not getting up

I'm still in bed. I'm considering not getting up.

I was just thinking how often, on days like this, I don't want to get up. At first I thought it was something to do with the weather, but then I realized it's just me. I feel tired and very blah, sort of emotionally empty, and my body doesn't feel so good. I just want to stay in bed. Actually, that's every day, I think. Yeah, I feel like that every day. I never want to get up. Maybe I should just never get up. 

Of course, that sounds like death. Death is not getting up. Ever. Some people find you there, not getting up, and they move you around to a couple of places - maybe a hospital, a morgue, a funeral home. They poke and prod you a bit, to be sure that you're not going to get up. Finally, they put you into this weird, expensive, stylized bed, which is probably very uncomfortable. But you don't really care, cause you're just not getting up. 

Your friends and family all show up for a really bad party. Then they either move you (and that weird little bed) to someplace else, someplace very out of the way, or they just let your soul continue sleeping while they get rid of your body, or at least minimize it. So long as you take up as little space as possible. 

Yep, that's it, that's what happens when you die. There's a bad party, then people get you out of the way because they need the space. Various people get your stuff, and eventually somebody else moves into your place - literally and figuratively. And meanwhile, you're just off out of the way, not getting up.

. . .

. . .

Well. . . I guess I should get up now. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi: my review

I just finished watching Obi-Wan Kenobi.

SPOILER ALERT

I didn't hate it.

I really liked the bits between Obi-Wan and Vader. Those were easily the best bits. I liked how damaged and weak Obi-Wan was at the beginning, sort of torturing himself because he thought he had killed Anakin. He could still fight, but he was 10 years out of practice, and it showed. It was maybe a little bit too easy that he suddenly came back to full power after Vader took responsibility for having killed Anakin.

I liked how Vader was just a man-child who wanted to hurt people, especially Obi-Wan, because he'd been hurt. I never really liked Anakin in any of the prequel films, but I like that he was consistent with whinny prequel-Anakin who always blames other people for his problems. Then it was interesting to see him (maybe) seem to shut off all of his feelings at the end.

I would've liked to have seen more of Vader. And, as far as I'm concerned, they could've left out the new flashback scenes with Anakin. He was clearly much older than Anakin when he because Vader and got all burned up. It was impossible from me to suspend my disbelief. Also, they maybe could've used fewer flashbacks in general - from the prequels and in Obi-Wan's mind, hearing lines from earlier in the series.

The Third Sister story - once we found out who/what she was, it felt a bit obvious where it was going. And then it went exactly there.

Anytime people were supposed to be running, they seemed way too casual about it. Mainly this had to do with Leia. Running from the kidnappers, she just didn't seem like getting away was that important.

The Empire was just extraordinarily inept and ought to have easily captured or killed or overrun anyone they were fighting against. It was just pathetic. Rescuing Leia should not have worked, either time.

Whoever choreographed/directed the group fight scenes could've done much better. However, the light saber fights were good.

So, it's a mixed review from me. Overall, I guess, it was okay. 

What do I really want to do?

What do I really want to do? 

I don’t know. I’ve never really known. If you had asked me, when I was a little kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would not have had an answer for you. I suppose if you had really pressed me on it, I may’ve said something like a policeman, a fireman, or astronaut. Not that I actually wanted to be any of those things, but those were the answers I had heard to that question. I can’t really remember anyone asking me that as a kid. They must have, right? That’s what adults ask kids.  Anyway... 

Later, as a teen, I didn’t have any strong feeling about a career. At some point, I thought maybe I could be a therapist. That may have been when I was in therapy. But, again, it wasn’t like a burning desire within me. I was writing music by that point, and I guess I liked it, so I started college as a music composition major. But even then, I don’t think I saw that as what I really wanted to be. It was just something that I did. I ended up switching to psychology, as I thought it was something I could maybe stand to do, but I continued studying composition as well. 

