X-Men (an old 2010 post never posted)

One of the podcasts I listen to is doing a re-watch of the X-Men movies and weaving those in with the comic books, so I'm watching X2 this evening.

The X-Men movies have that sort of glossy blockbuster patina all over them, despite the attempt to go darker and more serious with black leather outfits and some serious heavy-duty casting. Famke Janssen has never been warmer or more approachable than in X2 as Jean Grey; Hugh Jackman has really never been manlier or more ironically humorous than as Wolverine (and that's saying something because he's both extremely manly and very funny). While Anna Paquin doesn't knock my socks off as Rogue, I love her character's big brother/little sister relationship with Wolverine. And you've got Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry on top of it all. This is not a low-budget flick by any stretch.

But it's not a thinking movie by any stretch either. You're to sit back and enjoy the special effects and the pretty people in the leather catsuits. Sure, it's fun, but that's about it.

I got to thinking about the premise as well. Sure, we've all dreamt of discovering we had special powers and finding others like us - I'd lay money that as a little kid, you wished you could fly, or you read a Harry Potter book and thought the idea sounded really cool. So the idea of the X-Men as a premise isn't new, but the way it's been handled feels fresh. I'm saying this, of course, not having read the comic books. I would be interested in reading them if someone had them in book format - as my attention span gets annoyed by having to wait a month to read more - and if I could get past the way the women are drawn - sex kittens with tiny waists and ginormous breasts, never in need of a good sports bra for fighting evil. I was poking around on the Marvel website to read more about the comic book characters, and, while I like the drawing style used in many of these types of comics (see Rogue or Jean Grey and ignore the boobs), I was more than a little put off by the way the women are portrayed. Of course, these books aren't made for me. They're aimed at young men, so double-Ds perfectly hung in Spandex makes sense.

Anyway, as a writer I'm curious about the powers the comic writers have assigned and the way the characters have been created. And while I think it would be really cool to have a comic-esque character drawn of me some day, she'd have to have more realistic proportions and far less skin showing than is de rigeur.

I'm Not Dead, Really

I got to wondering the other day if I could find this blog again, and here it is. I haven't written anything in eight years, but I think it's because I've never been good at journaling (despite being a writer at heart) and thus writing something every day. Also I'm afraid it becomes an outlet for just complaining, although I think it would do me good to get some of that stuff off my chest from time to time. Got to find that balance.

I have gotten out of the creative mode in the last few years, unfortunately. I only scrapbook with other people, I don't write much, and I haven't done other crafts lately either. (When was the last time I picked up a cross stitch project??) I find it too easy to play computer games and surf Facebook. However, I'm beginning to realize I'm a person who needs a project and I need to be sure I'm feeding that creative side of me. I just get too caught up in day-to-day life - are the dishes done? The DVR is full. I have trash to pick up. The cat's litter box needs changing. Do I have any clean underwear? (This has never actually happened to me because I have a lot of clothes, but I do a lot of laundry.) I need to start using things like Pinterest to spur creativity and by that I mean the actual creation, not just the planning (which I also enjoy and which sometimes is fulfilling on its own, then I have a bunch of stuff sitting around the house that I never use.) So I should try to use this blog as a creative spur as well. We'll see how it goes.

Black, Brown or Polar

A note to writers and editors everywhere:

When something is disgusting, bloody, disturbing, it's grisly.

Grizzly is a bear.

Why Do You Ask?

One of the questions I dread getting most contains these five words – “What are you doing tonight?”

Why should that bother me? It’s a perfectly innocuous question. But it’s a loaded one at the same time.

My first response is, “Why?” That’s because the asker is leaving you very few options. The asker either needs your help with something you might not be interested in, or to attend a function that may not be up your alley.

So you have two options. You can ask, “Why?” right off the bat, which gives you some leeway in dissembling should you not have any urge to sit through a three-hour dance recital of children you don’t know just to keep a friend company. But it also makes you sound like a suspicious grump.

That’s okay, I can live with being a suspicious grump. Because your other option is to say “Nothing, why?” and then have to be bluntly honest when you’re asked to volunteer/attend/do whatever. “I’m not interested,” has come out of my mouth more than once during this ambush, leaving me feeling bad for being blunt and shooting down my friend’s proposal, when I could have spared their feelings or politely gotten out of said obligation by claiming a prior engagement.

If you don’t think fast, of course, next thing you know, you’re standing on the sidelines of a half-marathon, in the rain, handing out little cups of water and soaked to the bone when you’d rather be home under a warm blanket drinking raspberry tea and reading a good book.

You could always lie right off the bat, of course. “I’m meeting up with a friend,” is a safe one, but what if the proposal is something that DOES interest you? Now you’ve locked yourself out of doing this thing, and really all you’re going to do is sit at home and watch reruns of “Bones.”

You could also be wildly creative to buy yourself some time. "I'm taking the chickens to the cinema to see 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. They all want to know if they can go back to the egg." Or, "Aunt Mabel's socks need washing again in vinegar and pomegranate juice, so I've got my work cut out for me." Or, "Hey, the last time somebody asked me to jump out of a plane wearing a tutu, I had to say no."

