the gifts on it but yourself.
Tara's 2013 Wish List (in no particular order)
• I need to write more. Since my father's death and the post I wrote for him, a lot of people have asked me "why aren't you a writer?" The answer is simple and silly: I have no idea how one becomes a writer. But I'm going to write more and see if I can figure out some way to maybe claim I'm a professional at it.• I need to move! I'm too far from my family, and that needs to change. This one involves a lot of work, but it's time to get to it.
• I have a web series to get off the ground! This one terrifies me, as I know not the first thing about scripting, filming, or editing such a thing. But I've got tons of support of which I shall endeavor to prove worthy. First step is learn how to use this cool-looking camera I now own...
• I need to be a better daughter/sister/aunt. Family, I love you. I don't see you enough, or help you enough, or call enough. You've all been there for me when I needed it and I can never really tell you how grateful I am to have you. But I love you immensely and aim to be better at showing you that.
•••
There are more things, but it gets all weird and way too personal and detailed and it's mostly stuff the open internet wouldn't care too much about anyway. The long and short of it is this: 2012 put a period on a lot of things for me. I'm looking to make 2013 the start of the next chapter.
There's a particular Counting Crows song that I always tend to listen to a lot this time of year. It suits the frozen melancholy of a New England winter really well, and in my most depressed of states it speaks to a certain wistful hope for a better future. But it's also a bit passive. So this year I'm going back to my girl Florence. (You can never go wrong with Florence. This is a great truth of my life.) This song lifted me up during some of my darkest moments this year, so it seems a more fitting theme going forward:
It's also where the title of this post comes from.
Whatever kind of 2012 you had, I wish you a successful, awesome, and scary in the best of ways 2013. That's the kind of year I'm aiming to have.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
I'm (Not) A Slave 4 U
So I've already covered some helpful tips for making the holiday shopping season a less stressful experience for everyone. That was the nice version. This is the slightly less nice, perhaps a little bitter version.
Somewhere along the line it became acceptable – at least in the States – to treat retail and other service workers as somehow less than ourselves. I blame the "customer is always right" mentality. This business strategy has led us to a point where the consumer knows that he or she can literally abuse the employees and rules of any given business and never face any retribution, because heaven forfend that business cost itself a sale or suffer a negative online review. You can complain about almost anything, however ludicrous, and expect to receive an apology and probably a coupon or free item. You can return items past the return date stated on your receipt, or without a receipt, or items that an employee saw you steal, and expect to get a refund. Because if we say "no," you might not shop with us (or steal from us) again.
I'm not saying everyone abuses the system. I'm not saying everyone is a bad customer. But my experience has shown me that an appalling number of people have become so accustomed to being coddled that even the kindest souls simply seem to forget that retail workers are human. So get ready to check your behavior – and if you're guilty of any of these things, think hard about how you'd feel if someone did any of them to you or about the hell you'd raise if a service employee acted similarly toward you.
Let's get into it.
Somewhere along the line it became acceptable – at least in the States – to treat retail and other service workers as somehow less than ourselves. I blame the "customer is always right" mentality. This business strategy has led us to a point where the consumer knows that he or she can literally abuse the employees and rules of any given business and never face any retribution, because heaven forfend that business cost itself a sale or suffer a negative online review. You can complain about almost anything, however ludicrous, and expect to receive an apology and probably a coupon or free item. You can return items past the return date stated on your receipt, or without a receipt, or items that an employee saw you steal, and expect to get a refund. Because if we say "no," you might not shop with us (or steal from us) again.
I'm not saying everyone abuses the system. I'm not saying everyone is a bad customer. But my experience has shown me that an appalling number of people have become so accustomed to being coddled that even the kindest souls simply seem to forget that retail workers are human. So get ready to check your behavior – and if you're guilty of any of these things, think hard about how you'd feel if someone did any of them to you or about the hell you'd raise if a service employee acted similarly toward you.
Let's get into it.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Merry Shopmas!
This is reposted from my now-dormant fashion blog. Happy Thanksgiving!
•••
I'm baaaaaaack!
Well, that's the plan anyway. I work retail and it's late November, and that means my soul will belong to the mall gods for at least the next month, but my intention is to pull this blog back from the netherworld and get back to it.
