All My Little Words

I can’t believe it’s been since JUNE that I last had anything to say. Not that I have anything to say now, of course.

It’s the first day of school though, which is simultaneously comforting and sad/annoying.
Even though I don’t have that weird attachment to the weather that so many people have, it didn’t seem like much of a summer. Sage and I did a few things, but nowhere near as much as I wanted. It didn’t have much to do with the weather at all, it just seems like the summer break is SO SHORT now, and it’s not like we had any great opportunities to go anywhere, either.

It is comforting that it is Fall. Not by the calendar, but by the school year starting, by the weather, etc. I love the coziness already, as opposed to the sweating late into the night.

I do not however, enjoy the getting the kid up, and all the checking in, and blah. There probably won’t be homework this week (I HOPE), but it is sure to start up next week.

Since my last post, I became re-convicted to start a new career, and almost immediately thereafter – in the beginning of August, as a matter of fact – began blogging for MilkandCookies. The site gets a TON of traffic, so the posts get LOTS of views. I would say 600 each post, just while they are fresh anyway. That would be for a post that is the “new” post for about 3 days before I put up another one. Um, yeah. And there are two or three a week, so consistently 300 people a day are reading me 7 days a week. That’s pretty good for someone who didn’t have any audience at all before.
Of course, no one at all, reads THIS, and I don’t expect anyone ever will.

As part of all this, I also in the beginning of August began “re-branding” me. So I changed my last name to my married name, registered isabellaorgan.com, and changed any online names that have anything to do with social media, or started new accounts for them. I’ve got a Myspace for Isabella Organ, a Facebook, a new Twitter. Yikes.
I’ve got followers on Twitter, and friends on Facebook, but I don’t know that anyone is really reading my stuff on IsabellaOrgan.com. Oh well, for now.

Still working, but eff the gym. I got a Bowflex and elliptical at home, and that’s way better. Finally lost some weight, feel better, got some new clothes, etc.

I’ve been deemed perfectly, amazingly healthy, all the way down to my blood pressure, which was a bit high, but last I was at the ND’s was back to normal. Still getting acupuncture, and now also massage every two weeks or so.

I guess you could say life is good. It’s going anyway. Here’s to whatever comes next.

As previously mentioned, I’ve recently been watching a lot of disturbing movies. Because I have a hard time believing that anything is really THAT BAD, I really went on an internet-wide search for the most disturbing movie ever. I found it.

Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that no one on the DC mentioned the movie Caligula at all. Caligula wasn’t that bad. Salo makes Caligula look like a fucking garden party. It makes Irreversible look like a joke. 9 minute rape scene? How about an entire interminable movie that is essentially one long rape scene? Or one rape scene after another?

I have an exceptionally strong constitution and I was absolutely revolted. I’ve never imagined, much less seen, anything so depraved in every possible way. I can’t possibly imagine why anyone would think it was a good idea to make this movie, or who would agree to participate. It is sheerly astonishing the large number of people who are in this movie. Were they all that hard up for work? Or is it possible that they were really all that perverse?
It was made in the 70’s, a truly different time, but fuck. Terrible. I would never recommend that to anyone. It makes every other movie mentioned in the thread (that I’ve seen anyone) seem like a beautiful dream, or like Irreversible, just a joke.

Ugh.

While a number of people had actually viewed Irreversible, I don’t recall anyone admitting to actually having seen Martyrs, only to having heard that it was the most terrible, negatively life changing movie ever.

While I didn’t find Irreversible to be really very disturbing at all, the way it was filmed (nitty, gritty, dark and dirty) made it cinematically, far more disturbing to watch than Martyrs.

Martyrs was, as specified, absolutely life changing. I will never EVER forget having watched this film. I did not, however, find it disturbing. At least, not on any level that I think anyone I discussed it with ever did.
Yes, there is torture, and blood, and gore and death, and all manner of things which would be disturbing on the surface to a casual viewer. But if you look much deeper into the story, while the means to the end are absolutely gruesome, the end itself is a wonder to behold.

