This week has seen some strange news stories; there are three in particular that alarm me in some way.
Here they are, in no particular order of vexation:
When I'm already feeling really down and stressed, this kind of crap makes me want to stay in bed all the more. Sometimes I really do think America is doomed, but not in the way the Christian right wishes it was.
Without the benefit of even one Kennedy connection or action film to my credit, I have managed to reduce the California Deficit by a few billion dollars in the next decade. How, you ask?
By taking the California Budget Challenge at Next-Ten.org a fascinating new online "game" created to help Californians better understand what balancing the budget entails.
I read about it yesterday in the Chronicle and tried it out last night. Basically it gives you options about how you can balance or make changes to the budget, and what surplus or deficit you might create while doing it. It also shows you some of the repercussions of the choices you make.
It was interesting to do, and I learned a lot about how the it all comes together. Although I agree with some of those interviewed for the Chronicle article that there are often too few options. It would be great if the program allowed more innovation.
You know what? I still managed to be a nice, social service funding, education based budget that was about 4 billion better than where Schwarzenegger plans to be in 2015. Go, me!
Now that Ayelet Waldman seems to have had her meds adjusted, her Salon column is getting much more lucid. This week, she focuses on a case where an 18-year-old boy who had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old and was sent to prison for 17 years, and what this says about how the sexuality of teenagers is perceived.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger will now be appearing as Pope Benedict XVI.
I’m not overly pleased about this; he is so conservative that John Paul II looks like a screaming liberal in comparison. His strict adherence to orthodoxy concerns me, because I think the Church could do with some updating. Then again, I wonder what it feels like to be elected to something largely due to the fact that your advanced age makes it more likely you’ll have a short run. I don’t think much is expected of him except to continue John Paul’s legacy and die within a respectable period of time so the Church can set the stage for a longer-running pontiff the next time around. Sometimes discussions about this papal reign make the new pope sound like an Intermission, but maybe I’m wrong.
And yes, I know I am not a practicing Catholic, but you know what? I was raised Catholic and Catholicism is not really something one gets over. I’m still interested in what happens in the Church, and I have hope that perhaps things will change enough in the future that people like myself might want to embrace the Church again. And although not technically political, the Pope has world clout.
On a brighter note, a new pope means a new Popener. I can also now refer to the College of Cardinals as The Rat Pack.
I have tried to walk the straight and narrow. To keep my television viewing to a minimum, and not backslide into geekiness (except for Battlestar Galactica, which is so amazingly smart and good and dark that it almost completely erases the bitter memory that was the original series). But I have failed. And I'm actually okay with it. So I want the world to know...
I LOVE the new Dr Who. Seriously. Love it. It's edgy and witty and completely original, while still managing to be just enough B-movie. Christopher Eccleston is incredible, easily the best Doctor I've ever seen (and sadly, I've seen a few). Too bad he's leaving the show soon, and I don't know if it will be the same with David Tennant. But we'll see.
The husband downloads it as a BitTorrent from one of the many sites that support UK television, most notably KNova.com. I really like UKNova, despite the fact that they don't allow users to post anything that is available on DVD. In the UK. This means that my search for Sea of Souls continues, but at least if there's another series I can get it there.
Book of the Night: Red Water, by Judith Freeman.
I got back about 4:00 Sunday, but have been busy sleeping and thinking about stuff instead of posting. That and wishing for the pain to go away.
It appears that I have altitude issues. Reno was predictably quite dry, and now that I'm back closer to sea level I seem to have developed these excruciating sinus headaches as my body attempts to adjust. My current favorite hobbies are curling up in bed with the warm air humidifier on high OR sitting at my desk at work, head on the table, waiting for someone to help me end it all. Drugs do not seem to be helping, which is unfortunate.
Ouch.
No Book of the Night this evening, as my head hurts too much to actually fathom text.
So today was the first day of the
I am not a writer, not like these people are. These people have talent, dedication, and futures. I'm a total fake, which is what I suspected. Everyone in my group (there are nine of us) is either in the same writing group, getting an MFA, or is extensively published. Then there's me. I guess I'm the cautionary tale, the one to make the others feel better. The teacher is incredible (she is Karen Joy Fowler, after all!), but it's pretty obvious that I am the worst one and the most out of place. Anyone who's surprised by this please raise your hand.
I kind of knew this was a mistake, but I was so excited about getting to work with someone whose stories I admire so much that I let that cloud my judgment. But this way it's better, because now I know that this isn't for me. Breaks my heart, but better that than pretending to be something I'm not.
Since I've been such a gloomy creature the last few entries (I've been really down lately for some reason), I thought I'd share some fun things that I played with or discovered today. You may already be aware of some of them, but I don't care; this is about me.
The one thing I don't like about this interface is that the target location, i.e., your home, is noted by a mark over the space, so you can't actually see it. But still, you know it's there. And the Property Managers for the lot next door really need to get that grass mowed...
Doesn't take much to brighten my day, does it?
Last week was a big week for death. In addition to Terri Schiavo, Johnnie Cochran, and The Pope, Alan Dundes also passed away. Who? Alan Dundes, folklorist extraordinaire. He Wednesday died while teaching a graduate seminar in Berkeley. Apparently he collapsed during a in mid rant against Marxist theory; that seems appropriate.
Prof. Dundes was an amazing man, one who essentially established folklore as a full-fledged academic discipline. He was funny, compassionate, and when you visited him he always made you feel welcome. When I moved to California and applied to Berkeley, it was because I wanted to study folklore with him. We met, and we talked, and while he liked my scholarship, he felt that my current lack of fluency in a second language would hinder hinder my pursuit of that particular degree. First rate mind with second-rate language skills. He was sure I could "pick one up", but as usual I was behind everyone else before I even started. So no MA in Folklore for me.
Still, he told me that he appreciated my mind and liked my ideas. That was important to me; I don't hear it much. Later, when I told him that I was going to become a librarian instead, he told me what a good idea he thought it was. "We'll find the lore, and you can preserve it." Works for me.
The New York Times published a wonderful obituary on Saturday that, I think, captures his spirit well.
I'll miss him a lot; they don't make 'em like him anymore.
Note to Husband:
I am a freak; you knew that when you married me. So don't try and make me not mock the characters on a Mockumentary, because that's what they're for. Especially a mockumentary as blatant as Bigfootville.
The premise of this UK production is that Bigfoot has been stalking various and sundry small towns in Oklahoma for several years. Perhaps they were blown in by a twister, I don't know. In any event, the "investigation" takes the "researchers" throughout the southeastern part of the state as they amble through the woods at night and hear hair-raising stories of farm equipment vandalism.
Told complete with jerky camera movements ala Blair Witch Project, the investigators interview such notable pundits as Skippy Smith, featured in full combat fatigues with his high-powered rifle and numerous other people who squint valiantly as they try to read their cue cards as they relate how they "seen" the creature.
When one is faced with this type of program, and it's presented as reality, I feel that it is completely appropriate to ad-lib additional dialog. Here are some examples:
I was actually ordered to be quiet when, upon seeing one of the "sightees" randomly shoot his handgun into the darkness in which he has perceived a shape, I added, "Got this gun from my granpappy, he got it off a dead Kraut in the Big War. Kilt him hisself. Take that, you still-thieving bastard!".
Too much wine with dinner? Perhaps. But let a girl have some innocent fun, for Christ's sake!
Book of the Night:
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, by Mara Leveritt.