Law & Order: All You Need To Know About The System

Who doesn’t love L&O?  I mean, come on!  I love all three versions of it, because each has at least one character that I adore and a premise that’s intriguing.  My favorite has to be the original because I adore Jack McCoy, the District Attorney.  I loved the earlier episodes starring Jerry Orbach (RIP); after he died, the people they used to fill his spot couldn’t measure up.  The new cop, though, has renewed my interest.  Law & Order: Criminal Intent is my second favorite because Vincent D’Onofrio is an astoundingly excellent actor.  Following that would be Law & Order: Special Victims Unit only because I don’t watch it as often as the others.

There is one episode that sticks in my mind, bothering me.  I was twittering about it, but I haven’t blogged it yet.  I don’t know what the name of it was, but I remember it very clearly.  I didn’t really like it because the new cop was some bitchy chick I wanted to slap.  By the time I was done watching it, I was speechless, my mindset devastated.

A murderer escapes from death row to say goodbye to his mother (who has terminal cancer) and to get her forgiveness for all the killing he’s done.  She refuses.  This sets him off on a rampage where he takes some kids (10 of them maybe, about ten years old.) hostage.  ONe of the girls’ fathers knows she’s in there and she’s in trouble because she’s diabetic.  The police tried to negotiate.  He killed all of the children.  (I was in shock by now.  They usually save the hostages!  I was like, why?)  So, he goes on trial for murder, but it doesn’t matter because he already had two life sentences for all the murders he had committed.  This woman running for governor comes into the picture, pulling for the death penalty, which is outlawed in New York.  At this point, the father from earlier is distraught, who wouldn’t be after their daughter is killed?  One day, the murderer comes out after his trial and is shot by the father.  The father is arrested for murder.   

The father is being defended in court by the woman running for governor.  Her stand?  “He took action when the state did not act quickly enough.”  Jack’s stand: “He broke the law.  If we exempt him from prosecution, then people will think it’s acceptable to kill all the bad people.”  The jury found the father guilty of murder, even though he was set up by the governor lady to bolster her numbers.

And this bothers me; not that he was guilty, or that the governor was so awful, but how the two views are so…different.  Which one is right?  You can argue both sides.  But, after the father is convicted, the governor lady has been accused of setting the man up to kill the murderer.  The man’s time is reduced, but they’re both put in prison.

I watched this a very long time ago and it’s STILL BOTHERING ME.  I understood the conviction.  You can’t make exceptions to the rule, because then everyone will want to be an exception.  The system woudl fall apart.  But, he did break the law.  I can understand that also.  What bothers me is:  Should the people take over when the people’s government fails?

I’m Everything You Hate

I haven’t had much to write about these last few days…weeks…but I was reading a magazine that I got as a requirement, and it made me think.  One or two stories in particular.  April’s edition of Glamour was what I picked up (along with Blender and Elle, the latter has Natalie Portman on the cover and she is GORGEOUS) and I just finished reading through it.  So, now I can tell you about the articles that made me think.

Article Numero Une:  “Single Female Seeks Baby, Now!”
Open Diary article by Jessica Queller, writer for show Gossip Girl

It starts off with a story of how her mother died of ovarian cancer after defeated breast cancer.  This prompts her to get a mastectomy (breast removal) and then a reconstruction.  Both of these topics lead to her “baby-making” plans as she calls them.  PGD (preimplantation genetic diagonsis) is one of her first thoughts, to make sure her babies won’t have the risk for ovarian cancer and breast cancer, but then her ethics tell her otherwise.  I was reading all of this like, oookay, and then the next part is what hit me really hard.  She ends up telling a group that she doesn’t want a boyfriend.  She only wants to find a suitable donor.  Two guys–TWO–offer to be the donor, one actually telling her he’d help raise the kid.  There is a definite awww…factor  there, but then, she turns them both down. 

