-
(Source: herebeninjas)
this is probably the most accurate commercial on tv right now.
My life perfectly right here.
This is my life.
(Source: amysucks)
Once Upon A Time…Seeing the Magic
I’ve been browsing Twitter and like every Sunday there are a plethora of lovely tweets from the cast of Once Upon a Time. I love how Twitter offers us a little window into the world these folks live and work in, our very own real time behind the scenes sneak peek. Plus I always learn fun new facts, like that Beverley Elliot (the amazing woman who plays Granny) is also a singer/songwriter (and quite enjoyable, I’m listening to August right now…go listen: http://www.augustmusic.net/movies/Cicadas.mp3) and a storyteller.
Perhaps it’s her musical and storytelling bent, or just her general character, but reading up on things I felt this overwhelming need to write about Granny tonight. I’ve been blessed in my life with a significant number of strong, tough, feircely protective women, my own grandmother among them. And somehow, under all the terse stoicism they all seem to be creative, passionate, loving women full of life and vitality. And just have to say, I’m thankful for all of them. And for Once Upon a Time (and Granny and Beverley) for reminding me, as always, to see the magic in my own life.
In which I tell everyone to just piss off
I’ve found lately that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more and more nervous about openness. After working at jobs in the midwest I found that being who I was would get me slapped down hard. Success and indeed keeping a job to pay my bills required stashing who I was well away from other people. This taught me a certain level of shame that has slowly but surely crept it’s way into my soul. Over the course of the last several years I’ve found myself unable to write. And I think this is the root cause. As I’ve gotten older I’ve started hiding who I am, largely driven by this subliminal message that who I am is in some way freakish.
As a California native, I don’t think I ever understood how young people in the Midwest are quietly taught to be ashamed of who they are. It just made no sense to me, and as such I was in no way equipped to deal with it when it started happening to me.
So here are some things:
1. I like Disney movies. And their accomanying music.
2. I’m terrible with money, often pissing away my funds when I have bills to pay and then having to scramble to figure out how to live. I have no one to blame for this but myself.
3. Dating for me has never been about finding the right girl (or guy) but the right PERSON. Gender is largely arbitrary to me. I crush on men maybe 25% as much as I do on women, but it’s there. And that doesn’t bother me.
4. When I’m sad I cry. And if you think men shouldn’t cry then I feel sorry for you.
5. Scary movies fuck up my head and I prefer not to watch them.
6. I often feel like I have no family. Weather that is my fault or my family’s I have no idea, but I regularly feel like I’m swimming in this vast ocean of life completely alone.
7. My failures are constant and on-going. People say nice things to me and all I can see are the things I haven’t done or failed at.
8. I get annoyed with people. Easily. I like people who challenge me and have their own lives and passion and loves. And I’m bored by people who just don’t have that. If you don’t have opinion (even if it’s completely contrary to mine) I probably find you useless and dull.
An inability to be open about what’s inside you, well it turns out it KILLS your ability to write. If you are fearful of revealing things about yourself, writing becomes a paralyzing terror. I’ve got blank pages and the more I write on them the more I realize that I sturggle to do so because I fear people seeing who I am. So fuck that. I’m going to write about me and if you don’t like it…piss off.
How to Sound Like the Bee’s Knees: A Dictionary of 1920s Slang
Applesauce. Use it to demonstrate your lack of appreciation for the words of another. Or, alternatively, shout horsefeathers.
Bee’s knees. No dictionary of twenties slang would be complete without this one, which means, in simple terms, the best. In related bee-talk, say something is “none of your beeswax” when someone who is not the bee’s knees is butting into your beeswax.
Clam. A dollar. ”Can you spot me a few clams?” Other slang for money: cabbage, kale.
Dewdropper. A young, unemployed guy who sleeps all day. Alternate synonym: A lollygagger.
Egg. Man. “He’s a funny egg.”
Fire extinguisher. A chaperone (aka, a killjoy, an alarm clock).
Gams. Is there a better way to say legs, even if one is being objectifying? Pins? Or maybe getaway sticks. ”Cheese it; it’s the fuzz! Move your getaway sticks or you’ll end up in the cooler.”
Hotsy-totsy. Perfect; the cat’s pajamas.
“I have to go see a man about a dog.” To go buy whiskey.
Jake. Okey dokey. “Everything is Jake.”
Know one’s onions. To know one’s beeswax; to know what someone’s talking about.
Let’s blouse. We’re out of here.
Mrs. Grundy. A prudish type. Maybe also a fire extinguisher. Definitely a wurp.
Noodle juice. Tea. (But noodle on its own means head.)
Ossified. Drunk, probably from having been on a toot, or a drinking binge. Also: splifficated, fried, blotto.
Phonus balonus. Nonsense. (Related: baloney = piffle).
Quilt. A drink that warms its drinker.
Rhatz! ”How disappointing!”
Soup job. To crack a safe using nitroglycerine. (Safecrackers were yeggs.)
Tell it to Sweeney. Go say that to someone who’ll believe your phonus balonus.
Upchuck. Vomit, probably after too much foot juice or giggle water. (Synonymous: to pull a Daniel Boone is to vomit.)
Voot. Money, lettuce.
