(no subject)

Brain is still a bit fried from work, I'm afraid. As I told J over dinner on Friday night, I find it hilarious that everything I do at work - are the subjects I sucked in at school. The research clerk at work asked me if I'd planned to be lawyer and contract administrator? Uh, no, I retorted. Actually, I'd planned on being a political analyst, a novelist, a folklorist, and an English Lit Professor. More or less in that order. In law school - I planned on becoming constitional lawyer or humans rights advocate. Life, alas, does not always turn out the way we plan.

[I deleted a rant about our educational system to spare the beleagured educators on my flist who have tolerated one too many of them from this journal and do not need to see yet another one. I appreciate how hard your jobs are, guys. There is a reason I'm not an educator.]

Decided not to do much this weekend. Ankle was killing me on Thursday and Friday. So as a result, when met J for Dinner, we decided to forgoe the movie and just watched Dollhouse at my place instead. Saw the doctor on Thursday - who took a look at the ankle, amongst other things:

Me: So this is my ankle, what do you think?
Doc: It looks really swollen. What did you do?
I tell him.
Doc: Severally sprained it. That will take a while to heal.
ME: How long?
Doc: oh, four to six months.
Me: Wait, FOUR TO SIX MONTHS??? I did it in Feb, it should be getting better...
Doc: it is. Just going to take a while to fully heal. Keep the brace you have on it, and continue using the cane...
Me: I have a velcro one for home use.
Doc: you don't need to use one at home, you can give it a rest at home. But you do need one to walk on it elsewhere. Because the stability is gone at the moment. It's wobbly. So really easy to re-sprain or retwist. The brace provides added protection.
Me: Should I be wearing the air cast?
Doc: no, the brace is enough.

Then he had someone take my blood. I told him my middle finger and area above my right eyebrow where I'd gotten the six stitches still hurt - he said that made sense, they would continue to hurt for a while. I probably had fractured the finger and banged my head badly to get the stitches. The stitches are gone and wound has healed. But it does throb. Particularly when it rains.

So...I stayed home today, knitted my niece a long purple scarf, and watched DAMAGES - eight hours worth saved on the DVR. I'm all caught up now. And just in time, since I think if I'd waited much longer the DVR would have automatically deleted them, just as it automatically deleted most of the episodes of Life on Mars that I'd saved on it for later viewing. Not upset about losing Life on Mars - wasn't that into the show to begin with. As a result, I now have the Damages theme song whistling through my brain. Not sure if anyone is watching this series? I think three people, all living outside the US, are. It's a weird show - appeals to me intellectually, but not emotionally. I don't really care what happens to any of the characters. Well, that's not entirely true - I care, but not...in the way one might think. At any rate - it's a show that appeals to me more on an intellectual than emotional level, except for the fact that there's an odd catharsis achieved in watching each of these nasty characters get their just desserts or attempt to destroy one another. Not a show I'll ever love, but one that I continue to be intriqued by.

Also watched Dollhouse twice. Interesting show Dollhouse. Weirdly plotted. We go five episodes with very little happening, just little hints here and there, then suddenly two episodes in which everything is revealed in a one-two-three punch. Whoaaa. Information overload, not to mention busy, jarring, and surreal. Wouldn't it have made more sense to sparse that out a bit over the space of the last five episodes? As opposed to packing it all into the past two? Don't get me wrong, very happy they finally decided to tell the audience what was going on, as opposed to teasing the audience. But, it may back-fire on them. TV viewers are a fickle prickly bunch, particularly in this day and age, when they have sooo many tv shows to choose from. (Although why people choose to watch reality tv shows continues to boggle my mind. I just do not understand the appeal of watching a bunch of icky people talk about themselves to the camera, but I'm not a fan of documentaries either for much the same reason.) That said, Dollhouse for a whole host of reasons I won't go into, continues to intrigue the heck out of me. It's weird though, much like Damages, in that it is appealing to me on an intellectual level not an emotional one. I feel oddly detached from it while I'm watching it, the opposite of what I felt when I watched Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. Buffy engaged my emotions, Dollhouse...seems to disengage them, while at the same time engaging my intellect - much like a puzzle box or mathematical problem might.

My favorite line in this week's Dollhouse or the one that lit the little light bulb off in my head was Topher's rambling bit of dialogue regarding drugs. He states that it's fascinating how differently everyone reacts to drugs. How there are an infinitismial variety of variables, and we really can't predict how one person will react to a substance. No one reacts in the same way. Be it caffeine or hallucingentics. For example - you may take horse (pot) and go, uh, that's fine, doesn't do much for me, and never do it again. While I'll take it and it turns me on, I love it, best thing ever, and keep doing it, while he takes it and it's adios amigos.

So true. But not just in regards to drugs or food or caffeine. It's also true about culture, art, events, how we experience and perceive the world around us. It's why for example - one person may think it is perfectly logical to write the date MM/DD/YY and another think that is idiotic and why do people insist on doing it that way? Or why one person will adore Buffy the Vampire Slayer and write a whole book of essays on the series, while another switched it off after just two episodes, never to be seen again. Or why someone will addictively watch all the basketball games on tv this month leading up to the Final Four, and another will curse the tv stations for airing them during their favorite soap opera, even if said soap opera will resume once the games are completed.

Frustrating as it is that others do not necessarily share our views or perceptions or tastes or experiences, even more so when said interests conflict or get in the way with our own, it is ultimately what makes us unique individuals. Human. Not just part of a herd or hive. What we need to work on, all of us, constantly, is learning how to better tolerate people whose outlook is contrary to our own (within reason of course - you can't really tolerate someone who thinks its cool to chop off everyone's fingers or scream at the top of their lungs). Not only tolerating it, but appreciating and accepting and more accurately, I guess, respecting it, as an unique, and different point of view, that we just can't quite comprehend because we aren't them. I think that is very hard for us to do sometimes, because somewhere deep down in our DNA is the impulse to judge and critique others for not sharing our perspective, whether we are aware of it or not. So, by the same token, I think, we need to forgive one another for not always tolerating and/or respecting that other point of view, and more often than not foolishly and irrationally railing against it for occassionally making our lives annoyingly difficult.