life without a plot

That sleep-attack-after-coming-home-and-fixing-myself-something-to-eat-and reading-maybe-ten-pages thing? Is apparently becoming a habit. Then got up, blearily, and watched DW The Voyage Of The Damned, which was maybe not perfect, but better IMO than the reviews on amazon suggested, with some lovely touching moments.

Went to see The Lion in Winter (play, not movie version) yesterday with some people from work because M.'s in Berlin and I got her ticket. I hesitate to compare it to the movie version because I haven't seen that in probably ten years or more, so maybe wouldn't like it as much now as I remember liking it, but it has left a strong impression and this version seemed a bit... bland in comparison; lifeless. They tried to superficially modernise it a bit by transferring it into a contemporary world of finance, making it all about shares, holdings and CEOs, which IMO just didn't have such an impact and sounded a bit forced at times. I'm perfectly aware that these days there's probably more power in finance/economy than in actual politics, but it somehow failed to convey the brutal power struggle and dysfunctional family politics adequately. Frankly, I've seen that done with more conviction on Smallville. If one was already spoiled for familiar with the plot, this version simply added nothing new or exciting, but generally lacked passion and failed to touch, and the applause was appropriately polite, even and very brief.



Also got & read John Barrowman's autobiography this week, which was better than I thought it'd be. Oops, sorry. Did I just type that? But while I fangirl as much as the next fangirl, I've stopped buying celebrity biographies a while ago and honestly didn't have too high expectations about the autobiography of someone only just turned 40, dictated into an iPod in between a very busy work schedule. But it has a very personal voice and they (I've no idea if it was John, Carole, or both of them) found an interesting structure, jumping back and forth a bit, going on tangents, etc., so it was never boring; chatty, full of anecdotes (some of which one has heard in interviews over the years, but a lot that were new at least to me, too) and often quite funny, although maybe I should say at this point that JB's sense of humour doesn't really converge with mine, which is very typically Viennese: dark, macabre and morbid. And while it's not the most profound thing ever written, it's not shallow: sincerely emotional, and serious and passionate when dealing with subjects that demand seriousness and passion. And John's energy and enthusiasm are infective even in print.

Oh, and look at the preface: To be honest, here's what I really hope - that by arranging the book in this way, you'll feel as if you and I are lounging in our pyjamas on the couch in my Cardiff living room, sharing a bottle of champagne or a pot of tea, with music on in the background, having a blether and laugh about my life so far.

*g* How's that for seducing your readers?


On a personal note, what really struck me reading this is that of all the authors, artists, musicians, etc. that I've fangirled have made more than a passing impression on my life, JB is by a long, long, - long: *cough* ex-NIN-fan *cough* - way the most positive, most balanced and apparently genuinely happiest person.

( cut for getting a bit personal )

Second day of Christmas baking. I've come home exhausted and vowing never to touch another Christmas cookie again before, but this year for the first time I never really enjoyed it to begin with; just another... duty, almost, something to be done; except - what (whom) for, exactly? Or why? Because I've been doing it for the last 30 or so years of my life?

(Also, don't try the cookie thing with a 13 months old kid around. I love my niece, but, gah. It's impossible to get any work done with anything approaching efficiency.)

I usually love finding & giving gifts, but this year I wish I could (not that my job lets me) just forget about the whole Christmas thing altogether. I haven't bought anything for anyone so far, I don't know when I will, and really don't particularly want to. I wish I had the money and time to take a few weeks off & a plane to some sunny, warm beach somewhere where Christmas isn't celebrated. Or heard of, if that is at all possible.

I'm so tired of it all. Mostly I'm tired of all the repetition and sameness in my life.

