You know, living with a pessimistic cynic is slowly sucking my will to live. A couple months away from Captain, my Captain may be the only thing to keep me from turning into a jaded crust of a human being just like her. I mean, really, when you turn to your best friend and say, "I'm starting to feel like I'm losing sight of my ideals", the reaction you want isn't, "Yeah...and?"

She acts like giving up on ideals and principles is inevitable and a part of growing up. That sort of thinking kind of hurts me deep inside.

In other news, Villainy! is back with a vengeance, with the long awaited PAGE THE EIGHTH and super happy funtime bonus page.

Uh, other stuff there be. Yarr. Think I'll swap out all my icons for new ones, 'cause I'm bored of the old; I think I'm going to stay a redhead for awhile--and yes, it is vital for you to know this; I'm now toying with being a young Granny Goodness for Halloween--or, as she's shaping up in my head, G.I.L.F. Goodness; and...uh...there was something else important, but I can't remember what it was.

I have a whole rant prepared on the topic of how much I dislike Ghost World and why, but I think I'll save that for tomorrow. I can't be grumpy when I'm feeling like this; it'll crush me for sure.

ETA:



And, just like that, my faith in humanity is restored. God, I'm so easy. Thank you, Fosse.

Oh my Bruce, the computer lab is hellishly freezing. I'm a fucking hearty Wisconsinite here, and I'm freezing my tuchus off.

Now, speaking of Bruce...(and I'm sure you all know to which one I refer):

I'm starting to think I'm never going to get to see My Name is Bruce. Captain and I rented it (as well as The Spirit and The House Bunny; please do not question our movie decisions when we're both PMSing like crazy) and we get about halfway through the flick when the disc bloody well explodes.

...this is not the first false start I've had with this movie, you know. I've been following its development from the very beginning and it feels like four years of anticipation is never going to be satisfied.

When Bruce was in Chicago with it during the premiere tour, we all (Katie, Neddy, Nicki and I) had a very vague plan to go see it, but that never materialized because, even though I was in Chicago at the time, everyone--everyone had to work.

Bones, my oldest, dearest friend--the man who was my Captain before I had an actual Captain--called me up just a few weeks ago. Our conversation went something like this:

"Dude. You NEED to see this movie. It's called My Name is Bruce. You heard of it?"

"......you mean the movie that I've been telling you about since, like, 2005? The movie that everyone I have ever met has been told about in full detail? That movie?"

"Ohhh. Right. Rabid Bruce Campbell Fangirl. Forgot who I was talking to there for a second."

"You know what? Fuck you."

"I love yoooou."

The guy who's been mocking me for the past...oh, man, has it been six years? Christ. Anyway, he's mocked me for my love of the Bruce since the inception of our friendship and he's seen it.

This is the second time I've rented it to have the disc explode on me, too. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. I may have to break down and buy a copy. Gasp.

You know, for all the smegfacery that is inherent in their gender, sometimes fanboys remind me that they're just the greatest.

Also, I think I'm going to take ze Captain camping today. Mua.Ha.HA.

And finally, scarlet_gryphon sent me what is quite possibly the most awesome birthday present I've gotten thus far. Once I'm done playing it, I will rant/rave at length about it.

Happy fourth of July, kids. Here's hoping we survive a night in the wilds of Alabama.

(Also, note to self: keep your cell phone charged if you want to receive calls, twitface.)

"Can we get a stripper pole?"

"No."

"Aw..."

"Well, not now."

"For Christmas?"

"Okay."

"YAY!"

In other news, reyclou sends me the best birthday cards, I swear to God. I wondered how she'd top last year's rainbows and unicorns, and yet, she outdid herself. I love you, Science Officer Bottoms.

Also, thanks to smegabyte for the vampire first aid kit. I may yet recover from Twilight with this on my bookshelf.

So. Much. Sex. Dear sweet zombie Jesus, YES!

Seth Rogen, if you fuck up the movie, I will never, ever forgive you. Ever.

I'm...

I don't know what I am today. It's been a day of many mood swings and I've landed hip-deep in a very strange sort of funk.

(Curse you, ovaries!)

I'm sitting here in the computer lab, in my Dead Kennedys t-shirt, coming to the realization that I don't even listen to them anymore. I haven't since I moved into my own place at the start of '08. Hell, I barely even listen to the Ramones anymore, and Joey saved my life once upon a time not all that long ago.

Last year was the year of Paul Simon and William Shatner's Has Been; Sinatra and Martin. Music that made me happy because I was happy. I didn't need punk because I didn't need something to give voice to my angst. It's...I don't know. I feel like I've lost my edge in a variety of little ways.

