I think my icon should actually be :3(

[thehefner]

I don't know if things are really starting to sink in about Dad, or if it's just the fact that, with him now going into hospice care, we're finally nearing the very, very end. In either case, these last few days I've been feeling not just emotionally fragile, but physically... well, maybe all it is is just a slight cold, Mom thinks she's been a bit sick too.

Grief is a bloody weird thing. For the past week, time seems to be warping and stretching. My whole cranium feels stuffed with cotton or movie!Galactus. I feel like I might be better off if I didn't have to go to work the past few days, but that's probably not true. I will say that my stress level at the comic store has majorly increased, due partially to my heightened sensitivity to all things, especially the idiot and asshole customers. I'd ask for time off, but I think I should wait until Dad's actually passed away, since I dare say that's when I'd actually need it.

It just feels like my brain is covered in teflon. I've felt drunk for nearly a week straight. I'd very much at least my physical health so I can work and think clearly and bloody cope with everything else.

I'm also getting chunky. I've found myself indulging in Ben and Jerry's and Five Guys Burgers more than usual, not caring anymore. It's funny-- when I was heartbroken with Tammy and Misty, I couldn't eat a damn thing, and eventually lost sixty pounds. But with my father, I'm getting that stereotypical "eat to make yourself feel better" feeling, and I feel the consequence of it every time I put on my seat belt. Time to go back to the gym.

Similarly to the whole feeling of wanting to indulge in pleasure to deal with the depression... well, all I'm going to say is that I'm very, very lucky that, even if skanks did go home with me, I'd soon scare them off by insisting we intersperse the sex with viewings of FORBIDDEN ZONE, THE ICEMAN COMETH, and DOG SOLDIERS.

Another side effect I'm noticing is movies. I realized that I might have liked PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3 better (or at least, maybe, possibly have been able to turn off my brain and ignore everything wrong and jarring) had I not seen it the very day I'd found out my father had cancer. And while I'm fairly certain that I'd still have hated FANTASTIC FOUR 2 anyway, it still wasn't optimal to see it at that particular time.

I'm aware of how hypersensitive I am right now, even if hypersensitive isn't exactly the right word. Whatever it is, I know I'm in it, and while I work through it, I know it's perfectly all right to feel this way and that I will have my friends there for me in the coming weeks and months.

So that's why I won't be posting why I think I really downright hated THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN.

Comments

[kali921.livejournal.com]

What you're feeling is entirely normal and par for the course. Grief at the imminent loss of a loved one forces such a huge paradigm shift that you DO oft feel drunk and disassociated. I still recommend finding a good grief therapist to help you deal with this for one or two sessions at least. It was invaluable to me when my father died.

You've got a bunch of people around you that love you to death; just know that. We're here for you, with more than just insipide "*hugs*" comments.

<3

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the hospice's social worker just called me and we'll set up a couple meetings with their resident grief therapist. I think you're right.

Thankya, m'dear. Heart back.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

that sounds like a good idea.

and of course, you always have me to sound off to.

besides, we need to get together so you can explain why you didnt like the aforementioned movie you were supposed to watch with me.

/shakes fist

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

We magically have HBO and it came on. Frankly dude, I'm much happier I saw it with her, because I would have been too frustrated with it and really would not have wanted to be Captain Buzzkill to a film you love. She completely agreed with me, and I would have felt deeply uncomfortable trying to explain it with you, since it wasn't until she and I talked that I was able to put my discomfort into words.

Read some of my other comments in this thread for some reasons why I disliked it.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

that's cool.. just remember that you can say anything to me. i think i understand your reasons for feeling the way you did about the film, but i explained my feelings in regard to what you felt about it in response to others on this post.

still, i would love to discuss it in person, and get a better idea of what hit you in what ways.

still, i do hope that you can at least agree that there was some brilliantly funny stuff in the movie.

because if thats the case, then i think you will dig knocked up as it is totally different story but with the same brilliance.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

If we do, I really want Mom there. She can articulate things with a clearer mind about it than I can. Because a clear mind is what I lack right now.

Like I say, I really wasn't and still am not in the best mindset for such things, so please understand when I say that it's likely due to this mindset that the movie turned me off so intensely that I had a hard time really liking the "brilliantly funny" things beyond the moments they made me laugh. All that lingers with me is my sense of discomfort and disgust.

