Weeeird
Had a J.J. Pomeroi dream this morning, a pleasant change from all the genocide nightmares that accompany lesson-prepping for Tisha b'Av. (Can we please focus more on preventing future atrocities than by reliving all the past ones in all their gruesome details? I know it's important to remember, but believe me, I remember all right, and now all I get from the retelling is nightmares... or the inability to sleep at all, which is worse. I don't want to know what the Babylonians/Greeks/Romans/English/French/Spanish/Italians/Arabs/Germans/white people from Mississipi did to babies. I want to know how we can make friends with Rev. Wright's church and prevent the income gap from widening so that no one wants to do those sort of things again.)
Anyway, revisited some of my old writings. I can really tell that the last major revision was done when I was, like, 20, and a lot of what I originally wrote when I was 12-15 is gone gone gone. (Like, some of the stock characters now have real lives and the blond bimbo now gets a lot of respect.) I did a good job on my alien diversity, that's for sure. I'm surprised (well, not really) by the number of stories of which I have no memory at all. I'm also amused by the way that all heroes must be have Anglo-Saxon names, except the aliens, who have variations of Anglo-Saxon names. I'm amused at the token black guy and my apology that goes, "Dude, my personal fantasy, and I don't know that many black people. Introduce 'em to me and I'll write 'em in." (And the fact that the token Hispanic character didn't even get the apology.) I'm amused that I can tell the difference between the characters who were originally Anglo-Saxon and are now Asian for PC'ness and the characters who were really Asian. And I'm amused that some of the later stories, the 18-20 range, were actually halfway decent. That said, the whole genre still reads like a Saturday morning cartoon crossed with a totally unoriginal Star Trek knockoff. Ya know, it was meant to. It's just that I used to be immersed in that stuff, and now, it's like visiting an alien planet. A very alien planet.
Quote of the morning, courtesy of Toddlerkins. I'm trying to explain to her about Tisha b'Av ("Tisha-bov.") and how it's a sad holiday ("Sad day.") and we don't get bagels in shul and grownups don't eat or drink because we're sad about all the things we've lost. "Like the chicken," says Toddlerkins. Yes dear, like our seudah mafsekes, the Chicken Ala Monera that smelled like food poisoning and had to be throw away without a taste. The Holy Temple, our relationship with the Divine, the chicken, things like that.
Anyway, revisited some of my old writings. I can really tell that the last major revision was done when I was, like, 20, and a lot of what I originally wrote when I was 12-15 is gone gone gone. (Like, some of the stock characters now have real lives and the blond bimbo now gets a lot of respect.) I did a good job on my alien diversity, that's for sure. I'm surprised (well, not really) by the number of stories of which I have no memory at all. I'm also amused by the way that all heroes must be have Anglo-Saxon names, except the aliens, who have variations of Anglo-Saxon names. I'm amused at the token black guy and my apology that goes, "Dude, my personal fantasy, and I don't know that many black people. Introduce 'em to me and I'll write 'em in." (And the fact that the token Hispanic character didn't even get the apology.) I'm amused that I can tell the difference between the characters who were originally Anglo-Saxon and are now Asian for PC'ness and the characters who were really Asian. And I'm amused that some of the later stories, the 18-20 range, were actually halfway decent. That said, the whole genre still reads like a Saturday morning cartoon crossed with a totally unoriginal Star Trek knockoff. Ya know, it was meant to. It's just that I used to be immersed in that stuff, and now, it's like visiting an alien planet. A very alien planet.
Quote of the morning, courtesy of Toddlerkins. I'm trying to explain to her about Tisha b'Av ("Tisha-bov.") and how it's a sad holiday ("Sad day.") and we don't get bagels in shul and grownups don't eat or drink because we're sad about all the things we've lost. "Like the chicken," says Toddlerkins. Yes dear, like our seudah mafsekes, the Chicken Ala Monera that smelled like food poisoning and had to be throw away without a taste. The Holy Temple, our relationship with the Divine, the chicken, things like that.