Note of the Living Deb

My sister asks, "What's a good prepping for middle/high school movie to watch with Alexandra? I've got old stuff like
10 Things I Hate About You
Breakfast Club
Mean Girls
Heathers
I need other ideas."

My answer is too long for Facebook, so here we are!

Hmm, are my favorite junior high/high school movies good for prepping? I'm not sure any are because they seem mostly unrealistic and have 20-somethings starring in them. Well, maybe "The Breakfast Club" is kind of realistic.

Okay, but I do have some favorites to tell you about:
* "Pump Up the Volume" - You never know what's behind someone's facade. Christian Slater's secret identity uses an ancient form of YouTube to encourage his classmates to be true to themselves.
* "Saved!" - Gal tries to do the right thing at her Christian high school, but it doesn't work out, so she questions everything. One gal explains why she dates the guy in the wheelchair: "I get him, and he gets me." I love that. One guy explains why he didn't call his girlfriend for help: "I don't want to be the guy who's with the girl because he needs her, I want to be the guy who's with the girl because he wants her." Also, Macauley Culkin briefly dances in his wheelchair.
* "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" - Four kids stuck in detention together end up fighting for their lives in a video game. Character development! Also, see Dwayne Johnson as a nerd and Jack Black as Bethany.
* "Dead Poets' Society" - Literature teacher teaches the value of poetry, inspiring his students to form their own poetry club. The teacher also challenges authority, inspiring his students to do the same. (Sadly, that generally doesn't work out well for them.) You may remember "This desk set wants to fly."
* "Carrie" - Girl with horrible mother is bullied at school, too, until one day she gets asked to the prom. Then it turns into a horror movie.
* "About a Boy" - Okay, it's more about the grown boy played by Hugh Grant, and most or all of it is set outside of school, but both he and a real boy who is bullied at school figure out life lessons.
* "Juno" - Gal gets pregnant and decides to put the baby up for adoption.
* "Moonrise Kingdom" - Two outcast tweens help each other cope, run away, and ... get married. I like when Bruce Willis has custody of the boy and explains how he's not as smart as the boy, but even smart kids need adults looking out for them.

I also vaguely remember liking or somewhat liking the following, but don't really remember them:
* "Clueless" - gal does matchmaking of her teachers, like totally.
* "Election" - two students compete to be class president
* "School of Rock" - musician substitute teaches a music class
* "Napolean Dynamite" - um, there's bad dancing?
* "Donnie Darko" - I think another dimension is involved and maybe time travel
* "Battle Royale" - kids have to battle each other to the death--not as fun as the first book of The Hunger Games.
* "Igby Goes Down" - rich kid rebels, and I think someone might get eaten by a lion?

Also, I recommend these TV shows:
* "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - even when you're not cool you can find friends and save the world.
* "Veronica Mars" - Even when you are kicked out from the popular clique, you can pick up the pieces and start over ... as a student private eye (like her dad).

And I kind of remember liking:
* "Sex Education" - Boy becomes therapist to his classmates (like his mom).

Wikipedia actually has a list of movies set in middle school.

My quads sure ache today. So I did some gardening today, to even things out. See, now the backs of my legs will hurt, too. Or maybe not, because I had the post-exercise peanut butter and the stretching.

Today I could actually imagine how people like gardening. The weather was beautiful. I even noticed and enjoyed the birds chirping. And I assume most people don't need a saw to garden.

I still have two more plants to plant. I planted my daisies in my moon garden, also known as my rose garden. Many roses are alive, but none are blooming. The other plants are all pale so they will look good in the moonlight. The dusty miller has died, but I can transplant one from my little planter out front. The white lantana is taking over, in a good way. I had to cut down some mulberry again.

And since I was walking by, I did a clean-up of the johnson grass next to the driveway again.

Then it was time to plant some trees in the back. I found a spot for the wax myrtle. Then had to move a fallen branch. Which required some sawing. Then I planted the tree. Tiny, hard to notice, easy to mow. So I carried out my new mowing prevention program. I cleared out a bigger circle and transplanted some iris bulbs to guard the new tree. Since those bulbs bloom in the spring, you're supposed to transplant them in the fall. And it's fall now! (So far, all my iris transplants have been successful, even when I've done it at other times of the year.)

I also covered the area with mulch and left the plant container upside down near the new plant, just as a little added head-scratcher to make someone with a lawn mower remember that there might be something to watch out for. R. recommends that I tie yellow ribbons on the new plants. I fear that these will fade and disintegrate instantaneously in our powerful sun.

