Wedding Wishes, Apologizing for How We Look, Suicide Prevention, and Tough Times

1. Misled by headlines on News.com.au.

The headline reads, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Valentine message to Lucy slammed by proponents of gay marriage.

I pictured people getting nasty and mean about the whole thing.

Maybe some people did.

But the examples of what people wrote, that are provided by the article, are very civil, well written, and persuasive.

The basic idea of the example messages is, It's nice you guys have a lovely marriage. We'd like one too, thank you very much.  

2. Wondered if I'm misdefining the term "slammed".  I guess I'm picturing it as being more intense, angry, and mean.

I'm picturing the response, on Twitter, given to Charlotte Rampling when she said something controversial about Oscars diversity. The general attitude there was, you're dumb. We don't like you anymore. Go hide under a rock for the rest of your life.  No one actually said those exact words. It's just the general feeling of the Tweets.

3. Thought the messages to Turnbull (quoted in the article) went well with that saying about catching more flies with honey than vinegar.

4. Tried to understand the whole Kristen Davis thing. This is the second or third time I've seen something about it.

I guess she was on a show, in Australia, that tried to do a funny skit about Sex and the City, and it didn't go well.

Was it offensive? Not funny enough? Kristen Davis wasn't in the mood?

5. Started watching the last season one episode of Wicked Science.

6. Thought the miniature T-rex in this episode was pretty cool.

7. Enjoyed the special effects in the episode.

8. Went to Random.org to pick my next Australian thing to watch.

It's a movie called Adore. The stars are Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, and Xavier Samuel.

I'll probably start watching that on Tuesday.

9. Saw from IMDb that the original title of Adore is Perfect Mothers.  I'm guessing original means it's the Australian title.

10. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

11. Saw a reference to Australians in my favorite Disney blog.

In a post about the Three Caballeros Anthony says,  There is an appearance by gay icon Carmen Miranda's sister Aurora. (I know it's kind of like getting Dannii Minogue when you were hoping for Kylie, but I'll take it!)

I might actually prefer Dannii to Kylie—just because I preferred Danni on Home and Away to Kylie on Doctor Who.

12. Remembered I saw Kylie on Neighbours. I liked her on that.

13. Decided I like the Minogue sisters equally...although really not that much.

It's not that I have anything against them.  It's just I'm not really that much into them.

I'm pretty neutral about the whole thing.

14. Read a little bit more of Bridget Neval's blog, and learned she once baked a cake in honor of Will Smith's birthday. This was as a fan not a fellow actor.

That's very sweet.

Neval lists it as something embarrassing.

I don't think it's that embarrassing.

As far as enthusiastic fan behavior goes, baking a cake is very benign.

15. Decided that baking a cake for a favorite celebrity is benign UNLESS the fan tries to deliver the cake to the celebrity's doorstep.

That would be a bit scary.

16. Decided if the cake baker is a neighbor of the celebrity, it's not so awful for them to bake a cake...UNLESS they became a neighbor because they were fans of the celebrity.

17. Followed the Twitter link on Bridget Neval's blog, because there's a Tweet that I find to be a bit disturbing.

In most other people, I'd just see it as a rude and stupid Tweet. But with Neval's eating disorder issues, I find it more sad.  She Tweets, Uhhhh feeling slightly bloated today so I gotta apologise to everyone who's ever had to look at me ever because I'm so sorry I'm a monster.

18. Thought that in most cases people don't need to apologize for their appearance.

I think the only exception is if they're not dressed appropriately for an occasion.

Let's say someone is supposed to go to a wedding. Their plane is late. They don't have time to change, so they show up to the ceremony in a casual outfit. They had made the decision that being there was more important than being there with the appropriate outfit.

I think they made the right choice, and it's not their fault that the plane was late. But still, it's nice to give an apology.

19. Felt bad for Maddie (Kassandra Clementi) on Home and Away.

Her social life isn't going well, and she just found out the chemo isn't working.

That's not a very good day.

I think Roo (Georgia Parker) isn't making things easier, though. She's pushing Maddie to be with her friends even though Maddie doesn't have many friends. Out of the friends that she does have, one dumped her, and the other publicly humiliated her about being dumped.

Pushing people to spend time with their friends when those friendships aren't going well isn't that helpful.

I think Roo should be there for Maddie. She can be Maddie's friend at this point. Then, hopefully, as time passes, Maddie can feel better about being around her peers.

20. Went to the Tropfest website.

Today I'm going to watch a 2010 finalist film called "Smoking Will Kill You".

21. Saw that "Smoking Will Kill You" is four minutes.

I've noticed that most of the 2010 films are shorter than the Tropfest films from the previous years.

22. Saw that Toby Truslove is in the movie.

I think he's that actor from The Strange Calls.

And I think he might be the star of the 2010 Tropfest winner film. There's a photo from the film, and it looks like him.

23. Reminded by IMDb that Truslove was also in Outland.  I liked that show...better than The Strange Calls.

24. Saw that Truslove is NOT in the 2010 Tropfest winner.

The person I'm seeing in the photo is actually Patrick Brammall.

Oops.

25. Went back to watching the smoking movie.

26. Thought the actress in the movie looks familiar.

27. Thought the movie was a bit silly. The whole thing is a guy goes outside at work to smoke. For some weird reason, he stands on the ledge of the building. I guess he's a risk taker? Then a woman comes outside and assumes he's committing suicide. She tries to talk him out of it.

I usually think misunderstandings are hilarious. This is different, though, because I don't get why someone would stand on a ledge just for the hell of it. It seems far-fetched.

28. Finished watching the film.

There was good irony, so I like it for that. But the building ledge idea felt weak to me.

29. Thought of the general idea of the film. Someone tries to talk someone out of suicide. Yet they do such a bad job, they end up making a NOT suicidal person suicidal.

I can't think of specific examples, but I feel maybe there have been times in my life where someone tried to cheer me up when I wasn't actually feeling bad, and they ended up saying things to make me feel bad.

Or maybe I was feeling bad, but they made me feel worse?

30. Wondered if I've ever done that to anyone.

31. Saw that the actress who looked familiar to me is Heidi Arena. I know her from The Librarians.   I think she played the character who uses a wheelchair.

32. Saw that Raphael Sammut, the director of "Smoking Will Kill You", has done crew-type work on Tangle, Rush, and Offspring.

33. Noticed that Sammut doesn't have anything on his filmography past 2011.

Maybe he's doing advertising work. Theater? Something completely different?

34. Found an article about Raphael Sammut and his Tropfest film.

It's confusing, because it says, Raphael Sammut is the director of Smoking Will Kill You, the story of Bill and Sammy; two men who should never have met.

As far as I know, that's a mistake. Sammy was a woman, not a man.

35. Learned that Sammut figured out he wanted to be in the film industry when he was a child, but he mistakingly believed you had to be an actor to do that. Later, he learned he could get work behind the scenes.

36. Learned that Sammut had a lot of struggles in his career.

37. Liked how Sammut describes his average working day. The average working day for me finds me working as a production runner while dreaming of a directing career.

Sammut describes his work as a production runner. It's pretty much a gopher type job

38. Learned that Sammut was working on a feature film. Then he lost funding and had to break the bad news to everyone.

It's hard enough having bad news about your career. I'm sure it's much worse when the bad news for you is also bad news for other people.

39. Started to watch another episode of Home and Away.

40. Glad that Evie (Philippa Northeast) is reaching out and acting like a friend to Maddie.

It makes me think of the bad-weather friend concept.

The fair-weather friend wants to be around you only when things are going well. They disappear when you reveal you have a problem.

The bad-weather friend doesn't give you the time of day until you end up with cancer or have something like your whole family dying in a plane crash.

I feel that there's been times I've been the bad-weather friend, and I have conflicting feelings about that.

On the decency side, it could be that I'm better at being a listener to someone that has problems than being a fun friend when things are going well.

On the other hand, it could be that I don't care about certain people unless they're having a problem.

But really, I don't think it's that I don't care. It's just the world is full of people. With the Internet, our lives are packed full of people from our past and present. It's hard to make time for everyone, and if someone has a major problem, it might get them better noticed.

41. Wanted to clarify that I'm not this bad-weather friend on a regular basis. It's not like I have fifty friends with cancer, or other tragedies, that I'm juggling.

It's more like three or four people, in the last several years. And it's not really friendship—more like a few emails and/or giving their blog attention.

Anyway, though, seeing Evie be nice to Maddie made me kind of see things in a better way. Maybe it's not so bad to reach and be friendly towards hurting people that you weren't friends with before they were hurting.

