Tuesday, December 30, 2008

two new "reality" shows

Ok so I shouldn't say these "reality" shows are new but new-ish to me. I also just find "reality" t.v. to be so not real and also so addictive. I end up really really getting addicted to the worst things and these are two of them. And yes I should be finishing my paper-but I needed a wittle break!

First Momma's Boys
The latest girl eliminated totally looks like my old college roommate, which is really funny. They kind of have the same personality, loving animals not really wanting children, being blond and a bit meek. But the show really sucks, one of the mothers is overtly racist and doesn't want her son interracially mixing with a woman of color. And most of the women of color have been eliminated. Many of the girls are unnaturally blonde with unnaturally large breasticles. And ugh do we really need another dating show where boys choose girls that they later dismiss and re-choose someone else.



Also...

Secret Lives of Women
This show actually bothers me because it really puts certain specific women on display for the voyeuristic pleasure of others and most likely for men. And it makes these women seem so exotic when most people have "secrets" and it turns the secret possessors into the others and the rest of us into the norm. I don't like the implications of such displays. Argh.





Also saw a hilarious commercial for Trojan Vibrating Touch-yes it was a real commercial.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Hospitals

Warning: If you are easily sickened maybe you should not read this!
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Today I had to go to the emergency room. First of all this is always a gloomy and expensive situation but the Estes Park ER is really quite dismal. While most of the people are friendly enough they didn't give me my own room-which when you go because you may have a case of giardia is not a pretty picture. The nurse who is a dude which is totally fine, I just didn't want to give the impression the nurse was female as is assumed of the profession nurse, fixes my I.V. digging around in my vein to get my blood out for tests and such. I have had a lot of blood taken and several I.V's put in-but this one was extremely painful still hurting even tonight. And I have a nurse in training watching the whole thing go down-Neat. It's cool you can watch me be sick and miserable. When the nurse tells me to stick out my tongue he makes a sort of "eww" sound and says, "That looks bad, like a helamonster dried out in the desert." I take that to be a bad thing. But what is to be expected when I haven't been able to drink much of anything for a week? Dry helamonster it is. It took three bags of fluid to rehydrate me to the point that I actually had to pee.

But worst of all the ER doc (who I have seen before and is a total a-hole) doesn't even really believe me when I am telling him my symptoms. "So you think this is like a diarrhea and vomiting thing then." I'm like well I'm not the doctor but since those are my symptoms I'm gonna have to say yes. I don't say this, but I do say yes I believe this is what I am experiencing. I explain to him that I am extremely dehydrated because this has been going on for a week and I can't keep anything down that that is why I came in. I feel I have to justify myself to him-justify the fact that I am ill. "And this isn't related to your endometriosis or interstitial cystitis?" "well it feels nothing like the pain or symptoms that come along with either of those issues so no." "And still there is no way you could be pregnant?" ARGH! "No," I respond, but my anger is muted by the fact that I am on anti-nausea medication. "So we can just give you some anti-nausea medication to take home and you can hydrate orally?" "If I can keep it down, I threw up all my medicine this morning." I don't actually say this I just think it and nod and smile. I want to punch him in the face for not believing me, want to explain to him that I would not go on this long painful venture to see his stupid ass if I didn't have too. But I nod and smile-home is really where I should be anyway-much more comfortable and he won't be there.

Lastly they made me take stool sample cups home to collect specimens. Awesome! I asked if they would give me some gloves, I change diapers for a living and I don't go anywhere near those kids' poop without them, why would I go that close to my own.

At least they are remodeling so if I ever have to go back it won't suck quite as much.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The reason i love the x files

so this is going to be a short post I don't really have the time to devote to it like I should but i want to get the ideas out there because they are important even if they are not new.

Last weekend I watched "X-Files: I Want to Believe," followed by the "Revelations" (yeah wrong order I know.) But I discovered this theme which I am sure was the intent about where T/truth/s lie (pun intended.) Since I never watched several episodes in a row of the show when it was on prime time and now it's on a bit late and scary for me to watch it too often watching them like this gave me a much different impression of the show.

As most people probably knew but I had never really caught on to, Dana Scully is the scientific skeptic of the whole operation-although I do remember her being fairly convinced during some episodes that paranormal phenomenon could exist. Scully, who especially in earlier episodes is reminiscent of the dearly beloved,Clarice Starling. While attractive, her clothing and hair leave a lot open for ways to have her body be read. She is a professional, wearing less mkeup, with androgynous hair except for the fluffy bangs which seemed more a way to hide her sex appeal then flatter it. Yet she is constantly (hetero)sexualized by the predators, psychics, killers, and even by Mulder, who questions her abilities at first because of her gender performance. What Scully really does for the show however, is provide the skeptic, the "I want to believe" but character, In her line of work she believes everything must posess a scientific empirical reason for its occurrence. Thus, even when faced with a situation with no possible scientific explanation, she is still reluctant to buy Mulder's belief that the explanation comes from the realm of the paranormal.

Enter Fox Mulder, the guy who believes anything and everything is possible and many things are unexplained. He is the man who offers up the possibility that not only do things happen out of the ordinary all the time but he believes them based on data which is primarily interview and narrative. He listens to the teller of the anomalous tale and asks Scully to listen and try to believe because the people doing the telling believe it to be true. This is really quite deep.

Onto talking about my favorite episode seen thus far, "Modern Day Prometheus." Talk about camp. Cher, queer characters, black and white, and the modern day Frankenstein. What could be better. More to come on this. However, this has been a lot of what I think about.

I also feel this ties in quite nicely to shifting identities of queerness and illness...more to come there too.

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Monday, December 8, 2008

My First Christmas Without My Grandma...Imagine how hard this is...

Mistletoe, Colbie Caillat
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Great
Fake plastic Mistletoe
Wrap me in a great big bow
And tear me apart

It's Christmas time
So open up the flood gates
Tell me that you'll be late
And rip me apart

Cause you say that, you say that things will be alright
But I've heard that, I've heard that so many times and I know that

It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall
And I'm still standing here three feet small
Lose our troubles because after all
It's Christmas time

It's Christmas time...

Cold
Icing on the walkways
Slip in to the games we play
We're falling apart

A great big house
That's made out of ginger bread
Crumbles to the ground
We're breaking apart

But you said that, you said that things would be alright
But I've heard that, I've heard that so many times and I know that

It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall
And I'm still standing here three feet small
Lose our troubles because after all
It's Christmas time

And I've been waiting for you to come
And it's hard cause I feel so alone
And I just want you to come home

Waiting for you to come
And it's hard cause I feel so alone
And I just want you to come home

It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall
And I'm still standing here three feet small
Lose our troubles because after all
It's Christmas time

It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall
You're not here to keep me safe and warm
Lose our troubles because after all
It's Christmas time

It's Christmas time again
And all your friends, all your friends
Are smiling
It's Christmas time
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