It’s been my experience that surprises are rarely pleasant, and when I went over to sign my lease, it was beginning to look like the surprise I was being presented with today would be no exception.
On the first page of the lease it said that my monthly rent would be nearly $100 more than I was expecting. This was another $100 in addition to the $76 increase that I was prepared for thanks to the offer letter I had received.
It was explained, though, that they have to put that amount on the first page, and that the addendum would show the prorated discount that I would be receiving and show the actual monthly rent.
Lo and behold, there was a pleasant surprise: despite what the offer letter had said, my rent is not increasing at all.
So that’s very cool.
Or rather, it would be if the price of rent weren’t so totally out of whack out here. Even after nearly two years I have difficulty accepting the notion that $1,000 a month is cheap, though I do recognize that for this area, especially considering what my apartment is like, it really is. Oh well.
Prior to walking over to the office I had, not surprisingly, made a bunch of peanut butter cookies.
Thinking about the cute girl who had told me that I smell REALLY good, I decided that it would probably be a nice gesture to bring over a plate of fresh cookies with me.
Unfortunately, the cute girl who told me that I smell REALLY good was not there. They were appreciated by the older lady who was working there alone, and who, while nice enough, isn’t nearly so cute.
Actually, I have a difficult time determining her ethnicity, but she looks something like a slightly younger, lighter-skinned version of “The Oracle” from “The Matrix.” The original Oracle, that is.
As I read through the lease looking for any significant changes from last year, I considered how a friend once put forth the theory that one of my biggest problems in the field of romantic endeavors is a lack of “timing.” Somehow I never seem to manage the whole “right time, right place” thing.
Oh well.
Throughout the course of the night I woke up several times, typically after about 2 hours of sleep. When that happened at around 7, I considered getting up, but, as the world outside my bed seemed cold and uncaring, I decided against it. I finally managed to build up enough resolve at around 8:30.
I had some odd dreams that I don’t really remember, though one of them involved having a conversation with an old friend, and someone who was, according the history of the dream world I was in, also an old friend, but who, in waking life, I’ve never seen before, about the difficulties involved in giving up smoking.
I’m not sure whether or not that one was the dream in which the vampires showed up, or if that was another one, but there was something about the vampires that I told myself to take note of for future reference, possibly for use in a story.
Of course, “taking note” in this context simply means “try to remember later,” since I long ago gave up on trying to keep a dream journal. I set out every night with good intentions, but somehow I could never manage to make myself roll over and put pen to paper.
I think I at least remember the gist of what I was supposed to take note of, though, so I guess I succeeded in spite of myself.
Or something.
Typically if a dream is especially significant, or weird, I’ll remember it anyway, and I always at least retain a sense of the quality of my dreams every day, so I know whether or not I was having weird dreams, or scary dreams, or *blush* those kinds of dreams.
Usually my dreams have only the most tenuous of connections to my present reality. More often I find myself at some point in my past, though frequently retaining my current knowledge and sensibilities, or at the very least interacting with people from my past.
Usually these are people that I haven’t seen in many years.
“Current Events” seldom make their way in, so it’s unusual for me to dream about people that I know and interact with now.
There are exceptions, of course.
For example, last week I learned that on Saturday Neil Gaiman was going to be nearby (In D.C.) for a book-signing and reading, and it annoyed me that I hadn’t learned about this in time to get the day off and head down there (Given that I kind of hate D.C. after having spent hours lost there a while back when trying to drive through the place, though, I probably still wouldn’t have gone even if I could have. Still, there’s a good chance that I might have gone.).
This all managed to make its way into my subconscious and manifested itself in a dream in which I was going to meet Alan Moore at a book signing. Not an exact reflection of reality, but closer than usual.
Of course, the dream was taking place more than 10 years ago, so in that respect it stayed in line with my typical dreams. There were, of course, a lot of typical dream non sequiturs. For example, while this was taking place more than 10 years ago, one of the books I was bringing for him to sign (Promethea Vol. 1) I had not been written yet.
For another thing, while I do tend to actually deify Alan Moore, and I think that he’s probably the only person in all of creation whom I’d be likely to actually gush over, I don’t think that I’d be so excited that, as I did in the dream, I would faint.
Humorous as the thought might be, I don’t think there are many people who know me who could honestly picture me as a fainter.
In any case, that was one of my more vivid dreams of late.
I did have an oddly vivid, and incredibly irritating, dream the other night, though. It was one of those annoying dreams whose internal reality manages to spill over briefly into the initial moments of waking up to external reality, and what the dream lacks in real-world logic it makes up for in vivid details, so it's difficult, at least initially, to distinguish it from reality. I hate those dreams, the ones that trick you into thinking that you’ve won the lottery, or that you’re late for work, or that you finally met someone who makes you feel like there’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning, though you may not want to, since if you just roll over you’ll see that she’s lying right…Oh. It was only a dream.
That kind of dream.
Anyway, in my dreams my subconscious often likes to turn my romantic famine into a feast, so in my dreams, it seldom rains unless it pours, and I often find myself having too many options.
Having to make a choice when you’ve gone so long without any choices is fairly difficult, and usually I find myself waking up before the moment of truth is actually revealed.
In this latest dream, I had to choose between three women. One was an old friend who, because I’d suddenly become so popular with the ladies (One of those way, way, WAY off-base dream moments that ought to clue you in to the fact that you're dreaming. I mean, hel-LO! Come on Jon, if even one chick is interested in you, you MUST be dreaming.), apparently, was now seeing me as if for the first time, and was expressing an interest in becoming more than friends.
(It’s worth noting that this “old friend” does not exist in my waking experience. She did look a bit like “Flame Chick,” but, much like the other "old friend" I mentioned, she seemed to just be an amalgam of female friends I’ve had over the years.)
The second option was a young woman named Kitty Pryde.
Those of you out there who know anything about comic books probably recognize that name. Kitty Pryde, also known as “Shadowcat,” is a character in the X-Men.
Kitty was introduced to overwhelmingly enthusiastic and welcoming fans back in 1979.
At the time, Kitty was a lovely young woman of 13 ½ years who had just discovered that she was a mutant.
The laws of time and physics being what they are in comics, Kitty, who when introduced was 6 years older than I was, managed to hold relatively constant, so by the time I reached puberty, she was still within my age bracket.
In addition to having the ability to walk through solid matter, Kitty was also a genius.
She was smart, beautiful (at least she was the way I pictured her), and she was a super-hero…what more could a boy ask for? Well, he could ask for her to be real, I guess, but that's not the point.
In any case, the fact that she wasn’t a real girl aside, there was no possible way for me to avoid falling madly in love with Kitty. It was unavoidable.
I actually used to gauge the relative attractiveness of real-life girls and women on how much they resembled my vision of Kitty (Back then, by the way, Alyssa Milano came pretty close.).
Honestly, I think that, to a certain extent, to this day I’m still looking for a real-life version of Kitty. She's probably the main reason I prefer brunettes, at any rate.
In the comics, by the way, my age and Kitty’s actually intersected about 17 years ago, and I am now roughly 11 years older than she is.
Anyway, the Kitty Pryde in my dream was not “Shadowcat,” and the fact that she resembled her in terms of looks and personality, was a complete coincidence.
I never actually saw the third woman in my dream, I was simply aware of her existence and the fact that I had a date with her.
As mentioned, my old friend had begun expressing interest in me, and I had just met a girl named Kitty Pryde who was also interested in me, and how could I not be interested in her? She was Kitty Pryde!
So I had to choose between them. Kitty seemed like the obvious frontrunner, but the old friend and I had history, and I had been carrying a torch for her for quite some time, and of course I obviously must have felt some sort of attraction to the third woman.
To make matters thornier, I had made separate arrangements to get together with Kitty and the old friend, and, due to really bad planning, I had scheduled both meetings at the same time and location as my date with the third woman!
(Hey, give me a break; I’ve never had to try to juggle women before, so I’ve had no practice. I'd like to think that in real life I could handle it at least a little better, though.)
I had just realized my mix-up as I was waking up, so in that transitional state I felt butterflies churning in my stomach as I realized that I had probably blown my chances with all three of them.
Then, of course, reality set in and I realized that I don’t have ANY chances, so there’s nothing to worry about.
Whew, what a relief that was.
On a somewhat related tangent, years ago in a Newsgroup (I don't remember which one) I encountered posts by a woman who called herself “Cat,” and who had lyrics by singer Emma Bull in her signature.
In the X-Men comics, Emma Bull is the lead singer of Kitty’s favorite band. I had noted over the years that the way Emma Bull was presented in the comics by the various artists, she appeared to have been drawn from photo references (In much the same way it would look, for example, if Bill Clinton appeared in a comic book), so I had often wondered if Emma Bull was a real person. The lyrics in the signature seemed to confirm the idea that she was, but I wanted to make sure, so, rather than just doing a Web search (Hey, "Google" didn't exist yet.), I sent an e-mail to this “Cat” person inquiring about the situation. She responded and explained that, in fact, Emma Bull was a real person and that she was friends with X-Men writer (though at this point he would have been “former X-Men writer”), and Kitty Pryde co-creator (with artist John Byrne), Chris Claremont, which was why she was sometimes a "guest star" in the comics.
She went on to explain that, while she didn’t read the comics, she was familiar with Kitty Pryde, and that her fiancé, who did read the comics, often told her that, physically, she would be the perfect choice to play Kitty in an X-Men movie.
