The Saga Continues

So the big news this week (once you get past things like hurricane Sandy, campaign news, and celeb Halloween costumes) is that Disney has bought Lucasfilm and will be making 3 more Star Wars movies. This is a pretty freaking big deal.

Most fans have apparently not been taking the news well. I completely missed out on the announcement on Tuesday (this is what happens when you don’t have a Twitter account) and just saw it this morning. I’m still processing.

Undeniably, the original Star Wars movies are the best. When I do Star Wars do I dress up as Queen Amidala? Heck no! I go Princess Leia all the way.  BUT, unlike some other hardcore fans, I like the new trilogy. Is it as all around amazing and incredible as the original? No. Is it still good? I would say yes.

I am well aware of the inclusion of much hated characters like Jar Jar Binks. I don’t like him either, guys. It does appear that maybe some things like the pod racing scene, which is a bit long and involved, were added mainly for the chance to play around with the effects. And sure, Yoda flipping all over the place like a tiny, crazed chimp in Attack of the Clones is a bit distracting to say the least. But I hardly feel like these small things are enough to ruin the series.

I’m sure everyone has their own reasons for their prequel issues. And really, who am I to judge? Especially considering I still can’t get over the travesty that is X-Men: The Last Stand. So I will leave you to your own opinions, but I have decided to include some examples of the good parts of the movies.

3. Liam Neeson as a Jedi

Liam Neeson can do no wrong. He has been a God, he has been the best father/stepfather ever, a totally BAMF villain, and now he can be an awesome Jedi too. Actually this is inspiring me to have a Liam Neeson movie night similar to the Alan Rickman movie night we had back in college.

But anyway, Liam Neeson kills it as Qui-Gon Jinn. He’s wise. He’s resourceful. He is strong in the force. His lightsaber skills could perhaps use some work, but that’s neither here nor there. Whenever he call Obi-Wan his young padawan, I’m like, train me master!

2. Anakin’s Crazy Eyes

Say what you will about Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker – he has the crazy eyes down. This works for me. I think a large issue with the prequels is how Anakin Skywalker is portrayed. We expected him to be this larger than life amazing character that has an epic moral struggle before giving into the Dark Side. Instead, he’s a cocky, whiny brat. See, I can get over this. Mostly because I’ve decided his emotional issues work.

We know that Anakin needs to turn evil. We know that he also needs to eventually turn good again. So we need someone who’s emotionally unstable and prone to violence.

And Anakin delivers! Even when he’s an adorable child he’s impulsive and clearly emotional. By Episode II he has worked his way up to full out tantrums and mass murdering. I mean kinda for a good cause. Kinda.

1. Emperor Palpatine’s Evil Master Plan

Ok, seriously. When you consider all the little things and the massive amount of time it took Emperor Palpatine to become the emperor… it’s like the best evil master plan in the history of evil master plans! There were SO MANY things that could have gone wrong. It hinged on so many random people unwittingly doing what he wanted. It required excellent understanding of key players, exceptional manipulation, and impressive Force skills. Emperor Palpatine was willing to sacrifice whatever pawns necessary to achieve the greater goal.

Not only did he manage to achieve ultimate galaxy control (so keep in mind it’s even more impressive that his plan was to take over the galaxy. Generally villains can barely manage overtaking a country, let alone a world), he kept it up for almost 20 years. That takes skillz. Such serious skillz, they surpass mere skills.

Now having demonstrated some of the great things from the prequels, am I totally on board with the idea of a new trilogy? Honestly I’m torn. I can think of many, many things that give me pause. I’m an optimist though. I have to hope they’ll still turn out well. Regardless, I guarantee I go watch every single one.

The Slut Rule

It’s almost Halloween! Halloween is hands down one of my favorite holidays. I mean how could it not be?? It combines two of my favorite things – candy & costumes. Of course adults aren’t really supposed to go trick-or-treating, but that’s the benefit of having godchildren. You still get to dress up, and you can eat all their “bad” candy.

This year sadly I’m not taking the kids out since they’re a plane ride away as opposed to a 4 hour drive. Still, there are always Halloween parties to enjoy. But as much as I love this holiday and start obsessively considering costume as early as late spring, I also inevitably end up having a costume crisis at the end of October.

Why? Well simply put, because of the slut rule.