Wet blanket. Someone who is no fun, no fun at all. Someone who does not like whoopee (to have a good time).
X. In lieu of any x words, edge means intoxication.
You slay me. You’re hilarious.
Zozzled. Drunk.
What a lovely list!
Warmth
Tonight is night where I wish I had a fireplace. I could use the warmth. Not heat, my heater works fine. But warmth…that comforting glowing that emanates from fires, and friends, and good conversation.
It’s been two days since I’ve seen anyone. And I’ve been writing. Niggling somewhere at the back of my brain is soft song of alone-ness. I keep contemplating these beloved geek stories: Frodo and his ring, Harry Potter and his wand, The Doctor…that mad man and his box. Somewhere lurking at the heart of these most passionately loved tales is the story of what it feels like to be alone. Or at least to feel alone, even if in reality you are surrounded by people.
I can feel the story I’m writing shifting, the landscape and texture of it moving, twisting, drawing this errant thread of contemplation until I fear that whatever story I am writing. Will write. Have been writing for as long as I can remember will be about what it feels like to be alone.
It’s been two days since I’ve seen anyone. And tomorrow at work I’m sure this feeling will fade, and the dark night will reveal it’s stars again, and my friends will laugh and I will come out again into the light of day and know that truly no is ever really alone. But it sure can feel that way sometimes.
I really do just wish I could light a fire and sit beside it. I could use the warmth…just for tonight.
I heartily endorse this comic.
This scene will forever give me shivers
THE most underrated scene in the entire movie. It was perfect. And do you know how often I see gif sets of it? This is the second one I’ve seen since the movie came out (It’s been over 5 months, now).
So let’s just pause for a moment from reblogging gifs of Tony’s sass, Loki’s sex appeal, or Bruce’s fluffiness and just appreciate this nameless, old, German guy and how, even though he knew he would probably die, he stood up to a tyrant to prove that the human race wouldn’t give up their freedom so easily.
emily why the fuck you think it necessary to give me these feels
Seeing as that took place in Germany, think that there’s no better place that that scene could have taken place in. Givin’ the time frame, he or his parents could have easily lived through WWII. They bowed to a tyrant once; Never again.
Learn from your elders people- let him be an example.Also, the actor is Kenneth Tigar, who has been in a gazillion TV shows and movies, but who I’ll always remember fondly as Mr. Kopeckne on Barney Miller.
One of my favorite scenes.
Angling the Mirror
I haven’t read Smoke and Mirrors in over four years. It began because I was dating a girl I happen to work with. It became obvious, as nights together became more frequent, that carpooling to work was a reasonable idea. So, if we stayed at her place (a more common occurance, as my bed was a bachelor bed…a mattress and boxspring sitting on the floor, half the size and a quarter of the quality of hers), I would wake up in the morning, get in the car and drive the five minutes to my house, shower, change, let out the dog, get back in the car and return to her apartment. Inevitably, the time it took me to do these things was somewhere around half the time it took her to get up and shower, so I would sit in her foyer, on the bench/coat rack combo made of cheap plywood and wait.
The second or third time this occurred, I discovered sitting on top of my plywood waiting bench a Neil Gaiman book I’d never seen. Being a devout fan of his work, I cracked it open to a random page and began reading. Discovering I’d come in at the middle of some sort of Lovecraft-ian tale, I flipped backwards through the story, reading each event on rewind, trying to get caught up, and then suddenly finding myself in the midst of another story.
It was at this point I realized that starting at the beginning may be helpful. I got through the first paragraph of the introduction, but then my girlfriend came strolling out and I set the book down and tromped down the stairs and off work.
The next day I went through my routine, and for subsequent days over the fall I would read a paragraph or a page or two (depending on the lateness of my companion). I remember sitting on my plywood bench an indeterminate number of days later, blinking back sad tears at the end of the tale of a brave Black Cat. Then dropping on an iron mask abruptly when my companion emerged because, well…new loves generally do not gaze kindly upon weeping men.
That was just one of many stolen moments with Mr. Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors. I did eventually find out what happened in that Lovecraft-ian tale. And I mulled thoughtfully over Mrs. Whitaker’s adventures, and I sighed sadly at the end of a the wedding story about a wedding story. Stolen moments in a fairytale land of heightened reality, smoke and mirros bending the light of life until we see things we oughtn’t and don’t see things we ought to.
Sitting in a foyer, on a plywood bench, I started each day with a bit of fairytale. A bit of myth. A bit of legend. And re-reading the tales now, for the first time in over four years is like being transported back to that foyer, to that time in my life. And I find myself wondering what happened to that man. Sometimes, if you angle the mirror right, you can see your entire life stretched out behind you.
Stardust
(Source: teachingliteracy)
Geekery, contemplations, musings. Standing at the intersection between art and business.
I’m shameless about writing what I think. I don’t pull punches, and I’m often snarky, grumpy, and discontent. I’m also often inappropriately sappy, romantic, and fanciful. I like well-rounded people and strive to be one myself.
I’m also a geek with a propensity for odd interests. I expect most of what I write not to appeal to the masses. So, masses, get your butt off my Tumblr and go watch TV or something. The rest of you: Welcome to the Weird World of Dawson’s Geek.
HEY! Feel free to ask me Stuff.Following
Tumblr