 42. Had sympathy towards Maddie's viewpoint.

She questions getting more chemotherapy. If she's going to die, she doesn't want to spend her last days feeling like total crap.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

If there's a good chance, the second dose might save her, I think she should go for it.

If her chances are slim, I think it's best if she just dies in peace.

43. Thought, though, that I really don't want Maddie to die.

If I feel this way about a fictional character, I can understand real life people pushing their real life loved ones to fight for their life. I think it might be worse, though, to have to watch a loved one suffer.

44. Saw from the little preview photo of my next episode of Home and Away, that Leah (Ada Nicodemou) might be waking up from her coma. There's a picture of her with her eyes opened.

This comes after today's episode with VJ (Matthew Little) accepting that his mother might never wake up.

I'm glad Leah is going to wake up but annoyed that it looks like it's going to happen easily and so quickly.

Dragged out storylines can be annoying, but a storyline like this needs a little more time.

It's the same thing with Hannah (Cassie Howarth). I'm glad she's recovering from her paralyzation, but she really wasn't paralyzed for long at all.

Well, that being said...she still IS paralyzed.  If I was the writer, though, I would have held off on her getting feelings back in her leg.

45. Remembered that Phoebe (Isabella Giovinazzo) was very quickly rescued from her kidnapping.

People's problems are very quickly resolved in Summer Bay.

I really shouldn't worry too much about Maddie. Her cancer will probably be completely cured a few episodes from now.

46. Thought conversation between VJ and Zac (Charlie Clausen) was very uncomfortable.

VJ tells Zac that since Leah probably won't ever wake up, Zac doesn't have to play single parent to him anymore. VJ is very gracious about the whole thing.

It would be lovely if Zac told VJ he loves him and wants to continue being a father to him.  I guess they don't have the type of relationship. Zac IS hesitant about breaking the ties, but his attitude is along the lines of I SHOULDN'T abandon you. It's not a matter of Zac not wanting to abandon VJ.

47. Thought that Marilyn (Emily Symons) is very beautiful—beautiful in appearance and beautiful in personality.

48. Thought that Oscar's speech to Maddie was very touching.

She wants to give up, and he tells her she should fight—if not for herself then for the people who care about her.

I think it's nice to be reminded that people love you, and that it's important to them that you stay alive.

Though if Maddie's chances are slim, then maybe Oscar's words are kind of like emotional blackmail.

49. Decided it all depends.

Some people really might want to die, because they no longer want to feel the pain. They're over it. Being pushed to stay alive might just add to their stress and guilt.

On the other hand, some people might choose death because they feel their absence won't make that much of a difference to anyone.  For them, it might be really nice and important to hear that people want them to stay alive.

50. Thought that this could apply to more than just dying people. It could apply to suicidal ones as well.

Some people might kill themselves despite feeling loved, because they feel their problems can't be overcome.  It's just too hard.

Other people might want to kill themselves because they feel they're not loved enough.  In cases like that, I feel skeptical about how suicide prevention lines can help.  How can a stranger convince you not to die if you feel no one in your life loves you enough?

Well, I guess maybe they know what to say. There might be some magic words.

51. Imagined they can maybe give the suicidal person hope that one day love will come into their life.
I'm not talking about just romantic love. I'm talking about any type of love.  It's knowing that someone wants and needs you in their life—not out of obligation but because they're actually quite fond of you.

52. Saw that Leah wakes up in this episode.

It seems she has no signs of brain damage.

53. Wondered how rare it is for people to wake up from a traumatic brain injury without any major symptoms.

That being said, I don't know for sure that Leah is totally fine. They showed her for only a brief moment.

It's just that she looked like someone who had awoken from a long peaceful nap.  She didn't look agitated or damaged in any way.

Doctor Blake Guest Stars, Denial, Casey Braxton, and Gene Alberts

1. Saw, from Statcounter, that more people than usual are going to my Geoff Paine post.

I Googled to see what was up with that—hoping something bad hadn't happened to him.

Fortunately, it seems all is okay.

I think there's interest in Paine because he recently guest-starred on The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

2. Saw that Paine played Noel Foster. There's also a Valerie Foster on the episode, and she's played by Diana Glen.

Another name I recognize in the credits is Robert van Mackelenberg. I've been watching Mackelenberg lately in Wicked Science.  He plays the science teacher. In the episode yesterday, he was fired...by a clone of the school principal.

3.  Saw that Anna McGahan guest-starred in this episode, and her character has also appeared in another episode.

I wonder if she'll be in more.

Oh! And Rodger Corser is in the episode too.

I recognize a lot of names in the credits of the episode. It's just I don't know who's a regular cast member and who's a guest-star.

4. Thought that The Doctor Blake Mysteries sounds fun...at least in terms of actor appearances. I hope Hulu or Netflix has it someday.

5. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

6. Liked the way that Dina (Saskia Burmeister) handled Bianca's (Anya Trybala) question about what was going on with Toby.

Bianca can see something's going on with Toby—that there's some kind of secret.

Instead of continuing to deny it, Dena tells her that yes, something is going on, but it's up to Toby to tell her.

If someone's suspicious about something, it can be kind of cruel to keep denying that anything is happening. Doing so might make them feel delusional and/or paranoid.

7. Thought about when someone asks us what's wrong and we say "nothing" even though there's something obviously wrong.

It would probably be better to say something like Yeah, I'm a little down right now, but it's not something I want to talk about at the moment. 

Although sometimes we might say nothing is wrong, because we ourselves are in denial about there being something wrong.

8. Remembered times that someone thought that I was upset about something, but I really wasn't.

I think this is something that tends to happen with email and texting.

9. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

10. Felt disgusted with Brax (Stephen Peacocke).

He's being an ass about his friend Ash (George Mason) getting together with Denny (Jessica Grace Smith).

What kind of friend tries to forbid his friend from dating someone?

Well, if Friend A was in a relationship with the someone in the past, I can understand there being hard feelings about Friend B dating the someone.  Even then, though, I think people should try to be open-minded and forgiving.

This isn't the case with Brax and Denny, though. I have no idea what the case is—something to do with Denny being hurt in the past. Her man Casey died.  That hurt her. (Of course!)  Brax doesn't want her to get hurt again.

So, should she date someone immortal?

Well....

There's also the fact that Ash has been in jail. He has a criminal past.

Yes, I can understand people being judgmental about that. But Brax has been in prison too!

11. Learned, from dialogue on the show, that Casey died because someone was trying to get back at Brax.

That doesn't make me more sympathetic towards Brax.  Not that I'd say it was his fault that Casey died. But it's bad enough that he was an indirect cause of Denny losing her love. Now he wants to be the DIRECT cause of her losing another?

12. Learned from Lord Wiki that Casey was played by Lincoln Younes. That name sounds sort of familiar to me.

Casey's last airdate was September 16, 2014.  That's not very long ago.  I thought he had been dead for a few years, not a few months.

13. Looked at the date of the episode I'm watching today. It's April 1, 2015.  So, Casey died about seven months prior to that.

I'm wondering, though, if the appearance was a flashback or spirit visit kind of thing.

14. Learned from Lord Wiki that Younes was on Tangle. So that's why the name sounds familiar.

15. Learned that Casey is Brax's brother. Well, Brax is really Brax's last name—Braxton.  Casey was Casey Braxton.

16. Learned that Casey did die in September 2014.

17. Saw that Saskia Burmeister was on Home and Away—involved with Casey somehow.

I might have already known that about her. I forget.

18. Learned that Sasha (Demi Harman) once had feelings for Casey. The feelings, though, weren't mutual. Poor Sasha.

19. Learned that Casey was in a car accident caused by Josh (Jackson Gallagher) and Andy (Tai Hara). He was paralyzed.

Ah! Karma. Andy might have caused someone to be paralyzed. Then in the future his girlfriend becomes paralyzed.

20. Learned from Lord Wiki that Younes played Romeo on Tangle.  I remember him. He's the son of Roo Stewart, actually.

The original Roo....

21. Went to the Tropfest website.

Today I'm going to watch a 2010 Tropfest finalist film called "Stakeout".

22. Started watching the film.

23 Saw that the movie is about police officers who also happen to be Star Wars fans.

24. Realized I definitely have some police-prejudice.

I'm watching the film, thinking it's cute. But then I find myself thinking, these guys won't be so cute when a black teenager comes along for them to harass and murder.

25. Relieved to see that no innocent civilians were killed in the film.

It was sweet and cute.

I need to remember that not all police are bad. It's probably a small minority that does awful things.

