You Won't

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You have no idea how ready I am for this upcoming 3 day weekend. I have been traveling like a mad woman this month and I am uber excited to camp out in my apartment, eating, tv watching, and video game playing to my heart’s content. Since my friend Erin and I are basically the same person, she read my mind and revealed the secret to the perfect movie marathon. I was already planning my own little movie marathon for the weekend, but I’ve been wrestling with a little dilemma all week.

My movie marathon plan was to watch the Bourne movies. I’ve never seen them, and after seeing previews for the new Bourne (which has Jeremy Renner in it, and I think he’s my new bf. In case you didn’t know, he plays Doyle in 28 Weeks Later and we all know how much I love Doyle) I was intrigued. Plus they just seem like the type of movie I'd enjoy, so I always meant to watch them at some point.

However, I don’t own the Bourne trilogy. I mean of course I don’t, we know I have a very strict rule against buying movies I've never watched. So I picked them up last weekend from my friend Pietro. EXCEPT Pietro also gave me the movie Cars, and said that was the price of me borrowing them.

Fricken A.

See I have this thing with the movie Cars. I have declared I will never watch it. Pietro knows this and it’s beyond his comprehension. He has been “subtly” trying to get me to watch the movie for a while, and this is just the latest attempt.

Why am I never watching Cars? Well that’s simple. Too many people told me to. For whatever reason I didn’t see it when it first came out. I was busy or something. Basically everyone else in the world saw it, and all of a sudden that’s all they could talk about. My friends, the people I babysat for, random people on the bus. EVERYONE kept saying “oh it’s so great, you should watch it!” The first time I agreed, the second time I made a mental face, and by about the third or fourth time I was dead set against it.

You CANNOT tell me what to do. It ends badly. In fact, back in college my friends used to have a game called “you won’t.” Not only can you not tell me what to do, you can’t tell me what NOT to do. So whenever they started a sentence “you won’t” they knew I’d end up doing whatever they said.

Some people out there might call this a mark of defiance. Some might call it stubbornness. It’s more a mix of both.

For the longest time this was a big joke in my house. My parents were always talking about how “defiant” I was, but I just didn’t see it. It felt so natural, I assumed everyone did the same thing. You know, normal kid stuff like sitting at a table for hours because they refused to eat dinner instead of icecream. Attempting to run away at 5 years old because they weren’t allowed candy before dinner. Not talking for a day because their brother said something to make them mad. All totally normal!

It didn’t really occur to me that perhaps I have more issues with authority than most people until I got into reading Indian captive stories. I love historical fiction, and at some point in my preteens I went through an Indian captive phase. Yet I soon realized that these stories inevitably infuriated me. The problem was that eventually, the main character succumbed. Personally, a lot of times I was on the side of the Native Americans. Their culture seemed way more interesting. BUT, if the character starts their captivity by swearing they’re not giving in to the heathen ways, then they better not change their mind halfway through! I don’t care how much sense it makes, you DO NOT GIVE IN. In fact, screw just being sullen and unpleasant. Try to escape! Go on a hunger strike! Attack your captors! ANYTHING besides meekly submitting.  

At this point I’ve accepted that I might have some defiant tendencies. Luckily they don’t rear their ugly head in professional situations. And I’m well aware that this is the entire reason I won’t watch Cars. So knowing this, can I indulge my bad habits and stick to my guns, or do I need to mature a little and get over it?

I’ve been debating this all week, and as usual, the universe just keeps throwing it back in my face. I get to CA, and there are signs all over the place for the new Cars theme land. Cars 2 commercials keep coming up on tv. Even the radio was talking about Cars.

Thus I now have to turn to my favorite way to resolve a situation… the pro/con list.

Pros to watching Cars

• I might like it.
• I like Pixar movies.
• I won’t feel bad about borrowing the Bourne movies.
• If Pietro asks, I can answer honestly.
• It will be a good step towards dealing with my defiant & stubborn tendencies.         

