Time Keeps Slipping

Just warning you – don’t expect anything profound, deep, or spiritual. So if you’re looking for that, move along. I’m not up to it.

Instead I’m going to write about sex.

Not really. I just couldn’t resist saying that.

But it might crop up later, if you stick around.

The thing is, I have finished season 1 of Torchwood. Give me a sec - don’t stop reading now. You don’t have to be a Torchwood fan. You just have to be willing to let me rattle on for a while. It’s very edifying, and good for my soul. My brain is humming and sparking like it used to do in my college class on postmodern literature, thinking on themes and subtext. In other words, I’m itching to take something from pop culture and give it the sheen of respectability, thus justifying my absurd infatuation with my shiny new TV show.

Dear Husband is not particularly enamored of Torchwood. He has started calling it "Torturewood." He thinks it’s a bit silly and cheesy. From what I can tell, the British have an affection for spectacularly cheesy special effects. I’m willing to go with that. Dear Husband probably would, too, if more people were naked and there was more sex. I can’t really argue against the value of more naked people, particularly a naked John Barrowman, and who's going to balk at more sex? If you are, then you might as well close this right now and go read something serious.

But let it be said that my liking for this series has nothing whatsoever to do with Captain Jack’s unholy good looks or even that adorable gap between Gwen’s two front teeth that I can’t help staring at. But I digress.

I admit season 1 was a bit uneven, and I think we do CGI much better than the Brits. Also, I think they must shoot on videotape, because their shows look more like our soap operas than our TV shows. Some people prefer videotape, but I think our TV shows look more polished and cinematic and those qualities definitely works better for paranormal subject matter, in my opinion. Oh but who cares. So what if a man with a ridiculously fake fish head is driving a car around Cardiff? Everyone seems to be having a jolly good time even if they don’t remove their clothes often enough.

So far I thought the strongest shows involved time travel. It’s hard not to feel for the displaced and confused, such as the characters who flew in from the 1950s and got stuck in the 21st century, where they have to cope with the loss of their families and with the culture shock of their new era. One man, after finding his son in a nursing home and suffering from dementia, gives up. How would you feel if the only part of your child’s life you got to see was the bitter end? He can’t find a way to adapt, and Jack, after an attempt to keep him from suicide, finally sits with him as he dies. I was about ready to weep, except that Jack looks tasty and noble when he’s helping people die.

But even better was the episode in which Captain Jack Harkness (with his colleague Tosh) slips through a time rift into WWII Cardiff and meets the real Captain Jack Harkness, whose identity Jack had assumed.

This episode is just beautiful. For one thing, they got all the period details perfect. The music, the costumes, the set – they’re gorgeous. And the 1940s segments have this delightful warm glow to them.

Jack knows the Captain will die the next day in the line of duty. There’s nothing Jack can do about that, and the more he learns about the Captain, who is an honorable, kind, and courageous leader - and remarkably handsome to boot - the more that hurts. There’s quite a lot going on in this episode. When Tosh asks him how he came to take the Captain’s name, Jack refers to himself as a conman. He won’t say what his actual name is, and he has to make up a fake one on the spot. The Captain is the sort of heroic leader Jack would like to be but isn’t quite. Jack’s life is hidden, a mystery, and now we find that even his name is a lie. He can be loyal, kind and brave but also ruthless and sometimes cruel, willing to kill without hesitation or, it seems, guilt. The episode moves between the 1940s and modern day Cardiff where the rest of the Torchwood team are searching through the now derelict dancehall. Events and time overlap. We see the hall full of happy soldiers and their girls, and then the hall as an abandoned and empty wreck, a reminder of mortality and the cruelty of time.

Now for the sex part. I WAS getting to that. Well, it's not exactly about sex, but if you've got this far you might as well continue.

This episode is known for the kiss between Jack and the Captain, which I have to say was beautifully done and possibly one of the sweetest screen kisses I have ever seen.

(Dear Husband, on the other hand, choked out an irritated “OH GOD” before looking unhappily into the distance. Is this still the typical straight guy reaction? Do straight women get all weird when women kiss? I certainly don’t. Then again I can hit most of the notes on the Kinsey scale so what do I know? Women still seem less squirmy though. Nothing seems to freak out straight men more than male gay intimacy, and then they feel they need to go do something manly, like dismantle a car.)