Searching through some sort of anonymous donor thing, she finds the perfect guy, only to find out, when she was on the verge of purchasing the sperm, that his sperm was no longer available.  She ends up finding another candidate, of course, but after insemination, her pregnancy test was negative.  I was so sad when I read that one pink line showed up.  She wanted a baby so bad, and it didn’t happen.  But, at least she knows that there is definitely one in the near future, right?

I don’t know why, but I had never really thought about having kids that way.  These past few weeks, I have undergone some serious thinking, and some serious changes, and I realize, kids might be a possibility.  I want to experience pregnancy, just like this woman.  She didn’t necessarily want to get narried, but she did want to go through precnancy.  I totally agree with that idea, but it seems lonely to me.  It’s just good to know that you DON’T have to be married to have kids, which has been pounded into my skull with a concrete mallet most of my life.

Article Numero Deux:  “Salma: On Her Lifesaving Work (And Brand-New Baby)”
Interview between Salma Hayek and Eve Ensler, the playwright who brought us the Vagina Monologues

Salma Hayek is very outspoken against any domestic violence, and is very involved in the movement against.  Apparently, she witnessed a lot of it, and being a strong woman, she didn’t stand for it.  A lot of the interview talked about her pregnancy and her new baby, Valentina, but it just made her seem so much stronger.  She’s having a long-distance engagement, raising a baby, performed in the Vagina Monologues, and participates in a movement against domestic violence.  Not to mention she’s gorgeously curvy.

This article was just very motivating.  I’ve had relationship issues–and I’m not just talking about boyfriend-wise–but this time I refer specifically to it.  Both of these articles really showed me that you don’t necessarily need someone to make you whole.  Someone else can make you feel better, but all your self-satisfaction has to come from yourself, because you really do count.

I did a lot of reflecting today, especially after that first article.  I just want to show the world and be like, “SEE!? YOU WERE WRONG! I DON’T NEED A GUY TO COMPLETE MY LIFE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!”  I’m not referring to anyone in specific, but I’m referring to some people out there who constantly moan over the fact that they don’t have a boyfriend.  My advice?  Get over yourself.  You’ll get one soon enough.  For me?  Right now, I’m content to love my friends, my self, my new found independence from the general consensus, and my writing.  Because that’s all that matters, right?

The One That Saves Me

I am listening to the song “Wonderwall” by Oasis and it’s summing up my mood right now.  If you can even call it a mood.  I just feel…blah.  Like nothing important or urgent is going on right now in the world.

I should be writing right now, working on the final draft of my novel, but I don’t feel like it.  I just want to leave my made up world alone because everything’s consuming me.  It’s overwhelming me, almost.  All I’ve listened to for the past day or so is yelling and crying and I am so fucking tired of it that I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.  Stress is curled up in my bones, eating away at me until I just sit and cry for what seems like hours but only turns out to be maybe five minutes.  What is up with that?

My perception of emotions, time, and direction have always sucked, but this week, it’s like it has gotten worse.  I have begun to look at a lot of my opinions and question them.  Like the marriage and children one.  Ugh.  I don’t want to think about that.  I don’t want to think about my future.  It all looks so dim.  Graduate high school, go to college, get a job, find an apartment, find someone to live with for the rest of my life or die alone  live alone.  Everyone dies alone, I think.  Not to sound skeptic or morbid, but isn’t true?  Death is a solitary path that no one can help you along spiritually.

Neil Gaiman portrays Death as Sleep’s older sister in The Sandman and she is gorgeous.  It’s kind of like a subliminal messaging.  Maybe death isn’t really as scary as some people think it is.  Death doesn’t scare me.  Growing old does.