And I mention the timing not just to make a blatant play for your sympathy, but also because it's topical! Black Friday is staring us down and soon many of us will be fighting the crowds in search of gifts for our loved ones. So in the hopes of making everyone's season a little more merry and a little less Grinchy, I give you:
Before I start, let me say that this list is not just intended to be the grumpy rantings of a retail salesperson. These tips will make your life easier too. Some of them are common sense, some of them are common courtesy, but they're all good things to keep in mind. That said, let's get into it:
•••
I'm baaaaaaack!
Well, that's the plan anyway. I work retail and it's late November, and that means my soul will belong to the mall gods for at least the next month, but my intention is to pull this blog back from the netherworld and get back to it.
And I mention the timing not just to make a blatant play for your sympathy, but also because it's topical! Black Friday is staring us down and soon many of us will be fighting the crowds in search of gifts for our loved ones. So in the hopes of making everyone's season a little more merry and a little less Grinchy, I give you:
Care and Maintenance of Your Retail Associate: A Handy Guide for a Happier Holiday
 |
| No, this is not the new Romero movie. This is your local mall. |
Before I start, let me say that this list is not just intended to be the grumpy rantings of a retail salesperson. These tips will make your life easier too. Some of them are common sense, some of them are common courtesy, but they're all good things to keep in mind. That said, let's get into it:
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Nature abhors a vacuum but what's between your ears?
I have a crush on The Newsroom.
The first few minutes went live on the web before the first episode aired, and I was quickly intrigued. I was a huge fan of The West Wing and its "smart people talking really fast about smart things" formula, and I was excited to see this applied to broadcast journalism.
(Full disclosure: I minored in journalism in college and considered a career in the industry. I went a different direction partially because of exactly the media issues addressed by The Newsroom – I say at the risk of getting ahead of myself – and partially because I wanted to do something more artsy.)
So that first clip is really well-known. But the clip that reaches inside my chest and wraps its hand around my beating heart is this one:
YES YES YES. It's the speech I imagine my college journalism professor – a fantastic and smart man who taught his students to be diligent and meticulously ethical – would want to see on television news. It's the speech I would love to see, and the speech that would get me watching a news show religiously (should I ever own a working TV again).
The show does fall victim to some trademark Sorkin pitfalls: the male lead is a genius prodigy with daddy issues, there is angst aplenty about co-workers who can't admit they're in love, everyone is a super genius who talks a mile a minute, etc. And the liberal bias is deep enough that you need a snorkeling mask. But beneath all that, the show makes some very important points about the state of American journalism.
The graphic at the left circulated on Facebook not too long ago. It's one of those "laugh because it's funny; cry because it's true" things for me.
I'm a self-confessed CNN junkie. When I had a working TV or when I'm somewhere where I have access to and control of one, I'll happily leave CNN on all day. I like seeing the different ways a story is presented based on the time of day and the demographic audience at that time, or the way the presentation is changed between daytime and prime time and the weekend. But mostly I like a steady stream of information. (It's the same reason I feel naked without my smart phone now – I can't stand feeling like there's something going on that I don't know about. Maybe that's why I studied journalism.)
But I feel a little guilty for my CNN obsession, because I know that even though it's not as clearly biased as Fox News or MSNBC, it's still not presenting the highest form of discourse or anything close to a complete picture of the news. (There are a few exceptions to this. Fareed Zakaria has a Sunday morning show that deals with a lot of international news that the network at large ignores or under-covers... but it's hidden away on Sunday morning.) I could listen to NPR or watch C-SPAN, but I don't. I call myself a purist, but instead of going to the organic farmer's market I happily swallow the processed, preservative-laden canned vegetables from the local chain grocery store.
So how do you fix the state of journalism when even those who love it fall into the trap of style over substance? I don't know. It's too late to put the advertising worms back in the can, so whether we like it or not, news and its presentation are a business. Print journalism weakens with every passing day. And while the rise of blogs and the internet provides a wider range of sources for information, it also skews the signal to noise ratio heavily.
For now, I'm content to get lost in Sorkin's idealistic little world once in a while and resolved to begin seeking different sources for my news fix.
Post title is a line from this R.E.M. song.
The first few minutes went live on the web before the first episode aired, and I was quickly intrigued. I was a huge fan of The West Wing and its "smart people talking really fast about smart things" formula, and I was excited to see this applied to broadcast journalism.
(Full disclosure: I minored in journalism in college and considered a career in the industry. I went a different direction partially because of exactly the media issues addressed by The Newsroom – I say at the risk of getting ahead of myself – and partially because I wanted to do something more artsy.)