The final scenes in the dance hall are achingly sad, full of yearning and loss. I was delighted that the Captain asked Jack to dance. So what if no one in their right mind would have done that in a crowded 1940s dance hall full of soldiers? - it serves very well as a symbol of emotional courage and honesty. It costs Jack nothing to love whomever he wishes, but for the Captain, the cost would be very high indeed. He chooses to be honest, while Jack is veiled in layers of deceit. The Captain has broken through Jack’s carefully constructed persona. Jack cares that this man, whose name he took without much thought, will die. When they embrace the dance music fades and is replaced by a more haunting theme. This isn’t simply attraction, or rather the attraction isn’t merely sexual, but a recognition of the other’s truest self and an attempt to hold to that in the face of inevitable loss. I think that final kiss transcended any sort of hip nod to gayness, or the sad knowledge of impending death, and became something transformative or maybe restorative.

I mean, besides being totally hot.



The clip from the BBC is excellent but includes a portion of the scene prior to the one at the dance hall. The dance hall scene starts around 1:04:

I'm not just on the grid, I'm on the griddle

I have now discovered the joys of Twitter. It's like eating cotton candy while you walk around a fairground filled with noise and bright colors. You can follow celebrities on Twitter, which goes to show that just because you're rich and famous doesn't mean you don't waste a whole lot of time. I adore this. You can even follow Stephen Fry, which makes me happy. He's in Labuan Bajo right now, by the way, wherever that is, and has been bitten by mosquitoes. See? I and 375,824 think it is worthwhile following Mr. Fry to receive these exotic updates.

Twittering has also led me (via Rainn Wilson who is, like, such a riot) to this site about Sockington, the cat who blogs and twitters. Top that.

So while the rest of you are contemplating the resurrection, I'll be launching pithy nothings out into the vasty blackness. Given that no one is following me, it could be an exercise in futility. But I did figure out how to feed my twitters into my Facebook account,which has maybe 60 captive friends to appreciate my pith.

Because I'm even more shallow than you thought

One of my friends pointed out to me that I left Ciaran Hinds out of my list of beautiful actors. It is, indeed, a sad oversight. I must admit, though, that he does not always look as splendid as he did in Persuasion. I just saw him in Escape to Witch Mountain, in which he looked a bit like my old high school English teacher with a buzz cut. If you listen closely, you can hear his accent peeking through. Not that I mind the lilting sound of an Irish accent, but then again I don’t think Homeland Security would be hiring anyone from Northern Ireland, either. I had a peek at his IMDB entry and was startled to find that he was Herod in the Nativity Story. He was? How did I miss that? And I forgot that he was Lord Tarleton in Amazing Grace. Besides being a baddie, he didn’t look nearly as good in a wig as Ioan. It also took me a good 5 minutes to figure out how to pronounce his name using the odd phonetic notation on Wikipedia. Since he’s Irish, I can’t assume that I know how to pronounce his name by sight. For all I know it could be pronounced “Carson” or “Warren” or even “Cadwalleder.” In Gaelic the word on the page never seems to bear any resemblance to the way it sounds. Imagine the difficulty I had with Ioan Gruffudd. Welsh seems to think that if there’s one letter, there should be a duplicate, just for fun. Still, Mr. Hinds is a man with fabulous bone structure and should be celebrated. Huzzah, Mr. Hinds!

I also somehow left out Gary Oldman. Dear Husband makes fun of me when we watch the Harry Potter movies with Sirius Black, because at some point I was a bit too exuberant in my appreciation. Apparently I called Mr. Oldman “delicious.” I blame my MIL, who brought it up in the first place. Then of course there was Dracula, in which he mostly looked great, with the notable exception of his doppelganger with the weird updo. I still don’t know what that was about. But my first memory of him was in the film Prick Up Your Ears, as bad-boy playwright Joe Orton. He channeled self-centered jack-ass really well. And he threw himself into the role with great, uh, enthusiasm. You would think he was born to meet young men in public restrooms. If he captured anything like the real nature of Orton, no wonder his lover offed him. I find that movie has an odd staying power, particularly the final scene of his funeral, with the Beatles song “A Day in the Life” playing.

