Bleeping Hallmark Channel

I’ve been watching 7th heaven on the hallmark channel since this January. I have to say that they’ve finaally crossed a line of illogic.

When any character on the show says ‘butt’ or ‘hell’, the word is at best muted, at worst spliced out altogether.
On the other hand the movie ‘bridges of Madison county’ is in heavy rotation as part of Whole Lotta Love month.
God forbid anyone say butt. If they’d just quit being so foulmouthed and start having adulterous affairs then Hallmark would glorify them endlessly.

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Lost: Better If You’re On Drugs

Biographical Interlude

Yesterday at 1:30 I called my husband and said “I think it’s time to go to the hospital.” Now, in the movies that means we’d be having a baby. On television it means we would get stuck in an elevator and have a baby there. In real life it means that I’d finally given up on homebirthing my most recent kidney stone. The ER trip was it’s own little drama. But let me just say this…when the triage nurse knows your name on sight and the rad tech who performs the CT scan gets you caught up on her personal life since the last time you rode her donut (diiirty!!) then perhaps you pass too many kidney stones. Oh, and I LOOOVE it when the nurse who thinks you’re drug-seeking gets the scan report and blood work back. I have a kidney stone AND a severe kidney infection! Suck on that, Ratchett!!!

All of that means that tonight’s episode was viewed thru a haze of pain, vicodin, levaquin and phenergan.

On to the show….

To me the two flavours of Lost I like best are Hurley and Hume. Hurley episodes are the heart of the show and bring more warmth and emotion than hard whiskey at a grandparent’s funeral. Hume episodes are the reason of the show. Other characters represent “mind” and “faith” and “will” but Desmond Hume is always the one who acts with the greatest sense of reason. Even when his mind is unhinged through the layers of time, he always seeks out the cause behind his circumstances. In a narrative with more empty teases than an 8th grade cheerleader, it helps to have one character who contributes a quest for conclusion.

Random bits of thought I’m too out-of-it to pursue in more depth right now

• I happen to think that it was piss-poor timing on the network’s behalf to air this episode NOT on Valentine’s Day. Do you know how many couples would have turned to their viewing partner and said “you’re MY constant, baby”?
• I see that Penny lives on Cheyne Walk. The only thing in common this has with Lost that I can think of right now is that Henry James lived there. He is the author of many long and confusing books.
• Tovar Hanso feels like an anagram to me, but I just don’t have the stones to even google the anagram generators right now. Although at 10:06pm CST I’m sure that 2.312 million other Lost fans have already done so.
• I really envy the people who were just getting caught up by watching the first 3 seasons on DVD and are coming to this new action relatively fresh. With it being more than a year since the last time we’ve visited many of these storylines I just can’t keep all of the details in mind and am losing the impact of seeing Desmond have a friendly conversation with Daniel’s Penny’s dad.
• The rat’s name is Eloise. My first thought was automatically of the schoolbooks with the little girl who lives in some snooty hotel. But growing up in Indiana I was also aware of Eloise, which was a pretty famous mental institution in Michigan. I don’t know if anyone connected to the show is even aware of Eloise, though.
• I swear I had two more bullet points, but WordPress ate the original entry. Boo hiss.

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Listen Up, You Bastards

I don’t know exactly who you are. I suspect you might be a campaign official or an intern or just a garden-variety wiseass.

But I’m now the proud recepient of an email routed to me which claims that Barack Obama is Satan’s right hand and has a tattoo depicting America’s destruction by nuclear attack stenciled on his left buttcheek. Or something.

I hope you’re happy. You have put me in the position of defending someone I don’t even particularly like. I’m a libertarian and therefore find most of Obama’s “I can spend your money better than you” proposed policies inherently frightening and demeaning.

But come on. The guy isn’t a Muslim, wasn’t educated in a Wahabbist school in Jakarta, doesn’t slouch with his back to the flag during the pledge and the email which claims all this was NOT verified on Snopes.