So that first clip is really well-known. But the clip that reaches inside my chest and wraps its hand around my beating heart is this one:
YES YES YES. It's the speech I imagine my college journalism professor – a fantastic and smart man who taught his students to be diligent and meticulously ethical – would want to see on television news. It's the speech I would love to see, and the speech that would get me watching a news show religiously (should I ever own a working TV again).
The show does fall victim to some trademark Sorkin pitfalls: the male lead is a genius prodigy with daddy issues, there is angst aplenty about co-workers who can't admit they're in love, everyone is a super genius who talks a mile a minute, etc. And the liberal bias is deep enough that you need a snorkeling mask. But beneath all that, the show makes some very important points about the state of American journalism.
I'm a self-confessed CNN junkie. When I had a working TV or when I'm somewhere where I have access to and control of one, I'll happily leave CNN on all day. I like seeing the different ways a story is presented based on the time of day and the demographic audience at that time, or the way the presentation is changed between daytime and prime time and the weekend. But mostly I like a steady stream of information. (It's the same reason I feel naked without my smart phone now – I can't stand feeling like there's something going on that I don't know about. Maybe that's why I studied journalism.)
But I feel a little guilty for my CNN obsession, because I know that even though it's not as clearly biased as Fox News or MSNBC, it's still not presenting the highest form of discourse or anything close to a complete picture of the news. (There are a few exceptions to this. Fareed Zakaria has a Sunday morning show that deals with a lot of international news that the network at large ignores or under-covers... but it's hidden away on Sunday morning.) I could listen to NPR or watch C-SPAN, but I don't. I call myself a purist, but instead of going to the organic farmer's market I happily swallow the processed, preservative-laden canned vegetables from the local chain grocery store.
So how do you fix the state of journalism when even those who love it fall into the trap of style over substance? I don't know. It's too late to put the advertising worms back in the can, so whether we like it or not, news and its presentation are a business. Print journalism weakens with every passing day. And while the rise of blogs and the internet provides a wider range of sources for information, it also skews the signal to noise ratio heavily.
For now, I'm content to get lost in Sorkin's idealistic little world once in a while and resolved to begin seeking different sources for my news fix.
Post title is a line from this R.E.M. song.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Been Away Too Long
Well hi there, blog. Remember me? I don't really blame you if you don't. I haven't visited much lately. Sorry about that.
I started this blog because I wanted and intended to write more. This was partially because thanks to certain online shenanigans I sort of have an audience now, but mostly because I like to write. It's how I process things sometimes, it's how I express myself, it's how I'm most articulate. And lord knows I've had things I wanted to write about the past few months... but I either didn't have the energy or the time or both, and I sort of lost the plot in there somewhere.
Anyone who reads this blog knows that my father passed away over the summer. That, while not unexpected, was a tough time. I still miss him a lot and I think about him all the time. (When my car acts up I catch myself going, "OK Dad, I hear you. I'll check the oil.") For a while other things seemed less important in comparison.
I didn't write for a while because I didn't want the post I wrote about my dad scrolling off the page. Or because I didn't think I could write anything else as good as I was told that post was. But the number of people who told me I need to be writing suggests to me that the greater error would be letting myself stagnate.
So, here we are.
What's up with me? Some of the same, some new. My depression got really bad for a while, which is another thing that kept me from writing. I got to a point where I felt totally overwhelmed by my life. I felt trapped and alone and terrified and I didn't see a way out. And then the weirdest thing happened...
I took a trip to Ireland with some of my immediate family. Our family there had arranged a memorial mass for my dad since not all of them could come to the funeral. The day we left I was hanging by a thread mentally and had no idea how I was even going to get through the week. But something about that trip – maybe just being away from my life for seven days, maybe seeing family I never see, maybe being in such a beautiful place – helped me turn a corner. When I came back I was amazed at how good I felt. How calm and happy and weirdly zen. It was like I just forgot to pack all the anxiety and melancholy that had been weighing me down and left it overseas.
For a few weeks I tread carefully, waiting for that high to dissipate, but it hasn't. It's like someone ran an anti-virus program on my brain and gave me a fresh start. Yes, I'm still on my meds. Yes, I still need them. But I'm in a better place now than I have been in a long time.
I feel stronger somehow, too. I've spent a lot of time apologizing and/or carrying crosses that weren't mine to bear. I feel more able to give that up now. I feel like I can stand a little taller and look the world in the eye without flinching. I feel better equipped to face my own problems and to not make anyone else's problems my own.
I don't know how or why it happened, but it's a pretty good place to be.
