Life & Stuff

So in the new Blogger makeover, I think my preferred font size has gone the way of the dodo. Tear. I haven't blogged about my life for a while, so ... word vomit!

So you all know that I got a job. Yay! Not like a real, professional, grown-up job that can pay for shit & stuff, but it will at least pay my bills like my credit cards & the occasional fun stuff. It's the job I had at the U before I left for Seattle & it has let me get back in touch with my podcast listening. Reunited & it feels so good. I'm listening to things like TBTL, Spilled Milk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life, RadioWest, Fresh Air, & more. Aside from listening to my iPod, my job is mostly about looking up articles & scanning books. But I like it, & I like the people, & I like doing something, but I don't really care for the waking up early every morning part. I've taken a hiatus from looking for a real job, but I need to start looking again. Ugh. 

My "n" key still doesn't work. My typing behavior has been altered so that even when I use a functional keyboard, I find myself using CTRL+V to paste an "n." But instead it just pastes the latest thing I copied which is usually not an "n." I'm also using ampersands to avoid typing "and" all of the time.

It's May so it's season finale time, & I really need to catch up on my TV watching. I'm behind on all my stories including Smash, Modern Family, Happy Endings, Revenge, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, & The Daily Show. Thank goodness for the Internet. I blame most of this on Buffy. A month or so ago there was a Pajiba article 115 Reasons Why We Love Buffy. Because I done love Buffy. a lot. So less than a year after I watched all 7 seasons, I am rewatching it all. I'm halfway through season 5. See, I just went back and watched the pilot & the next episode & the episode after that, & I got carried away. Damn you Netflix Instant Watch!

I've been going to a lot of movies this year. Yay movies! Every week Brewvies shows a free older movie, usually something of a cult classic. & they still make money because most people still buy beer &/or food. Kristen Marie & I go most weeks. Last time it was V for Vendetta. The end gets me every time when Parliament is exploding & everyone takes off their masks & it's all the people who have died. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. 

Last week I went to the midnight showing of The Avengers with Valerie, Miss Liss, Joseph & others. I mostly went for Joss Whedon because I'm not super into the Marvel universe, esp. The Avengers (but I am into the Whedonverse). I haven't even seen all the previous films. I saw Iron Man & Captain America, & I liked them & all, but I wasn't like OMG! SQUEEE!!! So I thought this film was alright. It was fun & funny. Lots of action. It was 2 1/2 hours of the Avengers assembling, beating each other up & exchanging wisecracks, & then destroying an alien invasion. Pretty standard stuff. It some ways it was the anti-Nolan--colorful, fantastic, & fun. Maybe Nolan ruined me, but I like my superhero movies dark, gritty, brooding, & deconstructed. Or maybe I just like Batman. My biggest problem with The Avengers is that it's pretty shallow. I felt it lacked depth, that none of the characters had much of an arc (I understand that's hard to do with six avengers & that character journey can be done better in their solo films), that the unifying event lacked the emotional depth for me to really believe it brought these characters together, & finally the story wasn't entirely coherent. There was a lot of floating on that giant ship thing & if you asked me to retell you plot, I could only give you the broad strokes.& maybe I'm not the target audience, but I was left wanting. But if you loved The Avengers, you can tell me how I got it all wrong in the comments. I did like the men. Downey Jr. does amazing line readings, but Stark's snark got a bit over obnoxious. Chris Evans did a lovely, subtle job as the earnest, lost-in-time Cap but was sadly clothed for the entire film. Mark Ruffalo was excellent as Bruce Banner doing that unshowy, regular shmoe playing it cool with a well of anxiety (and here anger) under the surface that he always does so well. I also think Joss handled the Hulk really well. I didn't see the last two Hulk films, but I heard they were terrible.

