The Intricacies of Marriage

Seth was showing me his My Little Ponies.

"They are married, and they are married, and they all get married again and again!"

I didn't want to get into polygamy, so I said, "Oh yeah?" In response, he made the ponies kiss. I made my pony kiss Seth on the cheek, and he giggled.

"You can't marry me! I'm just a kid! See?" To prove his point, he stood up so the tiny pony could see his kid-size.

"When you grow up, will you be able to marry the pony?" I asked.

"Yes!" he answered. "No! Grownups can't marry toys!"

"Oh....right. I forgot."

Later we were dancing around the room to Aladdin's "A Whole New World" and he asked me, "Who are you married to?"

"No one! I'm not married at all."

"Oooh. Is that why you're still a kid?"

"Yes, definitely," I answered as I spun him around and dipped him upside-down.

Sympathizing with a Villain

If any of you are tired of me talking about The Avengers, you might want to find another blog to follow for the next forever. This movie is stuck in my head. Specifically, Loki.

I see him as very much driven by the sense of never feeling good enough. Growing up, Thor was the (literal) golden boy. He was stronger and first in line to be king. Loki's skills are in speaking and manipulation. Not exactly door busters. He says he always felt like he lived in Thor's shadow, and I don't even care if that's true or not. What matters is that he thinks it was. He constantly feels like he's not good enough.

And here is where I find Loki so fascinating. I am just like him. I never feel good enough. My jokes aren't as funny as so-and-so's, my intelligence is not up to that person's, and don't even get me started on my athleticism. It's hard to be good at things but never really great, or to have skills that no one values. I sympathize with Loki.

There are two reactions you can have to this mentality. You can live with it, be content in whatever level of skill and adulation you have, and learn to cheer on others who are better than you. Or you can flip a switch inside and tell yourself that it doesn't even matter--there's no need to play by the rules, why not just do things your way and not care what anyone thinks? That's Loki's way, and if I'm honest, I am often so close to flipping that switch myself. "You aren't satisfied with who I am? Then I'll just go off the deep end and show you what I'm capable of!"

It's an extremely petty and selfish reaction. That's what I love about The Avengers. The villain isn't someone emotionlessly evil. The villain is a hurt younger brother who is sick and tired of his "family" not appreciating him, so he's off to coerce a world into loving him. Oh man. On my worst days, I would so do the same.

Loki, I feel you. Can I borrow your brainwashing scepter?

Traveling Tunes

I started off my seven-hour ride to Jackson singing through my "Love Hurts" playlist. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it put me into a funk. I would occasionally shoot hateful glares at my iPod for saying emotionally insightful things that made me feel bad. But then "Gollum's Song" from The Two Towers came on, and I nearly wrecked the car scrabbling to click forward to the next song.

There are depressing songs, and then there's "Gollum's Song." You don't get out of that emotional abyss for at least a week.

Despite a nice interlude getting lunch, where I walked past a guy wearing a Captain America t-shirt and involuntarily complimented him on it (The Avengers is making me kind to strangers! Miracle movie!), I was getting worried that I would show up at the Hughes's house a sobbing wreck, whining about my lack of a love life.

All that changed when I switched to my "Instrumental" playlist. It's got songs from Pirates of the Caribbean, old band songs, Moulin Rouge, The Royal Tennenbaums, and other awesome music without lyrics. I used to adore soundtracks, but I haven't listened to any instrumental music in probably years. The combination of nostalgia and genuine amazeballs music had me grinning like an idiot.

I was particularly terrifying when Jack's theme from PotC 2 came on. I sang along with the notes, flailed my arms in the air and dramatically punched my thigh like some kind of demented, masochistic conductor. It was wonderful. That playlist ended right as I pulled into the Hughes's neighborhood. Perfection! The power of words destroyed me, and then the power of music built me back up into a furiously happy person. I'm going to need to get back into soundtracks, I think.

Other Turkish Stories

• Once when Stephanie and I were walking across a bridge to get to our bus stop, a bird pooped on my wrist.  If I hadn't been gesturing so widely, it probably wouldn't have hit.  Stephanie burst out laughing, then pretended to be sympathetic, but she kept giggling while I kleenexed it away.

• Turns out I like Turkish cherries, even though American cherries make me cringe.  Tulay grabbed a few to try at a street bazaar (you can do that), and I ate both mine and Stephanie's, since she doesn't like them.  My teeth cracked on the pit, which I forgot existed, and I spit them both in my hands.  I walked a couple blocks with spitty pits in my palm, unsure whether or not I could drop them to the ground.  I was pretty sure it was acceptable, but in case I was wrong, I wanted to be as surrepticious as possible.  In the end, I just leaned toward another fruit stall and let them fall to the ground.  No one arrested me.

• After The Avengers, Bir Kan (which means One Blood in Turkish, and is probably the most epic name ever) told me about a protest he'd seen put down in March.  On Women's Day, he said.  Did we celebrate Women's Day in America?  Stephanie and I said no, but then I realized!  I had just discovered that March 8 is National Women's Day this year, and I made up a library book display of awesome ladies.  But celebrate, no not really.  Bir Kan thought that was a bit sad.

