Man, that Twisty Faster sure is expanding my vocabulary.

purulent: Made of or containing pus.

That’s a doozy.

I am so sick of bad movie trailers that I could scream. Forget screaming, I’m almost to the point of sneaking into movie theaters and editing the trailer reels with shears and Scotch tape.

Recently, it seems that almost all movie trailers follow one of two truly horrible patterns:

Pattern the first: Actors and producers sitting around talking about why the movie is so ‘neat’ for three minutes, intercut with small pieces of actual movie. Directors, who can be assumed to have some ability to tell stories, albeit in pictures, occasionally appear; screenwriters, whom one might expect to be proficient in the use of words, never. The hodge-podge of inarticulate, faint praise leaves you eager to never see the movie in question and, further, to never again go to a movie theater, where these expanded trailers usually appear.

Pattern the second: The trailer begins by giving the setup, which for many plot-driven movies is a reasonable thing to do. It then proceeds to show you the first and second twists, along with the romantic subplot and pieces of truly inane dialogue that only exist to drive along the plot. Yes, it’s actually the 30-second version of the movie, a crappy and unflattering 30 seconds at that, and this type of trailer is the one I see most often. Why would anyone think this is a good way to sell a film? Movies that one wants to see for reasons entirely unrelated to plot and suspense do exist but by no means predominate, and this sort of stultifying exposition-ridden tension-drainer of a trailer is used for all genres.

Stop it, Hollywood. Whatever sleep-deprived, drug-addled cretins you have putting together these trailers, fire them. Hire a few 16-year-olds with average IQs. If this is the way you try to motivate the movie-going populace to go to movies, it’s a wonder that you are lying about the box office ‘slump’.

An account, in Stephen Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers, of the kindness of French farm women to German soldiers fleeing the Falaise pocket in August, 1944. The author said that three veterans of the Wehrmacht with whom he’d spoken had been sheltered and fed by these women as they fled, alone and terrified, from the devastating Allied artillery and air assault.

In each case, the women explained that their sons were POWs in Germany, and that they hoped some German mother was feeding their boys.

I have rationalized my love of catty sites such as Go Fug Yourself by claiming that I, the most non-celebrityish person in the world, never go farther than the mailbox with my hair unbrushed, and would never go to the video store in a wrinkled bedroom sheet and Uggs, to name just one celebrity fugsemble.

However, my faith in my own grooming standards has been shaken. I not only failed to lint-roll the layer of tabby cat-hair accents from my black sweater before heading out today, but I just discovered that I have been in public for half an hour with a blob of Malt-o-Meal hot cereal dried onto the tip of my nose. Even Britney Spears would be appalled.

This blog is rarely a political space. Except for the occasional despair over school funding or bitter little jab at Shrub, I consider this site a place for anecdotes, fiction, reviews, and fun. This site pre-dates the boom in political blogging, or at least my awareness of it, so participating in any sort of cross-blog political ‘action’ seems not to fit Faerye Net.

However, it would be far, far too easy for me to use these excuse to duck out of Blog for Choice day. There are already too many reasons that Americans keep silent about our feelings on abortion rights. The minority who oppose abortion rights are so vocal that we fear immediate vilification if we speak up. The presence of violence in the debate, however fringe we may be assured it is, has a chilling effect. So we don’t put that bumpersticker on, in case we get keyed. We don’t march, in case someone throws a jar of fake blood on us. We don’t say what we believe, afraid that someone will call us ‘whores’ or ‘murderers’ for supporting a woman’s right to choose. We don’t stand up for others’ rights because we don’t plan to have an abortion ourselves. There are too many reasons not to speak up about abortion rights, and too many people not speaking up.

The Blog for Choice topic this year is “Why are you pro-choice?” I will skip over the obvious: over the right for the individual citizen to come to her own religious and philosophical conclusions about the nature of life; over the consequences in blood and tears of unsafe, illegal abortions over the centuries; over the benefits to parents and children of planned, wanted families.