The cinematography in this movie is absolutely breathtaking. And if one bothers to look past past the things that we ourselves would never, ever in a million years do, the point of those acts achieved is one of complete wonder.

Who doesn’t want to know what lies beyond? Beyond life? or death? or however you want to put it.
There is no way for us to find out without having died ourselves. Unless…
Unless you push a person beyond life while still living it. Unless you bring a person to a state of nirvana, no matter how unwilling they may be. And then coerce them the tell you what lies beyond.

On the surface, this movie is filled with blood and gore, and torture and murder beyond your wildest imaginings. But what lies beneath is simply the desire, the incessant need, to know what lies beyond. And really, it is just a movie, pure fantasy, an imagining of what lengths you would have to drive a human to, to force them to WITNESS and report back to you…what existence there is beyond life and death. Whether there is a heaven or hell. The ultimate truth. And while the truth is ugly, it ultimately is…Stoned, cold, immaculate, and perfect.

Not shockingly, I did not find Irreversible to be nearly as disturbing as everyone else seems to.

Perhaps I’m jaded, or callous, but the rape scene was not nearly as bad as expected. I’m guessing that most people aren’t expecting it, whereas I went into it with a lot of anticipation. I also think that when most people find out the victim is pregnant, they are even more horrified. And while I would agree that getting raped on an especially happy day – such as one in which you learned you were pregnant – would be terrible, I don’t necessarily think that raping a pregnant woman is any worse than raping a woman who is not, unless perhaps, that was the reason for the rape. The only time any rape is worse than any other is when a child or disabled person is raped.

Which kind of leads me to what I found most disturbing about this rape scene, which is the same aspect that I find most disturbing about most rape scenes – she didn’t fight back. Yes, the rapist has a knife a the beginning of the rape, but he puts it in his pocket pretty early on. And yes, he is lying on top of her while she is face down on the ground, which would make it more difficult, BUT – not only would I be struggling like a crazy motherfucker at that point, but she has plenty of good opportunity to fuck him up before he beats the shit out of her. Which she should have done, in terrible pain or not. The rapist was not that big or strong looking, and while looks can be deceiving, I would try to kill anyone who tried to do that to me.

Also, that unnerving tone in the beginning of the movie? Not bothersome at all. Maybe if you didn’t know it was going to be present, in combination

Ever since I participated in the DC “Most Disturbing Movie Ever” thread, I’ve been on kind of a mission to see all the most intriguing mentioned therein.

I have long had a fascination with horror movies, which evolved into an obsession with disturbing movies. I think it started when I was young enough that the line between the two was HEAVILY blurred. When I was 15, there were ONLY horror movies. But some of the “horror” movies that I watched 20+ years ago have stood out in my mind, and now my old lady perspective tells me that some of the movies were not of the “horror” genre at all.

I get re-obsessed with horror/disturbing movies every few years. It may have all re-started with “The Ring” which was the first horror movie in YEARS to scare me at all, and it freaked me the FUCK out. It was at some time around that time that I attempted to watch “Mullholland Drive”. I only did not make it through the movie because I kept falling asleep (thanks monotone score) and David Lynch doesn’t believe in breaking the movie up into scenes. So every time I fell asleep on this movie, I had to fast forward and rewind back and forth until I found the spot right before I fell asleep. This odious process resulted in me landing on that weird behind the diner dumpster scene about a billion times, and finally, I just couldn’t fucking take it anymore.

ANYWAY. That led to me becoming re-obsessed with Eraserhead, a movie that I had never really stopped being obsessed with, despite not being able to watch it again after seeing it when I was 15 or so. So I finally watched it again when I was maybe 32, or 17 years after the first and only other time I’d watched it. It was still disturbing, although it definitely is not “scary”. Although I still found it’s imagery to be disturbing after all those years, it didn’t affect me as much as it had the first time around. But it may be another 17 years before I watch it again.

