Finished The Grapes of Wrath as well as a doll skirt I was knitting on. Nice, quasi-positive ending to the story. Doesn’t tell you what ultimately happens to the Joads, but you get the feeling that with a strong woman like Ma to look out for them, they’ll be alright. I got the feeling that first Casey, and then Tom, were Jesus figures. As for Casey’s theology, what he describes is about what my feelings are on the subject. And I thought I thunk it up all by myself.
When Tom killed that sonofabitch who clouted Casey in the head, I was glad! Dylan Baker was the narrator and I thought he did an excellent job throughout.
I’m gonna have to do research on John Steinbeck and find out what kind of research he did for the book. He had to have traveled with some migrant families; everything sounds so real and immediate. A shameful part of American history, one of many. I guess things got better after Roosevelt took office and implemented all those public works programs, and then of course WWII provided plenty of jobs.
Roosevelt invested a lot of borrowed money into the country by putting all those men to work. Now our government’s got a deficit and the only citizens who benefit are the ones who are already rich. Muth – er – fucker.
On a completely different subject, L.L. Bean’s got what they call “boyfriend jeans,” which “are enzyme-washed, sandblasted, then deliberately nicked and frayed for a worn-in, weathered look.” They’re fifty bucks. I’d rather wear my jeans out by myself, thank you very much. I noticed that if you buy jeans that are pre-faded, they fall to pieces in a relatively short time, while jeans bought new last almost forever. I’m boring, I don’t wear trendy jeans. I think now the skinny, drain-pipe jeans are in vogue. Oh gawd. A coupla years ago it was the crotch-dusting bell-bottoms, now it’s the opposite extreme. I’m gonna order me another pair of those men’s cargo pants in a different color, the shorts version of same, and a sunwashed tee. I love buying stuff, it gives me a rush. I’m truly an addict.
Ugh. I’ve got an excess amount of stuff and people like the Joads had nothing. Makes me take a second look around me. If Mrs. Joad were here, she’d have this place ship-shape in no time, and she’d give me a good scolding besides.
Sunday, May 28, 2006, 8:06 PM
At the folks’ house for the weekend. I don’t know what the hell crawled up my mom’s ass. She hates herself and thus spreads her poison throughout the household. She’s been getting on my nerves all day; I spent as much time as possible napping. She complains and complains but doesn’t do anything about her problems. She’s fat, her husband’s a dick. Big news. DO something about it, don’t bitch to me!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006, 3:07 PM
Have to get to the post office today to mail off a doll I sold and get the buyer off my ass. Also have to go to the campus and drop my 8:00 a.m. German class; I don’t know what I was thinking. Hopefully it’s not too late to enroll in another class, but not having school for another six weeks doesn’t sound like a bad deal either. I have a lit class for the second summer session starting in July. I really can’t imagine what else I’d want to take, especially given the slim pickin’s this summer.
Raining here, which is nice.
Tuesday, June 6, 2006, 12:39 AM
Watched Aliens, one of my all-time favorite movies. Had to view over a stretch of two nights because that intensity is just too much! I was so deeply disappointed in Aliens 3 because right at the start they killed off Newt and Hicks. Kinda makes the second movie moot, almost. Also, I didn’t buy that an alien stowed away on their getaway vessel. By itself, I think the third movie is alright, but I never really got over those points. Yes, I’m an Aliens geek—nothing else compares. Never saw the fourth one, don’t know if I will.
One of my favorite moviegoing memories is seeing Aliens for the first time in 1986 – on a Marine Corps base in Okinawa! The Colonial Marines in the movie were spot on, and really brought out a response from us, the audience. Top Apon was played by an actor who had been a marine in real life, which I only learned yesterday. So THAT’s why he was so realistic! “You secure that shit, Hudson!” I love love love Michael Biehn, or at least the characters he played in Terminator and Aliens. Hunky, tough, and yet sweet-alicious. Wish he’d come rescue me.
I like Alien too, but as it happened, I saw Aliens first. Alien came out in 1979 or so, and I wasn’t old enough to see R-rated movies. This was back in the day when R really meant something, not just some vacuous, obligatory muck. The swearing felt real, felt just like what I might say in such circumstances. Gawd forbid. Ugh. Anyway, the first time I saw Alien was in New Zealand with my ex and the video copy we rented was so bad that the whole thing was black most of the way through, so I couldn’t say that I enjoyed the movie until some time later when I finally saw a decent copy.
Suffering from yet another bladder infection, my last. I say that because I know what causes them and I’m staying away. It ain’t worth it. It’s just the mechanics, whether organic or not, and I threw away my expensive inorganic sources. Fuckit, guess I’ll just have to live without. It’s just biology, after all. I can overcome a few primitive impulses.