Some day something will happen. Some serious information will need to find its way into the hands of the people and heretofore email has been a good way to do it. However if we keep churning out filth like this and using the internet for agitprop no one will ever believe the real emails when they get sent out.

I hope all you bastards who originate dubious crap like this get your fair comeuppance.

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My Oscar Thoughts Almost A Half Week After The Event, Thus Flouting The Timeliness Of The Internet

I watched 2/3rds of the Oscars Sunday night. I’d only seen one of the Best Picture nominees, and I knew Tilda Swinton would be on there so I had thought I wouldn’t watch.

But as luck would have it, I missed the idea of watching The Oscars®. In that way, viewing the Acadamy Awards is not unlike eating at Kentucky Fried Chicken. It occasionally sounds good, and if you haven’t done it in awhile you start to get an itch for it. Only after it sits all greasily in your gut do you remember that the actual act doesn’t measure up to the anticipation.

So I tuned in, and really enjoyed  thought fondly of a lot of what I saw.  Some was  Original Recipe, some was  potatoes, some was gravy.   I fast-forwarded the cole slaw.

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How Pop Culture Is Killing Me And How Diets Are Making Me Mad

About three or four weeks ago, the losers pop culture mavens I read at places like TWOP and EW and Slashdot etc. started talking about that whole “I drink your milkshake!!” scene in There Will Be Blood. The result of this non-stop jokery was my craving for milkshakes.

I’m not normally a milkshake-drinker because they’re kind of a fussy concoction to be honest. You can’t just pop off the top and slosh it into a glass (despite what the Slim-Fast and Ensure ads would have you believe). A milkshake either requires much effort at home or the effort of leaving home and braving the Fast Food Nation.

Anyway, thanks in large part to pop culture, my husband and I ended up driving through Steak & Shake on Valentine’s Day. Then on Sunday we did the same thing. I defy Daniel Day Lewis with my over-the-top frozen dairy beverage consumption!!!

In an effort to keep my wordcount down I’ll summarise the events post-milkshake with three easy to remember words:

Pain

From

Hell

Seriously, it was bad. Bad enough to send me to the internet, whereby a thirty-second search reveals that It Is A Big Screaming Duh for RA Patients To Avoid Dairy. Apparently there are several folks who have even been cured of their RA by avoiding dairy. And you can buy their books, too! With all the money you save on cheese! Mind you, none of these folks are “dockturs”or even “scientists”, but hey. If they say it, it must be so.

Here’s the thing, though. Many of these places claim that the best healing for these ailments comes through good nutrition, but they keep raising the bar. First it’s a tiny thing, like not drinking milk. Then when you get down to the nitty-gritty it’s all about doing things like eating only uncooked vegan food.

Allow me to be honest.

I don’t want to be in pain forever and I don’t want to have my hands turn into gnarled stumps. But honestly, I can’t picture a LIFETIME of eating only uncooked vegan food. I just don’t have it in me. I am weak-willed. I hate beans. And, oh yeah, I’m allergic to soy.

For now I’m drastically reducing my cheese intake *sobs* and I guess Daniel Day Lewis can have my share of all your milkshakes.

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Hugh Laurie, A Piano And Stuff

I’ve been kind of on the outs with God lately. Not serious “I quit this religion” outs, but more like how when you and your best friend have a falling out over a book club choice or something and you then speak either grudgingly or in too-polite formalities.

For one reason and another I’ve just not been at the place where I’m talking with God much.

So I was watching “House” the other night (see, I really AM getting to the Hugh Laurie part) and there was a scene where Mr. Laurie-as-Dr. House was playing the best version of “What A Friend (We Have in Jesus)”. And I just lost it. Right there on the couch, crying like a baby and rewinding that thirty seconds of show over and over again.

I first heard that song at my Grandmother’s church when I was a child. We visited her church a lot and it seems they only sang WAF, Count Your Many Blessings and How Great Thou Art. They were all nice songs, but they weren’t my favourite.

