Alphabet Project: Broomball

Broomball

Eight of us are crammed in a car that seats five. One person sits in the passenger seat with another on his lap. Four of us are squished into the back seat. Someone even volunteered to ride in the trunk.

Sober drivers are hard to come by when there's a broomball game. It's a game best enjoyed while drunk, and as many people as possible want to enjoy it to the fullest extent. But the ice rink is a ten minute drive from campus, so some people have to stay sober and their cars get pretty crowded.

The ride over is loud. We've had a lot to drink in preparation for this once-a-semester game. The windows are all rolled down so people can hang out and provide some relief for the cramped car. The music is blasting and everyone is shouting over it.

At the ice rink we spill out of the car and go inside. The rink is a mass of people. At least a hundred students, maybe closer to two hundred, have gathered. We're milling around, sliding across the ice. 

Human + alcohol - friction = laughter (and bruises in the morning).

At midnight the game starts and a ball is thrown into the rink. The drunken mass now has a purpose. We are running towards the ball, trying to get it first. There’s only one rule in broomball: get the ball in the other team's net.

It doesn't take long to figure out  that if you go near the ball, odds are you will end up in a pile of people. And if the ball comes to you, you will be at the bottom of a pile of people unless you throw it away immediately. Once you are in one of these piles you learn that your body bends in new and interesting ways. Ways that will probably be painful tomorrow.

Tonight drunk trumps pain.

At one point I see my roommate going for the ball while a frosh is to pulling her away. I do what my alcohol soaked brain believes is most sensible: I go after the frosh. The only problem is that he’s way bigger than I am and pushes me away easily. The next moment I’m down on the ice, and he’s reaching out his hand to help me up. My head hurts. I must have hit it when he knocked me over. I wave his hand away and indicate that I’m okay. Then I make my way over to the side of the rink.

The game’s been going on for half an hour. The other team has yet to score and we’ve scored 3 or 4 times already. Possibly 5. It’s a little unclear, but we're winning. That's all that matters.

When I’m reasonably sure that the room is spinning because of the alcohol in my system and not my head injury, I go back out on the ice. This time I make my way over to our goal, where a group of girls is lined up to block the other team from scoring. Arms linked, fingers woven into the net, our job is to block people more than balls. Which we do quite effectively.

Soon enough the timer buzzes indicating the end of the game. The final score? 69 to bitch, as always. We won, as expected. Some people say we scored 4 times, others say it was as much as 9. The other team didn't score at all.

We pile back in the car and go home. Tomorrow will be painful. Bruises and cuts on top of a hangover make getting out of bed hard. But that only lasts for a day. Memories are forever.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 18

Day 18: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time

So I'm going to delve into Angel a bit for this post.  Because the character I want to talk about appeared on both Buffy and Angel and I still wish I had seen more of her.

She first shows up in the season 2 episode Lie to Me, going by the name Chanterelle. Chanterelle is lonely and desperate for acceptance. She has joined up with a cult of vampire worshipers, convinced that becoming a vampire is the key to fixing her unhappiness. Little does she know that Spike and his gang have no intention of turning her (or the other cult members). They just want an easy meal. Fortunately Buffy saves her.

When next we meet Chanterelle, she has changed her name to Lily. Lily is broke, homeless, hungry. She's completely dependent on her boyfriend, Ricky. Ricky even went so far as picking her new name for her.  She runs into Buffy in a diner in LA, when Buffy is living and working there under the guise of Anne.  The two of them help each other reclaim control over their lives.

Buffy is too late to save Ricky, so Lily must face the prospect of life on her own. Buffy helps her see that she is worthwhile, and that she can take care of herself. Lily asks if she can have the name Anne. For her, it symbolizes self-reliance, courage, and strength, which are qualities Lily has come to value and wants to find in herself.

The next time we run into Anne is in the second season episode of Angel, Blood Money. She has faced the demons and decided that there are scarier things. Upon discovering that she could take care of herself, Anne turned around and started giving back. On Angel, Anne has opened a homeless shelter. It's a wonderful success. Anne and her shelter appear on Angel a few more times, including the season finale. And she shows that she does possess the strength and self-reliance she wanted so badly in the third season of Buffy.

I wish we had seen more of her journey. I would have liked to witness Lily's transformation into Anne. I like to think that she stayed in touch with Buffy, at least for a few months. I really wish there had been an episode, or even a series of flashbacks, to show how she found her strength and why she decided to open a shelter.  It is undoubtedly an interesting story, and one I wish more time had been devoted to.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 17

Day 17: Character You Relate To The Most

It's the computer age, nerds are in.  They're still in, right?

I definitely relate to Willow more than any other character.  In high school I practically was (2nd season) Willow.  I shared the shyness, the quirkiness, the nerdiness.  I even kind of looked like her.  (I also got compared to Alyson Hannigan's character from American Pie.  The horny band geek.  Clearly she will have to play me if they ever make a movie about my life.)  I have a similar love of knowledge.  I'm also fairly skilled with computers.  I can at least usually figure out what I want to do.

Like Willow, I was always a big fan of school.  I didn't like chemistry as much as her, opting for the physics route.  Maybe if I could have made some magic potions, I would have changed my mind about that.  But it is what it is.  I also loved history, and spent some time in high school tutoring my fellow classmates.  I was asked to teach our physics class when the teacher was put on probation.  That wasn't exactly successful, though.

I even find myself occasionally comparing my boyfriend to Oz.  In the "I, too, know the love of a taciturn man, and you have to look at their actions" sense.  Because Boyfriend's actions certainly speak louder than his words.  In a good way.

I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone who knows me.  I always identify more with the geekier girls in Whedon's shows (Fred and Kaylee).  And BtVS is no exception; I am definitely Willow.

I'm Aware Already!

Note:  It's a rant-y day.  I'm sorry

There's another girl's only breast cancer awareness meme going around Facebook.  This time instead of the color of your bra (which I did participate in last year), you're supposed to put a fruit in your status, indicating your relationship status.  Here's the secret code if you care:

Blueberry: I'm single
Pineapple: it's complicated
Raspberry: I'm a touch and go woman
Apple: Engaged
Cherry: In a relationship
Banana: I'm married
Avocado: I'm the "other one"
Strawberry: Can't find the right one
Lemon: Wish I was single
Grape: Wants to get married.
Passion fruit: Widowed
Peach: Same sex partnership/Domestic Partners

Let's skip right past "Lemon" and on to the other problems with this.  As I said, I did participate in this last year.  It was simple and silly, so why not?  But I've since done some research and now, armed with a bit more knowledge and perspective, I'm becoming more and more bothered by this meme.

The main problem is that it excludes men.  The girl's only attitude implies that breast cancer is a female disease, which isn't true.  Men have breasts, and, like women they can get cancer there.  Yes, women are more likely to get it, but excluding men from the awareness campaign is awful.  It makes it look like an us vs them issue (shhh, don't tell the boys!), when in fact we're all in it together.

I'm also a little mad because March isn't even Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  October is.  I mean, the whole "let's be aware of something for a month" is a little ridiculous anyway.  There are more than twelve things we should be aware of, and we should probably be aware of them all the time, not just for a fraction of the year.  In fact, I found this compilation of all the different causes each month is dedicated to.  It's getting a bit out of hand.

