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| message board January 2008
Despair. What else is there? Posted at 5:45 PM
I was honestly hoping that this dive back into depression would let up by now, the end of the month, but clearly my first mistake was to think that there's any hope at all. Posted at 8:53 PM
Wouldn't it be great (for you and me both) if I felt at all like writing ... even just something interesting in this Journal, let alone something new? Posted at 10:04 PM
Life sucks (and not in the good way). Posted at 11:38 PM
It's been a long, cold, tiring, full day, and I'm barely staying awake. In fact my drive back from visiting my friends in Perrysburg was an interesting experience in struggling to stay conscious. I had to fight to stay awake then, but now I can just about give in and let sleep take me. I don't intend to make much of a struggle. Posted at 12:57 AM
Thirty years ago today, right here in Sandusky, when I was just a kid, the Great Blizzard of '78 brought this whole area and the surrounding six states to a snow-buried stand-still. It was an amazing thing that outright killed people with wind-chill temperatures of 70 degrees below zero (over 100 degrees below freezing). The absolute cold was only a small part of the fun. There were also gale-force winds that snapped power lines all over the place and caused mayhem, and worst of all, there were continuous snowfalls over the following week that added up to two to three feet of straight snowfall but blew and drifted into snow dunes that covered houses, were high enough to rise above and bury highway overpass bridges, and - after the winds had blown in a wall of the still new Sandusky Mall - filled stores and the central mall concourse up to heights of twelve feet with densely-packed snow, freezing and destroying untold amounts of merchandise and equipment. I was lucky in that our house retained power and we had plenty of food, but we were trapped there for days. When we finally did get out, we went to the Mall to check on the flower shop my family owned at the time, and it was totally decimated - all plants and flowers were killed instantly, the cut-flower cooler was ruined, and some pots and many buckets split open as the water in them froze and expanded. I lost my favorite plant ever in that destruction, a barrel cactus that I'd got to grow tremendously over the course of the previous year. While a lot of people suffered from the terrible combination of winter's wrath, it was to me, as an eleven-year-old, all just simply amazing and stunning, like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. Even the flower shop didn't phase me much (with the exception of my cactus). It was all just so beyond reason that everywhere I looked and everything I saw just took my breath away. We were out of school for quite a number of days following the Blizzard, and I spent quite a bit of time digging out snow forts. It was easy, really, since the snow was so solidly packed already and the temperatures remained quite cold, that I could not just tunnel into snow drifts but practically mine them out to where I could just about stand up in the rooms I'd made inside. I had two big forts that I made that way, one from the big drift in the front yard just off to the side of the driveway, and one in the backyard in the patio area between the pool and the house. Again, it was like being in some weird dream that exaggerated everything, because there was just no rational way to compare normal snowfall and normal snow drifts to what was there. After the first few days the temperatures weren't even remotely as cold as they had been during the blizzard itself, but things still remained below zero for quite a long time, and because of that the snow remained for quite a long, long time, even on perfectly clear days where the blazing brightness of the sun might be expected to melt something here and there, the temperatures were just too cold to let the slightest molecule switch from solid to liquid for even a second. I've lived in the Midwest my whole life, and I've seen winters become much less harsh in the last twenty years or so than they were in my childhood, and there's definitely much less snow now than in the past, but the Blizzard of '78 was like the Hurricane Katrina of snow storms for this area, something so massive and unprecedented and devastating that there is simply no comparison. I may complain about shoveling snow now, as I seem to do quite a bit (and rightly so, I might add), but I count myself lucky that I don't have to deal with the kind of snows that buried us thirty years ago. How I'd even get out of this house under such circumstances, I don't really know. Hopefully I'll never have to try to find out. Here's the brief retrospective from today's local paper:
Posted at 11:09 PM
Why is it so hard to face life alone and yet so impossible to find and grab hold of someone to share your life and make it at least somewhat bearable? Posted at 10:04 PM
I have the head-splitting migraine from hell. Kill me now. Posted at 12:16 AM
