Twilit

I started this before my current hardships began. I don't know if I'll find the heart to care to finish it:

As much as I’ve decried the series for its Mormon allegory, I’m not going to focus on it in too much depth as I examine the story here (rather, I’ll refer interested parties to this article for the LDS allegorical discussion as well as to invite readers to simply Google “Twilight Mormon allegory” if they so desire): http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=22-08-024-f .

The preface.
As I read through this short bit of text, I’m left wondering if anyone took the time to tell the author the difference between a preface and a prologue.

First Sight (also known as chapter one).
Here on the first page is where Bella really starts to lose me: “Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose.” Prolixity (from Latin prolixus, extended, also called verbosity and garrulousness) in language refers to speech or writing which uses an excess of words. Adjectival forms include prolix, verbose, and garrulous. Which, for the layman, means a person who is verbose talks or writes a lot. A lot. If Bella is not verbose, why do we have a 245 page (my edition) novel told in her voice? Ostentatiously, why do we have four such novels in her voice? At some point I’m going to end this exploration with a return to this statement: if she’s so not-verbose why couldn’t she just shut the fuck up then?
Two more pages in I’m convinced that at least the character of Bella has no clue what verbose means because she and her father are displaying it in spades (and by page eight I’m convinced Stephanie Meyer should have fired her copyeditor). I leave the first chapter not at all enamored of our primary antagonist. She comes off as either ignorant or a liar (see the verbose statement above), and she’s shown to be a bit of a bitch, where she can’t be bothered to retain the names of the other girls she meets, nor can she be bothered to pay attention to any of their prattling until they start talking about subjects she herself initiates, rather than any of the other subjects that instead interest them.

Chapter one also resonated heavily for me as an allusion to the newly adult LDS male going on his mission: like Bella wanting to go while simultaneously dreading the upheaval of their life, missing “home” and even the suggestion that remaining would be a hardship for the parent (as Bella suggests staying in Phoenix would be bad for mom, and an LDS child-man turning away from their mission would be a socially damaging action for their parents).

At this point I’m having trouble deciding whether I simply dislike the writing style, or if there’s nothing necessarily off-putting about the style; rather the main character is thus far just so unappealing that I lump my dislike for her into my dislike for Meyer’s prose. We’ll see how far along I can force myself through this.

Home Movie in 217 Words

This movie stars my least favorite actor in Heroes with bad enough acting and dialog as to guarantee its place amongst the sort of horror movies I would usually be watching with Chris (i.e. enjoyably awful) only much more dull. This was the sort of dull that I couldn't maintain my own full attention for the first half hour the acting and storyline was that bad. Start to finish this film, the reactions of the parents, is so absurdly unbelievable as to give this movie an absolute failing grade. You see where this movie is going, there will be no surprise in the ending. Still, 45 minutes or so in, it started becoming harder to ignore the film in favor of Facebook. An hour in, knowing full well that nothing would be a surprise, nothing would be new for this story, the acting no better, the plot as nonsensical, I could not draw my attention away. My chest was, and remains 15 minutes post-movie, tense. Breathing shallow. I became filled with a growing dread. And could not stop watching. I wanted to stop watching, but knew that doing so would somehow make it even scarier--coming to the ending that was so expected would somehow be more amelliorating than shutting off. I may have been wrong. This movie fucking scared me.

Ongoing Conversation Between Me and Rael

This started two weeks ago.

Rael: Daddy, don't be sad, but Santa isn't real.
Me: What? You don't think Santa's real?
Rael: No, he's rubber. Santa's not real, he's fake. He's rubber daddy.
Me: Does this mean you don't want Santa then beca--
Rael: Nope.
Me: Uhm. . .

Rael: Santa IS real, daddy.
Me: Oh, he's real now?
Rael: Yeah, so now he can come.
Me: Ok.

and so on, repeat, etc. And then today:

Rael: I love you, daddy. Santa's not real, daddy.
Me: Ok. So no Santa then?
Rael: No, Santa's coming.
Me: How can Santa come if he's not real?
Rael: He's fake!
Me: Right, so if he's fake, how's he going to come?
Rael: I think I have enough stuff I can make us a robot Santa and he can come.
Me: OK.

Re-Tweeted

You may or may not have noticed that I've included my Twitter feed to this blog for the past few months. It's a chance for you to have mini snippets of me during those times I lag a bit more than we'd all like between posts here. And if you're inclined, you should totally follow me. Blah blah blah.
So today I tweeted (egads, I really do cringe at Twitter-speak, though I still use it for its growing universality amongst those who use it) the following: " evan_up Ironic from me, I know: Lately I find myself wishing more of the people closest to me would see the happy things in their lives. "

After the events of my post two previous to this one (that is, after I withdrew from certain other associations), Denise and I spent a good month or more (more) arguing, in our way (which means a lot of arguing from me and a lot of ignoring me slash escaping from reality into a book for Denise) as we worked through a personal problem that'd needed sorting for a couple years now, overshadowed previously by other matters. I feel that, while nothing is ever perfect and never will be, we've come through this together finally and into a much better place for it. I see in Denise though a reticence, a "is this just the calm before the next fight" quality to her demeanor. I regret that I'm probably deservedly to blame for her worrying this way but I hope I can get her to see that I'm happier now we've been working together and I look forward to the future we have more than I ever had in a long long time. I hope she can see the same bright star ahead soon; I'll have to work harder to help show her.

