a wolf angel is not a good angel

When I saw Girlfight, whenever it came out, I remember hearing about how it was such! a! feminist! movie!

It wasn’t. It was like 30 zillion of the 80s movies where the girl wants to be a dancer and falls in love with some guy and he makes her choose between dance and him and she chooses her job. Except this time it was about boxing, and I think they were Hispanic. But it’s the same difference. Feminist movies, apparently, mean movies with guys who are assholes, and where you choose a job over a guy because you absolutely can’t have both because he won’t let you.

I also saw The Prince & Me. (I’m a huge fan of Julia Stiles.) Spoiled prince goes to the US, falls in love with a farmer’s daughter who’s planning to go to med school, grows up, she learns to be herself, etc etc. She finds out he’s a prince, she’s mad, he goes back to become king, she flies to Denmark to be with him, they get engaged. Blah blah blah. All the princessy stuff happens — and I like that sort of stuff — and then she realises she’s given up who she is to become a princess, so she goes back home.

They actually shot two endings. In one she doesn’t see him again. In the other, he appears at her graduation (from undergrad) and says he loves her, he’ll wait for her to finish med school and do whatever else she wants to do. (She wanted to do humanitarian work, which would presumably be doable if you’ve got a monarchy behind you.)

The movie ended with the second ending. In watching one of the special features, the director said that she felt people would feel cheated if the relationship never happened. I was disappointed. That’s not the right reason to have chosen that ending (which I think is the right ending). The reason is because you don’t always need to make a choice between your job and having a relationship. The reason is because there are many guys out there who want you to be happy in a job, even if it takes you away from them some, who are willing to put off their wants for yours. You can make a number of complaints about this movie — as about the other — but in the end, it seems a much more feminist movie than Girlfight.

I might be feeling rather like I’m going to die, but the meeting with my boss went well. Very well. (I can die happy! And with a temperature still even though I’ve been taking tylenol like it’s chocolate.)

My boss thinks my “learn to program quick!” plan is a good one. Yay. Some of the courses I intend to take (machine learning, AI/NLP) will be helpful for the company if I continue working for him. And he thinks that with the skill set I would have (good theoretical linguistics, good machine learning/stats stuff, some programming) I could get myself hired pretty much anywhere, which is nice: I have finally gotten myself on a job track where there are actual JOBS at the end!

The plan is that I will continue working parttime for the year, then discuss working fulltime. On the other hand, should the courses I want to take not be available (machine learning, AI/NLP — I’ll find out next Tues, I think, and classes start Wed . . . whee!), we can rediscuss going fulltime immediately. By rediscuss, I take it to mean that we’re discussing what the salary & benefits would be. Which is good, despite my comments about not really wanting to work there forever and ever. I feel so relieved.

Now I can phone my friend’s mother, the real estate agent, and start asking her for help because prices keep going up here, and I have enough for a down payment on a mortgage (and people to guarantee it) — I saw a place that seemed like it would be nice near the Atwater Market, which I could rent out for a year first. Eeek! I can’t believe I’m even considering doing this now.

Today I have things I absolutely have to do, that I absolutely cannot cancel.

Last night I felt odd, first very hot, then very cold — the sort of pre-flu feelings you get. This morning I have a fever of 38.1/100.6. Yay! I’m going to be so coherent at my meeting!

I shouldn’t go for breakfast; I could avoid that. But it’s my grandmother’s 80th birthday. I will likely not be going out for dinner, because it’s just stupid to consider it today.

I don’t feel sick at all. My head feels like someone set off a bomb in it, and I’m wobbly on my feet, but at least I don’t feel sick. Painkillers! Painkillers, come to me.

I have only two memories from the house I first lived in (we moved when I was about 4). They’re almost snapshots.

Once I couldn’t find my cat. She turned out to be in the bread drawer, sleeping.

The other time was when we had an electrical fire. I was woken up in the middle of the night and had to leave the house.

For some reason we were discussing this story today. It was pre-911, so my mother phoned her sister and said there was a fire, could she look up the number for the fire department and get a fire truck. (Apparently she did this before leaving the house. I don’t know why. There was no real damage to the house, and we didn’t lose anything.) My aunt, being stunned at having been woken up, phoned the fire department.

“Hello. I would like to order a fire truck to . . . ”

They might’ve even believed it, if she and my uncle hadn’t then started laughing.

(My neighbours also phoned the fire department, so a truck did come.)

The real question is: when you order a fire truck to be delivered, can you ask that it comes with a fireman with a nice ass?

In today’s news that’s so obvious only a blinding idiot wouldn’t have thought of it beforehand: seeing a movie about a 50 year old dying when you’re already weepy is not a good idea.

That said, Les Invasions Barbares was very good. I was somewhat disappointed in Marie-Josée Croze’s performance; she made me think, just briefly, of Drew Barrymore playing a heroin addict. I can’t explain how, and I know she won an award for this role. I think she’s a good actress: I particularly liked her work in Maelström (see this movie, too). This one just struck me as odd: perhaps I was expecting something else.

I’m not sure how to describe it. The acting was very good. If you can, listen in French and read the subtitles; whoever did the translations oddly left out all the Montreal place names and just called everything “suburbs” or “the East End” (in no way is the Plateau in the east). The way the wordplay about blowjobs was handled was wonderful. And you always miss something when it’s dubbed, I find. (Since I often am not in the mood for subtitles, this can be limiting.)

I can’t think of what to say. (Well, except for some shame that I’ve not seen The Decline of the Roman Empire; watching it backwards might be interesting, and in any case I’ll need to do that.)