The therapist always tells me to focus on what's positive in my life, myself. Now that's something that's hard to find/see at the best of times, and something I can't really seem to influence either (the perception, that is; either I see/feel it, or I don't), but it increasingly seems a wasted effort, because when I'm not putting up a facade for other people, but being honest with myself instead there isn't anything. I'm 35, and what I'm doing is sitting at my computer listening to NIN & writing a livejournal entry which is 2/3 whinebithchmylifesucks and 1/3 fanishness. Before that I was watching an episode of Smallville. Before that, baking Christmas cookies for no other reason that because I've always done it. Tomorrow I'll return to the same crappy job I've been whining about for years. My four years younger sister has a boyfriend, a child and a dissertation that's more or less finished. How is that life not a failure? How is that worth anything? Because it isn't.


Eh.


Also, while we're talking about immaturity & pointless life time wasting?

Don't do this to me, Smallville. I finally dug out the S5 box set I bought ages ago & never watched, because Christmas-stress induced brain-deadness seemed like a good state of mind to approach this. And, predictably, crap. And not improved by James Marsters. [Insert redundant rant about this show's wasted potential.] Until the Christmas episode, which, just, guh. Heartbreak. I might have sniffed a bit. Oh, Lex. Episodes like this leave me semi-convinced that someone does actually know what they're doing, because the characterisation was absolutely stringent for once instead of all over the place as usual. I've been randomly scribbling down thoughts during the earlier episodes and it seemed pretty obvious that Lex is looking for power because the one thing he's afraid of (and not entirely unjustified, growing up in this family), is to be powerless and at someone's mercy. So it's actually nice to hear that the show's creators and I are on the same page here, because most of the time I suspect the characterisation I see in my head exists only there. I don't think I've ever seen Michael Rosenbaum in anything else, so I really have no idea how good an actor he is when he's not on SV, but there he's very good indeed. Or can be, if they actually give him enough screen-time and development do something with his character...

What's the point of having a day off (an entire day too, for once, and all to myself, since Ch. and I have arranged the horse schedule so that I only have to go every other week), when you've just got your period and feel crampy, tired and generally disgusting? I went to the zoo in the morning (listlessly), mostly to get the annual season ticket as long as the voucher was still valid, and had planned to go photographing in the late afternoon, but watched three episodes of B5 (which I've decided to re-watch, yes, all five seasons, yes, I've all kinds of never-watched dvds lying around at home, and and no, i'm not sure there's a point to it, but since it's been years I've forgotten enough to see it with an at least partly fresh eye...) instead, because I just couldn't face the idea going out again.



soavezefiretto writes about what she'd do if this were the last day of her life, which got me thinking, too... (And depressed, oh, yes.)

Make a will [you'd get a first pick on the dvds, cds, and books, just so you know... ], maybe write messages for a couple of people, but probably not. What they know, they already know, and it doesn't seem fair to drop any kind of emotional bomb on someone when they can't respond properly any longer.

Then I'd get to some beach, Greece, Turkey, doesn't matter, somewhere that's reachable within a day with some time to spare. Granted, it'd mean spending much of my last day on an airport and plane - although I'd also get to see the clouds from above one more time, which is one of the great things about flying, IMO -, but I think it'd be worth it, sitting on some beach, looking out at the sea and listen to the waves, maybe watching the sun set. Maybe take a book I love, something familiar, (at the moment it'd be something by Thomas Mann, I think), read a few pages. Have a glass of wine, maybe.

I don't think I'd want anyone with me, because that'd lead to all kinds of tears & drama (although I'm toying with the thought of bringing a mobile phone, just in case I want to hear someone's voice, after all), and in the end you're alone anyway.



For me the surprise in thinking about this was (even though today was a rather crappy day where I've already asked myself why I keep going on, etc.), the sadness, and the regret. There have been years where I'd probably have welcomed dying (at least in theory and my imagination; reality might/would still have been somewhat different, I guess), now... it depresses the fuck out of me, because after all I don't want this to be over yet, and at the moment (I want to blame the hormones, but am not sure I can) all I can see is regrets, missed opportunities, thirty-five years of nothing and failure. (Funny. Because when I started to come out of that long phase of depression I thought that was enough, having survived, living, and and I wasn't regretting anything, because all this made me who I am, was who I am. Right. Riiiight.) And what I'd regret most is the general lack of love, and perhaps I can blame the hormones for all this disgusting sentimentality after all. God.