Okay that all took two and half hours. So then I planted the Barbados cherry in the planter and watered it. Oh, I also tried to dig out the tree trying to grow there, but the root went too deep, so I just had to cut it. Again. Just about everything I cut down today had already been cut down one or more times and keeps growing back. Don't plants need leaves to gather energy? Stinking storage-facility roots.

I remembered to wear my burr-covered sneakers and I remembered to put on gloves before touching too many itchy things. Still, I did get two minor injuries. One was a scratch that was already swelling so I cleaned it and added antibiotic ointment and a bandaid. The other was where burrs kept scratching me at the edge of my shoe where the sock had fallen down. I threw away these socks. I need to find socks that are icky enough to not risk ruining them when I garden but good enough to actually protect me.

**

Then time for a shower and brunch with R. on our way to guitar class. We learned some new riffs. And I learned that if I want to do a lot of strumming, I want a pick. I still want to use my fingernails for note picking or songs that have some note picking and some strumming, but for all strumming songs I want a pick.

Not that I've tried a pick yet. But I will sometime this week. What I really want is to not keep scraping the same part of the back of my thumb across the strings because that hurts.

**

Then I decided to check out the Mueller Family Day for some "good food and family-friendly activities [and] ... to see the Mueller redevelopment up
close and get an update on the project." (Mueller is the old airport near my neighborhood which they are turning into an exciting high-density development. Sometime during the next millennium.) Sounds like a very mediocre time, eh? But I figured it would be nice to see how the pedestrian access was going.

The location of this event was not given, but the location of the parking was: "Parking is available along Mueller Boulevard in the Mueller redevelopment." So I figured I'd take Cameron across 51st down the sidewalk there until I got to the first street, whatever that was called, and wander around until I found a lot of parked cars, and then look for a building or a tent or something.

The first street is not called Mueller Boulevard but it does intersect that street. At the very end. Meanwhile the curbs all have that fencing with the black plastic to keep construction silt from clogging up the drainage. Even where there was no construction at all. So I had to walk in the street all the way down that first street. Mueller Boulevard didn't have this, so I could walk in the grass, though perhaps not officially: there were some no trespassing signs.

Forty minutes after I left the house I came to the end of Mueller Boulevard and there were no parked cars the whole way. And it was starting to rain. No problem--I had brought my umbrella.

When I got home I saw that this event actually is scheduled for tomorrow. I had been very careful to double-check that I had remembered the right weekend, but I had not double-checked that I had gotten the right day of the weekend. Besides, it feels like Sunday since I had yesterday off.

But I did find out my answer to the pedestrian question. Although the situation currently sucks, each corner has a sidewalk carefully sloped and textured for people in wheelchairs, so one day the situation should be better.

**

I recently got a friend the book Apartment Therapy for her birthday, and then decided to use a bookstore gift certificate to get myself one as well and it came in today. It's more than a home decorating book--it's about how to fix up your house for the things you want it for.

I like one situation they described of a couple in a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen that was way too small for them, a crazy bathroom, and a living room with huge expanses of built-in couches. They weren't comfortable working at home or cooking; basically it was terrible for them. But it had been perfect for the previous tenant who had done the renovations (apparently people renovate rental apartments in New York). She was a single artist who liked space and parties but mostly ate out. So the book is trying not to have one standard answer of what is the best way to organize your house.

There's a diagnostic test. I was surprised how well I did. Terribly, but it reminded me that we are comfortable doing all the most important things (such as sleeping, getting dressed, doing bathroom things, cooking, eating, listening to music, reading, watching movies, and staying cool in the summer). And when it's clean, I think it's mostly beautiful and comfortable. If you're familiar with the book, my first priority is the "bones," and my second priority is the "head." The "heart" is already good enough. In fact, their idea to bring flowers into the house would just make things worse, so I'm ignoring at least some of that advice.

The first exercise was to list everything that needs to be fixed and then come up with an idea of how to fix each thing. When I saw that, I thought that would be basically an infinitely long list. But actually, even making allowances for having forgotten a few things, it's actually a refreshingly finite list.

I haven't actually done anything yet. I want to read the book and see what I think. They recommend cleaning the entire floor of your house as one of the first steps. Uh, no. Not happening. Can't get to the entire floor. That's the problem. Just rub it in. I still think there may be helpful bits in the book anyway, though.

