April 30

The last day of BEDA and my 40th birthday.

It's been the best birthday in recent years.

Of course, there was the Jon Hamm shoutout, which meant a lot to me. I had an epic chat with my friends last night/this morning, which was so much fun and much-needed. I had dinner tonight with my dad and sister, which was lovely. I got tons and tons of love on Twitter and Facebook that made me feel very appreciated and loved.

Oh, and today, this happened.



And this...



Can you imagine the fangirl heart attack I had? Probably not. Probably not.

So all my bullshit about how Wheezy Waiter hates me because I'm some ridiculous fangirl who stepped over some invisible line and went from being cool to being weird ... all of that is mostly probably just invented BS. I mean, it is possible that he thinks that, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to check my ridiculous fangirling from time to time, but still, the fact that he would follow me and do a birthday shoutout to me means a lot. Even as I type this, at 11:30 at night, his Twitter status remains the same. Sigh... Wheezy Waiter is a good guy. Period.

So now it's 11:37 and the last day of BEDA, and my sister asked me today whether I would keep blogging or not, and I honestly don't know. In some ways, it's been a helpful space to write stuff out and reflect on things and ask questions that I don't have to answer (or that don't necessarily have an answer), but it's also been a lot of racing at 11:45 to write a blog post and feeling bad because it's somehow inadequate or incomplete. So I don't know. Maybe I will blog once a week or so, since I like the space it offers, even if I haven't taken full advantage of that space this month.

I appreciate those of you who have read my blog. Sometimes I have felt that I've been writing this blog for myself, sometimes I have felt that I've been writing it for my sister (who I know reads it), and sometimes I have wondered who I'm writing it for. So thanks for reading it, whether you've ever commented or not.

Oh, and one final plug before BEDA ends. If you're not following @valerie2776 and @suchducks on Twitter, you need to go follow them right now. Turning the "grownup" age of 40 today makes me think about my own younger years (haha... I sound like I'm 80 when I'm typing that), and I wish I could have been as amazing as these two women are at their ages. They both rock immensely. I know that I see a lot of myself in them (well, let's face it, they love They Might Be Giants too), but I also see all this creativity and curiosity and cleverness in them that is so entirely and uniquely their own. So go follow them.

See you soon.

April 29

So I am a few hours away from my 40th birthday. It's gotten pretty festive already. Last night Theresa and Ryan took me out for a nice dinner at Rivoli, and today I've been getting lots of Facebook and Twitter love already. It's quite nice, really.

Now I have one cat passed out on my lap, one behind my shoulder, and it's a pretty chill night.

I actually don't have much to say. Tonight I have wasted all kinds of time on blip.fm, a site where you can blip/tweet songs that you like. I've blipped/tweeted more songs by guys than women so I was on there trying to find a suitable chick to blip, and I wasn't coming up with much. I ended up listening to lots of Rufus Wainwright. I love him.

Yesterday I got a scary email from the summer language program I am participating in. They wrote to say that they had faced big budget cuts so could now only take six of the 14 students they admitted. Luckily I am one of the six. I would have been hosed had that not been the case. They sent lots more specific information about traveling there, as well as visa forms and a housing questionnaire to fill out. It's all becoming more real by the second.

I haven't hung out with my internet peeps in a few days, and I'm missing them. I don't know if the novelty or appeal has somehow worn off, if they're busy killing zombies together instead (they all play some zombie-killing game on xbox or something), or if they're just super busy, like I am. Whatever the reason, I hope we'll have some time to hang soon.

Tomorrow will be largely a normal day for me -- lectures and sections (for which I'm still reading at the moment). Tomorrow night I'm having dinner with my dad and twin sister, and I'm looking forward to that.

So sorry this entry is so random. With just one day left in BEDA, this entry certainly lives up to the blog's title, no?

See you tomorrow.

April 28

It's going to be a random blog post today. Yay.

It's so cold here right now that I'm blasting the heat. It's almost May, and the heat is on. What the hell.

Yesterday on Twitter, Wheezy Waiter asked for suggestions for what to name his new Ford Fiesta, and then in the evening, he had a live BlogTV show while he made a BLT and talked to his family on Skype. When I got to the live show and said hi, he said hi to me, and then later he said a few times that he really liked the suggestion I had tweeted for the name of his Fiesta. I had suggested the name of Balki. Yes, Balki from Perfect Strangers. Wacky and memorable? It's perfect. Plus he talked about Perfect Strangers on his podcast The Zen Men. He has some other suggestions that he likes too, so I guess at some point, there will be a poll for us to vote in.

So why am I reporting all of this? I am reporting this, because our exchange made me feel less like a crazy creepy fangirl than most of my recent tweets and interactions with him have made me feel. It made me think about how much I work stuff up inside my head, and how much of what I invent and believe simply doesn't turn out to be true, especially when it involves my fears about other people's negative judgments about me. So the whole thing was a valuable reminder that maybe I don't appear to others the way I fear I might, even in my ridiculous fangirl states.

The next random thing I want to talk about is the kind of girl I am on the internet and the kind of girl I am not (besides fangirl of course).

Some of my new friends started a show on Sunday nights at 11 PM Pacific Time called Live From Hollywood. This past Sunday was their first official show, but they had one other sort of trial run show one night when I was up way way too late (or early). So three of them have a show in which they talk about movies, chicks, and tech geeky stuff. This past Sunday, only two of them were there (the third was delayed by work), and they got pretty drunk during the show. After the show was officially over, they came back on to hang out and chat informally with the people in the chatroom. All of the people in the chatroom were Twitter people.

Long story short, one of the girls in the chatroom (she's 28 so not a girl) ended up taking nude pictures of herself (or her boobs at least) and emailing these pictures to my friends, and even a few days later, I am still kinda creeped out by it.