Fantastic Four (the first movie) was on TV for the first time tonight, and while I hadn't heard a single person that had a good thing to say about it, I have wanted to see for myself just what had been put together. Simply put, it's crap. Much of the problems stemmed from the fact that a two and a half hour film took all of that time just to develop the characters and gave maybe ten minutes to their conflict with their arch nemesis. That's hardly a very comic book-worthy adaptation. And heck, I'll even be generous - I might have accepted the extensive character study if the characters had been made likeable (as I always found them in the comic books), but this movie just made me find all of these "heroes" to be losers. Instead of Reed being smart and concerned about people, he's made smart-but-not-smart-enough to be of any use and so stuck in his head that he doesn't even notice anybody else. Instead of Sue being the sexy and lovable mediator and 'glue' for the group, she was an annoying source of friction with everybody else as she directly and indirectly plays coy and hard-to-get and also plays the know-it-all older sister. Johnny, while he is supposed to be a sarcastic joker with a passion for adventure, is made to be a self-centered, arrogant jackass that sees everyone else as beneath him, And Ben, who in the comic was certainly macho and gruff and frustrated by his transformation into the Thing, here is seen as bitter and pitiful and not even close to hero material. How could you like these characters just from what was presented in the movie? You can't, really. It was simply horrible to develop them this way. It was even worse to spend the whole movie in this sort of character development. As for the villain, Dr. Doom was always my absolute favorite villain in the Fantastic Four comics, yet in this movie he is infinitely lame. Not only does he deviate massively from the comic book character, but he is made very two-dimensional and - worst of all - he is made to be disliked the way you dislike a corrupt CEO, not feared the way you view a homicidal megalomaniac with a brilliant mind and no sense of morality. Dr. Doom didn't have to be able to shoot bolts of electricity from his hands in the comics top make you fear him or see the Fantastic Four as facing serious trouble. He was more sinister and dark and in-the-shadows creepy than that, and his character was seriously a major, major let-down. I'll give some credit to the special effects being well done, but no amount of special effects could have saved this travesty. Just last week I was commenting about how well written Batman Begins was written and how that was the way to do things. This movie, Fantastic Four, is the perfect example of the exact opposite - an incredibly poorly written script that doesn't echo the source comic book characters and feels like drudgery to watch one moment to the next, no matter how good the acting or how spectacular the special effects. Will Hollywood listen to me about these things, though? I hardly think so. They seem more than happy to throw money away without even the most casual thought. It's sad, really, but I've learned to expect this from Hollywood, particularly when it comes to comic book adaptations. Such a waste when you consider what great source material there is in decades worth of amazing comics, but what can you do? You just have to hope that at least once in a while the director sees the vision from in the comic books themselves and holds true to it. Those guys are rare, though. They're very, very rare. Posted at 10:18 PM
I finished watching all of Queer as Folk on DVD today (the Showtime, American version). It's the first time I've ever seen it, and I must say that I was quite impressed ... and more. One thing about watching the show was that it brought back so many memories and sensations and feelings and ... just so much history for me. My twenties and very early thirties were spent quite a lot in gay nightclubs of various sorts in each of the cities where I lived (Toledo, Akron, Lafayette, Chicago, as well as brief stints in Austin, San Diego, and Orlando), and the music and the look of the clubs and the looks of the guys - they were spot on. Even the moves and the actions of the guys were very reminiscent of my past. And to be very honest, I found that thrilling during my watching of the first two seasons worth of episodes, with all sorts of memories coming back, but as I went forward through the third and fourth and into the fifth seasons, I became more and more sad about the imagery because it seemed (and seems) so much like something I've lost and can't ever get back. I loved the fact that the cast (and extras) all were quite attractive, but I have to say that Brian Kinney, supposedly the heartthrob of Liberty Avenue, didn't do anything for me. I could see where he would be attractive to many gay men, and I'll admit he had a nice body and a handsome face, but I often had a hard time seeing him as being the epitome of hotness he was supposed to be. Now on the other hand, the idea that his luck and presence gave him a magnetic personality rang totally true for me because I know someone exactly like that who uses his "powers" in sex and business, just like Brian. To me, Justin was the most hot and sexy and gorgeous, and I'm sure I'm not alone in those sentiments. The most attractive character of all, however, as a full person, had to be Emmett. He was cute in an unconventional way, but his good heart and good intentions just shone in everything he did, and while many of the characters made me come to seriously dislike them for who they were inside, Emmett simply proved himself better and better as the show progressed. All in all I'd say I loved the show, but my big hang-up would have to be the overemphasis on sex. Apparently there was a lot of controversy about how much sex there was in the show, but that seems to have been because it was so graphically and openly shown on TV. I had no problem with that. In