As it happens, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth are friends. How did I find this out? Why, by wasting time on a Tim Roth fansite. Yep, while other people were creating great art, feeding the poor, writing sermons and generally getting on with life, I was wasting time surfing a fansite. One with a nice selection of photos, I might add. Anyway, I found out about this rather odd exchange between Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, involving messages inked on their bodies. I won’t put the photos here in case someone at these magazines gets ticked at me, but you can follow this link to view them. Here’s how the site described the correspondence:

“Do Tim and Gary Oldman really write messages to each other on their body parts?
Yes, at one time they did. This is because, according to Tim, that's the best way they could communicate with each other with their busy lives. Some history: In a magazine interview, Gary Oldman was asked to name certain people who he found to be attractive, Tim Roth being one of them. Tim must have read this, because Tim wrote something on his arm (or his head?) that read something along the lines of "G.O. I think you're sexy." Oldman then on the cover of the May 1994 UK edition of Premiere wrote on his arm, "Tim Roth I think you are sexy too!" Then in the April 1995 issue of Detour, Tim wrote on his forehead, "Gary Oldman Let's Do It" … Many of these pictures can be seen on this web site.”

(fans self)

Glory be, where are my smelling salts?

(faints)

Ring of Fire

I finally saw Fireproof this weekend. I have resisted seeing it because I didn’t like Facing the Giants, and What’s-His-Name who plays the lead irritates me. All that stuff about not kissing anyone but his wife, even for a movie. Sheesh. That seems like one of the advantages of being an actor, getting to kiss lots of people, maybe even of both genders. But I shouldn’t make fun of him for that. I guess. Maybe. He has principles and just because they make me giggle doesn’t mean they aren’t serious business for him, and rather noble and all that.

Anyway, Dear Husband got hold of a copy and it was clear there was no avoiding watching it at some point. I enjoyed it much more than I expected. The acting was pretty good, and where it was amateurish it seemed churlish to make a fuss about it. Here were all these people working for a film they believed in, and gosh darn it giving it their best shot, and I ended up rooting for the poorest actors just because they were trying. There were some parts that were quite humorous, although I wasn’t sure what they were doing there except adding some levity, and I’ll concede that some levity was much needed. The firefighter who gave a little performance in front of a mirror should have his own sitcom.

Fireproof (and Facing the Giants) was filmed in my hometown. I find that not a little amazing. Albany has to be one of the most boring places on the face of the earth. At least that’s how it was for me. I’m a big city girl. I can’t stand to be that far away from a cultural center. Albany isn’t small enough to be considered a small town, big enough to be a true city (not enough books, education and culture) or rural enough to be the country. It’s a bit like an extended suburb with elements of city and country scattered over and around it. It was interesting to see it in film. It’s very flat there. Pancake flat. Lots of trees hanging with Spanish moss. Lots of gnats (The final shot is of a wedding cake, sitting out in the open. My thought was: if that were truly sitting out in the open in Albany GA, it would be covered with insect life and half melted.). I hated that place. A lot. So I’m glad to see that Sherwood Baptist Church has sown a little acre of creativity. If I ever go back to visit, perhaps I’ll see the Good Life City with new eyes. Or at least without the feeling that I could be snared by its sticky web and stuck there forever, gnawed on my giant spiders. Ahem.

For the most part the movie avoided squirm inducing Christian-y dialogue. I was so thankful that What’s-His-Name didn’t go all gushy about Jesus that I could have phoned him up and praised him for his restraint. There was one scene that made me roll my eyes, when the Fount of All Wisdom father talks to What’s-His-Name about forgiving however much you are rejected, and he ends up standing right under a cross. That conveniently placed cross, ready to glow in the light of grace and a beautiful sunset. Barf. Then we get the usual blood atonement speech which miraculously convinces What’s-His-Name that he needs salvation. Just like that. The kind of little talk that would have made me run screaming for the blessed hills of atheism. That’s just me, half heathen that I am.

But like I said, I was so thankful that What’s-His-Name didn’t start talking like a reject from TBN that I could have kissed him, if kissing were allowed. He didn’t run to the firehouse and babble excitedly to everyone who didn’t want to listen, or institute regular prayer meetings at the ol fire station, or go home and announce his conversion to his wife and drag her off to church where she too sees the light and is baptized on the spot, start handing out tracts at the local bus station, or make himself into an obnoxious idiot in any way. He even managed to look like a regular person instead of a Godly Man. Amen.

