Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!! Beetlejuice!!!
In the interest of sparing everyone from unduly mundane posts, I’ll consolidate quite a bit of my shenanigans on LiveJournal.
I’m still recovering from a pretty intense bug.
I’m pretty sure it was just a cold, but that sounds so anticlimactic after the sore throat (swallowing glass) and a four-five day fever. Now I’m just kicking out the excess of water humour (that’s phlegm not urine, right?). I’m still quite pleased that my stash of pseudoephedrine is still potent despite having expired a couple of years ago (and by couple, I mean four, but seriously, “prescription only,” e’gods!). So, suffice to say, although I’m still weak and very sensitive to cold, I’m feeling quite able bodied. Since the day was primarily a work-at-home occasion, that meant venturing to the gym and yoga for the first time since last Tuesday.
Taking it slow…
As luck would have it, weather forced my hand on taking it slow. PCC-Sylvania had an inclement weather closure from 5pm onwards, so I missed the opportunity for a second dose of the gym and evening yoga. Another short bike ride, but little more than 90 minutes combined time of weight training and yoga.
Electronic-paper work…
Well, I’m starting to get frustrated, more with myself than external factors, but as I’ve often pondered, after the years of preparation and application to nursing school, the arduous nursing program itself, and then the NCLEX, it is peculiar that finding employment as a registered nurse should be the easiest and last hurtle, yet the very one I find myself tumbling over. It’s nice being a veterinary technician, but it’s not what I should be doing after those trials and tribulations. Besides, I’m not getting the hours I want at LAH anyway. So I spent most of this weekend sniveling and cleaning up résumés and cover letters. Applications here, applications there, and from the look of it, I might just have to leave Portland if I want a real job. It’s not a pleasant prospect, but again, I need a real job and to establish a solid foundation of experience (ideally in a hospital’s med-surg unit).
Films…
And sometimes you just have to take time for yourself, which meant spending time with the cats (especially Mishka who got outside, panicked, and was lost out in the elements for nearly 22 hours), but I also enjoyed watching “Beetlejuice” again for the first time in ages. I made a comment about it, and the question was raised about Lydia Deetz and how she “stops being gothic as soon as she is happy.” But I disagree, and posted a lengthy response why…
“(Based on appearances) If you look at the shot comparing her style of dress (clothing) to the other students, she is indeed still gothic. She is simply wearing a required school uniform, but you can easily see that she is wearing a black slip and granny boots with black tights under the required garments. The dissecting a frog bit might be some part of the interpretation to the contrary, but her forte had always been photography, and you never saw anything regarding animal remains, taxidermy, or similar necrologia before in the film. If anything, everyone seems to have found balance. I mean, she's suspended in the air with four spectral football players who have been rendered in a horrible accident. I think everyone made some sacrifices to adjust, and everyone has found a happy compromise (the father, Charles, for example is reading "Living With the Dead: A guide to Harmonious Lifestyles and Peaceful Co-existence").
For example, the first floor of the house seems to have returned or be returning to the stylings of the Maitlands, yet the ascending staircase still reveals the faux-granite wall-paper of Delia and Otho's handiwork. The mother, Delia, is very much at work with sculpting, and hasn't settled for the mundane mainstream in any way, yet appears quite pleased with herself. The father, Charles, appears “perfectly at ease” in his study as he wished from the very beginning, but instead of a guide on birds, he's reading about living with the undead. Lydia appears happy with school, might have reined in her identity a bit (conformed) to meet admission requirements, but she's still obviously keen on photography and views her encounters with the paranormal as delightful treats (she spends her time studying with dead people after all-apparently a whole week with Adam Maitland for one test). The Maitlands too appear to be superficially to be living their preferred “life” with each other, vacationing at home, until you realize they have gone from hapless novices of “life” as ghosts to having proficiency somewhat mirroring Beetlejuice himself. I think the end suggests exactly that, harmonious living, and embracing the transitions while still retaining their own identities. They've all made some minor adjustments, and might be closeting a bit about themselves in order to live harmoniously under one roof.”
Addendum 1:
“It also becomes established after Beetlejuice is devoured by the Saturn Sandworm that Charles and Delia Deetz can now see and hear the Maitlands. So the lines of communication, which had not existed before, are now open. They are tuned to hear, so to speak, where before only Lydia was attuned to the "strange and unusual."”
Addendum 2:
Visual comparison between Lydia Deetz and her student peers (regarding a loss of her gothic attire and appearance): Lydia and all the other rural Connecticut girls of Winter River's "Miss Shannon's School for Girls," at time mark 1:24:55. I think a substantial case for her conformity could be made if something more substantial had changed apart from her donning a school uniform. Say for example, altered hair colour, but I really don’t see it, I think her toned-down her appearance was just enough to serve for a final lampoon set-up for the audience (see below).
Addendum 3:
I mean if it was your first time watching it, I think the joke was, the audience is expecting they are trying to ignore that they are living with ghosts, and that they are just one big happy normal family. Everything is peachy-keen normal, and then they turn on you and say, "Ah-ha! We revel in our new existence!" I mean, suddenly poltergeist manifestations start taking place, Lydia lifts into the air, and specters appear. It’s a twist with obvious contradictions that decry what we superficially consider to be “normal.” I think Lydia has scarcely changed at all. And what’s VERY important to note, Adam and Barbara had been trying unsuccessfully to have a child, something that was very obviously painful to Barbara in the earliest moments of the film. If anything these spectral god-parents have found a daughter they always wanted, and Lydia has found some of the best friends she could have hoped for.