personal

Sunday

Last night, I watched The Spectacular Now, which I rather liked. Today, I watched The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I rather didn’t.

There’s not a lot I can say about the former, which was both a lot different and exactly what I expected. And everything I could say about the latter is filled with spoilers. (Here’s one big one, with fair warning: it’s plenty shocking the one time the movie decides to stick to major Spider-Man continuity.)

I spent the rest of the weekend reading some Kaleidotrope submissions and writing. I’m working on a short piece right now that I’m trying to tie together, and then I also wrote this during my weekly free-writing group (before the movie):

He could no longer tell the difference between the living and the dead.

Only a year ago that might have bothered him; he remembered sleepless nights, empathy, doubts; even if he no longer had direct access to those emotions, he hadn’t yet excised their memory, and he could recall them well enough to know that he was a different man. Well enough, too, to know that he should probably be disturbed by that difference. If he wanted to, the shunt in his brain could be easily removed, a simple surgical procedure, and he could go back to being the man he’d been a year ago, doubts and all. But a conscience wouldn’t bring Stacy back, and it wouldn’t change what was happening in the world below. If Magnus went back to being bothered by all of this, it probably would just get him killed too.

His real name wasn’t Magnus, of course, but he felt he’d long gone past the point of real names. Who was left to question him? Stacy would had said he sounded like a mad scientist or super-villain, like something straight out of a comic book. Oh really? he might have asked her. Then what does a mutagenic plague that turns two thirds of the world’s population into flesh-eating zombies sound like? Because that’s what they were up against. That’s what he’d released into the world. It seemed to him like they’d moved past concerns about any of this not sounding believable.

Take the space station, for instance, or the nanobots that kept it operational: that was pure comic book, but it was also the only reason why he was still alive. The plague had found its way here, escaped into the atmosphere aboard the station just like everywhere else, but…

No, he didn’t want to think about that now. There were some emotions even the shunt wasn’t capable of blocking.

The point was, it was a ridiculous situation, but it was the one he’d been forced into. If circumstances dictated that he go from mild-mannered lab tech to super-genius mad scientist in order to survive, then, by damn, he was going to play the part.

Still, he wished he could tell which of the infected he’d brought aboard were living or dead. In theory, he was running these tests to save those who hadn’t completely succumbed. But as he looked through the observation window, they all just looked like zombies to him. He wasn’t much sure he cared about finding a cure.

Would it really be so bad to let the human race go? Magnus hadn’t released the plague — that had been Albert, the dumb lab tech he’d once been — nor had he even designed it — that had been the men who’d built this space station, almost as smart as he was now. But were things really worse now? Magnus sort of liked the quiet.

But he’d run a battery of tests all the same; it was something to do. He didn’t expect to find a cure, or to begin to care, expected he’d just have to vent the whole lab to space like he did when Stacy was bit.

Wet Wednesday

It was a pretty good day, the cold and rainy weather notwithstanding. It doesn’t feel like the end of April, but maybe now that I’m completing projects at work that, in a better world, would have been finished in March, the seasons will start to catch up.

Well, “completing” is probably being generous, but I’m still hopeful.

Sunday

I spent a good part of yesterday sitting out in the backyard reading Kaleidotrope submissions, before it rained. I’m getting closer to being caught up, but I still have somewhere shy of a hundred left to read. Most of those are from March, which doesn’t make me feel quite as bad about not getting to them yet. But I still don’t want to keep people waiting too long, in part because I’m likely to reject most of them.

(That’s just the way it goes. I’d actually be in trouble, or booked solid for the next few decades, if I loved everything I received.)

Last night, after dinner, I watched 12 Years a Slave. I think I’d had all the common worries about the film: that it would be a downer, too brutal, too much. And it is terrible brutal, and often difficult to watch, but it’s also a terribly powerful movie with some wonderful, heartbreaking (and rightly Oscar-nominated) performances. (Lupita Nyong’o is the only performance that won the Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress, and the win is a testament to how affecting she is in the role, given that she’s actually on screen for relatively little of the movie.) The movie is surprisingly beautiful, compelling not just for the violence and cruelty of slavery on display but the spirit of those who endured and survived it.

I’ve now seen six of the nine movies nominated for Best Picture last year, and this is the first time I thought the film wasn’t just really good but actually a Best Picture. (Although Gravity has some terrific technical filmmaking, and arguably the best movie-making of the bunch.) I suppose now I’m compelled to watch the other three (Philomena, Nebraska, and Her). Oh woe is me.

Today, I sent out more Kaleidotrope rejections and watched a bunch of Parks and Recreation episodes. (I’m way behind, in the third season.) I also went to my weekly writing group, and I supplied the free-writing prompt. It was born out of this Twitter exchange last night with Maurice (who’s another third of the writing group):

And this is what I wrote:

[I’ve decided to expand and revise this, so I’m removing it from here]

I like it, and I think I might be able to do something with it — other than let it continue to spiral into just more and more plot — but the ducks will probably have to go.

The best of Stan Rogers, though, that’s staying put in my playlist.

Hoppy Easter

Happy Easter!

Yesterday, I watched G.I. Joe: Retaliation for…reasons, I suppose. I watched the first movie years ago, and while it was plainly terrible, it was also surprisingly entertaining in that terribleness. I wish I could say the same for its sequel. Despite the addition of Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson to the cast, and a brief moment of fun with Walton Goggins as a prison warden — seriously, I wanted movie just of his character — the movie was more just terrible.

The Wolf of Wall Street, which I watched today, was a whole lot better. Still, however, well made and acted the movie was, and however much fun, it was also very long, and a story a little empty beyond its mad excess.

That, plus some Kaleidotrope reading, some home repairs, and an Easter buffet brunch with my parents, that was my weekend.