…
It drove me crazy to think that somewhere in the world, though God only knew where, there was a woman who looked like Kitty, and not only was she not mine, she was engaged to someone else.
It only got worse from there, when one day I saw a later post that “Cat” had made in the Newsgroup in which she offhandedly mentioned that she was bi-sexual.
And people have the nerve to wonder why I hate life...
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Where do good concepts go to die?
This is just something I was messing around with this evening. It's a concept sketch of an old character of mine. Her name is "Hate," and she was part of a crimefighting duo, partnered with her sister, "Cautious Fascination."
Okay, just kidding; her sister took the name of the more obvious emotion, "Love."
"Love and Hate" were themselves a part of a larger team, which was part of a much larger concept that I came up with a long, long time ago. It's a concept I've never done much of anything with, but overall it was a good one.
I had a special fondness for Hate, as she dealt with a lot of issues that a non-super "super hero" would have to contend with.
For example, in addition to wearing light, flexible armor rather than just some skimpy little spandex number, she also wears knee, wrist, and elbow braces to maintain support in combat.
This is all for obvious reasons of protection, but it's also intended to downplay her femininity. She's a very beautiful woman underneath it all, but, for various reasons, she feels ugly, and so her costumed identity is designed to reflect that ugliness in many ways.
Of course, the idea is that she's SO smoking hot that it can't help but show through a little.
She starts out her career being pretty violent and making use of weapons like tear gas and night sticks, but as time goes by the level of violence escalates and she eventually begins making use of lethal force. Of course by then she's a government-sanctioned operative, so it all works out. Sort of.
Anyway, "Hate" (the character, not the emotion) has been on my mind a lot for some reason lately (It happens. A lot of my old concepts come back to haunt me from time to time.), and I realized that I never quite got her to look the way I wanted, so I thought I'd give it a shot. This one isn't too bad.
What is too bad is the fact that, apart from this image here, she (along with her sister and the rest of the characters) will probably never see the light of day.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Flirting for fun and profit and SCIENTIFIC PROOF
Because I have no social life, and because work is a less than ideal environment for meeting potential romantic interests, my only real hope on the score comes in the form of women working in the service industry.
This means waitresses (though I seldom dine out, so I might as well cross them off the list), cosmetologists, bank tellers, cashiers, receptionists, and so on.
The last person I pursued (the one who made the sexual assault comment about my Axe), in fact, worked for my optometrist, which is where I met her. Because I was getting contacts that had to be specially made and sent away for, and because there were some questions about a cataract forming in my eye, I had to make several trips to the office, and thus there was a great deal of opportunity for pursuing my interest in her.
And of course the most recent potential nibble of interest has come in the form of one of the employees in the rental office at my apartment complex.
The biggest problem with pursuing women encountered in the service industry, though, is that they encounter so many people in the course of a day it’s hard to make yourself stand out from the crowd, especially if, like me, you’ve spent most of your life trying to avoid being noticed.
There’s also the problem of flirting. In general, most women flirt for a variety of reasons, and it’s entirely possible that the majority of those reasons have no basis in any sort of attraction.
Women will flirt because they want to get something, because they feel like messing with someone, because they’re bored, and for a whole host of other reasons.
This isn’t an indictment, or really even a complaint; it’s merely an observation. I'm sure that men flirt meaninglessly just as often, or even more often, but since I have no interest in men, I really don't care what they do.
The point is that the fact that a woman flirts with you could mean anything, or it could mean absolutely nothing.
This is particularly true when it’s in a service industry setting, in which a waitress might flirt with you for a tip, or at a bank that doesn’t see much business and the teller flirts with you just because she’s bored.
I know from my own experience that when I worked in tech support I often flirted (over the phone), with female customers who sounded even remotely attractive because it helped to pass the time and to put them at ease.
Since these people were calling from all across the country, there was no way that this flirting could lead to anything, and thus it was devoid of meaning. It was just something to do to make an otherwise unpleasant situation a little more bearable.
And that’s often the way it is when a waitress, or a cashier, or a receptionist flirts with you.
The fact that there often is no clear indicator as to what the basis of flirtation is can lead to confusion, an embarrassing faux pas, anger, and humiliation.
Is she flirting with you because she likes you, or because she wants a big tip? Would you look foolish if you tried to pursue the flirtation and ask her out? Would you be missing the opportunity of a lifetime if you didn't?
Then there’s the question of whether she’s even flirting at all. Are you just misconstruing her natural friendliness? Are you reshaping the situation to accommodate your own desires in your mind? Does she have some bizarre variant of Tourette’s syndrome that causes her to randomly blurt out that people smell REALLY good?
Personally, I tend to err on the side of caution and not only assume that women aren’t flirting with me due to some actual interest in me, but rather, I assume that they are never flirting with me at all.
To put it simply, I have difficulty believing that a woman flirting with me is something that can occur in nature.
Obviously this is a defense mechanism designed to keep me from making foolish mistakes, though I really rather doubt that it’s led me to miss out on much in the way of opportunity.
In any case, in order for me to notice, a woman has to lay it on pretty thick (like, say, suggesting that the scent of my deodorant body spray could cause women to sexually assault the men who are wearing it), and even then I’ll be extremely suspicious of her motivation and will assume that it doesn’t actually mean anything.
On those occasions when a woman has, apparently, been flirting with me and I have actually attempted to act on it, I’ve pretty much only done so because other people were urging me to.
And with every failure that has resulted, I’ve become increasingly reluctant to even bother trying.
So as we begin to rule out even more potential sources of romance, we are inexorably drawn to the shadowy realm of online personals.
When I lived in Michigan I had no reason to even bother looking at the online personals, since the population was so small that, locally, nobody used the personals, particularly the online variety.
It was much the same situation when I lived in Minnesota, though the larger areas were near enough to where I lived that it was worth at least looking, and, in fact, I did go on two dates that resulted from online personals.
The first went fairly well, but the girl actually lived pretty far away (and was about to move even further), and she was really only looking for friends, not romance.
The second did not go well at all. For one thing, I had spent the 8 hours preceding the date getting utterly shitfaced as a guest at a picnic being held by a local beer brewing club, so I wasn't in the best frame of mind when the time came.
For another, my date was roughly twice my size. Beyond the physical problems, though, she didn’t have a personality that I would want to be around. She talked endlessly about her (abusive) previous relationships, and seldom gave me the opportunity to speak.
Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem, as I tend to be more of a listener anyway, but when I do talk, I like to be able to finish what I’m saying. She would frequently interrupt me, focusing on some keyword in what I was saying in order to launch off on some utterly unrelated topic. For example, if I were in the midst or relating some anecdote in which I mentioned my dad, she would key in on the word “dad,” cut me off, and say, “Well MY dad is…”
No matter what topic she started on, though, it inevitably led her back to talking about how her last two boyfriends used to beat her up.
Obviously I’m sorry that she suffered abuse, and I’m extremely sympathetic to the fact that such abuse would have a serious impact on her psyche, but do you really want to talk about that on your first date?
Also, while it smacks of the famous Groucho line about not joining any club that would have you as a member, how desperate does a woman have to be to NOT lose interest in a guy who comes to the date drunk off his ass because he’s been drinking all day?
In any case, I gave up on the whole online personals thing shortly after that.
However, due to the aforementioned factors that limit my potential for romance, I’ve begun to investigate online personals once more.
In the time since I last made use of them, most of the formerly free online personals have been swallowed up by match.com and other pay services. It’s now free to post a profile and to browse other profiles, but in order to actually contact someone, or be contacted yourself, you have to pay a subscription fee.
The typical fee is around $25.
I’m reluctant to shell out that much money on the off-chance that I might find someone I’d like to contact.
Besides, as I browse through the profiles I really am not seeing much to encourage me to shell out my money.
Some of the sites I’ve been to e-mail me profiles of people who match my search criteria. When I receive them, I’m usually grateful that with the security features of SP 2, Windows XP prevents Outlook Express from automatically displaying images that are included in an e-mail…
Again, we might be venturing into “picky” territory, but there are certain things that are just red flags for me when I read a profile.
(And I want to say one thing about my so-called “pickiness.” Bear this in mind the next time you consider accusing me of being too picky: I married the first girl I ever dated. Look how well that particular lack of pickiness worked out for me.)
For example, if a woman mentions her pet within the first two sentences, she is instantly and irrevocably removed from consideration. No exceptions on that one.
If a woman is hot enough to be a model and her pictures look to have been taken professionally, she is clearly NOT looking for someone like me. In fact, a quick check of her “About my Match” section will usually show that she’s looking for someone with an income of $100,000+.
Extremely religious women (Sorry honey, but we’re NOT going to “come together in Christ,” even if that does sound sort of dirty), women who mention how much they love sports in the first paragraph of their information about themselves (What is up with this? This particularly annoying example of how women often change the rules in the middle of the game will be fodder for another lengthy entry someday.), and women who are looking for “dynamic,” “outgoing,” “adventurous,” or tall men are instantly weeded out as well.
On the physical side of things, I’m really not all THAT particular, but when a woman lists her age as 26 and she looks 46, that’s sort of a red flag, as are the pictures of women (who describe their body type as “a few extra pounds”) that are cropped to ONLY show their faces, and which show that their heads alone must be carrying almost as much weight as I’m carrying in my whole body.