I never had a plan. Literally no one ever asked me what was my career plan. I never even heard terms like “5-year plan” or “10-year plan” until later when I was working at some schools. It really seems like someone, a teacher or an advisor sometime during high school or college, should have asked me that. Should have asked me what I wanted to do with my life. But I don’t remember that ever happening. And I’m pretty sure my parents never asked. Maybe I seemed like one of those students who did well, so everyone just assumed I had my act together in terms of a career path. But obviously I didn’t. 

There was some point, I think maybe my fourth year in college, when I was aware that I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I thought I might actually quit school for a bit and try to figure things out. But the few people that I talked to about that told me it was a bad idea and that I should finish a degree in something, anything, whatever I was the closest to finishing at that point. So, I stuck around another year (+) and got a degree in psychology, with a gigantic minor in music. I had more music hours than psych hours, but undergrad psychology is a pretty easy degree, and undergrad music is not. (Sometimes, when people find out I have a psychology degree, they’ll ask if I ever use it. And I’ll say, “Sure! I work with crazy people all the time - singers, dancers, actors.”) 

I ended up playing music for a living. It wasn’t really a choice I made because that was what I wanted to be. It’s just something that started when I was in college. My composition teacher told me, “Go play in jazz band, it’ll be good for you. Go play for dance classes, it’ll be good for you. Go accompany the opera, it’ll be good for you.” He meant those things would be good for me as a composer, and they definitely were. But I also discovered I could play music and people would pay me money for it. And that was nice, so that’s what I did. It just sort of happened. And accompanying led to doing musical theater, and that led to being an assistant music director and then music director. Once again, I don’t think it that was something I decided I wanted to be, it just sort of happened. 

So, I’m a freelance musician, and it’s hard to make a decent living at that. Especially if you don't feel a really strong drive to keep working at it because it’s really what you love doing. I still write music – sometimes classical stuff, sometimes theatre. I’ve never seen a way to really make money at that unless I were writing pop music for famous pop stars or big budget film scores, and I’m not actually interested in writing either of those kinds of things. About 10 or 12 years ago I started taking pictures. I like doing that, and I wish I could do it more. But even though every now and then people have paid me for photos, I don't see a way to regularly make money at it, at least not with the sort of pictures that I take and want to take. Anyway, I don’t know if that’s what I “want to be.” 

Now, I’m approaching old age. I turned 50 a few years ago and I have no money, no savings, not much of anything. I’m really just scraping by. It’s not like I spend money unwisely. It’s that I don’t really have money to spend in the first place. I’m not starving, or unable to pay the bills. But I don’t have a safety net nor a retirement plan. Several times in the past 15 or so years I have thought about maybe trying to find a “normal” job – a non-music job. But I’m not even sure what jobs there are out in the world. And, while there are some skills I have developed as a musician and music director, I’m not sure how they would translate to the normal job market. I’ve never been any good at convincing people to do things for me, so how do I convince someone to hire me with no background in a normal work environment? 

If you were to ask me now, what is it that I really want to do? 

Nothing? I don’t know. I’ve never really known. 

Well, what are you waiting for!?

I regularly check my junk mail, because in the past I’ve missed important messages and even work opportunities that went to junk mail. This morning, there are junk emails about “Christian Matches” and “Sex Dating”. Definitely junk. I’m not looking for either of those things. I mean, it would be great to meet some non-religious person who I liked and who liked me, spend some time together, get to know each other, and, eventually, have sex as part of a healthy relationship. But I can’t imagine finding that through either of those junk emails.

I’m not really interested in pursuing online dating. 

Quite a few years ago, I had dates with two women I met on OK Cupid. They were...okay. (Pun intended.) They both seemed nice, and we got on well enough. I might have become friends with either or both of them, if we’d spent more time together. But there was no “spark,” no significant chemistry. And neither went beyond that first date. In one case, I left town (NYC) for work that came up suddenly, and I didn’t return. The other woman met someone else (on OK Cupid) with whom she did “click” romantically, and we amicably parted ways.