• The newest James Bond movie had been filming in Istanbul.  When Stephanie and I went to the Spice Bazaar, there was a big section of newly created food stalls fenced off.  Loads of people, including ourselves, gathered around to stare through the chain-linked wall that separated us from movie glory.  Except the filming area was completely empty.  We were staring at nothing.  The rest of the time I was in Istanbul, I half believed James Bond (not Daniel Craig, like a normal person) would swoop by running for his life.  Sadly, that never happened.

• Vonda came into the bathroom one morning while Stephanie and I were getting ready.  She looked at the sink and sucked in a breath of disgust. 

     "Did you guys know that was in there?" she gasped. 

     We looked too, and saw a big beetle of a bug dead in the drain of our sink. 

     "...Ew, that's gross!" Stephanie contributed. 

     "I thought it was a clump of hair," I explained. 

     We continued getting ready.  Vonda sighed in disgust and fished the bug out with a wad of toilet paper. 

     "Yay!" we cheered.  "You're our hero!"

Betrayed

I get a lot of spam comments on my wordpress blog, and the sad thing is, they are incredibly complimentary and encouraging.  Stupid kind robots, falsely building me up. 

Hating on Love

Here is what I don't like about love:  It's so time-consuming!  Ugh!  When I like someone, I think about them all the frakking time (fake cuss word brought to you by Battlestar Galactica!).  It's super annoying.  I can't get work done because I want to see if they've posted in Twitter or Facebook or whatever.  I think about the funny thing they said, or ruminate on something wise they mentioned.

Love is very uncontrollable, and I hate that.  I don't like to be swept off my feet.  Not really.  The idea is romantic and all, but long term, that is annoying! 

Also, I'm totally talking about being distracted by my celebrity crush, mentioned in the post below.  Yup.  All these feelings for someone I will likely never meet.

Which is bad, but I suggest that it is even worse to be infatuated with someone in real life.  How many times have I texted a person I'm crushing on, then immediately thought, "Oh my gosh why would I send that, it's completely stupid!"  A lot of times.  I fake interests in things I don't care about.  I go to events I would rather avoid. 

Love makes me less me.  And that's annoying.

(I hope you all know me well enough by now to realize I am semi-kidding.  I love love and all the ridiculousness that comes along with it.  But let's be honest.  Love is terribly inconvenient.)

Swimfan

Welp.  I'm swimfanning pretty hard.  I haven't been so head-over-heels in love with an actor for years.  In fact, I think the last time it was this bad was in 2008, when I was so infatuated with James McAvoy that I went to see Wanted, despite Wanted being everything I dislike in action movies (dark, cynical, and gleefully violent).

Running alongside my deep love for The Avengers (excellent reviews about Joss as director and about the spirit of optimism in the film) is my total and overwhelming adoration of Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in the film.  I already talked about how much I like Loki, both for his joie de vivre (shades of Sawyer from LOST) and his pathetic villainy that he cannot give up even when he wants to (shades of Draco from Harry Potter).  Director Joss Whedon told Hiddleston, when playing Loki, to be more feral and to have more fun.  These are things I like to see in my fictional bad guys.

But that's Loki.  I'm really in love with Tom Hiddleston.  Superficially, he is one of the most attractive men I've ever seen.

Evidence.

A few years ago, I upgraded my celebrity swooning from simple attractiveness to actual theatrical skills.  Now I've upgraded again.  Hiddleston has talent in spades.  What he also has is a delightful sense of humor and thoughtful intelligence.

Yup.  I've been watching hours of Tom Hiddleston interviews on YouTube.  I actually had to force myself to take a day off the internet because it was getting so consuming.  The man is addictive!  He's interested in the psychology of his characters, he throws big words into conversations without seeming condescending, he's wonderfully humble and grateful toward his interviewers and fans.

I can't get enough of him.  I've put the movie Deep Blue Sea on hold, solely because it is his only other recent movie that isn't centered around a horse.  I also checked out The Great Gatsby to reread, because he played F. Scott Fitzgerald in Midnight in Paris, and my addled brain thinks that means he wrote the book himself.  I bumped up my Norse mythology book to the top of my reading list, because of his insights into Loki's character and the interrelationships among the Norse gods.  He's also got me interested in Shakespeare, since he quotes him on Twitter and performs in several of his plays.

As much as my celebrity crushing is indicative of my inherent immaturity, I'm like to think of this as a higher form of immaturity.  Sure, Hiddleston is ridiculously handsome.  But it is his intelligence and charisma that attracts me just as much.  Instead of wanting to tape pictures of him to my wall, my infatuation with him is inspiring me to dig into literature and mythology.

I like to think that this is a womanly crush, rather than a girly one.  I'm growing.  A little.  Very slowly.  But let's be real, I'll never stop obsessing over things (or people) that I like.