Big B, little b: LOST’s flawed parentage

Sunny d came to spend the evening with me, which is always a pleasant treat.  Not just because she’s one of the nicest, most amazing people on earth, but also because there has never been a better TV partner, nor, I suspect, will there be.  Ever.

One of our most favoritest things to watch and discuss is LOST, which is not easy from across state lines.  So, when I see her, we catch up on all of our outstanding theories, questions, issues, discussions, etc.  We had many, many after last weeks season finale, but we returned to one item that has been nagging at me for weeks.

John Locke was born to a red-headed 16 year old girl named Emily (by a man “twice her age”) in 1956.  Because of her age and her mother’s strictness, John’s placed in foster care.

Ben Linus is born prematurely while his parents are hiking in the woods outside Portland.  It’s the early sixties, she’s in her early to mid-twenties, with red and was named… Emily.  She died giving birth to Ben on the side of the highway.

I find that to be a little too much of a coincidence.  Perhaps the reason Richard doesn’t take over leadership when Ben is banished is because he’s not part of the family.  We have no evidence that Swoosie Kurtz (adult Emily, who helps con Locke into giving real Sawyer/Locke’s dad his kidney) is the same woman- she could be anyone.  Locke would certainly not know her since he’s never seen her and we all know Sawyer is not above lying.

Ben and Locke’s possible relation caused me to notice their ages relative to one another and that they both have blue eyes.

That got me thinking.  Other people with bright blue eyes?  Christian Shephard, and his daughter Claire Littleton.  Not with blue eyes, bright or otherwise?  Jack Shephard.  So I went back and looked up Margo, Jack’s mom.  Guess what?  Those blue eyes again.

brass tacks

With all that’s been happening lately with the DNC, the delegates, the debates, the endless op-eds and platitudes, I wanted to bring up something of which, apparently, many of my peers are unaware.

4 amendments and 50 years separate the right for women’s suffrage and that of all men, regardless of race, to vote.

The fourteenth amendment was ratified by congress on 3rd February, 1870.

The nineteenth amendment was ratified by congress on 18th August, 1920.

One reads:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation 

 

the other:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 

In between those two came the amendment to allow direct election of two senators from each state, unapportioned federal taxes on income (non-discriminatory), and prohibition.

place holder for angry post about manipulative romantic movie storylines that remind one of the fun diseases that await them in old age.

or. my total nuclear emotional meltdown due to the fucking notebook.  not for what you’re thinking, but the senile dementia.  thanks for reminding me of what i have to look forward to, you bastards.  i’d just made it through the holidays happy and relaxed.  fuckers.

and the romance wasn’t even that good.  when they see each other after ten or five or fifteen years?  doesn’t share the same oxygen as when jack and ennis reunite in brokeback mountain.  i hate trickly manipulative back-stories that lower your defenses so you don’t pay attention to the fact that you don’t like any of the characters or sympathize with them for being beautiful, rich and unencumbered by real problems.

this is why i don’t watch romances, people.  they just piss me off.  royally.  call me a cynic and i will gladly agree.  but if you’re going to twist my feelings with unrealistic bullshit, make it worth my while.  and put cary grant in it, goddammit.

back into the frying pan

so, friends, batshit has her departure date.  this coming saturday, she will be moving out.  where she’s going i know not, and frankly don’t give a hot damn. 

i will be around both for the safety and integrity of my apartment, to collect the keys and also because my new bed is being delivered that day (woo hoo!).  i will not be helping.  normally i would offer, and even now feel compelled because i’m a sucker and an asshole, but i’m not aggravating my shoulder for someone  who would likely not piss in my mouth if were dying of thirst.  i still have the cactus needles in my hands to back up that supposition.

so, i’ve been asking around and around, and assume my friends have been doing the same, but to no avail.  it’s a weird time of year, and no one seems to know anyone.  which leads me, at long last, to my point:

last night, i posted my apartment on craig’s list.

i know!  i didn’t want to, but i guess i have to.  it seems to be a modern necessary evil when social networks fail.  i can’t blame it all on an anonymous internet server, though.  i guess my interviewing process wasn’t rigorous enough.  i’m not sure how i’m going to change that this time.  besides getting and actually checking references, i mean.

but then, when you think about it, anyone can get someone to vouch for them.  a friend or sibling posing as a former roommate- how would i know the difference?  the whole thing involves a healthy dose of trust in a perfect stranger and the risks inherent in that cannot be avoided.

unless, of course, anyone out there has a polygraph or some sodium pentathol i can borrow?

hit me with your best shot

- you’re sex on legs.