Ten years ago – no wait, more like 12 or 13 (Wow!) – I met someone who was a friend of a friend on facebook. We got on great... at first. We dated for several weeks. I don’t remember how long, exactly, but probably not quite a month. She lived in the next town over, so we weren’t hanging out every day, but we went out once or twice a week, and we talked a lot, online and on the phone. It didn’t work out. There were some very basic problems, which I won’t get into here. But that “relationship” was the closet I’ve ever been to someone setting me up with a woman they thought I would like, and I had requested that person introduce us. I’ve never been on a blind date, nor been invited to some gathering specifically to meet someone's cousin or a friend of a friend.

I guess what I’m getting at is this:

I’m tired of being alone. I don’t seem to meet anyone who I like, AND who is available, AND who is even reasonably age-appropriate for me. (Seriously, most women I meet I am probably their parents’ age. Or older.)  I haven’t been on a date in many years (not to mention how long it's been since I’ve had sex... you know, with another person). So. If you consider us to be friends, and you know someone who lives at least sort of near me, who you think might be a good match, then . . .

. . .

. . .

Well, what are you waiting for!? Set us up! I mean, maybe first, ask each of us what we’re looking for, and (maybe more important) NOT looking for, in a potential mate. But get on with it, we’re not getting any younger. Don't you want us to be happy? Like you are? (Well, maybe like you were when you first met your mate.) 

I'm awkward

 

My lack of social interaction is a problem that feeds itself, it reinforces itself. 

I don’t interact much with people. When I do, I tend to feel awkward, and the awkwardness makes me not want to interact with people. It often succeeds in making me not interact with people. So that when I do interact, I’m “out of practice” at it. And that probably makes me feel even more awkward than I already would have felt.

Similarly, I don’t know people very well. I don’t talk to people much, so I don’t get to know them, and I don’t know much about them. Then when I see people in a social situation, I don’t have anything to say to them, so I don’t talk to them. Often, in the moment, I don’t even think about going over to people to even say hello. It just doesn’t occur to me until, possibly, sometime later.

It’s not that I don’t want to be friends with people. I do (well, maybe not all people). But I don’t feel like I’m good enough friends with people to really just go over and to talk to them. Mainly because I just don’t have much to say. I guess I’m just really boring.

Occasionally, when I’ve talked about this with people, they’ve told me that I don’t seem that awkward. I guess I’ve fooled some people. Yay? But I definitely feel it. So much so that I can’t imagine anyone thinking of me as socially competent. At best, I assume people think I’m just not very friendly.

Sometimes I DO talk to people and (at least at first) don’t feel super awkward. But it seems like (when I think back on it later) I just say a lot about whatever is going on in my life, even when it has nothing to do with that person and the nature of our relationship or the situation we’re in at that moment. In those instances, I probably seem desperate to talk, or maybe seem like I just overshare. (And, of course, that makes me feel awkward in hindsight.)

Have you experienced either of these things with me? How do I seem to you when we’ve interacted in some social setting?

Fuck you, professor whatever your name was.

SPOILER ALERT.

I’m watching Alien – the original film, from 1979 – on HBO Max. I’ve seen it several times. Every time I’ve seen it, I have this creepy memory of a college literature professor, who mentioned it in class to illustrate some point. I don’t remember the exact context or the point he was making. I assume it was something to do with vulnerability. I know we weren’t talking about film or sci-fi – just some book we were supposed to have read.

Seemingly out of nowhere he said, “Why do you think Sigourney Weaver had to have the final fight with the monster in her underwear at the end of Alien?” or something like that. The answer was that in her near-nudity, she was more exposed, more vulnerable. He talked about it for maybe 30 seconds, and there was this comment he made – a totally unnecessary and creepy comment – about how Sigourney Weaver has a glorious body. Why? Why was it necessary to say that? It wasn’t. It did not help make his point, whatever that was. It was just creepy. This isn’t just “woke 2020 me” looking back at it now. I knew then, immediately, that it was creepy.