Clearly, I don't have an issue befriending people on the internet. But there was something kind of sad about this girl, who had never chatted with us before, immediately serving herself up for the scrutiny of these drunk boys. (And yes, the drunk boy who suggested it was a douchebag for doing so.) I guess there are people who don't mind letting it all hang out, and who knows what myriad of factors motivate people to act like they do. But the whole thing felt very desperate to me -- like she felt that the only way to garner the attention or respect of these guys was to send these photos. But what kind of attention is that? Hell, the same drunk boy asked me for pictures too, but I just told him that he was wasted, to fuck off, that I'm not his puppet, and anyway, we're friends.

All insecurities about my body aside, I can't imagine I'd ever be the girl who would send photos of herself to total strangers. But then again, in what ways do I seek approval, attention, or respect? I didn't take a picture of my boobs or anything (not much to photograph there anyway, truth be told), but what tricks do I play, or how do I present myself? How much of myself am I showing, and what parts of myself do I minimize or downplay? I actually think I am largely myself with this group, but it got me thinking.

Finally, this weekend I'm going to see a musical written by Abby Simons, who is one of the artists on YouTube I love. Here's my favorite song of hers. Very short. I hope you'll give it a listen.



See you tomorrow. (Only two days of BEDA left... wow.)

April 27

So how did the Jon Hamm interview go yesterday?
Pretty fucking awesome.
None of my questions in the last post got asked,
but... well.... ummmm.... this happened.



I had such an out-of-body experience when this happened, I really didn't hear the rest of the interview.

It really meant a lot, sincerely.

April 26

Yep, I BEDA-failed again. Two times in just a few days. What the heck...

I logged on a few times yesterday to do a BEDA post but really and truly could think of nothing to say. School stress is at an all-time high for me at the moment, with only two weeks left for classes, paper-writing, grading, teaching, etcetera. I felt pretty consumed and paralyzed by that yesterday. My TiVo continues to fill up with shows, and I know that when I'm behind on my shows, my life is really out of whack.

Right now, as I type this, my upstairs neighbors are singing karaoke. It started with 'Like A Virgin,' then 'More than Words,' and while I haven't yet identified the current tune thumping away and being screeched along with, I'm sure it will hit me in no time.

Today, Jon Hamm is going to be on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show. 5 PM Pacific Time if you read this before then.

For me, as a devoted watcher of Mad Men, this is the most exciting guest they've had so far. Samm Levine from Freaks and Geeks and Christopher McQuarrie, the screenwriter of The Usual Suspects, were good guests for me too. Actually, all the guests have been good. The episode with Jim Gaffigan and Joe Mantegna probably still remains my favorite because of the quality of the conversations (and because Joe Mantegna says "Atta girl, Martha!").

I spent about an hour yesterday thinking of questions to submit for Jon Hamm. (Instead of blogging, I guess.) Here's what I have. (Please remember that because I need to tweet the questions, they need to be 140 characters or less. That's why some of them aren't as eloquent as I would like.)

-- You won a Golden Globe the year they weren’t on TV (writers strike). Who from your past & your present would you have thanked in your speech

-- What’s the funniest, most mortifying, or most awkward piece of fan mail or fan attention you have received?

-- How was the transition going from such a female-dominated show (The Division) into Mad Men, which centers so much around masculinity?

-- Can you talk a little about the challenges/delights of collaborating with Matt Weiner and the incredible ensemble cast you get to work with?

I know the last one is very very open-ended and vague but I wanted to incorporate Matt Weiner and the rest of the cast somehow into a question, and I couldn't think of one. I love Mad Men!

So the show starts in about three hours. I really need to read until then. This week in the seminar I'm taking, we are reading the professor's book, so I would love to come in super-prepared with some awesome questions. Perhaps I can devote the same energy to coming up with questions for that as I did for my Jon Hamm questions? I need to finish the book first.

I also need to eat something. Somehow it's all Old Mother Hubbard around my house. I have a lot of microwaveable mac and cheese, and a lot of microwaveable brown rice, and some tortellini, but other than that, I gots nothing, and none of that sounds good for lunch. So maybe I'll run out now for a food run and return with all kinds of junk food because that's what I inevitably buy when I am hungry. Hostess cupcakes, potato chips, all varieties of bread products... I like carbs. Yummm.

April 24

I'm stealing an idea from my friend Beau and using today's post to share my Wordle.

It's a graphic depiction of the top 200 words I use on Twitter (the bigger the word, the more I use it). Just by looking at, it's pretty easy to see what a fangirl I am on Twitter. Sigh... (You can click to make it bigger and check it out.)



It's Friday, and my tank is empty empty empty. Since running lots of errands earlier, I have been sitting pretty much like a sack of bones on the couch. Lots to do this weekend, and looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

Finally, tonight I am tremendously jealous of my sister, who is going to see David Wilcox in concert tonight. David is an amazing singer-songwriter, and I have been following his music and going to his concerts for about 15 years now. Here are a couple of his songs:

April 23

Jumping back on the BEDA bus after missing a day of blogging yesterday. (Oops.) Last night, I went to see a show, and while I made it home a few minutes before midnight, I just didn't have a blog post in me.

What show did I see? Those who follow me on Twitter already know, but here are the lyrics of my second favorite song in the show.

Hands touch, eyes meet.
Sudden silence, sudden heat.
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl.
He could be that boy.
But I'm not that girl.

Don't dream too far.
Don't lose sight of who you are.
Don't remember that rush of joy.
He could be that boy.
I'm not that girl.

Every so often, we long to steal
To the land of what might have been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in.

Blithe smile, lithe limb.
She who's winsome, she wins him.
Gold hair with a gentle curl.
That's the girl he chose
And heaven knows
I'm not that girl.

Don't wish, don't start.
Wishing only wounds the heart.
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl.
There's a girl I know.
He loves her so.
I'm not that girl.

I guess, after my post about my fears about people judging me by appearances below, it shouldn't be surprising why that song in particular would touch my heart, but it does, every single time.

Not as much as this song, though...



"Defying Gravity" is a song that can teach us all a great deal about trusting our instincts and taking leaps of all kinds.

So yeah, I'm into musical theatre.