fact I had no problem with Brian and Justin fucking every good looking guy they came across, because there are seriously people just like that in the gay community, particularly in the clubs. But it seemed like everyone was all about sex, even the settled, monogamous couples. I think couples should still have lots of sex in their relationships, but the repeated affairs and additions of a third person into bed and whatever else -it was just too much. Yes, those things happen, but it was just such a constant effect that it was made to seem like being monogamous could never work for gay people, and that's just simply not true. I've tried to tell myself that this is a drama, a soap opera, and that we're supposed to be just seeing important moments - conflicts - within a larger frame of time, during which much time passes off-screen, but the end result still is to paint a picture of all gay people as being hopelessly promiscuous, and I emphatically must disagree with that. That criticism aside, however, I found myself really wanting more at the end of season five, and being upset that I couldn't see more of what happened in the lives of these people I'd come to know so well. That's the mark of good writing and good acting, and the show was full of both. I can't complain too much about the way it ended because the producers and directors did do a good job at wrapping things up and giving a sense of fulfillment to the storyline, even while it left every character with further stories to be lived. So it was good and bad for me. It made me think, and that's good, and it awoke old happy memories for me - something very rare. It also made me feel very old and very alone, though, and I could have very well done without that. I can't really say if there was a balance between the good and the bad, but it was an experience I definitely wouldn't have wanted to miss. Now if only I could watch the British version. That would be way cool. Posted at 7:40 PM
In remembrance of the wisdom and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, I present you with a brief section of Dr. King's speech, "The Casualties of the War in Vietnam", a speech which could be ably applied to our current war in Iraq. Dr. King's calls for peace, compassion, and brotherly love ring true throughout history through the past, the present, and into the future. On this day, marked in his honor, heed his words, and take a stand for an end to war.
Posted at 11:45 PM
Is the only reason for life to sometimes lift you up merely so that you're better set up to fall farther and harder when it inevitably turns to shit? Posted at 1:57 PM
What do you say when nothing can ever really express how you feel? Posted at 11:07 PM
I've been getting more and more depressed over the last week, culminating in feeling so low today that I could barely stand it. I'd been exercising every day and eating better since the beginning of the year, but today, even after two and a half weeks of effort and clear results showing on a scale, I just couldn't do any of it. I couldn't get myself to exercise, and I ate lots of Taco Bell for lunch and just as much for dinner, completely blowing any hope that I did anything but push back my progress for the week completely. And part of me finds that tremendously depressing and makes me feel horrible about myself, and another part of me just doesn't care and can't see why it matters one way or another. I have no idea what (if anything) is fueling this wave of strong depression. Much of the time I can point to some triggering memory or current problem, but outside of my typical (and constant) shelf full of problems, I can't think of anything. Then again, it's not like my mind really has to have a reason, now does it? And the world's a shit hole anyway, so it's not like there's anything promising to make things suggest my life will ever offer me anything better than the crap life I currently have (Could it be worse? Yes. Better? No.). And so today has just sucked and sucked. It's really, really sucked. Suck-suckity-suck, suck suck suck. Posted at 9:08 PM
Welcome back to the Emotional Roller coaster - EXTREME!!! Somebody get me off this crazy thing ... Posted at 7:15 PM
Too. Much. Stress. Posted at 9:45 PM
I watched Batman Begins - finally - when it broadcast on TV for the first time tonight. I've wanted to see it since it was first in the theatres, but it's taken until now to see it. I must say - it was worth waiting. I wasn't really getting into it in the very beginning. The 'Bruce Wayne in prison' followed by the 'Bruce Wayne in Ninja School' sections seemed, to me, a bit weak. But, the interwoven story of Bruce as a child made up for that, and I was impressed at how much better the few little extras did at developing the psyche of Bruce Wayne than previous movies have done with the 'criminals killed my parents' scene. The big surprise of the movie was the dreamy Cillian Murphy who played the Scarecrow. I couldn't get enough of his beautiful eyes and lips. Damn, he just left me drooling. And his acting was superb. Scarecrow is a tough character to transfer from the comic book page onto the screen. Every cartoon version of the character has certainly always fallen short and looked amazingly lame. But here - this Scarecrow had a lot of the power of the comic book villain. He still misses the full aspect of the character, but it was indeed very, very close. Scarecrow was a nice change from the last few Batman movie villains, all of whom sucked. The original Batman movie with the Joker was