I’m not a believer of the “big is beautiful” philosophy. A few extra pounds is one thing, but when you’re carrying the equivalent of a second, full-grown human being, you’ve got a problem. And yes, real women do have curves, but that’s curves, with an “S,” not one great big overall curve that’s comparable to the curvature of the Earth.
I’ve checked out some of the other services as well. Some are nothing more than mail-order bride services, while others are just extended ads for porn sites. If I ever choose to get married again one day I would prefer that there be no substantial language barriers, and that I actually have some opportunity to get to know whether I even like her before I so much as consider saying “I do.”
And there’s enough free porn out there that I have no need to pay attention to ads for porn that I have to pay for.
One other site, eHarmony.com, goes beyond the simple approach of merely browsing profiles, created by members, and brought up by a search based on extremely limited criteria.
This particular dating site has you take a personality inventory for free (A $40 value!), which is then used to create a profile of your personality that is more in-depth than a simple listing of your likes an dislikes and a statement of “who you are” written in your own words.
Being unusually self-aware (This, by the way, has been suggested by two of my friends, in response to my post “Why am I not a TOTAL nutjob?” as being the answer to my question. They suggest that I’m essentially too fixated on myself to be able to fixate on anyone else to a degree that would allow for me to go off the deep end and abduct a woman and engage in any subsequent nuttiness. There could be a lot of truth in that, but I think that it ultimately boils down to me just being too lazy.), I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the resulting personality profile is surprisingly accurate.
At the very least, I definitely recognized the guy they were talking about.
Ah, but that’s only the first part. Next, eHarmony.com goes through all of its existing personality profiles, and, using a patented (or at least “Patent Pending”) matching system to find a personality that would be most compatible with your own.
So, this possibly patented system took the puzzle piece that is my psyche and sifted through a nationwide jigsaw puzzle box to find a matching piece.
…
….
…..
“There are 0 matches.”
So.
Thanks to eHarmony.com, I can say that it’s been scientifically proven that I am completely incompatible with other human beings.
In some ways, I suppose, it was sort of nice to have my feelings of utter hopelessness in that regard be so thoroughly vindicated. I mean, at the very least I can take comfort in knowing that when I think “I’m going to be alone forever,” I’m absolutely right.
Yep, nothing better than being right.
I think that it's time for me to get started on dinner so that my smug sense of self-satisfaction at being right and I can sit down to enjoy a cozy, intimate meal together...
This means waitresses (though I seldom dine out, so I might as well cross them off the list), cosmetologists, bank tellers, cashiers, receptionists, and so on.
The last person I pursued (the one who made the sexual assault comment about my Axe), in fact, worked for my optometrist, which is where I met her. Because I was getting contacts that had to be specially made and sent away for, and because there were some questions about a cataract forming in my eye, I had to make several trips to the office, and thus there was a great deal of opportunity for pursuing my interest in her.
And of course the most recent potential nibble of interest has come in the form of one of the employees in the rental office at my apartment complex.
The biggest problem with pursuing women encountered in the service industry, though, is that they encounter so many people in the course of a day it’s hard to make yourself stand out from the crowd, especially if, like me, you’ve spent most of your life trying to avoid being noticed.
There’s also the problem of flirting. In general, most women flirt for a variety of reasons, and it’s entirely possible that the majority of those reasons have no basis in any sort of attraction.
Women will flirt because they want to get something, because they feel like messing with someone, because they’re bored, and for a whole host of other reasons.
This isn’t an indictment, or really even a complaint; it’s merely an observation. I'm sure that men flirt meaninglessly just as often, or even more often, but since I have no interest in men, I really don't care what they do.
The point is that the fact that a woman flirts with you could mean anything, or it could mean absolutely nothing.
This is particularly true when it’s in a service industry setting, in which a waitress might flirt with you for a tip, or at a bank that doesn’t see much business and the teller flirts with you just because she’s bored.
I know from my own experience that when I worked in tech support I often flirted (over the phone), with female customers who sounded even remotely attractive because it helped to pass the time and to put them at ease.
Since these people were calling from all across the country, there was no way that this flirting could lead to anything, and thus it was devoid of meaning. It was just something to do to make an otherwise unpleasant situation a little more bearable.
And that’s often the way it is when a waitress, or a cashier, or a receptionist flirts with you.
The fact that there often is no clear indicator as to what the basis of flirtation is can lead to confusion, an embarrassing faux pas, anger, and humiliation.
Is she flirting with you because she likes you, or because she wants a big tip? Would you look foolish if you tried to pursue the flirtation and ask her out? Would you be missing the opportunity of a lifetime if you didn't?
Then there’s the question of whether she’s even flirting at all. Are you just misconstruing her natural friendliness? Are you reshaping the situation to accommodate your own desires in your mind? Does she have some bizarre variant of Tourette’s syndrome that causes her to randomly blurt out that people smell REALLY good?
Personally, I tend to err on the side of caution and not only assume that women aren’t flirting with me due to some actual interest in me, but rather, I assume that they are never flirting with me at all.
To put it simply, I have difficulty believing that a woman flirting with me is something that can occur in nature.
Obviously this is a defense mechanism designed to keep me from making foolish mistakes, though I really rather doubt that it’s led me to miss out on much in the way of opportunity.
In any case, in order for me to notice, a woman has to lay it on pretty thick (like, say, suggesting that the scent of my deodorant body spray could cause women to sexually assault the men who are wearing it), and even then I’ll be extremely suspicious of her motivation and will assume that it doesn’t actually mean anything.
On those occasions when a woman has, apparently, been flirting with me and I have actually attempted to act on it, I’ve pretty much only done so because other people were urging me to.
And with every failure that has resulted, I’ve become increasingly reluctant to even bother trying.
So as we begin to rule out even more potential sources of romance, we are inexorably drawn to the shadowy realm of online personals.
When I lived in Michigan I had no reason to even bother looking at the online personals, since the population was so small that, locally, nobody used the personals, particularly the online variety.
It was much the same situation when I lived in Minnesota, though the larger areas were near enough to where I lived that it was worth at least looking, and, in fact, I did go on two dates that resulted from online personals.
The first went fairly well, but the girl actually lived pretty far away (and was about to move even further), and she was really only looking for friends, not romance.
The second did not go well at all. For one thing, I had spent the 8 hours preceding the date getting utterly shitfaced as a guest at a picnic being held by a local beer brewing club, so I wasn't in the best frame of mind when the time came.
For another, my date was roughly twice my size. Beyond the physical problems, though, she didn’t have a personality that I would want to be around. She talked endlessly about her (abusive) previous relationships, and seldom gave me the opportunity to speak.
Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem, as I tend to be more of a listener anyway, but when I do talk, I like to be able to finish what I’m saying. She would frequently interrupt me, focusing on some keyword in what I was saying in order to launch off on some utterly unrelated topic. For example, if I were in the midst or relating some anecdote in which I mentioned my dad, she would key in on the word “dad,” cut me off, and say, “Well MY dad is…”
No matter what topic she started on, though, it inevitably led her back to talking about how her last two boyfriends used to beat her up.
Obviously I’m sorry that she suffered abuse, and I’m extremely sympathetic to the fact that such abuse would have a serious impact on her psyche, but do you really want to talk about that on your first date?
Also, while it smacks of the famous Groucho line about not joining any club that would have you as a member, how desperate does a woman have to be to NOT lose interest in a guy who comes to the date drunk off his ass because he’s been drinking all day?
In any case, I gave up on the whole online personals thing shortly after that.
However, due to the aforementioned factors that limit my potential for romance, I’ve begun to investigate online personals once more.
In the time since I last made use of them, most of the formerly free online personals have been swallowed up by match.com and other pay services. It’s now free to post a profile and to browse other profiles, but in order to actually contact someone, or be contacted yourself, you have to pay a subscription fee.
The typical fee is around $25.
I’m reluctant to shell out that much money on the off-chance that I might find someone I’d like to contact.
Besides, as I browse through the profiles I really am not seeing much to encourage me to shell out my money.
Some of the sites I’ve been to e-mail me profiles of people who match my search criteria. When I receive them, I’m usually grateful that with the security features of SP 2, Windows XP prevents Outlook Express from automatically displaying images that are included in an e-mail…
Again, we might be venturing into “picky” territory, but there are certain things that are just red flags for me when I read a profile.
(And I want to say one thing about my so-called “pickiness.” Bear this in mind the next time you consider accusing me of being too picky: I married the first girl I ever dated. Look how well that particular lack of pickiness worked out for me.)
For example, if a woman mentions her pet within the first two sentences, she is instantly and irrevocably removed from consideration. No exceptions on that one.
If a woman is hot enough to be a model and her pictures look to have been taken professionally, she is clearly NOT looking for someone like me. In fact, a quick check of her “About my Match” section will usually show that she’s looking for someone with an income of $100,000+.
Extremely religious women (Sorry honey, but we’re NOT going to “come together in Christ,” even if that does sound sort of dirty), women who mention how much they love sports in the first paragraph of their information about themselves (What is up with this? This particularly annoying example of how women often change the rules in the middle of the game will be fodder for another lengthy entry someday.), and women who are looking for “dynamic,” “outgoing,” “adventurous,” or tall men are instantly weeded out as well.
On the physical side of things, I’m really not all THAT particular, but when a woman lists her age as 26 and she looks 46, that’s sort of a red flag, as are the pictures of women (who describe their body type as “a few extra pounds”) that are cropped to ONLY show their faces, and which show that their heads alone must be carrying almost as much weight as I’m carrying in my whole body.