My favorite musical theatre artist without a doubt is Stephen Sondheim. I pretty much love everything he has ever done in his lifetime, including Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Passion, and many many others. He's a genius. I was very honored by meeting him at a big birthday tribute to him at the Hollywood Bowl. I went up to him and just told him how pleased I was to be there to celebrate his life and his work. He's an amazing artist, and I know the world has been changed for him being in it.

My favorite non-Sondheim musicals from recent years are Avenue Q (one of my favorite musicals of all time, truth be told), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Wicked, but I love lots of older musicals too (Guys and Dolls, Pajama Game, many others).

I am just a dork for Broadway, I guess. And off-Broadway. And off-off-Broadway. Yay theatre!

April 21

Late, I know, but hopefully a little thoughtful.

What's the relationship between my online world/friends/priorities and real-life world/friends/priorities?

Lately, the relationship is a complicated one. Just in the last few days, I can see the ways in which my online life is starting to consume my offline life. I have real-life priorities and pressures and deadlines, so it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I would want to escape them with a little online activity. But in the past few days, I can see that my offline life is suffering because I'm wiling away so many hours online with my new friends. Of course, at the time, it feels like no time is passing at all. But then e-mails go unreplied to, pages remain unread, tests delayed and untaken, and things slip ever more behind.

I was thinking about trying to restore a little balance by perhaps taking a day completely off the internet. I wonder what that would look like. No Twitter, no Facebook, no emails, no Tokbox, no Ventrilo, no nothing. Of course, I'd probably lose the day completely back into television, which was my main form of escape before my recent immersion in all things internet, but maybe I could have a day sans-technology. I am sure I'd feel the whole expanse of time, instead of feeling the absence of it.

The other thing I was wondering about is what kind of person do I get to be online that I am not in my regular, offline life? Is that part of the appeal of my online life, of staying up until the wee wee wee hours with my new friends or checking Twitter a hundred times a day (or whatever)? Do I get to be a lighter, less serious, more frivolous person? Do I get to express parts of myself that I don't get to express in my offline life? When I'm online, do I get to have more fun or have more friends than I do in my regular offline life? Would I be more likely to spend less time online if I could somehow find more of the things I enjoy online or express more of what I express online in my offline life? And what expectations do I not have to live up to online that I might feel pressured to live up to in my offline life?

Isn't it fun to ask questions without having to answer them? I think so too.

April 20 (Part 2, after midnight)

Oh, and since this is a safe space for me to be a fangirl, check out what happened today during John Green's live show. Someone was asking John about the book One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I offered my opinion. Seven lines later or so, Wheezy Waiter offered his opinion. Check out the similarities. (Click the picture to make it larger.)


I sent this picture to him and asked if he was copying me, but he didn't reply. I honestly think he thinks I'm a weird fangirl, but maybe I'll save that neurosis for another post.

April 20

Why does it still make me cringe when people who I've met online see what I look like for the first time?

Today in Berkeley, it got up to 90-something degrees, I think. As a result, as I type this with my laptop blazing away on my lap, I'm all shiny and glistening from sweat, so I thought it might be a good time to revisit this question I raised (but didn't reflect on) in an earlier post, about why it still makes me cringe when people who I've met online see what I look like for the first time.

The honest answer is that probably, when I'm being totally honest with myself, I think I'm ugly.

And I guess I think that people actually seeing me after meeting me online will somehow blow my cover of being funny, clever, witty, thoughtful, caring, or whatever else they have come to believe about me. Somehow seeing that I'm a tall, dorky, bags-under-her-eyes, tall, bad-skin, pale, wears-no-makeup, tomboy will make them think things about me that they haven't thought before -- that I'm weird, that there's something wrong with me, that it makes sense I'm single, etcetera, etcetera -- that somehow my appearance and the impression that creates will overpower the things they thought about me before.

Throughout my life, I have gotten stared at a lot in public. Sometimes it is because I'm with my identical twin, so people do double takes when they see us together. But sometimes people just stare at me. I asked my dad once what was up with that, and he told me it was because I am "unusual looking." Unusual-looking. Hmmm.

When I say I'm ugly, or not attractive or not pretty, it's not said to elicit protests from the people I'm talking to. Just because I'm not classically beautiful doesn't mean that people won't find me attractive. I think it's entirely possible that once someone gets to know me, they will think that I'm the hottest thing ever, because of my looks combined with my sarcastic wit and keen intellect and other endearing qualities. It's just interesting to me that even nearing 40, I am so afraid of what power people will give to the way I look. And I'm aware that I fear that precisely because of the power that I give to it myself.

April 19

I have made some new friends lately.
They rock.
They make fun of me.
They look out for me.
They crack me up.
They say inappropriate stuff.
They laugh at my jokes.
They do what I say.
They make faces at me.
They keep me company.
They confuse me.
They say unexpected things.
They distract me.
They comfort me.
I love them already.
Even though that's a little weird.

April 18

I didn't go to Los Angeles so that I could refill my empty tank and have a productive day.

I slept in until mid-afternoon after a fun (but very late) night last night.

I have gotten a fair amount of stuff done today, but not as much as I'd hoped. But I have several more hours before I sleep, most likely, so I'll try to polish off the book I'm reading tonight.

I will be back with a proper and thoughtful blog post tomorrow when the tank is completely refilled and I'm not just inching forward on fumes.

Thanks for your patience.

April 17

I am supposed to be in Los Angeles right now.

Crap.

Today and tomorrow, there is a graduate student conference about Indonesia, and a week ago, even earlier this week, I had every intention of going. But as the week ground on, as my sleep-deprivation increased and as my workload grew larger, I became more and more resistant to the idea of going. But not resistant enough to just decide that I'm not going. Hell, even when I went to bed last night, I entertained the notion of hopping on a plane as soon as my sections were done today and arriving by the time the screening of the documentary was over. Well, I think it's over by now.

So what happened? A couple of things.

