Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
movies, Reviews

Movie Review: SHARKNADO!

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My fear of sharks is well documented, so well documented that friends are forever sending me images of sharks out of a loving desire to frighten the excrement from my body. So, when I heard there was a movie coming out called Sharknado, I knew I needed to get in front of the train. I was going to watch Sharknado with my eyes wide open, if it required a clockworkian contraption to do it. Much as I tried to cure myself of the fear in second grade by reading every book I could find on the subject, I thought it would be healthy for me to expand my ridiculous fear of sharks in swimming pools to also include airborne sharks watch, and would make it a little harder for my friends to terrorize me.

Last weekend, I hunkered down for the storm.

I have not laughed so hard in ages.

The Fug Girls did a marvelous recap of the movie, and I am sending you over to their website to read it and weep with laughter. It is brilliant. They have screen grabs. I do not. Go read, then come back.

Are you back? Excellent.

So here’s what I loved about this movie: Everything.

It was terrible and awful in that way that comes right back around to being beautiful. I absolutely lost my mind laughing within the first five minutes, so much so that Thor left the computer game he was playing to come investigate, and stayed to howl right along with me. At one point, I was choking, I was laughing so hard.

Listen, there are a lot of different types of bad. This was the best kind. This was the kind that said, “We know we are making a movie about a tornado full of sharks, and we are going to play it out like we are 9 and 10 year old kids working with action figures. We are going to tap into our inner 5th graders and we are going to have more fun than Spielberg ever did.” And they did. I think the funniest thing to me was that they didn’t even TRY for continuity or realism in their effects. In some scenes meant to portray flooded out areas, from some angles the ground was absolutely dry. The actors were absolutely dry!

I mean, there is a scene where a school bus is stranded, with water up above its bumper. So when you see exterior shots of the bus, you see all this water. When you get a shot from the bridge above the bus, you can see right down the alley where the street is bone dry. 5th graders were directing these angles! Happy, thrilled, exuberant 5th graders. It didn’t matter because THERE WAS A TORNADO FULL OF SHARKS!

What did I not like: Nothing. This movie is my new best friend.

Worst scene: Sharks fall from the sky into a swimming pool–sharks in a swimming pool being my greatest irrational fear.

Best scene: Sharks fall from the sky into a swimming pool–sharks in a swimming pool being my greatest irrational fear. Ian Ziering douses the pool with gasoline and SETS IT ON FIRE. YES!!!

5 out of 5 stars

TV Shows

Adopting Orphan

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I am obsessed with Orphan Black–like, dreaming about it obsessed. So delighted with it that I haven’t even spoiled myself to what is upcoming! And what’s the attraction? 100% the cast.

Tatiana Maslany plays Sarah Manning, a streetwise foster punk, who sees Beth Childs, also played by Maslany, commit suicide-by-train. Manning seizes the opportunity to steal Childs’ identity, and winds up in a mess of intrigue when she is confronted by Katja Obinger (played by Maslany), who inadvertently introduces her to Alison Hendrix (Maslany), Cosima Niehaus (Maslany), and the mysterious Helena (Maslany).

I want you to know that Tatiana Maslany is my new favorite actress. On a regular basis, in any give episode, Maslany is playing 4 different, fully formed characters–sometimes playing one of those characters, pretending to be another of the characters. She is stellar at it. Yes, the various accents give out here and there, but on the whole, she has created characters that are so distinct, you could tell which is which just by the posture.

Most remarkable is that each character has her moments of drama, humor, and romance, and Maslany manages to play each one differently, and without chewing the scenery. I mean, how many different ways can you lean in for a kiss? I’ve counted 3 variations so far.

The story telling is paced well, and the supporting cast is all excellent, including Maria Doyle Kennedy, who I always recall from The Commitments, but the rest of the world remembers from The Tudors and Downton Abbey. I want her to sing. Maybe we could get a karaoke scene?

I like the show so well, that it will either fall apart horribly in the second season, or it won’t get renewed past a third. Either way, this first season is as close to perfect as a show can get. If you haven’t already, start watching it.

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Ode to Boy

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I had Algebra II on the second floor of my high school, junior year. Every day, on my way up the stairs to that class, I would end up behind this beautiful boy. He was a senior, on his way to another class. I didn’t know his name, didn’t figure I’d ever meet him, but had a huge crush.

I wrote poetry about him.

One day, he stopped on the stairs in the middle of the class change rush, turned and looked at me. He pointed at me, and he said, “YOU are beautiful,” then he turned back around and ran on to his class. It was the most extraordinary John Hughes moment of my high school career.

Later in the year, I passed by him in the hall after school. He was sitting outside the counselor’s office playing with a ouija board. He spoke to me, called me by name, and I laughed and rushed away because I was too afraid to talk to him. Anyway, he was graduating.

I spent too much of Algebra II reading Elf Quest comics, Clan of the Cave Bear novels, and skipping school, and ended up retaking it in summer school. The second most extraordinarily John Hughes moment of my high school career was when that beautiful boy appeared in the doorway of my summer school class. Time stood still. He spotted me. He grinned. He made a beeline to the empty desk next to mine. He told me his name was Robert, he asked me out to a movie, and we spent the rest of that summer dating, drawing Bill the Cat cartoons for each other, and driving around listening to cds–he got Big Thing for me.

