I'm crying everyone's tears.

[I got this from buddhists]

"What is it that has called you so suddenly out of nothingness to enjoy for a brief while a spectacle that remains quite indifferent to you? The conditions of your existence are as old as the rocks. For thousands of years men have striven and suffered and begotten and woman have brought forth in pain. A hundred years ago, perhaps, another man or woman sat on this spot; like you, he gazed with awe and yearning in his heart at the dying of the glaciers. Like you, he was begotten of man and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was it not you yourself? What is this Self of yours?"

-Erwin Schrodinger

Ignore for a second some of the old-school language and the begottens and the man-woman thing, it still speaks to me this morning.

Last night I didn't wallow and instead I managed to talk clumsily about it for awhile, then I went out to Stargaze for a show, in part because I knew many friends would be there as well. In the beginning I plotted my escape a dozen times, to go home to bed or couch, but the pull wasn't there -- I felt comfortable and okay being out. I enjoyed myself and the show and the company and was glad I went because the cloud temporarily lifted and even though on the way home last at night I could feel things starting to seal back up again, I didn't panic. I knew good things were waiting for me at home and I would and could open up again. I came home and listened to my current favorite depressed song on repeat three or four times as catharsis and knew I was starting to feel better when my brain started to think about songwriting and the idea of perspectives and whether the singer was singing a male character or just reclaiming masculine words and decided either one could work and I could take what I needed in the moment.

This morning I was a little groggy but not miserable. In fact, I think I even detected some hope. I talk about my inner sparrow when it comes to my sense of direction on the compass, but last night I surely felt like one of those migrating birds who has the path imprinted on their brain which tells them where to go, even if it doesn't immediately make sense. I can find my way home no matter what.

It's Thursday and nearly lunchtime which means the day is close to being done, as is this week. I survived, just as I suspected, and soon this will be just another day, another week, another period where I dipped down but didn't crash.

The Interview interview.

I'm normally the last to post a meme or survery, but I'm all about these interviews because the questions are creative and the answers require people to share actual information, not just which "Everybody Loves Raymond" character they should date. katemosey did me the honors. And she's a real journalist, too!

( five questions! )

Player haters get away, or my lead will spray. (Martha/P.Diddy remix)

I know later I will laugh at myself for writing this random rant, but yeahwhatever.

Madness Librarian and I discussed on Monday how we were surprised that Cybill Shepard agreed to play Martha Stewart in the Martha Inc. movie that aired last week (and was SO popular they showed it AGAIN over the weekend -- I got sucked in and confess I may buy it used on DVD just so I can sample the line "hey slut, I'm going to write your mother a letter and tell her you're a whore!"). The movie was a strange potrayal of the Miss Stewart (as I call her, because I'm nasty). For the most part it was supremely unflattering -- there would be a long scene of Martha interacting with business contacts, showing off her smarts and ideas and savvy, and then a montage of quick scenes showing her as controlling and calculated and mean and inhumane. To quote Missy, she's a bitch. Yes, yes, we get it. But here's why I'm confused by Cybill's involvement.

Some of you may remember this little movie called American Beauty that blew up a few years ago. And despite any other flaws and achievements you can argue, it's hard to deny that it had the most unflattering potrayal of female lead character ever in a movie, as played by Annette Bening. She was cold and bitchy and annoying and screeching and insincere. I tried so hard to like her, despite the director's obvious attempts to demonize her, but even I couldn't do it. The scary thing? The original character in the screen play was even MORE one-dimensional and a caricature of nagging boorish housewife. Annette beefed the role up. Who wrote this character? Alan Ball. Former television writer for the show Cybill. Who HATED his job and his boss and hated working for her and wrote the screenplay for American Beauty while working on the show and based the character on her.

So why would she turn around and agree to star in a movie that does the same backstabbing shallow painting of another successful powerful woman?

See, I'm not saying you have to like Martha Stewart's white-Stepford-wife-New-England shtick. I'm not even saying you shouldn't be frightened or scared of her occasional scary amounts of calculated savvy. But I'm starting to reach the point where any person who just cracks on her endlessly is a straight up misogynistic player-hater. (I've had this discussion regarding Oprah too. She gets criticized as a megalomaniac with a god-complex way more than any male entreprenneur and especially more than any white ones. If you think overly harsh criticsm is not based on sex and race, stop kidding yourself.) You just can't deny that the woman had a genius streak in her, even if it's a type of intelligence I don't really respect or care to include in my own life. But like they say, don't hate the player, hate the game.

I'm also not saying we're not allowed to look critically at the actions of people simply because they aren't white men. I'm certainly all about holding queer folks accountable for their actions and trying to see objectively without just giving them a free pass because they play on my team. But most people don't realize how unconsciously they're more critical and hold different standards to minorities/oppressed people in the spotlight (I use those words loosely).

It just seems so obviously a ruse to draw attention from the big real problems when it comes to money in this country and who has the knowledge (as well as shady stock dealing by people like, oh, vice president Cheney). I mean frankly, and I'm obviously no expert on the stock market, I don't understand what the big fcking deal is with the charges. I mean, from my perspective, the ENTIRE stock market is based around inside trading -- this rich white boys' club of people who have all the information and how it relateds to these little numbers ticking up and down and pretend profits and profitability. Trading and buying and selling is obviously not like gambling and based on hunches -- it's about having real information because your inside and you stay inside by using it to make money off the back of others by playing the market. I think the whole thing is fcked up so why should I throw some 61-year old woman into a jail cell, who knew how to play the game amazingly well, building up this billion dollar enterprise after buying out her contract from Time Warner, while the system just plays on, taking food off my and others' plate? Whatever, at least Martha hooked me up with some nice sheets from Kmart. What the hell did Lee Iacocca ever do for me?

Now that I mention it, I'm starting to go all conspiracy theory and thinking that some big boys decided this woman was getting decidedly too big for her britches to the staged some elaborate plot to take her down by setting her up to lose her entire name and reputation and billion dollar life over $20,000. Damn, I'm going to go write that screenplay for the made-for-television movie.