From the Mixed Up Files of...

While catching up and reading some more old paperbacks from our basement, I realized it wasn't fair to make fun of others without first making fun of myself. We all start somewhere as authors, artists, creators, makers...and yeah, that early stuff is pretty cringeworthy!

My childhood is best described as a little weird and lonely. It's hard to believe, but there was a time when nerds and geeks were not cool. We didn't see a lot of movies and we didn't have a VCR. My parents also didn't realize they were raising two nerds, and dutifully tried to steer us away from anything geeky. Gushing about Star Wars was not a path to popularity at all!

Life got a little better when pay-TV arrived in 1989 after my parents gave up fixing the giant old CRT. Suddenly we had more than ten channels and it opened up a world of entertainment and ideas. Today we take 24/7 for granted, but CNN was downright amazing. Naturally my brother and I gravitated to MuchMusic, a Canadian sort of MTV, and loved every second of it.

The summer of 1991 had a lot of great movies and I really, really, really wanted to see Terminator 2. There were too many obstacles for a young person to overcome though - getting a ride to a movie theatre (half an hour away), finding an adult to take me (not happening) and scraping up the change to see it (nope!). It was also R-Rated, as hard as that is to believe. So what do you do when you can't see a movie you really, really, really want to see? You make up your own version, and years later breathe a sigh of relief that the Internet wasn't around!

Being a nerd, I began by meticulously researching T2 as much as possible. I snipped out pictures from magazines, read the newspaper and paid great attention whenever You Could Be Mine came on MuchMusic. Then I got a brand new red spiral notebook and began writing away with great gusto, all in pencil.

Since I had no idea at all how the story progressed and had no idea what was in the first movie, I began at the part when the Terminator finds an alien dog. He takes it back to his place to show his three roommates, one of which is his younger brother named Joe. Oh wait, you didn't know all that happened? Well, it did, let me tell you!

My pencil galloped across the pages like a wild mustang, kicking up bad dialog, stomping on linear narrative and making awful metaphors. The book, which I fantasized about publishing, eventually spiraled into four notebooks. It was hard to get past a few pages at a time - somewhere along the way it careened into a crossover with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Blessed are the folks who don't know they are writing fan fiction.

(You may want to take a quick bathroom break right now, just in case)

The Terminator, oh so imaginatively named Arnold (every cyborg assassin needs a cover, I guess) shared his, oh man, I can barely type this, secret mountain hideout with his roommates and, ha, hahaha, they spend their days riding and fixing motorcycles and visiting their friend down the road. He's a doctor named Felix with a psychic horse named Oberon.

(Remember, you already got your bathroom break warning)

So one day, one day Oberon (snortle!) gets this prediction that something bad is going to happen to Sarah Connor and her son. Arnold hops on his bike and travels to the big city. I made up the city name, along with a whole bunch of other things, like how Arnold and Sarah used to be romantically involved (don't worry, the Terminator is not John's dad!). Thanks to the my careful study of You Could Be Mine, I was able to fill in the rest of the story, although quite laughably.

Now, maybe you're wondering what the other three notebooks were filled with once the T-1000 had been vanquished. Well, to be honest, I skimmed through the notebooks because continuing would mean needing a few puffs from my husband's asthma inhaler. With so many male characters, something was missing...like girlfriends! Each male character got a love interest that developed awkwardly while Arnold and Joe visited...their mother. The awful dialog sadly proves that I was not the sophisticated teenager I presumed to be. Eventually boredom set in and the lovey dovey parts gave way to an intricate history of one of the roommates, an Australian with a mean streak. He was mean because he had a really tough upbringing, right from the start, when he was born in the back of a truck in the outback (I can see why it's taken me a while to write this blog post...oof!).

Who was this unrecognizable younger self that wrote all this...verbiage? There were no real themes, just little bits of daily life, punch lines from Saturday Night Live and lots and lots of...huh. Where did all these ideas come from, plus the energy to write so much? The last notebook is dated November 28, 1992. Maybe I grew up a little bit in a year, maybe I got to the end of the notebook and realized that was a good time to stop this...saga. The last notebook just stops with the funeral of Felix's half brother, Jack.

And, here's the punch line - I still haven't seen Terminator 2. Or 3 or 4 or the TV series. Maybe it's because I always liked my version better :-). My husband groaned and pointed to the paper shredder in the corner of his man cave when I tried to regale him with these ridiculous scenarios. Naw, these notebooks don't deserve that fate...yet!




* Years later in the 90s, at a comic show, I was thrilled to find an Ewok action figure.

A Simple Goal for the New Year

You know what long winter commutes are good for? Catching up on my thoughts with Evernote. The first day of the new year was surprising sunny and optimistic, with a sky dappled with clouds. Happy 2015!

The next day looked like the same old year - grey and overcast until we plunged into a snowy deep freeze. I needed that sky to find my optimism for 2015. I was busy taking care of my self, my family and a friend for the last part of 2014. There's always a kind of joy to starting a new year fresh, but also so much pressure to make the most of it too. I started 2011 with being laid off. No one plans for that! It's a hard lesson for anyone who loves to plan. Life doesn't go from point A to point B or turn out like the PowerPoint. Hope is not a strategy either.

