How Is It Possible that Hillary Swank Has Two Oscars?!

Jodie Foster, Sally Field, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh.....HILLARY SWANK?!

I never saw Boys Don't Cry, and I'll never see Million Dollar Baby either. Because I hate Hillary Swank. I remember her from her Beverly Hills 90210 days. She was Steve's single-mom, Peach Pit waitress girlfriend. She was so frickin' annoying. And stupid. I couldn't stand her. I did a little happy dance when she and her kid went back to North Dakota or wherever they were supposed to be from. Thank God, I said.

As it turns out, it was her firing from 90210 that left her free to take the role in Boys Don't Cry. I was intrigued by the movie because it deals with a transgender person, and for whatever reason, transgender people are generally included with the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community. But Hillary Swank? No. I had just gotten rid of her from 90210. I would not endure her stupidity nor her gigantic jaw again. I heard the movie was good, but I just couldn't bring myself to see it. When she won the Oscar, I thought, "She just got that because she took such a difficult, controversial role." I let it go. Hey, even Cher won an Oscar.

But two Oscars? That's putting her in some rarified air. I can't believe it. I cannot believe it. What is going on in this world that Hillary Swank has two Oscars?

Wait, Didn't You Know We Were Fighting?

Ever been in a big fight with someone, only they knew nothing about it? That sort of happened to me this past week with my best friend Emily. Last Wednesday night, I started this ill-advised discussion/disagreement about an assignment for my French class. It was an assignment generated by Emily (although she is not my teacher). So obviously, she was emotionally invested in its "rightness," if you will. The conversation never became mean or nasty or anything like that. But it was a bit on the unpleasant side. I hung up the phone and thought, "Well, that wasn't fun, but it's no big deal."

Then I called her the next day to ask her for some help with a French project I was working on. Emily has been nice enough to tutor me this semester. Without her, I would probably be passing the class, but I wouldn't be doing nearly as well. So I called her on Thursday to ask her some questions, and she seemed quite annoyed...and a little short with me. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that it was all this stuff she had to do for work, she was busy, etc. etc.

I wasn't convinced. I suspected that she was actually mad at me for our disagreement the night before. I decided to back off. I'd been doing most of the phone calling to her. So I decided I'd let her call me.

And then she didn't. Emily and I talk every other day, if not every day. Friday came and went without a phone call. Then Saturday. Then Sunday. As the days clicked by without hearing from her, our disagreement changed in my mind into an actual fight. She was punishing me for questioning her decision about this assignment. Well, screw her!

By the time Monday rolled by, I was P-I-S-S-E-D. We'd been friends for over 10 years! And she'd agreed to tutor me this semester! I had an other assignment due this week, and she was leaving me high and dry. That French bitch! Well, if she wanted to fight, no problem! I could give as good as I got!

The Bread Winner and I went out for dinner with my mother last night, and when we returned...there was a message from Emily on the answering machine. From the content of the message and the tone of her voice, it was readily apparent to me that she did not know that we'd been in a big fight for the past 5 days. I called her back. We chit-chatted about the weekend. All is fine.

I wish I could say this was the first time I've been in such a "fight." Unfortunately, it's all too common.

Pop Me Up!

While commenting on WhimsyChick this morning, I saw that she seemed to have blogger sponsored pop-up comments. I was very intrigued. As you commenters out there already know, the whole blogger comment situation has been over-hauled. But I didn't know about the pop-up option.

I have to admit that, in the past, I have felt inferior due to my standard commenting. I wanted the pop-up commenting thing, but alas, I was one of the very, very few who was not bright enough to figure out how to insert the haloscan code into my template correctly. I tried and failed, so I hung my head in shame and said nothing about it. A sad story, I know. But now I can have pop-up comments with just a quick change of commenting settings!

Those google folk. Clever, I tell you.

UPDATE
So I was just playing around with my comments link, and it's only halfway working. When you go to look at the comments, you don't get a pop-up window. It's only when you go to post a new comment that the pop-up window shows up. That's no fun. I want total pop-up! Have I failed again?

UPDATE 2
This just in! Kerrie, aka WhimsyChick, rocks! She sent me an email with the code all nicely displayed. Even I could understand what to do! My comments are poppin' up like crazy! Woot woot!