I’m not a believer of the “big is beautiful” philosophy. A few extra pounds is one thing, but when you’re carrying the equivalent of a second, full-grown human being, you’ve got a problem. And yes, real women do have curves, but that’s curves, with an “S,” not one great big overall curve that’s comparable to the curvature of the Earth.
I’ve checked out some of the other services as well. Some are nothing more than mail-order bride services, while others are just extended ads for porn sites. If I ever choose to get married again one day I would prefer that there be no substantial language barriers, and that I actually have some opportunity to get to know whether I even like her before I so much as consider saying “I do.”
And there’s enough free porn out there that I have no need to pay attention to ads for porn that I have to pay for.
One other site, eHarmony.com, goes beyond the simple approach of merely browsing profiles, created by members, and brought up by a search based on extremely limited criteria.
This particular dating site has you take a personality inventory for free (A $40 value!), which is then used to create a profile of your personality that is more in-depth than a simple listing of your likes an dislikes and a statement of “who you are” written in your own words.
Being unusually self-aware (This, by the way, has been suggested by two of my friends, in response to my post “Why am I not a TOTAL nutjob?” as being the answer to my question. They suggest that I’m essentially too fixated on myself to be able to fixate on anyone else to a degree that would allow for me to go off the deep end and abduct a woman and engage in any subsequent nuttiness. There could be a lot of truth in that, but I think that it ultimately boils down to me just being too lazy.), I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the resulting personality profile is surprisingly accurate.
At the very least, I definitely recognized the guy they were talking about.
Ah, but that’s only the first part. Next, eHarmony.com goes through all of its existing personality profiles, and, using a patented (or at least “Patent Pending”) matching system to find a personality that would be most compatible with your own.
So, this possibly patented system took the puzzle piece that is my psyche and sifted through a nationwide jigsaw puzzle box to find a matching piece.
…
….
…..
“There are 0 matches.”
So.
Thanks to eHarmony.com, I can say that it’s been scientifically proven that I am completely incompatible with other human beings.
In some ways, I suppose, it was sort of nice to have my feelings of utter hopelessness in that regard be so thoroughly vindicated. I mean, at the very least I can take comfort in knowing that when I think “I’m going to be alone forever,” I’m absolutely right.
Yep, nothing better than being right.
I think that it's time for me to get started on dinner so that my smug sense of self-satisfaction at being right and I can sit down to enjoy a cozy, intimate meal together...
Rest In Peace
It occurs to me that I would be somewhat remiss in not saying something about the recent death of Christopher Reeve.
I’m very sorry to see that spinal injury research has lost such a visible proponent, and that his life had to be cut so senselessly short. I extend m heartfelt sympathies to his family.
However, while I do feel bad that he died, I don’t have any particularly strong personal feelings on the subject.
To put it bluntly, I wasn’t really a fan.
The first two “Superman” movies, while not as horrible as some comic book movies, were not really among my favorites, and the final two were absolute trash. As a result, to be honest, I’ve held his involvement in the movies against him in much the same way I hold the involvement of Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Teri Hatcher, and a host of others, against them for their respective “crimes against comics.”
(I’m sure I will similarly hold a grudge against the cast of “Fantastic Four.”)
Still, despite how poorly written and directed the movies were, Christopher Reeve wasn’t a bad choice for the role, and his image will always be synonymous with that of the Man of Steel in the minds of the general public, to which, albeit somewhat grudgingly, I will say, “Rightly so.”
I’m very sorry to see that spinal injury research has lost such a visible proponent, and that his life had to be cut so senselessly short. I extend m heartfelt sympathies to his family.
However, while I do feel bad that he died, I don’t have any particularly strong personal feelings on the subject.
To put it bluntly, I wasn’t really a fan.
The first two “Superman” movies, while not as horrible as some comic book movies, were not really among my favorites, and the final two were absolute trash. As a result, to be honest, I’ve held his involvement in the movies against him in much the same way I hold the involvement of Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Teri Hatcher, and a host of others, against them for their respective “crimes against comics.”
(I’m sure I will similarly hold a grudge against the cast of “Fantastic Four.”)
Still, despite how poorly written and directed the movies were, Christopher Reeve wasn’t a bad choice for the role, and his image will always be synonymous with that of the Man of Steel in the minds of the general public, to which, albeit somewhat grudgingly, I will say, “Rightly so.”
The more things stay the same, the more things change
If ten years ago you had told me that there would come a time when I’d be sitting at my computer looking up recipes for FUN, I would have told you that you were crazy.
Then I would have gone back to trying to draw pictures using a mouse and MS Paint, most likely painstakingly creating images pixel by pixel (I had a lot more patience back then).
As an aside, I did get surprisingly good at drawing with Paint, despite its limitations, though I always longed for something better, and assumed that if I did have something better, I would produce truly amazing images. To think there was a time that I actually had faith in my talents…
Regardless, the point is that, there is a great deal that can change in the course of a decade.
For example, since 1994 I have moved a total of 18 times. Eighteen. That’s a lot of time spent in transition.
And that’s only one example of the things that have changed. At the start of 1994, I was a married college senior working a part-time job and living in married student housing on campus. By the end of 1994 I was an unemployed married college graduate living in an apartment that he and his wife really couldn’t afford.
By mid-1995 I was still unemployed, but I was separated from my wife. By the end of the year, still separated, I was employed full-time in a grocery store, after a brief stint as a garbageman, and I was living in a very tiny, crappy apartment, and I was beginning to develop a drinking problem.
By the end of 1996 I was divorced and still employed full-time in a grocery store, for the first time since the end of my marriage I had taken an interest in a woman and fallen in love, and I was well on my way to having a drinking problem.
By 1997, still divorced, I was the Director of Communications at a small, private college in Michigan and my drinking had really taken off.
1998 is largely a blur of poor decision after poor, alcohol-fueled decision.
By 1999, once again unemployed, I had moved to a small town in Minnesota, and was pretty much a raging alcoholic.
By mid-2000 I had been fired from yet another job and was making my way back to Michigan for a disastrously drunken summer.
In the early days of 2001, newly sober, I moved to Tucson.
After losing yet another job, I started working for the company that I still work for three years later. After a year I had moved to Virginia, a different position with the company, and into this apartment.
So far I’ve been here for nearly two years, and soon I’ll be signing a lease that signals my intention to stay in this apartment for at least one more year. Not wanting to move to a more conventional schedule, or having any particular ambitions, I’ll most likely stay in my current position at work for some time to come as well (barring any unforseen difficulties, at least).
After all, why would I want to leave a job that allows me to spend the better part of my Wednesday mornings looking up recipes on the computer?
If there’s a point to any of this I suppose it would be that the current stability that allows me the luxury of spending the better part of my Wednesday mornings looking up recipes on the computer, for fun, is something that, in contrast to the past decade, is something relatively new.
While most of my adult life hasn’t exactly been a whirlwind of activity, stability hasn’t exactly been a major component of it. Transition would seem to be the defining characteristic, as I made the move from student to graduate, married man to divorced man, Midwestern to Southwestern to Eastern.
As I sit here and reflect on the current lack of change in a life that was once filled to overflowing with change, I realize that despite the fact that virtually everything around me seemed to change on a constant basis, I never really did.
Certainly, some of my behaviors changed, and the way I’ve defined myself has changed many times, but at the core of it, Jon, the real Jon, hasn’t changed at all.
Years ago, I once heard my friend Eric explain to his then-fiancée, Sally, that in the time that he had spent away from home between being in the Air Force and going to school in Minnesota, whenever he returned he was always somewhat dismayed by the way things had changed in his absence. New stores went up, old stores were torn down, and nothing ever really seemed the same, not even people. Nothing, it seemed, could be relied on to remain constant.
“Except,” he said, in summation, “Jon. I can count on Jon to never change. The circumstances of his life might change, but Jon is always the same.”
I don’t know whether or not I was ever pleased by the notion of being the one constant in his life. Certainly he intended it as praise, but can it really be considered praise to learn that you are viewed as being stagnant and inflexible?
Is that at the heart of the problems I experienced throughout my “Decade of Flux,” my inability to adapt to changing circumstances? Or does it go even deeper; was I incapable of even seeing that my life was in transition? Honestly, as I look back, I realize that there was a lot of change, but at the time all I ever saw was the tedious, unending sameness of it all.
Am I utterly incapable of changing at a fundamental level? Despite my efforts to make changes to myself and my definition of who I am (staying sober, exercising, quitting smoking, developing my new-found culinary talents), at the core of who I am, nothing changes, and nothing has changed. All of my old insecurities, regrets, hopes, and bitterness inform my decisions in exactly the same ways they always did.
When I first arrived here I had decided that I was going to present a different face to the people I worked with, to find some new Jon that I could present to the world.
Inevitably, though, I fell into the same patterns of negativity, barely suppressed rage, and bitter humor. I fell once again into the role of the slightly scary but sort of lovable anti-social curmudgeon I’ve always been.
I guess the real question is whether or not that’s so bad. I don’t know, honestly. It’s not as if there’s NO aspect of myself that I like, or that I think is worth keeping “as is,” it’s just that sometimes I wonder what it would be like to view the world through a different set of eyes, to interact with others without falling into the same old patterns.