A few months ago we had a motivational speaker at work that emphasized that trying to change everything at once leads to failure. He suggested making one degree changes (no 180s people!). My wake up call last year was a troublesome tooth that revealed that I had to change my diet in a big way - not just cut back on sweets, but that I also had an iron deficiency. Thanks to iron supplements, I had to eat more fibre, and because of that, which meant drinking more water. If I make 357 more changes, like getting a cast iron skillet, I will be a whole new person. At least, that's my theory.

But, looping back, one thing I do plan on accomplishing (notice I didn't say hope) is finishing this cross stitch peacock. It was started in 1998. 1998! I don't want to die with it rolled up in a drawer, which was the fate of some needlework my great-aunt started in the 50s or earlier. Great Aunt Katie was childless and so are we. My niece is probably not going to want two generations of unfinished embroidery :-)

As motivating as it was to want to finish it, there were logistical problems. I would have to go out and find new embroidery floss, which probably wouldn't match after all these years. Then I would have to find the pattern, etc. etc. Truly, it's the little obstacles that prevent us from accomplishing great things. 

Then I was reminded of something from art college - Kintsugi - or the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold resin. It's a way of giving a broken object new life. Objects have all sorts of lives - and the peacock is a reminder of how much I used to love cross-stitch and find peace in little fabric pixels. I bought a few kinds of gold embroidery floss and I'll apply the same idea to my peacock - just gleefully fill in all the empty spots with gold so that it can live the life I always meant for it to have.

Tea for Tuesday

Oh, the German import store. A large, yet cozy shop where you can even find a little bit of the Netherlands nestled in a bay window. It's the place to be at Christmas, and anytime you want a big helping of red cabbage and schnitzel or an armful of real black licorice and Haribo gummies.

It's also the place to go when you want really unique kitchen gadgets, and as a Canadian, I couldn't resist this adorable moose tea infuser made by Koziol. I almost didn't see it - I saw an orange rabbit and a green frog first! Later I found that "Rudolf" was not a moose, but a reindeer, and comes in a herd of colours.

One of the disappointing things about being a tea lover is that there are only so many accessories that you can buy - which may be a good thing or a bad thing. Then I cheerfully realized that I needed a tea infuser for work!

Product testing began immediately. It fit most of my mugs (no hope for the ugly mug, however). Right away it was apparent that fine teas would not filter very well, so I tried some whole leaf teas, like Idle Tea's Cream of Earl Grey. The only problem with the strainer is that the water stops flowing through it once the leaves expand - but, no problem, just pour hot water into the cup instead at that point. These strainers are the perfect stocking stuffer - and I can't wait to go back to the import store when it's a Christmas wonderland!

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

It is appropriate that today's book features a big giant head, because so much has been going on in my head over the last month and a half, and I still don't know why! Let me say that I'm thankful for antibiotics when my salivary gland became infected. There were times too, when I was sure my ear canal was going to give birth to something gross and alien. Life is weird and so is this book:

Herds

The wife of a powerful figure in California is found brutally murdered in the couples' lonely mountain retreat. Wesley Stoneham made certain that all the evidence concerning the murderer of his wife pointed to a nearby hippie community. He had three goals in mind: to get rid of his wife, to drive out the hippie commune and to enhance his own power in the State. He was at the point of achieving them all when Garnna, from the peaceful planet of Zartic finally made contact with Debby, a hippie from the commune, who had problems of her own. Then Stoneham's troubles began.




Herds is number two in a new series called Laser Books - at first I thought this was a book of short stories. The main focus isn't even on Wesley Stoneham, but Garnna the alien centaur. He and his fellow Zarticku have a strong herd mentality that he comes to doubt and question. As an Explorer, he visits other worlds in a psychic sort of way (actually, in a box). Garnna is traumatized by witnessing Mrs. Stoneham's murder, which would be hard to work into a brief synopsis for the back cover.

The cover artist is a legend and his work is better known than his name. Sadly Frank Kelly Freas passed away in 2005, but his website remains. And although it doesn't have the same snazzy cover, you can buy Herds and other books by Stephen Goldin on his website too.

Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review

We saw Guardians of the Galaxy last Sunday and it was awesome! Maybe it was several months of being plied with trailers and advertising, but the coolness I originally had towards it warmed up to the point where I was practically vibrating. Why, why am I so excited to a movie with a trash talking raccoon and one of my favourite actors as a tree? Maybe it was that being in an air conditioned movie theatre for two hours was way more exciting than lying limp around the house.

Out of all the Marvel movies, this is quite possibly the best one to date. It's free of earthly concerns and has such an interesting and diverse cast, characters and settings. Maybe too, I'm just tired of dark and gritty reboots, movies that are just a little too based on coincidence or forget how to tell a story completely. There's only so many times you can watch Iron Man be a jerk, after all. Come to think of it, it's easier to describe GotG by what it's not. The main characters don't drag each other down, there's no big city destruction scene (well, just a little) and it's not serious at all. Serious characters get their dramatic comic book speeches, but also get upstaged by humour. GotG is incredibly self-aware of having one foot in B-movieland.