The message of the movie was great. I had nothing to complain of there. Love is an action and a choice. The situations were believable. He was an utter dick and he finally came to understand his essential dickishness through a series of deliberate actions he had no desire to undertake or any real hope of completing successfully. Christ will work a change in you, and you don’t have to sound like a bad evangelical preacher to convey that.

Now, a little confession. I have to admit that for much of the movie I kept thinking that What’s-His-Name was looking kinda hot. I seem to remember him looking like an utter goofball, but he was definitely easy on the eyes in this film, lean and wiry, hair cut close, revealing, much to my surprise, a rather nice face. The man who played his friend and fellow firefighter was also pleasing in all aspects of his being. I’m not sure that’s what the director and writers had in mind. I am probably very bad.

Oh, yeah. Kirk Cameron. Why can I never remember his name?

No Need to Panic: Let Me Do It for You

You know the saying "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? I guess it’s supposed to be inspiring, but today it came to mind during a wash of anxiety. We have plenty of good reasons to be anxious—we still have medical expenses to pay off after insurance, Dear Husband needs a deviated septum fixed, I still need to find a new psych to check my apparently not functioning too well meds, I need new glasses and dental work, Dear Husband needs to pass his teacher certification test and find a new job. And I’m, well, wherever. Standing in the limbo of 40something looking back at what looks like 40 years wandering the desert and looking forward to what may be more of the same. That gives me plenty of anxiety. I think it’s supposed to be a symptom of ADD that you tend to drift, all your goals ephemeral or gauzy and indistinct. It’s not as if you can just shake yourself and say, “Well, what do you really want?” I don’t know—a happy family, fulfilling work, meaning, world peace and the end of suffering. What do those look like broken down into actual goals? Sheesh. A million different decisions every day. I start to hyperventilate just thinking about it. It’s one thing to say “One step at a time.” Yeah, right. One step. Oh, what’s that over there? Wait, where was I? Another step. This doesn’t look right. Was I supposed to go right or left? Another step. Oh for pete’s sake I forgot to bingety bing. Another step. Jeepers, I’m tired already. The only thing I can be certain about is that I won’t miss the exit.

Adderall is my friend, I think

I've always thought I was the least likely person to have ADD. After all, I was as far from hyperactive as you can get, and I love to read, and I made it through school with good grades. Sure I drifted aimlessly from day to day and had no idea what to do with myself if I wasn't at work or school. Empty time sure was empty. When I was a kid I hated summer for this reason. I would draw up elaborate schedules, but I could never keep it up. I loved school--so ordered, so rhythmic. It was such a relief to know that I was supposed to be in place B at time A. And schoolwork was easy, as long as I liked my classes, and I usually did. I was bored a lot, but mostly at home.

I don't think I ever owned a calendar, much less a planner. I have no idea how I got through college without missing assignments, exams, whatever. I don't remember having a date book until I was in my 30s and I started a job where they made you take a Franklin Covey seminar. I hate Franklin Covey. I hate his bulky planners and his goal charts and the stupid seminars. But I was sucked into the world of planners. I've carried a lot of them, and written in appointments. Unfortunately, I usually forget to look at them.

My coping mechanisms consisted mostly of letting someone else take care of the important stuff at home and never committing to anything that required a due date. And then along came kids, and suddenly there were doctors and dentists, and then specialists and day care providers and forms and charts and a mountain of bills, statements, applications, laundry, toys, diaper bags, commutes. Now, after seven years of motherhood, I am going to admit that I have lost it and probably never had it. I regularly misplace papers. I forget doctor appointments. Sometimes I show up at appointments on the wrong day. I can start on one project and somehow end up researching the name of that obscure actor in movie x. I've written checks off the wrong account. I can forget what you are saying while you are talking to me, because my mind snagged on one of your words and that reminded me that I have to remember to not forget to pick up the dry-cleaning. I write notes to myself on my hands in Sharpie. I forget to reorder prescriptions before I hit the last pill, at which point I notice that the label says "No More Refills." The flip side is that I can become so obsessed with a project that I don't notice the laundry or the dishes, or how very late it is getting. It seems perfectly reasonable that I can pack three lunches, clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher and finally fold the laundry at eleven pm. Even though I've never been a great homemaker, I've always managed to hold it together at work, but not now. I've always been great at ideas and lousy at follow-through, but now I feel like a gibbering idiot in a cubicle.