I also gave in and got Cube Chic which is a very silly book showing you how to make your cubicle at work not be so boring. Every two pages, they show you a different theme for decorating your cube in an over-the-top way. There are pictures, directions, and other helpful hints. Except of course that you should never actually do this unless perhaps you work at home. Well, maybe the inside of one of those covered bookshelves that you normally keep covered could be decorated in a crazy festive way, but you would still be disguised as a serious and professional employee most of the time.

**

Then we watched the whole first disk of the first season of "My Name Is Earl." We saw two episodes at the redneck party, and now it's out on DVD. I have to say that after watching seven episodes (six new to me), I still like that show. It happens in a strange land where karma is pretty instantaneous and where when you try to help people it always eventually works out for the best.

Yesterday's party was a little more interesting than I anticipated.

Early on I explained that I was naming my future kid “Beer-atrice.”

Everybody was talking in drawls and being annoying and silly. Some people, let's just say I didn't need to know that their brains could go in some of the directions they went in.

My tuna biscuit bake got eaten except for a couple of bites of biscuit with no tuna goo on it. Two people wanted the recipe.

And then we watched two episodes of “My name is Earl.” Normally, these hosts show only bad shows so that we can laugh and make fun of them. But this show was naturally fun. It seems to be about a redneck who has written down everything he ever did wrong that he can think of and has decided to try to make up for each one of these wrongs. Of course he has the same personality as the guy who made all these mistakes, so it's not always that easy. He checked one thing off his list in the first episode we saw. He added two things to his list and checked three off on the other episode.

Then people got too drunk for my tastes. Some people aid drunks, some taunt them; I run away.

Although I had been thinking that I'm so glad I'm not the birthday boy today, it turns out he's doing just fine. He and his wife drove around town delivering delicious large pieces of fabulous chocolate cake that they had forgotten to serve, like modern Santa Clauses. Except that they called ahead.

Nanowrimo Update

Today I was hitting blank walls, as usual, and easily distracted. For example, here's an actual conversation.

Robin: "Do you want to go to that sale at the mall?"

Me: "I'd like to try to get down 1,000 words first."

Robin: "They close at 6:00 [in one hour]."

Me: "Okay, let's go."

The distraction that finally worked for me though, at least for the first 1,000 words, was listening to WriMoRadio, a sound recording of things having to do with Nanowrimo. I really thought I was being a bad girl, but I was half-listening and half typing. Then it didn't take me long to come up with something for my next big string of words.

Today's amazing total: 3353 words in 5 hours. (Actually, that includes yesterday's 99 words and 10 minutes.) This brings me up to 35,000 words, so I am now 70% done (and still on schedule). Based on my average writing speed, I only need to write for 21 more hours to finish. That sounds possible.

Nanowrimo is like a car. I like it when it's working; I hate it when it isn't. Fortunately my car is almost always working, unlike my writing. (And by “working,” I mean that I have come up with something. It has to be good enough for me to be able to stand to write it, but that's about all.)

So here's an excerpt:

In Bubba's tent, Bubba got caught up on the office gossip. [Bubba had gotten laid off. His tentmate, Shankar, had not.] One thing about not getting laid off, is you have a lot more work to do, and you don't feel like you can complain about it. Morale is low.

Shankar described it. "I've taken to spewing uplifting sarcasm. The other day Cynthia was telling me about this huge pile of mindless work that had piled up at her desk, and how she was feeling despondent about even coming to work.

"So I explained that she should take heart, because the fact that she hadn't been laid off proved that the company knew she could handle any challenge. I said, 'They know that you are the kind of mindless machine that can toss through this pile of slush in no time.'

"She laughed.

"And Andy was going nuts trying to work through other people's coding. So I explained that the fact that he hadn't been laid off proved that the company knew he had the multiple personalities required to perform his new set of duties."

I did a lot of sitting today.

Well, first I pulled weeds for 40 minutes.

Then Robin and I tried a new (to us) restaurant, Freda's Seafood Grill. A friend of Robin's recommended their Sunday brunch. Robin liked everything he tried (except the fried-looking thing that turned out to be French toast). I don't like seafood, but they had good greens, omelets, and fruits and very good desserts.

The name of the place reminds me of when some friends wanted to name their cat Freya until they found out she was a he. I recommended just adding a "d" to the end, so it sounded like saying "Fred" with a very interesting twang. They didn't like this idea for some reason. Me it still tickles to this day.

After brunch we went shopping. I got a replacement for this rainbow-colored belt I used to wear with jeans and brightly colored shirts. I got it in high school and finally had to throw it away a few years ago because elastic just doesn't last, um, twenty years. I assume it's hideous or juvenile or sending an untrue message, but I think it's pretty.