Like, my hair. I used to keep it cropped super, super short. I got bored with it when I was nineteen after six years of alternating between Otto Octavius and an early sixties Ringo-shag and decided to grow it out. Now, I'm bored again, but I'm really reluctant to cut it.

This may not seem like a big deal, but I used to cut my hair at the drop of a hat whenever I bloody well felt like it. I'm not used to thinking things over. That's not me. Or, maybe more realistically, that's not who I used to be. God, I was such a fearless, carefree idiot. No, no, you can't even...when I was fifteen, I was Sally fucking Bowles, man.

Oh, and my mouth got me into so much trouble. Whew. You think I'm blunt now, brother, you ain't seen a third of what I'm capable of.

(I know at least one person who just shrieked in horror at such a concept.)

But then I learned this little thing called 'impulse control'. It's only come over the past couple of years, but I do, believe it or not, have some sort of filter in place.

I think I'm sick of impulse control. Okay, so it's nice to no longer live in abject terror of slowly turning into Enid from Ghost World, but still. I miss certain aspects of that version of me.

(Note to self: Rant about what an ugly, horrible little book Ghost World really is later.)

Blah. I'm bored with this topic already. So I was once a bundle of unbalanced, unpredictable TNT and spat acidic insults and sexual innuendo with equal ease, so the fuck what?

I've softened up. I'm not intimidating. I'm just a big gooey eyed optimist with all the edge of a carton of cottage cheese. There's nothing wrong with that.

(I type as my teeth grind involuntarily. Wow! Mood swing much?)

Maybe...I don't know. Maybe I'm just longing for the teenage me because she didn't deal with all this early twenties uncertainty bullshit. She chose a direction, hurtled towards her nowehere-destination and didn't overthink anything, no matter how ill advised her course of action may have been.

Okay, so I'm still like that, though I'm much better at looking for the angle now, but some days, man, some days....

Jesus, the teenagers on my f-list, this post is definitely not doing you guys any favors, is it? You thought teen angst was tough and here I'm saying "Wait 'til you're my age and you start missing the teen angst...you whippersnapper, you."

If I had a cane, I would shake it at you angrily. Maybe burst into the chorus of Samuel and Rosella. That would show you.

And now I'm no longer grouchy...and am in fact humming happily to myself. What the hell? I mean honestly.

This being a girl stuff is nothing like it was in the pamphlet.

Fuck it. I'm going to go answer e-mails and eat breakfast.

The fact that Jake called me to tell me of the King of Pop's demise is somewhat disturbing. My own reaction was utterly typical, though.

"He's dead? No, really? No way. He can't be dead. That's like...Elvis being d--...oooooh."

Even after all these years, it's hard to turn off the conspiracy theorist in me. I mean, the man was sliding into bankruptcy, what better way to spike record sales than to die? Hmmm? I'm just saying, there will be doubters before you know it and in ten years, he'll be popping up at gas stations in Arizona too, keeping company with Elvis, JFK and Andy Kaufman.

Oh, wait, no he won't. Weekly World News no longer publishes. Alas.

Still, in thirty years, when they remake Bubba Ho-Tep, it'll be Michael Jackson in a retirement home, not Elvis.



There. That's a fitting enough tribute for me. Never was a huge fan, but if VH1 doesn't stop showing his videos 24/7, I'll be fully indoctrinated by the end of the day.

Um. There's other stuff, but I'm at that point of sleep deprivation where I'm jumpy as all hell and more than a little paranoid for absolutely no reason. Maybe it's the coffee I had yesterday.

It's only hour eighteen, you know. Used to be, I didn't start feeling it until hour forty.

Must be gettin' old.

You know, I really, really need to start answering my fanmail. I used to be so good about that sort of thing...but now it just piles up and piles up and piles up until I realize there's no point in answering it because the people who wrote it have probably forgotten who the hell I am by the time I remember to answer 'em.

Same with invitations from boys to go out. "Oh, I'll answer that later, right now I have other things to do! He can wait!"

Then it's three months later and I've got thirty e-mails that I never got around to and feel really bad about. If I actually answered all those date invites, I'd be booked well into 2011. But noooo, must be flaky like a pastry and never answer them while they're still interested.

Must work on this personality flaw. Procrastination is of the bad.

What can I say, though? If you're not right in front of me flailing your arms at all times, I'm not going to remember that you exist. It's part of this whole walking around in a raging sea of self absorption thing.