After the House thing I popped in Mahalia’s version, because I’m a firm believer in the law that if Mahalia ever sang a hymn, her version is the best.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; Take it to the Lord in prayer!
Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer!

It was like I was hearing those same words for the first time in the little Kewanna Baptist Church. Instead of being a rote recitation, it hit me that these were the brave soldiering words sung by careworn people in a little farming town. People who had fought harder to climb hills I can’t even imagine. Who lost siblings as babies, went hungry through the Depression and knew the hard song of the auctioneer selling their memories at a cut-rate to pay off the bank.

It makes me feel stupid for being mad about my own relatively minimal problems.

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Lost Marriage

I have a great marriage.   My husband and I rarely keep secrets from each other, and if we do they’re of the non-threatening variety.  (Don’t tell him I ate ice cream at midnite a couple of days ago.)    We’re open and honest and after 19 years together we have pretty good communication overall.

I thing that’s why I watch “Lost”.   Clearly I need some aspect of my life where I’m continually jerked around, disrespected, not dealt with openly and often unfulfilled.  I need a place where after spending 45 minutes together, I come away unsatisfied while the other party is smugly proud of themselves.

I feel like “Lost” is my bad boyfriend for my 30s.

I hated last night’s episode with a passion.   From the minute Kate asks Miles to tell her “what he knows” about HER only to have Miles say “answer these riddles three” or what the hell ever….

Yeah, I  was pretty ticked off with the whole thing.

Maybe the show just ought to not feature much of Jack and Kate, because I find any of those episodes just as annoying as little children singing off key.

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The Whole SBC Molester Thing

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t mad about this business in the Scene about the way the Southern Baptist Church is handling molestations of members by church officials. I’ve been discussing the larger issue over at Tiny Cat Pants but it was only after R(eading)T(he)F(word of your choice)A(rticle) that I got my knickers in a knot over the article itself.

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THE WIRE

major spoiler after the jump.  do not click through if you haven’t seen episode 8 of Season 5 of the Wire. Seriously.  Just don’t.

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Another Instance Of The Fingerpost

So this morning I gave into temptation and finally dove into Ken Follet’s World Without End.

I was a little more than freaked out to see that many of the elements of that book–including characters’ names!–are either identical to or similar enough to my own work to be indistinguishable.   Granted, Follet’s the better writer by far.

A part of me is really enjoying reading the book, because it’s like having someone else having done your homework.   He’s telling the story of a young girl in medieval England who wants to be a doctor.   I was telling the same story–set in Wales.

For years I had wanted to name my daughter Magdalen Carys.   The “Magdalen” part is for many obvious reasons, not the least of which is that I admire that woman who was so openly devoted to Jesus.  She stayed at the cross after all the men left.  She was the first to hear of the resurrection.   I’d like to raise a daughter devoted to Jesus in such a way and so the name was fitting.   “Carys” is Welsh Gaelic for “Grace”.   I’d originally wanted to use the name “Grace”, but that’s become so commonplace a middle name for girls that I sort of break out in hives when I think about it.

When I made the decision to accept God’s ruling on my childlessness I also made the decision to use the names I had saved for my children  (Owen Elijah if he were a boy) in my fiction.   Hence a heroine named Carys.

Unfortunately that’s the name that Follett has used.    I guess part of me should be disappointed, but really, I’m not.   This all goes as evidence to support my belief that ideas live in the DNA of mankind like viruses.  Eventually more than one person will come down with the same affliction of story.   In a perverse way I’m kind of flattered to see an author I admire execute a work using ideas so similar to my own.   Of course I’m also kind of disappointed that his name gets to be on the bestseller list while my book–in its present state–is destined for my mouldering “ideas” folder.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me.   A short story I wrote based on a dream I had about a ghost and the woman he had loved in real life was written and binned a full year before the movie “Ghost”.    One of these days I’ll get my stuff out there before someone else.   Right now I have to come up with a new idea.

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