What? No Fair!

As you might already know from reading my blog, I love the girl-on-girl action on television. That is the reason that I watch All My Children--for the lesbian character, Bianca Montgomery. Of course, she rarely does "lesbian" things, like have a girlfriend, hold hands with a girl, or kiss a girl, but every now and then, the writers throw us a bone, and it's enough to satisfy me for months at a time. For instance, Bianca's girlfriend left the show last April. They shared a brief kiss...and that was pretty much it for any lesbian activity since then...and that was what? Eight months ago? Nine? But that was okay because I knew that it could happen again...sometime. And I could wait.

Then on January 31, my prayers were answered and Bianca kissed another girl, Maggie. Yippee! And this was a good kiss, too. Better than the ones she'd had with girlfriend #1. Although I knew that any physical displays of affection would be spaced far apart, I was nonetheless very excited about this development. So this morning, I decided to do a little research into the actresses who play Bianca and Maggie. Mostly looking to see if they'd been interviewed about their characters' romance, etc. And what did I discover? Both actresses are leaving the show on February 24!

Will I keep watching AMC? I just don't know. I really, really, really liked watching a lesbian character. Even one who went for eight months at a time without glancing at another girl. I wouldn't have started watching this show if it wasn't for Bianca, and now that she's going...will I bother?

Honestly, I feel cheated and betrayed by AMC, even though it seems like the actress who plays Bianca has decided to leave and has not been fired. I guess it's the contrast of emotions. I was so happy about the new romance, only to learn that it has a maximum shelf life of what? Less than four weeks? No fair. No fair at all.

Here I Am Again

My theme song should really be "Authority Song" by John Mellencamp. I always know I'm in trouble when I find myself in a situation and that song starts playing in the back of my head:

I fight authority, Authority always wins
Well, I fight authority, Authority always wins
Well, I've been doing it since I was a young kid
I come out grinnin'
Well, I fight authority, Authority always wins

I got my second French composition back. The way this composition deal works is that you write a draft and turn it in, then the teacher indicates any problems and gives it back to you to revise. Then you turn in the final version, and your draft grade and final version grade are averaged.

The corrections for composition #1 were fine. I mean, you know, I messed some stuff up. But this second composition...she corrected word choice. As a writer I hate that. For instance, I wrote, Avant il a été a l'abri, une vieille femme le possédait. I'm writing about one of my dogs here, my Blue dog. This sentence translates as such, "Before he was at the shelter, an old woman owned him." Here is the sentence my teacher would prefer: Avant d'être à l'abri, une vieille femme était sa maîtresse. This sentence translates as, "Before being at the shelter, an old woman was his mistress/owner." Okay, folks, what's the difference between these two sentences? Not a goddamn thing. It's word choice. And sentence structure choice. In other words, a matter of opinion. There was nothing wrong with the first sentence. Nothing.

At another point in the composition, I used the word ainsi. She circled this word and wrote: "vocab- utilise plutôt 'donc.'" (Translation: "vocab- use rather 'donc.'") Only ainsi and donc ARE FRICKIN' SYNONYMS! They mean, "so" or "therefore." My sentence (translated) was, "She couldn't tell me, "No," therefore we adopted him [Chester] too." And my teacher is going to cross out "therefore" in favor of "so"?! Are you kidding me? I mean, am I a master of the French language? Am I so good that we need to be this picky?!

And besides that, it's not even about being picky! It's about personal preference. And I hate it when my writing is graded based on the personal preference of my professor. I mean, listen buddy, I'm not you, I'm not in your head. I cannot write it the way you would write it! I am a completely separate person! It is not fair (and I hate using that word) to grade me based on your preference for "so" versus mine for "therefore." It just isn't!

So now what to do? I want to set up a meeting with my teacher and say, "What is this about? I mean, are you penalizing me for using a synonym?!" But then I hear that song in my head. I fight authority, Authority always wins. It's early in the game here. Should I just suck it up and make the arbitrary changes she requests? Or do I state my case? Naturally, I want to state my case...but is that the wisest thing to do? Only, it'll kill me to keep my mouth shut.