Back to the point.  As far as I'm aware March is Women's History Month.  Now I know my breasts are an important part of who I am as a woman, and I would probably suffer a crisis of identity if I lost one or both of them.  Our concept of self is very much tied to our physical bodies, and there's certainly enough societal pressure telling us that women have boobs and men have balls.  I can only imagine how tough it would be to have a body that doesn't match society's expectations of your gender  It's something that I've been lucky enough not to experience.  I hope I never have to experience it.

As fabulous as my boobs are, they are not my sole defining feature as a woman.  So I'm a little upset that Breast Cancer Awareness is trying to steal the spotlight from Women's History Awareness.  Breast cancer and women's history are both important topics, and both should get a spotlight.  So back off, Breast Cancer.  You'll have your turn again in six short months, when even the NFL wears pink for you.

Finally, I feel compelled to point out that all this awareness isn't doing anything other than generating awareness.  This isn't exactly a bad thing.  But as aware as I am of breast cancer, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of progress being made.  It remains the second most fatal form of cancer for women.  It is, of course, equally fatal for men who contract, but they aren't as likely to get it, so they don't die from it quite as often.  The death rate and diagnosis rate aren't really decreasing at all.

Awareness is leading to a lot of fear and paranoia.  And all those monthly self exams are leading to more false positives than anything else.  False positives are expensive and time-consuming to deal with, not to mention the fear and anxiety they cause.

My OB/GYN (who is incredibly smart and up-to-date on research) told me to just skip the monthly self-exam altogether.  As a young, healthy woman with no family history of breast cancer, I'm better off just letting him check for lumps during my annual exam.  Women over 40 should be getting annual mammograms.  And clearly if you're high risk, you should talk to your doctor about all of this.  But if you aren't, then you probably don't have much to worry about.

All the propaganda is probably just making you needlessly fearful about your own risk.  Take a deep breath, talk to your doctor, do some research (as in, peer-reviewed medical articles) and calm down.  Know what you're actually at risk for.  Personally, I'm far more likely to get skin cancer.  Where's the meme for that?

Grrrr

I was supposed to get the Middleman comic book today.  I watched the show back when it originally aired.  When the series finale was released in comic book form, I was initially really excited.  But then the local comic book store didn't have it, and I kind of forgot about it.

Life was busy.  I had work and was trying to make a new life for myself in Boulder.  So getting my hands on the comic book kind of fell by the wayside.  I remembered it once and went on Amazon.com, but the small supply had jacked the price up to $70, which I wans't willing to pay.

This weekend, I got tax refund #1 (which I should have gotten a year ago) and went on Amazon.comto buy the complete series of Battlestar Galactica.  I had recently been watching my Middleman DVDs while I was cleaning and I suddenly remembered the comic book.  I checked and the price was a far more reasonable $7.95, so I jumped on it.

For whatever reason, Amazon.com decided to ship my comic book separately from my BSG DVDs.  And not even just in a separate package, but through a different carrier.

So I got the confirmation that my package had been delivered today and rushed home to find out what happens to Wendy, Tyler, Lacy and the rest.  While the DVDs had arrived at my front door, the comic book was delivered to the office.

The office that closes at 5.

Which is useless when you get home at 6:30.

I guess I'll just have to find something else to do with my evening.  Life is so hard.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 16

Day 16: Episode You Like That Everyone Else Hates

There was a whole lot of backlash against the season 6 episode Normal Again.  In this episode, Buffy is stung by demon and the venom causes her to hallucinate.  In her hallucinations, Buffy is a patient in a mental institution.  Her parents are alive and together.  Dawn was never born.  Nothing that happened in Sunnydale is real.

Back in Sunnydale, Buffy's friends are trying to find the antidote for the poison.  But Buffy herself isn't sure what's real.  I mean, a girl in a mental hospital does make a lot more sense than a girl with superpowers battling demons.  So, with the help of her doctor, Buffy starts taking steps to break ties with the Sunnydale world by rounding up her friends and locking them in the basement with a demon.

Of course, Buffy ultimately chooses Sunnydale, drinks the antidote, and is cured.  But the last shot of the episode is Buffy in the hospital, catatonic in the corner.  The doctor is shining a light in her eye, saying "we lost her" and Joyce and Hank are holding each other, grieving.

The choice to make this the final shot, along with the hint that when Buffy died she actually awoke and lived in this "normal" world, angered a whole lot of fans.  They claimed that it destroyed the past six seasons by implying that everything happened in Buffy's head.  A lot of people simply choose to ignore that this episode even happened.  Which is a shame, because it really is a great episode.

This is the episode where Buffy stops complaining about how life was so much better when she was dead and decides to get back to the business of living.  In the midst of the incredibly depressing sixth season, things finally start to look up.

I had a slightly different reading of the ending of this episode than most of the fans.  Why can't both worlds be real?  BtVS has played with the idea of alternate dimensions before, in both The Wish and Superstar.  So there's no need for one reality to be true and the other to be nothing more than a hallucination.  I like to think that when Buffy finally does die once and for all (third time's the charm), she'll wake up back in the mental hospital, magically cured of everything.  She'll get the one thing she's always wanted more than anything: a normal life.  She'll get to hang out with her family and shop and date.  She'll be warm and loved.  And she'll be done trying to save the world.

And I think that's why I love this episode so much.  It lets me give Buffy the happy ending she'll never really get as the slayer.  Because as long as she's the slayer, she has to fight and lead and inspire and save the world.  But after she dies, she gets a happy, normal life.  We'll just skip over the whole part where she'll have spent her late teens and twenties in a mental institution.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 15

Day 15: Favorite Male Villain

The Mayor may actually be my favorite of all the villains Buffy encounters over seven years. He's proper and kind (except for that whole evil thing) and a total smooth talked.  He truly believes that the children are the future, he just has a slightly different concept of the future.  His relationship with Faith is a thing of beauty.

Honestly, the mayor his just a lot of fun.  His glee is contagious.  And I love the truth he drops on Angel and Buffy in Choices: that his immortality will make their relationship problematic at best.

Also, he eats the principal.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 14

Day 14: Favorite Female Villain

Glory is fabulous.  She's honestly one of the best things about the fifth season, which is an incredible season.  She kicks ass and doesn't bother to take names because she really doesn't give a fuck.  Honestly, I adore her attitude so much.  All she wants to go is get home, and look fabulous in the meantime.

When Glory finds out who Buffy is, her attitude is unique from any other villains we've encountered.  She's disgusted: "I fought a slayer? How unbelievably common!"  This attitude along with her entrance, which involves breaking down most of a wall, makes her far scarier than any villain Buffy's faced yet.

She's motivated by a pretty basic desire.  Like Dorothy, all Glory wants to do is go home.  The problem, of course, is that this would end the world.  But Glory doesn't care.  And she sees Buffy as little more than an annoyance, something to be swatted when it gets in the way.

Both her wardrobe and her minions are pretty fabulous, too.  The leper hobbits are constantly coming up with new and inventive ways to revere the former god and provide constant comic relief.

Glory's end, which reveals Giles' darker side, is pretty fantastic, too.

New Computer!

I finally got my 2009 tax refund.  Yes, that's the one I was supposed to get last year.  But between forgetting to sign it, making a mistake, and moving three times, there was a whole lot of miscommunication and it took the government a full year to actually get the check to me.  The good news is that the government will eventually pay up, even if it takes a while.  The better news is that my money appears to have been gathering 5% interest for the last year.  So the check was even bigger than I expected.