He was obviously gay, and gayly obvious, but we pretended he wasn’t and that closed-mouth kissing was what it was all about because his parents wanted him to be straight, and he was trying to wish away the gay. He was also broken, and self-loathing, and self-destructive, and I let him slip purposefully away as I entered my senior year. I am, and have always been helpful to a point. He was way beyond my point.

I wouldn’t see much of him again until one night, when I was waiting on line to get into a gay bar to see another of my boyfriends (that one wasn’t gay. he was bi.) I was standing there with a friend, and I heard a laugh. I craned to see around the line in front of me, and there he was. I called, “Robert!” And he turned around and screamed. And then we were inseparable for the next six months.

He would come over to my apartment and sleep. I can’t tell you how many hours we spent just sitting on the floor in my living room. He would brush my hair and tell me about his world–his sad, sad world.

By then he was taking drugs–lots of them. Anything he could get his hands on. He scared me with his suicide threats, and his temper, and I told him he couldn’t come over anymore.

After that, he would disappear and pop up in my life at the strangest moments. Every couple of years, I’d hear from him. Sometimes at 3 in the morning, calling as he was coming down, or at noon, calling me at work because he’d gotten hold of my number somehow.

The last time I heard from him was just after Thor was born. I couldn’t talk when he called, and promised to call him back. He never returned my calls after that, and I didn’t hear anything about him until today.

That sweet, beautiful boy took his own life on Tuesday. The where and the how don’t surprise me at all. He’d planned the where and the how back when we were 17 years old, and told me all about it. I’m amazed that he was able to fight his demons back for this long.

There are things that had happened to him that took away chances. I won’t write about them because they aren’t my story to tell, and if he’d wanted everyone to know, he’d have made it plainer. But there are lives that are broken before they even get started, and I am amazed at the strength and bravery it took for him to live as long as he did.

He was a beautiful, beautiful boy, with a big heart, who was kind and generous (unless the waiter at Olive Garden flirted with you instead, then he could get kind of bitchy.) I loved him. I couldn’t help him. I’m not sure the best therapy in the world could have undone what had been done to him.

I hope he has found peace. I hope he is at rest.

In honor of him, I give you the song that was “our” song. I hope it makes you smile as much as it did the two of us.

Explaining the Strange Behavior

Tampons, Trials, Babies, Gay Marriage, Books–Oh yeah. It’s a Grab Bag!

the outside lane

I have many thoughts and not much spare brain resource, which means I start writing blog entries, then do the internet equivalent of crumpling them up and tossing them in the trash can. There is not so satisfying a bump sound, though, and I don’t get the joy of actually seeing the wad of paper arc into the can. I’m a writer. I find great comfort in seeing crumpled balls of paper overflowing from a trash can. That means the process is working.

Granted, I quit writing on paper over a decade ago.

So here are some random thoughts about things that I have taken very seriously. I ask you to forgive the poor structure, as I am writing with raw nerves and am utterly lacking in any poetry:

1. Tampons being verboten in the Texas Capitol
I have heard the reasoning behind why potential and potentially meaningful projectiles were confiscated from citizens trying to attend a vote on an extreme abortion measure in Austin. Those reasons may (or may not be, depending on how upset you are at the idea of a Senator being smacked in the head by a wrapped tampax) be valid, but the execution was flawed with a capital FLAW.

I’m not even going to get into the controlled handgun license issue, which has a lot of people upset. I have been focused on the fact that had I appeared at the Capitol doors while menstruating, I wouldn’t have been able to go in after they took away my feminine products because I need that stuff. If you take away my panty liners, we’re going to have a problem with your chairs. So, as a woman, I would have been barred from participation.

I cannot express to you how I despaired over this. I have tried, and tried to put it into words, but I can’t seem to knit anything around this bubble of despair. It is just naked, raw hurt and disappointment that officials would bar me from participating in government because of my gender. –and maybe you won’t get this if you’ve never had a bad period, but you have to trust me that if you take away a woman’s sanitary napkins, you are being demeaning, ugly, and unjust– You just can’t do that. It’s wrong.

I told my [horrified] husband that if I could spontaneously menstruate, I’d have driven to Austin specifically to bleed on something. I am not ashamed of my uterus, and no “official” is going to bar me from participation by trying to humiliate me into submission. I’ll ruin every pair of light colored pants I own before that happens.

2. George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin
This is one I feel like should have been cut and dried. If you kill someone who has entered your personal space and threatened you, I can see there being just cause. If you kill someone you have pursued, and whose personal space you have entered, I don’t see the just cause.

You break into my house and I shoot you, that’s fine. You look like you might fit the description of someone who broke into Susie’s house, and I chase you down, yell at you, engage in physical confrontation with you and shoot you…well? Come on. I started it. If I start it, do I get to kill you when I don’t like how it’s ending up?