Cons to watching Cars

• I said I wouldn’t.
• A little piece of my soul might die.
• Before all the madness, I once saw the first 10 minutes and wasn’t impressed, which is a good indication I might not like it.
• Pietro will probably not pursue whether or not I watched it, so I’d be giving in for nothing.
• Technically, he didn’t explicitly say I had to watch it in order to watch the Bourne trilogy, it was really more implied and I can’t be held to an implication.
• I said I wouldn’t. 

The real problem is that Pietro didn't say I HAD to watch Cars. If he did, that'd be a no brainer. He's far too evil and clever for that. He presents situations like I'd be an idiot not to do something, and then shrugs and says he doesn't care what I do. It's infuriating, because I can't get mad about it.

But the con list is so much more stacked right now...

Dream On

This week I’m staying at a hotel that has all these little signs up that make me cackle. Not that the signs themselves are particularly funny. I just find the entire idea of displaying little signs telling guests tips on how to achieve a good night’s sleep rather amusing. I also found it particularly apt for the week, as I had spent a good portion of Sunday night thinking about sleeping and dreaming in general.

There are some pretty crazy facts/myths about sleep and dreams floating out there in the world, which I wanted to share!

# 1 – Some people dream in color, while some dream in black & white.

TRUE

The mechanics are still open to debate. Why do some people dream in color and not others? Scientists tend to view this as a matter of interpretation and recall.

Now I once read an article that said you actually do not dream in color, you just add the colors in when you remember the dream. I found this ridiculous.

Take, for instance, my dream from Saturday night. During the dream my brother was kidnapped by a flying vampire. My cat (Cat) was sniffing his trail, and since the vampire had flown away it ended at a cliff, which Cat walked over since she’s quite stupid. This happened to be right above the ocean and it was cold out, so I immediately grabbed Cat from the ocean and bundled her in my shirt as I went to find a warm towel to wrap her in. Then I had to puzzle over the towel cabinet for a while. I could see some bright yellow towels, but those are my kitchen towels so they’re not very big. I could also see blue towels, but same problem. Then I found some gray towels, but those belong to my parents, and I knew my dad would totally not approve using his towel for Cat.

# 2 – You cannot die in a dream/if you fall in a dream, you won’t ever hit the bottom.

FALSE

I’m glad to know this is a just a myth, otherwise I’d be the weird one out. I die in my dreams like all the time. This isn’t always traumatic. Sometimes I become a ghost, sometimes I switch bodies, and sometimes it just fades out to black before I wake up. I fall in dreams quite a lot too. Luckily, I don’t do it as much anymore.

I say luckily, because back in the day when I dreamed I was falling and hit the bottom, this was normally because I rolled out of bed in my sleep and I actually hit the ground. Which hurts. And wakes you up quite abruptly. I really don’t recommend this for a good night’s sleep.

# 3 – Your body is paralyzed while sleeping.

MOSTLY TRUE

This is actually a fact that your body is supposed to release a hormone while you sleep that paralyzes you.

I say “mostly” true, because there are clearly some exceptions. Obviously this isn’t working for sleepwalkers. While I’m not a sleepwalker, I’m pretty sure this hormone is also a fail for me. I have always been a very active sleeper. I kick, I punch, and some times I throw things about the room. Let’s not forget that once during high school I even managed to tie myself up during my sleep with my blanket. In fact, I cannot sleep well if someone is in my bed, or even my room, because I’m terrified that if I fall into a deep sleep I’m going to end up hurting them.

This probably stems from the fact that when I was younger and we visited my grandmother, I normally slept in her bed, and my mother would warn me over and over again that I COULD NOT kick her in my sleep like I normally do. My grandmother breaks even easier than I do, so I was convinced that if I slept deeply I’d kick her and break her back. That would totally make me the new family pariah.

# 4 – Sleep paralysis is caused by aliens.

FALSE (Duh).