To understand what I’m talking about, you simply need to think back to Mean Girls.

As Cady explains: in the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.

The problem is I don’t WANT to necessarily dress up like a total slut. But on the other hand, I don’t want to dress like an old woman. I try to find some sort of balance between the two, and each year it gets harder.

I’ve had some success in the past. I created a whole round of costumes using various pieces I wear to the Renn Faire. The corset kept a hint of slut, the long skirts kept it classy. Then I found a Princess Leia costume I rocked 2 years in a row. It wasn’t the slave bikini one, it was the white dress. However, to sex it up they added slits in the skirt, which paired beautifully with my clunky boots I bought waaaaaaaaaay back in middle school.

This year I couldn’t make any decisions at first. Normally by the end of summer I have a pretty good idea what I want to do. This time around I was still hung up on the question of whether I should reprise a former costume or buy something new. Then last month when I had a friend visiting, we decided to go to one of the Halloween stores. I was starting to lean towards a flapper look (which, not gonna lie, was totally inspired from The Vampire Diaries flashbacks to the 20s in season 3). Then I happened to find a Wonder Woman corset type top. They only had one in the store which I didn’t think would fit me, but I decided to try it on anyway.

And it looked amazing. I was skinny and powerful with some serious cleavage but nothing too daunting. My friend was able to easily convince me to buy it.

It sat in my closet for a month while I fondly reminisced about how awesome it looked, and eventually went about getting the rest of the pieces for my full costume. I was pretty pleased with the decision. I like Wonder Woman. Not that I’ve read the comics due to my parents forbidding any comic purchases when I was a kid, but I remember Superfriends fondly, and watched Justice League for a season or two when it came out. Plus in one of my favorite author’s books they have a whole spiel with the women having a Wonder Woman party that amused me.

But even better! Eventually my friend Erin and I are going to make it to Comic-Con, and I could totally use the costume there too.

Since I’m a bit of a procrastinator, I didn’t finish ordering my other costume parts until last week so they’re all still arriving this week. When I got the bottoms I had finally decided on, I decided to try them together with the top.

And this is where the panic set in. The top is way tighter than I remember. It’s not serious cleavage. It’s freaking breast explosion. This is the issue with not owning or believing in things like scales and weight. I don’t recognize slight weight fluctuations, so of course I assumed the top would fit the same.

So now I feel overexposed on top. While I went for shorts as opposed to bikini bottoms, I’m questioning the exposure for my bottom half as well. Essentially, I tried for my nice middle line of sexiness, but instead I’m feeling that I ended up near the top of the epically slutty column.

Of course, it’s Halloween! SOMEWHERE out there is certainly someone with an even sluttier costume than me. But nonetheless I’m now torn over whether to fall back on an old costume or not. Why isn’t it easier to have that middle line where you’re not in underwear, but you also don’t look like Cady?   

What Happens When You Assume

I may have mentioned before that I’m a Steeler fan. This is causing me a lot of angst this season as they’re refusing to win games and making lots of really silly mistakes. Today’s game is no exception. Dropped balls, interceptions, turnovers that lead to touchdowns... At least James Harrison is still kicking butt and taking names. I love James Harrison.

I'm not this bad. I mean seriously...

Now I feel like I should clarify a bit on my fanship. I absolutely label myself as a Steeler fan. I watch every game with the only exceptions being when I’m busy for work purposes.  I own many different Steeler items (earrings, blankets, shirts, and of course a James Harrison jersey just to name a few). I recognize the names of the majority of the starters.

However, I don’t have every single player on the team memorized. I don’t know the nitty gritty details of the rules of football. Does this stop me from enjoying the game? Well of course not! What I find interesting though is that the common perception is that this is because I’m a girl. Apparently girls are not expected to know these things. Heck, we’re barely expected to be football fans beyond tailgating in college.

In my case, I don’t have all the intricacies of the football rules down because I decided it wasn’t necessary to know, and the refs are just going to interpret things however they want anyway (which inevitably stresses me out when they’re clearly being idiots). 

This leads me into an always interesting discussion – male and female stereotyping. Clearly, I am not going to explore every aspect of it today as the Steelers are still playing (I was going to say poorly but WOOT!! Woodley just made me eat my words) and I want to go to sleep at some point as well.   