After all, those patterns seem to inevitably lead to me spending my Wednesday mornings alone, just like most mornings, looking up recipes on the computer for fun, just as I used to spend them alone drawing with MS Paint pixel by pixel, or playing Solitaire, or writing an entry for my blog, or doing all the things that I do in which I find myself, invariably, alone, and wondering why I can’t change.
Sorry to go off on that somewhat self-pitying track. I had started out wanting to write about something else entirely, but sometimes plans change (even if I don’t).
For those of you who like to see pictures, I have to apologize for my lack of delivery in that department lately. I just haven’t been up to the task for some reason. These sort of picture slumps are not unusual, though, and I’m sure somewhere along the line I’ll suddenly have a streak of successful (for me) pictures.
I’m sure I’ll write some more later, and maybe I’ll even manage to address some of the topics I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, like online dating.
Then I would have gone back to trying to draw pictures using a mouse and MS Paint, most likely painstakingly creating images pixel by pixel (I had a lot more patience back then).
As an aside, I did get surprisingly good at drawing with Paint, despite its limitations, though I always longed for something better, and assumed that if I did have something better, I would produce truly amazing images. To think there was a time that I actually had faith in my talents…
Regardless, the point is that, there is a great deal that can change in the course of a decade.
For example, since 1994 I have moved a total of 18 times. Eighteen. That’s a lot of time spent in transition.
And that’s only one example of the things that have changed. At the start of 1994, I was a married college senior working a part-time job and living in married student housing on campus. By the end of 1994 I was an unemployed married college graduate living in an apartment that he and his wife really couldn’t afford.
By mid-1995 I was still unemployed, but I was separated from my wife. By the end of the year, still separated, I was employed full-time in a grocery store, after a brief stint as a garbageman, and I was living in a very tiny, crappy apartment, and I was beginning to develop a drinking problem.
By the end of 1996 I was divorced and still employed full-time in a grocery store, for the first time since the end of my marriage I had taken an interest in a woman and fallen in love, and I was well on my way to having a drinking problem.
By 1997, still divorced, I was the Director of Communications at a small, private college in Michigan and my drinking had really taken off.
1998 is largely a blur of poor decision after poor, alcohol-fueled decision.
By 1999, once again unemployed, I had moved to a small town in Minnesota, and was pretty much a raging alcoholic.
By mid-2000 I had been fired from yet another job and was making my way back to Michigan for a disastrously drunken summer.
In the early days of 2001, newly sober, I moved to Tucson.
After losing yet another job, I started working for the company that I still work for three years later. After a year I had moved to Virginia, a different position with the company, and into this apartment.
So far I’ve been here for nearly two years, and soon I’ll be signing a lease that signals my intention to stay in this apartment for at least one more year. Not wanting to move to a more conventional schedule, or having any particular ambitions, I’ll most likely stay in my current position at work for some time to come as well (barring any unforseen difficulties, at least).
After all, why would I want to leave a job that allows me to spend the better part of my Wednesday mornings looking up recipes on the computer?
If there’s a point to any of this I suppose it would be that the current stability that allows me the luxury of spending the better part of my Wednesday mornings looking up recipes on the computer, for fun, is something that, in contrast to the past decade, is something relatively new.
While most of my adult life hasn’t exactly been a whirlwind of activity, stability hasn’t exactly been a major component of it. Transition would seem to be the defining characteristic, as I made the move from student to graduate, married man to divorced man, Midwestern to Southwestern to Eastern.
As I sit here and reflect on the current lack of change in a life that was once filled to overflowing with change, I realize that despite the fact that virtually everything around me seemed to change on a constant basis, I never really did.
Certainly, some of my behaviors changed, and the way I’ve defined myself has changed many times, but at the core of it, Jon, the real Jon, hasn’t changed at all.
Years ago, I once heard my friend Eric explain to his then-fiancée, Sally, that in the time that he had spent away from home between being in the Air Force and going to school in Minnesota, whenever he returned he was always somewhat dismayed by the way things had changed in his absence. New stores went up, old stores were torn down, and nothing ever really seemed the same, not even people. Nothing, it seemed, could be relied on to remain constant.
“Except,” he said, in summation, “Jon. I can count on Jon to never change. The circumstances of his life might change, but Jon is always the same.”
I don’t know whether or not I was ever pleased by the notion of being the one constant in his life. Certainly he intended it as praise, but can it really be considered praise to learn that you are viewed as being stagnant and inflexible?
Is that at the heart of the problems I experienced throughout my “Decade of Flux,” my inability to adapt to changing circumstances? Or does it go even deeper; was I incapable of even seeing that my life was in transition? Honestly, as I look back, I realize that there was a lot of change, but at the time all I ever saw was the tedious, unending sameness of it all.
Am I utterly incapable of changing at a fundamental level? Despite my efforts to make changes to myself and my definition of who I am (staying sober, exercising, quitting smoking, developing my new-found culinary talents), at the core of who I am, nothing changes, and nothing has changed. All of my old insecurities, regrets, hopes, and bitterness inform my decisions in exactly the same ways they always did.
When I first arrived here I had decided that I was going to present a different face to the people I worked with, to find some new Jon that I could present to the world.
Inevitably, though, I fell into the same patterns of negativity, barely suppressed rage, and bitter humor. I fell once again into the role of the slightly scary but sort of lovable anti-social curmudgeon I’ve always been.
I guess the real question is whether or not that’s so bad. I don’t know, honestly. It’s not as if there’s NO aspect of myself that I like, or that I think is worth keeping “as is,” it’s just that sometimes I wonder what it would be like to view the world through a different set of eyes, to interact with others without falling into the same old patterns.
After all, those patterns seem to inevitably lead to me spending my Wednesday mornings alone, just like most mornings, looking up recipes on the computer for fun, just as I used to spend them alone drawing with MS Paint pixel by pixel, or playing Solitaire, or writing an entry for my blog, or doing all the things that I do in which I find myself, invariably, alone, and wondering why I can’t change.
Sorry to go off on that somewhat self-pitying track. I had started out wanting to write about something else entirely, but sometimes plans change (even if I don’t).
For those of you who like to see pictures, I have to apologize for my lack of delivery in that department lately. I just haven’t been up to the task for some reason. These sort of picture slumps are not unusual, though, and I’m sure somewhere along the line I’ll suddenly have a streak of successful (for me) pictures.
I’m sure I’ll write some more later, and maybe I’ll even manage to address some of the topics I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, like online dating.
Whoops!
I just noticed that the opening paragraphs of my previous post were missing. I've fixed it now, so those of you who read it and were baffled by this totally out of the blue entry on "Red Sonja" will now be able to understand what motivated me to write it...
She-Devil With a Mullet
I thought that maybe I would have a picture to break up the monotony of these long, long, LONG posts, but I guess not.
I started on a couple, but neither one was working out very well, so I scrapped them.
The girl from the rental office never called about my lease.
Of course, having a woman not call me after she said she would is hardly anything new…
A bit ago a friend of mine pointed out that in all my talk about comic book movies I’ve never mentioned the “Red Sonja” movie, which, while a bit out of left field, is true nevertheless.
I have not previously commented on “Red Sonja.”
…
I don’t know that there’s really much I can say about the movie. It was terrible, and Brigitte Nielsen was terrible in it, and had been a terrible choice for the role. For one thing, she had none of Sonja’s smoldering intensity and passion (which was largely pent-up sexual desires, since one of the central aspects of the character was that she would give herself to no man unless he could first defeat her in battle, and since Sonja was such a formidable swordswoman, she went undefeated for a long time.).
The other thing that was lacking was Sonja’s flowing mane of flaming red hair. The red mullet they gave Brigitte just didn’t cut it.
And what was up with Arnold essentially playing Conan in all but name?
All in all a terrible, terrible movie, though writing about it does make me realize that I was mistaken in my earlier claims about Marvel not managing to have any movies successfully brought to the big screen prior to “Blade.”
However, I don’t know that “Red Sonja” or the Conan movies actually count, since they were not actually owned by Marvel. Marvel simply had a licensing deal which allowed them to use the characters. Same goes for “Kull,” which, at the time the movie was made, may not have been a license that Marvel still possessed.
In any case, I’ve never read any actual Robert E. Howard Red Sonja stories (or Kull stories for that matter, but I have read all of the original Conan stories and probably dozens of post-Howard Conan novels), so my experience with the character is strictly limited to the comics, and I haven’t even read that many of those.
When I think of Sonja, though, my mind conjures one of two images; either Frank Thorne’s rather classic rendition of her wearing what was essentially a bikini made of chain mail (Actually, come to think of it, it was more like scale armor, but either way, the thing looked damned uncomfortable. ) or the image of her in a simple, belly-baring mail shirt and leather “Daisy Dukes,” as presented in an old Conan story penciled by Barry Windsor-Smith.
I believe that particular story may have been her introduction to the world of comics, though I could EASILY be mistaken. It was, at any rate, the Cimmerian’s first encounter with the “She-Devil With a Sword.”
The comics that featured the Frank Thorne version of Sonja ran in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a new Sonja series was launched. I only ever read a couple of issues of that. I remember being less than impressed by the artwork, and annoyed by how skimpy Sonja’s outfit wasn’t.
The mention of Frank Thorne’s interpretation of Sonja brings to mind what I think is an interesting anecdote.
At some point in the early 1970s there was a young woman named Wendy who, in addition to being one of the rarest of creatures (particularly in that time period), a woman who actually read comic books, frequently accompanied Frank Thorne to comic book conventions dressed as Red Sonja.