(Man, randomly, I really miss writing Rodney McKay. You know, before Atlantis started to suck.)

...why the hell do I hear Jack and Diane? Make it stop.

So, anyway.

...

Oh, I don't know. There's been a lot weighing on me for the past few weeks that I've been avoiding dealing with because it all kind of caved in on me at once and I'd much rather pretend it isn't there. Of course, it all had to fall on my head a few days before we hit Orlando, making me a surly, surly bitch to be around for the first couple of days. Then a Frost-related-drama had to be staged, which had me unable to sleep, which made me even worse. Then everything was okay, then yet another drama had to start unfolding with an ex-almost-boyfriend (which is still unraveling like a cheap hairpiece) and I was surly for the last couple of days.

My reputation may never recover from two weeks of being in super-grumpy-girl-mode, honestly. I'm really good at dealing with the soap opera that is my life, so long as the crises don't occur one right after the other. When it rains, it pours.

I think I'll vent tomorrow. I'll feel better if I do.

For right now, though: it's late, I'm sleep deprived and the counting sheep are coming to eat me. Also, I miss my Captain. I am not too proud to say it. Watching movies without another film geek is just so mind numbingly boring. I can't turn to her and say things like, "That was a really awesome dolly shot." or "Oooh! Nice use of Dutch angle!" and get an enthusiastic nod of agreement. Sigh.

Right. Bed.

So, ze Capitan is off on a whirlwind adventure (a.k.a.: the annual family vacation; she will need many hugs when she returns) so I'm truly allllll alone for the first time since the beginning of December.

Oh, God, have I missed living alone.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love the Captain with all my black shrivelly heart, but I really, really missed living all by my lonesome. I can do all the girly things she mocks me for, like sitting on the couch with a pound of cold cream on my face. I can watch musicals long into the night. Topless, if I am so inclined.

I can make my sandwiches with mustard smiley-faces without receiving a fond pat on the head and an even fonder, "Aw, Harl."

(The Harley comparison doesn't bother me nearly as much as I let on; it's the whole categorization/labling thing that goes hand in hand with it that bugs the hell out of me--the whole "this is what you are, there is nothing else to you" thing. Arg.)

Furthermore, I can stay up all night, sleep all day, eat--or not--whenever the hell I feel like it without someone peeping over my shoulder and saying, "Eat, Ops. If you don't eat, you will die and I WILL BE SAD."

(I really can't fault her for this strategy, as I'm the one who originated it, but still.)

On the other hand...I really miss my Captain. For a lone wolf* I sure do get lonely awful quick.

So, this week, this week, this week. What have I done of note?

I've been pretty horribly emotionally restless lately, which means I've dealt with my stress in the healthiest possible way I know how: changing my hair color. I'm currently a redhead, which is a hell of a thing. I mean, when I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a redhead and then when my hair decided to start turning auburn when I was like, eighteen, I fought it tooth and nail.

"Damn it, just when I get used to black hair!"

And now I'm sitting here with my hair situated somewhere between season three/five Dana Scully and Geri Halliwell circa 1997. It's kind of awesome. Weird, but awesome. I like it so much I may let my roots grow out and embrace the stubborn Irish blood in me that refuses to be stomped by the Italian. Then again, I might get bored with it next week and go blonde. Ah, to change one's hair as often as one's moods shift.

Heeey, maybe a haircut is in order. I do kinda miss the bowl-cut...

Um...what else? Let's see. Al was supposed to come down for my birthday (she crocheted me a Cthulhu as a gift; see, good friends give you comics, best friends give you elder gods), but alas, she is not here and I'm not even sure she's still alive at this point. She's notoriously faily at answering her phone.

And I've successfully introduced Mon Capitan to both the sex that is Bob Fosse's choreography and the writing prowess of Neil Simon. What little theatre geek there is in me is very, very pleased by this turn of events. Next task? Making her sit through...oh, I don't know, Cabaret without squirming.

Blah. It's five thirty. I need bed.

OH! One other thing!

Rock Band now has a Spinal Tap track pack.

Oh, yes. Rejoice, my geeky, geeky friends. You too can play Stonehenge, turned up to eleven!

Well, actually, no you can't because that's not in the track pack, but still! SPINAL TAP ROCK BAND OH EM GEE.

And I saw the commercial for the Ghostbusters video game and realized, to my utter horror, that we no longer have an X-Box in the house. I've been waiting for this game since '07; if I don't get to play it soon, my brain may explode. I want my Venky and I want him now!