First, I just have a ton ton ton ton of work to do, and I only have a few weeks left to do it in. We are hurtling towards the end of the semester. There are only three more Mondays before I have to complete and do a presentation on a paper I don't even have a topic for yet (well, I had a topic but the more I read about it, the more I see it's already been done). And I still have a paper from LAST semester that I need to finish before the end of this one, which I've barely started (at least I have a topic). And I'm supposed to have a draft of one of my field statements done by the end of the semester (another 20 pages), and all of this is in addition to the regular work I have to continue to do (reading, language stuff) for my classes. It ain't pretty.

Of course, I tell myself, I could just work in L.A. In fact, plane rides are ideal for studying because there's no internet and no TVs to distract me (at least on Southwest). So I could just go down there, go to the second day of the conference, hang out at my friend's place, see his face at least, read and get work done, and eat a couple of times at my favorite LA restaurants.

Mmmm hmmm. There's just one other small matter. The cats.

Because my cats eat only wet food, I can't just take off and leave them for a couple of days without arranging for their care. This used to be considerably easier when my twin sister lived in Berkeley, and she could take of them for me. But now I'd have to arrange for a catsitter or a friend to come over and feed them a couple of times a day. And I haven't arranged that. And the longer I don't arrange it, the more impossible it becomes for me to go.

So what the heck... a whole post with filled with justifications for not going, and yet there is still a part of me that thinks I should go. So maybe I'll wake up at the crack of dawn and head down there and blog from L.A. tomorrow. But I suspect I won't.

The final reason is that I'm tired. I'm just worn out. Weary. I am three episodes behind on LOST, which shows how out of whack my priorities have been. I would love to just sleep in tomorrow and get to work after a solid night of sleep.

It would give me such peace to just make a decision. So should I be surprised that I'm denying myself that peace of mind? No, probably not. Old habits and all. Why be at peace by making a decision that otherwise I can torture myself over not making? You know, the old dog and new tricks thing.

I had a button once (or maybe it was a bumper sticker) that said "Indecision is the key to flexibility." HA.

In other random news, my friend Greg is making an offer on a townhouse today. To buy it. To own. I love my grown-up friends. My fingers are so tightly crossed for him, it's starting to cut off the circulation.

Oh, and as soon as Ashton hit 1,000,000 followers last night, it started bugging me that he's acting like he invented Twitter or something. Oprah is on Twitter now too. Maybe in another post, I can write about the celebrities who DON'T do Twitter right (like Ellen or Oprah so far) and those who do.

April 16

I know that embedding videos is kind of the lazy way of blogging, but this video is actually very important to me so I hope you watch it. It's a trailer for a film that I worked on with my mentor, Robert Lemelson, about the mass killings in Indonesia in 1965 that I plan to focus my research on as well.



The film is screening tomorrow in Los Angeles and at the Boston Film Festival in about a week.

It is such an important topic, and Professor Lemelson's work on this topic continues to inspire and inform my own interest in the topic. So I just wanted to share that.

In other, less significant news, somehow I hurt my back, and it's making me feel like an old lady. I am not sure if I twisted the wrong way while I was sleeping (it's amazing the contorted positions I wake up in, while my cats are happily ensconsed right next to me, perfectly comfortable), but all day today I have been having some pain in my leg and back, most intensely in my lower back. I'll be walking and then the pain comes, and it makes me lurch a little, which is only making it worse. I am trying to pay attention to my usually horrible posture, and I think I'm going to bed early tonight. Perhaps rest will help.

I logged onto YouTube today with great anticipation of the changes, and so far I can't say it's affected my experience very much. I was browsing around the shows they added, and I see they have the first four seasons of Beverly Hills 90210, as well as Party of Five, so it may be even more procrastinating potential than usual.

I got a little thrill when I went to a page about the beta profile pages they're testing, and I saw that in the image of the sample profile page with the new layout, the guy is subscribed to Cute With Chris (subscription box, top line, middle video). I think the new profile pages are kind of ugly but, hey, at least this guy's got taste.

In other random news, my neighbors are having some sort of party tonight, and they neglected to let me know (again). I live in a duplex where my neighbors have a three-bedroom apartment that's on top of my one-bedroom apartment, and it's an old Berkeley house where noise travels a lot. So maybe despite my desire to tuck into bed early, I will be up late after all. Actually, I'm always weary enough at this point in my week that I should have no trouble falling asleep.

I have been following with interest the Twitter race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to see who can get to one million Twitter followers first. I'm rooting for Ashton, not because of who he is as a person or anything (although I have nothing against him), but because I think it could provide a real message about the power of social media to challenge the main sources of information and news. I do think we're looking at a new frontier, and while I wish it were Joe Schmo (did I spell that right?) getting there first instead of a celebrity, because of what everyone will make that celebrity status mean, I am still excited that he's giving CNN a run for their money in a major way. It's been fun to follow. It should be decided soon, so we'll see what happens. Holding out hope he gets there first...

I think that's enough randomness for today. See you guys tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

April 15

I am working on taxes right now, and I can't make them come out right. It's frustrating. I am determined to kick their ass before the night is up.

For today's post, I would like to plug Mysti Mayhem. A few weeks ago, I attended a live show of hers on BlogTV, and she is a powerful performer. The video below is my favorite song she played in that show, but I highly encourage you to check out her YouTube channel for more. (Note: there is some explicit language at the tail end of this video).



There is a lot of buzz on YouTube right now about the major re-design that is hitting the website tomorrow. YouTube is going to feature sponsored content, and all the user-generated content that currently dominates the site will be relegated to a tab called "Videos" within the redesigned site.

There is a lot of doomsaying going on about this change (about the Hulu-fication of YouTube) and what this change will mean for the site's users, but I am holding my judgment to see what happens. I think the power of YouTube comes from its word-of-mouth, people sending each other links to funny videos and directing their friends to good YouTube artists, and I don't see how that will change with this redesign.

The artists on YouTube seem concerned about losing front-page features and the ratings systems (most discussed, most viewed, etcetera) that they feel brings them views, but I guess I've always felt that while those numbers are a nice boost or recognition, it's not like the core of the community finds videos that way. As I have written before, I have found some amazing artists, musicians, and filmmakers on YouTube, and I didn't find any of them from the Most Viewed, Most Discussed, or Top Rated pages, or because they had tons of subscribers.

