Mixed

[shadowkat]

LJ post that made me happy:

Perhaps the most amazing ceramic vase I've seen...so different, so warm, and so unique.

http://embers-log.livejournal.com/205956.html?view=1342596&style=mine#t1342596

There was also a great link to a salon article comparing Buffy to Twilight, and explaining in fantastic detail why I stopped reading romance novels and find the Twilight stories offensive.
It also explains why Harry Potter and Buffy were cult icons and phenomenas, appealing to men and women of all ages and screeds, while Twilight appeals to select or at least I hope it is, group. (And makes me wonder about my own gender.) Twilight makes Charlian Harris' novels feel well like Shakespeare or Jane Austen in comparison, and I'm not that fond of Harris' writing, although, I'm wildly tempted to subscribe to HBO just to see Alan Ball's adaptation of Harris' vampire mysteries into the tv show True Blood. From what I've seen of the trailers? True Blood looks really good, with a definite Buffy meets the Kindred (an old vampire tv show), sort of feel to it.

here: http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/07/30/Twilight/

Difficult week. Been depressed and frustrated and irritated during most of it. All bad moody.
There's all these things I want and want to do, yet feel as if they are impossible to reach.
Need to focus on what I do have and work on keeping hold of those things - my job, my home, my physical/mental health, and my financial stability - which aren't things a lot of people have right now and I've worked really really hard the last few years to obtain or continue to hold onto.

Two people died this week...didn't know either well, but feel sad about both. One was a kind man at work suffering from lung cancer, a battle he finally lost. (He wasn't that old, maybe in his late 50s.) The other the father of one of the people on my correspondence list. My heart goes out to their families, and I pray neither was in any pain. I hope they died in their sleep, that I think would be the best way to go. This makes me realize, whether I like it or not, each day is to a degree a gift, filled with mixed blessings and curses, to do with what we will. Gives me hope thinking that. Tomorrow, when it comes, will always be different in some way. And all of this? Temporary.

Comments

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Thanks, s'Kat.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

thank you again!

yeah, appreciating the things you have is major... but also thinking about what you want, and what is necessary to bring those things within reach is also really important.

I didn't pursue artwork from the time I graduated from college (I did major in Fine Arts) until just recently... I had made other things my priority, and while I don't regret those decisions, it is very fulfilling to make time for some creative stuff.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

ugh. Typos abound. I'm multi-tasking, hence the bad writing.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Deleted last post because typos abounded and it made no sense. I'm cooking and printing off my novel at the same time.

You're welcome.

I think sometimes so much of what we want is influenced by other people projecting their issues, desires, cares, demons, and concerns on to us. If we aren't careful, we can get a bit lost.

The trick is blocking them out, and realizing our own needs. I've actually always been pretty good at that. Never been into trends, oh I see them, but I pick what I like and ignore the rest.

Right now, for example, what I want is so simple.
To relax for a while. To get to the point in which I'm not scared of losing my job constantly, to sleep, to be physically healthy, and to start buying cool furniture for my flat. Which I'm doing. Also to get my finished novel out to an editor - who can look over it and let me know what, if anything needs fine-tuning, before I send it out to the publishers and literary agents.
Maybe even a cheap vacation to visit my aunt up at the lake or my bro's family at the beach. Simple things. I'm not ready to date right now, I don't want a romantic relationship to fret over, and I'm not ready to buy a home. I want things to stabilize, there've been too many changes these past few years...and few of them good. So for me, what I want, and it may seem silly to some, is stability, safety, a sense of calm and I'm starting, bit by bit to achieve that, along with getting some of my confidence back.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

there is a lot of society pressure, sometimes from friends and family, but often just from 'the media'.... I'll be at my computer or watching TV and thinking to myself "oh I should get 'out there' more, and meet a man"... and then I think "wait a minute, I don't want a man!"

Somehow there is some ideal of what 'everyone should want' that really doesn't equal what I want. Men are just as high maintenance as children and pets, and although a lot of women fantasize that a man will make their lives easier (by making them richer), that was never my experience. Sure, he made more money than me, but he felt that that gave him all the rights in the relationship too.... It was his car and I couldn't use it to visit my friends, in fact he felt he could choose my friends....

Not to get all into a rant about what was wrong w/my marriage... but just that I really wonder sometimes why I buy into society pressure.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

There was a really interesting critique, by a guy, of the Sex in the City flick a while back. He said that his main problem with the movie was how these beautiful and intelligent women were flipping over backwards and doing everything possible to land their dream guy. How they felt they had to have a guy in their lives. His comment was - "We're really not worth it, ladies." LOL!

One of my offline acquaintances, who is recently divorced, is killing herself hunting a guy. She loved being married. Having a partner. Even though he dumped her and took up with someone else. Even though he made her life difficult. She misses the compagnionship.
So, she keeps dating these guys who don't quite click and whines about them endlessly.
The sex sucks. Or he's too xenophobic. Or he doesn't like to travel. Or he makes her pay for everything...

Then I look at my parents and brother's relationships, which from a distance look almost perfect, close up, I see the countless compromises that everyone must make. Because when you are in a relationship = particularly when you are living with someone else, you have to give up some of the junk you want. And everything can feel at times like a debate or a bargain. It's not like a romance novel or a movie, where they ride happily off in the sunset, it's actually more like a daytime soap opera, where the romance and the sex after awhile get dull and frustrating.

A male friend, not a boyfriend since we never really dated, once told me that for it to really work - you need to find someone who clicks with you emotionally, intellectually, and physically. He said it was almost impossible. He'd found two of the three, but not all three. Intellectual and Physical - he told me is a nightmare. Intellectual and Emotional - makes for a great friendship, but little else. He married the woman who fit him emotionally and physically.

For me? I love the line in Mamma Mia, where the protagonist, Donna, states, "Men? Far too much work, too tiring, and the plumbing..just don't feel like worrying about it right now."
I don't want to cater to anyone right now, worry what they thought of me, worry how they felt, worry how I looked, worry about well the whole kit and kaboodle...just thinking about it, makes me tired.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh and as for the sex? a) It's overrate. b) I've got a healthy imagination and c) masturbation is underrated ;-)

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

oh I am a huge fan of the masturbating! LOL

Yeah, one of the best marriages I ever knew (with the least complaining and resentment, because nearly every marriage I have ever known had those in abundance) was one where the spouses had a theory: if the marriage is actually going to work then BOTH partners have to feel that they are giving 75% and barely getting 50% in return, and are happy to accept that. But in my marriage my ex didn't give me squat, and I was really resentful of giving him much in return (finally he left me and I felt like I'd been let out of jail).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think this is true with all relationships.
I've discovered that relationships in which one person is more into or invested in the relationship than the other - usually fall apart, because sooner or later the person giving all the gifts, doing all the stroking, and bending over backgrounds is going to get worn out and wonder what the point is? What am I getting out of this, besides feeling like a matry or saint? And the person who isn't giving 75% or even 50%, is feeling guilty and annoyed. At first, they may be loving the attention, but after a while...

I've been on both sides of the equation - the side that was "giving too much" and the side that "was giving too little" - and neither are fun. In both cases, you end up resenting the other person and hating yourself. Unless of course you are completely unselfaware or narcissitic or some-over psychological disorder - and so are getting off on the imbalance in some way. (Most dysfunctional relationships are usually due to the imbalance.)

And let's face it, we humans are selfish creatures - we always on some level, consciously or unconsciously, want to know what's in it for ourselves, how this benefits us, how it furthers our path, or makes us feel good about oursevles...and in order to feel good about oursevles, we are in complete denial about wanting all of the above.