There's been a myriad of other things since then – family emergencies, car trouble, a million of the other random things that make up day-to-day life and would usually send me into a tailspin. But I've been good. I credit a lot of that to my mother, who has recently given me incomparable lessons in strength, dignity, and grace. Some of it, though, I think is progress I made on my own.
Anyway, that's sort of the State of the Tara.
I'm going to make an effort to write more, even if it's just silly pop culture crap. In the coming year I'm starting a web show – a prospect which terrifies me, but about which I'm also very excited. I'm sure I'll have things to write about that process as well.
I feel like I've finally gotten (mentally, anyway) the fresh start I've been seeking for so long. There are still a lot of things I need to work out, but I feel a lot better about where I am than I have in a long time, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. Right now I'm trying to channel all of that into progress. And that includes this blog.
So in short, I'm back. Nice to see you again!
*Post title stolen from the new Soundgarden song. Did you miss Soundgarden as much as I did?
I started this blog because I wanted and intended to write more. This was partially because thanks to certain online shenanigans I sort of have an audience now, but mostly because I like to write. It's how I process things sometimes, it's how I express myself, it's how I'm most articulate. And lord knows I've had things I wanted to write about the past few months... but I either didn't have the energy or the time or both, and I sort of lost the plot in there somewhere.
Anyone who reads this blog knows that my father passed away over the summer. That, while not unexpected, was a tough time. I still miss him a lot and I think about him all the time. (When my car acts up I catch myself going, "OK Dad, I hear you. I'll check the oil.") For a while other things seemed less important in comparison.
I didn't write for a while because I didn't want the post I wrote about my dad scrolling off the page. Or because I didn't think I could write anything else as good as I was told that post was. But the number of people who told me I need to be writing suggests to me that the greater error would be letting myself stagnate.
So, here we are.
What's up with me? Some of the same, some new. My depression got really bad for a while, which is another thing that kept me from writing. I got to a point where I felt totally overwhelmed by my life. I felt trapped and alone and terrified and I didn't see a way out. And then the weirdest thing happened...
I took a trip to Ireland with some of my immediate family. Our family there had arranged a memorial mass for my dad since not all of them could come to the funeral. The day we left I was hanging by a thread mentally and had no idea how I was even going to get through the week. But something about that trip – maybe just being away from my life for seven days, maybe seeing family I never see, maybe being in such a beautiful place – helped me turn a corner. When I came back I was amazed at how good I felt. How calm and happy and weirdly zen. It was like I just forgot to pack all the anxiety and melancholy that had been weighing me down and left it overseas.
For a few weeks I tread carefully, waiting for that high to dissipate, but it hasn't. It's like someone ran an anti-virus program on my brain and gave me a fresh start. Yes, I'm still on my meds. Yes, I still need them. But I'm in a better place now than I have been in a long time.
I feel stronger somehow, too. I've spent a lot of time apologizing and/or carrying crosses that weren't mine to bear. I feel more able to give that up now. I feel like I can stand a little taller and look the world in the eye without flinching. I feel better equipped to face my own problems and to not make anyone else's problems my own.
I don't know how or why it happened, but it's a pretty good place to be.
There's been a myriad of other things since then – family emergencies, car trouble, a million of the other random things that make up day-to-day life and would usually send me into a tailspin. But I've been good. I credit a lot of that to my mother, who has recently given me incomparable lessons in strength, dignity, and grace. Some of it, though, I think is progress I made on my own.
Anyway, that's sort of the State of the Tara.
I'm going to make an effort to write more, even if it's just silly pop culture crap. In the coming year I'm starting a web show – a prospect which terrifies me, but about which I'm also very excited. I'm sure I'll have things to write about that process as well.
I feel like I've finally gotten (mentally, anyway) the fresh start I've been seeking for so long. There are still a lot of things I need to work out, but I feel a lot better about where I am than I have in a long time, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. Right now I'm trying to channel all of that into progress. And that includes this blog.
So in short, I'm back. Nice to see you again!
*Post title stolen from the new Soundgarden song. Did you miss Soundgarden as much as I did?
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
An Open Letter To Mr. Joss Whedon
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| Firestar #1 cover art by Stephanie Hans |
And so I submit for your consideration: Firestar.
Let me start with a little background: when I was a kid, my sister loved the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman TV show. (Who didn't?) Not being a comics fan until much later, Carter's Diana became the image in my mind for what a female superhero looked like. Then I saw an episode of Spiderman and His Amazing Friends and was introduced to Miss Angelica Jones. I was instantly enamored – a fellow redhead! With superpowers! This, to my child self, was the coolest thing ever.
