(no subject)
By the time I post this, I'll be in New Hampshire, but currently I'm up in the air, flying to Boston. Three weeks away from home seems like an incredibly long time, which is weird because I used to be gone so much. I have become very accustomed to my life at home: going three weeks without tennis, or my cat, or my friends, seems interminably long. And it will be longer than that for several of those things - I probably won't get to play tennis until the end of March, unless I manage to make it to Sunday morning drills some weekend (not likely, see the word 'morning' there.)
But there's some plus sides to the whole thing. I'll get to see my brother & his wife, and my best friend. And I'm excited to learn our new product.
I spent most of this week trying to get everything ready to be away - doing laundry, my taxes, getting everything squared away with M's lease which was up at the end of the month. She's signed for another 3 months, which will be through the end of May. I will miss the extra income when she moves out, but while our interactions have been friendly and mostly positive, I won't be sad to live alone again. But I am glad and grateful for the monetary respite that her living there has brought me. I won't miss her cat though. :(
Speaking of cats, I made the mistake of waiting until last night to deal with putting the new SoftPaws on Cinnamon. These are caps that go over her claws so that she doesn't damage the furniture when she scratches things. They go on with a non-toxic glue, so I have to hold her down to put them on her, then hold her still for fifteen minutes while they dry. Predictably, she HATES them. Whenever I put them on her, I generally get the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening. So no kitty cuddles for me last night, when it was the last night I'd be home. That was poor planning on my part. She'd forgiven me by this morning though, so that was good. I often wonder if I should just get her de-clawed - ie, would that one-time stress/pain be worse than putting her through this every 6-8 weeks? I don't even know if it's still an option for older cats. Guess I'll ask the vet next time.
As a reward for getting everything done, I went to the movies last night. I saw Red Tails, the movie about the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. I liked it, but didn't love it. The acting, I felt was very good. The script however I felt was flawed. I've been mulling this over since, trying to figure out if my response to it was driven by a true criticism or by the fact that the characters I felt were flat and one-dimensional were - for a very big change - my race. I live in the South, and I try very hard to confront and dissect my own issues with race and racism since I moved here. As the song says, 'everyone's a little bit racist,' and I know that I'm no exception to that.
I had no problem with the white characters not being central to the film. I had no problem with white people being represented as racist. I did have a little problem with the portrayal of the Germans as Pure Evil, but while that gave it a less-nuanced feel, it was no worse than other films I've seen. I think perhaps the biggest problem I had with it was feeling that the movie as a whole felt a little... superficial to me. What I mean is, I felt like we were barely introduced to some of the characters, like the scope of the whole thing was too unfocused, and therefore a little emotionally unsatisfying. Like, they tried to make EVERY war movie in one movie.
Also, the white characters were generally used to deliver large chunks of expositional information, in awkward, tell-not show ways. While I'm pretty sure my dislike of that is because it's a crappy, lazy writing technique, I also know that there a million examples of this in reverse for people of color. I don't know. If anyone else has seen it, I would love to chat about it.
This entry was originally posted at http://vixalicious.dreamwidth.org/498890.html. That entry currently has
comments.
But there's some plus sides to the whole thing. I'll get to see my brother & his wife, and my best friend. And I'm excited to learn our new product.
I spent most of this week trying to get everything ready to be away - doing laundry, my taxes, getting everything squared away with M's lease which was up at the end of the month. She's signed for another 3 months, which will be through the end of May. I will miss the extra income when she moves out, but while our interactions have been friendly and mostly positive, I won't be sad to live alone again. But I am glad and grateful for the monetary respite that her living there has brought me. I won't miss her cat though. :(
Speaking of cats, I made the mistake of waiting until last night to deal with putting the new SoftPaws on Cinnamon. These are caps that go over her claws so that she doesn't damage the furniture when she scratches things. They go on with a non-toxic glue, so I have to hold her down to put them on her, then hold her still for fifteen minutes while they dry. Predictably, she HATES them. Whenever I put them on her, I generally get the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening. So no kitty cuddles for me last night, when it was the last night I'd be home. That was poor planning on my part. She'd forgiven me by this morning though, so that was good. I often wonder if I should just get her de-clawed - ie, would that one-time stress/pain be worse than putting her through this every 6-8 weeks? I don't even know if it's still an option for older cats. Guess I'll ask the vet next time.
As a reward for getting everything done, I went to the movies last night. I saw Red Tails, the movie about the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. I liked it, but didn't love it. The acting, I felt was very good. The script however I felt was flawed. I've been mulling this over since, trying to figure out if my response to it was driven by a true criticism or by the fact that the characters I felt were flat and one-dimensional were - for a very big change - my race. I live in the South, and I try very hard to confront and dissect my own issues with race and racism since I moved here. As the song says, 'everyone's a little bit racist,' and I know that I'm no exception to that.
I had no problem with the white characters not being central to the film. I had no problem with white people being represented as racist. I did have a little problem with the portrayal of the Germans as Pure Evil, but while that gave it a less-nuanced feel, it was no worse than other films I've seen. I think perhaps the biggest problem I had with it was feeling that the movie as a whole felt a little... superficial to me. What I mean is, I felt like we were barely introduced to some of the characters, like the scope of the whole thing was too unfocused, and therefore a little emotionally unsatisfying. Like, they tried to make EVERY war movie in one movie.
Also, the white characters were generally used to deliver large chunks of expositional information, in awkward, tell-not show ways. While I'm pretty sure my dislike of that is because it's a crappy, lazy writing technique, I also know that there a million examples of this in reverse for people of color. I don't know. If anyone else has seen it, I would love to chat about it.
This entry was originally posted at http://vixalicious.dreamwidth.org/498890.html. That entry currently has
comments.