Nerd Hope

Having just returned home from my second viewing of Man of Steel, this time in 3D, I do so from an entirely different perspective.  This round, I managed to read and watch a few interviews with Henry Cavill about landing the iconic role of Superman.

I knew going into the movie the first time that Cavill was a British actor who I had only seen years ago in The Count of Monte Cristo, and that he hadn't been in anything else that I had seen.  Oh, and I thought he looked the part from the production stills.  Probably the most naturally Superman-ish fellow since the childhood days of Christopher Reeve.

What I expected was an interview that revealed a usual handsome fellow.  In the states he would be a total jock from the day of his birth, a dozen babes kissing the hem of his garments.  Since he is from the isle of Jersey, I still expected a typically hot, popular, jock.  Maybe he plays polo or soccer or rugby.  And I have to out myself for journalistic integrity and say that I haven't researched what his background is in sports.  But Henry Cavill is proof positive that you cannot judge a book by its cover.

I have a revelation for you: Henry Cavill is a nerd.

By all rights he would earn honorary nerd street cred by just appearing as the quintessential comic book hero that launched an empire.  But there are actually two other reasons that make him fully-vested as nerd.

1. Henry Cavill was ridiculed for being fat. Looking at Cavill's rippling muscles beneath the iconic suit as well as completely shirtless it seems almost completely preposterous. I mean, when he enters a room, don't women's undergarments just fly off of their own free will?

From beneath an occasionally bowed head of embarrassment, in recent interviews he admits to having been called fat as a kid.  Rather than let that label control him the rest of his life, what did he do? He ate  better.  He turned it around.  

I'm imagining all overweight, self-conscious, prepubescent boys being immediately bolstered by this revelation.  There is hope that they too, may one day, be handsome grownups.  I like that.

2.  He missed the phone call telling him he won part because he was playing video games.  And what video game in particular? Was it Call of Duty? Maybe Halo? Nope.

He missed his phone call, saying he got the part of Superman, because he was playing....

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

I kid you not. 

Total nerd street cred.

So for other gamers like me, suddenly Henry Cavill is just a little bit cooler.  He's not above playing video games and missing hearing his phone ringing.  He's one of us.

Just one of us with ridiculous abs.

It'll be done when it's done

Since no one has heard from me since January, it occurs to me that I have abandoned a crucial and wonderful aspect of my life.  That being this blog.

It isn't as though my roads to *ahem* weren't paved with very good intentions.  But to make this up to you, in a television show style, I shall recap now what has been happening with life and career of Sara Dean, your creative and adorable artist/writer/single gal.

1. I became Layout Editor.

My best friend put together a documentary film about intimate partner violence, and snagged yours truly as layout editor.  In case you are unfamiliar with book processes, like everything else creative,it gets finished when it gets finished.  We are so close now we can taste it.  But it took a few months of collaborating with a whole bunch of people to try and get everything just so with a severe lack of resources.

However, yours truly is also a contributing artist and my work will be featured therein.  Woo-hoo!!

2.  I'm moving to Northern California.  This fact in and of itself has its own crazy stories involved.

 In the process we have had people stand us up for appointments, encountered some really crazy drivers, eaten some tasty food.

More importantly, we discovered that someone really needs to tell the people involved in the rental markets that you can't make a three bedroom place into a six bedroom place and make it comfortable.  People generally don't want to pay that much money for a prison cell no matter how close it is to work and/or university.

So much like the Layout Editor project, there is a timing in the universe.  Want something done quickly? No matter how hard you try, sometimes you just have to accept that it will happen when it happens.  Until then, you muddle through and take each day as it comes.

Pretty sound advice for every aspect of life, don't you think?

Musing About the Muse

Back in the day, when I was feverishly working on the Magnum Opus of my Master's Degree, I covered a very large segment about John Keats.  Like many good poets, he understood the value of Greek and Roman literature and paid homage to the muses.