Oh yeah, also, it was a spoiler. That film came out in 1979, and this happened 1989 or ’90, or maybe ‘91. I hadn’t seen Alien, at that point, and I bet a lot of the other students hadn’t seen it either. There was no Netflix, no streaming, no anything “on demand.” There were video stores, but I don’t remember college students doing a lot of video renting. A lot of people didn’t have TVs, much less VCRs in their dorm rooms. Blockbuster wasn’t even a big deal yet. But the first time I did see it, which was probably at least a few years later, as the movie seemed to be drawing to a close, I knew the alien wasn’t gone because Sigourney wasn’t in her underwear yet. Then when she was, I knew, “Ah! Here comes the monster, any second now.”

Fuck you, professor whatever your name was. For being creepy and for spoiling the end of that film. 

something I noticed in The Witcher

So, I don’t know if this is really worth an entire blog. But... here I am writing one.

I watched The Witcher the past few days.

It’s a new series on Netflix, based on a series of books and stories by Polish author Andrej Sapkowski. It was also turned into a series of video games, as well as a Polish TV show and film. This new Netflix version is an American version. I just saw an article this morning about the new series being the highest rated Netflix original series on IMDB.

One general thought I have about the show is that it feels a little inconsistent. This first series is 8 episodes. The first few episodes have some pretty extreme violence: heads being chopped off onscreen – that sort of thing. Then a couple of episodes that seemed a bit less violent, but also a little less interesting. It jumps back and forth between two timelines, which I didn’t realize until half-way through the series, then it all comes together in the last few episodes.

The Witcher is the title, but also one of the main characters. He is a wandering, magical monster-hunter. In each episode he has a sort of self-contained adventure in a different place dealing with a different creature. Which means in each episode, there are new characters introduced, who we mostly never see again. So there are a lot of relationships or stories, perhaps, that aren’t really developed, though it seems like there’s more going on there. Perhaps the books do much better in developing those characters.

Okay, so that’s all general stuff about the show. The main thing that prompted this blog is the nudity. There’s nudity in this show. The amount of nudity is also a little inconsistent. There are a few episodes with what might be called “partial male nudity” – that is, a bare butt. And some bare male chests here and there. There is one main female character who is nude or topless in quite a few scenes throughout the 8 episodes. And there are two group nude scenes – one is an orgy, induced by magic, and the other is, I think, an illusion of a bunch of women and some men sort of... I don’t know, “frolicking” maybe?

There is sometimes a casualness about the nudity in this show, but (this being an American show) it’s always presented in a way that’s sexual or that seems intended to be enticing. There are no clearly visible genitalia in the show. There is some blurry background frontal nudity. But, like most commercial TV/film nudity (again, this being an American show) there’s a clear reluctance/refusal to show genitalia, even in a clearly adult program. It seems to me a weirdly simultaneous prudish and prurient attitude about nudity and sexuality.

I find the fact that those two scenes of group nudity were both prompted by magic to be... interesting. It suggests that people wouldn’t normally be naked in a group. Of course, I think people should be naked in groups more often. I mean generally, not just for an orgy. I think seeing people naked – just normal people – would help tremendously to ease our culture’s discomfort with what human bodies actually look like and help us have a more realistic sense of what’s “normal.”

Well, I’ve written a lot about those things elsewhere. So, moving on...

Here’s the thing I really wanted to write about, the thing which I found surprising. I don’t recall noticing this before in any other commercial TV or film. All of the topless women in the show (in the group nude scenes, as well as that one main character) had similar sized breasts, with similar nipples and areolas.

I’m a photographer, and I do take nude photos (among other things). So, I’ve seen people naked. But even if I weren’t a photographer, I’m sure a quick google search would show me that, like lots of other body parts, breasts and nipples and areolas come in significant range of sizes. There’s a lot of variety out there in size. You’d think that would be reflected in a group nude scene. And I’m not even talking about the extremes on either end of the size range – just normal, average, variation in a population. 

I’m wondering who cast this show and insured that all the breasts looked a certain way? I don’t recall there being another female character with lines who was topless, so mostly these were “extras.” I know at some auditions they “type out” various people who don’t have the right look. But did they do that with breasts? Or was that part of the casting breakdown? Seriously, the more I think about it, the weirder it is. 

Okay. So, that’s my little rant. I don’t know that’s it’s really a rant. Just something weird that I noticed. As always, comments are welcome.