26. Felt that, although some of my prejudice comes from what I've seen in the news, my prejudice feelings were probably increased yesterday from our government class. We learned about due process in the US, and ways that police will try to trick people into confessing without a lawyer.

What we read and saw made the police look very bad to me. It's like our government has created laws to make things as fair as possible, and the police find ways to circumvent the law.

I'm sure it's not all bad bad, though. I'm sure there are many police officers who truly care about people and want to help.  Like Katarina (Pia Miller) on Home and Away.  She told Nate why she had wanted to be a police officer.  When her dad died, her brothers went astray. She decided she wanted to help people....

I forgot how she wanted to help people.

I guess she wanted to help them stay away from crime.

27. Saw, from IMDb, that, in 2010, there were two short films called "Stakeout".

It got me a bit confused for a moment.

28. Saw that Jonathan Lee Jones, who plays one of the cops in the film, was recently in a horror movie called Hidden Peaks.

29. Watched the trailer for Hidden Peaks.

It's a horror movie with a first-person viewpoint.

It looks pretty good, actually...at least in terms of the visual effects, make-up, and cinematography.

Recently I saw news of a first person zombie film coming out. I got the sense that they were doing something innovative.  But I guess I was wrong. First person horror has been done before. Though maybe the other movie is the first ZOMBIE film that's first person.

30. Saw that there's a whole list of first person horror movies. But most of them (or all?) are found footage.

I'm not sure that's the case for Hidden Peaks. It didn't look like it.  I thought it more looked like a video game, but one that you're watching instead of playing.

31. Saw that the other cop in the movie was played by Tom Sheldrick. Sheldrick also wrote the film.

32. Went to the website of Gene Alberts, the director of "Stakeout".

33. Looked at some of Gene Albert's photography.

 Some of it was done in the U.S.

This picture has an American stop sign.

34. Started to watch Gene Albert's film "Painting with Light at Cockatoo Island", but the sound in it bothers me.

35. Had a dream flash when writing the above sentence. This is happening to me more and more often.

Is it common? Does it happen to other people?

It's these random memory flashes of past dreams I've had.

Certain things almost always bring them on—specifically flossing my teeth or clipping my toenails. I have no idea why!  I don't think I've had dreams about flossing or toenails.

36. Saw that Gene Alberts also designs book covers.

I'm pretty sure I've read one of the books shown on his side. It's called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. 

37. Checked my Goodreads shelf to see if I was thinking of the right book.

I am.

The cover on Goodreads is different, though, from the one on Albert's website.

I'm guessing maybe he designed the Australian cover?

Or the book might have multiple covers.

38. Saw that Gene Alberts was involved in couch-sitting.

His profile page says he's not accepting guests. Maybe he was a traveler rather than a host. Or maybe he's not accepting guests temporarily?

39. Saw that Gene Alberts is not into astrology.  He says, If you believe in star signs please keep it to yourself - for me its just effective cold reading and universal commonalities (everyone is in their head at times, is adaptable, is looking for love on some level, somewhat of an independent person but who also values friendship, seeks adventure, etc. give me a break)

Yeah. That's pretty much how I see it. Though I think it can be fun sometimes to imagine there might be truth to it.

At one time, I was really into numerology.  I think that's because my number fit me really well, and I could see other people in my life fitting with their number. Though it's probably one of those things where if I assigned other numbers to my family, I might see that fitting as well.

40. Thought about it, and decided that's not really true.

I think for the most part, my family DOES fit their numbers.

The biggest exception would probably be my older sister. She's a five, and totally does not seem like a five to me.  My dad, though, very much fits his eight. My mom and I both fit well with seven.  Tim fits well with one. My younger sister is a nine, and that fits her quite well.

Shit. Now I might end up getting all into this again.

41. Decided that numerology and astrology might be true. Or it could be that any truth we see in it  comes from coincidence.

It's fun, though. I think that's the main thing.

It can, though, get annoying when someone takes it too seriously and seems to see it as fact/science rather than a belief.

It's annoying when people get overly pushy about it.

42. Liked what Gene Alberts says about philosophy discussions. Yes please but no redundant semantics conversations. 

I wonder if he's talking about what I'm imagining he's talking about.

I've had debates/discussions/arguments with a certain person who tend to do this annoying thing. He'll disagree about something. Then when it's looking like I might be the winner in the particular argument, he'll get into semantics.

I wish I could think of an example.

43. Struggled to think of an example, and failed.

Basically, though, it's like the person just wants to WIN...even if they're "winning" based on a technicality.

44. Wondered about what Alberts says regarding girls.

He says he wants, girls to date who have an actual personality and good energy and a sense of humour.

At first, I was thinking, well, that's dumb. Every person has a personality.

But then I realized I HAVE met people that seemed to be lacking one.

What's the deal with that?

They must have a personality. But why don't I see it?  Is it hidden?  Or Is it right there, but I don't recognize it, because it's so different from my own?

45. Had an image in my mind of these no-personality people. They're like the minor characters in Puberty Blues or the victims in horror movies.

It's the people who don't seem to have any interest beyond having sex and getting drunk.

46. Liked that Gene Alberts likes epic ping pong tournaments.

That's cute.

47. Liked that Gene Alberts likes Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze.

Tim and I used to love Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Though I haven't seen much of their recent stuff.

48. Wondered if Kaufman and Jonze collaborated on anything after Adaptation.

49. Saw that they haven't.

It looks like Kaufman has been directing his own stuff lately.

As for Jonze, we did see Where the Wild Things Are a few years ago.

50. Found an article, from 2012, that says Gene Alberts got in trouble for selling alcohol without a license.

I don't understand most of it, but it sounds like he didn't do anything illegal on purpose.

I think maybe he was confused about the rules.

I learned, though, from the article, that Albert's stepfather is Grahame Bond, the guy who played Aunty Jack.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Bridget Neval, Labels, Spectrums, and Demi Harman

1. Dreamed that: I read about Saskia Burmeister and learn she had anorexia after her Wicked Science Days. I see a photo of her when she had the eating disorder, and she looks quite awful.

It comes time for me to pick my next Aussie TV show. I get confused about it and forget to go to Random.org like I usually do.  Finally, I remember, and that makes things a little less confusing.

I learn that the people who make Random.org are a bit peeved, because someone left a link to their website, and it leads to something scary. I worry it might be me that did it, but then I remember that I've never left a link to my blog on Random.org.

I pick a TV show. It ends up being a cartoon TV series. I've already seen one series of it. I'm not overly excited to see another.  

2. Googled Saskia Burmeister and eating disorders to see if there was any truth behind my dream.

I ended up learning that Bridget Neval is the one who had an eating disorder. 

Strangely, I'm seeing this information on Project Gutenberg.

I'm trying to figure out if she has a book on here? Or it could be just articles.  I'm confused.  

3. Disappointed to see that it's just an article...if that, even.  It's more just a rundown of Neval's career.

4. Saw that Neval has a blog, and one of the posts is about her eating disorder experiences.  

Hers was much more severe than mine. Actually, according to her, mine wouldn't have been an eating disorder.  

She has a list of things that ARE an eating disorder and a list of things that ARE not an eating disorder.  Though she does say, it's from her experience. 

To me, it looks like she's saying if your experiences match her own, you have an eating disorder. If your experiences don't match her own, you don't have an eating disorder.  

5. Felt differently than Neval. If I was writing the list, I'd divide it into different types of eating disorders.

I think hers was more internally based and related to depression. It's about self-hatred.

Mine was more externally based. Neval says in her list of not-eating disorder things, Vanity. It’s not motivated by an obsession with being beautiful or conforming to ideals about beauty. It’s motivated by self-hatred.

Mine was very much motivated by a need to be beautiful enough. Then the whole perfectionism/competitiveness thing kicked in.

 I think the vanity and obsessive-compulsive aspects of my personality went out of control.

I don't remember feeling self-hatred or feeling too fat when I was very thin. But I do remember feeling fat at a weight that now would feel very thin to me.

6. Thought that Neval's post reminds me of a post I once read about unschooling. It had the same kind of attitude. People shouldn't call yourself an unschooler unless they confirm to these guidelines.

Also, there are people who don't want other people calling themselves vegetarian unless they conform to certain standards.

Some people are very passionate and narrow-minded when it comes to defining the labels that apply to them. It's annoying.

On the other hand, I can see how it would also be annoying to find people using your labels when you feel they very much don't belong to your club.

For example, how would I feel if someone said they're homeschoolers, yet they send their kids to school.  I question them on this, and they say, well, on the weekends we watch the Learning Channel together.  

