Update update update [fading echo]
So, I brought Murphy home from the vet on Tuesday. He was freaked out and it took him at least 24 hours to start calming down. He didn't have a lot of reason to trust people before I got him; he still doesn't trust people much. And the ultimate vulnerability is not being able to move half his body. On the one hand, that's been really heartbreaking to see; he's been waking up about every two hours at night and freaking out because he can't move his rear, and I've had to massage and reassure his trembling, rigid self that it's okay. On the other, it's also been frustrating, because he has not been very cooperative. The vet gave me all these great physical therapy exercises. Hahahahaha. No. A dog who's feeling that vulnerable is not going to let you mess around with the part of him that feels the most vulnerable.
But he's kicking in his sleep, and responds to massage by stretching his back legs out, and has been sitting up occasionally, which is both awkward and rather terrifying, since I'm afraid he's going to rip his catheter out. He's so much better today than he was yesterday, and he was so much better yesterday than he was before. I have a lot of hope. And also a great boss, who told me to work from home all week if I needed to, and an amaaaaazing dog walker, who has been helping me shift Murphy around and watching him while I run errands and is just really just as fond of Murphy as Murphy is of him.
Also, I have learned an important life skill: emptying a catheter bag. Woo!
* * * * *
In more TV-related news (remember when I used to post about TV?), I commend you to Agents of their own Salvation, a post that dissects the agency of all of the female characters in the major action plots/sequences of last two episodes of Castle and finds that there is a lot to work with. I love the knowing way the show treats text and fandom, but I am also really, really excited by the way it handles female characters. Rick Castle is surrounded by women, shaped by women; he listens to women. The women in his life, including his mother and daughter, have concerns that sidetrack him, rather than the other way around. And I continue to think that the writers know exactly what they're doing. They didn't have to make Dana Delany's kick-ass FBI agent a mom who experienced the usual tug between family and career, but didn't agonize over it, and didn't feel like a bad mother for having a high-powered job. But they did, and the way Castle fanboyed her, and the way she and Kate bonded, were lovely. I don't think I've ever felt such fondness for a procedural with such admittedly asinine plots.
* * * * *
I also commend you to this excellent Nicholas Sparks snark: How 10 Movies Would Be Different If They Came From Nicholas Sparks Novels. "But generally, Nicholas Sparks creates drama in one way, and that's through ... death."
* * * * *
And for a third thing, I commend to you Southland, which I only caught up with recently, because I am DUMB. It is exactly my favorite kind of television storytelling: the slow unspooling of events, the growing inevitability of certain interactions.
In fact, the show sets this unspooling up explicitly in every episode, which begins with a tableau of some fucked-up situation and a wry narrator giving a two-line summation, and then jumps back to trace the path that brought everyone to that place. From there, it lays out the details relentlessly: the sun-bleached patrol routes of the uniformed officers and the more directed lines of inquiry of the detectives, all of them running right smack into the wide cross-section of weird and violent and sad humanity.
One thing I really like about Southland is the way it treats LA itself--a weird jurisdictional mishmash of extreme poverty and extreme wealth and a lot of ground in between--and deals with class head-on. Individual detectives have their own priorities, but institutionally, the LAPD moves a little faster for the white residents of Bel Air than it does for the black residents of South Central. College athletes have unbreakable legal defenses. Even when they're trying their best, the cops on this show can barely protect a witness to gang violence, and certainly not without removing her from her own neighborhood. And on the other hand, police have incredible power and privilege in most of the areas they work, and some of them don't use it very well.
And the characters! Ben McKenzie's Ben Sherman is heartbreakingly idealistic cynical at the same time, and is a perfect foil for Michael Cudlitz's John Cooper, who is older and way more inured to the life, but still remembers those ideals. But the best part of the show is Regina King's Lydia Adams, who is basically Aeryn Sun--mesmerizing every moment she's on screen, super competent without being perfect, sure of her own judgment but not ready to be a hero, all too conscious of the way things can go pear-shaped around her. What I'm saying is, it's worth checking out.
This entry was originally posted at http://danceswithwords.dreamwidth.org/146117.html (
comments). Comment at either site.
But he's kicking in his sleep, and responds to massage by stretching his back legs out, and has been sitting up occasionally, which is both awkward and rather terrifying, since I'm afraid he's going to rip his catheter out. He's so much better today than he was yesterday, and he was so much better yesterday than he was before. I have a lot of hope. And also a great boss, who told me to work from home all week if I needed to, and an amaaaaazing dog walker, who has been helping me shift Murphy around and watching him while I run errands and is just really just as fond of Murphy as Murphy is of him.
Also, I have learned an important life skill: emptying a catheter bag. Woo!
* * * * *
In more TV-related news (remember when I used to post about TV?), I commend you to Agents of their own Salvation, a post that dissects the agency of all of the female characters in the major action plots/sequences of last two episodes of Castle and finds that there is a lot to work with. I love the knowing way the show treats text and fandom, but I am also really, really excited by the way it handles female characters. Rick Castle is surrounded by women, shaped by women; he listens to women. The women in his life, including his mother and daughter, have concerns that sidetrack him, rather than the other way around. And I continue to think that the writers know exactly what they're doing. They didn't have to make Dana Delany's kick-ass FBI agent a mom who experienced the usual tug between family and career, but didn't agonize over it, and didn't feel like a bad mother for having a high-powered job. But they did, and the way Castle fanboyed her, and the way she and Kate bonded, were lovely. I don't think I've ever felt such fondness for a procedural with such admittedly asinine plots.
* * * * *
I also commend you to this excellent Nicholas Sparks snark: How 10 Movies Would Be Different If They Came From Nicholas Sparks Novels. "But generally, Nicholas Sparks creates drama in one way, and that's through ... death."
* * * * *
And for a third thing, I commend to you Southland, which I only caught up with recently, because I am DUMB. It is exactly my favorite kind of television storytelling: the slow unspooling of events, the growing inevitability of certain interactions.
In fact, the show sets this unspooling up explicitly in every episode, which begins with a tableau of some fucked-up situation and a wry narrator giving a two-line summation, and then jumps back to trace the path that brought everyone to that place. From there, it lays out the details relentlessly: the sun-bleached patrol routes of the uniformed officers and the more directed lines of inquiry of the detectives, all of them running right smack into the wide cross-section of weird and violent and sad humanity.
One thing I really like about Southland is the way it treats LA itself--a weird jurisdictional mishmash of extreme poverty and extreme wealth and a lot of ground in between--and deals with class head-on. Individual detectives have their own priorities, but institutionally, the LAPD moves a little faster for the white residents of Bel Air than it does for the black residents of South Central. College athletes have unbreakable legal defenses. Even when they're trying their best, the cops on this show can barely protect a witness to gang violence, and certainly not without removing her from her own neighborhood. And on the other hand, police have incredible power and privilege in most of the areas they work, and some of them don't use it very well.
And the characters! Ben McKenzie's Ben Sherman is heartbreakingly idealistic cynical at the same time, and is a perfect foil for Michael Cudlitz's John Cooper, who is older and way more inured to the life, but still remembers those ideals. But the best part of the show is Regina King's Lydia Adams, who is basically Aeryn Sun--mesmerizing every moment she's on screen, super competent without being perfect, sure of her own judgment but not ready to be a hero, all too conscious of the way things can go pear-shaped around her. What I'm saying is, it's worth checking out.
This entry was originally posted at http://danceswithwords.dreamwidth.org/146117.html (
comments). Comment at either site.