That said, I very much do still want to see KNOCKED UP, but am unintentionally hesitant to do so now.

And see, I KNEW you'd point out but in the end, the message is that there was nothing wrong with his being a virgin (hell, one of the other characters goes as far as to say "you had the right idea all along", just not in those exact words), but the fact is, dude, neither Mom nor I felt like the movie really convinced us of that shift. The overriding tone was that this was wrong, and no amount of "oh we were wrong the whole time" really convinced us, since we didn't think it was put forward as strongly. It felt half-hearted, like someone saying some really nasty insult and then going, "Nahh, I'm just kidding. We're cool, right?"

Again, not in the best mindset, but we both really disliked it a great deal. As much as I do understand the social retardation of some people and how unhealthy it is, the movie's undertone really seems to blur the line between those people and just plain weird and interesting geeks, especially to the eyes of "normal" people who don't see a difference in the first place.

As little_dinosaur, it's another example of BREAKFAST CLUB and FACULTY ism where they're like, "Let's give the weird person a makeover and make them normal! Yay!"

I've grown up with everyone from my fellow guys in school to my brother to my father to my own mother telling me, for various reasons, that I'm weird, that I'm wrong, that I need to change or no girl will ever like me or go out with me, and what sucks is the twisted sort of bullying good intentions behind it, not to mention that they're at least half-right in those intentions.

Like I said, while I know that Cameron in FERRIS BUELLER needed to loosen up and come out of his shell, I could never be comfortable with how Ferris bullied him. Ferris even tells himself that he's doing it for Cameron's own good, but come on, he just wants the fucking car!

Y'see? It's a very personal thing for me, and my open wound nature has some metaphorical salt in it at present.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

i can understand where you are coming from, even if i dont entirely agree with the reasoning.

but they are YOUR feelings, and you are entitled to them.

bad mindset these days or not, you *are* entitled to feel the way you do about things. it affected you in this particular way, and i'm not going to be the one to say that your feelings aren't valid.

i feel differently about the film, but these things happen. :)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

At least I feel validated enough to know that Mom completely agreed with me, and was able to articulate the reasons before I could even find the words. So I don't feel totally like the only insane person, not to mention just solely fucked-up because of grief.

I HATE when I feel like the only one who really dislikes or just don't get something so universally loved. It makes me feel like there's something totally wrong with me, and while it'd just bug the hell out of me normally, it genuinely upsets me in this particular mood.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

dude.. you either like or dislike something, and while many things are acquired tastes, you have every right to your opinion.

please don't ever feel you can't be free to like or dislike something based on my feelings about it. i respect your opinions even when i dont agree with them, brother.

[lairdofdarkness.livejournal.com]

No words can ever make you feel better right now
but as a virtual friend, I just want you to know how much I am thinking of you.
Take care Bud

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I kinda do like having virtual friends from around the world. Your thoughts are indeed appreciated. Thankya.

[pondering-duck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it feels pretty awful when you're numb to all the things you used to love.

But don't worry, Pirates 3 really was pretty awful.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I have the reviewers on CHUD.com on my side about Pirates 3 as well, but my fellow fans seemed to like it by and large! Oy.

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if this is inappropriate, but it usually makes ME feel better (or at least takes the edge off):

goth boobs

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

... a shock to the system every now and again might be exactly what I need. Either that, or it'll send me further spiraling towards madness.

Aw man, it even had the little guy from TALES FROM THE CRYPT: BORDELLO OF BLOOD.

[little-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

":3("
Haha.

So what you're saying is that you're turning into the hedonism-bot? I mean, you know my views on the hedonism-bot, but I can see why that would be troubling in real life. I don't know what to tell you, other than that it's pretty understandable under the circumstances. I can only wish you delicious ice cream, bizarre movies and discerning, imaginative pop-culture-geek skanks to help you through this.

Even Seth Rogen?

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really should get on doing that new Bill icon.

Ha! See, I want to be hedonism-bot, but my own Heffieness prevents me from finding those pop culture geek skanks. God, imagine if I were someone like Warren Ellis. I'd just go through Suicide Girls like a fat man at the Sizzler.

No, no, I loved all the actors involved even before this, and Seth was great. It's the movie as a whole, the tone, the subtext and message, which I found very condescending and threatening to me on a personal level. This is not me saying "this was a bad movie," this is me saying "this movie hit me very close to home on a very personal painful subject of some of my biggest insecurities."