Or how about someone who says they're a vegetarian because they don't eat red meat. They eat only chicken and pork.

7. Thought of autism. Do parents of kids with severe autism feel resentful of parents of kids with very mild autism?  I mean do they have an attitude of, Oh God.  Don't act like you know what we're going through. We're totally NOT in the same boat.  

Then I remembered what I was thinking about this week. I was annoyed with the whole On the Spectrum label. I didn't get it, because I thought a spectrum included everyone. It's like a rainbow includes ALL the colors.

My feeling was that everyone should be on the autism spectrum.  Then I read something online that explained the autism spectrum doesn't include everyone. It just includes people with autism. It's a way of showing how there are vast differences in autism experiences.

I started thinking well, why not have a spectrum for a lot of things then?

Now I'm thinking it again.  Well, because I was sitting there feeling lost. Is it okay to tell people who label themselves that they don't fit with the label because their  experience is not close enough to your experience? Is it okay to label yourself as something when your experience and/or commitment is mild compared to other people's?

So, yeah. I totally think we should have a bunch of spectrums.

I'd start with an eating disorder spectrum. I was on the spectrum, but not near Bridget Nevel's place on the spectrum.

I'm on the vegetarian spectrum, and a person who avoids red meat could be on there too.  I'll try not to judge him just as I hope the vegan won't try to judge me.

8. Tried to think of other spectrums. We could have ones for schizophrenia, depression,  personality disorders, cancer, diabetes....

9. Remembered that, earlier this week, I also had the idea of spectrums for fandoms.

It's like, yes, I'm a fan of The Walking Dead, but I'm not to be confused with the people who go to Walking Dead conferences, attend Comic-Con, watch every episode of The Talking Dead, and  religiously follow Norman Reedus's Instagram.

10. Decided there would be a binge-watcher spectrum.

11. Concluded that there should be many other spectrums besides the autism spectrum.

 I'm now okay with people saying things like, She's on the autism spectrum. I'm not okay with people saying, She's on the spectrum.  It makes me feel like they're avoiding the word autism. And also, if it's THE spectrum, we should all be on it. You can't have a THE spectrum and exclude people. It's not fair.

It's rude.

12. Read a little bit more of Bridget Neval's blog and decided she aint one of my peeps.

I found something else that I disagree with.  On her FAQ page, she answers the question of why she left acting. She says, Long story short, I wasn’t confident enough and didn’t like being in an industry that furthered the culture of giving high kudos to people who aren’t doing anything to better society/humanity.

I totally disagree with that.

First of all, some actors do a lot of humanitarian work. They're all charitable and stuff.

Minus the charity stuff, I think film, television, and theater very much betters humanity and society. All those things are art, and actors are a part of that.

Does Neval not think art betters society and humanity?

That's SO different from my way of thinking.

I think art and entertainment are incredibly important.  Life would be so blah without entertainment. So, there's that.  Then also, art can be very influential.

Yesterday, I talked about the white balloon campaign.  Having virtual white balloons floating through cyberspace is supposed to help children who are sexually abused. I think that's kind of bullshit.  But how about a television movie that tells the story about an abused child. I think that's going to reach people in a MUCH deeper way.

13. Thought about how I was very involved with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation when I was a teenager.

Why? How did that happen? I saw a TV movie about Cystic Fibrosis.

14. Remembered that Cystic Fibrosis can have a spectrum too.

15. Felt that despite Bridget Neval annoying me with opinions so vastly different from my own; I still have a soft spot in my heart for her.

I'm not sure why.

It could be that despite our differences we have something in common. We both have been very open about our feelings and opinions on a blog.

There's a part of me that wants to close the window to Neval's blog and never look at it again.

Then there's another part of me that wants to bookmark it and see if we have anything else in common.

If I keep reading, will I end up liking her?  Or will I end up liking her even less?

16. Bookmarked her blog.

Though I don't know how often I'll read it.  I haven't been that great lately about keeping up with the blogs on my list.

17. Wanted to mention that on the episode of Coronation Street I watched last night, Eileen was watching Prisoner: Cell Block H.

That's the first time I've seen them reference an Australian TV show.

I've seen more mentions of American entertainment—Titanic, Breaking Bad, and It's a Wonderful Life.

Strangely, I don't think I've seen them mention any British TV shows or movies. Or maybe they did, but the reference went over my head.

18. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

I can see bits of Bridget Neval in Elizabeth—probably the anger bits and looking down at other people.

In both the things I read, from Neval, I felt she was looking down at other people.

In the first, it was people like me—those who have eating disorders that don't fit into her idea of eating disorders.

In the second, it was other actors.

19.  Wanted to add that I also see myself in Elizabeth, since I have anger about certain things, and I sometimes look down at other people....usually, the ones who have made me angry (Or annoyed)

20. Decided we should get rid of all medical and psychological labels and just call everyone weird.

We're all weird in our own little ways, whether it's something about our personality, our brains, our cells, our organs, our interests, etc.

We're ALL on the weirdness spectrum for at least one reason.

21. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

Rickie (Bonnie Sveen) is being more tolerable to me now.  Not only is she no longer standing in the way of Ash (George Mason) and Denny (Jessica Grace Smith) getting together; it looks like she might even be willing to help with the relationship.

I might have to eventually take her out of my dislike list and put her in my love list.

22. Saw that this episode was probably the last for Sasha (Demi Harman). She had a good-bye party and then went away on a bus. She's going to school in the city.

Well, actually she left before for school in the city but then she quickly came back. This time it looks like she's gone for good.

23. Looked at IMDb, and saw this was indeed Harman's last episode.

I wonder if she'll ever return.

24. Wondered what Harman plans to do with her post-Home and Away life.

25. Learned from Lord Wiki that Harman joined the cast of Winners and Losers.

I hope Hulu will have that show someday.

26. Learned that Demi Harman is Brooke Harman's sister!

I forgot who that was at first, but Lord Wiki reminded me. She's the actress from Dance Academy and the last season of The Secret Life of Us.

27. Learned that Demi Harman is dating her onscreen man (Alec Snow) in real life.

That's very cool.

I hope they're still together. Because on the show they just broke up. It was sad.  Them being still together in real life would be a happy thought for me.

28. Went to Demi Harman's Instagram.

29. Thought the woman, in the sunglasses, in this photo looks familiar. But I can't think of who she looks like.

Have I seen her somewhere? Or does she just remind me of someone else?

30. Realized she might actually be Demi Harman.

I guess she sort of looks like Demi Harman but not really.  She looks more like someone else.

31. Decided it probably is Demi Harman, and now I'm feeling stupid.

32. Saw that Demi Harman went to New York recently.

I miss it there, sort of.

I wonder when we'll go back.

We have no plans on the horizon, but maybe someday....

33. Saw another photo of Demi Harman where she looks more like someone else than herself.

Maybe the issue is she doesn't much like Sasha.

I'm used to her looking like Sasha.

Although most actors continue to look like themselves when they're playing a character.

34. Thought that maybe Demi Harman looks a bit like Mary-Louise Parker.

35. Thought that here, Demi Harman looks a bit more like Sasha.

You know who else she's been reminding me of the past week or so?  I haven't mentioned it before, because I kept telling myself I was wrong. I couldn't figure out why I saw a resemblance.

Anyway, it's Tracy on Coronation Street.  I think maybe their mouths are similar?

36. Liked Harman's post about happiness. It kind of reminded me of the happiness quote I saw yesterday.

Harman's post says the three essentials for happiness are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

I love that.

37. Went to my post yesterday, because I forgot what the other happiness quote had said.

It's from Sheldon Lieberman. His prescription for happiness is Being yourself. Doing what you love. Sharing your gifts. 

I think those are all great happiness ideas.

38. Decided I am usually happy (about 90% of the time), because I have all those things.

39. Liked Demi Harman's very political post.  It's long, so I won't quote the whole thing. I'll just give the first line and a half, which pretty much sums up the whole thing.  It is not Paris we should pray for. It is the world. 

It's mostly about supporting refugees, and remembering they're victims in all this too.

40. Found another good post about happiness.  This one is a quote from Oscar Wilde.  With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?  

I was going to argue, at first, that he forgot TV and the Internet. But I don't think those things were around in his days.  I bet if they were, he would have added them to the quote.

41. Wanted to clarify that I'm pretty sure the political post and the other happiness post were quotes as well. They MIGHT have come from Harman's own brain, but they seem to be reposts.

Still, I credit her for supporting the ideas.

I like that she has ideas that I like.