Friday, June 9, 2006, 1:50 AM
Thank gawd for antibiotics. And thank gawd that I don’t have to fend off the constant, insistent, whiney, and “entitled” overtures of some asshole, such as the one I married and the one I dated prior to that. It’s so nice to be free.
Tonight I saw the latest X-Men movie. Was never a follower of the comic book or anything, and I didn’t even see the first movie. Well anyway, I think I recall this installment getting some negative reviews, but shit, I thought it was great. Never once wondered what time it was, my criteria for an enjoyable movie. Note if you haven’t seen it yet: there’s a scene after the end credits, so don’t leave the theater. [Spoiler] Sorry to see Patrick Stewart go, as I’m a big fan of his. Nevertheless, there’s that hint that the series will continue. So, if anyone’s seen it, at the end when Magneto was a regular old man and he was at the park in front of the chess set, and he was trying to get one of the chess pieces to move telekinetically, was it my eyes or did it wobble? Someone tell me!
Read Stephen King’s Hearts of Atlantis. Good read, and a surprising source of insight as to what it must have been like in Vietnam. I don’t recall that he went himself, so he must have interviewed a lot of vets. He’s right about the Zippo lighters; at least my dad has one. I didn’t go to Vietnam, obviously, but my dad went twice. The first time I was almost too young to remember, but I have some fuzzy memories of living in California with his parents, and also spending time in Germany with Oma. Second time we were living in Amarillo, Texas, and I hardly remember that either. Just some subsurface sense of unease when he returned, because everything was better when he wasn’t there—there were no ugly nighttime secrets, Mom wasn’t such a fucking bitch. He was a chopper pilot and rescued bush-whacked soldiers, which was especially dangerous from what I gather. How many times I’ve wondered what my life might have been like if he didn’t come back.
He maniuplated me when I was a kid, telling me that if I didn’t do what he wanted when he came into my room at night that he would die, which struck terror in my heart. However, not many years later during another nighttime visit, I told him viciously that I didn’t care if he died, that I hoped he would. He acted so incredibly hurt and betrayed by this – can you see that this person completely lacks empathy for anyone else? He’s a fucking psycho.
But I digress. Apparently he went the second time because his half-brother got drafted and his step-mom called hysterically to see if my dad could do something. So, citing that rule about only one son in the family going to war, my dad went in his half-brother’s stead. Lot of good it did, the guy blew his brains out when he was in his 30’s or so. I don’t have any fond memories of this uncle of mine. Last time I saw him, I was very little and he was a teenager, and he used to tease me mercilessly, until I was in tears. Nobody intervened because they thought it was funny. There’s even pictures. Goddamn I hate my family, the American side at least. That’s why when I divorced, I kept the name of the shithead I married, who was a lesser shithead than the one who spawned me.
Well I’m wandering all over the place, aren’t I. I’ve got cramps and am using the laptop as a hot-water bottle.
I’ve been sent to the vet center, someplace for vets to go for psychiatric help or whatever, on account of sexual trauma I experienced while serving (just some procedural bullshit for the voc rehab office). The lady who’s been interviewing me is a sociologist and not a psychologist, which I find refreshing, since I think psychology only goes so far, at least for me. Other people and the environment do have an effect on me, I don’t live in a bubble. I was told that I’m suffering from arrested development, whatever that is. I like to play with dolls? I don’t want to pay my bills? So what. I was put in a women’s group with other vets, but they’re younger than me and have been to Iraq, whereas I’ve never been in combat. Last Wednesday was supposed to be my first meeting and I rushed to get there on time, only to find a sign on the door reading that the meeting had been cancelled, which pissed me off. I would have appreciated a phone call, it’s not like I live right down the street from the place. Not to mention the price of gas.
Why did I bring up all that Vietnam shit in the first place? Oh yeah, because at the vet center we were talking about how Vietnam’s after-effects rippled, extending beyond those who actually went. I know it had a profound effect on my own life.
Saturday, June 10, 2006, 2:29 PM
I’m reading The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler and enjoying the hell out of it. I saw the movie in Carlsbad, California when it was released and found it to be dreary, which is all I remember about it. The character Susan says:
“You really think that you and me have any power? It’s just free speech, that’s all we’ve got. We can say whatever we like, then the government goes on and does exactly what it pleases. You call that democracy? It’s like we’re on a ship, headed someplace terrible, and somebody else is steering and the passengers can’t jump off.”
The character of Susan is fifteen. I don’t recally knowing anything about politics or the world until maybe my late twenties.
At another place in the book, “Macon didn’t want to sound prejudiced, but he couldn’t help feeling that people who had no children had never truly grown up.” I agree with him, if I’m any example. I know that children age the shit out of you.
posted by Newpeep, N.D. (neurotic depressive) @ 9:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home