Years later I would discover a chewy nerd center beneath my ginger shell and would come to realize that while about 2% of the real world's population are redheads, about 40% of the comic book world's population are redheads. But my sentimental attachment to Firestar remained.
She's not the most appreciated of characters. She's spent most of her career relegated to the background, a supporting character to the "real" heroes. And since she was only ever a short-term Avenger, I'm not saying she needs to be added to the principal team. She'd work well as a supporting character – someone on the level of a Maria Hill or (dare I suggest it?) a Phil Coulson.*
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| Please don't hold the disco windbreaker costume against her. She's a modest girl... |
I could go off on a tangent about how she could probably relate well to Bruce Banner as she'd share his reluctance to be a superhero and relate to the involuntary nature of his condition, or how she could provide a contrast to characters like Iron Man and Captain America for the same reason. Or about how a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is confirmed and her ex-fiancee might be a bit connected to those guys. But that would make it seem like I've put way too much thought into this, and I wouldn't want to look like a crazy fangirl. So we'll just skip all that business.
Now I know what you've been thinking this whole time: Firestar is a mutant, which means she's technically an X-Men property, which means she's owned by Fox, which means a Disney-Paramount owned property like the Avengers can't touch her. And this is true. But let's be honest here... I doubt Fox is itching to put her in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and nothing says you couldn't work around it by just referring to her as a "scientific anomaly" or something. It's not like you'd be asking to pilfer Charles Xavier.
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| ...and she didn't want to wear this. (It's my favorite of her costumes, though.) |
And I realize that I keep going on about Angelica Jones, while technically the movie universe lines up with the Ultimates titles, and Ultimate Firestar is Liz Allan. Call me a purist; I'd much rather see the original article up on the big screen.
But back to the pitch.
Angelica Jones/Firestar is the sort of character you don't see much in comic book movies. She's quiet and modest. Faced with the events of Civil War she chose to retire and lead the quiet life of a student. She'd fit in well as a second-tier S.H.I.E.L.D. agent – someone who feels a responsibility to use her unique abilities to help people but who isn't interested in the spotlight. She's the sort of character who would create a spin on the superhero genre you don't see very often. Instead of someone who seeks out a certain destiny, she was handed a set of circumstances and chose to bloom where she was planted. She's not dark or edgy, but she's still got potential to offer a fresh perspective on the definition of a hero.
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| I might have some level of investment in ginger Marvel heroines... |
One of the things people discussed most about The Avengers was the way it managed to focus on the personal interactions between the characters without skimping on the action. If you ask me, adding a character like Firestar helps this along, especially in the (assumed) absence of Coulson. She's as close to an Everyman as you're likely to get in a super-powered heroine. Added to the supporting cast, she could add some dimension to an already well-developed stable of characters.
And so, I write this overly long and perhaps too-researched diatribe in the vain hope that my old sentimental favorite will get her chance to shine on the silver screen. I realize it's a long shot. But heck, superhero movies are supposed to make us all gooey with wide-eyed wonder and belief, right? You can't blame a girl for dreaming.
So... Viva La Firestar! And if you just want to use her as a glorified extra, I don't really have much in the way of acting experience, but I do have some limited experience with superhero-styled spandex. Which I don't add in to be pathetically fangirly at all.
Love and Kisses,
Tara
Ginger Fangirl At Large
*I'm still a little mad at you for what you did to Son of Coul, Joss. That was cold.
**But since we brought up Hank Pym, he did design the costume that would eventually protect Angelica from her radioactive powers, and there's rumors he'll be added to the next film... just sayin'.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Fumbling Towards Byzantium
I haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. But after writing about my dad, it's been a little hard for me to make myself post anything that will cause his image to scroll further down (and eventually off) the page. Something about it just seemed... wrong, somehow. Like if I could just keep writing and let that post move through the queue I'd be erasing him or something.
On the other hand, that post got such a response (both online and out in the meatspace) that I feel like I need to write more. I've ignored that, whether out of lack of inspiration or out of fear of letting Dad's post go, or something else entirely. But I want to get back into it.
Some of what you may see here will be mindless drivel. Or me babbling about pop culture, or me whining about why the Mets can't just play consistent baseball, or me scheming on how to get Firestar into Avengers 2. Some of it will be higher quality content when the inspiration and ability strike me.