I have to tell you; I’ve seen some pictures of Wendy in her Sonja outfit, and she was pretty damn hot.
That’s not the most interesting part, though.
At around the same time there was another comic book fan named Richard Pini. Via the letter page in “Silver Surfer,” Wendy and Richard became acquainted, eventually married, and went on to publish the “Elfquest” series of comics as a husband and wife team. "Elfquest" went on to become one of the earliest success stories in the field of comic self-publishing.
In addition to being a total babe who knows comics, Wendy is also an extremely talented artist in her own right, so all I can say is that Richard Pini hit the comic book geek jackpot and is probably the luckiest comic book geek in all of creation.
In fact, I think he may have used up all the luck that was available for comic book geeks, and if he didn’t Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and publisher of “Heavy Metal” magazine, undoubtedly used up whatever luck remained when he married former “Penthouse Pet of the Year” Julie Strain…
Anyway, as I was saying, there’s not too much more I can say about Red Sonja either in movie or comic book form, but she is something of an archetype for the female warrior character, so I think she did deserve a little more cinematic respect than she got.
I have actually read some stories that Robert E. Howard wrote about a different red-haired swordswoman, named, appropriately enough, “Swordswoman.” I don’t remember who came first, Sonja or Swordswoman, but they were separated by a vast gulf of time (Swordswoman lived in a time period much closer to our own), yet retained many similarities, not unlike Conan and his predecessor Kull.
I don’t know if anything’s been done with Sonja in recent years. I do know that Dark Horse Comics now seems to have the rights to Conan and are publishing their own Conan stories. I don’t know if they have any plans for, or the rights to, Red Sonja.
I find it out, though, that Marvel seems to have lost the rights to the Robert E. Howard properties, as they had actually incorporated them directly into the Marvel Universe. Conan’s “Hyborian Age” is an epoch in the history of the MU, and Conan, Kull, and Sonja have all been established characters. I don't know what impact losing those licenses has on their ability to make use of concepts that sprang forth from them, but it always struck me as odd that Marvel chose to make licensed characters a part of the mainstream continuity of their original creations.
In a similar fashion, Marvel had incorporated the Micronauts, a comic based on a line of toys, into the MU, and did the same with Rom, Spaceknight, who was also based on a toy.
I believe that Image Comics currently has the rights to the Micronauts, and I know they had been publishing books featuring their own versions of the characters. This did actually impact Marvel in a story I read not too long ago (though the story itself was several years old) which featured characters culled from their old Micronauts series who were simply referred to as “The ‘Nauts,” since, presumably, Marvel could no longer use the prefix “Micro.”
Apart from making Minestrone soup (which turned out excellently), I really didn’t do much with my Tuesday. My biggest accomplishment was managing to sleep.
Hopefully tomorrow (well, at this point I guess it’s today) I’ll have either some pictures to post or some more interesting stories to tell.
I started on a couple, but neither one was working out very well, so I scrapped them.
The girl from the rental office never called about my lease.
Of course, having a woman not call me after she said she would is hardly anything new…
A bit ago a friend of mine pointed out that in all my talk about comic book movies I’ve never mentioned the “Red Sonja” movie, which, while a bit out of left field, is true nevertheless.
I have not previously commented on “Red Sonja.”
…
I don’t know that there’s really much I can say about the movie. It was terrible, and Brigitte Nielsen was terrible in it, and had been a terrible choice for the role. For one thing, she had none of Sonja’s smoldering intensity and passion (which was largely pent-up sexual desires, since one of the central aspects of the character was that she would give herself to no man unless he could first defeat her in battle, and since Sonja was such a formidable swordswoman, she went undefeated for a long time.).
The other thing that was lacking was Sonja’s flowing mane of flaming red hair. The red mullet they gave Brigitte just didn’t cut it.
And what was up with Arnold essentially playing Conan in all but name?
All in all a terrible, terrible movie, though writing about it does make me realize that I was mistaken in my earlier claims about Marvel not managing to have any movies successfully brought to the big screen prior to “Blade.”
However, I don’t know that “Red Sonja” or the Conan movies actually count, since they were not actually owned by Marvel. Marvel simply had a licensing deal which allowed them to use the characters. Same goes for “Kull,” which, at the time the movie was made, may not have been a license that Marvel still possessed.
In any case, I’ve never read any actual Robert E. Howard Red Sonja stories (or Kull stories for that matter, but I have read all of the original Conan stories and probably dozens of post-Howard Conan novels), so my experience with the character is strictly limited to the comics, and I haven’t even read that many of those.
When I think of Sonja, though, my mind conjures one of two images; either Frank Thorne’s rather classic rendition of her wearing what was essentially a bikini made of chain mail (Actually, come to think of it, it was more like scale armor, but either way, the thing looked damned uncomfortable. ) or the image of her in a simple, belly-baring mail shirt and leather “Daisy Dukes,” as presented in an old Conan story penciled by Barry Windsor-Smith.
I believe that particular story may have been her introduction to the world of comics, though I could EASILY be mistaken. It was, at any rate, the Cimmerian’s first encounter with the “She-Devil With a Sword.”
The comics that featured the Frank Thorne version of Sonja ran in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a new Sonja series was launched. I only ever read a couple of issues of that. I remember being less than impressed by the artwork, and annoyed by how skimpy Sonja’s outfit wasn’t.
The mention of Frank Thorne’s interpretation of Sonja brings to mind what I think is an interesting anecdote.
At some point in the early 1970s there was a young woman named Wendy who, in addition to being one of the rarest of creatures (particularly in that time period), a woman who actually read comic books, frequently accompanied Frank Thorne to comic book conventions dressed as Red Sonja.
I have to tell you; I’ve seen some pictures of Wendy in her Sonja outfit, and she was pretty damn hot.
That’s not the most interesting part, though.
At around the same time there was another comic book fan named Richard Pini. Via the letter page in “Silver Surfer,” Wendy and Richard became acquainted, eventually married, and went on to publish the “Elfquest” series of comics as a husband and wife team. "Elfquest" went on to become one of the earliest success stories in the field of comic self-publishing.
In addition to being a total babe who knows comics, Wendy is also an extremely talented artist in her own right, so all I can say is that Richard Pini hit the comic book geek jackpot and is probably the luckiest comic book geek in all of creation.
In fact, I think he may have used up all the luck that was available for comic book geeks, and if he didn’t Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and publisher of “Heavy Metal” magazine, undoubtedly used up whatever luck remained when he married former “Penthouse Pet of the Year” Julie Strain…
Anyway, as I was saying, there’s not too much more I can say about Red Sonja either in movie or comic book form, but she is something of an archetype for the female warrior character, so I think she did deserve a little more cinematic respect than she got.
I have actually read some stories that Robert E. Howard wrote about a different red-haired swordswoman, named, appropriately enough, “Swordswoman.” I don’t remember who came first, Sonja or Swordswoman, but they were separated by a vast gulf of time (Swordswoman lived in a time period much closer to our own), yet retained many similarities, not unlike Conan and his predecessor Kull.
I don’t know if anything’s been done with Sonja in recent years. I do know that Dark Horse Comics now seems to have the rights to Conan and are publishing their own Conan stories. I don’t know if they have any plans for, or the rights to, Red Sonja.
I find it out, though, that Marvel seems to have lost the rights to the Robert E. Howard properties, as they had actually incorporated them directly into the Marvel Universe. Conan’s “Hyborian Age” is an epoch in the history of the MU, and Conan, Kull, and Sonja have all been established characters. I don't know what impact losing those licenses has on their ability to make use of concepts that sprang forth from them, but it always struck me as odd that Marvel chose to make licensed characters a part of the mainstream continuity of their original creations.
In a similar fashion, Marvel had incorporated the Micronauts, a comic based on a line of toys, into the MU, and did the same with Rom, Spaceknight, who was also based on a toy.
I believe that Image Comics currently has the rights to the Micronauts, and I know they had been publishing books featuring their own versions of the characters. This did actually impact Marvel in a story I read not too long ago (though the story itself was several years old) which featured characters culled from their old Micronauts series who were simply referred to as “The ‘Nauts,” since, presumably, Marvel could no longer use the prefix “Micro.”
Apart from making Minestrone soup (which turned out excellently), I really didn’t do much with my Tuesday. My biggest accomplishment was managing to sleep.
Hopefully tomorrow (well, at this point I guess it’s today) I’ll have either some pictures to post or some more interesting stories to tell.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
The "Axe Effect" strikes again
So today I seem to be in a better mood. At the very least I’m not finding myself hoping for Extinction Level Events.
This may be because I managed to sleep in for a change. I woke up at around 8, but decided that, dammit, I was going to sleep later than that.
Eventually, at around quarter to eleven, I opted to get up, feeling, oddly enough, a sense of accomplishment for having managed to sleep in so late.
Of course, considering that I didn’t go to bed until after 3 am, it really wasn’t all that much sleep, but it was better than five hours would have been.
Sometime yesterday I decided that today I would try making Minestrone soup.
In my search for a recipe that looked appealing, I found myself more than a little baffled by the fact that most of the recipes I found for Minestrone soup actually called for, as an ingredient, Minestrone soup. Umm…? If I already have Minestrone soup, why would I need to make use of it as an ingredient in Minestrone soup?