All of this means that I was finally able to afford a new computer!  I actually have working monitors now!  I no longer monopolize the television anytime I want to use my computer.  Hooray!

So now I get to play with my new computer and work on moving files over and installing all the software I want or need.  I can also finally see what my blog looks like.  So I'll probably be playing with the tomorrow.  It may change a lot or a little.  We'll see what I end up liking.

=D

30 Days of Buffy: Day 13

Day 13: Favorite Potential Slayer

This is tough.  They are a ton of potential slayers, but they really only show up in the second half of the last season.  We don't get a whole lot of time with any of them.  Amanda and Kennedy got decent story lines.  Annabelle, Molly, Rhona, Vi, and Chao-Ann at least had names and personalities; though Annabelle gets herself killed awfully quickly.  There are a few more girls with names (Chloe, Eve, etc).  And the rest are just filler, adding to the body count.

Based on what little information we get about these girls, I have to say that Molly stands out as my favorite.  And not just because she shares a name with my first and favorite doll.  She has a quirky sense of style and humor that I'm attracted to.  And she manages to be upbeat in the face of a whole lot of scary things.  Not to mention her accent, which is a completely shallow reason to like a character but totally works on me anyway.  I mostly chose her because she's the most memorable of the potentials (the only one besides Kennedy whose name I didn't have to look up).  So maybe she is my favorite simply because I used to have a doll with the same name.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 12

Day 12: Least Favorite Episode

I don't know what it is about Bad Eggs, but I almost never actually want to rewatch this episode.

It's a bit dull. There are two main story lines - the Gorch Brothers and the Bezoar - that don't really get tied together in the best way.  Having to carry eggs around and pretend they're babies is kind of idiotic, especially when you have a partner.  Buffy complains about being a "single mom", but Xander, Willow, and Cordelia all seem to have full responsibility of their eggs, too.

I guess the whole Bezoar plot never made that much sense to me.  And the Gorch Brothers fail to seem like an actual threat.  They're idiots who only get the upper hand on Buffy because she's too busy making out with Angel to even notice them.  Neither of these villains is strong enough to carry an entire episode, which is probably why they share one.  Like I said, the two story lines don't seem to work together, or get tied up particularly satisfactorily.  That may just be me.

And take this with a grain of salt, because whenever I do sit down and watch this episode, I enjoy it.  There are plenty of little scenes that make me happy.  But I'll rarely put it on voluntarily.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 11

Day 11: Least Favorite Romance

There were quite a few romances over the course of Buffy's seven seasons.  None of them worked out.  It's a little depressing to think about.  No one gets a happy ending.  But they did spell that out in the very first season after Willow's failed relationship with Malcolm/Moloch.

Not only do none of the romances end well, but they all have serious problems.  And those problems escalate as the series progresses.  Giles and Jenny both have shady pasts and end up hurting one another with the secrets they are trying to keep.  Buffy kills Angel.  Xander and Willow cheat on Cordy and Oz.  Then Oz cheats on Willow with a werewolf.  Riley can't handle having a strong independent girlfriend and his feelings of emasculation lead him to seek out vampires to bite him and then abandon Buffy.  Spike takes all his self-loathing out on Harmony.  Spike tries to rape Buffy.  Xander leaves Anya at the alter. Willow alters Tara's memory to make her forget their fights.  They're all completely fucked.  I guess I can chalk it up to the drama of TV land.

The point is, all of these people hurt each other.  A lot.

I think my least favorite instance is the Spike/Harmony relationship.  It was just so one-sided.  Spike hates himself and takes it out on Harmony.  And like an idiot, she keeps coming back for more.  Harmony can be a ditz, but she mostly means well.  Sort of.  She certainly didn't deserve the way Spike treated her.  That can be said for a lot of these couples, but the field was just so uneven in this particular relationship.  Harmony never really hurt Spike.  She burned his Sex Pistols cassette, but she was never as hostile to him as he constantly was to her.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 10

Day 10: Least Favorite Season

This one is heard because I like all of Buffy.  Every season had its high points and low points.  Hell, every episode has high and low points.  But I have to choose one (in this silly, self-inflicted run of blog entries that very few people care about at all).

I'll have to go with the first season.  It's choppy and campy.  The episodes are sort of all over the place.  There's a lot in this season that's cringe-worthy.  Mostly it just hasn't settled into its groove yet because, well, it's the first season.  When I'm trying to get new people to watch the show, I often find myself advising them to "stick it out" through the first few episodes, even the first season.  It gets really, really good in the second season.

Basically, the first season is whole lot of potential, coupled with the writers clumsily trying to figure out how to focus it.  It's a slightly rocky start to an absolutely wonderful tv show.

City Watch TV series

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC

Last week, there was an incredibly exciting rumor that a television series based on Discworld's City Watch was in development.  I did my best to take the news with more than a grain of salt, though.  These rumors get started fairly frequently, and Terry Pratchett is notoriously skeptical about his books being translated to the screen at all, let alone successfully.  But then I saw the news repeated on Pratchett's official news source*, with an admission that he had in fact started the rumor.  And today The Mary Sue posted a video of Terry Pratchett and the show's writers brainstorming about the direction of the show.

Here's the video

So now it feels more official, and I'm really starting to get excited.  The series would obviously deviate from the books.  It sounds like they're leaning more towards a crime-of-the-week structure fueled by the characters Pratchett created.  I'm (perhaps overly) confident that the show will capture the spirit and humor of the books.  And I really can't wait to see how this all turns out.  Sounds like I may only have to wait two years to see it!

If you've never read any of the Discworld novels before, there are seven books and one short story that concern the city watch.  In chronological order, they are:

• Guards! Guards! 
• Theatre of Cruelty (follow the link to read this short story in it's entirety)
• Men At Arms
• Feet of Clay
• Jingo
• The Fifth Elephant
• Night Watch
• Thud!

I've only read through Jingo, but will be moving on to The Fifth Elephant as soon as I finish Carpe Jugulum (part of a separate mini-series about The Witches). I've said before that I'm not the biggest fan of the Rincewind novels, but The City Watch books are spectacular.  They are more or less structured as traditional murder mysteries and should translate well into a crime show that plays with all of the cliches of the genre.

Basically, you should go pick up one or more of these books.  Then when the TV series comes out, I'll have people to geek out about it with!

*Here's the link to the announcement.  I can't figure out a way to perma-link to the entry itself, so this link will probably become outdated fairly quickly.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 9

Day 9: Favorite Romance

Buffy and Angel had the epic love.  This was teenage girl/vampire romance done right.  They loved each other completely and it all came crashing down anyway.  And it hurt, but they moved on, grew, healed.  And maybe, someday, they'll be able to make it work.

Honestly, I would have expected my answer to this to be different.  When I first started typing it was.  But every other couple seems to have some fatal flaw, some problem that I couldn't quite get over in declaring them my favorite.  They lie and cheat and hurt and manipulate each other.  All of them, ultimately, destroyed their own relationships.  But the reasons Buffy and Angel couldn't make it work were all circumstantial.

Okay, so Buffy killed Angel.  But that was to stop the apocalypse.  She had to choose between love and the world, and she chose the world.  It was hard, and it was painful, but it was right.

They even managed to move past that little incident and rebuild their relationship.  Until Angel realized that a mortal and an immortal can never be together unless one of them switches sides.  Since Buffy would never consent to becoming a vampire, they parted ways.

