Uncreated Conscience

Clearly Ben is the perfect man.

He has my copy of ULYSSES.

My mother is adorable. She’s coming into town next week on business and promised to bring with her the Korean drama (그들이 사는 세상 – The World That They Live In) we started back when I visiting my family in Los Angeles featuring my favourite actress Song Hye Gyo (송혜교). My other also recommended one called The Beethoven Virus in an email the other day.

Hey Sarah,

It was good to talk to you.
Check out the link: here

I love this drama!!
Talk to you later this week.

Love,
Mom

Oh Mum, with her multiple exclamation points and recent discovery of YouTube. My parents might be technologically inept, but they try to keep abreast of the times. (You wouldn’t believe the flurry of texts I got from “ur teenage dad” once my brother taught him to how text message people.) “The main guy isn’t that good-looking,” she warned about The Beethoven Virus, “But he’s a very good actor.”

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The older I get, the more and more contemporary my interest in various time periods become. When I was a child, I had a fascination with the Victorian era and the fin de siècle but more and more I’m finding myself fascinated with the early-middle decades of the 20th century. For Elijah’s Chariot, my research consisted mostly of the events/culture from 1912-1921. For Jane Eyre with Werewolves (which still needs a better title), I’ve been focusing on 1928-1932. For The Ballad of Bonny Read or Skydiving Pirates (I really do suck at titling things), I’m looking at 1938-1945.

I have decided that I need to work on something else to give myself a break from revisions. It’s working to some extent; I dabble a little here, a little there, and continue working on Elijah’s Chariot as a means of procrastination from another piece of work. I am loving the world of my skydiving pirates and I’m loathe to give up playing here to return to politically fraught Londinium. Also, this work is the first time I’m returning to California as a setting since my long-since-put-away Chester novel; I’m tired of England for the moment.

As research I need to re-watch TaleSpin because it was awesome. Baloo as a bush pilot! The screwball-comedy relationship between him and Rebecca! Don Karnage! Air pirates! Art deco world! Why was Disney of my childhood so much better than Disney today?

Stolen from Molly and every other recovering X-Phile out there:

They totally had sex once they moved the making-out out of frame. YES, THIS IS WHAT MY SHIPPY MIND BELIEVES. I DON’T CARE IF THEY’RE FICTIONAL. Ten years after the fact and I still can’t seem to get over them. Oh Mulder/Scully, I wish I could quit you.

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I had totally forgotten how a good cardio workout can be like good sex: the same blissful feeling of lassitude pervading my limbs, the same rosy flush and glow, and the same sound sleep afterwards. I’m still riding high on those endorphins right now.

As I’ve started losing weight, I’ve noticed that I’ve become more prone to bruising. Or at least I think it’s the weight loss because I’ve been getting sufficient iron in my diet these days. Mysterious contusions keep appearing all over my body and I’m at a loss as to where they’re from. It usually takes all the blunt force of a hammer to cause a bruise to appear anywhere on me so I generally remember when and how I got one. At the moment there is an enormous fist-sized purple and green bruise on my right knee whose origin completely baffles me. Surely I would remember banging my leg that hard on something? I stood my landing when I went skydiving and I got a bruise on my shoulder from shooting, but the knee? No clue. Maybe it’s staging a revolt because it’s feeling no love (this is the “good” knee and not Phil). Perhaps I ought to name it too.

Last night, in a fit of narcissism, I went through my pictures on Facebook and was startled at how entirely different I look with long, straight hair and how bad of a hairstyle it is for me. In London it was chemically straightened and probably halfway down my back by the end of the semester. My face gets lost amidst all that hair! Although I do think having my hair completely straight looks better than the way it is naturally: voluminous, frizzy, and neither curly nor wavy nor straight. I’ve also had my hair professionally waved which might have been a bit of a disaster. I think my natural hair shoulder-length or shorter is probably the most flattering. (The previous two pictures were taken on days when the weather was dry and when the weather was humid respectively. Low humidity is Winter’s only redeeming factor.)