Initially I assumed that they meant some sort of Minestrone soup stock, but that couldn’t have been the case for all of them, since several of them called for a specific brand of canned Minestrone soup.
In any case, the decision to make the soup and the discovery of a non-recursive recipe for it necessitated making a trip out into the world again.
It was only a very short trip, which probably helped to keep my mood from venturing back into the black.
After I got home I decided to walk over to the rental office to, once again, inquire about renewing my lease.
I need to pause here and embark on something of a “background tangent” which is required for the next part of the “trip to the rental office” anecdote.
I’m sure that most of you, at some time or other, have seen ads for “Axe” deodorant body spray. The initial ads used to warn of the dangers of the “Axe Effect,” which, as demonstrated by the commercials, showed that women, upon catching the scent of a man wearing Axe, suddenly lose all self-control and are powerless to resist their desire to ravish the man.
In the commercials, the “Axe Effect” was demonstrated in several different settings, and, while the whole campaign was obviously utter nonsense, it was amusing, and so, upon noticing a display at a Wal-Mart one day, I decided to see what the stuff was like.
I clearly didn’t expect women to suddenly find me irresistibly attractive (I don’t think anything short of a sudden astronomical boost to my bank account could ever produce those kinds of results), but I did find the scent pleasant enough, and so I started wearing it.
I continued to wear it even though, as expected, there was no such thing as the “Axe Effect.” After I moved here from Tucson, I neglected to replenish my supply of Axe until a pregnant co-worker, finding her sense of smell boosted by said pregnancy, began complaining, quite vociferously, about the offensive odor of cigarette smoke about me.
To combat that, I once again took to wearing Axe (since that was easier than quitting smoking).
This decision received a grateful reception from her formerly offended olfactory senses. In fact, while not nearly so extreme as advertised (and, in this case, thankfully so, since she's a married woman), the “Axe Effect” began to make itself known in the form of comments and growls (which, for this particular woman, are an accepted form of communication) from her.
Heartened by this experience I made sure to liberally apply Axe prior to some encounters with a woman that I was pursuing at the time. It didn’t go unnoticed by the woman, and she commented on the scent on more than one occasion, stating that it smelled so good it “ought to be illegal,” as it could, as she put it, lead to cases of women sexually assaulting those men fortunate enough to be wearing it.
Sadly, in this instance, no such sexual assault occurred, and the “Axe Effect” wasn’t strong enough to sustain her interest (or to even cause her to return my phone calls) beyond two dates.
Still, I continue to wear Axe, and on occasion I will receive comments on it from members of the opposite sex, such as from the young woman who cuts my hair. It has inspired her to add “Smell good” to her English language repertoire, which normally consists only of “How you want?” and “Fourteen dollar.”
So in general, I never venture out into the world without first applying some Axe (other than when I go for a walk first thing in the morning, at least), and today was no exception.
Okay, now that you have the background, we'll get back to the anecdote.
I walked over to the rental office, and the semi-cute girl working there, with whom I’ve spoken pretty much every time I’ve gone over to deal with the lease issue, said that she was working on the lease renewals and that mine was third in line. She stated that she would get it all ready for me and call me after doing so.
I said okay, and thanks, and turned to head back home. She thanked me for stopping by, told me that she’d see me soon, and then, out of nowhere, added, “You smell REALLY good.”
Being a bit nonplussed, I could only laugh and say, “Uh, well, thank you.”
This probably serves only as an amusing anecdote, as that has, so far, been all that the “Axe Effect” has ever led to, but, as amusing anecdotes go, this is a good one.
In any case, I don’t foresee any future interaction I may have with her leading to her, overcome with passion, sexually assaulting me, which is, of course, a pity, as, while not exactly the ideal, she is kind of cute...
In any case, I’m sure I’ll be back later today, but for right now I need to get my Minestrone started.
This may be because I managed to sleep in for a change. I woke up at around 8, but decided that, dammit, I was going to sleep later than that.
Eventually, at around quarter to eleven, I opted to get up, feeling, oddly enough, a sense of accomplishment for having managed to sleep in so late.
Of course, considering that I didn’t go to bed until after 3 am, it really wasn’t all that much sleep, but it was better than five hours would have been.
Sometime yesterday I decided that today I would try making Minestrone soup.
In my search for a recipe that looked appealing, I found myself more than a little baffled by the fact that most of the recipes I found for Minestrone soup actually called for, as an ingredient, Minestrone soup. Umm…? If I already have Minestrone soup, why would I need to make use of it as an ingredient in Minestrone soup?
Initially I assumed that they meant some sort of Minestrone soup stock, but that couldn’t have been the case for all of them, since several of them called for a specific brand of canned Minestrone soup.
In any case, the decision to make the soup and the discovery of a non-recursive recipe for it necessitated making a trip out into the world again.
It was only a very short trip, which probably helped to keep my mood from venturing back into the black.
After I got home I decided to walk over to the rental office to, once again, inquire about renewing my lease.
I need to pause here and embark on something of a “background tangent” which is required for the next part of the “trip to the rental office” anecdote.
I’m sure that most of you, at some time or other, have seen ads for “Axe” deodorant body spray. The initial ads used to warn of the dangers of the “Axe Effect,” which, as demonstrated by the commercials, showed that women, upon catching the scent of a man wearing Axe, suddenly lose all self-control and are powerless to resist their desire to ravish the man.
In the commercials, the “Axe Effect” was demonstrated in several different settings, and, while the whole campaign was obviously utter nonsense, it was amusing, and so, upon noticing a display at a Wal-Mart one day, I decided to see what the stuff was like.
I clearly didn’t expect women to suddenly find me irresistibly attractive (I don’t think anything short of a sudden astronomical boost to my bank account could ever produce those kinds of results), but I did find the scent pleasant enough, and so I started wearing it.
I continued to wear it even though, as expected, there was no such thing as the “Axe Effect.” After I moved here from Tucson, I neglected to replenish my supply of Axe until a pregnant co-worker, finding her sense of smell boosted by said pregnancy, began complaining, quite vociferously, about the offensive odor of cigarette smoke about me.
To combat that, I once again took to wearing Axe (since that was easier than quitting smoking).
This decision received a grateful reception from her formerly offended olfactory senses. In fact, while not nearly so extreme as advertised (and, in this case, thankfully so, since she's a married woman), the “Axe Effect” began to make itself known in the form of comments and growls (which, for this particular woman, are an accepted form of communication) from her.
Heartened by this experience I made sure to liberally apply Axe prior to some encounters with a woman that I was pursuing at the time. It didn’t go unnoticed by the woman, and she commented on the scent on more than one occasion, stating that it smelled so good it “ought to be illegal,” as it could, as she put it, lead to cases of women sexually assaulting those men fortunate enough to be wearing it.
Sadly, in this instance, no such sexual assault occurred, and the “Axe Effect” wasn’t strong enough to sustain her interest (or to even cause her to return my phone calls) beyond two dates.
Still, I continue to wear Axe, and on occasion I will receive comments on it from members of the opposite sex, such as from the young woman who cuts my hair. It has inspired her to add “Smell good” to her English language repertoire, which normally consists only of “How you want?” and “Fourteen dollar.”
So in general, I never venture out into the world without first applying some Axe (other than when I go for a walk first thing in the morning, at least), and today was no exception.
Okay, now that you have the background, we'll get back to the anecdote.
I walked over to the rental office, and the semi-cute girl working there, with whom I’ve spoken pretty much every time I’ve gone over to deal with the lease issue, said that she was working on the lease renewals and that mine was third in line. She stated that she would get it all ready for me and call me after doing so.
I said okay, and thanks, and turned to head back home. She thanked me for stopping by, told me that she’d see me soon, and then, out of nowhere, added, “You smell REALLY good.”
Being a bit nonplussed, I could only laugh and say, “Uh, well, thank you.”
This probably serves only as an amusing anecdote, as that has, so far, been all that the “Axe Effect” has ever led to, but, as amusing anecdotes go, this is a good one.
In any case, I don’t foresee any future interaction I may have with her leading to her, overcome with passion, sexually assaulting me, which is, of course, a pity, as, while not exactly the ideal, she is kind of cute...
In any case, I’m sure I’ll be back later today, but for right now I need to get my Minestrone started.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Why am I not a TOTAL nutjob?
It’s Sunday night as I begin writing this, but it may not get posted until sometime on Monday.
I just got through watching a very good (and rather momentous) episode of Dead Like Me, and so I have time to kill until Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
So here I am.
Prior to DLM I watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent. It was also a very good episode, it a bit odd, and disconcerting.
One thing about it that sort of jumped out at me was that there was a character on it named Fontaine. As she was a stripper, it was her stage name, thus, like “my” Fontaine, she had no last name.
Unfortunately for her, she got whacked pretty early on in the episode.
The other disconcerting aspect was the killer. He was sort of Dahmer-esque serial killer in the making played by Neil Patrick Harris (TV’s “Doogie Howser, MD”).
Unlike Dahmer, though, his victims were members of the opposite sex.
The elements of the story (home-brewed lobotomies, cannibalism) were disturbing enough in and of themselves, but what made it especially so were some of the aspects of Doogie’s character.
Basically, he was a lonely, socially awkward, loveless loser.
Named Jon.
Okay, so it was probably “John,” but still, it was a bit disconcerting, and it’s one of the inconveniences of having such a common name.
He also seemed to be developing a drinking problem (in addition to his many other troubles), so again, the similarities were bothersome.
