Beth's Contradictory Brain

Gay Films

We usually joke about what bad lesbians Nerdstar and I are. It's even worse up here in the midwest where we haven't found other gays.

But, I have seen a lot of the movies on the list of 50 Greatest Gay Movies. And although I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, I can't imagine why a movie about being all repressed wins over all the great "coming out"/"proud" movies.

The movies I have seen:
Beautiful Thing
Priscialla Queen of the Desert
Bound
Trick
Hedwig
Desert Hearts
Birdcage
Aimee and Jaguar
Boys Don't Cry
Tipping the Velvet
Philadelphia
Gods and Monsters
Personal Best
Bent
My Beautiful Laundrette
La Cage Aux Folles
Ma Vie En Rose
If These Walls Could Talk 2
Before Night Falls
Edge of Seventeen
High Art
Kissing Jessica Stien
Victor/Victoria
Saving Face
Incredibly True...
My Own Private Idaho
Rocky Horror
The Crying Game
Children's Hour

If you haven't seen the one's in bold, I'd highly recommend them.

Feels Good

The interview today was just a formality like I thought it would be. So once I finish orientation week after next I'm able to work hours at both locations. I'm not worried about there not being enough hours. It's also kinda good because if Nerdstar and I want to take a long weekend I don't have to ask for days off, I just say I'm not availble.

I can't express what a relief it is to finally know I'm going to be employed, and at a job I actually like. It's been years since that's been the case.

I've been optimistic about this year. Now if Nerdstar's crazy situation with the Army would get resolved. But I'll let her try to explain it if she wants to/can.

Happy Monday

I had a job interview at 9 this morning with the hospital that's actually closer to my house. It's a PRN position which means I start out "on call" and then when something more permanent opens up I'm pretty much a shoe in. It's also more lab work than people work there, but I don't mind learning that side of things.

I think the interview went pretty well. It helps a lot when the directors of the program I was in send glowing emails about me! But, as you can tell, the HR process goes very slowly.

Then, while driving home I got a phone call from the downtown hospital offering me a PRN position with them! YEAH!

I've got another interview with the closer hospital HR dept. tomorrow.

What's neat is that if you are just PRN and not a full-time employee you can work two locations so you can be sure to work enough hours - so I'm sure that's what I'll start off doing.

Whew!! I'm so relived to know I'll be working soon! I've got orientation for downtown the 13th and 14th. Not too far off.

This also means I get reimbursed for my tuition, which was $780. That'll pay off my credit card from Christmas!

Pets

Do you ever stop and look at your pets and think that it really is just a little weird to have these animals living in your house? It's maybe not so weird that we take them in, but the cool part is that they become attached to us. I guess it's that idea that I can't be all bad if my cat comes and spends the afternoon in my lap while I'm watching tv.

Don't Know

I don't know how to be the person I want to be, or to have the life I want to have. Trust me, I've spent countless days trying to figure either one out and am still at a loss.

Just one example of not being the person I want to be - I've had just over two years with nothing in particular to do. You'd think I'd at least find the will power, self discipline, whatever, to get my fat ass in shape. But no. Not at all. How lame is that?

I've realized that if I were as ambitious as I am smart the world would be mine. But I evidently don't have an ambitious bone in my body. Which would be fine, if I didn't have this voice telling me all the time how I'm wasting my life.

It's two years until I turn 40. I'm really hoping to get my shit together in those two years so that 40 doesn't turn out to be another 30 - where I changed everything that could possibly be changed. Because that was exhausting and took about six or seven years to recover.

Ohhh

The way all the Olympic commentators get more and more excited as an athlete goes through their sport, I swear I keep waiting to hear just one of them say "Oohhh, I just came a little in my pants."

Hehehehehe

Hide your stuff.

Nothing Going On

Not much happening really. I'm still waiting to hear back from the three outpatient clinics associated with the hospital I did the vampire program at. Maybe I'll actually have some good news soon.

In the meantime, just watching the Olympics and AI and such.

Heh

Don't know or care what the point is... this is fun to watch!

Go Read

Nerdstar's got a really good entry up, finally.

It really is stunning to me just how hard it is to make friends.

I confess

Ok Holly, I confess, I've been watching all of the American women's curling matches. Their loss to Sweden really upset me, it was so sad and unfair!

Bleh

I'm about to go absolutely nuts! I haven't heard a single word on getting an actual job at the hospital I did the vampire program at. I've sent out a couple of emails and haven't gotten any replies. I've looked online at other hospitals and such in the area, and haven't seen anything out there. UGH!

I'm trying to keep my insanity to a minimum, but it gets harder every day. Two weeks ago I was so optimistic about work and life and such, and it's all drained out of me.