excellent, thanks to Tim Burton, and while the second Batman movie was good, too, with the Penguin and Catwoman, it took the villains less seriously and made them caricatures. The two movies after that were just farcical, and the whole concept of Batman being a dark, vigilante figure in a dark, crime-ridden city full of dark, dastardly and despicably ingenious villains ... well, that core aspect of Batman was lost. Here, in Batman Begins, the soul has been given back to the concept of Batman, and there is hope for the franchise to endure in a very rewarding manner. It seems to me that the true triumph of Batman Begins is that it fully develops the characters in ways that none of the previous Batman movies have even attempted, and as a result you really understand and like Bruce Wayne and Alfred and Gordon. In fact I've heard countless people say that Christian Bale seemed perfect as Batman where all I've heard for years is how poor of a choice one of the other (or all) of the previous movie Batman actors had been. I think that Christian Bale does look the part and does bring it to life with his acting, but honestly it's the writing that's everything. The character is so well developed and so well written that any of the past Batman actors could have looked equally good if their parts had been written and scripted as well. Bale put in a solid performance, but to a large extent he lucked out, too. The writing really was fantastic for this film. So, like so many other people - and lots of critics - I have to give this film high marks. It was incredibly entertaining, true to the source material, and visually and intellectually powerful. I hope the upcoming sequel can meet these kinds of standards. It would be another movie well worth waiting for. Posted at 10:08 PM
Posted at 7:53 PM
It's anniversary time here at theDreamworld. Seven years ago today I finally launched this site, after struggling to figure out HTML and some handy programs. I've been posting to this Journal on a daily basis ever since, and I've added more stories and poems and links throughout that time to make the site what it is today. As seems to always be the case this time of year, when the anniversary hits, I have to regretfully say that a revision of the site (the long hoped-for version 3) just simply isn't going to happen. I spent a great deal of time in December (and some time even back in November) messing around again with Wordpress, but as has been the case for the past two and a half years, I simply can't figure out enough about CSS and the Wordpress layout schema to establish anything that won't look completely cheap and ... well ... ugly. I pride myself on the attractive graphics on this website, and I'm not going to sacrifice that, even if it would in some ways make posting to the site easier for me. Honestly, if it wasn't for still wanting features that I couldn't include in the site during this current version (namely commenting for Journal entries, a search field specific to the site, and an entry-specific archiving system), then I would just use Dreamweaver and revamp the site with a sharp new look and layout. I already have all of the layout ideas worked out, and a lot of the graphic files and color selections are already setting in folders on my hard drive, but it seems silly to rework everything just to change the look and not add the few last features I've really wanted. So I haven't. In fairness, I think I could actually add each of the features I want by using some available web-based services, but I'd have to deal with forced ads and also have reliability problems, not to mention the fact that just posting a single Journal entry would become a process three or four times as long as complicated as it currently is for me, and considering I do that each day, it just doesn't seem like a good deal. I had made some serious efforts using iWeb, and while it is an elegant and wonderful program, it would require me to spend $100 a year for a .mac account if I wanted commenting and searching to work, and that was, honestly, the whole reason I bought the program. Without those features always usable, the program is much less useful and flexible to me than Dreamweaver, and there's simply no point in changing everything from the current Dreamweaver style unless there's a practical reason. So, much as I regret to say it, I find myself disappointed without a new version and cool new features (features that just about everybody else has now). But even my disappointment is tempered by my pleasure in seeing that I've continued to keep this site going for a full seven years, and I have no intention of letting that slide. I plan to be here for many more years, and hopefully there's enough here to keep you coming back for a while, too. Thanks for that ... for coming here and reading what I have to say. It means a lot to me, and hopefully you've gotten something out of it, too. Herein starts year number eight for 2008. I'm looking at this year as full of all sorts of possibilities, and I'll be keeping track of everything that does indeed come about right in here. Stay tuned for more. Hopefully some great stuff is right around the corner. Posted at 3:08 PM
You can always count on your friends to remind you how miserable your lot in life is. This is why a dog is man's best friend - because a dog can't talk. Posted at 11:11 PM
I'd like to see Akira as a live action movie and based on the original manga storyline, not the animated film storyline. That would be way cool - and it could be done from start to finish with existing technology. It would look sweet. Posted at 10:03 PM
