Sept. 30th, I Did It!

Well, this is it, the last post in my 30 day pointless challenge.
What have I learned? Nothing, except that I can commit to do something for a full month if it's not too hard.

I just checked back on my posts from London to see if I told the following story or not, and it turns out I didn't, so here's a little story from when I went to Phantom of the Opera:

I paid the cheapest amount possible for seats in the nose-bleeds(which were still expensive), but I was happy enough. The theater was a full house and the Asian girl who sat next to me was the worst. She was playing on her phone and recording the show, and actually screamed when she was startled. She also unwrapped her candy or whatever during the play - was she even trying to be quiet? Unwrapping candy is like ripping apart Velcro - there's no quite way to do it, no matter how slow you go. SUPER annoying! An usher finally made her put her phone away, but that didn't stop her from talking to her friend on the other side of her. Ugh, I was so annoyed.
Then, at intermission, when the lights came back up, she asks me as well as she could, "Is the show over?"
I told her yes and she left and I enjoyed the peace and extra elbow room for the rest of the play.
Just kidding, I wish. I was honest and told her that there was more. It was a half second battle of epic proportions in my mind: be kind and deal with her annoying and terrible manners, or lie and enjoy the show....
She must have been better behaved for the second half, because I don't remember an incident after intermission, but holy cow she should have known better. I mean, we had equally bad seats, but we still paid lots for them....
That reminds me of a movie I went to about a month ago: World War Z. I went to the cheap theater to see it because I guess I had nothing better to do, and I arrived early enough to get a decent seat. Well, in comes an adult couple with their toddler. WTH? They actually brought a 3 (maybe 4) year old to a 9 pm showing of a zombie movie?
Anyway, they sat directly behind me and my friend, and when the kid spilled all their candy we just lifted up our feet and listened to it roll to the front of the theater. It got even better when the kid was not happy, so the mom says maybe they should leave. Uh, are you sure, lady? So the dad says that they'd give the movie another 10 minutes to see if it got "better" (I guess he meant "less scary FOR A CHILD?!?) and that he'd heard that it was a really good movie and wanted to stay. They gave the movie more time to calm down and be less scary, but it didn't because it's a blinkin' ZOMBIE MOVIE.

Yes, little one, I hate your parents too.

The mom left with the kid, I guess, and the dad stayed behind. After the movie ended (like an hour and a half later) the mom and kid were in the lobby waiting for the dad. I don't know if they waited the WHOLE movie in the lobby, but I didn't feel sympathy because I'm a jerk.
Here are my thoughts on this experience. People go to the cheap theater - which shows movies after they've already been out for a few months - because they like the "theater experience." They could literally watch the movie a few weeks later in their own home with refreshments that don't cost more than the movie's budget. That's why I go, because I like the huge screen and good sound and [generally] the "do not disturb" aspect of movie theaters.
And that's why I felt no sympathy for this couples' ruined movie date. If the same thing had happened in Monsters University I would not have cared at all, but if you bring a child into an adult movie after bedtime and cause a scene, I hope you trip on the crappy carpet on the way out and that the kid pukes in the car on the way home from eating too much popcorn.
Seriously, I don't care if the cinema charges 13 dollars or 3 for admission, DON'T bring your kids to movies for grown ups.
Rant over.

Even though I have finished this monthly blog-daily thing, I'll write again soon, I'm sure, what with new job experiences coming soon (I hope)......
Anyway, until then....