Anyway, that's why the posts are all about tv and the internet - that's what my life consists of these days.

Oh, and Nerdstar did really well on all of her interview stuff in SF, but it was a no-go for her as well. We don't think the pay would have been sufficient to live there anyway.

Cool

This is a cool website dedicated to looking at last place finishers at the Olympics and just what it takes to get to participate in the games. Go check it out!

This is the post explaining the site and methods and such.

TV Tonight

Just a few thoughts.

Paula really is a little creepy in making the googly eyes at the young boys. Would anyone find it amusing if a male judge were looking at young female contestants that way?

I love House. I love that there's a completely flawed hero in a medical drama. I love that they had the balls to show a hooker he hired showing up and him basically telling her to shut up and get on with it.

The other day, Throwing Things asked if Boston Legal had "gotten to message-y?" Until tonight I would have said no. I'm not saying I won't watch the show anymore... but it's not on my "must see" list anymore. I don't mind tv shows being liberally bent. I sometimes like the lone conservative voice on such shows, especially ones as charming as Denny Crane has ended up being. But tonight just seemed over handed. It was a total attack on private institutions.

Part of my contradictory conservative self is a very deep belief in the right of private institutions to do whatever they damn well please. Yes, the Boy Scouts can ban gay boys, Catholic hospitals can refuse certain kinds of treatments, country clubs can discriminate against whomever they desire, etc. - as long as there is no government money funding them. That's the beauty of this country, freedom of choice. If you don't find what you're looking for - start it yourself.

International TVs

Having said that, I tend not to miss American TV in the same way I miss UK TV, and so as soon as I had the Slingbox set up I started fantasising about setting up a TIVO-equivalent and a Slingbox in the house of someone in the UK with broadband who wouldn't mind a small heap of electronics in the corner; and then I began wondering how long it would be before someone filled warehouses around the world with cheap hard disks and slingbox-like gadgets and allowed you to subscribe to whatever TV you wanted from wherever in the world...

Somehow, I don't think that day is very far away.

You can currently get, from some cable providers in some places, a few international channels, they tend to be more expensive than even HBO or Showtime. I know Nerdstar and I would like to have channels from a lot of different countries.

I was thinking during the opening ceremonies that it would be cool to watch the broadcast of them from other countries.

This and That

We had a decent weekend. We went and got haircuts Saturday at a nice little salon downtown in the Hallmark Crown Plaza. The plaza itself isn't anything to write home about, but watching the tourists was kinda fun. Not as fun as the zoo, but along the same lines.

Yesterday Nerdstar flew to S.F. for her interview to be a postal inspector. I'm so glad she's getting another chance at this, even if it doesn't work out in the end.

I had thought about going to S.F. with her for a Valentine's weekend, but decided against spending the money. If it was a city I hadn't been to before, I might have been more tempted. She's also going to be very busy. It's not really an interview per se, it's five or so different types of tests and role playing and such. It lasts all day and if she passes it, she has to do a polygraph tomorrow.

The hotel she's in sounds nice, and she only had to walk a mile or so to get some dinner in Chinatown.

Me, well, I'm back to being bored out of my skull and a little on the down side.

On the bright side, I just received some very beautiful roses from my Nerdstar for Valentine's. Awwww!

30 Days Show

Just One Bite writes about watching a couple of episodes of Morgan Spurlock's series 30 Days. I'd caught the one she writes about a few months ago and couldn't sit through the whole thing. She has some interesting thoughts about it all.

The one we caught last night was about a white, Christian guy from West Virginia going to live with a Muslim family in the Detroit area and living as a Muslim for 30 days. It wasn't too badly done. But one thing that really irritates me about such shows is that they only use the most extreme footage. I'm sure they talk to dozens of people that don't end up being used in the final cut - no, shows like this always have to use the "most dramatic" footage, which means it's not really real. I'd be much more willing to listen to whatever message their preaching if they would include the moderate voices.

Also, where's the show about the Muslim going to West Virginia to live as a Christian for 30 days?? I suspect we won't see that anytime soon. Which is another reason shows like this just don't impress me or win me over to whatever viewpoint they want to get across.

Must Read

I haven't written about the current cartoon mess because, well, it took me a while to realize it was serious. I know it's not really about cartoons, but still, to even say it is just renders me baffled.

Anyway. This article is the best I've read about it all.

I Love Bob

It was while watching the Olympic Games opening ceremonies about ten years ago that I first fell in love with Bob. He's been my top male crush ever since.

Tonight's opening ceremony remarks weren't as fun or quippy or whatever, but he did manage to note the crazy American disco music that accompanied the althetes as they came into the stadium.