I mourn the loss of my pre-puberty hair. It was so shiny and thick and straight! Stupid adolescent hormones fucking up everything. I miss my flat-chested days too.

Speaking of hair, Wicked Cool Riley straightened hers with a flatiron last night as we watched episodes of Firefly. I was never a huge Whedon fan until Firefly; I found the eponymous heroine of Buffy the Vampire Slayer obnoxious (and despite my love of Harry Potter, I actually dislike most Chosen One stories) and while I liked Angel, the whole urban fantasy/demons/vampires/supernatural beings bit isn’t my bad. I prefer my fantasy with good old-fashioned magic and magicians.

I like the space-western genre (hello, Star Wars!) and I especially love the space pirate-cowboy (hello, Han Solo!) and Firefly came highly recommended from many people, so I took a chance. Of course I fell in love with it, but mostly because I love the menfolk, as Mal would say. Whedon writes excellent female characters (even Buffy, although I dislike her), but it’s the males who hold special places in my heart. It’s always a toss-up between Wash and Jayne as my favourites, although I like them for different reasons: Wash because he’s adorkable and funny and Jayne because he’s a big, hilarious lug.

My mother always said that she married my dad because he makes her laugh. I will generally love the humourous sidekick in books or in TV shows or in movies more than the hero, but Bear isn’t exactly the wise-cracking wit my father is. The difference between my affection for Wash and Jayne lies in the fact that while I often laugh at Jayne, I generally laugh with Wash. Wash and I share the same sense of humour. More than anything, I’ve come to realise a shared sense of humour is crucial to sustaining a relationship and Bear and I laugh together a lot. A shared sense of humour is probably the most important thing in a relationship altogether, much more than common interests and physical attraction. I’ve shared many common interests with people before but if they don’t understand what’s funny to me, ultimately that relationship/friendship peters out. Some of my friends have “deal-breakers” when it comes to their potential significant others (like in that New York Times article) and while I used to think I had a few specific ones, they ended up not holding true at all.

If you had asked me when I was 18 and just starting college, my “deal-breakers” would have been:

• If s/he wasn’t literary.
• If s/he wasn’t comfortable with genderfuck/queerness.
• If s/he didn’t have similar tastes in books, movies, and music.
• If s/he wasn’t witty.
• If s/he wasn’t as intelligent as me in similar ways.

Granted there weren’t that many, but the only thing that still holds true from when I was 18 is the genderfuck/queerness. I thought I was looking for someone a bit more outwardly queer: eyeliner, nailpolish, androgyny, etc. and while Bear is not averse to wearing a bit of eyeliner every now and again and is certainly quite comfortable with queerness, he’s pretty much your standard Guy™. Bear doesn’t read either. At all. At all. (Except comic books.) And literariness had been my first requirement. Our tastes in entertainment differ and while Bear is certainly as intelligent as me, his strengths lie in entirely different areas. (For instance, geometric proofs come naturally to him whereas I rock the trigonometric ones.)

So, if outwardly we have nothing in common, how the hell are we together? People probably wonder that a lot, but the honest truth is, Bear and I laugh together and that’s really all that matters. And I can blather to him about all the books I read and although he probably doesn’t care about them, he’ll listen to me anyway. He’s my support and my best friend and the first person I want to see in the mornings and the last person I want to talk to at night.

Also, he plays with White-Harp. That’s very, very important.

And in a complete non-sequitur, I wish had been able to go to this event with Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) and Colin Meloy of The Decemberists.

It was a bad idea to watch Rock the Cradle last night. Not only did I not get any yoga done and ended up eating two carb-filled (but scrumptious) bowls of cereal while watching, I am completely, utterly, and irrevocably addicted. MC Hammer’s girl’s got a voice like nothing else, Joe Walsh’s kid’s probably a bitch but a solid performer, and I’m helplessly charmed by Dee Snider’s spawn. But Kenny Loggins’ son is pretty good too! And Olivia Newton-John is one of the parents! I love her! Bobby Brown’s son is really good-looking! And here I thought I had class and good taste. Nope. I populated my iPod with trashy dance music last night and I love it. It does make for a nice upbeat workout music, which is nice when I’m walking to work (and would be even nicer if I would just receive my corporate discount to the gym).