42. Liked Harman's berry photo.

43. Liked this cat photo.

I'm beginning to think I belong on the cat-lover spectrum.

I kind of thought I just liked the cats that are/were part of our family but didn't have cat-love in general.  Now I'm starting to really rethink that.

44. Had my cat love diminished a bit after seeing this photo.

45. Wondered if Demi Harman drew this fox.

It's an impressive drawing.

I wish I could draw that well.

46. Had my cat love restored and doubled with this photo.   Too cute!

47. Loved what's said in this post.  Master the art of observing.  It's a very good idea. I haven't mastered it, but I continue to work on it.



Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Christmas Island Crabs, Making Movies, Free Things, and White Balloons

1. Dreamed about Christmas Island.

I don't remember or understand enough of the dream to explain it.

All I know is, I was with a group of people, and I think maybe we were trying to catch the crabs.

2. Guessed that it's illegal to catch the crabs on Christmas Island.

3. Looked at a Christmas Island tourism page that talks about the crabs.

They don't mention it being illegal to catch them. They also don't mention it as an issue. What IS an issue is the crabs getting run over by cars. The island is working to reduce this from happening, which makes me think the crabs are loved and protected.

4. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

5. Thought Toby (Andre de Vanny) was being an unfair little shit in this episode.

He thinks he's being all wonderfully clever and heroic by trying to zap Elizabeth's (Bridget Neval) powers away.

How is that fair?

If he feels that it's right for Elizabeth to lose her powers, he should give up his powers as well.

Or maybe he's planning to do that.

6. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

7.  Continued to not like Rickie (Bonnie Sveen). Her attitude really gets to me.

8. Read an essay on iBooks by Baz Luhrmann.  It's from Lumina, a film journal I downloaded recently.

It's free, by the way. I was kind of excited about that.

Anyway, Luhrmann says there's no excuse for not making a film.

Reading that kind of stressed me out.  I felt guilty for not making a movie.

Then I realized he was probably directing his essay towards film students and filmmakers.

It's like I could say, there's no excuse for not having a blog.

EXCEPT there's the excuse of someone not wanting a blog.

There are certain things in life now that are so much easier and less expensive than before. If you wish to do these things, you don't have many good excuses not to do them.

Not every single person in the world has the means to make a film. You need some kind of computer. I think an iPhone would work.

My phone has iMovie; though I've never tried using the phone version.

9. Thought that unfortunately not everyone has a computer and Internet connection. But for the people who do, they have amazing opportunities available to them.

10. Thought of things I did today for free.

Well, first of all...I read an essay from an Australian film journal.  Twenty years ago, that would have been very hard to do.

I had a mini-French lesson.

I had free lessons in chemistry.

I wrote in my blog.

I wrote down my dreams in a private online journal.

I read some of the news.

11. Wondered if I could count my viewing of Home and Away and Wicked Science as being free.

I guess I could. Hulu lets you watch videos on your computer for free.

What's not free is the lack of commercials. I used to watch the commercials, but then Jack bought us the commercial free version of Hulu.

Still. Hulu provides those of us in the US with a ton of free programming.

12. Remembered Spotify.

Because of them, I listen to a lot of music for free.

13. Decided that in order to do something, wanting isn't enough.

You also have to have a lot of motivation. Because even though things are cheaper, they're not always very easy.

For example, I actually started thinking of making a film this morning. I was thinking about how sometimes Tim and I have funny ideas, and maybe we can make our own sketch comedy series.

It's so wonderful that these days. ANYONE can make their TV shows. You don't need to fly to Los Angeles and sweat profusely while pitching your idea to Hollywood executives.

You just make it and stick it on YouTube.

So, what's stopping me from pursuing my idea?  The main thing is, I'm only mildly interested in pursuing such a project. Making my own web series is not something I'm dying to do. It's more like something that sounds kind of fun but not more fun than other things I'd prefer to do.

The second thing is, although we sometimes have clever ideas, they're actually kind of rare.  It's not like we're coming up with things on a weekly basis. It might be more like we have an idea every few years.

(To be honest,....from memory I can think of only one idea we've had that might have been amusing to a general audience.  Our other ideas were practical jokes for my family)

The third thing is, I have one idea in my head now, and though it might not be too expensive to hire actors, write a script, film it, edit it, and post it on YouTube,  my idea is complicated when it comes to set/location.

My idea involves fantasy sequences, and I think it would only be good with multiple locations.

I'd probably need things like a forest and a ship.

Yeah....I think it would be an expensive and elaborate production.

It wouldn't be like a Baz Luhrmann film, but it would be more complicated than something like The Justice Lease.

14. Thought maybe one day I'll come with an idea that doesn't involve multiple sets/locations.

If that happens, maybe I'll consider making a film.

15. Went to the Tropfest website.

Today I'm going to be watching a 2010 finalist film called "Testicle".

This might be interesting.

16. Saw, like my Tropfest film for yesterday, this film is short. It's less than three minutes.

17. Wanted to say something else about my film idea.

It would also PROBABLY have to involve dead animals.  As a vegetarian, I'm thinking I probably wouldn't feel good about doing that.

I suppose we could use fake dead animals—special effects.  I think that might get expensive, though.

18. Returned to watching "Testicle".

19. Confused by the film.

I'm not sure what was happening in it.

There's a mom and dad, a baby, and what seems to be a pediatrician. The doctor talks to the parent's about the baby's missing testicle. At first I thought they might be at the doctor's office, but the baby and doctor were on the couch together.

I got the idea that the doctor had made a house call. Okay. But then all these other people were in the house.

I'm wondering if it's a shared house? Maybe all the people are housemates?

20. Thought I should probably mention the film is animated.

21. Saw that the film got very mixed ratings on YouTube.  Forty-Eight people gave it a thumbs up, and thirty-eight gave it a thumbs down.

It seems many commenters were confused by the film and confused about why it was a Tropfest finalist.

22. Saw that Igor Coric, one of the directors of "Testicle" had made a lot of other short animated films.  Like "Testicle", most of the films have one word titles.  The most recent was named "Condom".

23. Saw that the other director, Sheldon Lieberman, is credited for the most of the same short films.

I guess Lieberman and Coric work as a team.

24. Saw that the midwife in the film is played by someone named Mystery Woman.

I guess she wants to keep her identity a secret.

That's kind of fun.

25. Googled Coric and Lieberman together and found something about a film called "Teagan".  The description says it's about animators that transitioned from male to female.

Does that refer to Coric and Lieberman.  Are they transgender?

26. Wondered if one of them could be the mystery woman.

Lieberman actually played one of the men in the movie. Maybe Coric played the midwife.

27. Went to Igor Coric's Vimeo page.

The videos there don't match up to what I see on IMDb.

I'm pretty sure it's the same person, though. They're both from Australia,

And the Vimeo shows that Coric won best animation for Tropfest in 2010.

It's the same guy. I just don't know why he doesn't have his IMDb films on Vimeo.

These people are mysterious—mysterious film, mysterious actress, mysterious Vimeo behavior....

28. Found an interview with Sheldon Lieberman.

It's from 2014.

29. Learned that Lieberman started a studio called Big Fish.

Big Fish does advertising and film work.

30. Learned that Big Fish is over twenty years old.

31. Learned that the transgender person in "Teagan" is their editor. I'm guessing he means the Big Fish editor.  The editor was a male, but now she is a she.

32. Saw that Lieberman is very passionate about helping families dealing with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Big Fish does charity work for them.

I don't know if I've heard of SMA. I wonder if we call it something different here.

33. Consulted Lord Wiki.

He doesn't have another name for SMA, so I guess it's just something that slipped by my radar.

34. Learned that SMA is the most common genetic cause of infant death.

35. Learned that there are four types of SMA.

Children with level 0/I rarely make it past the age of four.

People with type II often die before the age of twenty, but some live much longer than that.

Those with type III usually have normal life expectancies.

36. Liked Lieberman's answer to the question of what's complete happiness to him. He says,
Being yourself. Doing what you love. Sharing your gifts.

I think those are definitely happy things.

37. Found my way to Igor Coric's website.

It's quite an experience.

You have to go through a sort of obstacle course to get to the main website. This includes touching a piece of poo and a rat.

38. Learned that Coric splits his time between Serbia and Australia.

I wonder if he splits it evenly.

If not, where he does he spend more of his time?

39. Found a link to Big Fish on his site.

The graphics on Big Fish are irritating to me.  I think they'll make me nauseated if I spend too much time looking at them.