And some of it will be continuing to talk about mental health. I promise this is not going to become Tara's Depression Blog. Pinky swear. But some of you have said my posts on that topic really helped you, and writing things out always helps me to organize them in my brain, so I'm going to stick with that while trying to interject some other stuff as well.
In a way I feel like I owe this to my dad a bit. A lot of people at his wake and funeral asked me why I'm not a writer and I didn't have a good answer. The best I could come up with was, "I don't really know how to be a writer." But I'm reminded of the advice Neil Gaiman says he always gives to young writers: "Write. Finish things." So that's what I'm going to try to do. Maybe it'll go somewhere, maybe it'll just help me keep my head organized and allow me to connect with all of you who read these things. Either way I feel like it's a win.
Post title is an unholy mashup of this Sarah McLachlan song and this William Butler Yeats poem. Don't you judge me; I'm a complex woman.
On the other hand, that post got such a response (both online and out in the meatspace) that I feel like I need to write more. I've ignored that, whether out of lack of inspiration or out of fear of letting Dad's post go, or something else entirely. But I want to get back into it.
Some of what you may see here will be mindless drivel. Or me babbling about pop culture, or me whining about why the Mets can't just play consistent baseball, or me scheming on how to get Firestar into Avengers 2. Some of it will be higher quality content when the inspiration and ability strike me.
And some of it will be continuing to talk about mental health. I promise this is not going to become Tara's Depression Blog. Pinky swear. But some of you have said my posts on that topic really helped you, and writing things out always helps me to organize them in my brain, so I'm going to stick with that while trying to interject some other stuff as well.
In a way I feel like I owe this to my dad a bit. A lot of people at his wake and funeral asked me why I'm not a writer and I didn't have a good answer. The best I could come up with was, "I don't really know how to be a writer." But I'm reminded of the advice Neil Gaiman says he always gives to young writers: "Write. Finish things." So that's what I'm going to try to do. Maybe it'll go somewhere, maybe it'll just help me keep my head organized and allow me to connect with all of you who read these things. Either way I feel like it's a win.
Post title is an unholy mashup of this Sarah McLachlan song and this William Butler Yeats poem. Don't you judge me; I'm a complex woman.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Big Fellah
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| RIP Patrick Deenihan, 1931-2012. |
My mom called this morning. "Dad's gone home to Heaven," she said.
Dad would have been 81 next week. He's struggled with Alzheimer's, heart troubles, asthma, and a host of other ailments for years now. He passed peacefully in his sleep; a blessing given how frail and disoriented he'd become.
My dad was born in Ballybunion, Co. Kerry, Ireland in 1931. He came to America in 1960, and he and my mom were married in 1967. I think it was hard from him always being so far from his family. He and my mom worked very hard to make sure my sisters and I felt connected to our Irish family as much as we did our family in the States.
Mom used to tell us, "All the kids think their dad is Superman. Yours really is." He was a brick wall of a man with what my friend Josh coined "Popeye arms," a former boxer who had worked farms and construction his whole life and could lift 50lbs. in each arm the way most of us could lift a baseball. He was a titan with a thick Irish brogue and a voice made gravelly from years of smoking. My friends would call the house and hang up in fear if he answered, and would stare at him with a mixture of fear and awe when they met him. But once people got to know him they were always charmed by his witticisms ("Don't get smart, stupid;" "A shut mouth catches no flies."), his kind heart, and his generous nature. He was a teddy bear wrapped in a grizzly's body.
Which isn't to say he wasn't tough. But he possessed the very Irish dichotomy between gruffness and sentimentality.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Running Up That Hill
So my last post didn't yield much of a response, which made me skeptical about continuing. But someone suggested I keep going, and to be honest the process is sort of interesting to me, so I'm hoping that this doesn't get too boring or preachy or what have you.
My intention writing these things is absolutely not to suggest that I'm an expert on mental illness of any type or how to deal with it. I'm really only a journeyman at dealing with it myself. But I've made concrete, trackable progress over the past year of which I'm very proud, and if what I've done and experienced can help anyone else, then I'd be thrilled. If not... well, then I hope you don't mind too much reading what goes on in my addled little brain.
My intention writing these things is absolutely not to suggest that I'm an expert on mental illness of any type or how to deal with it. I'm really only a journeyman at dealing with it myself. But I've made concrete, trackable progress over the past year of which I'm very proud, and if what I've done and experienced can help anyone else, then I'd be thrilled. If not... well, then I hope you don't mind too much reading what goes on in my addled little brain.
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