Although interestingly enough, sleep paralysis is one of the reasons people may believe they are being visited by aliens or other supernatural entities.

On the opposite end of the scale from me, some people wake up before the paralysis wears off. This means they wake up paralyzed, which can be frightening. It feels like they can’t breathe, the room looks funny, and they think they see a strange, bright light. These are all effects of the paralysis, but many people in the past have taken this as a sign of witchcraft, ghosts, or alien visitations. 

For whatever reason on Sunday night I couldn’t fall asleep easily, and while trying to drift off I was thinking about my crazy dream from Saturday (the part earlier is just one tiny section of that dream. Yeah…), which led to me thinking about Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within.

I can’t say I particularly understand how this movie ties in with the games, but nevertheless I like it. About midway through the movie General Hein (voiced by the great James Woods!) uses dreams as a political weapon. He claims the main character Aki (voiced by the same person as Mulan. And we all know James Woods is Hades in Hercules, so this is really like a Disney movie voice party) is in league with the enemy aliens because of her dreams.

This popped up in my head Sunday night because I was thinking about how weird my dream was, and how people would think I was crazy if they could see it. But really, can you imagine a world where we could watch each other’s dreams? We probably wouldn’t need reality tv anymore.

FtF: The Rage Virus – Proof Chivalry Does Exist

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So I realized these posts are similar to my Snow White & The Huntsman post in that unless you like spoilers, they are really For the Few who have seen 28 Weeks Later. I suspect I will do this with other movies in the future, so from now on when you see an entry start with FtF you will know there’s some definite spoiler potential ahead.

The thing with 28 Weeks Later is that it takes convention and throws it out the window. For starters, there’s the whole issue of the zombies. Zombies are supposed to be slow, stupid, and dead. The zombies of 28 Weeks Later are still alive, just infected with the rage virus. While they’re not brain surgeons to be sure, they’re not as stupid as typical zombies. And those suckers are SPEEDY. They don’t just shamble around. Oh no, they run.

If that’s not bad enough, the process of infection is much faster as well. Now almost every zombie movie, book, or video game has its own version of how the zombie epidemic starts, but past that the infection process is pretty standard. A bite or scratch will infect a live person, but it normally still takes a while for them to die and switch over. Not the rage virus. About 60 seconds past being bitten, a person is well and truly infected and running amuck. And you don’t even have to get bitten! These things spew their infected blood all over the place (gross) and if that gets into your system you’re doomed.

I suppose the only good thing about the rage virus victims is that since they’re still alive, they can also die a little easier than true zombies. This is only a slight advantage though. You still have to kill them. They don’t really seem to respond to pain, so regular incapacitation doesn’t work. Plus you have to make sure it’s not a messy kill so you don’t get infected blood in the system.

Not only does 28 Weeks Later change the expectations for “zombies,” the series also plays on expectations in crisis situations. The first movie took the idea of the military as a safe haven and blew it to smithereens. The second movie plays with this some more, but also looks at individual reactions.

The movie starts with a small group of survivors during the crazy days of infection. They are holed up in hiding, and an uninfected kid turns up. There’s some debate in the group over whether to let him in or not, but Alice, being a mother, insists on bringing him in. Her husband Don, while not looking thrilled, goes along with it.

It’s no real surprise when the infected show up shortly after. The kid runs to hide upstairs instead of escaping to the barn as the survivors had planned. At first, Don fights off the infected while Alice runs to help the kid. When Don goes to get them Alice refuses to leave without the kid. They end up at separate ends of a room when the infected burst in, and while Alice screams for Don to help he turns tail and flees.

Which sucks. I mean really there probably wasn’t much he could do since he’d dropped his weapon, but the idea of a husband completely abandoning his wife to a cruel end isn’t exactly cheering. Don escapes the house and even sees Alice in a window, but he doesn’t even move to help her before he can see her being attacked. You’ll note that when he tells his kids about what happens he presents the situation in a completely different light. Why? Because he knows he’s a rat bastard coward.