40. Saw that Coric is a fan of Ted-Ed. We've watched a few videos from them, for our homeschooling. But we haven't gotten really into it yet.

41. Looked at the videos on the Big Fish Site, and tried to decide what to watch.

42. Realized I'm wrong.

They're not all videos.

Some are descriptions of different projects they worked on.

43. Looked at their White Balloon campaign.

It doesn't impress me much.

It's about raising awareness for sexual abuse.

I definitely think that's an important issue.

But this whole thing...raising awareness.  Are there really a lot of people out there who aren't aware that sexual abuse happens to children?

I may not have been aware of Spinal Muscular Atrophy, but I'm definitely aware of sexual abuse. I think most people are.

The White Balloon campaign involved giving people a virtual balloon. They'd release it in their networks. The more shares they receive, the higher their balloon will fly.

If I'm understanding things right, basically it's a popularity contest.

Do we need to have a popularity contest to help kids who are abused?

44. Went to the White Balloon Day website.

I'm wondering how far beyond balloons the campaign went.

I'd be more with the program if they readily provided information and advice about sexual abuse.

For example, it would be nice if more adults were aware that it's not a wise idea to force young children to kiss or hug someone they don't want to hug.

It would be also nice for more adults to know that if they don't stop ticking a child who asks them to stop; they're sending the child the wrong message. They're telling the child that the child's "no" is powerless and meaningless.

45. Looked at the information for the Launch Your Balloon Page. They say,
It’s time to launch your balloon into the sky and share it with your friends. By doing so you’ll be joining thousands of Australians in taking a stand against child sexual assault and helping to make our kids and communities safer and our courageous families affected by child sexual assault feel more supported.

The thing is, someone can easily fly their little virtual white balloon; then close their laptop, and later abuse a child in their life.

46. Watched Big Fishes' Brisbane video. It was to promote Brisbane after the flood—show the world they were thriving again.

It's a cheerful message.

It's nice to know that people and communities can rise up again after a fall.

Kassandra Clementi, Mathew Chuang, Admiration, and Sympathy

1. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

I'm almost done with the first season.

I have five episodes left.  

2. Thought the writing of this episode was especially weak.  

Around the same time that Russell (Benjamin Schmideg) feels alienated from his friends for not being as smart as them, Elizabeth comes up with a plan of getting close to him to get information.  

This would be fine if Elizabeth was spying and SAW that Russell wasn't getting along with his friends. But as far I could see, that's not what happened.

It was a very convenient coincidence.

3. Enjoyed reading A Welsh Girl in Australia's post about her family's trip during the school holidays.  

Beth seems to love being with her family, and she's a big fan of school holidays.  

It's interesting to me that some parents love the school holidays while others dread them.  Some parents can't wait for their kids to go back to school.  

4. Wondered how my parents felt about school breaks. Were they excited for them? Did they dread them?  

Maybe they were excited for them to start, but also excited for them to end.  

5. Understood that some parents might dread the school holidays, because they have a job, and it's a struggle to arrange childcare.

I don't envy those parents at all. 

6. Started watching an episode of Home and Away. 

7. Felt very bad for Andy (Tai Hara). He was very careful and protective with Hannah (Cassie Howarth), because she's paralyzed.  She pressured him into taking her on a boat. He finally gave in. Then she caused the boat to tip over by leaning over too much. Now two people (so far) have given Andy grief about taking Hannah out on the boat.  

8. Thought maybe the lesson there is to be careful when judging someone else's decision. We don't know who or what might have pressured them to do what they did.

9. Looked at Kassandra Clementi's IMDb page.  

Though she plays a high school student on Home and Away, in real life she's twenty-five or twenty-six.  I guess that's not unusual, though, for actors.  

In 2011 and 2012, she was working in the US. While here, she did a TV show, a movie, and a TV movie.  

10. Learned from Lord Wiki that Clementi spent some of her American time living in Atlanta, and then she also lived in Los Angeles.

11. Went to the Tropfest website.

Today I'm going to watch a 2010 finalist film called "The Last Roll of the Dice". 

12. Saw that this film is very short.

It's less than two minutes!

13. Thought that the actress in the film looks familiar.

14. Wasn't pleased with the film.

It's basically a desperate woman making an Internet dating video.  

I felt like I'm supposed to be laughing at this woman who dares to seek love despite having a big mole on her face and being socially awkward.  

Was I supposed to be amused?  Is the film a comedy?  

Maybe it's not.

15. Looked at the IMDb page for Bel Delia, the actress in the film.

The only thing I would have seen her in is an episode of I Rock. 

16. Saw that "The Last Roll of the Dice" is written by two men and directed by a man.

I get this image of three guys getting together and saying, Hey! Let's make a movie about a pathetic woman trying to find love.  

17. Went to the website of Matthew Chuang, the director of "The Last Roll of the Dice". 

He's usually a cinematographer.  

18. Went to Chuang's advertising page.

I watched a video that might have had Ryan Kwanten and Hugo Weaving. I'm not sure.

I'm also not sure which video I watched, because I'm confused by the labeling.

It's either for VicRoads or Onitsuka Tiger.

I'm confused!

19.  Went to Matthew Chuang's bio page.

There's nothing really personal or historical on it.

It pretty much just lists his accomplishments.  

It's not like I need to know the color of his underpants and his favorite flavor of ice-cream.  But I'd like to see something that gives me an idea of who he is and what he's about.

20. Started to watch Chuang's latest project.

It's a music video for a song called "It's Alright" by the Fractures.

21. Googled Fractures, and saw that there's an Australian Fractures and a Canadian one.

I'm guessing Chuang's video is for the Aussie group, but that's not necessarily the case.  

22. Saw that the video consists of a man hanging out at a Chernobyl ruins site.  

23. Wondered if the man used to live in the building.

At one point, he starts to cry.  That makes me think he has a personal connection to his surroundings. On the other hand, the general tragedy of it all might make him sad...even if he didn't know the building in it's healthier time.

24. Realized, at the end, that the building is a probably a school. Chuang got that point across with a voice-over of children reciting something.  

25. Wondered if the man was a teacher at the school. Or maybe his children went to the school.  

26. Consulted Lord Wiki about Chernobyl, because I don't know much about it. 

It happened in a town called Pripyat, which is now abandoned.  

At the time of it's evacuation, there were 49,000 people.  

The nuclear accident happened in April 1986.

Wasn't that the same year as the Challenger accident?  

27. Googled and saw the space shuttle explosion happened only three months before the Chernobyl tragedy.

28. Saw that there weren't a huge amount of immediate deaths from Chernobyl, but many people developed cancer later from the radiation.

29. Saw that there's a lot of debate about how many deaths were or are going to be caused by Chernobyl effects.

30. Started to watch Matthew Chuang's cinematography reel. The beginning has a scene from Offspring.  I guess he worked on a few episodes?  

31. Wondered if the Offspring scenes are from the web series spin off.  The scenes feature Alicia Gardiner and Jane Harber. If I remember correctly, the web series was about them.  

32. Went back to Matthew Chuang's filmography, and saw that it is the web episodes of Offspring that he did his cinematography work.  

33. Felt like, when watching the reel, that I don't know when to credit Chuang and when to credit the directors.

I get really confused about that.

Then there's also the art department, the music, the actors, the writers, etc.

When we like what we see in a film, it's hard to know who is impressing us.  

Maybe it's everyone?

But if I watch Chuang's showreel and like what I see, how do I know I wouldn't like what I saw if the director changed?

34. Decided film is extremely collaborative. If we like what we see, it probably means EVERYONE on the team is doing a good job.

If we don't like what we see, it's hard to pinpoint what person's work we're disliking.  

35. Remembered editors.

Their contribution is extremely important.

36. Started to watch another episode of Home and Away.

37. Saw Marilyn (Emily Symons) put a disgusting amount of mayonnaise on a piece of bread.

38. Continued to find Maddie absolutely adorable.

I find myself having a ton of sympathy for her.  

She's probably my favorite character on the show
.  

39. Decided my feelings for Maddie are a mixture of sympathy and admiration.

I think these two things combined might be what makes me love a character.

If there's a ton of admiration and a lack of sympathy; then I think the feelings become more aligned with resentment and jealousy. The character begins to seem annoyingly perfect.

If there's a ton of sympathy and no admiration; then the character becomes pathetic. 

40. Reminded myself that my favorite characters are often the ones who start out evil and then become good.

I was thinking that my two ideas about favorite character were separate and maybe contradictory, but now I'm seeing that's not the case.  