 

Backbeat the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don’t believe that anybody feels
The way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don’t know how

Because maybe
You’re gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You’re my wonderwall

-Oasis “Wonderwall”

Talk About PMS

I bought so much food today at lunch it is insane.  I am like two days away from my period and I’m going crazy.  It really explains the moodswings. Anyway, time to talk about my life…

I think my blog is boring.  I don’t do the cool picture thing everyone else does on like a weekly basis. When I need to represent a feeling I can’t put into words, I’ll put a picture up.  But other than that, it’s not happening.  Andrew calls this my “rant page” as if the blog is all one page.  (He knows nothing of blogs.)

Moving on.  Being in love isn’t as bad as it has been all year.  Still in love with the guy who is completely blind, according to my favorite hamster.  Whatever.  The year’s almost over, so it’ll probably be over then.  I pray that it won’t, but it will, because having confidence in the keeping in touch thing is really difficult.  I am trying to focus my doting attention upon my new love, William, the character of my book that is currently in the stage of rewrite!

Rewriting isn’t as hard as writing the book was in the first place, so that’s all good.  It’s easier to write it like it’s in the twenty-first century instead of in the nineteenth.  It’s a two hundred year difference.  My characters are a little more believable, because I have no idea how they talked back then, so there are no contractions throughout the novel.  (I mean the don’t, can’t shouldn’t, not the birth ones.)  Plus, I can make William look exactly how I want him:  tattoos and piercings, wherever I want them.  (Hah! You’re sick if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.)

So, I was sitting on my bed the other day, minding my own business, reading my Batman comic book when I realized, life really isn’t as difficult as people make it out to be.  I mean, it’s difficult in varying levels for varying people, but my life is fairly simple.  If I did my homework every so often, I could probably be class valedictorian.  Our class valedictorian has a teacher for  a parent, so they expect alot more.  My parents just expect me to the best I can.  I have a 4.2 doing absolutely nothing.  If I tried, it’d be a lot higher than that, but I have aspirations outside of doing homework seven hours a day. 

My weekend will be spent doing a research paper, and what little homework I want to do, while reading Michael Crichton’s Timeline, which is an amazing book.  I don’t really like male writers.  I have three exceptions:  Michael Crichton, John Grisham, and The Struggling Writer.

I hope all of you have a fabulous weekend, if I don’t post again until Monday, which is really probable, because I’ll be rewriting!  Here’s a picture for you to think about:

 

Aren’t they beautiful?

 

Overrated Anomaly

As a 15 year old girl, I should be having a wild social life, chasing every boy that passes by, and drinking till I don’t remember anything.  I just don’t want to. 

Ramxpage and I are an anomaly.  While other girls have issues finding guys, we have issues getting rid of them.  No joke.  We also have issues picking winners, because, trust us, a lot of the guys we consider are…  Well, we have a list actually, and maybe we’ll post that.  For me, it seems the number one attraction involves  him doing drugs, because I have never dated a guy without a drug, alcohol, or sex problem.  Everyone has their problems, but my typical boyfriend just seems to have those.  My friends look at me with those “What the hell are you thinking?” looks and I’m just like, you know what?

My taste in guys sucks.  I usually end up in crappy relationships, and then I get my heart broken, and have a fight with my dad, because I won’t tell him what’s wrong.  I just won’t talk to my dad about breakups, I don’t care how upset I am.  It’s awkward, and I don’t want him running amok with a shotgun, looking for the poor unfortunate soul who had once dated me.

It’s like a big warning sign:

DO NOT DATE THIS GIRL IF YOU ARE COMPLETELY NORMAL AND DO NOT DO DRUGS AND ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 15!

That’s the other thing.  I won’t date anyone younger than me.  I’ve had offers, but I turned ‘em down flat.  Sorry, not interested.  I can’t handle knowing that I’m older than the kid physically, but if I’m physically older, than I am mentally older too.  I am like a mother in my mindset.  I have the strange urge to protect everyone.  Have you ever seen the movie Raising Helen?  I am Joan Cusack’s character to a t, but I keep everything inside. 

