Dancing

Nobody dances in this country - I mean, really dances. And when they do, it's always about something else - something else besides the pure notion of enjoying and moving your body to the music.

There's the awkward, "ironic" dancing, which many people do either because they want to make fun of the music or contain some belief that letting loose breaks their "cool" somehow. Most of the SAIC parties I attend consist of this kind of dancing, if any dancing occurs at all. Even then, it only seems to be a brief segment during the party, after which most of the attendees continue on drinking and chain-smoking.

That, and the ever-so-popular "grinding." All attention to the beat or the rhthym of the music is thrown out the window, all in exchange to see how long two people can rub up against each other fully clothed before the guy gets a boner. Basically, it's dry-humping in public, but with music in the background. It's not much of an annoyance after high school, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who still "grind" well into their 20's.

Lately, I've noticed that, when the rare occasion arises and people actually do begin dancing, I'll often try to dance for real along with them. However, since they're not into it, I always end up looking and feeling incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. So then that makes me an "ironic" dancer, which kind of, indeed, annoys me.

Murderous Children and a Rant about Non-Subversive, Sexist Comedy

Just saw ¿Quíen puede matar a un niño? (1976) or, Who Can Kill a Child?, in English. It's insane, I recommend you watch it to see Spanish children kill adults.



Also had a conversation I've been wanting to have for quite a long time in film class. B (I feel weird using full names in my blog now... for some reason) brought up how someone in his painting class brought in this really exploitative, gratuitous painting of a naked woman bending over, along with a random tit in the corner. He, the painter, apparently wanted to present the naked female figure as "decoration". B was pretty adamant about how he (and, thankfully the rest of the class AND the teacher) disagreed with this student's depiction of women in the painting. Thank gawd -- this gave me hope.

This reminded me of the time someone brought in a drawing for critique in the "comedy" Research Studio last semester. The drawing was as follows: a line drawing of a naked, faceless woman, holding her legs up in the air, with a coin slot for a vagina. Chee-ya. So I expressed my discontent during the critique, and the teacher asks if I think the guy who drew it thinks a woman's vagina is literally a coin slot. My response should have been:

-"Gee, I don't know, has he ever even seen one?"

or,

-What the girl in my film class (the one, who I believe wrote for Second City, or was affiliated with them in one way or another) said. She mentioned how what we laugh at reveals what we truly think in our subconcious...

...Thus, if someone laughs at a drawing of a faceless, naked woman with a coin slot for a vagina, there's a kernel of truth, and sadly enough, odds are, that person subconsciously feels that women can be bought. The "it's funny because it's true" doesn't work in this case because it's not true -- they're stereotypes, and they're certainly not anything new and subversive WHICH IS WHAT COMEDY WAS AND IS MEANT TO BE.

The whole thing kind of distanced me from some people in the Research class, and I definitely felt silenced and a little isolated for the rest of the term, simply for saying I was offended by a line drawing. So it was quite the relief to hear like-mindedness on the situation, instead of the half-witted, apathetic, hipster response on how we shouldn't take sexist jokes and such so seriously because it's supposed to be "ironic". I got a whole 'nother rant on that, but I'll withdraw that and save it for a rainy day.

I also wrote a Feministing article about the line drawing incident, but someone from my class left a comment on it defending the guy who drew it. Weak defense, of course -- s/he said it wasn't a final project and it was supposed to be "lame, bad, ugly" art and we're supposed to laugh at the piece because of that. However, laughing at someone like this, something that degrades half the population using old clichés and stereotypes because you think it's bad is the same as laughing at it because you think it's true.
Rant: done.

Though I feel like I have much more to say...

This Morning's Flashback: An Emotional Rant

I had another mini-flashback this morning. In case you don't know, I tend to suffer from these small, abrupt flashbacks, usually stemming from really emotional moments I've had. But this one was somewhat startling, mainly because it involved someone who I really like, but have been really confused about. It's a long and complicated story, but, in essense, I can't decide whether I should "let him go/forget about him" or keep him in mind and continue to like him.