I used to chuckle to myself at the idea that some magical being would come to a writer, and inspire them to write.  I knew it was likely the influences of drugs or alcohol or other natural or unnatural substances not the divine.

But lately, I've been understanding where they were coming from.

Frankly, I am more like them than I would usually care to admit.

Something has happened at the beginning of this new year.  I am inspired by everything.  My artistic side is busting a move. Today, I spent my Saturday relaxing while I still try to expel the last few dregs of a wretched cold I had a couple weeks ago but that still haunts me.  But the one thing I did not do today, which I have been doing every day for about a week and a half, is draw.  And not just draw, but draw with my new dip pens.

You see, while artists have no specific muse, I believe I might be entertaining a muse in disguise or something.  Maybe she's taking a holiday in California. Maybe it is because I am both a writer and artist? All I know is that not having drawn anything at all today after several days of being on fire has made me jittery tonight.  I feel like I'm going through some sort of addict's withdrawal symptoms just from not having inserted a nib into pen holder, dipped it's perfect tip gently in an ink bottle, and then gliding it across a paper.  But it's late at night and I don't want to do too much before sleep.  So I will merely layout my plan of action for tomorrow.  But I swear, I must work on a little soon or I may go crazy.

The artistic surge is tangible and unavoidable. I feel invigorated and I refuse to back down.

So, my love letter to my muse, my angel, my holy intangible spirit guide whomever you are that is inhabiting my soul, I welcome you.  Please stay.   Your presence is most appreciated and most welcome.   You and I can make the world more beautiful, I know we can!

Proof?  Here:

Work that is coming out of me is blowing myself away.

I feel like I'm on the verge of something amazing.  And that's a really good feeling.

Let my own inner flower unfold!

The Hilarious and the Macabre, Pt. 2

In honor of our beloved Halloween, while I don't really dig horror, I do love ridiculous songs that are both hilarious and macabre. So for your viewing pleasure, here are two songs from my beloved Tom Lehrer. He obviously inspired modern comedy song writers like Weird Al, and has left a legacy of music that I fear many may have missed. Both of these songs are love songs, celebrating love that is a bit more painful. The first is called "The Masochism Tango" featuring a couple that either likes to abuse each other, or a woman who really is trying to off her man...interpretation left up to the listener.


 


The second is the most gruesome. It completely reinterprets the dessert we refer to as "Ladyfingers."




 



Oh, Tom Lehrer, I salute you!

Happy Halloween!

LML: It's the Little Things

Ever since I was small, I have a love for new art materials.

To this day I can still remember the first box of 64 crayons I received.  It was such a big deal opening the box and having all of the crayons look like this.  That fantastic waxy smell and all of the crayons lined up perfectly and untouched.

Even though art is something I do right now as a hobby, I never lose that feeling of utter joy anytime I get something new and useful.

So in honor of LML Monday, here are a few things that help me love my life just a little bit more.


1.  New Markers:

Anybody that does marker-based artwork knows that it is a pain in the buttocks trying to do flesh tones.  Standard sets don't seem to carry them.

When you're a low-level, semi-starving artist it is really hard to find anything.  The closest thing before this was a set of Crayola washables that had fleshtones, and those I was very concerned about lightfastness, quality and longevity.

So I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a few slightly more expensive ones.

These are AWESOME.  They are dual tipped so there's a brush pen on one end and a fine point marker on the other.

It made me so happy it almost felt like those 64 Crayolas all over again.  Hooray!  And further I bought it from....

2. Amazon: Amazon made me happy because I finally found exactly what I was looking for, didn't have to pay a fortune, ordered it Saturday night and it got here today!

Now I have all the utensils I need to complete my next poster for the film series I am helping to coordinate.  Sweetness!

3. Tom Lehrer.  While I can't say for sure whether we had his record album growing up, I can say with certainty I heard one song many times, sung with hilarity and joy growing up as my mother would belt out lines from it periodically.

