| I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive |
I'm totally jazzed right now! My college is going to be offering intermediate creative writing in the fall semester. I'm so there - I took "regular" creative writing twice and loved it.
In other news, I had the most fun I've had in awhile last night seeing the Evil Dead musical with LS and her man. The fake blood wasn't quite as red or copious as I'd been hoping, but it was so hilarious and wonderful. Note to self: Next time, buy tickets early enough to get in the first row. There was this obnoxious woman in frontlast night who was wearing this lame plastic poncho. What's the point of sitting in the splatter zone if you're not going to get splattered?
Work was really slow this week, which is always a definite disappointment to my checkbook. I was only in the office on Monday and Friday, and took part in a conference call from home on Wednesday. Friday was pretty cool; we had a potluck (of course!) and NK brought this amazing breakfast quiche with a hash brown crust. I took a cake that was way too sweet, even for me. And there were mimosas again, but I watered (oranged?) them down enough so I didn't turn into a zombie.
On the plus side, nothing to do at work meant I could go to the morning meeting of my writer's club. I haven't been able to do that since November or December! Ha, we had our meeting at a local restaurant and had lunch at their buffet afterwards... during which I got a lot of weird looks for my tattoo. I almost never wear sleeveless tops, but it was so ridiculously hot this week that I couldn't stand wearing any more clothes than absolutely necessary.
I've got to go feed my Scrabulous addiction! If you've heard of a 12-step program for this, help a girl out... |
|
|
|
| There are places some of us can't face yet |
I'm eagerly awaiting the fourth (!) season of "Prison Break," which begins this September. In the meantime, I'm filling the void of sexy but questionable programming with "Swingtown," which is everything summer TV should be: trashy, funny, forgettable, and strangely touching. I'll admit that my appreciation of this show is fueled in no small part by my total girl-crush on Molly Parker.
Just as HBO's "Big Love" gave America (or at least, me) the warm and fuzzies - or at least a different perspective than the usual stereotypes - about polygamy, "Swingtown" attempts to make swingers less icky and more approachable.
Susan (Parker) and her husband Bruce move with their two teenage children to a new neighborhood, where they are enthusiastically welcomed by Trina and Tom Decker, who are wealthy, fashionable (as fashionable as you could be in the 70s, anyway), childlesss, and - swingers! Naturally, this is all-too-shocking for Susan and Bruce's old neighbors and BFF's, the super-square Janet and Roger Thompson. It's nothing less than fascinating to watch as Susan tries to strike a balance between the lifestyle she'd always lived without questioning, and a new one that forces her to examine everything she thought she knew about herself as a woman and as a wife.
Maybe ironically, as it was in "Big Love," this show is unabashedly feminist. Though swinging is also thought of, rather insultingly, as "wife swapping" to many people, the women we've met in this show (so far) are all in control of their own sexuality. Though this ranges from the positive (Susan and Trina, who decide whether they want to participate in swinging) or to the negative (Janet, who withholds sex from her husband excepting every other Friday night), "Swingtown" makes it clear that every individual must decide their sexual activity (not orientation - and I'm extremely curious as to whether we'll meet any non-heterosexual characters on this show) for themselves.
Too, "Swingtown" also revolves around Susan coming to terms with her identity beyond a wife and mother. When Trina throws a legal fundraising party for adult film star Harry Reems, Susan makes the decision to go see "Deep Throat" by herself, and to attend the party against her husband's order (blech!) not to do so.
Equally fun is watching prudy Janet flirt with danger, from eating a pot-laced brownie on a weekend at the lake, to inadvertently chatting with Harry Reems, and to being aroused enough by "Deep Throat" to have sex with her husband on a night that's not every-other-Friday. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.
It's not all fun and games, though: I think we're about to see cool, comfortable swingers Trina and Tom hit some turbulence as his new assignment piloting non-stop flights to Toyko (...I think) forces unprecedented time apart between the two. How will her already obvious insecurity match up against his frankly wild past and party-time co-workers? We'll see...
Elswhere in suburbia: Susan's daughter Laurie is so obviously going to have sex with her interested but reluctant summer school teacher, and who can blame her? He's the most adorable literature geek I've ever seen, and, in fact, looks younger than Laurie herself. Ha. Another cute storyline (I guess for the young kids watching the show??) is Laurie's little brother, who is helplessly crushing on neighbor Samantha, who has her hands full trying to take care of her alcoholic mother. Say what you want about suburbia, but its inhabitants will always provide material for enjoyable melodrama. |
|
|
|
| I used to obsess over living, now I only obsess over you |
One of my favorite things about grocery shopping is seeing what other people buy. I went to a discount grocery store in face of a certain facial scrub I love, and they didn't have it! Of course. I did find another brand that will hopefully not burn my face off, and got two new "Baxters" (loofa dogs) for the puppies. Also, I was leered at by I think every store employee, all of whom were creepy-ish teenage boys. Um, ew?
Anyway, I ended up in line behind these two ancient women who were, I think, hoarding foodstuffs in case WWIII breaks out. They bought at least six cans of sliced black olives (ugh), ten (I counted them!) cans of boysenberries, a barrel of Canola oil, and a huge box of Rubbermaid plastic bowls. They'd misread the price tag on the bowls, thinking it was $4.99 when it was actually $14.99, and were shuffling back over to return it immediately while my transaction was still going on. Note to self: Don't get old. Ever.
I am smack-dab in the middle of celebrating America's birthday with the itinerary below:
Friday - "Law and Order" marathon, eating appetizers, watching fireworks from the upstairs windows, wishing that "American Gangster" was not three hours long.
Saturday - Making mix CD's for co-workers, thinking up excuses to not carry boxes of stuff up to my room, catching up on reading my blogroll, trying to find activities to put in my calendar (and may or may not actually participate in).
Sunday - Wishing the library was open on Sunday, reading the comics, forcing myself to watch "Evil Dead" and "Army of Darkness," obsessively-compulsively lining up the pillows on my bed. |
|
|
|
|
- saintstarlet at gmail dot com
- MySpace
|
|
|
Yeah, still trying to get my shit together on the other sections of my site. Sorry!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dingabat: Fenotype
<< Home
|
|
Saturday, July 12, 2008 
posted by Yvonne at 6:57 PM - 