But someday Buffy will be done baking and Angel will become human and they'll get their happily ever after.

Alphabet Project: Zoom

Story Notes:  This story didn't flow right without naming one of the people involved.  So I made up a name.

 

Zoom

The night is young. The alcohol is flowing freely. The music is blasting. The beer pong table is occupied, and has been claimed for the next five games. People are standing around drinking and maybe dancing when someone suggests playing a drinking game.

“Kings?”

“No, I don’t know where my cards are.”

“Landmines?”

“There aren't any cans.”

"Flip cup?"

"We don't have a free table."

“Fuck the Dealer?”

“That needs cards, too.”

“Dr. Killabrew?”

“I’m kinda full.”

"Quarters?"

"Where?"

“Let’s play Zoom!”

“Yeah, we haven’t played that in a while.”

“I’ve never played, how does it work?”

"Nate?"

“Alright,” Nate makes sure everyone is paying attention, then jumps into his explanation of the rules. “The name of the game is ‘Zoom, Schwartz, Pafigliano, and Beederman’. Playing this game is like passing an invisible ball around the circle. There are four things you can say when you have the ball: Zoom, Schwartz, Pafigliano, and Beederman. Zoom passes it to the person you’re looking at. Schwartz returns it to the person who sent it to you. Pafigliano passes it right and Beederman passes it left.

There are three rules. Rule number one: you can’t Zoom a zoomer, but you can Schwartz a schwartzer. If you Zoom a zoomer, you have to drink. Rule number two: you can’t say the name of the game. So if I say ‘Zoom’, he says Schwartz, and I say Pafigliano, you can’t say Beederman or you have to drink. Rule number three is the rule of threes. You cannot say anything three times, either as a group or individually, or you have to drink.

When someone messes up, the person to their left restarts the game. Is there anything left in the keg?”

“I think so,” someone replies.

“Okay. If you mess up four times in a row, you do a keg stand. Are we ready to start?”

“Uh…” The three people who have never played before look nervous.

“Don’t worry. You’ll pick it up. It really isn’t as hard as it sounds.”

“What about nicknames?” Someone who has played before asks.

"Or noonans?" Another chimes in.

“Let’s let them play a few rounds to get used to it,” a slightly more compassionate person suggests.

We split the newbies up. The game is more fun when the people who have never played before are sandwiched between experts. It makes it easier to gang up on them.

“Does everyone have a drink?” Nate asks. Everyone holds up a red cup; each is filled with something alcoholic. “Alright, let’s start. The name of the game is Zoom, Schwartz, Pafigliano, and Beederman. Zoom.” And we’re off.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 8

Day 8: Favorite Friendship

Xander and Andrew was a great friendship.  Xander resisted it so much, because Andrew was a recovering villain and unapologetically nerdy,  but in the end he really needed the guy connection.  In the midst of so many girls (a house and an apartment full of potential slayers), the only other guy was Spike.  And Xander was just not going to tolerate a friendship with Spike for a whole lot of reasons.  When he needed a guy friend, Andrew was there to fill the gap.  They don't get that much screen time, but they still manage to bond over comic books and the dreaminess of Scott Bakula (mmmm, Captain Archer).  Andrew brings out the nerd in all of us, and that's a wonderful thing.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 7

Day 7: Least Favorite Male Character

You know who really sucks?  Warren.  He's an arrogant, womanizing jerk.  I mean, he made a robot girlfriend.  Who does that?  Unlike pretty much every other villain to try to take over Sunnydale, he doesn't have a single redeemable quality.  And then he shot Tara.

I don't even want to talk about him.  I almost stopped reading the Season 8 comics when he showed up.  At least he was still skinless and in constant pain.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 6

Day 6: Favorite Male Character

Spike.

Spike, Spike, Spike.

I love Spike.  I would bring down a house with him any time.

He has the cheekbones, the swagger, the trench coat.  He doesn't give a fuck and has no patience for ritual or tradition.  He's head over heels for Drusilla and later Buffy, and would do anything for them.  In his own words, "I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it".  He saves the world multiple times.

Basically, he's a complete bad ass.

He was supposed to be killed in What's My Line?, less than ten episodes after he was first introduced.  Thankfully, the producers realized how quickly he had become a fan favorite and stuck him in a wheelchair instead.  Then he saved the world, got dumped, attempted to win her back, tortured Buffy, got the chip in his head and still struggled to be evil before finally giving in and winning himself a soul.

And he was such a dork when he was alive.  He was a poet and is amazingly attuned to other people's emotions.  In Something Blue, he's the only one who notices that Willow is having trouble getting over Oz.  In the fifth season, he actually treats Dawn like a person when no one else will.  And he helps Buffy out of her funk so she can save the world at the end of the seventh season.  I honestly don't know what Cecily was thinking.  But her loss is my incredible gain.

Action Figure Spike!
AKA, I am such a geek

Of Bikes and Horribleness

Today's bike ride went much better than the last attempt.  By which I mean I actually made it all the way around the block.  Go me!  I went in the other direction this time, so the uphill part was both shorter and steeper.  I think that makes it easier.  I may have to work harder, but I don't have to work for as long.  Way better.  So I'll definitely try again tomorrow, and may even attempt to go slightly further.  We'll see.  Getting in shape is hard, but it'll definitely be nice to go on hikes and bike rides with Boyfriend once the weather really starts warming up.

For Christmas, Boyfriend got me tickets to a live production of Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog.  The show was last night, so we made an evening out of it with dinner and everything.  It was tons of fun.  The cast and crew incorporated a bunch of the commentary songs into the musical.  Between each of the three acts, they sang a few songs from Commentary! The Musical.  Even with the added songs, the entire show was barely longer than an hour.

They followed the official version pretty much line for line.  Only the choreography changed, as they had to adapt to being on stage.  And they added a song called "Nobody Wants to Be Moist".  That may have been in the commentary, I'll have to double-check, but I think it was original.  Also, the actor who played Captain Hammer looked a lot like a guy we went to college with, which made some scenes even funnier.

And now it's time to go clean the apartment, because we have a friend coming to stay with us on Tuesday and more showing up next weekend.  It's going to be all sorts of fun.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 5

Day 5: Least Favorite Female Character

I'm not a big fan of Maggie Walsh.  She's a mean, arrogant professor.  Seriously, she opens the first psychology class with the following lecture:

Ok.  This is Psych 105, 'Introduction to Psychology', I'm Professor Walsh.  Those of you who fall under my good graces will come to know me as Maggie.  Those of you who don't will come to know me by the name my TAs use, and think I don't know about, 'The Evil Bitch Monster of Death.'  Make no mistake, I run a hard class, I assign a lot of work, I talk fast and I expect you to keep up.  If you're looking to coast I recommend 'Geology 101,' that's where the football players are.

I hated professors who just didn't have time for slow students who didn't quite get it right away.  I'd rather have someone who cared, or was at least willing to help me.  She's similarly insensitive when Buffy misses a class, but shows up immediately after to collect the assignment.

Prof Walsh is similarly overbearing with the Initiative.  She holds Riley under her thumb and then tries to kill Buffy in an effort to maintain control over him.  She drugs him secretly and has surveillance cameras in his bedroom.  Then she calls Giles an absent father figure and tries to be Dr. Frankenstein.  Because he was such a good role model.  I wasn't too upset when Adam skewered her.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 4

Day 4: Favorite Female Character

This one is tough.  Mostly because I need to remember to confine my answer to what happened on Buffy and not let Angel bleed in.  But my top two choices - Fatih and Cordy - both had continuing character arcs on Angel that made me love them even more.