I mean, what is up with me?  Why does my taste suck so badly?  It’s horrible, and I can’t really fix it, because it’s like ingrained on my skull.  I find the bad boys completely appealing.  Add in lip piercings and tattoos and I’m good.  I mean, I would marry the Punisher, for God’s sakes, just because he has that edge of danger.  Omg, I have problems. 

Anyway, I am an anomaly, and men are overrated.  Someone help me.

I’m an American…Is That A Good Thing?

I am so tired of people telling me about what foreigners say about us.  Because, while it may be true, people love to use stereotypes and generalities.  My French teacher told us that as long as we tried to speak French while in France, we would be okay.  French people don’t expect much from us Americans, she told us. 

Do foreigners really think that?  Even if they do, is it the vast majority, or a small portion, the portion that really only matters to the European economy.

I may be lazy, but I am not so lazy that I sit on my ass all the time and eat.  I’m not obese.  I don’t care that the doctors all say that it’s 2/3 of Americans are overweight.  I am at a healthy, attractive weight if I do say so myself.  Just because I don’t wear a 0 or a 1 does not mean I am fat.  No one has a problem with my weight.  Why should I listen to people who deal in numbers? 

I lost my point there.  What I’m really trying to say is this: I may be American but I’m not anymore lazy than any other kid in this world.  Do kids in other countries sit about with a book and read for hours on end?  YES!!! (And if they don’t, I’m sad for them.  I would die if I didn’t read as much as I do.)  I make good  grades, I’m seriously trying to be fluent in French.  I just don’t want people to judge me based on the rest of the country.  I hate group punishment.   

In Memoriam: Heath Ledger

At 28 years old, one of my favorite actors is dead.  I did not want to believe my dad when he told me, but a quick trip to CNN, I found it was true.

As you know they found him dead in an apartment, naked with sleeping pills beside the bed.  Everyone is waiting for the autopsy, and then we’ll know.  It is all too reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe.

I had just been talking about him the day before, because he is playing The Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight which debuts this summer.  It felt odd, to talk about him one day and find out he’s dead the next.

Dying young has never been on my list of objectives, but when they put Heath’s age on the screen, it made me realize I’m not immortal.  I’ve always known that, but when someone dies so young its a cold slap in the face.  It says, “I’m coming for you.”

This is in memoriam for Heath Ledger, 28 years old.  Rest in peace, Heath.

The First To End

This post is about one of the proudest moments in my life.  I am like *this* close to being done with the first manuscript of my novel.  I am so freaking excited that I can’t wait to work on it…the only reason I’m not doing that at the moment is because I’m talking to y’all.  Rachel is only a week or so away from being the queen of England.  But, she told me she wasn’t going to read what made her the queen of England because it wasn’t part of our agreement.  Figures.

My manuscript so far is 192 pages without the long excerpt I had to edit, which is, at the moment, in a separate document, so with that…it’s over 200 pages, and then I have to write the last five or six chapters, which should take me like two days, depending on how much computer time I get.  Hamz likes reading my work, so she unwittingly deemed herself my critiquer.  She gets to check for my mistakes.  Maybe not.  I’ll probably have my mother do that and then Hamz can read it for leisure. 

I have discovered that the Moulin Rouge soundtrack is one of the most motivating.  It kept my attention on writing for over two hours.  Normally, I get on the computer, I write for maybe twenty minutes and then I get bored.  Then, I blog or mess around with my settings on my blog, get bored with that and play freecell until my dad tells me to get off the computer.  So, yeah.  I have the attention span of a goldfish with ADD, as I have told you before, and that only applies to my writing, because I can sit and read an entire book with only breaks for the bathroom.  Unlike Rampage, you have to tie her down, drug her, and give her enough food to feed an entire third world country to get her to read.  Just kidding, ramxpage. 

It also helps that yesterday my parents were talking about my brother and his band competition and how proud they were.  Great, yeah, I’m proud, too, but since no one seems to care about my writing, the only way to get attention is to finish the first draft, and have my mother edit it.  I think she will like it.  I know I love it and you know if you like it it has to be good.  :D  Wow, that can apply to so many things that I shouldn’t have said it.

