I think there's a boy in my brain

This semester I'm taking a linguistics class entitled "Language and Gender". We're exploring gender stereotypes, assumptions, and expectations (and/or lack thereof) as manifested through language. It's a pretty interesting, engaging topic for me, and lately I've noticed three very interesting things about myself as a result. One is explicitly linguistic, the other two are more personality/mindset-based, two are things I know about myself already, but have been struck by recently, and one is really kind of surprising.

I'll start with the personality-based, already-known point first. I get crushes on girls. I don't want romantic or sexual relationships with girls, although I appreciate the female form. These crushes are more of the kind in which I think someone is just SO cool, or pretty, or interesting. I admire girls, and want to be like them. I have a crush on Amy Adams (the purse girl from Season One of The Office, the princess from Enchanted), and a local radio dj personality, and other people around me. I got a bit of a crush on Marilyn Monroe last week, which I kind of wrote about a few posts ago. I want to be these women. There's something I admire/find striking/want to understand better about these people, and it comes out as an expression of adoration and interest. I don't get crushes on boys in quite the same way (though I'll save that thought for a later post), and I think that this is interesting to observe. Even about with male movie stars, I just don't get as enthusiastic about them, or notice as many of them, as I do with their female counterparts.

Number dos: the linguistic-based, already-known point. I've found lately that I talk and think more within the male stereotype lately than within the female stereotype. Maybe not more, but in ways that are surprising to me. The 'Difference Theory' that Deborah Tannen preaches says, essentially, that boys and girls grow up in different 'sub-cultures'. Different worlds from which they learn to relate to one another. Girls look straight at each other when talking, boys seldom make eye contact with one another; boys view life as being one-up or one-down on everyone they come into contact with, while girls want to be equal and emphasis sameness; etc, etc. Several aspects of this have struck me as the opposite for me in the way I communicate lately. ***** My best solution for this is that i've spent the better part of my adult life learning about communication and trying to improve the way I communicate with others, especially with men, and especially with my male significant others. So maybe I've picked up these manners of talking as a way to improve the way I related to men? The funny thing is that I can see where the roles have actually reversed in some relationships, so that I've communicated in the "masculine" way at times, while my partner used "feminine" tactics in communicating with me! *****

But the third point that I'm writing about is the most surprising and most recent one for me. Tonight I watched Quantum of Solace, and SOOOO enjoyed it. I've seen James Bond movies before. They were ok. I can't really recall much about them except the Ice Palace in one of them that was pretty cool, and that Halle Berry was a Bond girl, I think in the same movie. And I get a few of the spoofs from Austin Powers, but I couldn't tell you who was being spoofed or from which movie. But, Man! I loved QoS tonight! All the chase scenes and destruction of rooms and leaping off of roofs and fighting and intrigue...it was great! I want to tear apart some room and break glass and not have to worry about fixing or replacing everything. That would be fun! I could understand what it would be to fantasize about the chase scene where I outsmarted the 10 cars chasing me and walked away from my car unscathed. That would be awesome. And this is what has thrown me off the most tonight. I'm not a violence/action/blood kind of movie fan. I watch action movies, and usually enjoy them. But I don't usually wish I were in them! Tonight I wanted to be James Bond in all his masculine glory!

somehow, a boy has gotten into my brain...

Adoption and Abortion

There is so much I want to say about this, but I can't seem to find the words. Every time I hear her story, feelings of peace, truth, and love wash through me. I'm happy to be able to share Tamra's story with you, and ask you to share it with others, especially in light of the recent executive order regarding abortion. Understanding all the options gives a woman the power to make the best choice for herself and her child.

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country. ~ Clint Eastwood

I have watched and returned four Netflix movies in the past two weeks. Sometimes I don't watch a movie for a month! Some of that has to do with the fact that a large part of my recent social life is now on a month-long, self-imposed prohibition (30-days no-contact with Mike to make a clean break), and I've been too lazy/solitary/scared of rejection to call people up and ask if I can play with them! And some of it has to do with the fact that school is now in session, and there's always something more interesting to do than homework!

I watched An American Tale last night...in Spanish. I love to watch movies by myself with spanish spoken language in addition to spanish subtitles. It's fun to see the differences between translations of the dubbing and the subtitles...and if I have seen the movie previously and remember even the gist of the English script, if the subtitles (is there a synonym for that word? it's getting tedious to repeat it so many times!) and dubs are different enough, it's like watching one scene with three slightly different interpretations! So that was fun. I hadn't seen it in probably 15+ years.