Now in the course of events, weeks later Don ends up infected and runs mad infecting tons of other survivors in a military safe zone. Scarlet is the medical officer that decides to save his children. The movie has already established the stereotype that women want to save children. I don’t really argue with that one. Sure, it’s not true for everyone, but in the same situation I’d try to save a child too. But in Scarlet’s case, her motivations are actually less maternal. She believes the kids may have a genetic trait that can lead to a cure for the rage virus. Thus she prioritizes their lives as needed for the greater good.

And finally, we’re to Doyle. The movie has already shown us an example of a horrible male “protector” in Don. Doyle is the other end of the scale – he’s like the perfect person to have handy during a zombie apocalypse. Besides being sexy, he’s strong, a good shooter, and tries to get a group to safety.

One of the things I like about movies versus books, is that I think movies leave more up to interpretation when it comes to character motivations. You’re not in the character’s head the same way you are with books. You only have their words and actions to work with. Doyle’s actions can be taken in two different ways.

The first interpretation could be that Doyle is just an outstanding human being that cares about the children. After all, when the military is killing everyone on site he abandons his post after seeing he would need to shoot the children with all the others. He has the same instinct as Alice to get the children to safety. But since he’s also just a good person, he helps the rest of the survivor group as well.

The second interpretation could be that Doyle secretly is in love with Scarlet. This is also hinted at, as earlier in the movie we see him watching her. And wouldn’t you know it, she just happens to be in the group of survivors he’s helping.

I like this interpretation better. Not only because I’m secretly a romantic at heart, but also because I think it fits more with the movie. It would explain why Doyle continues to help Scarlet. She tells him why the kids are more important, but Doyle keeps helping her hobble along as they escape. When you have freaking fast rage victims chasing you, you want to be fast too. The woman with a gunshot wound in the leg is not going to be the speediest companion. Yet Doyle never abandons her.

In the end, when they are stuck in the car, Doyle sacrifices himself for Scarlet and the kids to escape. Personally, I think it makes more sense at this point to assume he has a thing for Scarlet. Otherwise, it would be more logical to have Scarlet push the car. Doyle has the better chance of getting the kids out. Yet he wants to give all of them a chance to escape, willing to die an agonizing death (I am soooooo not fond of people burning to death) to see them to safety.

I find this particularly striking when we compare Doyle’s actions for people he doesn’t even really know, despite his potential romantic interest in Scarlet, to freaking Don who willingly abandoned his wife. Doyle’s death, while noble, is heart-breakingly tragic.

I suppose one of the reasons this sticks in my mind so much is because really, I’m pretty sure I would die in a world with zombies or the rage virus.

My friends and I used to have some safety plans for the zombie apocalypse. They mostly involved being around guys like our friend Fitzwilliam who were more likely to be effective at killing zombies. My other main plan was to hang out with my brother, who’d probably be pretty decent at staying alive too.

My problem is I have no faith in myself surviving on my own. I’m not particularly fast when running. I tend to fall a lot. Nor can I count on killing zombies. While I can shoot a gun with some accuracy, I definitely can’t guarantee making a kill shot.

Plus, at the end of the day, I don’t really think in a survival situation anyone would make sure I make it. While I love my brother dearly, he tends to get distracted. I would see this going more along the lines of him trying to round up survivors, because he is a decent person, and wandering along only paying attention to the immediate threat in front of him, and then going “hey has anyone seen my sister?” when meanwhile I’ve been munched on for the past 20 minutes.

It’s not that I want anyone to sacrifice themselves for me, like Doyle. That’s just far too tragic for my tastes. But it’d be comforting if I knew they’d make an effort to help me escape. Sadly though, I think Doyle is the exception to the rule. I think the world is full of Dons.

Bad Life Decisions

Seriously, these are my crack

Every so often I make a Bad Life Decision. Now the good news is that my Bad Life Decisions are more along the lines of eating an entire bag of buffalo pretzels or buying too much at Target because it’s bright colored or mini. This weekend however I made a series of Bad Life Decisions.

