On Shyness

Hello, audience. Based on my blog stats, you actually exist, which is gratifying. I assume you do, anyway. That, or things are randomly linking to my page, and people search things that I posted pictures of.

But I thought I'd take a few minutes tonight to explain to the internet at large why I HATE HATE HATE shy people.

Do you know why it is?

Because they're so full of crap.

We've all met the people who are just quiet. They don't talk a whole lot, and they're cool being on their own, and they don't need you to tell them it's okay. That's being called self-contained. When people say they're shy, you should automatically read that as "I'm an attention whore with a propensity to martyring myself." Because we've also all met those people. I've met several.

Let me take a moment here, my dear, faithful, presumably interested audience, to explain something: I am loud. I am opinionated. I am comparatively oblivious, and I don't cater to anyone in conversation (excepting age, because some things can't be said around the over-thirty-five/under-seventeen crowds). Get over it, sweetheart.

Someone posted this thing on Facebook that said something akin to, "I'm the friend who always gets cut off mid-story, and walks behind everyone else, and invites people to hang out so that I'm not excluded, and I will always be that friend, because wah wah wah." Or something like that. And being the diplomatic angel I always am, I commented.

I have been Bitched Out on more than one occasion (at least twice by the same person, who was the kind of "shy" I'm talking about here) for being a verbal bulldozer, being rude, interrupting, being pushy, loud, etc. And you know what? I am those things most of the time. But you know what else? Most of the people who actually enjoy talking to me (like my friends and close family members) can deal with that. They talk over me, and I talk over them, and it's not because either of us thinks we're more important than the other. We're just talking. We're comfortably sharing ideas and stories in a free manner.

This isn't frickin' LD Debate here, guys. I don't make an opening statement, followed by your opening statement, nd then my rebuttal, and your rebuttal, and my follow up, and your response, and then our closing thoughts. Conversation is a free flow thing. If you can't handle that, maybe you should only talk to people via text, because instant messaging, email, and texting all take place line by line where no one steps over the other.

Come to think of it, most of the whiny "shy" people do spend all their time online...

Anyway, the thought I had originally started with is this: People who claim to be shy are usually just looking for someone to validate them. And there are two things I have no respect for, and when people exhibit them on a regular basis, I stop talking to them so that no one gets throttled.
1) Stupidity. This is the cardinal sin in the Book of Rachel.
2) Excessive insecurity.

Let me clarify here. Everyone is insecure about things. No one is totally confident, totally happy, or totally together. We all have duckies that are getting away from us. But most of us have the decency not to cram it down everyone's throat.

In my experience, people who are "shy" are looking for excuses to martyr themselves so that other people feel sorry for them or pay excessive attention to them. So that when you don't make way on a red carpet covered on rose petals for their every little thought, you're a dick for not letting them speak.

Because I have news, babydoll, no one can tell you that you don't matter. No one can make you feel insignificant or unimportant.  No one can make you shut up when you want to talk. No one can make your opinions less important.

UNLESS

you lie down in front of their feet and explain softly that you're a worthless doormat, and  if they would be so gracious as to make you matter...you'd bitch them out for being so thoughtless and selfish as to think that their opinions matter. How dare other people be aware of their own worth when you need yours given to you by external forces?!

When you need validated and told you're a beautifuw snowfwake and we all appweciate evewything about you, it's your own weakness.

There you go, friends and neighbors. I think "shy people" are weaklings, and full of their own selfishness and arrogance on top of it. You don't get to condemn me or anyone else for asserting ourselves just because you need permission to say anything unless it;s to complain about your lot for being the self-proclaimed victim.

Shut your whore mouth, you freaking shy people. Get over yourselves.

Recent Thoughts on The Little Mermaid

Hello, ever-present audience. (Nevermind how accurate or inaccurate that is.)

As you may or may not have seen on my Facebook (I try not to let those mix) I said I might have to post about The Little Mermaid after watching it the other night. Thursday, I believe.