Hopefully the asker will be so busy chuckling or looking puzzled that you can insert a merry, "What's up?" and get the information you need without committing yourself.

The better approach is this: “I’m doing a fundraising walk on such-and-such a date. Would you be interested in joining me?” That gives you, the respondent, the option to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t make it.” So next time you feel the urge to tackle a friend with, “What are you doing tonight?” resist – or don’t be surprised if the answer has something to do with chickens and tutus.

The Good Cat

My beloved 15-year-old cat is dying of cancer.

He was diagnosed a few months ago after steadily losing weight and interest in activities. It was shattering. I knew something must be wrong, of course, but I was hoping it was a bad tooth that could be pulled to restore his appetite. Hearing about the lump in his intestine reduced me to tears.

The diagnosis came with prednisone to shrink the tumor and give him back some life, and it worked, for a while. He ran around like a kitten for a few weeks, eating everything I put before him, and begging for attention.

He’s slowed down since then to a more sedate pace, still begging for attention when it suits him but only very rarely engaging in kittenish play. He’d rather watch me wave the string back and forth in front of him rather than snatch at it. He has no interest in feathers or catnip toys. The days of a wide-eyed yowl and a random tear down the hall, it appears, are now past.

Today as I petted him I could feel the lump in his side. And he looked up at me, as he sometimes does, as if he knows. He knows I’m grieving and he knows something is wrong with him. Is he waiting for me to make it better, to fix it, or does he understand that he has lived a good long life and it won’t be much longer now? Is he happy? Does he fear death or recognize it? So many questions without answers.

I dread the day I take him to the vet’s office for that last trip. I dread that he will feel as though I betrayed him, taking him from the home he loves, never to return, to die in a place he fears. I dread going home with an empty carrier and an empty house, full of tears and grief. I know this is the way it is – the cycle of life – but it makes it no less painful to part with the cat I’ve had as a companion for so many years.

He’s been a good cat in every way – friendly, gentle, feisty, independent, loving. I found him living under a van in a parking lot of an apartment complex that of course didn’t allow pets. I posted signs but no one claimed him and I’ve always thought they came out the losers in the deal. Of course I too had to move when the complex discovered I had him, but it was an easy choice to live somewhere else, somewhere that would welcome him.

He loves women and is suspicious of men, but will warm to them over time. He’s terrified of small children; even the sound of their voices outside sends him into an ear-pricked state of tension, and if they enter the house, he’s under the bed far away from grabbing hands and high-pitched voices.

Every day when I wake up he’s sitting on the end of the bed, and as soon as the alarm goes off or I stir, he makes his way up to my head with a chirp and a purr so loud I could put him on the phone. If I don’t move right away, he head butts me or reaches out with a paw and ever-so-gently touches my face with a paw and claw. It’s guaranteed to get attention.

He sleeps in the guest room on the bed at its head as though it belongs to him, or crawls up underneath it to sleep on a box of three-ring binders. He used to curl up in the bathroom sink because it was perfectly cat-sized and still wants water direct from the tap. Until recently he would tear out of his litter box as though shouting, “I’m lighter! I’m lighter!” before attacking his scratching post and leaving me holding my nose and calling him Smelly Cat.

Now he is thin and bony, his belly still regrowing hair from his ultrasound. Petting him I can feel every vertebra in his spine, and his hip bones poke my hand. He still purrs as loud as he ever did and still wants to sit on my lap, purring with a deep motorboat rumble, his eyes closing tightly and reopening in a sign of affection. He still wants his dinner and his breakfast, still wants a treat, and still wants catnip leaves straight from the plant.

Soon, though, there will come a day when the house is quiet.

I try not to think of that day.

Rah Team Rah

As college football season starts, I'm pondering a human behavior that I don't quite understand. I'm wondering why you root for a school a) you didn't go to and b) whose town you don't live in.

Those seem to me to be the two main criteria for rooting for a college. It's not like a pro team - how many of us will ever play for the Lions? - because you probably paid your tuition at a certain school and maybe you went to the football games there to cheer for your alma mater and sing your fight song.

I do understand living in a college town and rooting for that college. It's hard to get away from that team and you probably get invited to games and see the memorabilia all around town and your coworkers in that gear.

I also see rooting for a school your kids went to - after all, you probably chipped in to the tuition - and maybe the one your parents or siblings went to. I have no problem rooting for the school my dad went to until his team goes up against my school. Same for my mom's school, which happens to be in the same conference as my alma mater. But I don't obsessively follow these teams, it's more like, if I had to pick one that's how I'd decide.

I think a lot of people pick a school and root for it because it wins. I admit it's hard not to pick a side in the big state rivalry. You won't find too many people who have nothing to say about Michigan versus Michigan State, whether they went to either school or not. But I also think a lot of people pick the state's winningest schools, whether they went there or had any connection or not. That seems just like jumping on the bandwagon because you can and so you never have to mourn losses, and that's what I don't quite get.