Sept 11th, Book Club

I participate in a little book club. It's something that I never really thought I'd do. I have no real relationship with anyone else that attends (and lately the number of people is around 4). Nevertheless, I do enjoy discussing books and stuff. I think being an English major made me a little overenthusiastic about defending my point or opinion, so when the topics get a little crazy or out of hand, I don't feel too bad about saying what I want to say to try to steer the discussion back on track.
This leads me to what happened at the book club this week. After we finished our discussion, we were trying to plan the next two months, and one of the members printed out a pretty good and informed list of books. After she explained a bit about them so we could better choose, they asked me what I thought. Well, I was polite, but voiced my opinion. I said that since it would be October, it might be fun to do a scary book. I also said that I didn't have any particular titles in mind, but something by Susan Hill or Bradbury or Shirley Jackson might be fun. I included Dracula and Frankenstein in there too.
To my surprise, they agreed with me without much "selling" on my part! The other person's book suggestion will be done in November, and I'm so glad that she wasn't left out.
So, it came down to a coin toss between Frankenstein and Dracula, and Dracula won. Since I was the one who suggested it, I "get" to be the discussion leader. I guess that means I better start reading the book! I'm actually kind of excited about this: I haven't been able to really plan a discussion or presentation or anything since college. And the best part is, I have a month to plan it and there is no grade attached!
I also get to bring treats, which I'm excited about. I found these on YouTube and they look fun and doable!

Harry Potter, Halloween, and Candy! My favorite things! I might have to make a batch way ahead of time to make sure it's something I can manage. I think that I'd not use the stick though, and instead put them in mini cupcake holders. Preferably fiery orange ones.... If it proves too difficult, I might just frost sugar cookies and make jack-o-lantern faces out of chocolate chips.
Like I mentioned, the book group is pretty small, and I guess it used to be quite huge. I'm going to make a poster and bookmarks for the library (I do it for every month's book club) and hopefully really sell the whole "Halloween Theme" that will be going on.
Wish me luck!

Sept. 5th, Ugh - Poetry

First off, I don't mean to offend anybody with this post.
That said, I hate poetry. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
I DO enjoy Dr. Seuss and funny poems like the kind by Lewis Carroll and the like, but basically everything else is torture for me.
When I say that I hate poetry, I don't mean that I hate poems, necessarily, but I hate that they can be SOOO pretentious. I had a poetry unit in some of my lit classes in college, and some of my assignments were supposed to be done as a poem.
I did like the poetry units in school because they were really easy to do: the homework wasn't 200 pages of [insert literary tome here], the homework was 3 - 5 pages of poems that were usually not more than 30 lines long.
One of my assignments was to write about some life experience as a poem (this is in college, remember). I had no idea what I was doing, so I literally typed up my experience like a regular paragraph, then hit the Enter key every few words to make it look like a poem. Here's an example:

I go to work almost every day,
And normally, I enjoy it.
But as soon as a customer gets an attitude
With me or is rude to one of my co-workers,
I get super pissed. I'm pretty good
At holding my tongue,
But one of these times,
I
Just
Might
Snap.

Isn't it great?! With the Enter key, anyone can be a poet!
I just have a hard time feeling moved or touched from poetry - I think that prose can be far more effective and touching than what lots of poetry aims for.
I like poems that rhyme, which is apparently the lowest kind of low when it comes to poetry. I googled "best poetry" and found a site that had the ten best poems, and only one, by Sylvia Plath, had any sort of rhyme at all. Why is rhyming so terrible? Why is having a beat that is recognizable such a shame? I guess I like stuff that could sound like music, or be set to music, where the end of the line has a pause.

So, all of this leads me to a poem that I love, only because it is so viciously hated by basically everyone. It has literally been voted as the worst poem in the English language. I present to you an excerpt from "A Trajedy" by Theophile Marzials:

Death! 
Plop. 
The barges down in the river flop. 
Flop, plop, 
Above, beneath. 
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop… 
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop… 
And my head shrieks - “Stop”
And my heart shrieks - “Die.”…

I once read this aloud to a friend and we were both laughing so hard I could hardly finish my oration. All the flopping and plopping makes me think of a slimy black nearly-dead creature crawling towards me in hunched heaves and stuff. It's beautiful.

If you internet people are aghast at my snobbery/low-brow-ness when it comes to poetry, feel free to comment below if you think there's a poem I might like. I'll try my best not to hate it, but I'm not making any promises. Bring it on!