And I stole some memes from just because.

1) They Tried to Make Me Go to Bible School and I Said “No, No, No.”

I don’t know which is scarier, the fact that this quiz even exists or the fact that I scored so high. I haven’t read the Bible since sophomore year of high school when we studied it as a text in religion class and even then, I didn’t read the book and only skated by with my memories from Bible study when I was six. Calvinism! My church is scarier than your church. (Not really except really really.) Still, a pretty good score for an atheist, no?

When I was young I remember reading for fun the NIV Bible that I had won in verse-memorisation contests. I legitimately think the Bible is full of fascinating people and characters and compelling stories and even some of the most beautiful poetry and imagery in the world. (But only in the King James version.) I remember rereading the Jacob/Leah/Rachel story a lot because even at the tender age of six, sex and politics fascinated me. The Old Testament was like a soap opera! Sex and betrayal and incest and wrath and revenge and riches! That there is some cracktastic reading. The New Testament was, alas, much less interesting because most of it (except the Gospels which are legitimately a good read) is comprised of letters (but not the interesting kind that comprise epistolary novels!) from the psycho Apostle Paul to the fledgling church. I kind of really hate Paul. (But I love Simon Peter.) Paul seems like That Kid that the “cool and badass” kids totally laughed at as a loser until one day the boss of the cool kid crowd decided to like him, after which he took over the clique with short-sighted and scary fanaticism.

2) Intoxicate Me Now With Your Lovin’ Now

But I love my dives! I especially love the Blue & Gold! Granted I’m usually not dressed for a dive, but I love them anyway! They are spot on about my bar behaviour though. I’m very sociable or a “flirt,” but simultaneously tend to be rather distant and aloof or “coy and unattainable.”

I go sky-diving tomorrow! If the weather decides to cooperate and not rain, that is. April showers may bring May flowers, but I want to hurl myself out of a plane!

Oooh, ooh, Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman will be released soon! I must run out and gobble it up. The only question is, Mr. Pullman, when will you be done with The Book of Dust?

This morning as I was applying my mascara and observing my reflection in the mirror, a sort of recognition prickled at the back of my brain. Of course, it was my own face I was seeing, but more than that, I reminded myself of someone.

And then I had it. Dot Matrix from the CG-animated television series ReBoot.

Words can’t describe how much I used to love this show and how practically no one else I know has ever heard of it. (ReBoot, along with Gargoyles, is vastly underrated.) Certainly its broadcast history in the States has been inconsistent: it was cancelled after two seasons and then picked up for a third years later and then the fourth was aired as two movies years after that. But it was brilliant. It was the first completely CG-animated cartoon ever back in 1994 (I used to watch it on Saturday mornings when it was still ABC) and while the technology may not be what it is today, it was still groundbreaking for what it was. The second season ended with a cliffhanger (and an X-Files spoof! With Data Nully voiced by Gillian Anderson herself!) and the story wasn’t continued until Cartoon Network picked it up to air on Toonami.

I blame Toonami for many things. The original lineup that I can recall in 1997 was Sailor Moon at 4pm, ReBoot at 4:30pm, Dragonball Z at 5pm, and The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest at 5:30pm. I would come home from school, do a little homework, and then zone out in front of the television for two hours (with the exception of Dragonball Z which never stuck with me). I blame Toonami for my addiction to Sailor Moon, my strange love of Race Bannon, and the hours I spent agonising over whether or not Bob and Dot would finally get together at the end of the series.