Sticking to just Buffy, though, I'd have to go with Faith.  I think she's so incredibly interesting.  She's damaged, definitely.  We only get hints of her past, but it certainly affected her a lot.  She goes from wild girl to bad girl to downright evil over the course of season three, then fights for redemption for the rest of her stint on the show.  I love her relationship with the mayor; it's just so sweet.  I love when she wakes up from the coma and goes on a vengeance kick before hitting rock bottom (on Angel).  I also think Eliza Dushku did a better job playing Buffy and Sarah Michelle Gellar did playing Faith, but that might just be me.

I adore her run at the end of the series.  It might just have been because I was so excited to see Faith again.  But her road to recovery is difficult.  It's interesting that she finally gets to walk a mile in Buffy's shoes near the end of the season and finally realizes just how similar they are.  And how lonely.

Wear Sunscreen

Last week I spent all day outside on a marine base in the California sunshine.  I remembered to put sunscreen everywhere except my part.

This isn't the first time I've neglected this part of my body.  It's not even the worst.  When I was fourteen I took a Disney Cruise in the Bahamas and got those cornrow braids (I was so cool when I was fourteen).  Fifteen braids meant fourteen parts, none with sunscreen.  It looked like I had dandruff for a week.

If I learned one thing from this experience, it's that you shouldn't scratch your head after you've gotten a massive sunburn.  This may not have been the lesson I should have learned, but it appears to be the one I did.

At any rate, I was doing a very good job of this.  I was letting my scalp heal on its own and resisting every itch that passed over it.

About half through a five hour marathon of meetings today, I excused myself to the restroom.  Upon catching a glimpse of my reflection, I froze in horror.  The entire strip of skin killed by the sun had separated from my scalp and shifted roughly a centimeter to the right.  I certainly hadn't left my apartment looking like this.  I had no idea when it had happened.  How long I'd looked like this.

I interviewed a prospective employee today.  His PhD research won his adviser the Nobel Prize a few decades ago.  This man has an equation named after him.

How humiliating.

It took forever, but I managed to make myself look presentable.  I slid back into the meeting and avoided eye contact with everyone for the next several hours.

And next time I'll definitely remember to wear sunscreen

30 Days of Buffy: Day 3

Day 3: Favorite Song Used In An Episode

I'm a bit of a sucker for the end of episode sad montage set to music.  This includes the following episode/music number combinations:

• Becoming / Full of Grace by Sarah McLachlan
• Tabula Rasa / Goodbye To You by Michelle Branch
• Grave / Prayer of St Francis by Sarah McLachlan
• Conversations With Dead People / Blue performed by Angie Hart
• I'm sure there are more of these...

This device is almost a cliche in the world of Buffy, but it works on my every time.  My favorite use of this, though, is when it gets subverted at the end of Lover's Walk in the third season.  Everyone's sad and mopey and sad music plays over shots of everyone being alone.  Then, the music abruptly switches to My Way as Spike drives off to reclaim his lady-love, Drusilla.  Because Spike's awesome

30 Days of Buffy: Day 2

Day 2: Favorite Episode

I'm a sucker for musicals, so my favorite episode is definitely Once More, With Feeling.  I own two different versions of the soundtrack - the official one and an unofficial one that includes some of the dialogue surrounding the songs.  This is basically the default episode that I watch with my mom when we can't agree on which episode to put on while preparing dinner.  (She cooks, I drink wine.  It's a good system.)

It's not just a throw away episode, either.  The songs really help advance all of the character arcs.  Without the musical episode, the other characters wouldn't have known the Buffy was in Heaven instead of Hell, Giles wouldn't have decided to leave, Tara may not have discovered that Willow was altering her memory, and we wouldn't have seen Xander and Anya's insecurities about their impending wedding.  Nor would we have gotten to hear Marti Noxon attempt to get out of a parking ticket by singing about her lack of underwear.

And Spike and Buffy finally kiss!  Thanks to the rising music and the rising....music.

Sometimes I wish life were a musical, because things always seem better when you can sing and dance.  But, like Willow, I still probably wouldn't be able to sing.  I'd just get the filler lines.  Maybe I'd get a cool dance number; that's what happened in the high school musicals I was in.

Back to Buffy...  On top of all the musical goodness, this episode is longer than the others by seven whole minutes.  Even more Buffy for your enjoyment!

Alphabet Project: Voodoo

Project Notes: The plan is to post these stories as I write them, in no particular order.  I'd like to do one a week.  We'll see how long I stick to that schedule.  I decided not to follow any sort of length requirement.  This story simply wouldn't fit on one page.  I kept identifying information out.  If you were there, you should know who all the people involved are.  If not, you should still be able to follow along.  Please tell me what you think!  Your feedback helps improve the story.

Story Notes: This story describes a hazing tradition that my class was among the last to participate in.  The administration killed it during my junior year of college.

Voodoo

The first hint that something is wrong is the time of the meeting.  Dorm meetings usually begin at 10:30, but we are told to be in the courtyard at 9 PM sharp.

The upperclasswomen spend the majority of the day drawing on the concrete courtyard with sidewalk chalk.  They refuse to answer any of our questions about what they are doing and why.  Eventually we stop asking and content ourselves with watching.

A large star takes up most of the courtyard.  Each point contains a name, three of which I recognize.  They belong to a sophomore, a junior, and a senior currently living in the dorm.  The fourth is a student who graduated the previous year.  No one seems to know anything about the fifth person, Suggs.  The space between the points of the star is filled with drawings: a rose, a keg of beer, meat, sports equipment, and a little black dog.  These are the symbols of our dorm, though I've never really been able to figure out the dog.  The pentagon in the center of the star is filled with a psychedelic swirl of color.

By the time we congregate in the courtyard, apprehensive and already tipsy, clutching cups of Ice House, the drawing has been completed.  The rest of the dorm members are already there, standing around the star.  This is strange, too.  Usually the upperclassmen remain in their rooms while the frosh announce the meeting, shouting ever louder until the entire campus must know that all of us will soon be drunk and rowdy.

We are directed to stand around the chalk drawing.  It goes without saying that we should not stand on it.  We group together, sipping beer, waiting, wondering what will come next.  A sophomore walks to the center of the circle, stands in the middle of the star.  This is the sophomore whose name is written in one point of the star.  He begins to tell a tale.

Years ago, there was a student named Suggs who lived in this dorm.  Now Suggs, he liked to party.  And on his birthday, he wanted nothing more than to drink and have a good time with his friends.  Unfortunately for him, his friends had all chosen to major in engineering and had too much homework to accomplish that night.  They turned down his invitations to drink and let loose, promising to make it up to him that weekend.

Dejected, and with no one willing to share a drink or a game of beer pong, Suggs retreated to his room.  Once there, he drank himself into a stupor and passed out.  Meanwhile, his friends slowly began to come around.  They realized that it was their good friend's birthday and that a celebration was called for.  They would have a much better time partying with him than struggling with a problem set that, if they were to be honest, they would probably never finish.  Minds made up, they grabbed a bottle of alcohol and trooped up to Suggs' room.

