A Free Ticket To The Dark Theatre of My Mind

It figures...

2009-06-12T22:49:36Z

I am so disgusted right now!!!! Aggravated, annoyed and upset and any other synonyms for angry you can glean from a handy thesaurus. It doesn't help to get angry...and it's possible I may not even need to until I know for sure what the deal is, but at the moment...with no other information handy, I am also disheartened.

This Digital Transition is a kind of governmental bullying, forcing people who simply don't have the means to change over to digital at great expense. I know, because I'm one of those people.

I don't make a huge amount of cash, and with this economy, it's even worse. Now I have to buy a more powerful antenna, for $80 - $100, which may or may not work in my rural area, or subscribe to the monopoly of dish/cable stations in my area. Dish is $55 a month and Cable isn't much better! Their basic 'special' is $44.99 per month for 6 months. Then what, after six months the option is to up the price to...let me guess, $50 - $55!!!!!! And best of all, I don't even have it installed yet...which means what? Another $30 to hook it all up?

I don't have $80 for a new antenna. No way can I afford an extra $45 - $50 a month either. I need to pay actual living expenses here, put groceries on the table, and that extra money is just not covered in my budget!!!

Yeah.

Looks like I'm sh** out of luck.

Yeah.

The 10th Doctor Rocks!!!

2009-05-25T02:42:47Z

I just finished watching Doctor Who, series three on DVD. First impressions: David Tennant is phenomenal!!!! The man can express anything and everything, from pain, longing, and that far, far away expression you have no idea where he's gone, with just a pause, a glance...a wisp of a smile.

After the departure of Rose, which was traumatic enough, I did find myself very impressed with Martha Jones/Freema Agyeman as new companion. As a fan of this series for years you get attached to one doctor or companion and sometimes the change can feel like a loss of a good friend.... Rose's departure was something like that, too. She's alive and well in a different place with Mum and Dad, but there's so much longing left for the man she fell in love with (and by all accounts loved her in return), that you almost feel her anguish as if it were your own. But...things change and time moves on and in season three, there's a new girl in the neighborhood.

I like Martha. She's way intelligent, ready to chip in with real heart and kick butt attitude when needed, and she really stands on her own when it comes to keeping up with the Doctor's adventurous lifestyle.

All the episodes were fantastic! My special faves were The Runaway Bride, The Shakespeare Code, Gridlock, 42, Human Nature, The Family of Blood (the doctor falling in love as John Smith ---wonderful!), Blink, and the last three: Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last of the Time Lords.

Russell T. Davies and the rest of the fantastic producers and writers are geniuses!!!! This entire show absolutely rocks!!!

A friend of mine let me borrow this third season set so I'll be returning it soon. That's sad. Good news, I plan on buying it for myself within a couple of weeks which means I'll be able to watch them again and again!!!!!

Writer's Block: Space Wars

2009-05-20T18:55:39Z

Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity, Alien, 2001—there is a long list of movies and TV shows that take place in space. Which is your favorite?

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Wow, this is a tricky one 'cause I like so many... Yes, I am a sci-fi geek and proud of it! For a long time it was Star Trek until I was old enough to realize it was basically a man's fantasy and that although women's rights had come a long way baby, miniskirts and kissing Capt. Kirk still seemed a requirement. (I'm a spock fan myself.)

Now I'm all grown up, things have changed. Alien is good, but too creepy (and messy...ugly creatures gestating and then bursting out of someone's chest is way to icky). I'd have to say my true faves are a tie between Galaxy Quest (muppet aliens with a bad attitude and sexy squids that 'can' look human...neat!), and Babylon 5, totally. B5 always had that gritty texture Star Trek could have used and didn't always rely on technology to get them out of a jam (Garibaldi, security chief could use his fists as well as a gun.)

Oh and honorable mention: Stargate Atlantis. The technology is so cool, the sets amazing and even the bad guy Wraiths are sexy.

Writer's Block: Dream On

2009-05-15T15:13:58Z

Do you ever have recurring dreams? If so, are they good dreams or nightmares?

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I've had plenty of recurring dreams. Most of them involve flying...usually me flying over my neighborhood, just above the tree tops. And just as I'm about to wake, I feel myself dropping. It's great when I can catch myself and then try to fall back asleep and regain that feeling of flying again, but it never works. It is a great feeling, though. It's wonderful...so liberating, carefree. I've also had several awful nightmares that won't leave me alone. One in particular finds me in a huge house that at first I love being in, but soon I realize that although I can go up or down the many staircases, in and out of the various rooms (decorated in a myriad of styles), there are no doors to the outside anywhere. I get the feeling my subconscious must feel trapped in some way, eh?

Writer's Block: A Little Green

2009-03-17T18:56:35Z

Top o' the morning to you! Has anyone ever pinched you for not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day?

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Unfortunately yes, I was cruelly pinched on St. Patrick's Day when I was in middle school. I live in a small Michigan town and thought it happened mostly because there's so little excitement as a rule. The funny thing was I actually was wearing a blouse with green in the pattern, but since I was wearing a jacket over it at the time, my torturer didn't see it, nor took the time to wait for me to tell them "yes, I am technically wearing green ..do not even think about touching me you stupid moron!" Joke was on them, but I still suffered the pain. C'est la vie! Happy St. Paddy's Day ya'll.