This dilemma developed after he decided he couldn't be in a relationship quite yet after a pretty messy break-up, from what I can gather. However, I often get pissed because he's ditched me on several occasions to hang out, hasn't paid me back the money I lent him, and hardly ever responds to any message I send him, be it on AIM or Facebook (I guess I can understand the last one, but, come on, he borrowed $25 from me two months ago and hasn't paid me back even a cent.)

But recently I fucked things up. A few nights ago I had a few too many beers, and I think I might have blacked out for the first time. From what I can tell, I sent some angry instant messages to him, basically saying, "Since you aren't replying to these [obviously catty] messages then I guess that means you're trying to ignore me" yadda yadda yadda. He sent an im the next day reading, "wow ok", and that's when I discovered the big fuck-up. I frantically sent him back messages saying, "fuck, I don't even remember sending those, I'm sooooo sorry I don't really mean that", etc. He just responded, "ok." Of course, it's a pretty ambiguous response, and tone is so hard to read via AI fucking M. I asked him what he meant, but he still hasn't responded.

Anyway, back to this morning's flashback. So I'm feeling pretty shitty, like most mornings. And then I had a flashback from the time we first met. We were at this party in Roger's Park, sometime this past December. We went outside and sat on the wooden staircase coming down from the deck outside this apartment. It was nighttime, of course, and it was snowing. We're both a little drunk, but sober or not, I gotta say it was a pretty magical setting. We started on this deep conversation, one mostly brought about by him. He was talking about how he has a fear of a flying. I distinctly recalled this portion of the conversation:

Him: What are you afraid of?
Me: I don't know... maybe... not being liked.
Him: Well, I like you.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. It sounded like something straight from a John Hughes film, which is what we were gushing about earlier that night, and how we "connected", I suppose. I thought about how it go to this point: how we went from this happy little place to him thinking I'm a total psycho. I guess he has a right to think so, I mean, those messages did make me look like a crazy person. But right now I'm just hoping to move on, see what else is out there.

If any of you have read up to this point, I say to you, in the words of Samantha Baker in Sixteen Candles: "It's really human of you to listen to all my bullshit."

9 Problems

I guess the last few posts (minus the puppet ones) make this blog my bitchin' blog: my blog for bitchin' & rantin'. In spirit, I am going to list 9 problems of mine:

1. Paper due Tuesday
2. Presentation due Tuesday
3. Need to make two 3-D objects, even though my construction skills are equivalent to that of a 3-year-old
4. Need to find a new crowd to hang with (Decided to "start fresh" this year by essentially eliminating asshole-y people from my life, yadda yadda yadda)
5. Bored as fuck
6. Would rather be overseas
7. Complicated situation with a member of the opposite sex
8. There's a crack in my kitchen ceiling
9. Want to delete Facebook account, but it's regaining its appeal right after I send out the message telling everyone I'm deleting it.

Bitch.

I Been Tumblin'

I've been doing most of my bloggin' on tumblr lately, mainly because the material you use for posts/entries are so readily available and easy to obtain. Not to mention, motivating. For instance, I saw this dumbass graphic/picture:


And "reblogged" it, adding a commentary I kinda feel proud of:

"Ok, let’s backtrack…

Polanski is a great filmmaker and all, but he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.

I admire a great film, no doubt, but making a great film isn’t a “Get out of jail free” card when you have drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.

Michael Vick is still widely hated for having dog fights, but for some reason Polanski’s crime is still widely defended based simply on the fact that he made Chinatown. In my own personal version of Dante’s Inferno, dog fighting and raping children are in the same circle of Hell.

People, start learning how to separate art from real life."

(Or at least come to the realization that you're giving rape culture just another little push into the mainstream - again.)

Nothing to hold up against the Gettysburg Address, but ya know.

My tumblr, by the way, is here.