Of course, Suggs was already unconscious.  Try as they might, they couldn't wake him.  But by now they were committed to celebrating his birthday, whether he participated or not.  So the group found a large, wooden rack, tied Suggs to it, and proceeded to carry him from dorm to dorm, laughing and drinking and inviting the other students to shower Suggs with birthday presents.

When Suggs awoke the next morning, he was still strapped to the rack which had been left in a field on the eastern edge of campus.  Hungover and dirty, he eventually managed to free himself.  Back at the dorm he found his friends who were still laughing at their prank.  But Suggs didn't find it funny.  In retaliation, he placed a voodoo hex on them, and on all the residents of the dorm, all the people who ever would live in the dorm.  The only way to counter this hex, the sophomore concludes, is to sacrifice one freshman every year to relive Suggs' humiliation.  The names in the star belong to previous frosh chosen for this honor.

The story teller points to the frosh who has been chosen as this year's Sacrifice.  Hands immediately grab him and lift him up.  He is carried over to a rack of wood propped against the benches.  He is tied down.  Goggles are placed over his eyes.  The upperclassmen produce cans of whipped cream, bottles of chocolate and strawberry syrup, sprinkles and cherries.  We watch while the Sacrifice is transformed into a "birthday cake", though a sundae seems to be a more accurate description.  Should we try to free him?  Are we expected to join in?  With no direction, we simply hang back and drink our beers.

Finally, the upperclassmen exhaust their supply.  The other male frosh are directed to pick up the rack.  Quickly, they chug the remainder of their beers and step forward to lift the Sacrifice.  There are enough of them that this is an easy task.  They will have to carry the rack and the Sacrifice around to the other dorms.  Presents must be collected from each dorm if we are to escape from the hex for another year.

The females are excluded, warned to stay back.  "Be glad you're a girl," the seniors tell us as we follow the group of frosh guys, carrying the Sacrifice on their shoulders, to the dorm across the courtyard.

The residents of this dorm have prepared.  A tarp is laid out on the ground, near a balcony.  The guys walk over to it and begin to lower the rack but are immediately ordered not to.  They must stand and hold up the Sacrifice, while the residents of this dorm throw their presents down from the balcony.  The festivities begin with a tureen of soup.  It might be a day old, and it might be a week old.  I'm glad I'm outside the splash zone.  The soup is followed by more food, stolen from the dining hall over the past week.  Condiments from the sandwich bar help larger items stick.  Some things aren't meant to stick and instead bounce off one or more bodies before landing on the ground.

The supply of food seems endless.  Upperclassmen are hooting and hollering while our guys try to avoid the spray.  Finally they give in and stand still, resigned to their fate.  It's like the first few minutes after stepping outside into a rainstorm.  At first you try to avoid getting wet, but soon enough you are soaked to the bone a little more hardly seems to matter.  But this rain of rotting food is infinitely worse than mere water.

Eventually, this dorm runs out of things to throw and we move to the next dorm.  It's a strange parade, with the freshmen out in front.  The rest of us trail behind, trying to avoid stepping in whatever is dripping off Sacrifice and his bearers.  The sophomore who began the evening has a bottle of water, and as we walk he does his best to rinse the worst of the mess from the Sacrifice's face.

There are seven dorms to visit in all.  The "presents" seem to get more creative as the night goes on.  Bags of flour and coffee grounds are split and sprinkled over the guys.  Eggs are thrown.  Juice and milk are poured.  Between each dorm, the sophomore rinses the Sacrifice's face.  He is able to breathe, but he cannot move or avoid the "presents".

At the end of the circuit, we return home.  Another tarp has been hastily set up and the guys know what to do by this point.  They position themselves under the balcony.  This dorm, our dorm, is worst of all.  The men who live here have been through this themselves.  Every thought that began "I'm glad they didn't throw..." has morphed into "We should totally throw...!"

Someone drops a fish.  It doesn't stick, just makes a sloppy thwack as it hits one of the guys supporting the Sacrifice and slides off to the ground.  Someone saw the flour and coffee grounds and upgraded to kitty litter.  The soup here is weeks old, as is the chunky milk.  They have been preparing for a long time.

Finally, the guys are allowed to set the Sacrifice down.  They prop him up near the side of the dorm and loosen his bonds.  The upperclassmen have everyone pose for pictures.

"We should get out of here," one of my friends says as the first camera flashes.  We turn to her and realize what she means.  I look back at the guys, covered in putrid, pinkish-brown, vomit-inducing gunk.  They have their arms around each other and are laughing as the cameras capture the results of the evening.  One looks at me and I see a glint in his eye, the beginning of an evil smile.

"RUN!"

I'm the slowest member of the group and it's obvious that I'll be brought down first.  We're only halfway to the nearest dorm when I'm tackled, squealing, to the grass.  The other girls don't slow down or look back; they're trying to make it indoors before the other guys catch up to them.  But there are twelve guys and only four of us.  No one stands a chance.

Eventually we all make it back to the courtyard.  We're laughing and jostling each other, trying to ignore the unique stench rising from our skin, our clothes, the courtyard.  "Hurry up and shower," the dorm president commands us, "then meet in the lounge in fifteen minutes.  The night is only just beginning."

30 Days of Buffy: Day 1

While I was stuck in the Chicago airport for 3 hours with no wifi and only my cell phone to occupy me, I came across this meme: 30 Days of Buffy.  It's actually 30 Days of whatever tv show you want, but I'm going to go with Buffy.  It's my favorite show and has been for as long as I can remember.  I love watching it, talking about it, reading about it, and watching it again.  So I'm going to talk about it for the next 30 days.  There will be other posts as well (probably).  There's even one down there, below this one.  But this is my blog, so I can put whatever I want in here

And without further ado: 30 Days of Buffy

Day 1: Favorite Season

My favorite season is definitely the third.  While I will argue that the second season has the best arc, and season 4 has the highest number of great episodes, I think the quality of season 3 was very consistent.  There weren't any horrible episodes.  Actually, I don't really think there are any horrible episodes of Buffy, I'm such a huge fan.  Even the not-so-great ones have their redeeming moments.  But the bottom of this season (Beauty and the Beasts) is still reasonable.  And the entire second half (maybe the last three quarters) is quality.  If I want to watch several episodes in a row, I usually reach for the third season, because I can watch an entire disc without wanting to switch it out partway through.

Plus, the third season has Faith, one of my favorite characters.  We get to see her go from wild child to bad girl to comatose.  And all in leather pants.  This isn't even a reasonable fetish, but thanks to Faith and Angelus, I love leather pants.  Maybe I love the idea of them more than I would in person.

The third season is also the Mayor's season.  He's the most wholesome, and possibly the best, villain I've ever seen.

Other reasons to love season 3:

•  Gay Vampire (Dominatrix) Willow (Oh yeah, me and Oz play "mistress of pain" every night)
• The alternate universe in The Wish, with the return of the master
• Cool Xander in The Zeppo
• Giles admitting that he is more father than watcher to Buffy
• The introduction of Wesley
• Jonathan's speech in The Prom
• Blowing up to school in Graduation Day
• The brief return of Angelus in Enemies
• so much more

 So, favorite season = season 3.  Hands down (at the moment).

Cecilia Payne

When you study physics, every great discovery comes attached to a name.  The lessons are almost as much about the history of the field as they are about physics itself.  You learn about Schrodinger's Equation (and cat), Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Einstein's theory of relativity, Feynman's diagrams, Kepler's laws, Galileo's equations, the Copernican model of the universe, Bohr's model of the atom, Newton's laws, Maxwell's equations, etc.