Bad Life Decision #1 – I arranged to return my rental car “early” Saturday morning because I knew I wouldn’t be back in time Friday evening.

Bad Life Decision # 2 – I rented from the one place in town that doesn’t let you just drop off the keys in a lockbox, as I discovered Friday night. I left the rental car there anyways because I wanted my car back, but this meant I’d still have to go over Saturday morning and give them the keys.

Bad Life Decision # 3 – When a friend asked me to go out dancing Friday night, I agreed. Normally not such a bad decision but I was exhausted and this meant I’d be out late.

Bad Life Decision # 4 – Since I was exhausted, I’d worked a crazy week, and I didn’t get much sleep due to late night dancing and early car key return, I declared Saturday a Lazy Day. This meant I was free to lounge around, watching movies, reading, and eating all day. After a day of relaxation, I would then go to bed at a decent time, and I was allowed to sleep in Sunday before starting all my laundry and various errands to get ready for another crazy work week.

Now see by themselves, these were all harmless little decisions. The problem is that one decision led to another, then to the next, and so on, until we end up with

Bad Life Decision # 5 – While watching movies on tv, decide to turn on 28 Weeks Later as it’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen that movie.

This was without a doubt the worst decision of the weekend. You see, I have certain movie issues, revolving around horror movies and sad movies. 28 Weeks Later is a bit of both.

My issue with sad movies is just that I don’t like to be sad. I am thoroughly against being sad. I will not watch movies that I know will make me cry. I am thoroughly against crying. While 28 Weeks Later doesn’t make me cry, it does still upset me. It’s quite tragic really, and tragedy gets to me.

My issues with horror movies are more complex. I like horror movies. I have a perverse desire to watch them. But I also somehow lack that essential knowledge that IT’S JUST A MOVIE. While watching movies, I am totally and completely sucked in. It feels entirely possible to me that anything could happen. Thus, I get totally and completely scared. I am that screaming, jumping, obnoxious girl that everybody hates. I’m fine for a bit after the movie, but that night I will be endlessly plagued by memories of the movie, horrifying dreams, and a general fear of the dark. This happens even if by the end of the movie I’m no longer scared because it got ridiculous. For instance, after watching Perfume, that night I had to sleep with a trash can in front of my door.

Now generally, after watching a movie once it doesn’t scare me quite so much. But this is in large part too due to how I watch horror movies.

See at some point I will get so scared, I stop watching the movie. I cover my eyes, I hide behind pillows. I miss very important key parts. As I watch movies over again I start to see more, so for me it’s quite possible I might see new things every time I watch a horror movie.

Now this all comes around into me watching part of 28 Weeks Later yesterday.  And warning, there will be spoilers.

I first turned it on during the day. I had only ever seen it once, mostly behind a pillow, and it has Rose Bryne in it, and I love her. I watched right at the beginning, but stopped right after Don gets the rage virus as I knew the next parts scared me. Then I made a Wise Decision and switched to something way better and not scary like Batman Forever.

Except all of a sudden I had an insight. Oh my god, Doyle from the beginning was the same sexy soldier that helps them escape. It hints at the beginning that he has feelings for Scarlet. I totally overlooked it when I was hiding behind a pillow the first time, but if that’s true, and he’s the solder I remember, then he dies tragically.

And of course, this just intrigued me. So I decided to try watching it again when it replayed to see if that was true. Of course they didn’t replay the movie until after 8 PM, which meant I was now watching it in the dark.

SUCH a Bad Life Decision. I was right, and it is totally hinted that Doyle is interested in Scarlet and it’s all tragic and they die. So now not only is the whole rage-zombie thing in my head, so is the utter tragicness (wait, tragicness is not a word?? Oh well, it is now) of Doyle’s unspoken love and sacrifice.

