My biggest problem with Valentine's Day.

Don’t get me wrong, I like an excuse to eat candy and mock cheesy cards as much as anyone. That aspect of V-day is cutesy and fun and something the perpetual first grader in me still appreciates.

My biggest problem with Valentine’s Day, really, is my biggest problem with most holidays: being told when and how to celebrate, giving out stereotypical and expected gifts because you’ll be looked down upon if you don’t, and complaining if you don’t get presents from the right people is not a real celebration of anything. It’s a mockery of love and a cop out to romance.

If you have to be told to do something and pressured into it by advertising and culture, I highly doubt it actually matters. Taking someone out on a dinner date once a year because you’re supposed to doesn’t show love or appreciation. Flowers and chocolates are the gifts of someone who doesn’t know or care enough about their partner to get them something that actually, personally matters.

Real love - with all its fuck ups and messes and pain - is something that you should show and celebrate when it feels right, or when the object of your affection needs to be reminded. Not when other people tell you that you must. Not how other people tell you that you have to.

Celebrations only matter when they’re organic and genuinely meant to appreciate something worthwhile. Valentine’s Day isn’t a celebration that matters.

Amid Weeping There Is Joy (or HSC Conference 2010)

I find that it becomes infinitely easier to look back on things and find the good in them after a few days. The same is true for looking back and seeing what truly was as bad or worse than you thought it was at the time and figuring out how and why it went so wrong. It's somewhat therapeutic, after an event such as this, to lounge and think about the whys and the hows and pick apart the stresses, fights and failures.

When you put 25 teenagers together and deprive them of sleep, feed them junk food and put them under stress breakdowns will inevitably happen. Adding in 150 of their peers relying on them for amusement doesn't help anything. As well as things went (and most of them went wonderfully) bad things do happen. Things that could ruin the truly unique experience of the conference as a whole if you are willing to let them, and I almost did.

I've come to realize that there were a lot of tears shed in vain and perhaps some words that would have been better off left unsaid, but many things were justified even outside the heat of the moment. There are some people that will never be likable, actions that are unforgivable, trusts that won't reform. Those things won't change even after the initial bursts of anger and betrayal have passed. Nothing will make false rumors less biting or lies less hurtful, and they can't be taken back.

But there are also just people who made silly mistakes and said stupid things to the wrong people and never really thought about the consequences. Forgiveness isn't really in my nature but when it comes down to it well intentioned ignorance is not the same as idiocy and has to be forgiven. And the upside is finding out that what you thought was malicious really wasn't, which kind of brightens things up. :)

So when it comes down to it...conference was pretty good. A lot of the people were really awesome, and really gorgeous, and I wish I had been in a better mood to enjoy their company. We put together a few supercool parties and dances that were totally worth all the effort, and arranged way more workshops than I want to think about.

But my favorite part was probably Sunday night, hanging out and detoxing and letting go of all the things that had been stressing me out.

I'm still exhausted. I'm still kind of upset. But I'm actually pretty happy. Looking back there's always joy amid the tears.

I can't wait for next year. <3

Today I Nearly Scratched My Eyes Out

(Or Why Seeing Twilight: Eclipse Was a Bad Idea)

To start with, let me justify why I even wasted money on this horrible piece of cinema:

1. I just learned that if you go to the first showing of the day of any movie at a Century theater it's half price. So I didn't waste MUCH money on it. This makes me feel better about myself.

2. I feel the need to mock things from a position of knowledge because knowledge is power and if I know more about something than you do I can probably make you feel stupid even if you aren't (have I mentioned that I'm an elitist bitch? I'm an elitist bitch who likes to feel smart. There, it's been said.)

3. Honestly I just needed a laugh and to be braindead for awhile.

So yes, I saw Eclipse today with a friend. It was truly terrible. The first Twilight movie actually truly impressed me with the incredible amount of work that appeared to have gone into it simply to make it watchable. Sure the acting was terrible, the special effects were low budget, the script was overall cheesy and rather stilted, the characters unbelievable, and the entire plot (what little there was) gave me the creeps on a profound level; despite all this it was a Watchable Movie, taken from a book that appeared to have no plot until somewhere around page 300 (which I never reached, having gotten stuck somewhere in the first two hundred pages of He Hates Me, I Love Him) at which point SMeyer realized something needed to happen to make it marketable. In the first Twilight movie the pacing was managed impressively and the plot (entirely pointless and irrelevant to the main focus on the progression of Bella and Edward's ~twu wuv~) was interwoven into the utter schlock that was the rest of it, and was made relevant from the beginning. I at no point felt like falling asleep.

Eclipse cannot say the same for itself. I sat in my uncomfortable movie seat, next to the poor unfortunate boy I had dragged with me to the early morning showing, and constantly changed position just to keep myself awake. Next to me the boy slammed his face against his knees, whined, pouted, and mimed stabbing himself.

The movie jumped between scenes with nothing to connect them, leaving me blinking and thinking 'why is this relevant to what was just happening?'. Bella and Edward spent a lot of time speaking in monotone about their Epic Love and inability to be apart while making unconvincing doe eyes at each other. Jacob, who could previously have been argued to be the Better Choice, committed minor sexual assault. Charlie (Bella's father) found it amusing when Bella was forced to break her hand on Jacob's face because of this. Edward and Jacob growled at each other and treated the supposed object of their true and earthshattering love as just that, an object, giving her very little choice in anything they did.

At one point Bella got horny and tried to jump Edward's bones and as always, Edward knew what was best and made the decision for her and said No Sex For You. Bella is then portrayed in book and movie both as the uncontrolled seductress with no knowledge of what she's actually doing, and pure loyal all knowing Edward must protect her from herself by denying her what she wants. Edward proposes and Bella gives in because he won't sexually satisfy her OR turn her into a vampire unless she does, Edward is of course a manipulative bastard. Then Jacob and Bella cuddle on a mountain while Edward watches, and Jacob thinks loud dirty thoughts to piss Edward off. Down bellow a random clan of newborn vampires attack the Cullens and the werewolf pack. Jacob leaves to help them after emotionally manipulating Bella into kissing him and saying she loves him (she does, but 'not enough' because Edward is perfect for her, obviously). Edward sees all this but loves her all the same. Then Jacob kills vampires and Edward kills vampires and Bella is thoroughly useless.

At one point near the end Jacob tells Bella that loving him would be 'as easy as breathing' and she wouldn't have to change anything for him. But nope, Bella would rather abandon everything/one she's ever known to be get dead with a virgin a hundred years older than her.

Is this not making sense to you? Good, it's not supposed to, this is pretty much exactly how the movie was paced. NOTHING MADE SENSE, NOTHING WAS CONNECTED, THERE WERE RANDOM FLASHBACKS. NO COMMON SENSE WAS USED. Everyone did exactly the opposite of what they were advised to do.

The only watchable part of this movie was near the end, where vampires were literally punching each others faces off. But you can find a clip of that online and avoid wasting your money and your braincells like I did.