Exhaustion -vs- My Existence as a Reverse Oreo
Mood:  suave
Now Playing: part 1: Raju Ramayya's "Ask DNA," part 2: 8mm's "Nobody Does It Better"

Part 1

it's done (for the most part). totally never have to look at it again (not counting all the tweaking i have to do to it probably over the next week). the night before last i stayed at the office until 9pm to put the finishing touches on the IVF DVD. by 9, i was wiped and could barely see straight so i went home, only to return the next day to try to have it finished by lunch time. come 11am, it was presentable. that stupid five-minute video represents about 170 man hours of work, and more stress and frustration than i care to get into (i recently read an article about a woman who complained about her "incompetent boss" on her blog and was fired for it, so i'm not going to complain about my incompetent boss here).

so last night, after my crazy, mad-dash to the finished line for IVF DVD completion, i was totally wiped. i sacked out, watched "Kung Fu Hustle," which is like an old Warner Brothers' cartoon amalgamated with a martial arts movie, wrote a three-page short film script, watched "X-Men 2," and was in bed by 11:30pm.

but now i'm wide awake and ready to go! i have to fine-tune this video a little and prepare for class this afternoon, so i still have much to do. thankfully, i'm jazzed on java and can tackle any problem!

avast!

Part 2:
(parental discretion is advised)

for those of you who know me really well, you know there's only two things to really know about me. three, okay, there's three things to know about me. four. five. danggit. okay, there's a lot to know about me but here's the five -- six! the six big things:

1.) I do my best to serve my God.

2.) I possess an unnatural (and unholy) love for all things Kevin Smith.

3.) I really do swear like a f#ckin' sailor (and am confounded by why there's such a thing as "bad" words and why, in said "bad" words, only their vowels are offensive, except for in the case of "shit," then it's the T, because for some reason, "ship" isn't offensive at all).

4.) I am, in fact, a Reverse Oreo. A fact I have very well kept hidden (as I live in the south, I feel I don't need to compound my fear of the hangman's noose, I'm already a "yankee"). If you at all doubt this fact or are confounded by its meaning, you can look up my college roommate who was, and continues to be, black.

5.) I am a fan of Bon Jovi.

6.) I love lists about myself.

so, naturally, when i discovered Kevin Smith's online diary, i was instantly hooked and have enjoyed reading his sometimes daily updates.

but today when i visited, i found an entry that made me laugh, made me think, and made me reflect on my own life. it's because of ponderings such as what follows that i connect to this cat in the ways that i do. i understand what he's saying and it's cool to have someone like that (especially when that someone is a "real someone," you know, a Hollywood-type).

the following is an excerpt from his online diary and relates the story of a Q&A he recently attended.

(this is where the parental advisory kicks in)

"In the course of telling a pretty funny story about working on ?Catch & Release?, I use the phrase ?nigga? to refer to a Tim Olyphant, in the phrase ?Nigga, this ain?t ?Deadwood? and you ain?t the sheriff.? Too much Chapelle-watching for me, it would seem. While I obviously didn?t intend it in any kind of racist context and no hush fell over the (largely white) room when I uttered it, I still feel badly. Dave Chapelle I ain?t, nor do I - who?s never been at the receiving end of a profiling, never been discriminated against, and never took any shit because of the color of my skin ? have the right to employ the ?N? term as even a colloquial term of endearment. Sure, I?ve been profiled, discriminated against, and took shit all my life because I?m overweight (which is still something of minority in the aesthetic-obsessed culture of the U.S.), but let?s face it: fat ain?t black. At the end of the day, I?ve prospered plenty in white America, and being white certainly didn?t hurt.

"The gay community co-opted ?fag? as a means of taking the malicious power out of the term when used against them by homophobes, but I don?t use ?faggot? loosely either. Just because some of the black community has appropriated the ?N? word for much the same reasons doesn?t mean that I can use it too, even in a non-racist fashion (if there?s even such a thing).

"Sometimes I get carried away with my deep love for all things black and forget that I?m not black myself. Saying Jesus was black in ?Dogma? doesn?t make me black. Being called a ?whigger? throughout high school because of my unfashionable early embracing of hip-hop (particularly Run DMC and Public Enemy) doesn?t make me black. Wearing Fubu doesn?t make me black. Identifying with black folks doesn?t make me black. Wanting to be black most of my life doesn?t make me black. Nothing will ever make me black (although, when I first learned that my Mother had been adopted and learned, further, that she had no idea who her birth parents were, once the initial shock wore off, I immediately started fantasizing that, somewhere in my bloodline, I might have some black in me, as it would explain a lot).

"So, to anyone in attendance at the Q&A that day, whether you were offended or not, I apologize. Rest assured, it?ll never happen again.

"I will, however, continue to use the term ?Motherfucker? as liberally as I can, even though it, too, is a term I got from the black community (from Chris Rock, particularly; Rock?s use of ?motherfucker? makes it sound like the most poetic adjective/noun ever invented)."


'nuff said

-=S