It’s how I feel about people who climb into the tiger enclosure at the zoo. If you throw yourself at the tiger–who is at least KNOWN to be dangerous–and are then surprised when the tiger defends its territory and starts to eat the hell of you, killing the tiger isn’t the solution to the problem.

There’s no happy ending to this, though. Whether or not Zimmerman ever spent a day in jail, a child is dead. A Skittle eating, best friend having, hoodie wearing, loved child is dead. Eye for an eye doesn’t change that. No court in the world could change that.

I am disappointed that charges were not filed differently, to impress upon Zimmerman the cost of his own stupidity, but that’s done. There’s always civil court. That’s where OJ bit it.

3. Royal Baby
I really need for this Royal Baby to be born because it will make me all kinds of ridiculously happy. I have been in love with the Royal Family since Shy Di first came to my notice on her engagement to Prince Charles. I was 11, and she was a beautiful princess–it was also quite a shock to find out that not all princes were handsome. Rude awakening, frankly.

I need that baby to hurry up and get here.

4. Gay Old England
Some happy breaking news out of the UK, not involving heirs to the throne: The Queen signed off on the Gay Marriage law, and it will become legal in just a small matter of time. Equality! Justice for all! Huzzah!

Just think of the economic boost. Just think of how much busier the wedding industry is about to be. Love who you want, kids. Be happy, and be equal.

5. Rolling Stone cover
I am DONE with Rolling Stone.

6. Artistic Emotional Roller Coaster
I’ve been writing, writing, writing, editing, writing, editing, working on queries and making submissions. Writing is easy for me. Editing isn’t hard. Writing queries is painful (thank you, Arwen, for easing the pain), writing the synopsis for submissions is excrutiating.

You’ve spent however long birthing this brain baby, and you go through all these various emotions during the process: Pride, excitment, worry, upset, fear of failure, fear of success, hope, despair. You worry your work isn’t good enough. You worry that this thing you love isn’t what you’ve cracked it up to be.

Then, once you’ve gotten it into the shape you prefer (and given it to people whose opinions you respect and asked them to dent it up, and then reshaped it according to their sagacious suggestions) you have to boil it all down to 3 paragraphs that 1) Tell what the story is about, 2) Tell why the story is different and marketable, 3) Tell why YOU are different and marketable.

That’s bad enough, but then you have to write between 1 and 3 pages summing up the entire manuscript. You have to tell the whole story in a way that is interesting, entertaining, and engaging, giving away the whole plot, without being so explicit that the reader of the synopsis doesn’t feel the need to read the manuscript. I think most writers would tell you that if they felt it possible to write the whole story in 3 pages, they would never have sweated blood over the 213 pages the story turned out to be.

THEN, when you’ve written your query and your submission, you start casting it upon the waters. Messages in a bottle: Please love me! Please want me! Please validate me! Please tell me that I wasn’t wasting my time!

I grew up auditioning, so I know that a rejection isn’t personal. A rejection only means, “This doesn’t fit.” Like a cute dress. If it doesn’t fit, you don’t buy it. You may love it. You may agonize over wanting it. You may nearly talk yourself into letting it hang in the back of your closet until you lose 10lbs, but if it doesn’t fit, it won’t work. I’m sending my cute dress out to publishers and agents, and if it doesn’t fit, they are going to have to tell me no.

But it’s going to fit someone. Even if that someone is me, and I end up self publishing.

Still, I have exhausted my adrenal glands with all the Up Down of the process.

Aren’t you lucky I blog? Ha!

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Product Reviews: Facing the Sun

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I asked for recommendations on tinted moisturizers/BB creams with SPF factors last month, and got in a slew of great suggestions.  I love when people love their products, and have something that works well for them!  It’s like me with my Urban Decay eyeliner.  I. Love. It.

What I needed was a tinted moisturizer that would help block the sun from my face, give me a little color, but let my skin breathe.  I hate foundation, and I hate feeling oily, so I usually stick to powder, but I’m facing the fact that at 42, my skin needs a little extra something.

Cosmetics are relative, though.  What works for my skin might make you break out, dry up, or both at the same time.  I tried a few different BB creams, and have finally settled on one.  I’ll tell you what I tried.

1.  Garnier  Several people said they loved this one.  It does not work for me at all.  As far as coverage goes, it is great, but my face feels disgusting.  The cream is thick and heavy, leaves a tacky feeling, and my face felt like it was suffocating.  Does not work in the Texas heat.

2.  Mary Kay  Better, but still not quite right for me.  Coverage is excellent, and it’s a nice, soft finish.  It’s still a little heavy, and it made me break out near my hairline.

3.  Almay  So this one is exactly the right weight, but the color is terrible.  The coverage is good, the finish is fine, my skin felt terrific in it…but I am not gray.

4.  Covergirl  This is it.  Good color.  Good coverage.  Great finish.  My skin could breathe.  I did break out at my hairline, but not terribly.  Also, the price is right.  I’m a covergirl girl!  (I shouldn’t brag about that, should I?)

None of the creams did exactly what I wanted, and I did still have to powder them to get the matte look I prefer, but for the value, I couldn’t beat the covergirl for a tinted moisturizer with an SPF factor.