On Wednesday night, as I pretty much expected it to, the noise of the fireworks woke me up and kept me awake for some time, though eventually I did get back to sleep.
However, sometime after midnight I was awoken again by what sounded like – though Brian tells me it wasn’t – a fire engine idling outside my window.
The vehicle was obscured by the trees, so I was never able to make out what it was, but it stayed outside my window for about 45 minutes, keeping me awake.
As soon as it left, I started to drift back to sleep, only to be awoken again by the sound of the stupid new dog yipping its damn head off.
This morning when I got home from the grocery store the lady who owns the stupid new dog came up to me and apologized if her stupid dog’s been worse than usual, as she had been in the hospital for the past few days. I’m assuming that it was probably an ambulance picking her up on Wednesday night.
I hate that she apologizes to me because it doesn’t do a damn bit of good – the dog could be heard inside barking its stupid head off even as she spoke – but I still have to be gracious and accept it and try to pretend like I don’t spend a significant portion of my time at home fantasizing about snapping her dog’s neck (which is really something I’d rather not spend my time doing). I was not, however, gracious enough to inquire as to why she was in the hospital, as there are limits to my civility.
The whole thing makes me that much more eager to move out of here, but that quest isn’t going so well, as I got an estimate on the monthly payments on the only house I’ve seen that I really like, and they’re about $300 beyond too damned expensive.
Going in to work on Thursday was odd and even more annoying than usual.
First up was the parking situation. Now that the building is essentially empty, only one entrance is manned by Wal-Mart greet- I mean, crack security personnel, and so we are no longer able to use the ground level parking lot at the front of the building – even though the lot is gated, eliminating the need for active security monitoring – which is just a short work from the NOC and park around back, which is much farther away and one floor up from the NOC.
(They’ve also limited our restroom choices by permanently closing some of them.)
Beyond that, though, is the fact that roughly 90% of my job responsibilities have now been shipped to India, meaning that my job is even more boring than it already was.
As a bonus, those responsibilities were the ones that were pretty straightforward, simple, and hassle-free, which means I’m left with the 10% that is really complicated, confusing, and full of hassles, and with the 90% gone, the people behind the other 10% have decided that they need to become more demanding to help fill the void.
The other irritation comes from the people in India who took over those responsibilities, as one of my remaining responsibilities is to help them out as needed, providing support and guidance. Providing support and guidance for them quickly turns into eye-rolling and exasperated sighs as soon as an IM comes in from them with yet another irritating question.
Then of course there’s the obvious concern that this is yet another sign that I’m on a sinking ship. To that I say, “So?” I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to do about it? I’m not going to jump ship just in case. If it’s going to go down, I might as well wait until I get handed my lifejacket (the severance package).
Am I looking at other opportunities? Of course, but as long as I still have a steady income and my cushy schedule, it would be foolish of me to just throw it all away “just in case.”
On a totally unrelated note, last night I was flipping through the channels and spotted Revenge of the Nerds on Fox Movie Channel.
It was an interesting coincidence, as I’d been thinking about the movie a lot lately.
Why, you didn’t ask, because you really don’t give a shit? I’ll tell you: because of Transformers.
Specifically, some of my comments about the movie and its use of the cliché of the geeky protagonist who woos the hot chick away from her meathead jerk boyfriend whom she doesn’t really like anyway.
My complaint about the use of this plot device is not so much that it’s overused – though it really is – but that there is an inherent flaw in the dynamic, namely that people in relationships, no matter the basis of relationship (societal pressures, plot points, etc.), do tend to feel some amount of affection for each other, and, particularly with young people, they actually engage in demonstrations of that affection.
However, that is seldom the case with the hot chick/meathead jerk pairing, as there are invariably the scenes in which meathead jerk attempts to kiss hot chick and hot chick turns away, often angrily.
Now there a lot of plot-related reasons why this is the case, but my point is simply that there wouldn’t be anything wrong with showing hot chick and meathead jerk being freely affectionate with each other, and that it would be okay for the hot chick to actually like her meathead jerk boyfriend. Indeed, adding some real affection on the part of the hot chick would add that much more meaning to the moment when geeky protagonist steals her away.
Which brings us to Revenge of the Nerds, a movie which presents the theme of geeky protagonist stealing hot chick from meathead jerk, but has an entirely different dynamic from most, presenting it in much the fashion that I suggest it should be presented (at least once in a while).
After all, in this movie the hot chick, Betty Childs, does legitimately have feelings for her meathead jerk boyfriend, Stan Gable, and engages in public displays of affection. Indeed, going beyond simply allowing him to kiss her, the two actually have a sexual relationship.
(The other problem with the standard approach: the meathead jerk, it seems to me, would be unlikely to stay in a relationship in which he can’t get so much as a hearty handshake from his girlfriend.)
Another major difference from most portrayals is that Betty is that in addition to not being presented as being pure, virtuous, and chaste, is not even presented as being very nice.
In the standard dynamic, the hot chick generally follows the Elisabeth Shue in The Karate Kid model; she has a good heart and is disgusted by her meathead jerk boyfriend’s behavior, particularly in respect to the geeky protagonist.
It is, in large part, the boorish behavior of the meathead jerk that pushes the hot chick towards the geeky protagonist.
Such is not the case with Betty. Not only is she not bothered by the treatment that the geeky protagonist – Lewis Skolnick – receives from Stan, she is an active participant in the abuse.
Now the fact that Lewis does eventually woo Betty away from Stan, thereby redeeming her in a fashion, would make it seem that Revenge of the Nerds is a shining example of how the geeky protagonist/hot chick/meathead jerk dynamic should be handled.
There is, however, one minor problem with holding this up as an example: rape.
Think about it; when Lewis pretends to be Stan in order to have sex with Betty, how is that any different from slipping some roofies in her drink and taking advantage of her? Had she been aware that it was Lewis, not Stan, in the funhouse she would not have consented to have sex with him. Indeed, in the previous scene she refused to even so much as kiss him at the kissing booth even though she would seem to be obligated to do so, as he had purchased his tickets.
To me, sex without consent equals rape. Therefore, Lewis raped her.
This simple fact is not mitigated by the notion that Lewis was “good” at it, and that it is in Betty’s mind indicates just how damaged and psychologically unstable she is.
When she breaks up with Stan and says to herself incredulously, “I’m in love with a nerd,” she should really be saying, “I’m in love with my rapist,” and pausing to consider what that says about herself and then seeking out counseling.
This is all compounded by the other acts of sexual assault that Lewis perpetrates on her: breaking into her home and bursting in on her in the shower, stealing her underwear, spying on her with a camera, and making nude images of her available for public consumption (in more ways than one) without her consent.
Okay, okay, I realize it’s just a goofball comedy, and I’m not getting terribly worked up about any of this, though when you think about it, it is extremely twisted, but my point is that, despite getting some high marks for taking a different approach to the geeky protagonist/hot chick/meathead jerk plot element, I can’t really endorse it as an example that filmmakers should look to as something to emulate.
In any case, I suppose I should figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my day, now that I’ve come to realize that disguising myself as someone else in order to have sex with chicks in funhouses actually qualifies as rape. So much for that plan…
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