Like many of the pure joys of my childhood, revisiting it as an adult (we'll ignore the fact that I watch at least four Disney movies every year for the last decade or so) can be both disappointing and hilarious.

In my Facebook post, I summed up the movie this way, "The Little Mermaid: the three day journey of a sixteen-year-old girl getting body modifications for a guy she's never met, culminating in catastrophic, magically created weather and their first kiss/wedding."

I guess technically the story takes about five days.
1) The missed concert/first sight/storm/rescue
2) Rescue song/destruction of Ariel's horde/ decision to solve things with plastic surgery via Ursula/ meeting Eric formally
3) Tour of the kingdom/ "Kiss the Girl"/ "Vanessa" appears out of nowhere
4) Stall the wedding/ final battle with giganto-fat-octopus-woman/ sparkley dress and first kiss
Cut to wedding

Watching this the other night, during their wedding scene, my first thought was, "oh my god. Is that their first kiss??" Followed closely by "She's SIXTEEN! D8"

I just did some intense Googling and Youtube clip watching, though, and as it turns out, it technically isn't, because when her poor, misguided father takes the advice of a crab and turns his beautiful daughter back into a ravenous "fisheater," she runs out of the water, totally ignoring that gift and the paternal approval it represents, and drives into the arms of this near stranger for a passionate kiss. Which then fades into that shot at the wedding.

Also, there's totally a Top 15 Disney Kisses video, and I take issue with the numbering of most of them.

But here are some of the things that I had to yell at the movie for:

First, King Triton constantly refers to humans as barbarians and fish-eaters. I refuse to believe that mer-people don't ever eat fish or sea creatures of any kind. That's impractical and unrealistic. Use the resources available. What else are they going to eat? Krill? 

Just imagine Ariel swimming around with her mouth wide open all the time....

But they have teeth, I say! Teeth just like human teeth, or so I assume based on the fact that Eric never recoiled and went "Oh god! What's wrong with your mouth?!" And human teeth are designed to break apart both meats and plant matter. That's why we have pointy teeth and flat teeth (a.k.a. molars and incisors). 

Also, who is the heavily bearded, naked, old guy to call anyone a barbarian? I've only played a handful of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, but from my not inconsiderable experience with fantasy, the less clothing someone is wearing, the better indication that they're either a sexpot or a badass, and if they happen to a well-muscled, scantily-clothed male, they're almost definitely a Barbarian.

So there, fork man!

Speaking of the magical three-pronged instrument of death and hurricanes, another issue I had. When you're a kid, suspension of disbelief is no problem. But with Disney movies, not suspending your disbelief and pondering the consequences of the world they operate in is way more fun.

Like why didn't the country (France) in Beauty and the Beast have serious political troubles when they spontaneously lost their monarch for ten years, only to have him pop up out of some woods in the middle of nowhere?

In The Little Mermaid, I think the trouble is the weather. I take no issue with the idea that ocean and all of its surrounding weather are controlled by a fish man with a magic weapon (which, by the way, begs some interesting questions about Triton's omniscience or lack thereof), but presumably he operates in a safe and sane way, causing storms the natural way. What happened to the world when Ursula gets hold of said magical trident and starts causing storms and whirlpools to come out of nowhere? All that water and air pressure had to go somewhere, right?

Also, how old is Eric, anyway? It can't be more than like eighteen or nineteen, because then we start wandering creepy statutory rape country. And if he is that young, why is his steward, or whatever Grimsby is, pestering him about getting married? Do they just have an incredibly short lifespan there? Because everyone in Eric's town seemed to be pretty healthy and content. Plus all of the palace staff seems to be at least middle-aged...

At least in most Disney movies, they never actually say outright how old they are. Except possibly Rapunzel, who I believe is turning eighteen in her movie. Legal adult, boys and girls.

Also, there's two cool Disney movies coming out I heard about recently, one of which is Frozen, which will be awesome, because The Snow Queen was one of my favorite stories as a kid.

