Roynne’s Weblog

“As Their Eyes Touched God” is officially up on Flashfictiononline.com. Feel free to comment about the story, if you’d like.

Just because my blog looks incredibly empty, I’m going to repost some previous blog reports that I think are…well, blog-worthy. The ghosts from blogs past will have original publication dates in the titles.

Then things will look considerably less lonely!

(Checks OCD pass at the door…).

Yep, so in about twenty minutes (my time, at the time of typing these words) I will be 40. So happy birthday to me! Here’s the interesting thing, and I don’t expect everyone to understand this. And feel free to skip this and just know it’s my birthday. Presents are nice.

For those of you who don’t believe in God or divine anything or something beyond the everyday, this will probably just seem like coincidence to you. I prefer to think about it as God tapping me on the shoulder and telling me things are all right. I was feeling down – I mean, crying, tearful, sick-hearted – down the closer it got to my birthday. I didn’t expect it. Last month I was fine, and even two weeks ago I was fine. Shoot, I think even last week I was ok. But as it crept closer I just had a horrible case of the “I sucks” or something. Everything hit me at once: What I didn’t accomplish, what I didn’t have, my bleak prospects, the whole gambit. Single, never married, no kids – all of that garbage. And the reports saying I was out of time didn’t help either.

So feeling bad was an understatement. I didn’t even have the energy to cry – I just felt that bad. Do you know what it’s like when you feel *so* bad that you can’t cry? It’s a horrible feeling, and that’s my true depression. I usually am borderline depressive something, but tipping to the other side…really hurts. It’s a deep ache, like a deep pit with no light, and you’ve given up trying to climb out.

I can’t describe it.

And, ahah…it was funny, but a little depressing (moreso) when everyone wore black at the office to help me “celebrate.” Oh, and a black sign to commemorate the event. Argh. It was funny, I guess, but it didn’t do wonders for my mood at all. Coupled with the fact that a friend of mine really, *really* pissed me off today with something she did/shouldn’t have done, and it was a horrible capper to my day.

Well, I came home in a bleak mood. Very bleak. But two things happened that turned me around tonight. The first was my regular radio station that suddenly had some enlightening and uplifting teaching: “He’s not finished with you yet. Life’s just begun” type of a message. I nodded and took it to heart, receiving some comfort.

And then out of the blue my Aunt, who’s a hospital chaplain, called me up. Mind you, we talk like…once every few months and usually it’s because Mom’s talking to her and Mom passes the phone over to me. But this time my Aunt called *me* and said I was on her heart, and she really felt pressed to call me. And then she pretty much gave me the same encouraging message I’d heard on the radio, but more so. That she knew things were going to be changing for the better for me, and that life wasn’t over – it was just beginning. And so forth.

Now, maybe you can see it as coincidence, how they both came at the same time. And I could go deeper on what was said but in case you’re not religious, I won’t go there with you. Just suffice it to say that the depth that was there was beyond coincidence – and the timing of it was on point. To be quite frank, it felt as  if the hand of God lifted my chin and told me to look up for my peace. I don’t expect everyone to understand that…but it doesn’t matter.

So yes. 40…feels a whole lot better now. And I feel ready to meet the rest of my life. It’s not half over…it’s half begun.

Anyway, as I said before, here is my “private” list of things I’m planning for my 40th year. Things will be updated and crossed off as times and days change.

On with the sequel…not forty items, I’m afraid.

1. Optimum health (for me: Mind, body, spirit)
2. Hold a dinner party/gathering
3. Decorate my house
4. Send a writing treatment to an agent
5. Create a small veggie garden
6. Travel to a place I’ve never been
7. Get involved with an art meetup and collaborate with a graphic artist (small indie work)
8. Reconnect with some family members
9. Take up running/join running club
10. Participate in a small 5K marathon
11. Finish the book I started last year
12. Write fiction every day and keep in a blog
13. Finish Masters
14. Start MFA and/or PhD
15. Give regularly to charities
16. Balance my budget two months in a row
17. Buy and wear a bikini
18. Buy one really expensive, cool dress with slinky shoes and purse to match
19. Get a true makeover and do a photo shoot…in the buff?
20. And anything else I can come up with that I dare myself to do.

And that’s my list for now.

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me…Happy Birthday dear 40 year old getting better not olderrrr…Happy Birthday to me!

…of absolutely the dumbest, most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

Total story is here: Why some high school students aren’t getting their diplomas, even though they passed all coursework and/or are honor students.

I am…angry, to say the least. One reason is no matter what the article says or the ACLU says, this was still a prime race issue. The targets were specific groups of folks. What the administration may not understand, however, is that graduation is a HUGE deal for some cultures, and they will celebrate – LOUDLY. It’s not lack of respect, it’s cultural celebration. In some cases it’s rare for students to even graduate, let alone with honors. Why not celebrate? To deny a child’s diploma *and* make them do community service because someone else was loud? NOT acceptible.

I’m angry about this. I’m even more angry that there isn’t a lot of muscle helping the parents fight this.

Mind you, yes – I see the reasoning behind it. I’m not disputing the reason. But you don’t punish the student for something a family does. You can delay the graduation, sure…but you don’t take away a hard earned diploma. What precident does that set for the rest of their academic careers? Some might not even go to their college graduation – some might have such a bad taste in their mouths that college might not be worth it.

This is wrong…just so wrong on so many levels and it hurts me to see this occuring with no apparent recourse.

No words. I have no appropriate words that will translate.

