Something the blogmistress mentioned reminded me of a cynical observation I made back during the Long Winter:
The same love song that is a reflection of everything being right in the world in the nascent stages of romance devolves into a cruel, mocking doppelgänger when that romance crumbles.
A&E ran an episode of Biography last night that profiled Anne Rice. Here’s a woman that has overcome significant hardships - pain and loss - and has written some of the most popular works of fiction around.
It kinda puts my little angsty whining in perspective. (Hint: looks very small)
That, coupled with my new anti-fear mantra (”SHUTUP!SHUTUP!SHUTUP!” said in the “You Kicked My Dog” voice), is helping me break through my self-imposed lyrical stagnation.
At wicca class earlier this week our teacher read our “medicine cards,” essentially a tarot-like deck and process which calls upon Native American mythology and beliefs. Before I descibe “what the cards told me,” let me back up and give you some background.
In an earlier post, I mentioned “The Long Winter” without really explaining it. As some of you may have guessed, the Long Winter was the winter of 1998-1999, when I separated from my wife and moved into a tiny little mountain cabin in the forested areas outrside Chico (California, where the ex and I had been living with her mom and stepdad).
It would not be an exaggeration to say that that winter tested my will to survive; hell, it pretty well tested my will to live. The woman I loved with all my heart and soul, and with whom I’d envisioned a grand life (success in our careers, kids, growing old together) told me one day that
It was the utter destruction of all that I believed to be true. (This was the relationship where I finally understood the truth in Sonnet 116.)
So a lot of what I’ve been dealing with in the last couple of years - issues of identity, security, and confidence - have been exacerbated by the “death” of my previous life.
(And that’s what it felt like after the separation: Like I was in mourning, like my wife had died and been replaced by some pod-person simulacrum that I didn’t know, so deftly had she hidden and so suddenly had she revealed her actual feelings.)
So fast forward to recent months as I’m hazarding little baby steps toward expanding the “concept of me,” stuff like realizing I’m adult enough to drink responsibly and intuiting that my scientific paradigm could coexist with spirituality (like Spock said, “Logic is the beginning of wisdom… not the end.”)
And so one of the things I’m trying to remain more open to are divinitory tools. Still not sure that the messages are coming from some Power From Beyond, but that’s less important than the lessons we, ourselves, take from what we discover. (Kind of a microcosm that way.)
So back to earlier this week.
In the drawing of the medicine cards, you pull seven cards to discover what totemic animals are there to guide you along your path. Here’s what I drew:
Okay, I hear you ask, but what does it mean? Glad you asked.
| card position | what it represents | card I drew | what it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | spritual guide | Turtle | “Mother Earth” |
| 2nd | protector of my innocence | Frog | “cleansing” |
| 3rd | path to goals | Moose | “self-esteem” |
| 4th | wise counsel, when to speak/listen | Snake | “transmutation” (as in poison to life; life-death-rebirth cycle) |
| 5th | guardian of Dreamtime and new realities | Buffalo | “prayer and abundance” |
| 6th | how to stay grounded and on path | Bat | “rebirth” |
| 7th | how to find heart’s joy | Ant | “patience” |
The significance of the meaning of the Moose card is not lost on me. What surprised me for a moment was the recurrance of the rebirth motif between the Snake and Bat cards. I hadn’t expected those sorts of responses, but they’re dead on. I really am emerging from being emotionally, spirtually, and creatively dead, in to a whole new uncharted realm.
So maybe there is something to “the cards” after all.
Or maybe there’s just something to me.
Okay. So I’ve got this thing for Sarah Michelle Gellar, and this major thing for Nicole Kidman.
You can well imagine the titter this sent me into!
Sarah Michelle Gellar Lusts For Kidman
Hollywood star Sarah Michelle Gellar has stunned fiance Freddie Prinze Jr. by revealing she’d leave him for Nicole Kidman. She has been dating Prinze since last year and the couple plan to wed soon. But Sarah - who won an MTV award for her lesbian kiss with Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions - claims she’d leave Freddie in a second if she ever got a chance with Nicole. Gellar explains, “I had to twist his [Freddie's] arm and leg to see Moulin Rouge! Although he enjoyed it once we were there. In fact, there was a moment during the evening when I swear I thought he was going to leave me for Nicole Kidman but then, who could blame him? I’d probably leave him for Nicole if she asked. She’s hot!”
Picture the possibilities… Mmmmm….
Okay.
Raise your hand if you’re actually surprised that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone has blasted all sorts of box office records in its first weekend. Anyone?
I didn’t think so.
It’ll be interesting to see how much the audience drops off in the second week, though I strongly suspect HP will dominate the box office until Frodo and company arrive.
