a fool's musings

Boreas by Waterhouse
Fool, said my muse to me,
look in thy heart and write...

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2002-01-13 - 8:41 p.m.

ranting about 9/11

So I'm making a CD for Jen, and that naturally leads me to realize that I haven't yet returned the defective CD player I got for Christmas.

Part of it is sheer laziness. The whole rigamarole of returning something is just so unappetizing, that if it hadn't cost what it did, and if I didn't want the damn thing, I wouldn't bother.

But another part of it - the main part of it, if I'm honest - is that I specifically don't want to go down to J&R.

It means I have to get off the subway at Broadway/Nassau.

It means I have to learn whether or not the Broadway/Fulton Street exit - the one I used every day for 3 years - is still there, or if it's totally closed down.

It means coming up right *there* at Ground Zero, and I can't wrap my head around it.

You know, people can say all sorts of shit about how this country has responded, and they can be skeptical of the new surge in patriotism, and disgusted by the flagwaving and what have you.

Whatever. That's fine.

But I lived through two hours of not knowing if my father was dead or alive. Actually believed for those two hours that he *was* dead.

I am very lucky. He got out and survived.

But don't hand me any bullshit about your feelings about how we've handled this crisis, because unless you were here, and were living it with us, and knew people who might have died [or, unfortunately, did die], you don't know fuck-all, so just keep it away from me, okay?

Twice I've lived through this and while I've never considered myself particularly hawkish, when someone repeatedly tries to kill someone you love, you get pissed about it.

When, in doing so, they kill thousands of others, whatever they get, they deserve.

Anyhow, that's the rant for tonight.

People who weren't here don't understand.

And maybe, tomorrow or the next day, I'll go down to Ground Zero, which I've only seen in the distance from about 15 blocks up Church Street, and see the scar that's left on my city.

~victoria
music: Fields of Gold, Eva Cassidy
mood: fiesty



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2002-01-13 - 2:42 p.m.

Sundays and shame

Sunday.

Not a big fan of Sunday. Too many years of the Sunday night willies haunting my memory. Especially bad these past few years, at the last two jobs. Much, much better now. Hardly any at all, except for the getting up at 6:45 part, which I never ever manage, usually snoozing it until 7:16.

But I'm doing laundry [and if you guessed that I'm always doing laundry, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong *g*], and it's Sunday, and the scent of Downy always makes me think of long-ago Sundays when I used to do laundry down in the basement, for the whole family, and sneak around reading Mommy's Regency Romances.

Why am I writing about this?

Well, the topic of "guilty pleasures" and hiding your romance novels came up on the State of the Union list this past Friday [and have I mentioned how much I love this list? And Topic Friday *rules*], and I recalled how I used to snigger at my mother's addiction to Regency romances and yet how I couldn't get enough of them myself.

Sort of like my attitude toward fanfic.

Ah, see, it's all coming together, now, eh? If you keep reading, I do eventually get to the interesting stuff. *g*

So this ambivalence toward something that's highly enjoyable, yet disposable... I don't feel it regarding movies. I love some movies that are just totally not good in any, you know, cinematically worthwhile sense, but are damned entertaining.

So why this snobbery toward the written word? Why is reading The New Yorker more respectable than reading EW or Movieline, both of which I enjoy as much, if not more?

Why is reading fantasy - which I did voraciously as a preteen and young teen - or romance or horror less respectable than reading "mainstream literary" fiction?

And why I have so deeply internalized these values that I feel ashamed for browsing in the Romance or Sci-fi section of Barnes & Noble?

Yet I brag proudly about seeing Harry Potter or loving The Terminator or Speed or Lethal Weapon or Beetlejuice?

Aside from the obvious - that the writing in these genre novels is quite frequently shit - why can't even *good* romance or *good* fantasy be considered next to novels by Proulx or Kingsolver or Rushdie?

Is it that "film" is still less respectable than prose? That movies are supposed to be entertaining first and educational second [if at all], whereas books are supposed to provide enlightenment and knowledge and not necessarily entertainment [anyone who's slogged through "An American Tragedy" or "Young Torless" or any other staple of the college curriculum that's just plain boring (and in the case of "An American Tragedy" incredibly facile and *urgh* don't get me started on that book) knows what I'm talking about. Not to say that I didn't read some great books in college, 'cause I did. I love books. But some things considered classics, just... ::shudder:: One word: Dickens. Eek!]

Or maybe my attention span has been crippled by MTV and the Internet, and I can no longer lose [notice - one "o", thanks] myself in a long rambling narrative with a cast of thousands and enough description to send Martha Stewart into a swoon?

Sorry, got distracted by the Green Bay-San Fran game and lost the thread of my thoughts... damn.