It’s got a nice balance, a certain ambiguity (like Capturing the Friedmans, which I also just saw). The socialist bon vivants are dying; the capitalist techy son is alive. Arcand pokes fun at all of it, of course, and the socialism more than anything (I will say that the hospitals here aren’t as bad as it makes it seem in the movie, the unions not as corrupt). Mostly the film celebrates friendship and enjoying life (which seems to be having friends, sex, food and wine), though it’s not as hedonistic as it sounds. It’s an intelligent movie, but it’s not pretentious about that. It’s a comedy, but it’s serious. It’s a drama, but it’s funny. (I hate the term dramedy.) It’s got great social commentary (especially about Quebec society — the priest doesn’t know why suddenly the churches emptied out?), but it’s more than just commentary, there’s a story.

Oh, I’m crying again. See the movie.

If I hadn’t just had my period, I’d assume I was about to get it. Although some people manage to disbelieve the whole PMS thing, it doesn’t make the fact of it fairly miserable for me. Especially that part where I get to wanting to kill myself every other month because — well, not because of anything, just because. It was suggested that ibuprofen can help kill mood swings along with cramps, so I’ll try that too.

However, I do not have PMS, I’m just crying at, well, everything. The only reason I haven’t cried at a long distance commercial is because I haven’t seen one recently. I’m feeling slow and unmotivated — did I say I planned to redesign? I lied — and weepy. Time to sleep it off, I guess.

Tonight will be sit and watch movie night. Wednesday is two-for-one rentals. To my shame, I decided that meant I should take out four movies, two light/silly, two not-English (but one is French, Les Invasions Barbares, and the other has a French sountrack, Good Bye, Lenin, so I don’t need to be reading subtitles, which is nice). I’ll probably work on design revisions to the blog while I watch. (Harrison, I hope you’re ready for bunches of questions.)

I’ve actually been intending to see Les Invasions Barbares since I first read reviews of it. Quebec cinema is seriously underrated (or underknown), and while I was out of Quebec, I never got a chance to see any of them, because they were neither in theatres nor available to rent. (Les Triplettes de Belleville, which I saw in the US, is not a Quebec film, though it got some Canadian (and possibly Quebecois) funding, and was made in Montreal (and of course had some Montreal & Quebec City backgrounds): Sylvain Chomet is French.) I’ve also never seen Jesus of Montreal, which I should.

And I loved the comment Denise Robert, producer of the movie and Arcand’s wife, made after it won the Oscar (best foreign language film):

We’re so thankful that Lord of the Rings did not qualify in this category.

Or something.

So I have a free phone that’s good with Bell (thank you, father’s friend). Plus if I were on my parents’ plan, it would be a business expense, or, in other words, I wouldn’t pay for service. Advantage: Bell.

The plan sucks, though, and since I’d be using it evenings & weekends, I’d be upping the cost a lot — the three people on that plan use very few evening/weekend minutes. Guilt! Advantage: every other plan, because they’re all better.

On the other hand, if they did that, we’d dump our second land line, the number we’ve had for 15 years. Sniff. Advantage: not sure. I like that number.

Other options include Rogers, if I can get a phone from my father’s other friend, which has a less sucky plan, but would probably break 50$ a month, so not so much less sucky. Advantage: Bell.

The last option is Fido, which has an interesting plan with 100 weekday minutes, 1000 evening/weekend minutes, and free incoming local calls. (Not sure what they mean by incoming local: incoming calls from Montreal, or incoming calls while I’m in Montreal, or incoming calls from Montreal while I’m in Montreal? Their explanation is not explanatory.) It doesn’t have caller ID or voice mail, at least one of which would be nice, though I could add them on. It would end up being 35-40 a month, I would guess, because taxes and system access fees and stuff aren’t included. It bills by the second, unlike every other company, which bills by the minute. Advantage: possibly Fido, depending on what “incoming local” means and if someone has an old Fido phone to donate.

The problem is mostly that I don’t know how much I would use, so I don’t know what plan to get. Advantage: lethargy.

I went out for coffee & dessert with a friend the other night. And we had sugar pie. Sugar pie! I can’t remember the last time I had that. Warm and full of goodness. (Never serve sugar pie cold.)

I don’t know who came up with the idea of sugar pie (let’s make a pie. Oh no, we have no fruit or chocolate or nuts! I know: we will fill it with a bit of cream and lots of sugar!) but I thank them. I also thank my evil great uncle and my maternal grandparents for choosing to live in Quebec so that I could grow up with the joy of knowing sugar pie.

Paul Martin has picked Madam Justice Louise Charron and Madam Justice Rosalie Abella (both from Ontario; Charron is a bilingual francophone) to fill the vacancies on the Supreme Court, announces every single news outlet in Canada. Some of the news outlets I’ve linked to are, um, right-wing. I’m amused by the headline on the last link.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler (who is my MP) will field questions today about the appointment. These questions will go something like “You chose them because they’re women, didn’t you?” (4 of 9 justices will be women) and “You chose them because they’re both for gay marriage and this will make it easier for you in the fall, didn’t you?” (both have made same-sex marriage rulings in Ontario)

The answers to both will be no, but the real answers to both will be “in part”. I have absolutely no doubt that these two judges are eminently qualified. But the Liberals have been working, a little bit, to increase women’s participation, given internal irritation by women in the party that they hadn’t been. And both are pro-gay marriage. What I’ve read suggests there’s not much else similar about them: Abella is activist, while Charron is more middle-of-the-road, but in a fairly liberal, Canadian way.