We can't begrudge YouTube for wanting to make money. In fact, maybe by them making money, the site can continue for regular people to post and share their videos. If YouTube didn't make this change, who knows how long they'd be able to continue supporting the site. So I don't think the changes will necessarily kill YouTube, but we will see. I am sure I'll be posting about it in the days to come as I see and react to the changes.

April 14

I am taking Indonesian this semester, and I am totally failing in my ability to keep up with it.

Right now, I'm attempting to unhinge my brain and fit in a bunch of vocabulary and grammar that I don't yet know for a test I was supposed to take two weeks ago that I'm taking tomorrow. And there's another, new test tomorrow that I am totally unprepared for that I will have to take in another week's time. I am totally lucky that my professor is really understanding.

Hopefully my blog-readers will be equally understanding when you see another lame entry for today, because all I can think of is Indonesian grammar and vocabulary.

Tomorrow I'm going to write my blog entry earlier in the day when my brain is not so weary.

Thanks for your patience.

April 13

13 days of BEDA-ing.

I am not BEDA failing.
I am not BEDA failing.
I am not BEDA failing.

I am on the phone with a friend at the moment, who is freaking out, and guess what, even at 17 minutes before midnight, that is more important than BEDAing.

Tomorrow I will use my blog post to finally reflect on the relationship between my online life and my real life life, because it's come up a lot in the past few days, including at this moment, when I only have 17 minutes left to BEDA, and my friend is freaking out.

See you tomorrow.

April 12

Do you watch Flight of the Conchords?

Of course you do.

Do you know the character Mel?

Of course you do.

Today someone cool said I'm that their Mel. And they clarified that they meant it as a compliment.

My life is complete.

April 11

A good day of golf, some Thai food, and I thought I was ready for some blogging.

I've been trying to write this blog post for 30 minutes but it's all over the place, and some of it is too personal or makes me look too weird or too insecure, so I keep typing and deleting, typing and deleting, typing and deleting. Ah yes, self-censorship, hello my old friend.

So instead of writing big ol' paragraphs, I am just going to raise the questions I was trying to write about, and maybe I can try to answer them one by one in future posts.

-- What's the relationship between my online world/friends/priorities and real-life world/friends/priorities?

-- Why does it still make me cringe when people who I've met online see what I look like for the first time?

-- Why do I feel the need to censor my own support of people over whom I have fangirled just so they think I'm not too weird of a fangirl when it's probably already too late to revise their opinion? (And why do I think they even think that I'm that weird of a fangirl to begin with? And why the f&#@ does it even matter to me what they think of me?) (this question inspired by one of my most favorite YouTubers following one of my most favorite nerdfighters on Twitter this week)

-- What do you do when you see a side of a friend that you really don't like but they're your friend so therefore you don't want to judge them harshly but it really rubbed you the wrong way and made you see them in a new light which made you kind of sad because it's like you lost a way of seeing them?

-- Why do I not give myself as much credit or attention for all the positive things about me as I do for all the negative (or perceived negative) things? It is getting old.

These are the questions circling around my noggin and that I thought I might write about today but I just am not in the headspace to do it. Oh well. The next right thing is not to beat myself up about that, so beat myself up I shall not.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekends.

April 10

I usually barely make it to Fridays, and today I've barely made it to blogging (although I appreciate the reminder text I got a few minutes ago from my twin sister that I only had 22 minutes left to blog).

This week has been quite exhausting emotionally. I'm happy that it has reached its end. I've learned valuable lessons and gained new insight into other people and myself, so it will probably all be for the best, but I'm looking forward to hitting the sack tonight and waking up to a brand new day tomorrow.

Plus tomorrow is the Masters, which means that my dad will come over at some point, we'll crack open a new bag of Lays potato chips and watch golf.

Golf is the ideal sport for me to watch after a week like this. Seriously. A sport in which staying focused on the present, not the past, not the future, is absolutely critical. A golfer might completely mess up on one hole - the ball might go into the trees, into the lake, into every bunker on the course, and despite all that, the golfer has to focus on the goal - getting the ball in the friggin' hole.

And when they stand at the tee on the next hole, they can't be playing over all the mistakes they made and beating themselves up with all the could-have-beens. Nor can they be forecasting all the possible perils ahead. They have to focus on the present, on the task at hand.

So this weekend, I too will try to stay present to the task at hand. The next right thing. And when I start stressing about the papers that remain incomplete, the readings not yet finished, the vocabulary not yet learned, the grammar not yet mastered, the emails not yet replied to, the taxes not yet filed, I will just try to refocus on the present. And I'll try to do the next right thing.

So at this present moment, I am grateful that you're reading this blog. And I am clicking "Publish Post."

April 9

The weekend is almost here. I am ready for it to come.

Here's the beginning of an ACTUAL phone conversation I had today.

Guy: Hello?
Me: Hi, [name redacted], it's me Martha.
Guy: Who is this?
Me: Martha
Guy: Who?
Me: Martha
Guy: [Long pause]
Me: From [professor's name]'s class <----- we have taken two seminars together with this professor
Guy: Oh yeah, hi!
Me: Hi. I hope you don't mind me calling.
Guy: No. Hey, how did you get my number, by the way?
Me: You gave it to me.
Guy: [stunned silence]
Me: In December
Guy: Oh, okay. Yeah, I was just wondering if my information was out there somewhere.

OH. MY. GOD. Mortified. Totally mortified. It could not have been more awkward.

This is why I don't like calling people. Well, one of the reasons. I am much, much more a technological communicator (emails, texts, Twitter), but I really wanted this guy's advice, the matter was time-sensitive. After the initial awkwardness, he couldn't have been more gracious and helpful, but oh my god. Just kill me.