Fast-forward to today, and we can experience Tom Lehrer performing his piece on film.  As part of my countdown to Halloween, I cannot help but highlight the great and timeless Lehrer in hopes of spreading the joy of his hilarious and macabre tunes.  For your viewing and listening pleasure...


Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.

If you think this is funny and a bit twisted wait until I post the other two....

Consider it my gift to you, to remember to enjoy life even amidst the entirely unfunny hurricane ripping up the east coast.

It's either laugh or cry, right? Let's choose laughter.

Learning to Appreciate Your Style of Working

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and I've come to monumental conclusion: I don't need to fit into anyone's mold.






Pretty much every writing manual, guide, and otherwise helpful book has encouraged writers to be disciplined about writing in a journal every single day. Here is a great example of what I'm talking about and I have heard this type of advice about a thousand times:

"Are you an aspiring blogger, author, poet, journalist or writer of any description? If you’re making serious attempts at writing, you need to be disciplined about it – no professional writer works just when they’re “in the mood” or when “the muse descends.” Developing the habit of writing regularly (ideally every day) will be a bigger factor in your success than your raw level of writing skill. You will get better if you practice, and your journal is an ideal place to do so – no-one will laugh at clumsy phrases or failed experimental pieces, and you can write about whatever topics inspire you the most."

On the one hand I do agree that it's a great place to experiment in a journal or on a blog. As I have grown up I have taken many an English class, and every teacher or professor I can remember had a similar approach. I remember so many an hour sitting in class writing, or writing at home knowing we had 15 journals due for midterms and I had exactly two. So you spend half the night catching up on entries because every other night you were just too exhausted from your other homework to even think about writing a journal entry. So now you do this hand-cramp-inducing blitz, expecting to churn out gold page after page. It was incredibly forced, horribly depressing, and frankly about as creative as plain yogurt.

As a creative person and a writer, I would like to take this opportunity to call BS.


I would like to call BS on all attempts to browbeat and guilt into trying to be creative. It ends up being your mother standing over you, telling you that you cannot leave the kitchen table until you gulp down your last brussel sprout. It just furthers your frustration, your anger, and your annoyance. How are we ever going to really enjoy writing with a rigid taskmaster at the helm of our psyches?


I am using this opportunity to say, forgive yourself for not having written a blog entry every day of October. Forgive yourself for not writing in your journal once a day, a week, a month or even a year.


Why do I say this?


Because quantity doesn't mean quality.

Because creativity can't be legislated or regulated entirely.

And because lording rules over people never spurred creative juices.


I used to, as a writer, feel utter shame, because my bookshelves weren't graced with years of "Dear Diary" entries taking up shelf space. 'What will anyone read of me?' I thought. In fact, because I wasn't writing every single day, I obviously wasn't improving the way I was supposed to be.


Then the other day I came across it; it was my journal.


I had one journal that I kept from the time I was about eight years old until I was late into my teens. I'm telling you, those few entries were as delightful and perhaps more delightful for the short glimpses into my daily life. It was my hopes and my dreams captured in spurts like a stunning time-lapse photo. Watching my handwriting evolve along with my thoughts and emotions. And it was all in one place. It wasn't over multiple volumes in multiple places. It was all laid out before me: my early life as I knew it.


You can't tell me that I have not improved simply because I don't adhere to a regimented schedule. I still write when I need to write.


So if someone has been feeding your insecurities by telling you that you can't or won't become a better writer unless you write in a journal or on a blog every single day, tell them to go fly a kite!


Be your own writer. As long as you are working on yourself, writing when you can, reading a lot, and striving to improve you will. Following a schedule can't make you better, but learning, absorbing, and engaging with life can.


Work with your own ebbs and flows not against them.

The Fade Out

Having dated enough people, and being the age that I am, I have become accustomed to having seriously low expectations going into any date.  In fact, meeting anyone even casually I have learned to have really no expectations in the beginning.  Why? Because having too high of hopes has come to mean serial disappointment.