Stereotypes will always exist. I’m sorry, they will. I think it’s just a progression of thinking. We naturally try to make assumptions about how the world functions. We use these assumptions to explain phenomena of nature as well as social situations. This can apply to a specific individual. I notice a friend has ordered cider beer multiple times in a night and I assume that’s their preference and start always ordering cider beer for them. I notice that a bunch of Texas hotels put information on church services near the front of their guest directory and I assume that Texans are more religious.

Maybe these assumptions are right, maybe they’re wrong. Now sometimes stereotypes are accurate. That’s why they exist, because there were at least a few situations and individuals that fit the bill. But they can be damaging.

I’m currently reading How Children Succeed. One of the sections I found very interesting in the book was about how identifying with a group can be both positive and negative. A positive is because it gives you a shared identity, which can help you connect with the other group members. A negative is that you then feel constrained by the group stereotypes.

The book described studies comparing the test score results for girls on math exams. When the girls first received positive messaging that intelligence is flexible and didn’t feel constrained by that good ol’ belief that men are naturally better at math, they scored better than the control group of girls. So stereotypes can be self-perpetuating. Because girls are supposed to be worse at math, they expect to do poorly and don’t try to their full potential, thus giving them worse scores.

Apparently this is what it looks like when flat.

My friend Jenn was just telling me the other week how excited she was when she took her car into the shop and they talked to her like a real person. She had issues in the past where they talked down to her assuming she didn’t know anything about cars. Now I’ve encountered this as well, but it’s never bugged me because I legitimately don’t know anything about cars. I have plenty of girl friends that LOVE cars. They can talk mechanics all day long. Me? Well, let’s just say that I’m the girl that didn’t realize her tire was flat back in high school. I called my parents saying it looked funny, and when they asked if it was flat I said “no, it’s just the bottom part.”

In one of my friend Erin’s posts we got on a side discussion about movies based off video games and how she doesn’t like that all the female characters stroll around with very little clothing. This is a valid point. If I was fighting zombies I’d be wearing tons of layers to help protect myself from getting infected. I think the issue is that when they make these games they assume mostly males will be playing them. Despite the evidence to the contrary, the stereotype is that gamers are male.

Just the other day I was talking to someone who I found out works for Blizzard. I immediately told them how mad their company makes me. They responded that this better not be another case of an angry girlfriend that lost their bf to WoW.

While this kind of made me giggle, it’s still the stereotype at work. If I had been a guy, they never would have made this assumption. Since I’m a girl, they assumed I wasn’t involved with Blizzard directly but just knew it through a guy. I actually played WoW for a while, and in fact I was referring to Blizzard doing ridiculous things to my account like deleting game subscriptions.

Where does this leave us? Well basically the same place we started. I can’t fix all the wrongs of the world with this little post. When I encounter new people I’m still going to be going against the same stereotypes.

But I can make more of an effort to not make my own assumptions about people. As my father always told me over and over growing up, what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of u and me (still true).

And if nothing else, we can all remember that these stereotypes DO NOT DEFINE US.

One is the Loneliest Number

Don't we look snazzy!

My company just had our big awards-party-awesomeness called the H’Oscars, which was fabulous as usual. I managed to get sick but enjoyed myself despite this. It’s so great to see everyone from the different offices and get a chance to meet the new employees.

I had a bit of a moment though. I was talking to somebody, can’t remember who, and realized they didn’t know I’m no longer in the Arlington office but now working remote from Texas. I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t know. With my job, I’d be in and out of the office a lot anyway. Once they realized this though THEY were shocked. “I can’t imagine you being remote!” they said, “you’re such a people person. I can’t picture you not being in the office.”

When I first decided to go remote I heard this a lot, and figured it was just some platitude people felt the need to say when they heard you had the good fortune to work from home and they didn’t. This is partially because I don’t really think of myself as a people person. My brother is a people person. He can’t even play video games by himself anymore without either calling me or talking to one of his other friends through Skype. I like being alone.  Don’t get me wrong, I like people, but I like my alone time more.

However, I really do miss being in the office.

Not enough to want to move back. And I do adore working from home. There are a lot of benefits, the least of which is the ability to work everyday in my “work” pajamas. I no longer have to deal with a hellacious commute. I have more hours in the day, which is fabulous. When I have a weird schedule it’s easier for me to adjust and work a few hours, stop working, and then work again later. Plus I can have delicious things cooking all day for a super wonderful dinner at night after jazzercise.