The Optimist

A tiny little spider has made an invisible web between my soap dish and my face wash. I'm not sure what he thinks he's going to catch besides splashes from the sink, but he persists. He's been there for at least a week and doesn't seem the least bit discouraged. I'm not sure how to explain to him that he'd be better off with other real estate but I'm not sure he'd believe me anyway.

Old Age Starts Here

I finally caved and bought one of those days-of-the-week pill containers. That's right, kids. I have so many pills that my purse rattled when I walked. I had to do something better.

*sigh*

Has anyone seen my Metamucil?

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Note: This review assumes you've either read the book or seen the movie; contains spoilers.

Harry Potter is all grown up and the girls like him for it. Half-Blood Prince, the sixth movie/book of the series, focuses on a more mature Harry and friends Ron (who looks like he's been lifting weights) and Hermione (charmingly attractive). The petulant teenager from Order of the Phoenix is gone, and a more goal-oriented Harry is in his place, listening to his mentor Albus Dumbledore with increasing clarity.

The book focuses thoroughly on the sixth year of school - potions classes, Quidditch matches, and most importantly, hormones. Teenagers are goopily in love throughout the entire book, and the movie has seen fit to milk this for all its worth. Hermione fends off the arrogant Cormac MacLeggen and moons at Ron with far more ardor than is ever displayed in the book; Ron snogs Lavender Brown with just as much enthusiasm as in the pages. Also clear to us is Harry's crush on Ginny, Ron's kid sister, again touted much more heavily in the film than the book, sometimes to awkward effect. This probably pleases the teen audience, but when they finally do kiss it lacks the surprise and emotion of the printed moment, as well as Ron's reaction, which I was looking forward to.

The movie does make significant changes from the book in ways that didn't make a lot of sense. I get that it doesn't work to have Harry running around under the invisibility cloak much in the film - because obviously you can't see him - but his inaction in the final action sequence (you know the one) comes across as much more cowardly than had he been frozen with the Petrificus Totalus spell under his cloak, unseen to anyone and unable to move.

Voldemort is a menacing background presence but it's the Death Eaters who are front and center - Severus Snape, Bellatrix LeStrange, Fenrir Greyback, who is never fully introduced in the movie. You have to know who he is to understand his role. We are also denied the final battle at the base of the astronomy tower. Bill and LeFleur don't make any appearances, but we are treated to a scene or two not in the book, including at the Burrow - a move I'm not quite sure I understand the need for. We don't get the funeral, which I was also looking forward to, nor Harry's speech to Ginny at the end, which I think is an important one. It shows where Harry has chosen to go in the seventh book and why he's chosen the path that aims to spare her and the other people he loves from harm. I would have included that speech, however heartbreaking, because of its impact. He gives a small snippet of something similar to Hermione.

One thing the movie does is make sure the same students come back to play familiar roles. I was pleased to see Neville, Seamus, Crabbe and Goyle among the familiar faces, Neville especially having grown exceedingly tall and looking quite grown up. It's too bad they couldn't give these guys more lines but it's nice to see them all the same. Nice, too, to see in limited roles Tonks and Lupin; however, some of Tonks' scenes are given to Luna Lovegood (ditzy as usual) which made very little sense. Even though I rather like that dipsy Luna and her spectrespecs, I would have preferred sticking to the book.

That's not to say this is a bad movie, only that I made what could be considered a mistake for reading the book just before seeing the movie. In fact, many lines, especially early on, come straight from the book, which is refreshingly fun. I also think that not having read the books leaves you at a bit of a disadvantage. You're missing the supporting characters (for example, you don't know what a full prat Cormac is, you only get a hint of it) and some of the subtext (Ron threatening to kill for snogging his sister, unaware his best friend wants to do exactly that but would choose his best mate anyday). You miss the real struggle Harry underwent to get the memory from Slughorn or how he continued to excel at potions thanks to his potions book. Still, they can't do everything. Even at 2 1/2 hours or so the movie moves quickly and there's barely a still moment, especially if you know what's coming up. And as usual the visuals are stunning - a ring of fire has never looked so incredibly grand and powerful and awe-inspiring. And I still nurse a strong crush on Hogwarts itself - its Gothic arches, its dark passageways, and the touches of magic that make it so alive and unique.

Jim Broadbent does an admirable job at Horace Slughorn, who I had pictured as fatter and with a large blonde mustache - but the crystallized pineapple, which sounds delicious, does make an appearance. Then again, when does Jim Broadbent give a bad performance? Alan Rickman continues to bite off the ends of his words with a crisp relish, and Tom Felton as Malfoy (again, all grown up) gets a lot to do in this film. Knowing how his arc turns out enriches this movie, I think and his performance in it. I hope after this he gets to do some roles where he smiles instead of sneers. He'll have the girls falling all over him too, not just Pansy Parkinson.

Animals: A small bird dies.

Overall: I freely admit I need to see this one again, not immediately after having read the book. I was waiting for what I knew was coming, not settling down to enjoy it as it ran. I give it an initial 3/12 roses out of five for what it cut from the book. A second viewing will likely improve that rating.