Partly based on this guy's advice, I made my final decision about the summer language program I'll attend this summer, and I'm going to be in Yogyakarta, Indonesia for ten weeks. I am really excited, nervous, and anticipating (I know that's not an adjective, but I'm excited, cut me some slack.)

In other news, I hate ants, and I am sort of addicted to Twitter. I did get pretty intoxicated the other night and drunk DMed a little on Twitter, which wasn't wise, because now some people who thought I was alright before probably think I'm crazy (even though I'm not). By the way, have you noticed how SAYING you're NOT crazy only makes you seem MORE crazy? This cannot be escaped, but I feel the need to say it anyway, which means that now you think I'm crazy, don't you? DON'T YOU??

And finally, for today's entry, since you were patient with my near-fail yesterday (or even if you weren't), here's a poem. It's the only poem I know by heart in its entirety. I hope you enjoy:

This Be The Verse
by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old time hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man,
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

April 8

I cannot do this today.
If Maureen Johnson is to be believed, and there is something to write about every day, let me write that I cannot do this today.
I could describe my incapacity in all kinds of ways but I'll just leave it at that.
I'll see you guys tomorrow.

April 7

Writing a blog while the sun is still up. Crazy.

Today was even worse than yesterday, if that is possible. I had a wonderful talk with my sister about it, as I drove her to the airport, and the conversation really helped me put in perspective what is so jacked right now, but at this moment, I just want to get shitfaced. And I don't drink that often. So the desire to get completely drunk must be the desire to numb out, fuzz out, warm up, and just let go.

My friend Theresa, who passed her oral exams yesterday (the last major hurdle before doing fieldwork), is having a celebration at karaoke night tonight, but I kind of don't want to be around people. Maybe I'll go. Not sure. I don't have to decide for a little while.

My favorite beers are Pilsner Urquell and Heineken.

Today I got some good news about a language program I applied for in Indonesia this summer. I got into the program I really want to attend, so I am stoked. As soon as I found out, of course, I started wondering about internet access there. Gots to have my internetz.... :-)

Tomorrow, depending on how my day goes, I might write my Slumdog Millionaire post, because I'd like to write about it and why it shouldn't have won the Oscar. So stay tuned for that.

I have been checking out a bunch of VEDAs. Some are better than others. Some well-subscribed ones are not that great, and some of the ones that aren't getting any views are pretty good. Here's one that I think should be getting more views. This guy is no John Green but at least he's got something to say in all his vlogs so far (which is more than I can say about some other vloggers), and I think we should encourage him!!

Senor Squeaky Desk's YouTube channel and VEDA vlogs

Thanks for supporting the VEDA-ers by subscribing, watching, rating, and commenting!

April 6

I had a crappy day.

Last night was great (even though I paid a high price for it today), filled with laughter and conversation with new friends (I think I might have gotten engaged even). This was followed by a pretty crappy day, salvaged by a lovely dinner with friends that inevitably turned kind of dark but was still wonderful.

I really don't want to be blogging right now.

Top Ten Things I Would Rather Be Doing Than Blogging

1. Looking at the ocean
2. Sleeping
3. Taking a shower
4. Chatting with friends
5. Catching up on YouTube videos
6. Blasting my favorite song
7. Falling in love
8. Magically transmitting all the Indonesian vocabulary and grammar I need to memorize into my brain with no effort
9. Making someone laugh
10. Releasing myself from all the expectations and judgments I put on myself (letting myself off the hook)

There are things I've typed in this entry that I've deleted -- things that I don't feel safe or confident enough to reveal about myself. I find that process of censorship interesting, since it's the first time it's happened. What judgments am I afraid of? Not many of my real-life friends even know I've started this blog. So why wouldn't I just go there? I don't know. Maybe I can use my exhaustion and frustration as some excuse for my reticence (I didn't really sleep last night), but rather than trying to justify it or explain it, maybe I can just notice it instead. Notice it and say hmmm. Hmmm.

I had a great and thougtful conversation this morning all about the internet and sociality, networks, and community on the internet. It's interesting when and how one finds it, and when and how one feels the absence of it. Thoughts for another day.

Good night.

April 5th: A Sunday plug

Kevin Pollak has a chat show on the internet. It is on at 5 PM Pacific Time on Sundays, and it is awesome. I want to recommend it to everyone. Here's the link to learn more (and watch the show on Sundays):

Kevin Pollak's Chat Show

You can also subscribe to it through iTunes. There's a podcast of the show. But watching it live is where it's at. So to speak.

If you follow me on Twitter, and you don't have your @replies turned off, you can see that on Sundays, I often tweet @kevinpollak several questions to ask his guests. (I have had a question asked on the show every week so far.) When Joe Mantegna heard my question about his wife's restaurant, he said "Atta girl, Martha!" I'm seriously considering making it my ringtone.

The show has had great guests so far (Levar Burton, Samm Levine, Jim Gaffigan, Joe Mantegna, Jason Antoon, and Elon Musk), and there are more great guests coming up. Kevin is a warm, gracious, and thoughtful host, always eager to keep the audience involved. The show is very interactive, and the chat during the show is just as entertaining as the show itself. I've already made some good friends in there.

I'm glad I had this to talk about today, since I haven't done much else today, despite the mountain of reading ahead of me before tomorrow's seminar. I'm still smiling from Kevin Pollak's Chat Show earlier tonight and from chatting with fellow KPCSers afterwards.

In tonight's show, Jason Antoon had a hilarious segment, and even Elon Musk surprised me. After talking about cars for a long time (zzzzzzz), Elon Musk opened up in an honest and vulnerable way that both surprised and delighted me. His eagerness and willingness to address some of the rumors that have been circulating about his private life reflect how much of a safe space Kevin creates for his guests. I have always known Kevin Pollak to be a talented comedian and actor (The Usual Suspects is one of my all-time favorite movies after all), but I am seeing a whole new side of him in this talk show format. His thoughtful, sensitive, and always quick-witted attention to his guests is making for very memorable conversations indeed.

Are you getting the impression that I want you to check it out? Yes, yes I do. There are so many talented people involved in putting the show together every week, and their hard work is definitely paying off. Big time.