But you've probably never heard of Cecilia Payne.

I hadn't, until I stumbled across this article about her.  Cecilia was born in Britain in 1900 and came to America to study astronomy at Harvard in 1923.  At the time, it was thought that the sun had roughly the same composition as the Earth, but no one knew the exact proportions of the elements.  Ms. Payne was tasked with determining this and used the latest advances in ionization theory and spectral analysis to do so.  She concluded that the sun is, in fact, mostly hydrogen.

Her conclusion was controversial at the time.  It flew in the face of the accepted wisdom that the sun was mostly made of heavy metals, just like the Earth.  She was shunted into a different field and it was a few years before the work she had done was verified and finally accepted.  She continued to contribute to astronomy in the field of variable stars (stars whose brightness, as seen from the Earth, appears to vary over time) and wrote several books.

As a side note, Cecilia was the first person to earn a PhD in astronomy from Harvard.  Not just the first woman, the first person.

So why don't we learn about her?  Why was she never mentioned in any of my physics classes?  We did an experiment similar to her's in a lab course.  Her name should have been included in that experiment description, but it wasn't.  I thought she might have been discussed in the actual astrophysics course, which I never took.  A scan of my boyfriend's astrophysics text book debunked this theory.  It contains a 20-page section on Cecilia Payne's work.  Her name isn't mentioned once.

I wanted to write about her here, get the word out.  She deserves some recognition.  She should be as famous as Newton, Galileo, or Einstein for discovering such a crucial and fundamental fact about our universe.  But she's not.

Note:  Apparently it is International Women's Day.  I didn't know that when I wrote this post, but it seems fitting.  If you can think of any other women who don't get enough love, let me know and I'll write about them.  This was fun.

Alphabet Project

During my junior year of high school, my English teacher assigned a project that I had a lot of fun with: an alphabet book.  We had to write twenty-six short stories, one for each letter of the alphabet.  None could be more than a page long.  All had to be true.

I still have the collection of stories I wrote.  Some are wonderful, some are awful.  Some experiments worked, others didn't.  One of the stories turned into my college essay.  It's a great snap shot of who I was, and a nice book of memories.  It's like a scrapbook with words instead of pictures.

Ever since I finished college, I've been toying around with the idea of repeating this project, with the stories taken from my college career.  I've written a few over the years, but never got very far.  It's something I still want to do, though.  So I'm considering writing the stories and publishing them in this blog.

Names would be omitted, facts altered or rearranged slightly.  This would be a collection of my memories of college, the truth as I saw it.  In bite-size chunks.  It might be more challenging, having only four years of material to draw on instead of sixteen.  The challenge wouldn't be coming up with stories - there's a ton of those - but coming up with names for those stories, to fit the alphabet naming requirement.  Picking and choosing which ones to tell.

So I think I'm going to try this.  I like writing.  And this will be a nifty exercise that hopefully sharpens my skills while providing me with a nice collection of memories to cherish in the years to come.

Thoughts?

Vicious Cycle

This is a cycle that I find myself stuck in.  When it comes to working out, I can't seem to get past the awful chore to the fun activity, past the self-loathing to the self-love.  Because exercise sucks.  A lot.  Especially when you're completely out of shape.

I decided to go for a bike ride today.  Riding a bike is more fun than going to the gym, which is why I bought one.  I figured it would help me get out and exercise if the method was somewhat enjoyable.  This sort of worked a couple of summers ago.  I lived in Boulder and rode my bike to work every day.  This was great in the summer.  But sumer in Colorado doesn't last long and soon enough it was too cold and dark to commute on my bike.  I stopped exercising

I planned to start small today: the shortest path on the roads around my apartment.  This worked well at first.  I was flying down the road, wind streaming around me, having fun.  Then I turned the final corner and started up the long hill back to my apartment

I was already breathing heavy.  Winded due to my lack of exercise for the past six months.  But I kept pedaling.  Moving up the hill.  Trying to control my breathing.  Heart pounding in my ears.

Is the hill getting longer?  Is it really this steep?

Take another breath.

The traffic is muted. It sounds like I'm listening to it from underwater.  Is it the wind?  Is it my heart beating in my ears?  Is it something else?

Another breath.  Try to slow my pounding heart.  Keep pedaling.

Why can't I do this?  The hill isn't that steep.  It can't be more than a quarter of a mile long.   What's wrong with me?

I'm slowing down.  Am I going too slow?  Do the people driving past notice how slow I'm going?  I can't speed up, though.  It's all I can do to keep my legs moving.

The bike wobbles.  That's not good.

Keep pedaling.

A five year old could do this.  I could have done it two years ago.  How did I let this happen to myself?

And now I'm panting.  I'm having a hard time getting enough air.

Another wobble.  Time to get off and walk.

But my legs are wobbling, too.  They feel rubbery.  I'm not sure they're going to keep supporting me.  I'm not even sure which way is up.  One step at a time.  Trying to trust that my body is still vertical, that my legs can hold my weight.  That the laws of physics haven't just decided to stop working.

The sidewalk becomes distorted and wavy.  I can barely hear the traffic at all anymore.  My heart won't stop pounding.  It might actually burst out of my chest.  I can't catch my breath.

I veer to the left, drop my bike, fall forward on my face.  Gasping, dizzy, scared.  Trying to banish the feeling that I'm drowning by the side of the road.

What's wrong with me?  Why can't I complete a simple half-mile bike ride?  How could I have failed so utterly?

I still can't catch my breath.  Can't slow down my heart.  Can't even move.  This isn't just exhaustion.  This is the beginning of a panic attack. That's why my lungs won't do their job.  That's why resting isn't leading to relaxation.  That's why my body still seems convinced that it is trying to pedal a bike up a long, steep hill at the bottom of the ocean.

Recognizing that it's a panic attack helps.  I can deal with that, ride it out, calm myself down.  I stop panting.  Hold my breath for a second.  Let it out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

My heart slows.  The tightness begins to loosen.

Breathe in.

I can smell the grass my face is buried in.  Feel it, dry and coarse against my cheeks.

Breathe out.

Turn my head.

There are the cars.  I can hear them again.

The drivers are probably looking at me.  Wondering at my failure.  Witnessing my own private shame.

It doesn't matter.  I don't know them.  I'll never meet them.  Their opinions don't matter.  May not even be their opinions.  Just my projections.

Let it go.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Rise to my knees.

Still dizzy.  But it's different.  I don' feel like I'm floating in a pool, wondering where the sky has gone.  It's like I'm butter in a frying pan that someone is trying to coat.  At least I know where the ground is.  Gravity has meaning again.

I kneel for another minute.  Locate my bike.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Heart still pounding.  But I'm not scared it's going to burst out of my chest.

I stand, pull up my bike, start walking.

I'm not going to get back on.  Even though I can see my apartment.  Even though riding would be faster.  Walking is safer.

I'm leaning on my bike, putting one foot in front of the other.  Baby steps.  The panic is gone, replaced by exhaustion, shame, and a sense of failure.

I can't even ride my bike around the block.

Now I'm sitting on the couch staring at the bike.  Wishing I were just a little more in shape.  Wishing I could get in shape without triggering a panic attack.  Wishing that exercise, the thing that's supposed to make me healthy and happy, didn't leave me feeling so discouraged and awful about myself.