I don't like the characters when they're evil. I like them when they change.  To go from evil to good usually takes a huge amount of courage.  It often involves betraying Team Evil, and struggling to gain the trust of Team Good.  It can be a lonely road, and I admire the person who has the strength to pursue that path.

That loneliness, plus other pain the changed character endures, is what gives me the sympathy feelings. 

Molly, Not Quite Nostalgia Eye Contact, and Inclusion

1. Saw Mako Mermaids on Netflix while searching through TV shows.

It's listed as a Netflix Original.  My assumption was that Netflix had remade the Australian show into an American one.  But when I looked closer, I saw it was the Australian one.  

2. Saw from Lord Wiki that Netflix is the exclusive Internet provider for the show.

That's what constitutes a Netflix Original show? What's the difference between that and buying the rights to a show?

3. Found an article that hopefully defines Netflix Originals.  

4. Learned that there are original-original Netflix shows. That means Netflix actually created the show. An example of this is House of Cards.

Then with some Netflix Originals, it just means Netflix bought a lot of rights and you won't be able to legally watch the show elsewhere.  

5. Saw from Twitter that the Molly Meldrum movie is a a big topic in Australia right now.

I also saw an article about it in Google News.

From what I briefly saw, I'm getting that there is a bio pic starring Samuel Johnson.

6. Saw that the Molly movie has made a Twitterer named Jared McLoughlin very nostalgic for the 1970's and 1980's. Although he wasn't born until the late 1980's.

Is the term nostalgic appropriate for a time period that didn't include you?  Or would another term work better?  

Anyway, McLoughlin Tweets,  What a brilliant first-parter that was. The seventies/eighties were the golden era of Australian music and those who invented it. And he also Tweets,  Watching #Molly and I feel envious that my parents had a cascade of Australians who were lyrically and instrumentally gifted.

McCloughlin's lack of faith and love for modern talent reminds me of a brilliant blog post I read this weekend.

7. Looked up the definition of nostalgia.

Dictionary.com defines it as, a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time:

It sounds like it should be a time period that includes you.

8. Wanted to clarify that Jarad McLoughlin himself didn't describe his 1970-1980 yearnings as nostalgia. I'm the one who did. I'm just wondering if there's a better term to describe his state of mind.

9. Thought if we include the concept of reincarnation; then we can include ourselves in any time period.

That aside, though, I think people do have an attraction to time periods before they were born. OR maybe that's because of reincarnation.

10. Saw there is a whole language message board about my question.

I guess I'm not the only one who has wondered it.

There's no consensus about what the word should be, but there are various ideas.

11. Thought about how we don't really need reincarnation as an explanation for why we're attracted to the past. We see and hear so much about it.

It's the same way we might long to go to a country we've never visited.

Or...how many people in the 21st century have longed to go to Hogwarts.

12. Looked at Molly on IMDb.

Samuel Johnson did play Molly.

Kate Atkinson played Mother.  Is that Molly's mother? Because Johnson and Atkinson seem close in age to me.  Maybe she was Molly's mother when he was a child?

I mean not that he got himself another mother later in life. But maybe she died young?

13. Wondered if Mother might not be Molly's mother. Maybe Mother was just her nickname.

14. Realized that Meldrum's mother might have lived into his adulthood. They could have used aging make-up on Atkinson.

15. Learned that Meldrum often lived with his grandmother or aunts, because his mother was hospitalized for mental illness.

16. Watched a promo for Molly.

It looks pretty good.

17. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

18. Saw that this episode is about time travel.

I'm not sure if I've seen this particular type before.

The boys accidentally send one of their grandmothers back in time. In return, the child version of the grandmother comes to their time.

19. Tried to imagine going back in time to my childhood while a child version of me shows up at our house in 2016.

20. Wondered if Tim and Jack would recognize me as a child.

I think they would...eventually. They've seen photos. I wonder how long it would take them, though.

21. Figured they'd probably know something is up if it involved a child randomly appearing inside our house.

22. Wondered how long it would take my past-parents and past-sisters to realize the strange adult in their house was me.

23. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

24. Wondered about something Sasha (Demi Harman) says regarding Matt (Alec Snow) breaking up with her. She says the worst part is that she knows he still loves her.

I can't see how that's the worst part.

It seems it would be worse being dumped, because someone has stopped loving you.

If the other person still loves you, there's much more hope you'll get back together. Plus, your self-esteem gets less of a blow.

25. Wondered about affairs. If you get dumped by a married person, would it help knowing they love you but want to do the right thing by their spouse?

I don't know if it would help, but I can't see how it would make things worse.

26. Thought it was similar to losing a job.

It's usually a bad thing. But if a company still likes you—they just needed to make cuts; I think that would be much better than a company firing you because they don't like you anymore.

27. Decided the character I like least on Home and Away is Rickie (Bonnie Sveen). She annoys me for some reason.  

28. Decided Rickie reminds me of those princess-types. They act like they're the center of the universe, and all of their problems are high drama.

29. Didn't know if I've encountered these princess-types in real life.

30. Realized I might have seen them on Facebook.

I'm picturing the type of person who updates multiple times a day, and uses vague-posting to get attention.

31. Realized I should probably cut Rickie some slack. She's pregnant, and her lover is in prison for twenty years. At other times, she might be more sweet and mellow.

That being said, Maddie (Kassandra Clementi) has cancer and Hannah (Cassie Howarth) is dealing with paraplegia. Those are big problems, and I still find those women endearing.

32. Thought about how all three women are getting a lot of attention from their family and friends And so, they should. They need a lot of TLC at this difficult time in their life.

So being the center of attention doesn't make a person an annoying princess type.

It's how they handle the attention. Are they always in a bad mood? Do they show interest in other people? Do they act like they're the first person in the world to have such a problem?

33. Realized there's a term for these princess-types I have in my mind. Divas.

I believe as there are talent-divas and wealth-divas; there are also problem-divas.

But not everyone with talent, wealth, and/or problems are divas.

34. Learned from some Home and Away dialogue that Maddie and Josh (Jackson Gallagher) used to be romantically linked. If I'm understanding things right, Oscar (Jake Speer) helped Maddie through the break-up.

I wonder if this is how Oscar developed his feelings for Maddie. Or did he already have feelings? Did he have to play the role of friend when he really wished to be much more?

35. Saw Sasha demand that Matt look her in the eye and tell her he doesn't love her.

He can't do it.

I don't get that. I see it often on TV shows.

If someone can lie without looking you in the eye, why couldn't they lie while making eye contact?

36. Read some of an article about eye contact.

They say it's a myth that people avoid eye contact when lying.

The biggest body language myth about liars is that they avoid eye contact. While some liars (most often, children) find it difficult to lie while looking directly at you, many liars, especial the most brazen, actually overcompensate to “prove” that they are not lying by making too much eye contact and holding it too long.

37. Started to watch "Be My Brother" which is the 2009 Tropfest winner.

38. Liked the film so far.

It shows a standoffish woman slightly annoyed by a stranger. But as a stranger talks to her, she warms up to him.

39. Thought about the film and how it can be interpreted in different ways.

The film has three people at a bus stop.

There's a seemingly standoffish woman; a sulky young man, and an outgoing man with Down Syndrome.

The standoffish woman and sulky man seem annoyed with the man with Down Syndrome because he's loudly talking to himself. Then he begins interacting with the woman. She seems put out at first, but then her coldness melts away.  Meanwhile, the sulky young man continues to seem annoyed. He looks even more annoyed when the man with Down Syndrome comes over to his bench and talks to him directly.

The twist subtly revealed in the story is that the sulky young man and the man with Down Syndrome are brothers.

I think the message behind the story is that the sulky young man is embarrassed to have a brother with Down Syndrome. The man with Down Syndrome pushes this idea by pressing play on his tape recorder so we can hear his heartfelt monologue about how he can't help the way he is, and he wished his brother understood.

The film COULD be about a bratty awful young man who has no tolerance for his own brother.

I find that situation kind of hard to believe.  I think if anyone is going to be understanding and compassionate towards people with mental and physical disabilities; it's going to be immediate family members.

With that idea in mind, this is how I interpret the film.  The two brothers love each other and get along fairly okay.  But like most siblings, sometimes they don't get along.  Sometimes one might be embarrassed of the other. Sometimes one brother might be resentful of the other.

40. Thought of another interpretation of the film.

The brothers DON'T usually get along, but the dislike isn't completely related to Down Syndrome. The film doesn't necessarily have to be about an asshole who's chronically intolerant of intellectual disabilities.

41. Thought that even if the man with Down Syndrome believes his brother is intolerant; that doesn't mean it's true.

Sometimes people have negative feelings towards us for one reason, and we assume it's another reason.

