Sadness, Disgust, Unhelpful Dialogue, and Psychics

1. Started to watch an episode of Tangle.

It's so weird to see Ben Mendelsohn in the recap scenes. He's such a jerk on this show. When I saw him yesterday in the Efficiency Expert, he was so sweet and adorable.

2. Wanted to clarify that Mendelsohn's character on The Efficiency Expert wasn't perfectly wonderful and nice. He was kind of a jerk sometimes. But he was an innocent, lost kind of jerk.

In Tangle, he's a jerk in a very not-sweet way.

3. Realized that Kat Stewart sort of reminds me of Carla on Coronation Street.

4. Decided there's not a huge resemblance—just a small one. Maybe it's the cheekbones?

5. Saw that Alison White from Satisfaction is on Tangle. She was also on season one.

I can't remember if I saw her on Tangle first, or Satisfaction.

6. Liked that Tangle had a scene with two teenagers cuddling their mother; and it was presented as a tender moment, unlike Bates Motel, which always presents such things as being sinister and creepy.

7. Finished watching the episode.

It was slow and depressing.

The death and funeral itself wasn't very sad. It's more about the people's reaction to it. They go through the motions while getting intoxicated by various substances.

8. Started watching another episode of Tangle.

9. Thought of Pixar's Inside Out.

If Sadness and Disgust got together to write a TV show. It would be like Tangle.

I think I'd prefer a TV show written by Sadness and Joy.

10. Thought that Offspring is a Joy/Sadness kind of thing.

11. Liked what Christine (Catherine McClements) says to her husband Tim (Joel Tobeck).

She's angry with him, because, while drunk at a wake, he kissed the widow (Justine Clarke).

Tim asks if they can talk about it. Christine says, I don't want to talk about it. I will, like I always do. And we'll make our peace like we always do. But right now, I just want to hate you for a few hours.

There's so much truth to that.

Dialogue doesn't always fix things.

Sometimes people just need space and permission to be angry for awhile.

12. Thought of how I've had times where I'm angry. There's conversation, apologies, and an illusion of fixing things. But later I think about the problem and don't feel like anything has gotten better.

The conversation hasn't given me any sense of peace or satisfaction.

13. Appreciated that the show had a positive portrayal of a psychic.

Gigi (Eva Lazzaro) visits one, seeking information about her dead father. When the psychic begins to read Gigi's future, Gigi stops her and tells her she doesn't want that information. She asks if the psychic knows about dead people. The psychic is honest and tells her she doesn't have that gift. This makes me feel she's real, in the context of the TV show, because if you're going to fake one gift, why not fake all of them?

Then again, it could be that she doesn't mind scamming people with a future reading but isn't low enough to trick someone into thinking she can contact their dead relative.

She seems nice ,though—spiritual in a gentle way. She talks about looking for signs from dead people and gives the example of being followed by a seagull after her sister died.  The idea she seems to be conveying is that anyone can read and interpret signs.  She doesn't say anything like, if you need to talk to your dad, for a hundred dollars I can pass on a message to him.  

14. Wondered, out of the psychics charging for their services, how many are completely for real; how many are total scam artists; and how many have real gifts but do a lot of exaggerating and fabricating?

15. Finished watching the episode of Tangle.

I liked it a little better than the previous one.

16. Saw that Ryan Corr is on my next episode of Tangle.

That might be fun.

I wonder if I'll like his character.

17. Went to Palg 1305's Twitter Account.

Today I'm going to look at his photos of Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

I think that's in Queensland somewhere.

18. Went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary website.

They're located in Brisbane.

19. Saw that Lone Pine is having a Halloween celebration. It involves food trucks, face-painting, bingo, a jumping castle, and a haunted garden thing.

20. Saw that Lone Pine shows movies on Friday nights. And for Halloween-Saturday, they're having a double feature—Monsters University and Ghostbusters.

21. Thought the koala in this photo looked darling.

22. Felt weird saying the word "darling". I don't think I usually use that word.

23. Wondered what's in this photo.

Maybe a platypus?

24. Liked the frog in this photo. He's very cute.

25. Liked this Cassowary photo.

He looks like a proper dinosaur descendant.

26. Thought this kangaroo was sexy, but then I changed my mind.

He looks like the type of guy who thinks he's all that, but he's really not.

27. Thought that this Kookaburra looks like a grandmother.

28. Thought this Tasmanian devil looks very sweet, but I don't like the blurry leaves in the foreground.




How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts