Adulthood

Back in June, Sarah at Rainbow Reverie asked the question, "In what ways are you still a kid/teenager/generally irresponsible?" in her post 20 Ways In which I Am Not A Grown-Up. Her list was in preparation for the big 3-0 (a monumental number that tends to throw all of us for a loop). The ship has sailed on my 30-year benchmark (hello, 31!) but I strangely find myself no closer to complete grown-up-hood at 31 than at any other age. Why? 10 Reasons:

1.) I am writing a list of reasons why I am not a grown-up when I should be working.

2.) I stop for pizza after exercising at the gym. Which I eat on the drive home. By myself.

3.) Potato chips and ice cream ARE YES THEY ARE an acceptable dinner.

4.) In a side-by-side comparison of the summer when I was 15 years old and the summer I am 31 years old, not much has changed:

Natty, age 15: Watched Sailor Moon episodes, ate tons of hot dogs, ran around the woods with friends, lived at the neighbor's pool, stayed up late, baby-sat for $5 an hour in preparation for my first real job come Autumn.

Natalie, age 31: Watched Sailor Moon episodes, ate tons of (veggie) hot dogs, ran around outdoors with friends, lived at the community pool, stayed up late, wrote for 10 cents a word in preparation for a grand real job (or dependable freelancing) come Autumn?

Differences: All the activities at 31 included copious amounts of alcohol (hence the running-around-outdoors-in-the-dark), and when it finally came time to hit the hay, naked time with my significant other. At 15, hitting the hay meant a bowl of late-night cereal and Nick at Nite, before entering detailed handwritten pages in my various diaries.

5.) Once -- one singular time -- there was a rabbit in our backyard. Now every time I look out the window to the backyard I expect there to be a rabbit hanging out and munching on the clover.

6.) I wanted Matt to catch said rabbit and carry it to the local creek where my turtle friends live and see if they would race.

7.) I have turtle friends. Big as dinner plates. They eat hot dog buns and noodle casserole. (And apparently the neighbors take turns feeding them.) 

8.) No, really, I am procrastinating by writing this list instead of real work. We'll call it taking a break. This is not unprecedented behavior.

9.) On my office wall is a Xena: Warrior Princess calendar. It was my favorite Christmas gift last year from Matt. Proper grown-ups have calendars that feature stoic mountains with inspirational phrases. Or, you know, Doctor Who.

There's still a few months left of 2012 if you want your own! (Image via Amazon.)

10.) It seems when one reaches a certain age, swimming pool activity means sitting waist-deep in the water with a beverage in hand, sunglasses firmly planted over eye make-up, hair completely dry and body never getting wet above the navel. I am not one to shun various fun beverages, but my pool activity involves goggles and headstands and wet, tangled hair.

In all other ways, I'm sure I am a respectable and productive member of society. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go work eat Twizzlers and play on YouTube. As adults do.

Friday QuoteDay

“We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood in your right hand came from a star that blew up 8 billion years ago. The iron in your left hand came from another star. We are the laws of chemistry and physics as they have played out here on Earth and we are now learning that planets are as common as stars. Most stars, as it turns out now, will have planets.”

— Jill Tarter: A Scientist Searching For Alien Life

Happy Blue Moon, darlings! 

 

Badly Drawn Little Comics: Driving While Spring, Part II

Do y'all remember this little comic I made last year? Before my unannounced hiatus, I started a sequel! Even though it's no longer Spring (and practically no longer Summer!) it's time to share! 

Weekly Flâneur: Windows of Sky

(Image of skyscraper with blue sky. Click to enlarge.)

Look what's back this week!

All Hail the Queen City!

Hot time, summer in the city, Charlotte, N.C.

 

The Strangeness of Interviews

There's no solid day job in my life right now, but I make money freelancing for various publications. That means I'm a writer for hire, usually at 10 cents a word. The last jaunt was copywriting, but I prefer straight-up journalism over promo or ad writing any day.

Over the past few years I've interviewed dozens of people for articles and profiles -- in person, via email, on the phone. Every interview is a little bit different. I had an exciting one today, and tried to hide my excitement under a veneer of professionalism that came off a little stiff. I have never been on the other side as the interviewee and I am sometimes afraid it shows. (Job interviews are a different beast. There's a difference between, "Do I want to work with you, your personality, day-in and day-out?" and the "who, what, when, where, why and how" of a press interview.) Sure, sure, in Uni journo classes there were practice interviews at our desks, but that's not the same as sitting in the chair with a mic in your face, or being the person holding that mic. "Tell me everything about your life so I can write it down in my own words. Go!" Kinda horrifying, right?

Guarded interviewees will know when to state something is off-the-record or refuse to answer a question. That's cool. As long as you answer something. There have been a handful of interviews where it feels like I'm pulling teeth to get something beyond a yes or no answer. On the flip side, there have been a few interviews where I am suddenly and intensely bonded with the person I'm speaking to, social buddies meeting for booze and inside jokes, and oh, right, I have to write down what you're saying, sorry. Hang on, lemme turn on the tape player.

I use cassette tapes; a few years ago my MP3 voice recorder died during a phone interview with a local radio personality and I didn't realize it until the whole shebang was over. (Luckily, I had taken extensive notes.) Best to be an analog writer in a digital world. A button pops up to let me know when to flip the tape. Transcribing is a chore though; rewind the tape, stop, play, type, stop, rewind, repeat. 

There are people I never want to interview. I think I would actually refuse a chance to interview David Bowie. Never meet your heroes. They become human and fail you in the end.

Maybe one day, I'll become something beyond just the interviewer. And maybe someone will sit me down with a prepared list of questions and an eager, pleased look in their eyes and stick a microphone under my nose. It may not be as horrifying as it seems. Let's hope.

Badly Drawn Little Comics: Jolly Green Giant

(Click to enlarge both images)

How I spent my summer vacation: Doodles in pen. 

Nikki is adorable and cannot be captured by my poor drawing skills. (Sorry, Niks!) 

(Full text below the jump.) 

Friday QuoteDay

“There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.”

— Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks

 

We Didn't Break Up

I promise, we didn't.

I am walking up a steep lane to a small cottage nestled in thick bramble. The wooden cottage door is swollen shut, but I must get inside, for in this small hidden cottage there is a pale white-washed room holding a stoic oak table. On this table there is a blue ceramic bowl holding a bright red apple. Inside the apple is a seed, and carved almost imperceptibly on this small apple seed is one word, "write."

First, I must make my way up the lane, through the door, into the room. Sit at the table, study the curves of the blue bowl. Weigh the apple in bare, sweaty palms. Decide to take a bite. It's not an altogether unpleasant task, just takes time.

It's taken a solid two months, but I found the seed. Hello, dear Flâneur in the City readers. I missed you. What's new?

Friday QuoteDay

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.” 

— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. American writer, who passed away June 5, 2012.

Spaced Out

Are we ... are we all at screenings watching Prometheus? We're all doing that, right?

Cause, Noomi "Cheekbones-to-the-Heavens" Rapace may make bad choices in boyfriends -- DudeBro Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green), an anthropologist/geologist/scientist who can't be bothered to walk alllll the way to a cave to look at some stupid cavemen drawings, but also thinks it's totally cool to take his damn helmet off on a foreign planet -- but excellent and gut-wrenching choices when it comes to fighting aliens. Who may be ancient.

And Charlize Theron, whom I'm writing a check to as we speak for all my monies ever, is HQIC (second week in a row) on a ship seeking answers that we may never need.

Can't say much else, because this one is spoiler-full from the first shot in, but the comments are open for thoughts.


Edited to add: Check out Matt Brunson's concise and informative spoiler-free-ish review HERE.

This Picture...

Confuses me. Sexually.

Because the face? The face says, "I am Tom Cruise, jumping on Oprah's couch, because I'm freaking crazypants."

But the body? The body says, "Let's take off our pants, jump on Oprah's couch, and I will freak you like crazy."

Stop it, Tommy-boy. Just stop.

Weekly Flâneur: No Bull

It's not easy being green. Image of a frog in water. Click to enlarge.

If one has already found their beloved prince or princess, would kissing a frog be the means to a cushy job with a solid 401K plan? Because that's the happy ending I'm searching for, minus the warts.

Frog in the sun. Charlotte, N.C., May, 2012

Badly Drawn Little Comics: Wild Saturday Night

Click to enlarge.

May this be a lesson to you all, kids. Don't drink and draw. Your beer bottles will come out all weird.

Saturday night with my husband, Matt. Wild times for nerds in love! Complete text for this badly drawn little comic below the jump.

Friday QuoteDay

“I love writing, but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, Giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy: I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.”

― Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter and producer.

Weekly Flâneur: Heroic

Captain America, Phoenix, some writer, Dazzler, and Batman. Click to enlarge.

I dunno, flâneurs. Sometimes, you're just walking down the sidewalk and BOOM. Superheroes. 

 Like, what can you do? Grab a shield and pose. Or duck, because bystanders usually get in the way during epic battles. Mostly pose, though.