After Douglas Adams passed away, some acquaintenances of his searched his hard drive and have pieced together a sixth and final book in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy.”
There are plans to release it, and a draft of Adams’ HHGG movie script, in a compendium next May (on the anniversary of his death).
What happens with you let Hong Kong art students give Barbie a makeover?
They give Barbie a tattoo! Cool!
I forgot to mention why the title for the previous entry was on my mind.
Four words:
Well, last night was unexpectedly uneventful, with some cool, out-of-the-ordinary events. But since I’m, well, me, they weren’t without their bugaboos.
After running my weekly 7th Sea game, I thuned in and got to drool over the Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show. Yum! The only real downside for me, though, was a complete lack of Karen Mulder on the program. Boo! (And did anybody else note the irony in the fact that, of the two men that were part of this lingerie show, host Rupert Everett and singer Andrea Bocelli, one is gay and the other blind?)
After that, all of us (i.e. Jason, Kris, Amber, Troll, Kapur, and Nathan) went to Denny’s to get some food and kill some time. Our Denny’s just got remodeled, so now it looks intentionally retro (it tries to evoke 50’s diner motifs) instead of its previous incarnation (looking like it retained a late-70’s obsession with browns, golds, and naugahyde). It’s somehow comforting to know, though, that the service there has remained the same. No, wait… that’s a bad thing. (I’ll spare you the exruciating details. Suffice to say, though, I did not get my mozarella sticks in the manner I requested.)
(Look at me, sounding so imperious over fucking mozarella sticks. Dork.)
And then, the main event, the reason for the time-killing (and molten grease consumption), not to mention the reason that I’m sitting at 8.5 on the ZST:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Midnight show.
Hoody hoo!
I’d suspected with the release of HP being such a big deal, the local theater might being doing something special for those of us in desperate need of a Harry Potter fix, but I forgot to call and check. I get home and Kris asks me if I’m up to a midnight show of HP! Yes! I say. Good thing too, ’cause Troll’s already been dispatched to buy a bundle of tickets for us! (Yeah, like somebody’s gonna have to twist my arm to go to the movies!)
So we finally made it to the movie theater. (Have I ever mentioned that the local theater is <sarcasm>cleverly</sarcasm> named “The Movies”?) Y’know, for a place that does this (showing movies, I mean) professionally, they’re not always that good at it. First off, the line for the movie, which snaked its way around the building, wasn’t let in until just after midnight, leaving us to stare at a big, white van camped right in front of the box office fire lane. And then they let us in and I go stand in the concession stand line. The one line. With one person working it. With fifty friggin’ people in front of me.
I stood in that interminably slow line for awhile before the manager opened another line, allowing me to accelerate from 28th in line to 2nd. The manager was flitting back and forth, in and out of helping me, as I ordered; she was grabbing cups to put my drink order in, and dashed to grab the little nozzles for the soda fountain. I idly wondered where she’d gone to grab the nozzles.
As I discovered upon sitting and sampling my Diet Coke (no ice, please), the nozzles had clearly come from a giant vat of soapy water. Funny, carbonated water plus soda syrup plus friggin’ SOAP doesn’t work for me! Argh. (stomp stomp stomp) (Give me a new cup) (stomp stomp stomp)
I rushed back to the theater, ’cause I didn’t want to miss the previews: an expanded Attack of the Clones was attached to HP. Übergeek that I am, I had to see it! Alas…
First off, it turns out that that white van in front of the box office was there to deliver the movie. That sounds okay, until you realize that each theater has to take the time to splice several smaller film reels into one or two big reels, and that takes time. Thirty-five minutes, apparently (as last night’s evidence suggests.) And then, two trailers in, they’d threaded one of the trailers in upside down (people standing on their heads), reversed (like looking in a mirror), and backwards (running end-to-start). (Great. Zatanna’s running the show now.)
So they stop the film.
And we wait.
Again.
We passed the time by throwing popcorn at each other. (Okay, I passed the time by throwing popcorn at the others and having it thrown at me. Bygones.) Finally, the lights dimmed, and we were treated to…
…the Warner Bros. logo as the movie started.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! No SW trailer! Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap….
Anyway, the movie started.
Side note here: It was slightly after 1 am. The movie runs 2 1/2 hours. Zzzzzzzz…
My impressions: Beautifully filmed, nicely acted, and interesting and competently translated, the film was emotionally uninvolving. How much of that was the borne of sleep deprivation, I’ll have to see (when I watch the movie again). Good film, fun to watch, but not the holy mecca of geek cinema.
Oh well.
At least the first Lord of the Rings movie opens in a few weeks. 