Someone might hate me, and I might assume it's because I'm Jewish, American, a woman, white, a Texan, etc.

42. Thought about one of my novels. Thirty Cats. In it, Gabrielle has sworn off men, because she was rejected by a guy after telling him she has Neurofibromatosis.  Gabrielle's brother tries to get her to see that the guy might NOT have dumped her because of NF. Maybe he didn't like her personality.

43. Thought about a time that people were abusive towards me and said both anti-semitic and anti-American things.

Though they probably have some levels of anti-Americanism and anti-semitism; that wasn't the main reason they were hateful towards me.

People have underlying prejudices. When we get angry, sometimes those slip out.

Or it might not even be about prejudices.  It could just be that when we get mad, we strike low and sometimes become temporary bigots.

I can imagine two brothers getting in a fight and one shouting out. You're such a retard.  Or a brother gets mad at his schizophrenic sister and screams, You're a psycho bitch.

I'm not excusing these things. Hell, I still hold grudges against my sisters for some of the stuff they've said to me through the years.  But I know my sisters love me to death, and I love them just as much.  We may think cruel things. We may say cruel things. Some of these things might have an element of truth. But they represent a tiny sliver of our feelings for each other.

44. Looked at the filmography of Gerald Odwyer. He's the one in the movie with Down Syndrome.

He's in an upcoming Aussie horror movie staring Dee Wallace, called Red Christmas.

45. Started watching a trailer for Red Christmas, but I'm pretty sure it's not for the correct Red Christmas.

The girl speaking in the beginning has an American accent, which I would expect if she was Dee Wallace. But she's not.

Plus, it's about Tara, and I don't think there's a Tara in the Aussie Red Christmas movie.

46. Saw that Genevieve Clay-Smith, the director of "Be My Brother", has worked on a lot of short films.

IMDb says she started her film career doing documentaries for a Down Syndrome charitable organization.

47. Saw that Gerald Odwyer cowrote the film with Genevieve Clay-Smith.

48.  Saw that Bill McGuire, the guy who composed the music for the film, works in both music and visual effects.

I don't know if I've ever encountered that before.

I'm sure he's not the only one out there, though.

49. Thought about how there are patterns that can be seen on IMDb.

Directors are often writers, and also sometimes actors.

Sometimes directors are also editors.

People who work in the art department usually do not also work in the sound department. And vice versa.

But like I said, I'm sure McGuire isn't the only exception.

50. Saw that Clay-Smith has a lot of variety on her IMDb filmography. She's done writing, directing, acting, producing, editing, camera work, costume designing, and make-up.

51. Looked at the filmography of Eleanor Winkler.

She's the caterer for the film.

She's done catering for a ton of short films.

52. Saw that I'm totally wrong.

Eleanor Winkler was a caterer for only "Be My Brother".

She's usually a producer.

53. Counted.

She's been a producer for thirty-seven short films.

Her first producing credit was for "Be My Brother".  She was one of three producers.

54. Surprised to see that Lord Wiki has an entry on Genevieve Clay-Smith. That's usually not the case for makers of short films...even if they have won a Tropfest award.

BUT Clay-Smith isn't just a Tropfest winner.  She was the NSW Young Australian of the Year in 2015.  I think that's the last one, right?  Is it like the Oscars where the winner of this year's award is winning for a film from last year?

55. Saw that they've already had the 2016 Australians of the Year.

So Clay-Smith won for last year.

Anyway, Clay-Smith's big cause is inclusion in the film industry.

That's a cause I could definitely stand behind.

I think it's important to have a variety of people in film and television. It's not just so the audience can be exposed to a variety of people-types.  It's so people of various backgrounds, sizes, strengths, weaknesses, ethnicities, etc. can have hopes of working in the industry.

Shit. It's hard enough for a thin white person to break into film and television acting. I imagine it's a million times more difficult for people who don't fit a certain mold.

56. Looked at the Vimeo page for Bus Stop Film's Clay-Smith's inclusion-film company.

57. Wondered what the term inclusion includes.

From looking at the films on the Vimeo page, I get the idea that Clay-Smith has a special place in her heart for people with Down Syndrome.

Does inclusion usually include only people with mental or intellectual disabilities?

How about people with physical disabilities or deformities?

58. Started to watch a video about Bus Stop Films.

59. Learned that the inclusion aspect of Bus Stop Films refers to disabilities.

It's not just people with Down Syndrome

60. Saw that Bus Stop Film's inclusion isn't just about the acting. The people with disabilities are given offscreen jobs as well.

61. Got the idea that I was wrong about Bus Stop Film including all types of disabilities. They said something in the film that makes me think it's intellectual-disability only.

That's not very inclusive!

I'm joking...sort of.

62. Did wonder if anyone has ever wanted to be part of Bus Stop Films but was turned away because they had the wrong type of disability.

63. Thought if you added up all the people with Down Syndrome, other genetic disorders, birth defects, and traumatic brain injuries; there might be a lot of folks with intellectual disabilities.  Bus Stop Films might have their hands full.

64. Decided to watch another one of Bus Stop Films. It's called "The Interviewer".

65. Saw that Gerald Odwyer is in the "Interviewer".

After I saw him, I remembered seeing the film in his filmography.

66. Thought that the interviewer in the film is pushy and not a very good listener.

He gives the interviewee a choice between Coke and water. The interviewee chooses Coke. The interviewer tells him water is better and gives him water. Then the interviewer takes the Coke for himself. What's up with that?!

Next the interviewer asks the interviewee if he likes Star Wars and Harry Potter. The interviewee says no on Harry Potter and the interviewer blabs on and on about Harry Potter.  It's like he wants to be oppositional.

67. Wondered if the interviewer is doing some kind of psychological test on the interviewee.

68. Finished the film.

I liked it a lot.

It was very touching.

The basic idea is that people might have more abilities than we give them credit for.

This could be applied to not only those with intellectual disabilities but anyone really.

69. Googled and learned that Genevieve Clay-Smith is also the director and co-founder of something called Taste Creative.

70. Learned that Genevieve Clay-Smith enjoys smelling jasmine.

That's an interesting hobby.

71. Learned that Taste Creative is an ad agency. Like Bus Stop Films, I think they have inclusion as one of their goals.

72. Found the Taste Creative website to be a bit slow and hard to navigate.

73. Jumped over to their Vimeo site.

74. Started to watch a Taste Creative project about diversity.  It's for a company called EY.

It talks about how research shows diverse teams work better than homogeneous ones.

It also talks about something called unconscious bias. The video presents it as a normal thing but something that we need to fight against.

I think that's the thing with people who are against affirmative action and similar ideas. They don't believe that unconscious bias exists.They especially don't believe it exists within themselves.

75. Watched a video promo for a project called Real Stories Project. It's about diversity and inclusion in the Australia Post.

For a moment, I was thinking the Australia Post was a newspaper. Then I remembered it's the mail service there.

76. Went to the Australia Post website.

They say they especially want to hear stories from women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culturally and linguistically diverse people, people with disabilities, and Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people.

However, they do the inclusion thing by saying,  But of course, we welcome all stories of inclusion and respect, so please contribute and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

The thing is, sometimes the roles are reversed, and the person from the dominant group is the one that's not easily included.

For example, how about a group of coworkers who are all Jewish, and then there's one Christian in the mix. She might have a tough time fitting in.

I know MANY people don't believe that people from the dominant group can be victims of prejudice and discrimination.  If you're white, male, Christian, etc...there's no complaining.

I strongly disagree.

I do think prejudices against people from dominant groups is small compared to the atrocities that other groups have had to endure.

A white man being teased and belittled by a group of black women is not in any ways equal to what black people, as a whole, have had to endure through the centuries.  An able-bodied person being ostracized by a group in wheelchairs doesn't come close to what disabled people have had to deal with throughout history.

But no matter who you are, being teased and excluded can hurt a lot.  Decent individual people shouldn't be pushed to grin and bear it simply because other GROUPS have had it a million times worse.

Anyway, that's why I like the fact that Australia Post invites everyone to share their story.  It kind of ruins the spirit of inclusion if you fully exclude certain groups of people.

77. Thought that maybe it was sometimes fair for organizations targeting/empowering specific groups to exclude folks who are not of that specific group.

But if you have a group that's supposed to support and celebrate diversity, it's not fair if certain groups are purposely not included.

78. Thought it's also not right if you have an industry that SHOULD be supporting and celebrating diversity, and only those from the dominant group get honored.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online