Of course, I’ve never abducted a woman, drilled a hole in her head and scalded her brain with hot water, nor have I even considered doing any of the above.
I started writing a story about a guy abducting a woman, but I never finished it, and that imaginative abduction was as close as I ever plan to come to such an act.
In any case, the real point is that, sure, he was crazy, and yes, he did horrible things, but at the heart of it all he was just a guy who didn’t want to be alone anymore and didn’t know what else to do.
A guy named Jon.
Okay, so it was John.
And no, I’m absolutely, positively, not going to abduct any women and do horrible things to them, and no, I never even consider it as a possibility. Rather than being even slightly titillated by the notion, I am, in fact, repulsed by it (and this isn’t me protesting “too much;” I find the idea of taking someone by force and forcing my will upon her to be utterly abhorrent).
Still…
I can’t help but wonder why I don’t. I mean, I’m no less lonely, no less desperate for companionship than Doogie’s character, but I don’t even consider doing the things he did. Unless confronted with it, as I was by this episode, the thought never even crosses my mind as anything other than just a bad joke (I used to joke to friends about how I'd like to take a particular attractive woman home with me and that I'd feed her three times a day and clean out her cage).
I just wonder what it is about me, considering that I’m at least slightly unhinged, that keeps me from going completely over the edge.
Is it just that I lack some sort of genetic predisposition towards that sort of behavior? Is it just a matter of societal conditioning? Is it a conscience? Am I just too nice of a guy? Is it all of the above? None of it?
There’s no way for me to avoid wondering. For the most part, the guy was exactly like me. Admittedly, despite my social awkwardness, I’m not nearly as painfully shy as he was, but, basically, we would seem to have been cut from the same cloth.
So how is it, that despite the continued privations of loneliness and desperation, I continue to go right where ultimately he went wrong?
(And yes, I recognize that it was just a story on a TV show, but these things, and worse, do happen in real life.)
I suppose that if I knew the reason for why I don’t engage in that sort of behavior it would be possible to figure out why other people do.
Bear in mind that I’m not complaining. I’m not thinking, “Gee, why can’t I go nuts and kidnap women and lobotomize them and eat pieces of them?” Just because I wonder what keeps me on the straight and narrow that doesn’t mean I’m not thankful that whatever it is manages to do the job…
As mentioned, I started this on Sunday night. It’s now fairly late in the evening on Monday.
I didn’t accomplish much today. I had actually gone to bed last night thinking that there was nothing finer I could do with my Monday than to spend the whole day sleeping.
It was a long three days that, for reasons that are beyond me, left me in a pretty black mood by Sunday evening. I have no idea why, but as I was leaving work I felt myself becoming incredibly annoyed at…well, everyone and everything. It was one of those wishing-that-the-asteroid (or whatever)-that-took-out-the-dinosaurs-would-return-for-another-earth-shattering-engagement kind of moods.
I think the foulness of my mood contributed to the overall effect watching Doogie play a desperately lonely psycho had on me.
So, when the time came to make the only real escape I can from the world (sleep), I was hoping to maintain that escape for as long as possible.
That plan was brought to an abrupt end a little after 8 am, first by a guy on a lawnmower, then his partner with the weed whacker, and finally by the guy with the leaf blower.
It finally drove me to get out of bed, at which point I decided that I would go out into the world and accomplish everything that I’ll need to accomplish out in the world for the week in one shot.
It helps that all I really needed to accomplish was some grocery shopping.
Even so, I failed to accomplish it all, as once I was out in the world I discovered that it was the last place I wanted to be, so I rushed through and grabbed only a few essentials.
I came home, talked to my mother, then tried to give the whole sleeping thing another shot.
I tried it for about an hour and a half before deciding to call it a miss. After getting back up I wasted time doing not much of anything for a while, then went for a four mile walk.
I came home and began to prepare dinner before realized that I’d neglected to pick up the “cacio” (cheese) component of my planned dinner (Pork chops with hot and sweet peppers and cacio e pepe spaghetti), so I had to venture out into the world once again.
I guess throughout the day my mood has gradually improved a little since yesterday, but not by a whole lot.
Hopefully it’ll continue to improve, though.
I guess we’ll see.
I just got through watching a very good (and rather momentous) episode of Dead Like Me, and so I have time to kill until Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
So here I am.
Prior to DLM I watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent. It was also a very good episode, it a bit odd, and disconcerting.
One thing about it that sort of jumped out at me was that there was a character on it named Fontaine. As she was a stripper, it was her stage name, thus, like “my” Fontaine, she had no last name.
Unfortunately for her, she got whacked pretty early on in the episode.
The other disconcerting aspect was the killer. He was sort of Dahmer-esque serial killer in the making played by Neil Patrick Harris (TV’s “Doogie Howser, MD”).
Unlike Dahmer, though, his victims were members of the opposite sex.
The elements of the story (home-brewed lobotomies, cannibalism) were disturbing enough in and of themselves, but what made it especially so were some of the aspects of Doogie’s character.
Basically, he was a lonely, socially awkward, loveless loser.
Named Jon.
Okay, so it was probably “John,” but still, it was a bit disconcerting, and it’s one of the inconveniences of having such a common name.
He also seemed to be developing a drinking problem (in addition to his many other troubles), so again, the similarities were bothersome.
Of course, I’ve never abducted a woman, drilled a hole in her head and scalded her brain with hot water, nor have I even considered doing any of the above.
I started writing a story about a guy abducting a woman, but I never finished it, and that imaginative abduction was as close as I ever plan to come to such an act.
In any case, the real point is that, sure, he was crazy, and yes, he did horrible things, but at the heart of it all he was just a guy who didn’t want to be alone anymore and didn’t know what else to do.
A guy named Jon.
Okay, so it was John.
And no, I’m absolutely, positively, not going to abduct any women and do horrible things to them, and no, I never even consider it as a possibility. Rather than being even slightly titillated by the notion, I am, in fact, repulsed by it (and this isn’t me protesting “too much;” I find the idea of taking someone by force and forcing my will upon her to be utterly abhorrent).
Still…
I can’t help but wonder why I don’t. I mean, I’m no less lonely, no less desperate for companionship than Doogie’s character, but I don’t even consider doing the things he did. Unless confronted with it, as I was by this episode, the thought never even crosses my mind as anything other than just a bad joke (I used to joke to friends about how I'd like to take a particular attractive woman home with me and that I'd feed her three times a day and clean out her cage).
I just wonder what it is about me, considering that I’m at least slightly unhinged, that keeps me from going completely over the edge.
Is it just that I lack some sort of genetic predisposition towards that sort of behavior? Is it just a matter of societal conditioning? Is it a conscience? Am I just too nice of a guy? Is it all of the above? None of it?
There’s no way for me to avoid wondering. For the most part, the guy was exactly like me. Admittedly, despite my social awkwardness, I’m not nearly as painfully shy as he was, but, basically, we would seem to have been cut from the same cloth.
So how is it, that despite the continued privations of loneliness and desperation, I continue to go right where ultimately he went wrong?
(And yes, I recognize that it was just a story on a TV show, but these things, and worse, do happen in real life.)
I suppose that if I knew the reason for why I don’t engage in that sort of behavior it would be possible to figure out why other people do.
Bear in mind that I’m not complaining. I’m not thinking, “Gee, why can’t I go nuts and kidnap women and lobotomize them and eat pieces of them?” Just because I wonder what keeps me on the straight and narrow that doesn’t mean I’m not thankful that whatever it is manages to do the job…
As mentioned, I started this on Sunday night. It’s now fairly late in the evening on Monday.
I didn’t accomplish much today. I had actually gone to bed last night thinking that there was nothing finer I could do with my Monday than to spend the whole day sleeping.
It was a long three days that, for reasons that are beyond me, left me in a pretty black mood by Sunday evening. I have no idea why, but as I was leaving work I felt myself becoming incredibly annoyed at…well, everyone and everything. It was one of those wishing-that-the-asteroid (or whatever)-that-took-out-the-dinosaurs-would-return-for-another-earth-shattering-engagement kind of moods.
I think the foulness of my mood contributed to the overall effect watching Doogie play a desperately lonely psycho had on me.
So, when the time came to make the only real escape I can from the world (sleep), I was hoping to maintain that escape for as long as possible.
That plan was brought to an abrupt end a little after 8 am, first by a guy on a lawnmower, then his partner with the weed whacker, and finally by the guy with the leaf blower.
It finally drove me to get out of bed, at which point I decided that I would go out into the world and accomplish everything that I’ll need to accomplish out in the world for the week in one shot.
It helps that all I really needed to accomplish was some grocery shopping.
Even so, I failed to accomplish it all, as once I was out in the world I discovered that it was the last place I wanted to be, so I rushed through and grabbed only a few essentials.
I came home, talked to my mother, then tried to give the whole sleeping thing another shot.
I tried it for about an hour and a half before deciding to call it a miss. After getting back up I wasted time doing not much of anything for a while, then went for a four mile walk.
I came home and began to prepare dinner before realized that I’d neglected to pick up the “cacio” (cheese) component of my planned dinner (Pork chops with hot and sweet peppers and cacio e pepe spaghetti), so I had to venture out into the world once again.
I guess throughout the day my mood has gradually improved a little since yesterday, but not by a whole lot.
Hopefully it’ll continue to improve, though.
I guess we’ll see.
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