In the years since I’d watched Eraserhead the first time, I’d watched MANY MANY disturbing films of all kinds. Everything from “House of 1000 Corpses” (horror/gross disturbing) to “Audition” (creepy disturbing) to “The Ring” (OMFG I can’t walk past the teevee disturbing) to “Capturing the Freidmans” (documentary/true story/did that really fucking happen disturbing).

Now, with this new “disturbing movie” thread going on, the question is: What is disturbing?
There is no one right answer. A lot of people found movies such as Seven and A Clockwork Orange to be disturbing. While I can see how people would think that if they haven’t seen what I’ve seen, there’s the rub. It’s all a matter of perspective. Both of those movies are provocative and by no means happy-go-lucky, for sure. But disturbing? For me, the answer is no.

So what is disturbing? Well, anything that leaves me with an uneasy feeling of dread is the best way I can describe. Anything that I can’t get out of my head, or won’t let me sleep. I guess it could include things that make me angry or sad, but what it really comes down to is: Could I watch it again?

I’ve only seen The Ring that one time, in the theater, and never again, although I’ve never forgotten it. I guess not that I’m on this quest, I should the Japanese “Ringu”. I didn’t watch it right after or since as it is supposed to be even scarier. I don’t think I’ll be watching Eraserhead anytime soon, as I mentioned above. But I watched the supposedly disturbing “The Descent” on Friday and while I wouldn’t want to watch it again (because it was DUMB) I could watch it again because it wasn’t disturbing. I could watch “Clockwork Orange” again, as many times as you wanted me to. And “Seven”? Well, I own that movie, so….

I am about to watch “Irreversible” which supposedly, makes some people vomit. I am about to find out for myself.

*SIGH*

So here I am, back to talking about the attempt to lose weight. Again.
As it turns out, no amount of eating right has been working, and I went to see a doctor yesterday (a naturopath) who although she said it much more nicely, basically said I’m too old (because my metabolism has probably slowed down) to lose weight by any other means than exercise.

FUCK.
I mean, it’s just fantastic to be told that as far as how I eat goes, I’M DOING IT RIGHT.
But I just hate the exercising. I have a suspended gym membership, because I went to the gym before. Yes, going to the gym will work. It will work because I am more than a little OCPD.
Many people who are overweight are so, at least in part, due to inactivity. This may be unavoidable. It may be because they work at a desk and are stuck sitting for long hours. Often, it’s not that they aren’t busy, just that the kind of busy that they are involves a lot of sitting and leads them to rushed meals and bad snacking.
I don’t have any of that going on. I don’t have a long commute, so I’m not sitting in the car. I stand at work, and very intentionally have scaled back my hours. I don’t just sit around when I am home because I am so tired – I am very active. I do most of the housework, the shopping, the errands – for home and for work.
When I’m not doing that, I’m gardening or organizing or whatever.
And that’s probably why I’m only a little overweight.

So most people who start working out, or going to the gym, say that after they’ve gotten used to it, that it MAKES THEM FEEL GREAT!!! They have so much more energy! They get a great adrenaline style high from working out! They are so much happier!!!!
I am not one of them. At this point in time, all I can think of is how many hours a week I will lose just by working out a mere 3 times a week. At least 6. Not because I will be exercising for two hours a day. No. If I work out on a day that I work, I will have to leave here at 5:15am to get to the gym by 5:30 so that I can work out for about an hour and leave at 6:30 to get home at 6:45 to make sure my child gets up for school.

I didn’t really explain this to the doctor when I told her going to the gym stresses me out and she suggested that maybe I need to find a way to exercise that I like, like walking around Green Lake. I just told her that that stressed me out more. Because it does. It would take the same amount of time, and I would get so irritated at all the other sheeple doing the same thing. And the people with strollers, and the rabid bikers, joggers, roller bladers…just terrible for me. And really – walking around Green Lake? For the amount of time it would take, it’s not nearly enough of a workout. I already found that out when I tried walking last year.