And I guess this should make me reflect on how to re-structure my life, make it more meaningful, start dating, etc., but I suspect I'll just go back to watching another couple of B5 episodes. Literally and metaphorically.

*sigh* I tried to put nailpolish on my toenails, but immediately realised that the last thing my feet needed was anything drawing attention to them. Now I've got ugly violet stains there that I can't get entirely rid off. I obviously suck at all things female.


Pessoa's Buch der Unruhe is one of the books I took along but didn't read, but '[...] meine Autobiographie ohne Fakten, meine Geschichte ohne Leben' - I'm somewhat tempted to make that the title of my journal if it weren't too depressing; it's so fitting.


The possibility of reincarnation scares me.


. o O o .


( Vacation so far has been a bit of a failure. )


. o O o .

Yesterday, four hour drive home from a cool Salzburg morning to sultry 30+ degree Vienna, dentist appointment (thankfully uneventful), laundry, crashed in front of the tv, tried to catch up with the internet.


Today, IKEA with my sister and niece, and if I ever needed confirmation that I'd not be suited to be a mother... Not that I don't love my niece, because I do, but I don't think I'd be able to deal with a child 24/7.



And now it's 22:30, I haven't packed anything, and I must leave before 8.00 tomorrow. Somehow I'd thought it was later.

*panics*

*rushes off*

*comes back to edit*

*rushes off again*

Perhaps it's the remainder of Saturday with the prospect of Sunday (always so much more pleasant than Sundays themselves), but I'm feeling moderately relaxed for the first time this week. Did some actual, if minimal, cooking after coming home from work, frying chicken to go with the salad, and some belly-dancing practice, and will probably watch the remaining S1 Dr. Who episodes & relax & enjoy not feeling as anxious and depressed as most of last week. (Had another of those ridiculous embarrassing anxiety dreams where I am late to work; I wish my subconsciousness would at least chose to angst over more serious issues. Gah.)

( ... )

Since TM is a kind of comfort food reading when I'm in these kinds of moods, I reread both Tod In Venedig and Tonio Kröger this week, neither of which I remembered particularly well - and don't remember enjoying as much - and it's fascinating reading those two back to back with the ideas about art and the artist, the balance and relationship of art and life expressed in both. Interesting to compare the melancholy, but accepting, almost conciliatory ending of TK (is there even another example where TM doesn't kill off his artist-protagonist?) with the bleakness of TiV, the warmth of the one with the coldness of the other. Another thing I hadn't remembered is how dark TiV is, and I don't mean in a stylish, decadent sense, but in a cruel and relentless one. Even with a subject that allows little else, there's something almost self-torturing in lending auto-biographic traits to von Aschenbach and then taking him through this kind of experience and humiliation. What makes it more depressing and almost eerie is TM at thirty-eight writing out this fate for his something of a decade older protagonist...


After that tried TM's Die vertauschten Köpfe (couldn't get into it), Edgar Hilsenrath's Der Nazi & der Friseur (lying on my bed half-read since months) or Bulgakow's short stories (finished one, but was discouraged when the next one started with references to characters from Russian literature half of whom I didn't know).

So I picked W.A.Hoffman's Brethren - Raised by Wolves (the novel that so irritated me starting off with the three instances of eye-rolling in as many pages) up again, and while it does improve - no more eyes were being rolled until page 130something, although 'emerald orbs' make an appearance -, having read about 140 pages and skimmed through the rest I'm still far from enthusiastic.

( ... )

Also continued watching Dr. Who and really love it, although the seasons are sadly short and I've seen the Captain Jack episodes before. It's not the show to make me think deep thinky thoughts, but it's charming, got a lovely balance between gut-wrenching emotional and funny, drama and humour, enjoyable characters, and that's more than I've found in a show (Torchwood aside) for a while. And it's always nice to see the lovely John Barrowman in better than pixelated YouTube quality. :)