So maybe I'm not very nerdy. I geek out about some things (like making cocktails! & cooking!), & I consume a lot of cool (& sometimes less-cool) pop culture. But I guess I'm not a nerd. Still nerds are awesome, & I wanted to share these quotes by John Green, one of which was recently reposted by Wil Wheaton: 
"Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan.'"  
& 
"Because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, 'Oh yeah that purse is okay' or like, 'Yeah, I like that band's early stuff.' Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself-love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they are saying is, 'You like stuff', which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'." 

So (back to movies) yesterday I went to the Broadway & saw The Deep Blue Sea with Rachel Weisz because I looove her! The film is a period love story set in London just after WWII. It's kind of a mess. She's in a somewhat passionless marriage to an older man but carrying on an affair with the lovely Tom Hiddleston. The story is maddeningly fragmented & jumps around. We don't see Hester (Weisz) & Freddie (Hiddleston) fall in love, so I had a hard time caring about them. & I never fully understood why Hester attempts suicide (spoiler! not really--it's the central event & happens early in the film). However, I seem to be in the minority. of critics. Two people walked out of the showing I was at. It wasn't offensive; I think they were just bored.


There are several films playing now or coming soon that I am looking forward to: Damsels in Distress, The Five Year Engagement, Corialanus, Moonrise Kingdom, Snow White & the Huntsman, Prometheus, Your Sister's Sister (again!), To Rome with Love, Magic Mike, & Cosmopolis to name a few. 


So I finally finished Great Expectations & Berlin Stories. I'm now really into The Tale of Telsharu. & I'm working on my summer reading list. Here are a few titles I'm feeling: The Night Circus, Engine Summer, A Gay & Melancholy Sound, In One Person, Will Grayson Will Grayson, & The House of Mirth. I also think this is the time to finally read a Stephen King novel. Any suggestions? I'm also thinking I need at least one graphic novel/comic on my list. Maybe a Batman one to get pumped up for The Dark Knight Rises.  


Speaking of summer (how's that for a segue?), TBTL is all over its annual Song of the Summer competition, & it's time to start thinking of a summer playlist. Right now I'm all over Carly Rae Jepsen's Internet sensation hit  "Call Me Maybe." It's a tween pop song & catchy as hell. What are listening to?

A couple of weeks ago I got a package from Maggie! She sent me a teapot from Germany. It's so cute! It was my Christmas/Valentine's/Easter present. I was all out of tea though, so I finally visited the Tea Grotto, one of SLC's tea houses. I had a delicious pot of black dragon pearl tea and bought a package of Assam and another of Ceylon to take home. Yay for tea!

So today my mom finally got the baby grand piano she's always wanted. It kind of makes me want to take up the piano again--maybe learn a few relatively easy/intermediate songs that are still impressive. Other than Fur Elise.

So North Carolina voted to approve the gay marriage ban today. One of my friend's linked to this on Facebook earlier this week. It's a blog post from a North Carolinian named Milton. It's a short post (unlike this one), & here's most of it:
"But fear is not an ultimate force. Love is.
"You l should know we will not allow you to devalue marriage by acting as though it has a mere legal definition, or determines who gets tax breaks. We will use it as a relational word and a theological word and we will gather to watch our friends get married and dance at their weddings until the walls of your fortresses crumble down around you.
"We will have the audacity to include everyone and love one another and bust through whatever ridiculous divisions you try to foster. We will march in the streets and sing on your steps, but more than that we will wear you down with the courage of our convictions and tenacity of our determination to include every last one -- including you.
"I pray we defeat the amendment because I don’t want any more damage done to my friends and to others in this state who already feel marginalized. I hope it goes down because it is immoral and wrong. But if it passes, don’t smile for long. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Love lives in North Carolina. Big-hearted, big-tent, all-ye-all-ye-oxen-free-you-can’t-keep-us-from-being-together, world-changing love.
"And it’s coming for you."

I love that so much! So that's a pretty good place to end. & I think I've shared a lot for one post. Congrats if you read it all---there was a lot of babbling. Till I write again! Peace.