I am pro-choice because the debate over abortion rights in this country is not really about abortion. If it were truly about abortion, the anti-choice side would be in favor of sex education, of contraceptive use. The Democrats who vote pro-choice but wish to reduce the number of abortions would have support from anti-choicers when they try to fund those measures, instead of finding themselves high and dry. It’s about sex, and people, especially women’s, right to have it. The priorities of the anti-choice movement are consistent with the desire to punish women for being sexually active. That isn’t fair to women, and it isn’t fair to the children who would be meted out as ‘consequences’ if they had their way.

I’m pro-choice because I don’t believe I have the right to push my sexual mores on others, or that others have that right. I’m pro-choice because after abortion rights, they want to take away contraceptive rights. I’m pro-choice because I believe women should be considered people, not birthing vessels, and should be allowed to make our own medical decisions accordingly. I’m pro-choice because I don’t believe in Eve. I don’t believe that every woman in America should be pre-condemned to pay for one mythical, forbidden bite.

I can’t believe this is even making it to my petty peeves, but I just can’t take it anymore.

Cars have brakes. Brakes brakes brakes. Metaphors generally have brakes too. ‘Put on the brakes’, not the ‘breaks’. Please, for my poor nerves.

sob

I should never have agreed to it. But you get stupid when you have a stiff to unload, and the guys have a reputation. A reputation for lighting fires, but also for being prepared. The price was high, but nothing I couldn’t afford. So I stripped the body and left it where they said. But I eyeballed the drop again tonight and there it still is, large as death. Either the reputation is the bunk, or I’ve been played for a patsy.

Never trust a Boy Scout, and dispose of dead trees yourself.

I have to suppress even more stuff now that I’m employed as a crew-member at Queequeg’s Qoffee Qasa than I did in my office jobs...here are a few remarks I did not say over the past week.

“Little girl, you are so cute that you look eerily like an Asian ball-jointed doll!”

“Hi, fellow Queequeg crew member. Your name means ‘sorrow’ in Latin and mine means ‘happiness’ — we should be archenemies and fight to the death!”

And just today…”Here’s your drink…say, the color of your shirt would denote you an archbishop within the Episcopal Church!”

Yes, I do indeed keep myself in check.

Long long ago, when Faerye Net was young, I posted two different writing exercises, in which you, the readership, took part. (In the second one, I did not take part, because I was a frazzly-frazzle at the time.) One at least of ye missed these little games (and I think more), so I bent my brains to come up with a new one.

This one is based on a writing exercise from a high school English class: I will give you a beginning sentence, and you will write a story. Use it in quotes or not, mix it up a bit, whatsoever you please! Just enjoy doing a bit of freeform writing, and we’ll all enjoy seeing the different places in which we turn up, from the same four words: She died last week.

Mine is half-written already. I’ll post it as soon as it is done and someone else has posted theirs!

In my capacity as a Queequeg’s Qoffee Qasa crew member, I have to comply with certain dress codes. Confusingly, I am neither required nor allowed to have extensive facial tattoos — however, I am required to tuck in my shirts.

In this age of low waistlines, this presents a problem, but as we are allowed to have an auxiliary tucked-in shirt under our primary shirt, not an insoluble one. Knowing my need, friend Grizelda recently gave me a hot tip: the Gap’s camisoles come in a longer, more tunic-like edition in their Gap Maternity section. Pursuant to this intelligence, I purchased two such garments and paid for them with (yes, I have one, deal) my Gap store credit card.

A week later, I was surprised to see the usual Gap e-mail (I opted in so as to scoop the sales) in my inbox, but with a cryptic subject. “The perfect outfit for your special day!” What special day? The message made it clear: my…baby shower. I bought two camisoles and now the Gap thinks I’m pregnant. I’ll be interested to see if they swap me back to Gap Women in a few months, or try to sell me baby clothes.

There are many futures, and Philip K. Dick is their prophet.