The one thing I do like to do is yoga. Even after I haven’t been to the gym for like, 3+ years, the only yoga class that is convenient for me is 1.5 hours long, and it is still just a beginner’s class. Which will be fine for a while, but I don’t know that it will be challenging enough for OCPD me after about a month.

And here’s the thing. The way someone like me exercises, is crazy. Yeah, I’ll lose about 2 pounds a week, easy. Because I will be so angry, and I will get so obsessed, that I will run until I drop. So I’ll lose the entire maximum amount I want to lose in about 16 weeks, I’m guessing. Then what do I do? I’m not really sure at this point. Last time, I kept on for a while. A year, or 18 months maybe.
I got bored, I got angry, I stopped going. And I didn’t gain weight back for a year and a half. Probably because I was even more active at the time, I didn’t really bother eating much, and I spent a lot of time walking from one bar or party to the next.

And then I met Alex, and after we starting dating, I started eating more, we ate out all the time, and we ate whatever we wanted. And we still went out drinking all the time, but we did it less in places where we’d park and walk from place to place for hours, and more and more in places where you’d just hang out for a long time, or drive somewhere else.

So I know how and why I gained so much weight. I was probably eating 4-5 times as much as I used to, and walking 75% less.
Fair enough. But how frustrating is it that I stopped eating like that, I cut back by 60%, I’d say and started eating healthier foods, and didn’t lose a single pound? Not one. In fact, since I first really felt like it was an issue, something like two years ago, I’ve gained 15. I tried to do something after I gained the first 15, and now I’m up to a grand total of 30.

And so I know, that at this point, I am so terribly frustrated, so angry at myself and everything else, that I will probably drop dead of a heart attack from the work out frenzy that is about to ensue, before I lost the whole 30 pounds.
I guess we’ll see over the next 16 weeks or so.

I’m 5′1″. I weigh 140 pounds. I’m off to call the gym and plan to lose 30 pounds in 4 months.

This is a comment I just left on the Slog, but I honestly like the idea of it so much, I had to save it for myself.

I have discovered in life that, although a good match = someone who is open to the things you have done or love (and you being open to the things they have done/loved also) it is difficult to be with someone who loves all the same things you do. Sure, you can have one great conversation about each book (movie/band/whatever) you both have read (seen/heard) but part of what seems to make a really great relationship is having something to offer, such as the opportunity to introduce someone to something that you hope they will love as much as you do. And from there, as Fnarf said, discovering more things that you both love together.
If you are already the same person by virtue of having all the same loves, you may be dear to one another, but there is no air of mystery and the chance of boredom setting in is great.

Despite the fact that I won’t touch Facebook with a ten foot pole, social networking and I go way back. It’s true. Before Twitter, there was Myspace and Friendster, and before that there was Livejournal, and even before that message boards like the one at Chic or Shriek (a fashion do or don’t website), and waaaaay back in the dark ages, we used to socially network with personal websites. I was the shit back then – I had my own domain (yes, I still have it) and hand coded my own websites, (yes, plural, I had many, they were legion) unless I was feeling lazy and used Dreamweaver, which back then was considered cheating, but compared to the ease with which we build websites and blogs now, it was a monster to use.

Instead of @replies, we painstakingly linked to our friends websites. There was no concern about privacy – there was no Google, and getting your photos on a webpage could take days, if you (like me) had as many as we anow throw onto Myspace in a matter of minutes.

Back then the internet was still a new thing that no one really thought would catch on, and the only people who used it much were geeks like myself. You couldn’t just do a simple search for friends in those days – yeah, there were chat rooms, but those were lame even then. You’d spend hours combing the interwebs for good websites among the giant piles of crap on Angelfire and Geoshitties, and even more hours keywording and metatagging your site/s so that other geeks could find you.