It’s also less distracting, oddly enough. Nobody’s here to talk to me. I can play my music and just sit and work with nothing to steal my focus.

But I miss that! I miss distracting coworkers that stop and talk for 5 minutes that turns into 10 minutes that becomes 20… I miss the office gossip. I miss the random games and decorations.

I even miss just walking around the office when I went to refill my tea. I like to picture myself as a little office happiness fairy – flitting about spreading smiles and sunshine. Now I’m the house troll that emerges only every few months for big company events. Le sigh. 

Overall though I’d say if I had to make a pro/con list (which I’m trying hard not to do as often), the work from home pros totally win. I just need to be able to function on less sleep, so when I do get the chance to hang out with all my awesome work colleagues I can party all night. Work hard, play hard, baby!

Everything Is Better In Mini

I think I’ve mentioned before my issues with Target, mainly being that every time I walk in Target, I walk out with far more than I planned because of bright colors and clever advertising. This was put to the test this week. I walked into Target with 2 goals: return a few items, and buy peas for making beef stew. I specifically took the most direct route to both areas of the store so I wouldn’t lose focus, and yet I still almost ended up with an additional purchase.

Why? Because right near the checkout counter they had mini water bottles. Mini water bottles! Well technically, they were for children, but what evs, the idea is that they were adorable smaller than the typical water bottle. I was immensely tempted to purchase them. The only reason I made it out of the store was due to a lot of deep breaths and mental pep talks. BECAUSE THEY WERE MINI! ZOMG how could I not want mini water bottles!?! Well, there’s the whole deal that I don’t actually want less water when I’m working out. If anything I want more.

Like my friend Erin, I too question whether I’m really a “grown up.” Mostly because of my obsession with mini objects. It gets me every time.

Actually I was quite distraught this week to realize I’m almost out of mini mountain dew bottles. They don’t actually call them “mini” bottles (I don’t think anyway, clearly I don’t pay that much attention) but they’re half the size of normal bottles of mountain dew and just delightful. I bought a bunch a few weeks ago and always have one or two in the fridge for my emergency caffeine days when tea just doesn’t cut it. I’m normally only allowed one a week maximum, as I don’t want mountain dew to become my new diet pepsi problem. But I realized this week that I only have one mini mountain dew left, and I haven’t seen the tiny bottles in stores again. I’m going to have to drink normal size drinks again. The horror!

A male friend tried to understand my love of mini objects once. It went kinda like this: he held up a straw and asked if he ripped it in half, if I would like the half straw better than the real straw. Well no, of course not. That’s not a “mini” straw, that’s a ripped straw. BUT, if he offered me one of those stupid red coffee stirrer straw things, that would count because they’re like mini straws and too cute. They function horribly as straws, but that’s not the point.

As far as weird habits go it’s not really a bad one. All it really affects is my consumerism choices and the functionality (or lack thereof) of my purchases. Well apparently some article says it also make me eat more, but I feel like that’s going to happen regardless. It just doesn’t seem like a very adult thing to me to still be gushing over mini items constantly.

OR, maybe it’s an important part of being a grown up.

Hear me out. What are babies but mini humans? Even Eric from True Blood realizes that. Maybe my love of mini objects is just nature’s way of pushing me to breed and take care of tiny humans until they’re no longer “mini” and no longer need me to care for them. This could totally be a real thing.

 It could.

But this is one thing I don’t think even I can believe in. I will not be adding it to the list of things I believe/do-not-believe-in-despite-lack-of-evidence-or-despite-contradictory-facts-against-it (yes, this list does exist, and it’s actually quite lengthy).

Could I convince somebody else to believe it? That’s possible. I’m actually really good at saying the most preposterous things with a straight face. I can’t lie about important things to save my life, but I can convince you without blinking that I used to live on a beet farm in Russia.

What I constantly wonder is why did I move to Texas when I love me some mini items. I didn’t realize how this would alter my life habits until I could no longer find mini tator tots in the store. All I want are my freaking mini tator tots. Why can’t I find them anywhere?? I find it beyond comprehension that they would be readily available in some states and not others. It’s a cruel state of the union issue.