The movie is pretty tight, zipping along at a fast pace and helped along by the "awesome mix" soundtrack. Right after the opening scene, the audience gets to dive in as Peter Quill steals an artifact, an orb, from an ancient temple (if that scene looks a little familiar...it's just the start of nods to the 70s and 80s that will make a lot of freeze frame fun later). It would take a lifetime of reading Marvel comics to understand all the characters and why Ronan and Thanos are baddies, but after a little planet hopping, the audience has all it needs to know without too much set up. We are here to see a talking raccoon and a sentient tree, after all!

All five main characters are flawed in ways that anyone can relate to, and for a group that doesn't initially get along, they come to treat each other with a lot of respect. Rocket, for example, could have been played solely for laughs and comic relief, but he's not just a cute funny animal. He delivers some devastating lines (which he can, because he's an animal). He might talk tough, but he's a softie inside. Likewise, the other characters stretch their personalities - Peter Quill finds a higher purpose, Gamora wants to redeem her past (and is never treated as a sex object - she rejects Quill's "pelvic sorcery", and Drax learns to love his enemy. Uh, I'm not sure what Groot's flaw is, maybe it's that he can only say three words - but his strength is definitely in his selfless actions. GotG does a great job of showing the characters - we don't have to sit through long and convoluted backstories. I guess that's important to note too - the movie treats the audience with respect as well. Surprisingly, the real lesson of GotG is that friendship is magic :D

It's tempting to see it again this weekend...we were excited for another piece of nostalgia, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it looks more like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turkey, so we'll probably pass.

80s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

I was so bummed about not being able to make yesterday's post, so I backdated this one. I had the most severe pain ever in my face yesterday, and ended up Googling "ear infection or toothache" (Dr. Google says - "Inconclusive! See a real professional."). Maybe the virtual doctor needs another ten years. Anyway, the latest book on top of the reading pile is:

New Dimensions 11

The exciting series that showcased the best of the 70s now launches the 80s with superb science fiction - from the terrifying to the sublime!

It's really surprising that we don't have one of the earlier volumes on our bookshelf, because there were some truly groovy ones. I honestly can't figure out what this cover is about - the flip side has the faint skeleton of a pterodactyl and some sand. Is this the Planet of the Crystal Skulls? A user on GoodReads seems to hint that the contents match the weirdness of cover:

I read this collection of short stories when I was in junior high, much too young to be reading it. It contains a story about a spaceship navigated by sexual fantasies. And another story introduced me to the concept of sentient beings having more than two breasts.

There's only one way to find out!

Escape from The To-Do List

When roughly half your year is spent in wintry cold, it's so easy to take summer for granted. Suddenly everyone is social and there's so much to do. I found myself slipping deeper and deeper into the To-Do List! The joke goes, "There are only two seasons in Canada, winter and construction." It's mostly true, because you can't paint your garage or pour a new sidewalk when it's -40C out. 

Not that long ago I was standing at the dinner table, wrapping several packages and I wondered why I wasn't outside enjoying this particular cool spring day. White and pink blossoms, the rich green grass, the cloudless blue sky - and I was inside, staring wistfully out the windows. It was like an invisible parent was staring down at me and saying, "No playtime until all your chores are done!"

And when life starts looking like a Buzzfeed listicle, you know you need to Escape from the To-Do List. Eventually everything becomes a chore. The To-Do List starts affecting your body and you don't really know why at first:

The To-Do List just becomes one never ending cycle. Inspiration to flee came from a safety ad on the bus:

 Stop          Think          React 

I put my phone away, I took a deep cleansing breath. The heart of my entanglement in the To-Do List was that I could not say no. It was a trap within a trap! I had to climb out of the Yes Pit.

It's not easy to say "no", especially for women. Some people are raised to put others needs before their own. Some people feel that it's incredibly rude to say no. And yet others say yes because it might be a career killer. My time as a temp certainly eroded my ability to say "no" too. It's natural to want to fit in, please people and say "yes" when we mean "no". Maybe the trouble with saying "no" is that we know how to say "yes" easily, but not "no".

"Practice big no's and little no's," I told myself. Yesterday my husband wanted to watch Dr. Who. No thanks! Last week an old co-worker was hopeful that I had some free weekends and evenings to help with her work project. No, my bandwidth has been exceeded lately! Last month I ran into someone from a group I volunteered with in the past - did I want to be webmaster again? Without burning a single bridge, I replied, "No, but I know someone who might be interested!"

The To-Do List shrank as I exercised the power of "no". Maybe it's easier to reframe "no" as "not today" or "not right now" when considering a request. Maybe I'll want to watch Dr. Who tomorrow! Saying "no" is actually saying "yes" to other things - like time with family, myself (remember, I'm an introvert!) and things I really care about. It's not fun giving up weekends for extra work - especially during a short Canadian summer. That's something I really can't say no to at all!