So, I saw I Love You, Man last Friday with my Dad and his boyfriend, because my brother thinks that Dad is exactly like Paul Rudd in the movie: someone who is only into their relationships and doesn't have any friends. And Dad thinks I'm like that ... I'm kind of thinking I fail in BOTH categories these days, though. Anyway, the movie was fun, even if it had the most random cast. J. Jonah Jameson as the Dad! The lady from 3rd Rock from the Sun as the mom! The "Jizz in my Pants" guy as the brother! The crazy guy from Superbad as the ... crazy guy! Still, I appreciated the movie for being a kind of low-key comedy, even it got very "Hollywood Third Act" at the end. It was fun, though.

I also read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and, well ... yeah. It's kind of what you expect from a book that's advertised on the basis of how IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE and not how good it is. If you can write "FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS NO MATTER WHAT" on a post-it note and re-read that constantly, you don't need to read The Alchemist. I didn't hate it, though. Maybe because I do need encouragement, and having just been to the Middle East the descriptions of the desert and the idea of going to the Pyramids made me a little nostalgic. Or maybe I was just in a "Well, I'm glad I'm reading something" mood. Otherwise I'd be putting more energy into the rant I'm doing right now about how frustrating it is that the book says follow your dreams, even if love has to wait, and the female character/love interest says "My dream is to be your wife, so I will wait for you. It's cool, I'm a desert woman. I am meant to wait for my man while he goes on adventures." Blech. But I'm sure all the women who read this don't think about it because the book places you to identify with Santiago and that's kind of a problem in of itself.

But, really, I'm not that excited about getting mad about this book. I don't know what it is. Apathy, perhaps. Or maybe The Good Mother just drained me.

I'm not quite ready to deliver ye olde righteous smackdown onto The Good Mother yet, because I'm re-reading another book I had to read in high school for comparison (and -- while I still don't believe in its conclusions, it's a WHOLE lot better this time around). But I don't feel quite like going to work on job searching or therapist-hunting after the unemployment debacle today, I'm going to write about a book I read while also reading Kushiel's Chosen.

( Read more... )


*"Mac" instead of "Mc" because she's Scottish, you know?

Fuck that stupid, slut-shaming turd of a book.

Longer review later.

So Mom has Internet control and, because the books I'm currently reading offer me a choice between consistent irritation (in the case of Kushiel's Chosen) and OH MY GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP (Universe X Vol. 1) I started writing more of my fanfic and was like, "Dudes, I totally need a cameo by a 1970s feminist." So I dusted off my old History of Feminism textbook (While I'm thinking of it, why didn't I keep the one about feminisms in other countries? I'm so stupid ...) and was scanning through the excerpts of the works of Robin Morgan and Susan Brownmiller (one of whom will be in the fic ... I sort of WANT it to be Morgan, because her writing is like the left-wing, feminist version of "The New Frontiersmen" and that makes me inappropriately gleeful, but Brownmiller is more popular and probably makes more sense in the long run ...).

Then I decided that required too much thought and I picked up my copy of Female Chauvinist Pigs and read my favorite parts while I was at the laundromat cleaning my comforter. (And just realized that Morgan blurbed the book. w00t!) This didn't really help with anything but that book always energizes me even as it makes me re-assess myself as a feminist and a woman.

I tried to look for clips of Morgan and Brownmiller on YouTube. Didn't find much of anything, but I found some of Ariel Levy. Then I found that she was put on a playlist of a person's "Favorite Women" and one of them included Motherfucking Camille Paglia.

And I'm like, "Rebecca, don't watch. Don't watch, you're just going to get upset." But then I was like, "Aw, it can't possibly be any stupider than what she said about date rape," which are quite possibly THE WORST LAST WORDS IN THE UNIVERSE but I clicked anyway.

Paglia: "I think students have sex with their teachers because there is far too much of a friendly atmosphere between teachers and students. I think this is a part of the therapy culture."
Me: "AAAAAAHHH NO FUCKING WAY AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! STUPID! You're so STUPID!"

These days I react to Camille Paglia with a sort of fascinated embarrassment. She's like that person who you used to be really into and now that you're broken up you're like, "What did I see in you? Why did I like you? WHY?" Her and Christina Hoff Summers. Although Summers is more like that person who seemed really nice until you learned she liked to shill for conservative fake feminism steal cars on the weekend.

... Those metaphors suck. Sorry.

Anyway, dissident/conservative/backlash feminism was an embarrassing time of my life and I'm glad I'm mostly past that ... at least I hope.

I should probably read some more feminism books, but um ... er ... well, I just have to take a picture of my book piles soon, because that shit is just SAD. Anyway, I think I only have Vindication of the Rights of Women in there, but maybe I should bust it out and read it soon.

I don't seem to do anything useful by myself. Of course, I've only been up for an hour or so. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I don't get it, though. I got sleepy REALLY SUDDENLY at 11 p.m. or so and then only slept for like, six and a half hours.

Yesterday was okay. I made a Rorschach mask and bought a hat, plus a sunhat for Israel. Now that I have this stuff I feel like I'm mostly ready, even if I haven't started packing and am afraid I'm going to forget something really important, like my passport. I also did ironing for my clothes that I used to wear to work. We'll see what happens.

I'm reading a lot. Short stories from The Best American Short Stories 1998 (So far, Garrison Keillor has much better taste than Sue Miller -- well, the latter picked Alice Munro, so there you go.). More of Dickens, which has kind of turned around now that he had his affair. And Infodump: The Graphic Novel ... er, Earth X. (BTW, if the latter alternate reality takes place during a food shortage, why are so many of the ex-superheroes fat?)

By the way, since I'm so behind, here are some bare-bones thoughts on what I've read and watched this year.

( Reviews )

I'm going to talk a bit about Anita Blake.

( Some Spoilers, but mostly me musing on why Larry looks like Rorschach and Irving looks like tall Bob from 'Office Space' )

So ... I got a lot of books for Hannukah/Christmas now. HOW MANY BOOKS? THIS MANY!

Yeah, my taste is ... odd.

Those books, BTW, are the same amount of reference books I have. And that includes reference books for things that do not need references, like Spider-Man and Sandman comics.

Although it's still not as much as my books I really should finish list, which is kind of embarrassing.

Also got a couple of new things to watch:

Wonder Woman Season One (ROCK!)
3-Disc Anniversary Edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show/Shock Treatment (I don't actually expect the latter to be any good, but I asked for this because I wanted an RHPS with special features, and my current copy didn't have any)
The Fall (Dad's idea)
Paprika
Nocturna (and the soundtrack)
Diamond Daydreams

More exciting than my current watch list of Sabotage and the rest of Maria-sama ga Miteru. (Although I do love the latter. Also, I want a friend like Yoshino. I love how in the first OVA Yumi is invited to a party for the purpose of being humiliated and Yoshino's all "Don't go." Yoshino is awesome. I like the idea of her and Yumi being lesbian BFF.)

Boo, got to go to work, boo ...

I just have one question ...

( Request for spoilage )