Oh, yeah. So, romance novels... fanfic... not seeing a whole lot of difference in my attitude, my ambivalence toward admitting I read and write fic, most of which is modeled in some way on the romance novel genre [with enough twists to keep me interested, even if no one else is], and I'm just wondering, does anyone else feel this stigma? This ambivalence about what we're doing?

I'm totally proud of almost every story I've written [there are a couple I'd disown, but eh, what are you gonna do?], and I love talking about writing and the pairings I like etc. But the minute I know I'm going to be with someone who doesn't *get* it, who thinks fandom is the province of weirdos in faux Trek regalia, I shut down and act as if it's not a huge part of my life and something that I'm proud of.

Because, apparently, I'm ashamed.

Huh.

~victoria

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2002-01-12 - 10:30 p.m.

Sleeping

I've got to stop lying down when I boot the laptop up.

Jesus, I fell asleep for almost three hours.

After I slept til 11:30 and then napped for 90 minutes this afternoon.

I wonder if I'm narcoleptic. *g*

Unfortunately there is no narcoleptic oral sex happening at the moment. Sigh.

*g*

~victoria
mood: silly
music: American Girl, Tom Petty

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2002-01-12 - 6:36 p.m.

Maximus!

M * A * S * H

You will marry MAXIMUS (played by Russell Crowe) from Gladiator, live in a Coliseum in the middle of Rome, and spend your days moping about lost love and slicing and dicing other gladiators.

What's YOUR M * A * S * H future?

I think the whole "Professional Killer" answer is the one that did me in. But I just couldn't pick the deep in the forest thingy that would get me Legolas.

You have a very simple view of life, and it takes a lot of convincing to get you to break your routine. You seem to overreact over petty things, and your one track mind keeps you from focusing in on your main problem: the fact that you never let go of the past. You're too busy thinking about what used to be that you don't notice the wonderful things you have right in front of you. You fail to appreciate your interesting adventures because of the broken record playing in your head: "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
Take The "Which Kevin Smith Male Are You?" Quiz!!

Okay, not a guy, but... I don't actually remember any of the women in his movies except for Amy in Chasing Amy.

Oh, fine. Be that way. I'll take the chick test now.

You know all and see all, but that doesn't prevent you from having a child-like innocence and a playful sense of humor. You obviously think very highly of yourself, but that's okay, everyone does. Told ya God was a woman!!
Take The "Which Kevin Smith Female Are You?" Quiz!!

Bwahahahaha!

YES!

I LOVE online quizzes. *g*

~vic

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2002-01-12 - 5:46 p.m.

Finding the "Why"

So I've been prating a lot lately about misogyny in fanfic, which is funny, because if you met me, that last thing I typically want to discuss is feminism and "women's issues". Bleh.

But I've noticed this trend over and over, in a genre of writing practiced mostly by women [no offense, Pete and other fic-writing guys] and apparently a large population of women who self-identify as bi or lesbian.

So where does this come from? Am I insane for seeing it?

Well, no. I am not alone.

The lovely and gracious LaT discusses it in her LJ in the entry dated 1.11.02 in regard to the advent of ::shudder:: Victoria ::shudder:: on Smallville this week.

Me, I shudder because I don't like hearing about this character with my name. It seriously limits the amount of fic I'm going to be able to write, because I don't know that I *can* write about someone with my name.

But that's not the issue today.

There has been a lot of whinging and bitching on the CLex list about her and how she's going to harsh the HoYay mellow and lots of people are set to hate her sight-unseen [or is that site-unseen? I *still* have not gotten an answer to that question, 'cause it doesn't make any sense, but I digress...] because of the implication that Lex has an ex-girlfriend.

Ooh ::shudder:: Lex has an ex-girlfriend.

Sorry.

Not seeing the big problem here. But I see Lex as omni- or pansexual, so I'm happy he has a girlfriend from the past.

Clark is mooning over Lana; he needs something or someone to smack him upside the head and alert him to the HoYay, that Lex isn't going to sit around and wait for him forever.

But anyway, misogyny. Fanfic. Slash. Hetsquick.

So, in response to LaT, a lovely and honest young lady name Cara Chapel wrote this: Confessions of a Slash Misogynist, which goes a long way to explaining a lot of things I've had questions about.

So, there it is. Follow the links and reach enlightment.

Or at least a clearer picture of why some people treat women the way they do in fiction, even though they are women themselves.

And since this was bugging me, I now feel happy that I have some explanation. The why, you see. I need the why.

Addendum!

Thamiris has also joined in this discussion, and you can read her thoughts here. She makes some good points.

Also, I just wanted to point out, slashers are far from the only people guilty of this kind of misogyny. It runs rampant in fic, affecting characters from Buffy to Scully to Jean Grey.

And I, for one, am sick of it.

~victoria



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The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme.

The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney.

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