Now if someone would just do East of the Sun and West of the Moon in a good way, because the only movie that I know of is The Polar Bear King, which is one I also liked as a child, but is definitely lacking when compared to how cool it could be.

And then I guess there's this movie about the making of Mary Poppins with Tom Hanks playing Walt Disney, and that sounds a little implausible, but  pretty cool.

Speaking of movies coming out, my vhs copy of Little Mermaid had all these new exciting movies coming out, like Mulan, A Bug's Life, and the unfortunate Pocahontas sequel coming out in...1998!

Yeah....I felt old. Do you guys realize that was like fifteen years ago? Madness I say!

Reduced to Children by Grownups

While my thoughts on my last post were still swirling into irrelevance, I got a wonderful taste of what total crap that belief is thanks to everyone in my life over forty-five.

I have the lovely misfortune of still living at home due to my pathetic income and lack of ownership of my car, so I get to be here and watch all of the "grownups" that I know treat me like I am too young.

My realization here is that everyone immediately starts saying, "I was never that young, and even if I was, I was smarter/more responsible/more experienced/etc." Nevermind the fact that my parents and two of siblings were married in their early twenties. I'm clearly too young  to be treated as the adult I legally am by the people who know me well enough to know how I behave and how smart I am.

I first started realizing this at my parents' church. After I graduated high school, I floated around interacting with the collage-age and grown-up people there, and realized I was going to just be caught between the youth group, which I was now too old for and no longer allowed to attend, and the grown-up things, which I was not considered part of because I was too young. This isn't really a problem when kids go off to JBU (as most of their children there do), and only come back once in a while until they've graduated and gotten married, but with me and a handful of others, when you're there and they can't remember whether or not you're out of high school, no one will take you seriously.

I can accept that from strangers at a church I only go to because of my living arrangements. They're not expected to know what I'm like. It's irritating, but a necessary evil. It's when people that do know better do the same crap that it pisses me off.

We are not children set loose in an adult world to explore and do as we will. About half the time, we are adults being denied the world we have earned. We aren't trusted to make our own decisions, and when we assert our rightful independence, it's looked on with condescension and/or disapproval. We get advice and admonitions rather than encouragement, because god knows we're idiot children and don't know any better.

They will never take us seriously or respect us as our own, intelligent, autonomous individuals, because they'll never think of us as adults or their peers, regardless of how old we are. Thirty-four, three kids, a career, and you'll still be "just a kid."

We Are Children in an Adult World

Hello, Audience.

You know that scene in Yes Man where Zooey Deschanel is at a concert, and she calls all the fans by name? There's like five of them, and then the rest of the venue is totally empty except for like two guys at the bar? (My brain just filled in Wallace and Other Scott before I realized what it was doing)
That's kind of how I feel referring to my nebulous "audience." Somewhat silly, but I think it would be sillier still to actively address my posts to specific people, because then it would just be a total waste to post them like this. That's the kind of thing that should place as a conversation or email or something. And usually does. Besides, how awkward would it be to name specific people who may or may not actually read my posts? Just because they're following my blog doesn't mean they actually follow my blog.

But I was having a conversation this morning about the awesomeness of being this age. The girl I was talking to was telling me that she's going to dye her hair white-blonde, and this is the time she can do it without looking ridiculous, because right now, we twenty-somethings are old enough to do what we want and make our own decisions, but not so old that we're expected to act like grownups.

I think I act more like a child now at nearly twenty-two than I did when I was nine or ten. You know why? Because I can, and it's fun. I have all the energy and madness to be a child, and I have all the privileges and legal abilities of an adult. Plus some disposable income, which only means I get to play even more.

I know I've said all this before (especially here), but I'm periodically reminded, and it strikes me as kind of awesome every time. We don't get to stay in the middle forever, and presumably someday some of us will have to start behaving like functional adults (like in our late seventies, or when we die), but right now we have this enormous gift of being young without being children.