I knew of all people, you and spacechild were gonna be the ones I'd need to defend myself to about this (he loves the damn thing), but at least I had my mother watching it with me, and she totally agreed. It was one of the most uncomfortable, not-fun movies I've ever watched, up there with (but far superior to) PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

40 Year Old makes me uncomfortable as well.
And I'm thinking for all the same reason.

That being said, I love the musical number at the end.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

That's very reassuring to know, especially for such a universally-beloved film (even--and perhaps especially--among geeks).

But I'm agreed with you, I too love it. But then, I'm a sucker for a well-done random musical number.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I just want to get away from the word "geek" for at least a couple of days. I got into a huge argument with my friend the quantum physicist between the connotations of geek vs. nerd--

That being said, geekery is my profession and birthright.
That movie = too damn close.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I actually hesitated to use that g-word in your company for a moment, not certain how you'd take it.

I've had the argument too, actually. It can get ugly.

Profession and birthright. Damn straight, man.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

You're telling me. He half-apologized last night, two days later.

Why the hesitation?

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Well, y'know, to some people it could be a dirty word, a label that degrades a passion, that sort of thing. At least, so I imagine. After all, the use of that word as a name for fans was almost certainly born out of negative connotations.

That said, when Brad Meltzer was a DC native and a customer at our store, he used to say, "Say it loud, say it proud!"

I'd like to do that. I just have a long-standing insecurity with being a geek, with all the years of people who "just didn't get it" and the other ones trying to tell me, in different ways, to "grow up." Heh, my own mother said I wouldn't get laid if I had the full-sized Alex Ross Green Lantern poster in my dorm.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

My use of the title, and I'm sure this applies for other geeks as well, is a reclamation of what used to be a painful and emasculating period of my formative years.

And I'm not kidding about the birthright. I'm actually related to a carnie. And one of the first boys that I slept with had parents who were carnies.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

See, and I agree. Heh, not to go so far as to say it's our "N-word" or anything, but I do agree.

And whoa, wow, you REALLY do mean it! I mean, well, did your carnie relative bite the heads off chickens? Because then yeah, you cover ALL the bases there!

At least I come from families who are passionate about trivia (Hef's a comic/movie geek, my father's a music geek, grandfather's a baseball history/stats geek, grandmother an old-time movie geek, Mom's a Magnolia geek), so I have that much birthright on my own side.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

No, unfortunately not. He (it's my cousin actually), mans a booth and from what I told shouts at people. Doesn't even have his ride-- and is from what I can tell on the low end of the carnie totempole.

Though I do plan of going to Coney Island when I'm up in New York-- you know to get in touch with my roots.

[little-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I don't know, Suicide Girls remind me of liquorice allsorts. They look cool and different and tempting, but you just know they taste like crap. But then, I know people who actually like liquorice allsorts, so to each their own.

It's weird that you say that. A lot of my friends also think I love the movie, but they only think that because they love it. The only parts I'm attached to are Seth Rogen (I'm sure you are aware of my celebrity-crush on him by now?) and the dance number at the end, which is fucking fabulous. Otherwise, it was funny and all but they did the boy version of a twin-set makeover, which doesn't make me happy.

I knew it. AJ keeps trying to get me to watch "Punch-Drunk Love" but I have been resisting violently because my movie-instinct tells me that it will annoy me. This validates my position, so I choose to agree with you.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, I adore your comparison of Suicide Girls to liquorice allsorts. That's pretty fantastic.

(although I would question the "taste" thing... a general rule of life is that Crazy is great in the sack. But yes, the aftertaste, whatever the metaphor apply to self-respect or STDs, is quite apt)

See, yeah, that's part of my problem! They totally give him the makeover, and what he is in the end just isn't true to him! I mean, if he'd sold his toy collection to open a COMIC store or a TOY collectables store, that'd be different! It might even make up for the constant message throughout the film (which overwhelms the pitiful attempts at saying to the otherwise at the end) that there's something wrong with being this way.

My Mom thought so right away too, calling the movie "condescending" and "unkind." I think she nailed it, but most others disagree. A reviewer and self-admitted "nice guy" virgin at imdb thought it was sweet, gentle, and reaffirming. So thus my further frustration and insecurity.