- you have any english in you?  no? want some?

- please, you beautiful hair.  come back to my house of love.

- it’s so hot that you won’t come home with me.  morals really turn me on. 

- i have this bet with joey that i’m the better kisser.  will you be the contest judge?

- i’m sixteen stone of pure man and you have the most set teeth that i have ever seen.  we must go out.

- damn! where you from, girl?  i need to know where they make ‘em like you so i can get me one.

- with your beauty and my brains, we could do anything.

- you know, susan, if you’da been just a little bit nicer to me, just a little bit, i woulda slept with you.

- hey, wanna go back to your place and watch the empire strikes back?

key things to know.  well, not really key.  more like relevant.  one, to quote the inimitable whitney houston, my name is not susan.  not even my middle or confirmation name.  second, that last one worked.  twice.  with two different guys.  what?  since when did i deny being hopelessly nerdy?

as you may have guessed, these are some of the more choice pick-up lines i’ve heard over the years, which came to mind as i zombie at home watching tv on saturday night.  by choice, people, by choice.  seriously.  scout’s honor. anyway, god bless ‘em all, i say.  because every one of them is more attractive than a guy who emails me pictures of cats with clever sayings superimposed on the photos. 

NB: this last sentence contains sarcasm, but leads me to an earnest tangent: what the hell is an LOL cat?  i thought someone was joking (badly) when i heard that term.  then i heard it again.  and i started thinking that once again, the kids were onto something to which i wasn’t privy.  so i did whatever any slightly out of touch, but not entirely clueless, thirty something does.  i googled it.  and lo, according to the software those fine folks out in silicone valley built, it’s an actual phenomenon, sweeping the web.  not only that, but the number one blog on this very site is all about them.  LOL cats.  ‘LOL anything’ is immediately disqualified from the possibility of being funny.  or even slightly amusing.  to top it off, they’re pictures of cats with sayings that match their “facial expressions.”  like that poster you thought was exceedingly lame in your fourth grade classroom with a kitten hanging from a branch and the caption “hang in there” posted underneath.  a phenomenon, people!  let me just say that there’s more than one reason to be happy to reach your thirties.

wait.  i didn’t start out to talk about these damn things.  it was about pick up lines.  which, after the cat thing, seem so much less egregious. 

what i’m trying to get to is that i’d like to invite the fine folks out there to share the best, worst, most sincere or nonsensical line they’ve ever received, given or overheard.  oh, and whether or not it worked.  it’s only fair.  i ‘fessed up to the empire strikes back thing. 

breathlessly awaiting your responses…

truth in advertising: when reality meets the tsa

so, on one of my many early morning jaunts to the cleve of late, i was standing in a very long security line at about, oh, five thirty in the morning.  nervous travelers abounded, anxious to catch their flights, but the line was not moving.  this gave me several long minutes to really take in the ambience of the continental terminal at lovely LaGuardia airport.

i look to my left and there’s a life size poster for the TSA or the Port Authority of NY/ NJ and their amazing dedication to customer service.  It read something like this: “We’re dedicated to your comfort and satisfaction as much as we are your safety” with a nice smiling lady assisting a customer.  Next to this was an actual, though decidedly less smiley, airport employee.

cue the really late and extremely nervous woman who runs up to said employee and asks if she (the employee) can help as she (the flyer) is definitely going to miss her flight because the line has not moved.  to which she (the employee), clearly inspired by her calling and mission responds:

“lady, that’s too bad.  ALL these people (sweeping hand gesture) gonna miss their flights.  now get back at the end of the line.  next time you might wanna get here early.”

and, scene.

aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh

i just had to get that out.

unbelievable.  seriously. 

diogenes had nothing on me.  i would love to turn in my lantern and quit my quest, but at this point, i’d just like to prove that there is one, at least one, honest man out there.

update:

All better.  Sometimes I just need to write these things down or scream for juuuuuust a second and then it’s all better.  Gotta love that Italian passion. 

venting is healthy, people.

and boys, you’re alright by me.