All of our stupid, wild decisions get written off as being idiot kids, and we have control and accountability for ourselves. So if I decide I want to slide off a roof (which was awesome) and twist my ankle (which was hilarious), that's totally up to me. And the people who slid before and after me.

I am at the age when I can go have a couple of beers and then go play on a playground. And I do.

So go do something juvenile and awesome, guys. And if you're too old for that, mourn your wasted youth. Because your life isn't complete until, as an "adult," you've ridden the side of a shopping cart through Wal-Mart singing spy music, or chugged a gallon of chocolate milk, or eaten cookie dough and raced down a roof.

Words No One Should Use (Part 2)

Because I am largely a creature of my word, I shall finish my list of annoying words and phrases. Hopefully quickly, so that the posts are in the same month in the drop down menus. It's also going to be quick, because I have other things to do, and I'm in a less ranty frame of mind than last time.

-Pejoratives for race, gender, sexual practices, etc
This is just a common decency thing with me. If you're not a total worthless douchewaffle, you don't decide people are not worthy of respect based on anything other than their character. Treating them like crap because you don't agree with them is totally not okay. You don't get patted on the head for it, but you don't deserve to be lynched either. Using words to demean someone because of their  gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc just makes you more of an ass than you're saying they are. Except hipsters. It's okay to hate on them.

-The One
As you may have noticed if you've read basically any of my other posts, I passionately hate romance. When people talk about "The One" in any context other than The Matrix, it basically means you can write them off as a sappy moron and ignore anything else they have to say about people.

-True Love ____
Waits, is whatever, and so on. These phrases just irritate me, because they're not only stupid and/or obvious, they refer to "True Love," another idea I have absolute disdain for, because they mean it in the Disney sense. If we're talking "true" as in real or genuine, I have no issue, but those are far in the minority. People like the idea of having a Destiny, because they're not smart enough or strong enough to take responsibility for their own love life. Or most other things.

-Expecially
This just makes you sound like an illiterate waste of a free education. Can you not read phonetically? Sound it out, you imbeciles.

-Nucular
See above. If you look at a word letter by letter, you can probably say it right, and with simple words like this, there's no excuse.

-Punny
Who even invented this word? Why would people decide it's okay? It's obnoxious. Puns are supposed to be clever, and they're usually more annoying than not. This is some bastard child of "pun" and "funny," but it's totally unnecessary.

-Pointless letter changes to diffuse profanity
Here's a novel thought: Say what you mean! If you're going to use profanity, use it. If you're trying to be sensitive to people who may be too old or too young to hear those words, get a better vocabulary, and use a different word. Everyone knows what you mean, so you may as well have just used the obscenity you had in mind.

Words No One Should Use (Part 1)

There are things people say, especially these days, that they should immediately be stabbed through the calf for vocalizing, and yet, for some mysterious reason, no one has stabbed them anywhere.

So, next time you feel like violently attacking someone for being a moron, here's words to look out for that I'm sure will make the justice system decide to give you a high five and go home.

-Cray
Unless referring to the crustacean, this is unacceptable. If you desire to express that something is absurd or unbelievable, I have an alternative word for you that won't draw blank, disdainful stares from people who speak English: "Crazy." Let me say it again: "CRAY-ZEE." It's almost the same, but you'll sound less like an illiterate waste of matter.

-Pimp
Exception: when referring to the owner/seller of a whore or several whores. I hear this all the time as a description indicating the awesomeness of something, and I don't know who the hell okayed that. For one, it's painfully stupid. For two, it implies that you find men who own, abuse, and extort women to be representative of that kind of awesomeness. If you don't, you're stupid and misusing the word, if you do, you're worthless scum, and we should probably kill you anyway. So again, watchword for stabbing permission, just to be safe.

