Monday, September 26, 2005

I'm being watched.

I went out for a lovely evening on Saturday to a wine-tasting dinner here in town. It was fabulous; good food (8 courses!), good wine, good people. By the time I came back to my apartment I was in a very pleasant state of mind, completely full, and a little brain-soggy.

Then I walked into my apartment building.

I unlocked the building’s front door, hopped down the few steps to my apartment, and stopped dead. There, in the middle of the hallway, was a witch.

It was a stuffed witch, maybe 4 feet tall, standing upright and clutching a broom. It was almost cute, but mostly ugly. It was in the middle of the hall, not next to anybody’s door, facing me. And it was looking at me.

It has these glass eyes – green orbs that probably light up if you plug the thing into the wall. But it was apparently not plugged in, so the eyes were not illuminated; yet strangely, they would catch the light from the hallway and reflect it back in such a way that it seemed as if they were moving, following me. The thing was standing between me and my door. I actually looked around to see if there was someone else in the hallway, laughing at this little joke. After all, this is SEPTEMBER. September, people, is not time for Halloween decorations. But there was no one, just me and the witch.

After a few moments, I laughed it off as premature decorating, and slowly walked past the thing, to my own apartment. I kept looking at it, sideways, until I had my door unlocked and was able to duck into my apartment. When the thing was out of sight, my brain-sogginess kicked back in, and I went to bed without another thought.

Sunday morning, I gathered up all my laundry and went about having a Sunday. With my laundry basket under one arm and my detergent in the other, I opened my front door and walked out into the hallway, toward the laundry room. As soon as I set foot in the hallway, I knew something was different. I looked over toward my neighbors’ door and saw that the witch from Saturday night had moved. It was no longer in the middle of the hallway, but off to the side, near the stairs. Facing me. Its eyes were catching the light again, and I went into the laundry room very quickly. On my way back into my apartment, I didn’t even look in that direction.

This morning I went out to get my mail. The witch has moved again. It’s now standing right next to my neighbors’ door, like a sentry or a gargoyle or something. This actually makes me feel better, because now I’m fairly sure that it really is just a Halloween decoration put out by my idiot neighbors, and not some haunted Stephen King prop. What I find strange is that I never see anyone move it, I just see that it has moved. And no matter where I enter the building (from the front door, or from my own apartment, on the opposite side of the building), it is always facing me. I don’t like this witch.

Inanimate objects should not make this nervous.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

How Elvis Felt When He Shot His Television

And so it goes. Another year, another Emmy Awards broadcast, another exercise in show-biz politics that is loosely based on actual merit, and more intent on glorifying the celebrity image. Of course I was drawn to the Sparkly like everyone else.

It is the guiltiest of pleasures, this celebrity self-love extravaganza that is simultaneously horrifying and irresistible. I told myself that the only reason I was going to watch this year was in support of my two favorite TV shows, House and Lost, and it was really just a passing interest anyway. I don’t really need an award to tell me those shows are good. As I watched the show, I found myself contemplating the absurdity of these awards that make "winners" and "losers" out of talented people, that reduce or enhance a person's worth according to how they dress or do their hair, who they're "wearing" and who they thank. I also found myself contemplating where on earth Halle Berry got that beautiful dress and how anyone could have told Patricia Arquette that her hair looked good that way, and I resigned myself to the hypocrisy.

Once I did that, I was able to open my heart to the Spader-hate. More on that later.

There were things I loved about the Emmy broadcast, but they were miserably outnumbered by the things I hated. It seems I was more invested in this than I thought.

The show started with a musical number that was so remarkable in its hideousness that I very nearly changed the channel and scrapped the whole thing altogether. Almost. But I really did want to see my shows get honored, so instead I just furrowed my brow hard enough to get a cramp.

The “Emmy Idol” thing was like watching a car wreck. It was obnoxious and bizarre, but strangely captivating. I know I’m not the only one who was stunned to see Donald Trump in overalls.

Ellen is a great host. She did the best she could with the material she had.

I loved all the nomination clips for the writers of a variety show, and the one from Conan O’Brien's team (along with his award presentation later) made me remember why he was (unknowingly) my boyfriend for years and years. Sadly, I left him earlier this year for my new late-night beau, Craig Ferguson, but it was a tragic and difficult breakup (as breakups usually are), and there will always be a warm space in my heart called the Cone Zone.

I feel bad for the presenters of the awards. At all other times in their lives, these actors are probably decent, respectable, smart people. But for 60-90 seconds they are transformed into stiff, unfunny puppets spouting what may be the worst jokes in the history of the television medium. That said, I did enjoy Zach Braff and Hugh Laurie presenting together; they performed a great delivery of a mediocre joke, and it is owed entirely to their good comedic timing. And my natural bias.

As the show progressed, it was clear that Emmy-voters got stuck in the same rut they find themselves in every year. Everybody Loves Raymond took home its umpteenth undeserved award. William Shatner stole another award, perhaps on sheer smugness, and while I like Tony Shalhoub, I didn’t know Monk was still on the radar. On the bright side, Lost took home two very deserved awards for Best Drama and Best Directing, and House nabbed the Best Writing award for the brilliant episode “Three Stories.”