However, having low expectations going into many situations has provided me with many a happy payoff. Example? Going to a cheap movie.  If I have any doubts about a movie's quality, I can merely wait until it hits the discount theater.  Then it's a very low risk proposition.  Most times I'm going to at least enjoy $4 worth of movie and the company of a friend or family member. The only exception would be the steaming pile that was Drive that was so gruesome I couldn't sit through it, at which point my friend of mine and I walked out of the theater.

So frankly, I'm not willing to go all-in unless I feel it is a solid investment. This applies emotionally as well.  The males of the human race have disappointed me so many times, that my expectations are way low.  I do expect you to treat me well, but frankly I don't have much hope of you sticking around. So far you have a really poor track record, guys.

In fact I was introduced to someone over the phone. I have since then had close to two months of phone conversations, where it seemed like our conversation was nice and I might at least get a friend out of the deal, and where a future relationship wasn't totally out of the question due to one or the other of us being married or something.  This was nice! We had much in common including a similar religious background.

Things were putting along nicely. Even for just friendship it was better than other male friendships.

Now two weeks have gone by, and nothing.

Radio silence.

I think I know what this means: the fade out.

One of my grand pet peeves is the fade out.  Except sometimes it's even worse, because it's the drop off the face of the earth.  I had this happen with a pen pal of mine who did send me some sort of cryptic email about not being around much in the future, things were happening, but know what good friends we were.

Um, okay.  I guess it was his way of trying to be polite and say that he had no interest in even being friends with me anymore.  Why? Who the heck knows.  But now I've got a couple years worth of emails, memories of fun phone calls, a handful of nice gifts (that were frankly better than any romantic suitor ever gave me) and me left with more emotional baggage to unpack.

After a while I start to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day living the same date over and over, but getting slapped earlier and earlier.

It starts to make me wish every date, every friendly encounter could be accompanied by the exit survey.  When leaving a job for a major company, everyone has to go through an exit  interview.  Mine could easily read:

What exactly did you find unsatisfying about this relationship?  Check all that apply:

• Talks about movies I don't like.
• Too intense/hardcore
• Is too disorganized.
• Believes Han shot first.
• I'm intimidated by her artistic talent.
• Television tastes don't line up.
• Excessive use of the phrase, "Seriously?"
• Snorts a little when laughing.
• She hasn't read Green Lantern.
• She likes The Big Bang Theory and refers to them as her kindred spirits.
• Hasn't watched Dr. Who.
• Hasn't watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Loves Firefly.
• I'm intimidated by her intelligence.
• Knows how to build her own computer.
• Knows the definition of the word "defenestration" and has used it in casual conversation.
• Doesn't call me because she claims she doesn't like to talk on the phone much.
• Laughs too much.  Finds me too funny.
• Likes World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 a little too much.
• Snores.
• Doesn't drive.
• Likes buttered popcorn flavored Jelly Bellys. 
• Reads too much Harry Potter, Stephen King, or Dean Koontz.
• Watches too much football.
• Likes to analyze things.
• Is klutzy.
• Hasn't fit into a size 8 since she was about 10 years old.
• Lives in California.
• Likes old movie musicals.
• Blogs about everything.
• Wants to write and publish novels.
• Is allergic to Glade air fresheners. I love Glade.  It just wouldn't work.
• Got a girlfriend and didn't want to tell you.
• I'm married and realized you're a good person who wouldn't do anything dastardly.
• Got bored.
• Scared of liking someone.
• Don't even want to be friends with a girl that I wouldn't want to marry.
• Other_________________________________________________________

It would just be nice if I had a clue.  It seems the more time passes in my life, the less able I am to see anything that would remotely tip me off that he's going to disappear.

Future friends/suitors of America listen up: stop it! Either be there or don't be there, but don't just fall off the edge of the earth and call it a fade out.  Better yet, be friends.  Just friends.  Taper off.  At least claim business at work, or craziness at home, or something that is just going to take too much time and I may not hear from you for a long while.  Whatever. Then send me a card on Christmas. Don't just disappear.

It's just mean. Don't be mean.  Be nice.