April 4th

This is what I'm eating right now.



Ummm, here is the TV show I'm about to watch (a few days late, I know) to reward myself for the work I didn't quite get done today.



Wait, I am talking about me again. Oh crap. Is it possible to write a blog post NOT about oneself? (I certainly wouldn't know at this point.) Even if I try talking about musicians and writers and artists that I love, aren't I still kind of talking about myself because it's my respect for them that I'm going on and on about, although ultimately it's not? Oh screw it. It's almost 11, and I want to watch LOST. I'll wrestle with my fixation on myself tomorrow.

Ten random facts about me:

1. I have weird ear canals. It's true. That's actually a direct quote from a doctor ("you have weird ear canals").
2. I am an identical twin. My twin sister Julie was born four minutes before me.
3. I have an irrational fear of raccoons. I hate them.
4. I write Dr. Seuss-like poems a lot for people's birthdays or when I'm crushed out on them. It's a talent.
5. Fenster had a sister, Lulu, who was hit by a car, and it's the worst loss I've ever experienced to this point in my life.
6. I love penguins and collect a lot of penguin stuff (magnets, stuffed animals, calendars, martini shakers).
7. I have a deformed fourth toe on my right foot where the toenail grows the wrong way. (Random, right? The blog lives up to its name!)
8. My favorite pen is the Paper Mate Flair, medium point, black. I write with nothing else (if I can help it).
9. I have no sense of smell. I was born without one.
10. I have $34 in my wallet right now.

Here's some awesomeness for your Saturday night. I love Julia Nunes so much, as do most of you other BEDA-ers, I know. I also like sad songs.



I'll try to do better on this blog tomorrow. It's 11:42. I gotta post this.

Day 3: April 3

Wow, exhaustion makes motivation for BEDA harder than I thought, but I shall press on.

So to continue the introduction from yesterday, I am also...

...a TV junkie
I watch a lot of TV. Some good. Some not so good.
Of shows currently airing, I watch The Amazing Race, Brothers and Sisters, How I Met Your Mother, Real Housewives of New York City, 90210, Make Me A Supermodel, America's Next Top Model, Lost, Millionaire Matchmaker, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, and 30 Rock. I usually watch 24 but missed lots of episodes at the beginning of this season so I am not watching it yet this season. My favorite shows are probably Lost and The Office (Rainn Wilson, I love you. Call me!)
Shows not currently airing that I watch include Project Runway (not sure how it's going to be on Lifetime - yipe), Top Chef, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Big Brother, Entourage, and Mad Men (Jon Hamm, I love you. Call me!)
My favorite TV show of all time is Freaks and Geeks. If you haven't seen it, please please please go rent it buy it watch it. (Paul Feig, I love you. Call me!) I also have incredibly soft spots for The Wire, The Sopranos, the first few seasons of Battlestar Galactica (don't talk to me about the finale... I just can't right now), and My So-Called Life.

... a film nut
Someone once asked me to make a list of the classic films they should see. I think they expected a list of ten films or so, and instead they got a five-page list with two columns on every page. Maybe I'll hunt it down for BEDA. My boss at the time looked at it and said it was hard to take seriously a list of classic films that begins with "Airplane!" but the list was alphabetical, and I totally stand behind that. It is a classic!
It's impossible impossible impossible for me to pick a single film as my favorite, but when people pressure me to pick just one, I usually say Annie Hall. Among my other most favorite films that spring to mind at the moment are My Life as a Dog, The Sweet Hereafter, The Third Man, The Usual Suspects, Casablanca (Bogey, I love you. Call me! Oh, wait.), The Night of the Hunter, The Sweet Smell of Success, Sunrise, Hoop Dreams. I do like a lot of old/classic films, as you can tell from my list, but I also appreciate newer films, when they're good. And I insanely love documentaries.
My favorite films from 2008 were probably The Dark Knight, Burn After Reading, The Visitor, and Happy-Go-Lucky (ENRAHA!). It was a weak year for films.
For years and years, I wanted to be a film critic when I grew up (the reference to Gene Siskel in my last post was not incidental), so I would love to use this blog to write about the films I see in April.

...a voracious reader
Duh. Actually, reading for school pretty much wipes me out for lots of other kinds of reading, but when I do return to reading just for fun, it is such an intense pleasure, I swear I will do it daily, and then I do and then I trail off again. My favorite book of all time (what is it with me and favorites?) is Enduring Love by Ian McEwan. Other favorites that spring to mind include The Little Prince, All the King's Men, Playland, Confederacy of Dunces, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and ANY Patricia Highsmith book. What haven't I read? The Harry Potter series. (I know, I know.) Over winter break, I read the first Harry Potter book, and I enjoyed it, but I just haven't gotten totally on board yet with reading the whole series. I also haven't read Twilight, but I know that is a much more recent phenomenon and less powerful that the Potter fandom.

...a crazy cat lady?
Naaaaah. I do have two cats, and I am almost 40, but I don't think I've achieved crazy cat lady status just yet. My cats' names are Fenster and Bella. Fenster was named after Benicio del Toro's mumbling character in The Usual Suspects. I'm sure I'll mention them from time to time. Maybe. Well, actually, probably not, but at least they give me something to write about here. Ooooh, maybe I'll show their pictures too. Actually, posting pictures to my blog of my cats will probably solidify my crazy cat lady status once and for all, but so be it. [Pictures redacted.] Actually, never mind. I can't do it. I pasted in the pictures, previewed the page, and I can't be that person yet. Not the person who posts pictures of her cats on her brand-new blog. Not on the 3rd of the month. Let's wait until I get desperate. Oh believe me, it'll happen.

Okay, I am now officially sick of talking about myself. I know I didn't even get to music yet but all I really need to say there is They Might Be Giants. So now that I've introduced myself, I will look forward to blogging tomorrow about something OTHER than me. Hopefully.

April 2nd, a proper introduction?

So what the heck is BEDA, you might be asking yourselves (especially if you're my Twitter peeps or real-life friends who don't self-identify as nerdfighters).