And speaking of Venky, the Bill Murray movie marathon that was on today made me both deliriously happy--because he's my favorite actor of all time--and horribly, horribly homesick. It's his accent. He sounds like Chicago. He sounds like the midwest. He sounds like home.

Sigh.

Okay, now, bed. Seriously.

* "A solitary eagle. A cuddly baby tapir." You know it had to be done.

This is my last thirty minutes on the planet as a twenty-two year old.

If Two-Face is ever going to defy the laws of reality and hire me as a henchgirl while it's still thematically appropriate, now would be the time for him to call...

-stares at phone-

...damn.

ETA: 7:05. I am officially twenty-three. Bloody hell, how did I get this old?

I love you, John. So much. How could I have ever loved Hank more than I loved you? What a fool I was!

So, hey, you guys who still owe me cash money?

I hate to lean on you, but now would be a good time.

I'm just saying...

Okay, people, time for some audience participation. Let's all get to know each other better, 'kay? I've gotten a whole bunch of new LJ friends over the past few months, and I still hardly know any of you. Copy/paste the following questionaire in a comment and leave your answers.

1. Your Middle Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favourite movie:
5. Favourite Song or Album:
6. Favourite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
9. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
10. What's your philosophy on life?
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty?
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interests?
13. What is your favourite memory of us?
14. What is your favourite guilty pleasure?
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarky) - what are they?
17. Can we get together and make a cake?
18. Which country is your spiritual home?
19. What is your big weakness?
20. Do you think I'm a good person?
21. What was your best/favourite subject at school?
22. Describe your accent:
24. What do you wear to sleep?
25. Trousers or skirts?
26. Cigarettes or alcohol?
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
28. Will you repost this so I can fill it out for you?

Jesus Chrysler, even after all these years, I still have such a girlcrush on you, Geri.

Now, I have to go collapse. 'Scuse please.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Jake. This is me returning your call."

"I called you yesterday."

"I was busy. I'm sorry."

"Yesterday."

-sweetly- "........if it's any consolation, I still love you best."

"Well...............that's okay then."

"...You are so easy."

Mon Capitan and I went to the library today. Huzzah. I picked up a stack of trades (can't wait to wrap my head around Eisner's A Contract With God) and a few movies, along with a couple of honest to goodness books--with words! No pictures!--that I've been meaning to read (The Thin Man; The Maltese Falcon; Groucho Marx: Master Detective and The Pleasure of My Company). As per usual, Cap and I split up to go get our own stuff and then came together after about an hour.

We both had a copy of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in our stacks. As point of fact, we both had a bunch of black and white movies: Camille, All About Eve and Ninotchka among them.

We took it as a sign. A sign that we were both in the mood to be terribly, terribly disturbed by Bette Davis.

(For my part: depress me, Garbo, depress me!)

Now, I've never seen Baby Jane before, save for a single clip on youtube, so I came to this thing with as clean a slate as humanly possible. Pure, unspoiled, unprepared. Not like how I went into Psycho or any number of other classic movies that are referenced so often they have no meaning anymore.

I really hope I never have to live through that movie ever again. It was truly emotionally harrowing. That was the cinematic equivalent of playing Portal. Twice. It was just so good--so painfully, painfully good, in so many film geek ways--but so mentally taxing I don't think I can go through it again anytime in the near (or even semi-distant) future.

I really recommend it. I'll even recommend that you sit through Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as companions to it, if you can stand that much crazy in one sitting. We were going to do that, but we were both so burnt out by Baby Jane? we didn't want to risk our sanity any further.

But tomorrow, baby...tomorrow, we conquer the others.

Here, have a taste, kids.



Captain glomped me when I sang along...in Harley Quinn's voice. Now that was truly disturbing. I even toyed with the concept of Harley as Baby Jane; Captain suggested Ivy as Blanche, but I shook my head, no, no, Barbara Gordon as Blanche. To which Captain responded, "Even better!"

Then we decided there is something very wrong with both of us. Sickly, twistedly brilliant, but wrong.

(I made jokes, but only because I was so totally rattled by this movie that I didn't know what else to do with the cold coil of creepiness in my gut.)

Now, I believe I shall go home, crawl into bed with the Captain and hope to God that Bette Davis doesn't try to feed me rats me in my dreams. -twitch-

"-startled screech-"

-from the other room- "What? WHAT?!"

"What usually makes me scream like that?"

"...how big is it?"

"...um...Captain..."

"That's...pretty sizable."