Brain Williams is a boring robot - that's all I'm sayin.

I love the Olympics. I love the stories of the last place finishers more than the winners. I love the ideals of it all.

I also think the commercials shown during the Olympics are usually better than the ones shown during the Super Bowl.

I love that the Olympic Village is where "the world comes together."

The Book of Daniel

What is it with really good tv shows getting cancelled? At least this time it wasn't Fox following their famous trend.

The Book of Daniel didn't wow me at first, but it certainly grew on me, in the short amount of time it had. It has to have one of the strongest casts I've seen. I guess it was one of those shows that managed to offend everyone. The christians wouldn't watch it because of the gay characters, the gays wouldn't watch it because of the religous stuff, and so on. Which is stupid.

One of the things I heard when I used to go to church that has always stayed with me is the sentence - if you can be offended, you will be offended. It goes through my mind all the time these days.

On NBC.com they got smart and decided to make available the un-aired episodes. The one this week is really, really good.

Daniel - "Why did my son have to die?"

Jesus - "It's the wrong question. Why did he have to live? Why did the universe demand his participation, Daniel? Look for that answer in everyone you know."

Check it out if you haven't!

Thank God

If you watch tv and don't read A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago, well, silly you!!

Without that site I would never have figured out that the actress playing Cassedy on Lost last night was the same one who plays Joanie on Deadwood, and I love Joanie on Deadwood.

I watched American Idol and Lost live and recorded the Grammy's. To get an idea of how much we thought the Grammy's sucked, it took us about 45 minutes to watch the 3 1/2 hour show. The best part of the whole broadcast was the cartoon dude from Gorrilaz in his undies.

Who?

Now that I've been sucked into the world of American Idol, I sometimes wonder while watching videos or listening to the radio, what artist that's currently popular would actually make it through the AI process?

Any ideas?

Bleh

I'm so very ready to have a job. Several people who went through the class I went through and ended up with jobs there said it could take three or four weeks. It's only day one of being back to not much to do and I'm bored! I did order some books that should be here soon.

The weekend was nice. Friday night we had one friend flake out on us, but another joined us for dinner. I was really tired but it was nice to go out.

Then Saturday one of my classmates' band was supposed to play at this jazz club downtown. I looked online for directions and saw that a different band was on the online schedule, hmmm. We decided to go anyway and see if the website was wrong. It wasn't. But a couple of other folks showed up and the music was nice.

Sunday we watched a cute little asian lesbian flick called Saving Face. Other than that we were just lazy bums all weekend - which was really nice!

Done

Today was our last day of vampire class. Yesterday was the final test, I got an 89, which is good enough. Today we just had half a day of more "sticks" and then the four of us went to lunch. The instructors and some of the folks we've been working with for the past four weeks got with us after lunch and had cake and we got our certificates. It was really nice.

I'm glad the four weeks is over. It was all a little more stressful than I thought it would be. I think a lot of it, though, is just pressure I put on myself. Not only do I find that I'm more competitive than I thought I was, I'm also harder on myself that I would have guessed. Again, it comes down to wanting to be good at something.

Now it's the waiting game for a job. Several people said it could take three or four weeks to get hired. I'm trying to stick with facilities associated with the hospital that does the program so I can get my tuition back. But, if in a couple of weeks I still haven't heard anything, I'll start applying with other facilities.

Bad Sign?

My nephew won't be five until the first of May. He's always liked older, pretty women. When he was two or three and we'd take him to the dog park or big park in Austin, we would always look around to find him chatting up some lady. It's mostly a good thing he's not a shy kid.

The other day Mom called and she asked Zach if he wanted to talk to me, he asked if Nerdstar was home and when she said no, he said, "Oh." and didn't talk to me. (That's twice he's done that.) So, tonight I had Nerdstar call him. When we first called he was out with my brother so they called back. My brother said the kid saw a girl of about fifteen in the line next to them and whispered to him, "she's pretty."

After the kid talked with both Nerdstar and I, I talked with Mom for a few minutes. She said they were watching Dancing with the Stars and the kid noticed the phone numbers on the screen and asked about them. Mom explained they were to vote on who would win. The kid asked, "Can you call and get a girl?" HUH??

Man, how young is too young to lock in his room till he's 21??

Novel Openings

I don't really have a memory for first lines, song lyrics, movie quotes, etc. I can barely tell you the title and author of any given book that I've read.

This is a nice list of the 100 best first lines in a novel. I'd say it isn't a very surprising list, though. I've only read six of the books on the list, and can't really say that reading these first lines makes me want to read more of them.

found over at Throwing Things.

I don't know about opening lines, but my favorite overall opening of a book will always be the start of Hitchhiker's Guide.

What's yours?