-So dope
Unless this is an obscure, antiquated drug-reference, no one knows what in the world that means. They vaguely understand this is a positive term applied to things one thinks are cool, and so it gets adopted and perpetuated by people who don't even know where it came from. Unless you're referring to weed or heroin, it makes no sense.

-Any and all spoken text abbreviations
I hate any kind of text speak. It's an abomination. We have been taught since childhood how to speak English in free schools. It's really not that hard to type out the few other letters, which in most cases is only two or three. Like "You," or "are," etc. But when people speak those phrases out loud it is clear permission to bludgeon them about the face with the nearest object. If you SAY, "el-oh-el" or "bee-tee-dubs" or "oh-em-gee" or whatever, fully expect everyone to write you off as the hopeless lack-wit you clearly are, and I can only hope that someone hits you in the brain so hard, you no longer remember how to butcher any language.

-Hella
I'm not clear as to the context to this idiotic word is supposed to be used in, but as far as I know, it's an expression of degree (ie. "It's hella cold outside."), but that doesn't really make sense. It's a contraction of "hell of a" so how did that end up being used in such a way? Because why would you say "It was hell of a awesome"? If you were a thinking, remotely grammatically correct being, you wouldn't, but that seems to be more and more uncommon these days.
(Damn kids these days! Got no respect, or work ethic. When I was a kid, we knew how to earn what we had, by God!)

-Oh my glob*
What does this even mean? Is this an attempt at saying "Oh my God" without blaspheming, or something? Because I'm pretty sure God knows what you mean, regardless of what you say out loud. And if it's other people you're worried about, you're saying "oh my god." Not their god. Swear by someone else's god, and you've probably offended both parties; swear by your own god, and it's between you and your deity.

*After some rudimentary Googling, this appears to be a reference to that current horror Adventure Time. I rest my case. You people are morons.

-Hashtags
I hate these so passionately it's hard to express adequately. Let me paste what I said about it on Facebook:
"In a country where education is FREE, and people have the ability to be as intelligent and openly thoughtful as they want, this is the culture that's grown. People can't even speak their own bloody language, let alone think complex thoughts for more than about thirty seconds, because for some mysterious reason, intelligence is frightening. What is actually better about behaving like and becoming thoughtless cattle driven by all the BS from mass media? I saw it in high school, and I see it now: people being more imbecilic than they actually are so that they can fit into the appalling norms that we've come to expect from that age/social circle/gender/demographic. It's absolute crap!"
It infuriates me that they're used in place of communicating an actual thought, or coherantly expressing oneself. You know when that type of spew is appropriate? When tagging things for seach parameters, like I do for post labels. What if I just vomited solitary phrases at you, internet? Why would you want to read anything I wrote?
Annoyed!
Stupid people!
Social experience!
Cute kittens!
Sunshine!
lackofeducationandintelligence!
Wasn't that thrilling? Don't you feel like we just had a meaningful exchange of ideas? I have to intentionally not capitalize or space when I type. How is this a thing? Is it really that difficult to write full thoughts as captions and status updates?

-Comparing oneself with tv characters
I thankfully hear this less with people I have any respect for, but so often I hear people say crap like, "Ohmygod, you so___" or "you're such a *fill in fictional character name here*" Do I really need to talk about this one? You aren't that character; you never will be that character; in all likelihood, you're not remotely like that character, because characters in recently popular media are seriously lacking in any depth. You get one-dimensional imitations of characters, and you're probably only exhibiting a vague resemblence to their main attribute. So shut up.

I have now run out of both my motivation and my drink, so I shall call this TO BE CONTINUED! I have several more words and phrases that make me want to murder people with forks, so I'll be sure to share those later for your future edification and legal defense.

Some Ranting about Art and Stuff

There's something that clearly needs to be explained to the world at large, and though I may not be the very most qualified to explain it, I'm going to give it a shot. This is me speaking for the art community, internet. Feel free to weigh in, because I have like ten comments on my sixty or whatever posts, and it's mildly discouraging.