Anyway, my manuscript is so close to being finished that I am on the verge of going psycho because I’m so EXCITED!  I’m going to Ramxpage’s hockey game tonight and chilling at her house for a while, so I’ll be put back a day or so in my writing.  Oh, well.  I’ll post about the results of the game, and how everything’s going tonight!

The Greatest Thing You Will Ever Learn

“The greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

That is my quote of the day, because I just watched that movie again.  That’s why I have a Nicole Kidman avatar, becuase it’s from Moulin Rouge!  I adore that movie.  Listening to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street soundtrack.  Still haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m loving the soundtrack!  I am currently reading Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and I love it!

Anyway, I haven’t posted forever.  I am taking a break from writing because I have midterms and I can’t get into any of my stories, except one and I have to come to up with a decent skeleton for it, and so far all I’ve got is the ribcage, if we’re still going with the bone metaphor. 

Have I ever told you guys how much I despise young adult novels?  The supernatural ones at least?  Well, I’m going to go off on my little hate wagon and tell you guys anyway.

First of all, the heroines or heroes are usually annoying little nits that you absolutely cannot stand. I know that.  Sorry, Fluffy, but I have to rag on the Isabella Swan character.  All that chick does is cry or beg someone to bite her.  I honestly don’t see the allure of immortality.  I’ve suffered enough in the fifteen years I’ve lived.  Why would I want to live till the end of time?  Then, you have the stories that have the funky endings that are so open that you could just really shoot the book.  I hate those.  I guess I am just used to reading the adult supernatural novels where the characters are amazing.  I’m done.

I just got some young adult books and I tried to read them.  I really did…then I quit.  I still have a couple Anita Blake books left to read…and one to buy because Ramxpage’s b-day is going to be here in three days’ time!  But, we also go back to school that day.  I can’t wait to give Ramxpage her birthday card.  It’s so wrong that my mom won’t let me show my dad lest he have a heart attack.  :D  Yeah, that’s how bad it is.

My second favorite Christmas movie was played four times a row on TBS the night before Christmas.  Christmas Vacation is the best Christmas movie aside from It’s a Wonderful Life because it is so hilarious.  I laugh every time I watch it, no matter how many times I’ve watched it that way.  Chevy Chase is just so expressive. 

The Trip to the Library

For, like, the past six months, I have had a $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble.  I recently spent the rest of it buying For a Few Demons More and I am quite happy with that, but now I am back to the library.  I was happy about that, because for the first time in the whole year of 2007, I got over two books that I was really excited about reading…okay, maybe rereading, but still I was excited.  Ramxpage is probably like, “Wow, she is such a loser…”  Maybe I am.  So sue me.  Anyway, I got the new hardback that Laurell K. Hamilton put out Burnt Offerings and I have only read that once, because the library never has it, and I just haven’t the money to buy it right now.  (I am contemplating whether or not to apply for a job at the movie theater.  A job is a big responsibility, and I have enough.  Like this blog.  JK!) 

Anyway, I found the copy of The Princess Bride that jsut came out, abridged by William Goldman, who is absolutely hilarious by the way.  I also got the new series Yasmine Galenorn is writing about the three sisters, in which one is a vamp, one is a witch, and one a shapeshifter, and they all have these funny quirks.  I got The Killing Dance, The Harlequin, and Burnt Offerings by Laurell, and then I got Sherrilyn Kenyon’s new one, which I have been waiting for for like ever.

So, I am content.  And I watched Moulin Rouge last night.  (Thank you Rampage).  It kind of depressed me, but at the same time I was like, I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!  Best movie of all time.  So I’m posting lyrics before I head to the last first period I will have in two weeks!  Woot baby!

(This is the song they sing when you first meet Christian and then after the tragedy!  Enjoy!)

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return”