May 2007 Archives

Thus starts Commencement Weekend here at the college. Five years ago, tomorrow, I graduated. Half of me thinks, "Wow, five years. It's gone by fast." The other half is not convinced that it wasn't more like fifty years. I don't even feel like the same person I was two years ago, let alone five. Who the hell was I in 2002?!? The Lost finale was awesome and emotional and maddening. That night I could barely sleep, my mind was racing so fast. That makes me sound obsessed, and I guess I am, but I'd like to chalk it up to my love of a good narrative, rather than some outrageous fixation. I've had the same trouble sleeping after reading a good book, for instance. But now I have to wait an interminable amount of time to see more Lost... 8 months to be exact. I've decided to start watching another series, preferably one that's already finished and on DVD, in order to wile away the months. Any suggestions? I'm pretty sure I'm at least going to watch Twin Peaks, the second season of which I never actually saw. But I heard it sucks anyway, until the last episode. Also, I'd like to re-watch Firefly. But that'll take me about a day to do. There ain't much of it, after all. I'm off to Queens this weekend to be with Mike. We got a new futon mattress! Have a good Memorial Day weekend, everybody. --------

I'm so worked up about the Lost season finale that a few nights ago I had a whole dream about it. See, they discovered a new civilization on the island, except this was the true native population. They were all Asian. In the dream, I turned to my dad (who in reality does not watch Lost and probably wouldn't) and said, "See? Finally some 'natives' who aren't frikkin white people." Yeah, it was weird. Not as weird as the dream I had the following night where Tony Hawk had a new career as a professional magician. My parents are away right now, so I'm alone in the house. Of course last night I decided to start reading Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco -- I would choose the night I'm home alone to start reading a horror novel. I ended up reading the whole thing and finished up at about 3 AM. I wasn't terribly freaked out being in a big house alone... although I suppose having left a few lights on in the hallway and having locked my bedroom door kind of betrays a little freaked-out-edness. But still, the notion of there being space beyond my closed door, unoccupied space, kind of freaks me out. I don't think I could ever live in a big house. One of my sisters used to live in this big house in Red Hook. There was a closet door in my niece's room that led into a small walk-in closet, in which there was another door... which led into the guest room. That part of the house was rarely used, and whenever I slept over, it was in my niece's room. The thought that there was another wing of the house beyond that door scared me. But then, my niece's room was supposedly haunted, so I may have been freaked out for a variety of reasons. Once her Big Bird doll (which would say "Peekaboo" when you uncovered its eyes... I believe it worked off a light sensor) started going off in the middle of the night. In the pitch black. I wasn't there for that one, though. I likely would have gone screaming into the night, had I been. Wuss that I am, I still crave being scared. A lot. It's why I picked up that book in the first place (though it wasn't scary... more sad and disturbing and eerie). Every few months I whet my appetite for horror, then I overdose on it until my dreams start turning bad, then I stop for a while, and then the cycle starts all over again. I believe I just whetted the appetite once more. --------

A couple days ago I had a missed call on my cellphone. It was a 212 number, so today I googled it. Apparently it's the number of some hotel in Manhattan? Who was calling me from a hotel? Was the hotel calling me? (And by hotel, I don't mean its staff. I mean... the hotel.) I guess I shouldn't be too mystified, considering I get wrong numbers on my cell all the time. Periodically I'll have a voice mail from a man with an Indian accent offering me (some name other than my own) a job. Or from a guy asking me to come in and re-sod his lawn. --------

I feel like talking about Lost. I've never spoken about the show on my blog -- but I am a huge fan. And I mean that in a very special way, because I think this third season has largely sucked. It's becoming a soap opera, sometimes I find myself laughing at things that are supposed to be serious... but, nevertheless, the show has a special place in my heart for Seasons 1 & 2, for John Locke, and, hopefully, for seasons 4 and onward. Mike already knows about my daddy issue theory. Well, I guess it's not so much a theory as a simple observation. There is a major daddy issue thread going through this show. I was originally thinking that a character's place in the show was determined by the magnitude of his/her daddy issue, but that doesn't make sense because it rules out Sayid and Charlie as being important at all. (Although some think that Charlie isn't important, and Sayid's basically just been the tech guy ever since Shannon died, it seems.) See, we've got Claire, at the bottom of the importance barrel, who has a moderate oh-my-dad-isn't-who-I-thought-he-was daddy issue. Then Sun/Jin who are afraid/ashamed of their daddies. Then there's Hurley: typical he-wasn't-there daddy issue. Sawyer's daddy did some bad things to his mommy. Jack hated his daddy to the point of ruining his life. Kate, well, she blew up her daddy. And Locke... that's some fucked up shit right there (although if anyone mentions one more time how his dad stole his kidney, I will lose my self-composure and laugh out loud). I'm not sure of how I ordered these, because I don't actually think Kate is more important a character than Jack. I'm at least sure that Claire, Hurley, Sun, and Jin deserve to be on the bottom half; Sawyer, Kate, Jack, and Locke have got some major issues going on, therefore they are the principal characters. Does that make sense? So that rules out Charlie and Sayid (of the original crew). Of the newer characters, it rules out Desmond, Juliet, Mr. Eko... everyone who hasn't had a flashback involving a father. Although you could also include Desmond and Mr. Eko in my observation because of their religiosity (God the father). Oh yeah, and Ben Linus has a major daddy issue as well. Almost forgot about that. He's worse than Kate! As far as he's concerned, there's some weird Abraham-and-Isaac reversal going on: he killed his father and then made Locke "kill" his father, representing it as a sort of rite of passage. OK, I'm done rambling. But I wouldn't be surprised if more of these crop up. And considering everyone's going to die soon, I'm sure they'll have more characters next season whose fathers were utter bastards. Or something. --------

Brought to my attention, indirectly, by maneatingcow23: For the good of mankind, I think Bruce should release an album of popular covers. --------

My family, Mike, and I went to the Bronx Zoo yesterday for Mother's Day. We saw various exotic animals, some cute, some fastidious, some such as this frikkin thing. Later in the day we spotted this beast of unknown origin and species. Try not to scream when you click on that. And now I'm tired. All my pictures are crappy, thanks to the animals being too far away (yes, Mike was right about digital zoom -- it sure ain't optical) and behind glass. But if you want to see more, go to my Flickr page here. --------

So! Let's call this the resurrection of my blog. I may look new, but I'm not. See, my old host accidentally deleted all my data last month. And I, the genius that I am, last backed up my old blog in February 2005. My old posts, what's left of them, are in my "Old Blog" linked to the right. They've been stripped of images and any comments they had (unintentionally, as ever). But let's face it, I never got that many comments to begin with. --------

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