Have you seen THE BREAKFAST CLUB? Damn it, Ally Sheedy looked better before the makeover! Stop trying to make interesting people normal! Hasn't anybody read PYGMALION? It doesn't work, people!

But yes, Seth Rogen was great. Heck, I loved the performances! I don't think there's a single actor there I dislike!

Here's my PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE review, which may actually pre-date you reading my LJ:

http://cats-n-crying.livejournal.com/136649.html

Hate. HATE.

[little-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

I was referring to the general flavour associated with Suicide Girls. I mean, anyone could look like that, if they were their own hobby. And people who are their own hobby irritate me. Plus, with all that makeup and gel and mousse and spray and tattoo disinfectant caked on 'em, they can't taste all that good.

Yeah, I hate the twin-set makeover. I have several rants about it scattered through my lj. Ally Sheedy in "The Breakfast Club", Clea DuVall in "The Faculty", pretty much every movie that automatically associates weirdness, geekyness or drug use with Troubledness and crying for help... they all give me the creeps. Like all the freaks automatically want to be "normal"! Plus, those movies give non-geeks the bad kind of justification: people have actually tried to pull that twin-set business with me, and that shit does not fly.

Having read your review, I'm impressed with my movie-instinct. Spot-on. Have you ever seen "Living in Oblivion"? It's got Catherine Keener! Anyway, your review makes me think of the dream-sequence rant in that movie.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

They has a flavr?

Man, I almost mentioned THE FACULTY as well, but I didn't want to dignify it. I agree exactly.

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE so sickened me that I am very hesitantly looking forward to his new one, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, which reunites my favorite OTP of Daniel Day Lewis and Big Mustaches.

That the Steve Bucshescimsishi movie? With Peter Dinklage giving the angry dream dwarf rant? I've seen pieces. Yes, I recall Steve himself accepting the dream award and ranting, but I don't remember what about. I'll have to track it down on youtube or imdb or something.

[little-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

I can't explain it, but "The Faculty" puts me into a state of Zen-like calm and peace with the universe. I love it unreasonably. I know it's bad. It's not even the good kind of bad. And it has a twin-set makeover! But it's one of those things.

The man knows how to wear a big mustache.

Yeah, that's the one. I saw it in a film class. The only one I ever took, aside from the class on animation. Much as I love Steve Buscemi, I'm referring to the Peter Dinklage rant. But it's been a lot of years since I saw it. It might not be directly relevant.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

At this point, I should mention that the concept of "body snatchers" disturbs the living shit outta me. I love the first two actual "Body Snatchers" and am at least intrigued by the 90's one, and am curious as to what they're gonna do with the Nicole Kidman one. But man oh man, the whole concept really bothers me.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

i really felt that they were honest about the fact that there are a LOT of guys who retreat into their comic and action figure world and ultimately are somewhat socially retarded for it (this is just a truism, man.. there are a LOT of people like that).... getting mad at that is like getting mad about the Simpsons Comic Shop Guy.

but in the end, the message is that there was nothing wrong with his being a virgin (hell, one of the other characters goes as far as to say "you had the right idea all along", just not in those exact words) and that he ended up having a healthy and fulfilling relationship by not going out and screwing everything that wasn't nailed down, whereas every one else turned out to be the messed up ones.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

my wife calls Seth rogen her "movie star boyfriend", so you are in good company in that respect.

i'm fine with it, because i'm the same body type as he, and similiar in personality, so i like the idea that her ideal celeb crush is someone a lot like me.

[little-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's awesome. I feel like he has no idea about all these ladies who fancy him, because every article or interview or anything I've ever seen about him goes on about his awkward fat unattractiveness. And I just go, "what unattractiveness?"
That's good! There should be more guys like that. I mean, I get bored just imagining hanging out with Brad Pitt.

Plus, he's put Canadian Jewish stoner-geeks on the map, and I'd be a giant hypocrite if I had a problem with that.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

Holly says that she likes that Knocked Up featured him half naked and it wasn't some big joke of "look at the chubby naked guy! that's comedy!"

they just featured him like that as they would anyone else in that circumstance. it wasnt meant to be funny.

[adaptor.livejournal.com]

But your ass has been looking fant-ass-tic, btw.

/right there with you!
//in that non-stalker totally legal way!