Quite happy right now. Am sitting here quite tipsy (having long ago lost the fear of drinking alone), listening to the best album ever given me (Ascenseur pour l'echafaud by Miles Davis) and reading an excellent, novel-length Spuffy fic which you can find here. I find jazz and pornography go quite well together(though it's only rated R and the first 12 chapters are PG-13, I'm getting soft in my old age).

Plus, extra reason to be glad: my ex, dare I say it? "step" daughter just called and still wants to hang out. Which is lovely as I thought I'd forever be known as the bitch that made daddy cry.

Ooh and I saw Scanner Darkly the other night. Wish I had been able to shmoke up a little before going. It was quite good - someone should have paired Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson together ages ago.

The two sweet little tramps who threw some guys underwear on my balcony the other day, thinking my apartment was his, are back out there flirting with the object of their affections. Do they know how much it will destroy their friendship when he chooses one of them over the other?

Drunks need no segueways.

Phew, I'm back. Well, at least in body. In spirit, I'm still in Neverland trying to recover from a week of funeral, cleaning the old house (old men don't take very good care of their fridges), and dealing with my schizophrenic uncle. For some reason, I seem to be the only one in the family on the correct wave length to deal with schizophrenics - not sure why that is. Perhaps it has something to with the fact that I was the only one who laughed when, during my nonna's funeral in January, everyone was all silent and somber and it was pissing down rain and wind and we were outside under a wee tent waiting for them to awkwardly manoeuvre my nonna into the mausoleum, and Gig (my uncle) says really loud "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" I envy his ability to say shit like that.

Oh, and in my seemingly eternal quest to educate people about schizophrenia

SCHIZOPHRENIA IS NOT MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER!!!!
(or dissociative personality disorder in psych speak)

Sweet Jesus, I feel like getting a t-shirt made sometimes. The most common elements of schizophrenia are hearing voices and having delusions, the most common delusions being those of grandeur and paranoia, my uncle having both (I'm so great everyone must be after me). As per usual Wiki does a pretty good job if you want more info.

Let's see if I can make the segue from schizophrenia to the book I just finished...well the character is a little odd, and in counseling, and on the outskirts of society, however she thinks she's crazier than she actually is. I just finished the newest book in the Alice series by Susan Juby. In an earlier post, I was complaining about how there were no good, non genred novels coming out today about women's lives that related to the non-conformist woman. Well in terms of teenage girls, there is a character out there and her name is Alice. She lives in Smithers, BC (that's right, small town Canada) and she's basically a female, Canadian Adrian Mole. I think they made a TV show out of the first book recently, but having no TV I don't know if it's any good.

The books are great. This last one, alice macleod, realist at last, is no exception. Alice is a girl raised by hippy parents who gets homeschooled until she's 14 because her parents allow her to wear a hobbit outfit to school to encourage her sense of uniqueness, not realizing that anyone unique in kindergarten gets beaten up constantly. The last book contains many amusing Buffy references and a scene in which her attempt to lose her virginity and is interrupted by an angry moose, followed by her speculating that this probably never happens to girls in L.A. or Toronto.

I'm both embarrassed by and in love with the fact that I find so much in common with Alice. Embarrassed because it's so honest about how she does something for one day, or reads half a book about something, and then spends the rest of the time fantasizing about becoming a star in the field, but never actually does anything to make it happen. I spend most of my days doing that.

Some tidbits to tempt you from the last book:

On her hippy mother's reaction to new boy:
"I suspect she's not going to like Evan. She wouldn't understand how sexy it is to be talked about like an inanimate object by a handsome man"

On her father's suggestion that she include some literary reference to Of Mice and Men in her screenplay Of Moose and Men:
"So I'm going to add some rabbits and make one of the minor characters mentally challenged and call him Lenny."

And finally, on a guy leaving her for someone else:
"I waved as he got in the car with the tanned girl and they drove off. And I was pretty ruined about it and everything. But not as bad as you might think. I mean, I didn't go all Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing and call out his name in a cracked voice or anything."

References to Buffy and Dirty Dancing? I'm staff choicing the hell out of this one.