Our life only runs smoothly because of Dear Husband. He pays the bills and realizes that if we are going on a trip on the 11th, certain preparations need to start on the 5th. When I hedge, he is decisive. When I dawdle, he keeps me on track.

So, Adderall, let's see what you can do.

Perkier in Some Respects

On Friday last I had the second surgery in the reconstruction process. This was outpatient, so they booted me out the door before my head had stopped wobbling from the anesthetic. I don’t remember much about the rest of the day. I am now rather itchy, and I have to wear this very attractive heavy-duty surgical bra that practically goes up to my neck. This procedure was a walk in the park compared to the last one and I can see that by the time all is done I will look pretty decent. In fact, since they had to modify the left breast a bit to achieve a match, I’ve had a lift gratis. I can stave off the aging droop a bit longer.

Now that I’m through this hurdle, the full realization of Firecracker’s condition is creeping upon me. The very idea of brain surgery makes me feel queasy. And how on earth do we explain this to her without scaring her half to death? Particularly when I myself am pretty scared?

I’ve been wondering why I don’t feel much like shaking my fist at God, and I conclude that my idea of God is so flat and remote that it would be like shouting at a cardboard cutout or talking to a psychoanalyst:
Me: My kid has weird things growing in her brain and who knows where else and this is just one but probably the worst in a long list of catastrophes we’ve had to deal with in the last 8 years.
God: That’s very interesting. How do you feel about that?
Not exactly Abba, huh?

I’m also feeling terribly restless. Reading is how I usually soothe myself—it gives my mind somewhere to go. But I can’t stop in the middle of the work day and open a book. All my work is in aid of church planting. Does North America really need more churches? What should I be doing instead? Don’t know. Have never known. What do I want to do? Stay at home. I think. Maybe.

How I Spent My Birthday

First I went to see the oncologist. My surgeon referred me because the ductal carcinoma they examined was hormone responsive. So I have to consider taking tomoxifin, which blocks estrogen. The oncologist told me there was a huge European study that showed no benefits and a huge American study that showed significant benefits. The risk of recurrence for me is small, but tomoxifin would cut that risk in half. So I have some thinking to do.

Second stop was my primary care physician, because I have a sinus infection. Again. If this keeps up I'll have to see an allergist, or an ENT, or something. Dear Husband has seen and ENT and needs surgery, but the ENT referred him to an immunologist, who drew six vials of blood and is testing him for every auto-immune disorder known to man, because he thinks Dear Husband has an auto-immune disorder triggered by the environment. I don't want to think about what direction we would have to take if they did find such a thing. Dear Husband wonders if we should move to Colorado Springs.

Side note: My doctors are very good-looking. It's kinda distracting.

Then on to summer camp to drop off paperwork. We had lunch in there somewhere, and we were taking a nap when the auto repair shop called to tell us that the repair to Dear Husband's car would cost $800 because Mazda would have special order it from Japan. The think this will fix the problem.

Despite all this, Dear Husband still brought home an ice-cream cake for me. Sweetie. But we are now faced with a bad car situation. We do not have $800 to repair the car, this after paying $300 previously for what they thought would fix it. And what next? More problems, more repairs? Our best chance is to roll our current upside-down note into the purchase of another car.

Isn't that pathetic? Because we can't pay for a repair, we have to trade in for another car, because that's the only credit we have at the moment. And our credit rating is only fair. And we have to buy it this weekend, because Dear Husband's car will eventually just not start. Dear Husband managed to find a good deal, and now I'm waiting the dreaded call to go sign off on the paperwork. He signed off on his part yesterday, so this is supposed to be simple. Right.

But this weekend he took me to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. Ethiopian cuisine is one of my favorites and I was in heaven. The two Ethiopian beers helped, too.

Today Dear Husband is off with the girls watching Shrek III, and I'm trying to finish up editing a children's book on the Little Rock Nine. More about that later, perhaps, since it got me thinking. But I keep getting distracted by YouTube, where I go to watch clips of tango dancing. Really, my mind jumps around a lot lately.