And tomorrow I have to get back on that bike.  I have to try to make it around the block again.  I have to risk that awful, pressing feeling of not being able to breathe or see or hear so that I can work past it.

Someday this will get easier.  It has to.

I just hope that day comes before my frustration causes me to quit.  Again.

Saturday Goals Recap

I give myself an A for effort today.

But in actuality, I probably got a B.  Thanks to some horrendous traffic, and my inadequate knowledge of the roads around here, I missed my appointment for dress alterations.  Oh well.  I rescheduled and the wedding is still six months away.  Whatever.  I also failed to buy new shoes.  After getting shorts and a dress I had done all the shopping I could handle.

All in all, I think it was a success.

Saturday Goals

I've been in a funk lately.  It's part of the reason I started this blog.  I'm trying to break out of this routine I've managed to get stuck in.  Part of that routine has involved far too many weekend hours on the couch watching TV.  This may be fun, but it isn't helping my funk and may be contributing to it.  So tomorrow I am going to accomplish things.  And if I post about it on the internet, then I'm more accountable.  Or something.

So, things I am going to do tomorrow:

• Exercise.  Probably go for a bike ride, as it will theoretically be warm enough to do so.  If not, ride the bike at the apartment complex's gym
• Clean the kitchen
• Launder the sheets and towels
• Finish and file last year's taxes (I swear there's a halfway reasonable explanation for this)
• Gather everything I need to file this year's taxes
• Write!  Finish at least one entry for this blog and start on a project that I've been knocking around for a few years (more on this tomorrow, possibly)
• Watch one episode of Supernatural (it's Saturday, after all, and Jared Padalecki is pretty darn lickable.  As is Jensen Ackles.)
• Possibly watch an episode of Doctor Who (mmmm, David Tennant.  Ok, done fangirling now)
• Alterations for bridesmaid dress #1 (I have an appointment, so this will definitely get done)
• Buy a dress for my brother's graduation.  Something cute and springy, but also office appropriate (hopefully)
• Buy some shorts I can wear in San Diego next week
• Buy a pair of ballet flats.  I desperately need some flats that aren't sneakers and those are actually cute and can be worn to the office.
• Read and possibly finish House of Many Ways

It sounds like a lot.  But it's really a lot of little things.  I'll be crossing stuff off all day long!

Wish me luck.

Losing Geek Cred

If you've never seen Star Trek, specifically The Next Generation, this post might be a bit lost on you.  If you have, prepare to lose some respect for me.  Come to think of it, you'll probably lose a bit of respect for me either way.  That's okay.  This is my blog, not yours.

I grew up watching ST: TNG.  Literally.  The show premiered when I was a year old and my parents were big fans.  Every week my aunt and uncle came over and the family watched it together.  This probably stopped when my brother and cousins came along, but for a few years I was the only one and life was good and filled with Star Trek.  I saw practically every episode as they originally aired.  I have a better memory of Deep Space Nine.  Man I loved Jadzia Dax.  And Odo.  And Major Kira.  I should go back and re-watch this series.  Where was I?

Oh, right: Next Gen

It's woven into the fabric of my childhood.  (Maybe this is why I don't like wearing red.)  I've always known Whoopi Goldberg first and foremost as Guinan.  I believed that Jean Luc Picard was his real name longer than I believed in Santa Claus.  Much of my early understanding of artificial intelligence was shaped by Data.  I loved going to Safeway where the doors opened automatically, just like on the enterprise.  I wanted my own holodeck very badly.  I still kind of do.  And I had a bit of a crush on Wesley Crusher.

Any good Trekkie knows that you're supposed to hate Wesley Crusher.  He is annoyingly perfect: a male Mary Sue.  But I couldn't help it.  He was the golden boy and I was young.

I've always particularly liked an episode called The Game, in which young Wesley saves the entire crew from a game that's so addictive no one can stop playing it.  Riker picks up the game during one of his exploits with a sexy lady alien and it quickly spreads through the crew.  It's not as dirty as that sounds though.  Probably.  Anyway, Wesley is the only one who realizes that something is wrong and manages to destroy the game and free the crew from its drug-like hold on them.  This is apparently a pretty awful episode - even my summary sounds awful.  But I was maybe fourteen the last time I actually saw it, and I got attached to the concept.  The episode still pops up in my head with each new game addiction I encounter: Solitaire, Freecell, Desktop Tower Defense, Peggle, Bejeweled, Angry Birds.

The Game also has one of my favorite scenes ever to appear in any Star Trek incarnation, starring another character who I've since learned is pretty problematic in the fandom.  I don't care, though.  Deanna Troi taught me how to eat chocolate.

Don't Say Anything You'll Regret

In my senior year of high school I took a statistics class.  Every class started with a poll of some sort.  We'd analyze the results to learn about things like mean, distribution, statistical significance, and so on.  The questions were usually silly.  What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?  Would you rather win an Oscar, a Grammy, or the Nobel Prize?  How many siblings do you have?

One day, for whatever reason, our teacher asked us a slightly more incendiary question.

Are women too emotional to be involved in politics?

This class had 27 students: 25 girls and 2 boys.

Five people raised their hands for the "no" answer.  Both of the male students were counted among them.

So.  In a sampling of 25 fairly intelligent females (they were electing to take an extra math class; that implies some intelligence) 22 of them believed that women are too emotional for politics.

WHAT?

I hadn't expected anyone to agree with that statement.  Certainly not the overwhelming majority of the girls in the class.  Surely this kind of backwards thinking had been stomped out back in the 20s when we were given won the right to vote.  Or in the 60s with the invention and distribution of the birth control pill.  Or in the 80s, before I was born.  Surely no one attending high school in the new millennium could cling to such archaic beliefs.

I made a comment to this effect.  A girl responded, "Well it's a fact that women are more emotional than men.  And when it comes to making rational choices about policies, they may not be able to reign those emotions in."

"So you don't think women should be allowed to vote?" I retorted, nearly rising out of my seat.  I was so angry at this girl and so very ready to show her all the ways she was wrong.

The teacher silenced me.  "Let's not say anything we'll regret."

"But-" I started to say before a look from her shut me up.  Instead, I wrote "Vote for Hillary in 2008!" across the top of my homework.

Why is this belief still so prevalent?  Why are there people out there, women among them, who believe that we are somehow inferior to men?  That we don't have the rationality, strength, wisdom, foresight, patience, or authority to help run this country?  Why is equality so hard?

There's a lot going on in this country right now concerning women's rights.  The House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood.  If this passes in the Senate, it would be difficult or impossible for low-income women to get access to STD/STI screening and care, annual exams, and contraception.  The same politicians are trying to redefine rape so that it only counts if the victim was physically forced.  They want to use this new definition to limit funds for abortions.  In Georgia, politicians have introduced a bill that could make miscarriage a felony punishable by the death penalty.  Tell me how that's pro-life. I dare you.  It's like the kings of old executing their wives for birthing daughters instead of sons.  What century is this?

That last one probably won't pass, but I'm sickened that it is even being considered.

It's time to stop being silent out of fear that I'll live to regret something I say or write.  It's time to start fighting for rights I've been taking for granted my entire life.  It's time to stand up and make them see that women are people, too.

Now the question is, aside from ranting on the internet, how do I join the fight?  Living close to DC should make this easier to figure out, but I'm not entirely sure how to get started.  In the meantime, I'll post my thoughts and rants here and share any information I do find about making a stand.

And please share any information you have with me!