And then there's Aeia. The other day she made up this very charming Christmas card for me and Denise. Anyone who has ever received a homemade card from Aeia knows exactly how special and quirky wonderful these cards can be. This one, amidst all of its quirky Aeia-card perfection was also this bit of a gut puncher: I hope you and mom have a really nice Christmas, at least someone should have one.
Me: *dumbfounded* Sweetie, what's this? Don't you think you're going to have a good Christmas?
Aeia: No.
Me: You think you're going to have a bad Christmas?
Aeia: No. I think it's just going to feel like a regular day for me.
I don't quite know how to tackle that one. I hope we can find a way to make Christmas more special for her. Actually, I think as I typed the preceding sentence I figured out just how. I'll come back to this in a week and let you know how it worked.

To all of my home-fries out there (and if you think this applies to you, it probably does): finals are over, your friends and family love you, stop fretting over the minor stuff (especially, if it applies to you, Burgeropolis), stop worrying about what might happen with situations you haven't even started yet and start them instead--then worry about what to do about them; have more fun, laugh a little more--if you need help with this, call me, but me a drink or come over and kill some zombies or something.

words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

Kidding

This post will be less of a whiny "State of the Evan Union" post than the last one was. But I do want to give a quick thank you to Alex and Kayla for deciding to drop by Wally World in order to cheer me up after reading my last post.

I haven't talked much about the kids in a while, so for those family and friends with an interest in such things, some updating:

I'm going to start off with Aeia and completely buck the idea of any conventional ordering. The last month saw Aeia making a concerted push at getting me to re-implement the concept of allowances. Ironically enough, my decision to capitulate to this request has resulted in her deciding to be the one who least does their chores and therefore earns the least allowance. Over the Autumn Break (aka Thanksgiving Week) she had a family tree homework assignment. The parameters for this only required focus on her family tree through her grandparents, my and Denise's parents but Aeia was so interested in exploring as much of her geneology as she could that she pursued filling the tree out back through the generations out to my Great-grandmother. It was fun helping with this and it was fun listening to some of her reactions and revelations. She is very concerned with the large number of unwed pregnancies and multiple marriages in both my mother's and grandmother's generations. Aeia's also taken an interest in choir and I look forward to eventually, hopefully, getting to see her perform.

Lash is struggling with the same things he's been struggling with for some time now: friends and grades (he isn't making/keeping any ((and I think the situation in my previous post is negatively impacting his one close friendship)) and his grades are poorer than ever before. Le sigh.) while at home he's really begun to rise up to improving how helpful he can be with the other kids and with his chores. Far from perfect, but improving. I'd like to get him involved with some sport again.

Tasmia and Rael are both very frequently pretending to be dinosaurs, running around and growling at everyone else. Rael has begun playing the Lego Rock Band game with me on occasion--he only has the attention span for 2 and a half songs--and he does surprisingly well for his age, even if only on "super easy" mode for guitar. He's definitely interested in performance as he really adds some rocking out to his rocking out.

Tasmia is freaking scary intelligent. None of the others were as loquacious at two, none as communicative of their canniness (though all have proven to be pretty darn canny and loquacious). I think Tasmia's going to end up ruling the world--sometime after she learns to be less messy when she eats.

Stop Loss

The last few months have been a bit of a struggle. Implementing change, even when the results trend toward the positive, is really very hard. Denise and I have grown stronger, fight a lot less. I like to think credit for this is due the extra care we've been putting in to new communication styles, changes in the relationship, etc. My big fear is that it's just because we don't see each other at all at least four days in every week. I'm betting it's most likely some combination of both things.

The last year has seen me struggling with another difficult transition as well. I'd come to realize that one of my longest running friendships had run to the point where it really wasn't a healthy relationship for me anymore. I spent a few months trying to fight myself in this realization, and trying to make this friend change themselves for the sake of saving our friendship, along the way making a lot of personal compromises and sacrifices I really wasn't comfortable with. Sometime in late March we all sat together and confronted this friend with various problems and observations, trying to "help" which to me, at that point, seemed a fruitless activity. And I said as much, that I'd reached the point of being tired of trying, that I wasn't going to try anymore.

This in itself proved a disservice to me, the friend and all of our interconnected relationships. Given the length of time and intensity of the friendship, and the interconnectivity of all my close friendships, declaration of giving up did not come along with a decision to then disassociate myself. This grew into months of expecting him to change without me putting any energy into it anymore, and the growing frustration as things didn't change except for when things would worsen. And somewhere along the way, any voicing of frustration on my part somehow made me a villain, or a tantuming infant rather than be taken as an opportunity for any introspection on any of our parts--a growing contest of who could be the bigger asshole while completely ignoring and invalidating the others complaints.

It took forever for me to get to the realization that the damage this situation was causing our friendship AND my own psyche was far too great. Far too great for the small return the friendship was giving either of us. Hard as it was to do, and it so really was, I removed myself from the equation and cut ties. I miss my friend dearly, but know in my heart that even if we were hanging out, the friendship would just return to the fallacy that it had been for the past 2-3 years. We're going to end up seeing each other at a party this weekend, and I fear myself letting myself go back to the old status quo. I hope I'm stronger than that.

I find myself lonelier these days. The absence of one of my closest friendships is painful. But ultimately, outside of the loneliness the decision has shown itself to be the right one for me. To just remove myself from the maelstrom of bullshit has improved my quality of life on all fronts save for the loneliness one.

I am happier. And I'm happier that Denise and I have grown a little closer in this time (and really, I hope my sharing here doesn't cause her upset or an increase of drama for any of us. I needed to talk about this and tried to be as neutral as possible). I'm happier the kids and I are closer. What's next for Evan? I don't really know. Hopefully there'll be a solution to the loneliness in there somewhere.