You see, despite the flashiness of the computer-generation, I didn’t watch ReBoot for any artistic appreciation, I watched because its characters were very human and real. For beings that supposedly lived inside your computer, that is. Bob was the system Guardian, protecting Mainframe from the “nullification” that occurred whenever they lost a game to the User. (If you ever wondered why you couldn’t defeat the boss, it’s because the sprites and binomes, led by their trusty Guardian and his keytool have foiled you once again!) Dot is a resident of Mainframe, and apparently a Renaissance woman as she owns a diner, runs several business, owns several stock portfolios, and is the military tactician whenever viruses attack her city. Bob is impetuous and prone to thinking by the seat of his pants, and Dot is the consummate businesswoman with a plan for everything. The push and pull aspect of their friendship was subtle and well-done and even treated humourously in an episode or two.

If there was one thing ReBoot knew how to do was make me laugh. Parodies ran rampant, but never at the expense of the story the episode wanted to tell. One of my favourites was “Nullzilla” which skewered, among many things including Godzilla, mecha-centric shows like Voltron and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

Phong (the wise old guru who apparently had a contingency plan in case a giant monster made entirely of one virus and a gazillion nulls ever destroyed Mainframe) tells the disbelieving team of heroes that they’re supposed to “call” on their vehicles so that they may appear. To their surprise, many insect-themed vehicles materialise out of thin air. Once settled, they proceed according to Phong’s plan.

Bob: So, what’s the plan, Phong?
Phong: You must get your vehicles up to speed and, using the signal I gave you, join them together to form a giant robot that will battle Nullzilla!
Bob: You’re kidding, right? These form a what?
Phong: A giant robot.

The five vehicles try to align in the air in various ways. None produces a giant robot.

Bob: Phong, this is ridiculous! We’re never gonna get a robot outta these! They don’t even fit together!
Phong: You must give the signal all at once!

The vehicles fly through the air in tight formation.

Bob: Okay, let’s try this again.

Their heads appear in front of a giant icon.

All: Reboot robot entomologizing force!

The icon zooms onto the chest of a giant Robot, which is standing in Kits Sector. Camera closes in on its chest, through a window in which we see Our Heroes.

Bob: (surprised) Huh! Go figure.

I. Love. This. Show. So much. In the end, our intrepid heroes defeat Nullzilla with the use of the Disrupt-o-matic, which is lying behind a glass that reads IN CASE OF GIANT NULL MONSTER THREATENING CITY BREAK GLASS. ReBoot was excellent at turning cliches on their heads to comedic affect, but never actually sacrificed character development or plot in the process.

Now I’m totally in the mood to watch it. I downloaded the episodes off of BitTorrent years ago, but they are of terrible quality. Maybe I’ll cave and get them on DVD along with the second season of Gargoyles.

I will fully admit to loving bad television and that I was watching an episode of How to Look Good Naked with Carson Kressley a few nights ago. Despite the fact that shows like that are, well, trash, I find them very educational and enlightening of the self, if not terribly insightful about the world as is.

What have I learned from watching How to Look Good Naked? That 1) I really, really want Carson Kressley to be my gay boyfriend, and 2) that I am dire need of a bra whisperer.

One of the first orders of business Carson takes his women through is to find the correct bra for their size. I would like to be measured professionally because lately none of my bras have been fitting right. I can’t decide whether or not I need to go up a cup size or down one. According to conventional wisdom, I ought to be a 34C, but there is spillage going on. The next band size up is too big and the next band size down’s cup size is too small. All of my bras’ cups are simultaneously placed too far apart and too close. Yesterday I went to H&M and tried every bra size under the sun and could not find one that fit just right. Carson Kressley, where art thou?

Despite all that, I’ve discovered this morning that while I could certainly lose the flab from areas of my body, when dressed in a tight black knee-length pencil skirt with a tucked in collared dress shirt and heels, I have a rocking body. Not only have my parents foreordained that I work in corporate America, now my body has too. I was made to wear suits. Oh tight black knee-length pencil skirt, you are my new best friend.