I miss Ken. I miss Simon. I miss Jurry. I miss so many good and wonderful friends, people I've loved deeply, and I don't know why I haven't completely come unhinged without them ... with knowing that they're gone forever. Sometimes I feel like I'm being crushed under the weight of all of that loss, and my chest feels crushed and stricken, and my head feels like it will explode. And other times I feel so empty I wonder if I'm just a hollow shell. And I'm not sure which hurts more ... Posted at 9:56 PM
There was an earthquake about 70 miles from here last night, and just like during the last two earthquakes I've been near in Ohio during my lifetime, I didn't feel a thing. I guess a 3.1 magnitude on the Richter Scale is considered pretty minor, but it always surprises me that you never feel anything at all when there's a quake here. I guess I should be glad for that. I just always remember people I knew who lived in California that weren't at all concerned about earthquakes but thought that tornados (which they never saw) were terrifying. I guess you get used to whatever powers of nature that are in your area and find them more commonplace over time. Funny the way that is. Here's an article about last night's earthquake:
Posted at 10:22 PM
If patience is indeed a virtue then my grandmother is turning me into the best human being since Mother Theresa. Posted at 10:02 PM
Posted at 8:06 PM
Letterman with a beard is incredibly bizarre. Posted at 12:52 AM
It's beyond my belief how many times my grandma can tell me the same things about her visit to my sister's, but even so - it's nice to have her back. Yes, I would have enjoyed more time on my own to do ... my own thing, but my grandma gets very easily homesick, and it's been clear since Christmas that she was anxious to get back. So it's good to have her back so that I know she's happy and healthy and safe. And within the next week we'll gradually work back into her general routine, and life will go on as usual - maybe not the most exciting mode of life, but still rather fulfilling. It was a long and busy day for her, and she's held up well, and while I didn't get up as early as she did and while I didn't have to endure air travel and all that that entails, I had a fairly full and busy day getting last things done here at the house, getting to Cleveland to pick my grandma up, and managing things from there on to make sure she ate right and got settled back in. She's been surprisingly resilient for as tired as I expected her to be, but I suspect that the full effects of things will catch up with her tomorrow, and she is likely to be quite worn out. That's fine since tomorrow is a simple day at home with no obligations or any effort at all required. That likely means I'll be keeping a close eye on her to make sure she just relaxes and takes things easy. You'd think that would be a really easy task, but you clearly haven't met my grandma. Posted at 9:59 PM
The results of the caucus in Iowa means nothing to me, and to be honest, I've become less enthusiastic about all of the Democratic candidates over the last couple of months (and I still remain repulsed by the possibilities of any of the Republican candidates). I continue to wish Al Gore would have run, but I respect his decision not to do so as well as his reasoning. In his absence, however, no one candidate shines, and in fact they all are showing more and more that they are riddled with weaknesses and flaws. I feel like the only choice os to try to figure out who is the lesser evil among the field of demons, and I can't really say that I find that even a remotely acceptable reason to support someone as the President of the United States. The good news is that at least we'll have Bush out of office and someone better in his place. The bad news is that just having someone 'better' isn't really enough after the last eight years. We need someone spectacular. Posted at 10:34 PM
I wish I had the time and the cash to make a trip to Chicago. I don't know why, but I've gotten a nostalgic craving to visit certain places. Chicago has always been a place - a very rare and special place - that has made me feel at ease and content, even happy, just because of what it is and what it offers, and there are frighteningly few places like that for me. But alas, I am too deeply in debt to figure any way to cover expenses for even a day trip, let alone a weekend or more. And my grandma returns on Saturday, just the day after tomorrow, so time isn't on my side either, and probably won't be for at least the next three of four months, sadly. Oh well. If I could have things I wanted, even one out of ten times, life would be a lot different - a lot better. But it's not ... and that's just the way it is. Posted at 9:59 PM
Ooh-shah! Posted at 11:30 PM
This year, 2008, will show whether I truly have the strength to overcome the daunting obstacles that trouble my life. This year needs to see changes and improvements in many aspects of my life. If I'm up to the tasks then I might make a start at saving myself. If I can't do it, if I'm too weak or too messed up or too far gone, then there's really no point in holding out any hope or reason for the future. That's a lot to put on 2008 and it's a lot to put on me, but if I can't resolve and improve things then I might as well admit defeat. Posted at 10:07 PM
Journal, by Paul Cales, © January 2008
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January 31, 2008