That thing took half a can of Aqua Net and still would. not. DIE. Do you hear me? AQUANET! It survived being doused with a gallon of the Raid of haircare products and staggered away! I hit it with a shoe! A platform shoe! Three times!

IT SURVIVED!

"-screech- We are such GIRLS! KILL IT!"

"Where the hell is a big strong man when we need one? Damn it, John! You're never around when I need you!"

"...that thing would EAT John."

"OH GOD, IT'S! STILL! MOVING!" -smack, smack, smack-

"Is it dead? Is it dead?!"

"I...still twitching! My God! What the hell IS this thing?!" -smack-

Of course, once I finally managed to beat the thing to death, we had to have this conversation:

"...is there any science lab around here that might be genetically engineering spiders?"

"....-slow nod-"

"Don't say that! Lie to me!"

"They would never do that. Why would they do that? That could never happen!"

"...what if it was radioactive?"

"-blink-"

"We may have just slaughtered our only chance to become Spider-Girls!"

"Or it could have given us cancer."

"Oh, right. Stan Lee science is not sciencey."

We need a film crew twenty-four seven, I tell you. You know that Captain was actually standing on the couch? I thought women only did that in cartoons...

You know, whenever I sit down to write and discover that I'm blocked, I start to doodle.

Somehow, Harley Quinn always, always pops out of my pencil. I don't know why, I don't know how, but she does. I don't even realize what I'm drawing until I'm halfway finished. I just zone out and doodle and suddenly, there she is, looking up at me smugly.

Even though a design for 1940's Gun Moll Harley is all sorts of epic awesome, I would like this to stop.

...-sigh- Yes, I'm considering doing this for Halloween instead of being Mercy Graves. God.

By the time August rolls around and I make my final, final decision and really launch into the crazy-hard-prep-work I've done the past couple of years, I'll have gone through a hundred different ideas.

There's something inevitable about me being Harley, though. smegabyte knows it. darkestnova knows it. cryincrustacean knows it. I might as well embrace it as gracefully as I possibly can.

(Kicking and screaming.)

In other news, with each passing hour I am reminded just how violently aware of the fact my birthday is a mere fifteen days away I am. Every year I do this. The second I hit June first, a little doomsday clock in my head starts ticking, ominously counting down. I don't even know why I freak out. I mean, I'm thrilled every time I find a gray hair, for God's sake; you wouldn't think a birthday would rattle me. Yet, every single fucking year...

Maybe it's because I'm rapidly approaching twenty-five. Maybe it's because every time I watch a sitcom about twenty-somethings that I saw as a kid, I realize, "Shit. How did I get to be their age?"

Or, maybe I'm just worried about finally getting that tattoo.

(I swear, in my head the scenario of a future me as the mother of a teenager won't stop playing. It goes something like this:

"You are not getting a tattoo."

"YOU have one!"

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"Hypocrite!"

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

"I hate you!"

And then as little Bruce or whatever scampers to his/her room, I realize through the haze of maternal-heart-stabbage: I have at last become my mother. Oh, God, when did that happen?)

Ugh, let it be June seventeenth already.

-goes to workout room-

-tries keycard-

-green light!-

-tugs handle-

-is locked out-

.....not cool, universe. So not cool.

You know, walking past Group of Fit Shirtless College Boys Playing Volleyball almost makes up for moving away from the Fit Shirtless Track Team that used to jog past my bedroom window every day.

Almost.

In other news, Zac Efron has just signed to do a live action Jonny Quest movie.

Come on. Zac Efron? Really? Really?

( Click and watch. If you dare )

I mean, really?

Well, okay, Hollywood. I know a few old school JQ fanboys who are going to be blowing their brains out over this, but I'm sure you know best.

.....

Yeah, I can't keep a straight face, either. And dammit, I'm tryin'. If I actually cared about Jonny Quest, I'd probably be exploding all over the place, but I could never get up any interest in the show when it was on. There were better things to occupy my time back then; things like Batman: The Animated Series, for example.

Anyways. I finally, finally read Catwoman: Crooked Little Town last night (after reading Catwoman: When in Rome a few nights earlier--and may I say, DAMMIT, LOEB!) and Brubaker never ceases to impress me when he handles Selina Kyle. For the first time, she's more than just sex personified, wrapped in vinyl. She's complex--and while there are a few aspects of the series that make it seem a little shallow, it's nowhere near as bad as some of the Balent era garbage that was published back when I was growing up.

I think, given as much reading as I've been doing lately, I'll get around to a full-on articulate Catwoman related rant pretty soon. One has been stewing in my head for ages and I need to get it all scrawled out somewhere.