Someone told me that Tony Shalhoub made a good crack to Ray Romano during his acceptance speech. I missed this, as my local CBS affiliate felt it was necessary to interrupt my hypocritical celebrity worship to tell me that we were having severe weather and we might all be torn to bits by a tornado with accompanying hail. I failed to see the importance and did not feel it justified the interruption. Luckily, they tuned me back in just in time to see the presentation of the Best Lead Actor in a Drama category, also known as How Elvis Felt When He Shot His Television. James Spader took home the statue, when it was appallingly clear to everyone in America (especially those in my household; population: 1) that the Emmy deserved to go to Hugh Laurie for his hilariously nuanced performance in House. I recognize that I may be a little bit biased, but the buzz for Laurie was good, and he was considered the deserving favorite by pretty much every critic, everywhere. Ever.

I’m disappointed at the overall Emmy experience, and I’m pretty sure I could have spent those 3 hours doing something productive with my life, like curing cancer or making some sort of human contact. Awards shows are never good. I know this, and so I’m making a resolution to avoid wasting my time on them over and over again.

Well, the Oscars will be different.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

My mother is usually right.

All my life I have gone through what my mother liked to call phases. When I stumble across something I like, I become…enthusiastic.

When I was in sixth grade, my class studied Egyptology for about 2 weeks, during which I decided I had been an Egyptian princess in a past life, and demanded to all there was to know about Egypt, ever. I researched tombs, customs, ancient artifacts; I even checked some books out of the library and taught myself how to read (and write!) hieroglyphics, all on my own time. One day, I got tired of Egypt.

When I was in high school, I played the flute. At first, I kind of sucked at it, which of course I saw as a challenge. I took countless private lessons, competed regionally, and took it very seriously. By the time graduation rolled around, I had gotten quite good, and very nearly decided to spend my life playing in a symphony. When it came time to choose a career path, I thought a great deal about it and realized…I was tired of the flute. I put the instrument down and never picked it back up.

I went off to college to study Graphic Design, with the idea in my head that I might consider Animation as a career. Two years into my Graphic Design program, I had a mid-college crisis. What I really wanted to do was Animate, and I was getting nowhere at this school. I took about 2 days to freak out, 2 weeks to research animation schools, and within the month, I had decided to transfer schools and move across the country. I spent the next 3 years studying animation, living it, breathing it, loving it. I graduated with my B.A., and then I sat down and looked around. And I realized, after all that…I had gotten tired of animation.

At about the time I tired of animation, I decided I wanted to be an illustrator. I abandoned animation, and worked tirelessly on new illustration pieces. I applied for jobs in the industry and got no bites. I got tired of illustration; now I wanted to be a photographer. I freelanced, I lusted after shiny new photography equipment, I freelanced some more. I started to tire. Now I wanted to be a graphic designer again, and set to work designing a portfolio.

It never stops. I’m constantly changing my mind, getting super-excited about something, and then changing my mind again. I may be sabotaging myself. I’m hoping that the small business I recently launched will curb my boredom a bit; it combines many different kinds of art that I love, so I hopefully I can keep my restless brain occupied with diverse projects. My client list seems to be growing, so keep your fingers crossed.

I’ve done my best not to think about the fact that I could have stayed in my original Graphic Design program in college, graduated a year earlier, gotten career help from the school, scored and internship, been offered a fantastic job, met the perfect man, gotten married and had 2.5 kids by now.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

It starts.

I'm not a blogger.

I don't even really know what a blogger does, or if there are a set of requirements one must satisfy before they can be called a blogger. Is blogging really a verb? Am I as behind-the-times with my blogging initiation as I was with cell phones (years ago)?

When I first began to see cell phones appearing in the hands of business professionals and wealthy twenty-somethings, I said to myself: "I will never own a cell phone." I thought they were presumptuous and unnecessary. I disliked the idea of being available 24 hours a day. I disliked the idea of appearing available 24 hours a day.

I went to college and began to notice an awful lot of students walking around campus with a phone to their ear. I felt superior - smug even. Surely, these people fancied themselves more important than they actually were, and their arrogance annoyed me. I chalked it up to egotism of youth.

Soon, it wasn't just college students...it was everyone! Teachers, students, housewives, (gasp!)children! We had entered a wireless wilderness, where if you didn't have a cell phone, you were simply unreachable. Cell phones had become one of the basic necessities, a requirement. I started to get used to the idea of being able to reach my family and friends at any time; if I could not hear their voice at a moment's notice, something was wrong. By the time I actually received (as a gift) my first cell phone, it was as if it had been there with me all along, waiting patiently for me to accept it into the family, like a stray cat that's been living in the garage for 6 months before it's finally allowed to come inside.

I do this sometimes. I resist something new on the grounds that I have been functioning perfectly well in my life thus far, and don't need to change. I often trick myself into believing that I am above such things. I invariably discover later that I am above very little, and nearly always find that I have once again taken myself too seriously.

My initial reaction to the idea of a blog was very similar to my initial reaction to the idea of a cell phone: who the hell do we think we are? How can we assume that anyone wants to read what we have to say? It was awhile before I realized that wasn't the point. The blog isn't about everyone else, it's about me and my voice. And if other people want to join me while I rant on the world, snark on my surroundings, meditate on my life, or make fun of someone else's, then...well, rock on.

Yeah, alright. I'm a blogger.