I also got a copy of On Writing by Stephen King. This has been recommended to me personally and it's also a very common recommendation at nanowrimo. I got a nice copy at Half Price Books, figuring that if I don't like it I can probably re-sell it pretty easily.

Okay, back to the sitting. We watched three episodes of "Dark Angel." You know, the lack of romantic development is getting annoying. They finally kissed, but then they had to take it back. There are great plot developments, but I like some of the plot to be about getting to know some of the people more. We did get to know Normal better in one episode. I know we're not supposed to like him, but I've been liking him since near the beginning. I was shocked when this overly conservative guy decided he was okay with dating a woman who used to be a man. That's the same episode where he tried to turn in our heroine again, so, well, let's just say he's an interesting character.

I also caught up on bills and dishes and did some sudoku puzzles. Just when I think I have a system, I see that I still need to spend a lot of time sitting around staring at the thing.

And my sister called and told me she was engaged. Not a big surprise, but still exciting for her. She said the proposal was the most romantic thing she's ever witnessed; she didn't even know the guy could be that romantic. And she says the ring is the most beautiful piece of jewelry she's ever seen, with topaz surrounded by four garnets, each representing a promise to his future bride. I'll probably get to hear what the promises are later. So that's a lot of nice icing for the cake.

And guess when the wedding is. No, not November! Ha! Did I fool you? Her friend asked when she wanted to get married. She said winter so she could wear long sleeves. So her friend declared they would be getting married this February.

I am to be part of the wedding party. I've never been in a wedding party before. I think her SCA friends are going to take over a lot of the planning, so I might not have to deal with as much craziness as regular wedding party people. We'll see.

I am also to make the wedding cake which is to be a gingerbread cake. I've never even heard of gingerbread cake before, so I will have to try some recipes and make them come taste the results. I also haven't decorated a cake in years, thinking it's not worth the trouble. I was never the greatest anyway, unless you enjoy refrigerator art and macaroni paintings. I will have to practice that, too.

She tells me her fiancé doesn't like sweets. So I'm trying to think of some savory cake-like thing in case a groom's cake is wanted. Like cornbread. Mmm, cornbread. Maybe with just some decorations made from cream cheese softened a bit with milk.

Edited to add that I seem to have been mistaken about some things regarding the name Freyad. It's possible that chikuru thought up the name, and even if he didn't, he certainly remembers it. And at least one of the owners of this cat doesn't remember hearing that name but thinks he won't forget it now.

A friend lent me the DVDs of all the "Firefly" episodes. We are whooshing through them and will probably be finished with them in time to be able to see "Serenity" in a theater this weekend. I like to reward people who make good movies by going in a theatre rather than waiting for the DVD (though it's hard to tell who to reward before seeing the movie).

This series is really making an impression. Yesterday Robin was looking at some computer part and said, "Now, how do you really work?" and I thought of the episode where they brought up some philosopher who would torture people to find out what they're really like.

I don't see how that would work exactly. Don't they just keep screaming? Much better: put them in a mildly uncomfortable situation and then you can see if they stay calm and stay polite. Yes, I see this every week in ballroom dance class. Most people are perfectly fine. I think the others just quit coming. I have to tell you that eight couples doing tango in the room we use for advanced lessons is just too many couples. Learning a new step with just two backwards steps for the man resulted in many, many collisions.

And speaking of character tests, near the end of class, the instructor wanted to separate out the better people to learn a complicated step while the others continued working on the collision step. The way he did this was to ask the people who felt very confident about their pivot steps to come over to his side of the room. Shockingly, about half the class went over there (I felt that only one person could actually pivot).

I neither practiced nor tried the new step. I suck at pivot turns. And I didn't want to squoosh that old huge step into just half the room. And I wanted to see what the advanced step looked like. Also, I was feeling very snarky and was critically observing the other people's pivots. One person did surprise me in being better than I expected.

I later decided that the instructor had probably wanted me and at least one other person who sat out to be on his side of the room, and he did actually tell someone who came over to go back and keep practicing the old step. I decided that rather than measuring skill, he had measured confidence.

Journal Entry of the Day: Barriers Are Your Enemy on I Will Teach You To Be Rich. "I've been thinking about why some people are so successful so quickly, while others seem to get stuck. I think I've got one big reason: The smartest people relentlessly remove barriers around them. And the others let barriers control them." Not funny, but a very thorough explanation of a useful perspective.