Not that I actually write here for you. It's all about me, boys and girls. Unashamed, self-centered amusement.

So here's the thing: When I draw (or really produce any kind of art) in a public setting, I tend to get one of two responses.

1) "Oh, that's really good. I could never do that!"
2) "I wish I could do that. Show me."

While I appreciate the compliments, every artist ever is sick of hearing that no one can do what they do. Yes, art can be an incredibly personal process, blah blah blah. But here's the thing. boys and girls. Ready? It's a revolutionary thought.

Art is a skill. It's learned behavior and thinking that requires discipline, thought, and observation. If someone is good, they put in that time and effort to learn to put what they had in their heads on paper.

Michelangelo supposedly said something akin to, "If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful."

All of the techniques and subjects that you see artists using are the result of practice, innovation, and effort. And more practice, and then refining and evolving from there. And you could learn to do it too. You just have to be willing to put in the years.

Gotta pay your dues to sing the blues, and all those other cliche aphorisms having to do with getting off your lazy, whiny butt and putting in the work to do something.

You don't look at a car and go, "wow, the person who made this must be really talented!" That would be idiotic. All the things that go into a car require specific skill sets to design, build, and maintain. It's not some magical zap from the gods that gives someone the ability to do something. Yeah, there's a certain amount of previous inclination that can give someone a headstart and pleasure in the thinking that goes with those skills, but not everyone who has them goes into those disciplines, and not everyone who doesn't  have them initially can't learn.

And now to my other point. I keep calling art a skill and a discipline, and it is. My 3D Design teacher, the head of the Art Department at the college, would go on rants about the kind of crap people said to her about art majors.

Art isn't a real area of study. You're just playing in there.

Art doesn't require any real academic work or problem solving.

Art is all about execution and not content.

Yes, that is ALL total crap. Yes, there is art for fun and art without deeper meaning, etc, and that's fine and dandy, but a lot of art that does qualify as legit Fine Art gets discounted often because of the ignorance that a lot of people maintain. You don't know how often people go up to artists and go, "hey, you should draw me a picture of ______" for free, whether or not it interests you, because they have no idea what kind of time, money, energy, and thought often goes into art.

And problem solving? Are you serious? Art, especially sculpture is LARGELY problem solving and creative thinking. you don't call physics just screwing around, and I'm fairly sure they're just making up stuff now.

I had someone the other day ask me, just offhand, to teach them to draw. Like it was nothing. It sucks having something you've put years into minimalized like that. I started really working on drawing well and accurately when I was like nine or ten. And I'm not even that good yet.

I love showing people techniques and explaining art to them, but people treat it like it's an overnight thing that's just easy, and that's so inaccurate it causes me to write excessively long posts and rant obnoxiously. Art is something that, if you want to make a career or a decent living out of it, you're going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than you would if you wanted to do a lot of other things. The starving artist is a trope for a reason. Thank you, nineteenth century artists for making that no longer a patron-based profession.

They almost had a better concept of it back then, though. All of those astonishing Renaissance painters that you love (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo),

(I love this, despite its historical impossibility)

they weren't viewed as artistes. That pretentious dick in a beret is nothing like any real artist ever, so get it out of your head. They were craftsman. You called in an expert painter and his minions/apprentices, and you told them to paint you this thing for this much money. They spent their lives learning and executing a trade, just like carpenters and architects and blacksmiths. And yes, I realize how contradictory that might sound after objecting to being asked to draw something. There's a difference between a commission and just being asked, and that would be A. money, and B. the consideration for the skill and effort involved. Also, I'm a product of the post-Romanticism, post-Modern art movements, and I'll draw what and when I please unless I have a reason!

I have more to say, but I don't feel like continuing this post anymore, and I have boots that require some embellishing. But! Hopefully this clarified some things, because the thinking behind a lot of what people say about art (yours, mine, professional, fine art, whatever) pisses me off. People are stupid, and they should stop it.