Or you could find friends on ICQ (I Seek You, hahahaha), which was omnipresent, always on, always ready for a late night/early morning conversation. At one point in time, I had far more far flung friends around the world than I had IRL. And I’ll tell you what, I hope many of them are working in the digital media/social networking industry today, as they put out some beautiful, amazing and complex websites the like of which you just don’t see any more.

These days, it is all about simplicity. We want clean, simple lines, easy to navigate sites, and a plethora of features at our fingertips, just a single click or tap away. And there IS a lot to be said for “User Friendliness”, I agree.
It is nice to be able to quickly snap a little blurb like this out while I’m cooking lunch or keep my friends updated on my whereabouts on the fly.

And that, my friends, is kind of what inspired this. Yesterday, I somehow came across @mashable, the Twitter for the CEO of – you guessed it – Mashable, a Social Media Guide. I slogged through a veritable onslaught of tweets, stopping to read this article or that, when I came across what stuck with me today as the most noticeable article I read on Mashable (yesterday, anyway), Yelp vs. Foursquare vs. Gowalla.

Turns out that Yelp just got into the “Check-In” game by updating their iPhone app to support checking in pretty much anywhere, much like it’s two predecessors, but without the points. Hopefully, they’ll add that soon, because, let’s be honest – stealing the title of Mayor, or getting your Overshare or Super User badges are half the fun.

So of course, I went straight to the ole App Store and updated my Yelp app, so that I could check it out. And today, I went out to play with all three together to see what would happen.

Let me start by saying that I don’t spend a lot of time at THE MALL, but my husband’s wedding ring was waiting to picked up after being re-sized, and what better place to test my ability to check in with so many places to do so?
I drove to Northgate and parked, and sat in the car to check in simply, AT THE MALL. Yelp picked up Northgate Mall right away, no problem. Ditto Foursquare. Gowalla wouldn’t even load, a problem I’ve been having with it from the start. I’m just going to kick Gowalla to the curb right here and now by telling you that I tried a few more times to get it to at least load up, but it didn’t do it anytime during the 90 or so painful minutes I spent at THE MALL, much less let me check in. I would be more than willing to admit that maybe I AM DOING IT WRONG somehow, but – see above. I’ve been doing this kind of shit long enough that I can figure out almost anything on a computer or my iPhone in a matter of seconds without even trying. And as also noted above, everything is supposed to be so easy these days, it shouldn’t matter if I am The Man Who Fell to Earth. If I could figure out how to turn the iPhone on, get to the app store, download and install Gowalla, it should be a snap to get it to load up and check in. Everybody else seems to love it, though, so who knows?!?

Finally out of the car, I went into THE MALL through the Forever XXI store. I was just there the other day, but it was kind of awesome to be in there when there wasn’t 850,000,000 teens, and the clothes weren’t dumped into heaps all over the floor. Side note: Going during the day does have it’s downside – TONS of little kids.
I browsed and wandered through while I tried to check in. No problem with Foursquare, but Yelp told me I was too far away! I tried again immediately, and then later right when I walked into THE MALL, and again as I was leaving and I exited the same way I entered. For some reason, Yelp didn’t recognize that I was IN the store, it seemed to think I was a little over a mile away. Curious. I even tried “Forever 21″, to see if it could match up with another (incorrect) listing somehow. Nope. -1 Yelp.

Next, I headed over to Ben Bridge to pick up the ring. Yelp found that one okay, but no one had entered it on Foursquare yet. I checked in without adding it, (I know, I know, what’s the point of being a Super User if you’re not gonna add stuff? I add a lot of stuff, but unfortunately, it is sometimes unexpectedly difficult to add businesses, and I didn’t feel l like messing with it while I was standing in the middle of the mall.) thus, missing out on the points for that stop. -1 for Foursquare.