Before that I watched Some Like it Hot, and I just want to say that Marilyn Monroe is so sexy! I know that was old news about 50 years ago, but I'd never seen any of her movies before. It was fun...transvestism, mobs, romance, what more could you want in a movie? I was tempted to watch it again the next day because I enjoyed it so much, but I was a good little student & read an article about Arab/Israeli conflict instead.

I stayed up til about 1:30 watching Mamma Mia one night last week, and I wasn't all that impressed. Merryl Streep was not at her best in this one, and I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never quite got there. And her two sidekick friends kind of annoyed me...maybe it's better live?

And before that was some top-notch detective work by Jimmy Stewart & Grace Kelly in Rear Window. The 2-minute massages by the home-health nurse cracked me up, but I loved Grace's dresses...apparently they just don't make Hollywood actresses like they used to. :)

And now it's time to go read some more for classes!

what is love?

(NOT a night at the Roxbury ;-) )

There are few songs that I don't get sick of hearing over and over and over again when they become popular on the radio. This is one of them.



"The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson has been a top favorite of mine for well over a year. Sometimes I log in to my own blog when I'm at work, just to hear it on my project playlist, along with some others on the player that I can't seem to get enough of. Evan had a problem with the lyrics & wrote about it last January. But my take is completely different from his. I think this song epitomizes for me the balance between love and codependence. It can go either way, depending on the mindset of the individual listener, but when listened to from a healthy perspective, it's a picture of two imperfect people accepting one another's flaws and being willing to support one another in moving forward, within real life.

My philosophy on love (romantic love, specifically, but not solely) has evolved a lot over the past few years into a surprizingly manageable set of paradoxes. My expectations became less, yet more at the same time; My need to control seems to be under control; some of the things I NEED seemed not to be so necessary, more flexible, and yet I've found more fulfillment than ever in my most recent relationship.

Michael & I spent 10 months, more or less, exploring what a healthy, vulnerable, fun relationship could really look like. We didn't do it perfectly, of course, and weren't always healthy, vulnerable, or fun, but for the majority of the time we were dating, there was a level of intimacy and support that I'd never experienced before. And it was so refreshing!

We entered the relationship with the understanding that we had about a 90% chance of it not culminating in marriage, and that wasn't the emphasis. The focus was the here and now, being present in a relationship without the need for it to last forever and ever and ever (which is how my mind always seemed to work before). So we knew it would end at some point and had considered & evaluated that eventuality a few times in the past months, and this week it became reality. Saturday I got an answer that I wasn't even looking for from my Higher Power, that it was time to end the relationship. Overall, it's been a (mostly) peace-filled process so far.

We spent yesterday afternoon together, according to plans we'd made before the break-up, and at lunch he asked "Do we have a song?" We'd never discussed having a song that was "our song" & I couldn't think of anything. He asked, "Is there a song that makes you think of me?" Being a music lover, and having the need to find a way to make anything I hear somehow relate to my life, an accurate answer would probably have been "pretty much all songs," but the one that came to mind is Jason Mraz's latest "I'm Yours," because he likes it so much. He thought about it & then we got distracted with some other topic. A few minutes later he said "I know! it's 'Just The Way You Are'." I sputtered some of my drink & asked "Billy Joel?!" "No! the Rogaine song" he said, "You told me a while ago that you like me the way I am, and every time I hear that song I think of you."

And it occured to me that I had come full circle this year and that this relationship had embodied exactly what I like about Ingrid's lyrics. Perfectly imperfect people with a whole lotta mutual respect and esteem.

That's what love is to me.

2009 - Finishing What I Started

I've decided that this coming year is the year to complete all my unfinished projects, such as:

• My Bachelors Degree! (target date May 9)
• Reading all the books I haven't yet gotten to the end of:

1. The Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister (293 pages to go)
2. The Last Lion, Vol 1: Visions of Glory, A biography of Winston Churchill (400 pages left)
3. The Collected letters of C.S. Lewis 1905-1931 (890 pages to go)
4. When God becomes A Drug by Father Leo Booth (150 more pages)

• An embroidery project that I started Thanksgiving '03 and haven't picked up since.
• A quilt I started for my 6-1/2 year-old brother while he was in the womb.
• Memphis.
• Therapy.
  
• Maybe, If I'm REALLY good, I'll be able to pay off my car loan.
  
• And maybe, just maybe, I'll get my photography career off and running!