So of course, I couldn’t sleep. I had to leave my tv on so there was some light in my room, but even this didn’t help. I’d have a bad dream, wake up, fall asleep eventually, and the cycle would start again. Around 6 AM I decided I could turn the tv off as it was starting to get light outside. I had my best sleep of the night between 7:40-10 AM as I started dreaming about The Vampire Diaries instead, but overall my planned sleep in day was RUINED since I barely slept all night. Sigh.

There is actually going to be a second part of this story, as I plan to go into a rant about Doyle in order to work out my sadness over his tragic death since there is a very upsetting lack of fanficion about this. Stay tuned for part 2!

Becoming a Professional (not the paid killer version)

I want to be the very best

Like no one ever was…

-Pokemon Theme Song

Last Friday I had a true chance to test my professionalism, and thankfully, I passed with flying colors.

Of course one might ask, how do you define professionalism? That’s actually the big problem in being a professional (just to clarify, I don’t mean like in The Professional. I don’t feel quite qualified to teach people how to be adorable assassins). Especially when you’re a perfectionist, and you have to excel at absolutely everything you do. Acting like a professional is really open to interpretation.

I mean sure, there are some basic rules. Don’t forget to wear pants to the office. Don’t sip from a bottle of tequila all day. Don’t record client calls and create your own “Call Me Maybe” video.

Past that though it gets a little more fuzzy. Take something simple, such as, dress like a professional. Well what does that mean? A pants suit every day? A cute dress? Accessories? What if your office is casual? You need to walk that fine line between casual and complete slob.

What about hair? If you’re a guy and it’s long and shaggy, is that unprofessional or a fashion statement? Are pigtail braids too cutesy? Is it instant failure if you can see your roots, or is there a degree at which they pass from acceptable to unprofessional?

I pride myself on maintaining my professionalism, although it’s getting a little harder for me to define why. At this point I work from home frequently, so dressing for work on those days has become a matter of changing into my “work” pajamas. Initially I still dressed nice every day, but really, no one can see me. I work just as well in my piggy boxers and a tank top as I do in jeans and a blouse. Better probably, because I’m way more comfy. Never question the motivation of a woman in piggy boxers. However whenever I’m meeting with clients I still put on the ritz, so I think it counts.

When I am onsite with clients I also try to stick to approved topics (like the weather, traffic, caffeinated drinks…) and not wander into controversial territory like the coming zombie apocalypse. Despite my sandwich issues I will eat anything they offer for lunch. The only reason my hair does not currently have bright blue streaks is because I want to maintain my professional demeanor.

So what is the ultimate test of professionalism that I faced on Friday? The spider challenge.

In case you didn’t know, I have 3 big fears: selachophobia, cleithrophobia, and arachnophobia. Of course the spider issue comes up far more often. I CANNOT stand spiders. I do not want them anywhere near me. It’s not even that I think they might bite me. That’s pretty much a non-issue. I would react just the same to a deadly spider as I do when it’s a little bitty normal spider. I can't even handle pictures of spiders, which explains the lack of pictures for this post.

So on Friday I was on a call with a client, innocently talking, when all of a sudden I was viciously attacked by a spider (when I say viciously attacked, I mean it was on my desk walking somewhat towards me).

Amazingly enough I kept my cool. I continued to answer questions and finish up. I did not start shrieking. I did not hurry them off the call. I calmly waited for them to finish, and once I was off the phone, then I shrieked to my heart’s content as I tried to kill the stupid spider while it jumped around. I was very impressed with myself. This was like the ultimate proof of my professionalism. Really, the only way I could better prove my professionalism is to maintain a client conversation under spider attack while simultaneously fending off a giant shark. Thank god that probably won’t happen. That one is a little beyond my capabilities.

To be fair, I should probably close by mentioning a bit about my opponent, the evil spider. This particular spider was black, and jumpy. It scuttled around quite quickly. Sure I had the advantage when it came to size (it was about the size of the power button on a tv remote. Possibly a little smaller), but it was wily.