Honestly, I was a little lazy and forgetful because I wandered into a bunch of stores for a minute or two and didn’t check in. It didn’t seem worth it when I was just passing through on my way to another destination. At least I’m not a big cheater, I could have checked in at every store I passed! (I know people who do this sort of thing.)

After checking out the food court to see if anything looked good for lunch, I went to get a coffee from Starbucks. Checked in here just fine with both Yelp and Foursquare (Gowalla still down for the count), then used the Yelp app to see what was up at Blue Fin Sushi for lunch. I’d been there for dinner, and thought maybe I’d go shovel in some all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch (it’s better than you might think). First, I got really confused and thought they were closed, because the app shows the lunch and dinner hours, and next to them whether they are CURRENTLY open or closed. As it was 11:28am, it said “Closed” next to the lunch hours, which begin at 11:30, so I was like “WTF Blue Fin??” and I got a little annoyed. I ended up looking again a few minutes later, which cleared up the confusion, but then I took the time to see how much lunch was and ended up deciding that I didn’t feel like spending $16, although I totally would have if we weren’t having dinner at home tonight, and that was going to be my major meal for the day.

After I realized that I am a dumbass and forgot to order my venti latte iced instead of hot, I kind of just felt like going home and pouring it over ice instead of going to the At&T store to look at iPhone cases and to Payless to check out cheap purses. I also skipped looking for jeans in The Gap, and bypassed Macy’s even though I still have a gift card to use there. I ended up deciding that I should just leave and try checking in at a different location. First, I was going to try to go to the new orchid store in Ballard, but I was still hungry, so I opted to just go to Safeway on the way home instead.

I successfully checked in there, on both Yelp and Foursquare while I was waiting to turn left at the light that takes forever to change (oh, the irony) and after getting a few things, came home to write this while making and eating my lunch (Stir Fry!) and drinking my (now iced) latte.

I checked in at home (La Casa) on Foursquare (this is my friend Erik’s fault – he just joined Foursquare the other day and the first thing he did was add his house, an entity known as “The Sausage Ranch”, something which had previously never even occurred to me to do. I won’t add La Casa on Yelp, that just seems too weird.)

Conclusion? The social networking combination of “Tag” + “Hide and Seek” is fun. I got a few Tweets in there while I was at it, too.
I think Yelp is going to give Foursquare a run for it’s money, once it works out the bugs, but only if it becomes more of a game with points or some other reward. GoWalla can go suck it. To be fair though, I’m going to continue this little experiment by trying to figure out what’s up with my GoWalla app so I can give it a fair shake.

Okay, kids, I’m off to go check out some more articles on some of the above mentioned sites and maybe try to fix my Gowalla app. Until next time…

I do not spring clean. This is because I Winter Clean. I New Year’s Clean. I Post-Christmas clean.
Like I said to someone in an email just this morning: “Who wants to clean in Spring?!? Spring is for GARDENING!!!”

It all starts with taking down Christmas. Then we got a new piece of furniture, so the whole living room needed to be rearranged. And cleaned, of course. I’ve had some issues with the kitchen, and how the cabinets over the countertops are too low to out things under, so I had the brilliant idea that removing one that was kind of orphaned on it’s own on the far side of the sink would be a good idea.
Commence with the kitchen rearrangement!

And we switched bedrooms months ago, and I never finished cleaning arranging the bedroom. The process of doing that took ALL DAY TODAY and I am exhausted. But the process of removing the stuff from the room that used to be our bedroom into what is not our for real bedroom caused that room to be cleaned/rearranged as well. So at this point fully TWO THIRDS of our home has been completely cleaned and rearranged. IN THREE DAYS. Holy furniture polish, Batman!

So now I’m going to sink into a coma for the next 12 months, then I’ll do it all over again, I’m sure.

december2009misc 032

Originally uploaded by violetblack

Ayuh, we’re cute, a’ight.