N.C. Music Factory, aka Gotham, Charlotte, N.C., May 2012

Snow White With A Thousand Faces

You guys. YOU GUISE. Ask your mom if you can come over and spend the night at my house Friday. My mom says it's OK. We can get pizza and slushies and I've got tapes for us. You can use my My Little Pony sleeping bag. We've got Snow White and The Huntsman and The Hunger Games! And we can stay up late and watch them before we rewind and watch again!

No, really, what a great time to be a 12-year-old girl, huh? 2012 has summer movies that feature straight-up role models (Katniss and Rue in The Hunger Games, Black Widow holding her ground with demigods in The Avengers, Snow White, and later this summer: Brave). I recently caught an early screening of Snow White and The Huntsman, and like Thor and Red Riding Hood, there's no embargo for some early thoughts.

First off, the film needed -- say it with me, the sad refrain -- MORE people of colour, especially women. Also, also? Less heteronormativity. Speaking of, wouldn't it have been awesome if the Huntsman was a lady? Would've pushed that sucker right over into 4-star territory for the romantic tension alone.

At times, the film can't quite decide if it's a Zooey Deschanel daydream of fairy whimsy, a fan-made KStew/Bella YouTube music video, or Lord of the Rings. It's excusable, because it can be a little bit of all those things (all those somewhat derivative and somewhat cringe-worthy things) and still be enjoyable.

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Because there's some really good points, such as the fact that the Hero With A Thousand Faces, the You-Are-The-Chosen-One, the DESTINED Child is a woman with chutzpah; one who could care less about the hottie Huntsman and wants to get her Inigo Montoya on and regain her kingdom.

Dwarfs? Trolls? Fairies? All OK for Snowy, but mostly in the way of getting to an army. Let's hurry along now. There's an Evil Queen to fight.


And the Queen! Long live the Queen! Charlize Theron owned the movie, plain and simple.
I mean, really, even the film's marketing campaign can't escape her royal bad-ass. Check out the movie website. It's like it should be called: "QUEEN RAVENNA and that brat Snow White and sometimes Thor."

Snow who with the what now?

Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful.

Fairy tales became immensely more interesting to me when, after a youthful bout of literary theory (thanks, Robert A. Johnson, Angela Carter and Roehampton University!), I learned that the princess and the witch were the same character. Snow White is fighting herself.

We're all in the tower, we're all the princess, the witch, the sleeping beauty, the fairy. We're fighting death, fighting for regained youth, and fighting to stave off the fear of the unknown. HQIC (Head Queen In Charge) and Snowy are fighting their own fears that a woman's only worth in a patriarchal society is solely connected to her youth and beauty. Oh, hello same fight most women face every single day, how are you?

As for the romance, I really appreciated that it was secondary, as mentioned above. Snowy did shoot some eyes at her childhood-friend-turned-archer and her titular Huntsman, but thankfully the film did not fall into the trap of the angsty teen love triangle or become Medieval Twilight. If anything, impressionable youngin's watching the film may take away the idea that, hey, maybe young ladies (and lads) like yourself may want to kiss a few boys and see how you like it? And when you do meet a guy you spark with who respects you and makes your heart and ladyparts beat faster, he may not be all Prince Charming-y. He may have previous relationships (or a wife) and baggage and holy hi-ho-hi-ho that's really very normal, so get used to the idea.

The movie was a little "meh" at times, and there are somewhat problematic elements due to the fact that smaller-sized people were not cast in the role of the dwarfs; rather average-sized actors CGI-ed to scale. There are other actors beside Peter Dinklage who would like roles in Hollywood films. No need to hobbitify a role when there are capable and talented actors just waiting for a chance.

All that said, it's a much better take on the fairy tale genre than last year's Little Red 90210 and hopefully just a taste of what's to come with this summer's Brave and beyond. And long live the meaty roles for talented actresses who can be truly wicked.

Friday QuoteDay

“I don’t think it’s terribly controversial to note that women, from a young age, are required to consider the reality of the opposite gender’s consciousness in a way that men aren’t. This isn’t to say that women don’t often misunderstand, mistreat, and stereotype men, both in literature and in life. But on a basic level, functioning in society requires that women register that men are fully conscious; it is not really possible for a woman to throw up her hands and write men off as eternally unknowable space aliens — and even if she says she has, she cannot really behave as though she has. 
Every element of her life — from reading books about boys and men to writing papers about the motivations of male characters to being attentive to her own safety to navigating most any institutional or professional or economic sphere — demands an ironclad familiarity with, and belief in, the idea that men really are fully human entities. And no matter how many men come to the same conclusions about women, the structure of society simply does not demand so strenuously that they do so. 
If you didn’t really deep down believe that women were, in general, exactly as conscious as you, you could probably still get by in life. 
You could probably still get a book deal. You could probably still get elected to office.”

— Jennifer duBois, Writing Across Gender