BEDA is Blog Every Day April, a ... ummm... an .... I don't know what to call it... a movement created by young-adult author Maureen Johnson for people to blog every day in April. She's blogging daily herself. You can visit her blog by clicking right here. Maureen's latest book, Suite Scarlett is being released in paperback on May 1st. (Click the title to order it now.) So yeah, hundreds of people from the internet and YouTube have jumped on the bandwagon and are blogging daily. I think it's a cool thing she's doing, encouraging people to write daily, to express themselves, to be creative, and so on. So I'm happy to jump on board. Of course, it's only the 2nd. Ask me on the 17th. Or the 22nd.

So who am I? If you're not one of my real-life friends, you probably don't know. So I shall use this blog post to introduce myself.

In no particular order, I am.....

...a splicegrrl?
My username on YouTube is splicegrrl, which confuses people who know me by martha_s on Twitter, BlogTV, KPCS, and DailyBooth. My name is splicegrrl on YouTube because in my earlier career, before returning to school, I worked to preserve and restore old movies. I still do the work from time to time. I'll write about it more in a future post, because I'm passionate about film preservation and proud of the work I did in that field for a decade, even though I don't want to do it anymore. So my YouTube username is 'splice' (as in edit) 'grrl' (as in girl). It mortifies me when people misread it and think I'm a fan of the Spice Girls. It happens more than you might think.

...a YouTube addict
Yep, for reals. I'm one of those YouTube users where if I want to watch one video of someone, I feel like I have to go back and watch them all. A purist, I guess. Just in the last few months, I have finally done marathons of Toddly00 (and Toddiy00 and other associated Toddly channels), fiveawesomegirls, songsfromahat, and more that I can't remember. I appreciate that YouTube has become way more than a procrastination place for me. I'm really pleased to have found such talented musicians, artists, writers, and so on there. I'm sure I'll be plugging my favorite YouTubers here from time to time, which actually leads beautifully into my next paragraph...

...a nerdfighter
If you don't know what this means, click here and start from the beginning. You'll be better for it, and I mean it.

...a ridiculous fangirl
It starts out with me just enjoying someone's videos or enjoying someone's work, and then eventually, I pass some fangirl threshold, some invisible line, where I realize that I have become a ridiculous fangirl. I can't help myself, and by the time I realize it, it's always too late. I wish I play it cool and detached and all blase, but it's nearly impossible for me. Instead, I'm enthusiastic, glowing, even gushing. I think that kind of freaks people out. (Or at least it's my hang-up that it freaks people out.) When Gene Siskel died (how many of you remember him?), I swore to myself that I would from then on express my appreciation to people whose work I admire, if the opportunity presented itself. And in this day of YouTube comments, blogs, and Twitter, the opportunity is right there, so who I am I not to seize it? Maybe I just seize it a little too hard. I have fangirled over many, but right now, I'm fangirling fairly ridiculously over Wheezy Waiter and Cute With Chris, who are both so talented, it actually makes me sick. You will hear about them both a lot here, I'm sure, so please indulge me.

...a budding anthropologist
I'm a graduate student. I'm getting my Ph.D in Medical Anthropology. I study the anthropology of genocide. More specifically, I'm studying a wave of mass killings that took place in Indonesia in 1965, during which half a million to a million people were killed over the course of just a few months in a purge of suspected Communists. After the killings, which were organized by the government but carried out by civilians against their neighbors and family members, any talk of the bloodbath was suppressed by the government. So people returned to their everyday lives, their normal routines, after their worlds had been transformed into total chaos. Many Indonesians lived side by side with neighbors who had murdered their family members. They weren't allowed to publicly discuss this period of their history until 1998, when Suharto fell. In my research, I'm exploring how the violence of that time emerges in daily life now, looking at the cultural effects of this genocide, looking at what "normal" resembled in the wake of these killings. I am finishing my third year of grad school now and plan to begin my dissertation research in Indonesia at some point during the next six months. And I'll be there for a long time for my research. It's all scary and exciting and anxiety-making, but also incredibly important work to me.

I'll do ...a tv junkie and ...a movie nut in future posts, because this has gotten quite long already, and I know many of you have many more blogs to read before you sleep. I know I do.

April 1, 2009 (17 minutes left)

As I begin typing this first entry, there are 17 minutes left in April 1, 2009.

Can you tell I'm a procrastinator? Yep, I am.

I am also resistant to joining things, but I thought that joining BEDA might actually give me a very cool snapshot of the month of April 2009 by the time I'm done with it. It will give me a place to talk about tv, film, music, and other randomness that I enjoy. And most importantly of all, it will give me a way to procrastinate on all the other work I have to do (which I'm doing at the moment as I type this).

Since I've only just decided to start this, I don't yet have a grand plan for the month, but maybe I can make lists in each post (like from High Fidelity) or do some countdown throughout the month (like of my top films -- actually that would be way longer than 30... I'm kind of a movie nut). I will think about it, and I'm definitely open to suggestions.

I hope to also use this space to reflect on some of the peculiarities of being an adult nerdfighter. When I found the nerdfighters, I felt like I'd found my people, so what does it feel like to be a couple decades older than the rest of them? Sometimes it feels a little odd.

One cool thing about using this space to reflect on age is that at the end of BEDA, it's my birthday. I'll be turning the big 4-0 on April 30th (the day Hitler committed suicide, by the way). I'm sure that will be a common thread in these posts as well.

Finally, I'd like to think through the idea of online community here. Like I said, I definitely think I've found it in some ways on the Ning, on YouTube, in the Kevin Pollak Chat Show chat, on Twitter, on Cute With Chris' blog.... but are there limits to that sense of community? What are its challenges and its rewards?

I like having the idea of a space to post randomness and nonsense, and as you can see, I'm already well on my way, if this first post is any indication.

So I better hit "Publish Post" before midnight. (It's 11:54 PM right now). Tomorrow I'll be back to introduce myself, and get this going for reals.