Catching up

2009-03-16T18:42:03Z

I feel really guilty for not keeping up with my journal. Time to do something about that, says I (ha, ha). It seems there's been too much going on, most not all positive. That's not a reasonable excuse for neglecting my posts...it just is what it is. To get the boring stuff out of the way......if feels as if my old house is falling apart a little at a time. One thing goes and then another. Water pump, water heater, broken light switch, etc.... Yeesh, it gets depressing. Of course the worst part of it is that funds are so tight they squeak, so I'm trying to get by with what I can until the family budget gets better. Not exactly sure when that is going to happen!

At least the weather has begun to break. It feels as if it has been winter for years! Today is actually wonderful! Robins and Red-Winged Blackbirds are singing a chorus and the sun is out. Temperatures that used to be 20 degrees are now soaring to 50. Wow, that is a big deal. The snow is actally disappearing, and I really hadn't expected that to ever happen again. Sure a bit unrealistic, I agree, but when in the very middle of a deep freeze, it is difficult to see past the icy tundra outside the window. So, at least today is a good day.

Anyway, enough of the drolls of real life....now to the weirdness of within...

As for my story writing: I still haven't been able to concentrate long enough to finish a viable sentence. It is maddening! I don't want to be distracted, but it feels like my mind is unraveling sometimes. Too much junk just swirling around, disconnected. The things I need to need to do, want to do, along with a boatload of worries all jumbled up together. My kingdom for one rational thought.

Along with the distracted state-of-mind, there's this underlying feeling of hopelessness...like who cares? Why is anything I do important at all? Not helpful, to say the least. I'm trying to fight it, but I'm getting pretty exhausted.

Even with a tight financial budget I just had to purchase one thing just for me. One of my all-time favorite tv programmes is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that being said, I knew I needed some music from the series. So, I splurged a whole $6 on the CD, Radio Sunnydale with music from the series. I always loved the innovative concept Joss Whedon used to incorporate the music from independant artists and bands into the show. It gave his great writing and vision just that extra edge. My favorite songs off the album are key >>devics, Ballad for Dead Friends >>Dashboard Prophets, Blue>>Angie Hart, There's No Other Way>>Blur, Prayer Of Saint Francis>>Sarah McLachlan, and of course the Main Title theme (done by the breeders) and The Final Fight score. I LOVE this series and the music is awesome in its own right, but complements any fan's collection quite well.

Other than that I did manage to focus long enough to read a book by Peter Straub, and old story I've read before called Shadowland. It is quite a departure from much of his other work, not as creepy as Julia or as gory either, but definitely some psychological terror for the young magician in the story. I love the imagery and how the fairy tales told within weave well into the real problems facing the characters.

That reminds me, I'm terribly eager for the DVD release of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. I loved the book, and finished up New Moon a couple of months ago. It was one book that actually did hold my usually unfocused mind. I look forward to reading the next one, too.

I woke up this morning with a song running rampant through my brain. Have you ever had that happen? You go to sleep the night before not thinking of anything in particular, and by morning you've got music in your head? I don't know if it meant anything, you know, like my mind trying to tell me something deep and meaningful, but the song was It Ends Tonight by The All-American Rejects. It's something to think about, I suppose. Or not. Just one more thought added to the mix.

I do promise to be back here more often...not for anyone else, of course, but for me. I like this way of trying to clear the cobwebs from my mind. Perhaps if I do it more often, it will actually work and through the process I will eventually make sense of the madness. I have to have hope, don't I?

~ Au Revoir ~

Here I am again...for a second.

2008-11-20T01:53:23Z

I haven't been around to visit in a bit. I should have kept up with the journal, but been busy, and not with anything that great either. Mostly working to survive, getting the house here in the midwest winterized, keeping up with a project I'm not really thrilled with to earn extra coin, and most excitingly --- started an afghan for a friend's christmas present. The latter project is going quite well, even though I had to rip it out and start over four times. It's not at all easy being a perfectionist. This is how I fill my days. Yes, it is one thrill after another!

Winter seems to have come a teensy bit early here. Well, early is a relative term, since any time after July 4th could be considered the 'coming of winter,' around here. Oh sure, I was expecting it, but it still isn't particularly welcome. I hate the cold. And snow, although pretty when wafting to the earth in soft fluffy flakes leaving a pristine silent world behind, it's awful to try and travel through. I guess if I hate snow and cold so much I really shouldn't live in a place where that stuff happens.

Although I've tried unsucessfully over many years, I still think of myself as an aspiring writer. It is wishful thinking...or probably delusions of grandeur...but with the onset of winter and more time indoors, I've been going through some old discs, trying to resurrect an old story I started in college. *Sigh* It's not going very well. There are plenty of ideas, several dicey plots, a few uncertain storylines, but it is all so disorganized, I just can't seem to figure out how to put it all together so it makes sense. Perhaps I'm obsessing over the details way too much. I'm good at that.

Well, Pushing Daisies is almost done, and Criminal Minds on CBS begins in less than 10 minutes. Guess that's it for now.

serena_m07 @ 2008-09-30T19:21:00

2008-09-30T23:40:38Z

For some strange reason I've been having some concentration issues... I try to sit down to read a book and become instantly distracted to go do something, anything, else. And I found myself rereading paragraphs within the first chapter over and over unable to concentrate on what I'm reading. Maybe the real problem is the book choices I have aren't that interesting. A couple of them were mysteries I'd found at a yard sale. Now the last novel that absolutely held my attention from start to finish was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. J.K. Rowlings entire series was excellent. Love the movies too! So...yesterday I went rummaging through some old books in a box at the back of my closet and found a Peter Straub book, Floating Dragon. Hadn't read it in years and thought it might work to revisit it. Good news, at least so far anyway, I've made it well past the third chapter and can't wait to sit down and read more.