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Well, given the amount of the death in my family, I thought it only appropriate to put up an obit of myself. I actually think I'll use it for my real obit :)

As per usual, I have to make tactless light of everything. You'll have to pardon that, but all who love me know that it's my way. My grandfather died yesterday. That makes three grandparents dead since January. I don't get vacations this year, I get funerals and hospitals. Funnily enough, though my nonno is most certainly hellbound, I was probably closer to him than my other grandparents. He had that charm that some abusive alcoholics can have and he was a storyteller extraordinaire. Plus, he made the best wine ever and he played a mean accordion. He was an evil character, but a character none the less. His wife he destroyed so I barely knew her and my maternal grandmother lived far away (though her story is an incredible one that I will have to tell at a later date). My maternal grandfather died many years ago, he was a bit of an evil charmer himself. Probably missed by a few transexuals himself.

I think part of the reason this is hitting me a little harder is because it's the final grandparent. They're all gone now. I've found that I'm not too bad about accepting death, I'm just not so good at dealing with how death affects my loved ones that are still living. My parents have had such a rough year, I can't imagine what they're going through and it hurts to worry so much and not really be able to do anything about it.

My grands have gone to their ancestors. Given who their ancestors were, I'm thinking the reunion is involving a lot of liquor.

For belly dancers and potential belly dancers. The troupe I'm in is putting on a fabu workshop with Sonia, one of the BellyDance Superstars.

Check it out:
Raq-A-Belly Dance!

It's Canada Day and I sit with strep throat for the 2nd time in the last 8 months. Yeesh. No fireworks for me.

I saw Superman Returns last night. I shall try not to have any spoilers in this. It was cheesy in parts and hugely optimistic and Superman sure is strong, but did I buy it? Lock, stock and barrel.

Singer just knows how to get the comic book heroes on screen (I could go into an X-Men love song here, but let's not even talk about what that fucker Ratner did to Singer's legacy in X-3). Short note on acting: Superman was good, liked his take on Clark. Spacey is of course amazing - is he ever not? James Marsden is slightly less of a personality-free zombie than usual. But can I ask if Parker Posey can ever play a character that isn't some deviation of the ditzy bitch? Not that I don't like her, but it's getting a little old.

Singer and the writers very nicely bring up a lot of the interesting parts of the Superman verse, which I often find to be one of the most boring comic books. It has some very nice moments of non-super heroism, just regular folk trying to do what they can, and finally some moments of non-super female heroism and female perspective. But I think the biggest question it asks (not for the first time), and asks well, is whether or not the world needs a saviour.

I think the movie comes down on the side of "hey, it would be nice if we could fix these messes we've made ourselves, but it's looking like we could use a little help." The Christ metaphore is played up quite a bit and so you would think that the movie comes down pro-saviour, but actually I think it leaves room for other conclusions. It lets regular men and women have their moments of saving themselves.

I believe we can do anything we want, overcome anything we want to, change the world etc. We shouldn't need a saviour. But underneath it all, maybe we do. This need would certainly explain all the religious beliefs across the globe. The saviour helps us, and really I'm not sure why that thought has become so threatening to me. All Superman really does is help us, and help is good, and yet when they start bringing in the question of "need," my first reaction is to get all defensive and independent. Why have that reaction to someone trying to help? Perhaps because I have some itsy-bitsy issues with controlling people, who often come under the guise of helpful people.

Where I believe that the movie leaves a small opening for discussion on needing a saviour is in the question asked "does Lois need a saviour?" The whole saviour thing is interesting for me personally because I've always been a reluctant fantasizer about the romantic saviour. The guy who sweeps in and saves me, not from a top a white horse while I lay screaming in front of a dragon, but someone who, simply by being himself, makes me into a better person. I try to be very aware of this as I've watched my mom be a quick-fix woman to not very good effect her whole life. You know, the kind of person who says "if I could just have this one thing, my whole life would change." Load of poop as no one thing is ever going to fix everything. But somehow, despite being a self-aware chick, I still do this "one thing" thing with the boys. Needless to say, I'm often disappointed and that's a whole lot of pressure to put on a guy.

In this movie, Lois is in a relationship with a normal good guy (hollywood normal = really sexy, successful guy who can fly a plane). And I wanted to think that she should stay with the normal, non-fantastical guy, but really as soon as Superman showed up and you could just tell her heart was speeding up and I wanted her to ditch normal and go for paranormal.

SPOILER:

The movie never really resolves either romantic relationship, and so in regard to Lois needing a saviour we are left without an answer. Surprisingly, I think we want her to need the saviour at the end, but maybe that's just me. But because I think the question of whether Lois needs a saviour and whether the world needs one are interrelated, I think the movie allows some play in the answer to the latter question by not resolving the first one.

That probably made no sense. Need some tea.

Oh, and GO ITALY!!!!