It’s interesting. I haven’t really responded to many fandom kerfluffles as of late, but I could have. I could have addressed the recent “Martha Mammy” kerfluffle (Doctor Who), I could’ve addressed the really, REALLY idiotic HP fandom misstep over at daily_deviant (miscegenation…whole mounds of stupid). But what’s going on, fandom? What’s going on when a Resident Evil game produces such hateful responses as, “Get back into the cotton fields, you filthy nigger” or  this: Blackface goes HD (read subsequent comments). I really wasn’t all that pleased with the “Brains and cornbread” comment and movie still.

And of course there’s always the fall back, “oh, (American) Blacks are too sensitive. You need to get out of the (darkie) ages.”

With comments like those I simply shake my head. People may never understand why games or situations like this are incredibly insensitive. Let me give you a hint why, for those of you who aren’t getting it. A long, long time ago, in the United States, there was a little thing called slavery. Now, despite the abolition of this thing called slavery, attitudes about it did not change. In fact, such attitudes worsened, deepend, and became ingrained in American culture to such an extent that certain things became accepted. Became the norm. People were still hurting, but  the hurting got swept under the rug. People claimed it was such a long time ago and “we have to let it go.”

But attitudes did not change, for either side. Things were not spoken. Things were not voiced. We are a “polite” society, and polite people did not bring up such ugly topics.

But what does it mean, little ducklings? Does pretending something doesn’t exist or ignoring something make it a non-entity? Why are Black Americans/African-Americans so angry? Do they/we have a right to be upset?

We do. To an extent, we do. Because even in the calm explanations, even within the scientific rhetoric, even with every doctorate behind us we still get “go back to Africa if you don’t like it.” And maybe such comments don’t occur often, and maybe there are only a select few who express themselves in such a way. But why do so many folks come out en masse whenever a kerfluffle occurs? Why do those who say, “oh, I’m not racist” suddenly give a comment that explains why Black folk should not despair over RE5 because a bunch of white people were killed in previous games…which makes the killing of Blacks in RE5 ok. Justifies it, even.

Why am I upset…?

I am upset, because again – people are not getting it. I have to get my 2×4 from under my bed and clock someone hard and be that “uppity nigger” folks hate so. If people just took a *little* African history, if folks just read a *little* about African and African American heroes beyond February, maybe things would be different. If interracial marriage or dating could get beyond the “kink” factor and hit mainstream as a legitimate, functioning relationship rather someone’s private sex joke…if people understood that seeing African or African American faces slaughtered over and over, even in a game, smacks of slavery – that we’re seen (again) as cattle and not worth saving (or worse, we’re saved by the Great White Hope)…if only people thought beyond their four little walls. If only people could be proud enough and open enough to accept Black folk in games, movies, comics, and books over and over again, without publishers worrying about sales…

Pop Quiz: If Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Captain Kirk had begun as Black characters, would the HP, Dr. Who, and Star Trek fandoms exist today?

If you can answer that question honestly, you’re closer to understanding why I am not happy with the race kerfluffles in fandom. You will understand why I feel the way I feel.

Yes. Resident Evil 5 is just a game. Yes, Martha is just a companion. Yes, miscegenation was a simple misunderstanding of the terminology. But it’s more than that…it goes deeper. The truth is, no one wants to admit that they have prejudices. No one wants to admit that they’d rather fantasize with a White face (with whom they can identify). No one wants to admit that maybe things aren’t as healed as they’d like them to be, and no one wants to admit that the past can’t stay buried as long as stupid, clueless, mindless, idiotic, pointless, and absolutely mindfu!kingly inane stereotypes keep perpetuating and self-generating.

Do you think I’m making mountains out of molehills? Maybe I am. But riddle me this, Batman: When is the last time you read a book, or a comic…when is the last time you saw a movie or a tv show in fandom that had a Black character in the starring role? When was the last time you *kept* watching and reading and participating in that fandom?

Worse still – when was the last time you found such media in active circulation?

No, my ducklings; fandom has not changed. Not by much. There are faces of color, but the patrons and the inteligencia who admire such works are sorely absent. Black folk in sci fi and fantasy are kinks, little else. So wake me, will you, when we have a thriving fandom based on a Black character? Wake me, will you, when we have a Black Doctor Who and there is no nuclear fandom war. Wake me, when Marvel or DC or Image produces a consistent, ongoing, top-10 comic where the character is Black, and doesn’t hide behind a mask, covering his or her beautiful face.

Wake me when it’s over. Wake me when freedom comes.

First off, let me first give some background. I love Tony Stark best when he’s a vulnerable superhero trying to do his best – and failing. You don’t see this in many superheroes because we (or the mainstream) expect our heroes to have small failings and to overcome them. If you have the money, the heart, the drive, the manpower, and the power of the people behind you you’re supposed to suppress and/or overcome your personal demons and save the people. But Tony Stark is almost an anti-hero in that respect. He was a selfish coward on one hand (much like Dr. Strange’s origins) but he saw the error of his ways when a kidnapping and near-death experience nearly destroyed him.

That’s the skinny, anyway. But here’s where the movie and the comcis part ways, and this is what I REALLY like what the movie did – far more than the comics have done to this point. Mind you, I haven’t read Ultimate Iron Man so I might be behind on the continuity here…but the one thing The Invincible Iron Man comics didn’t do well enough was express Tony Stark’s vulnerability. I’m not faulting the comics here; it’s nearly impossible to add that brief touch of vulnerability in characters without bogging the story down into a soap opera tragedy. Vulnerability is often lost because it takes a very strong artist and a subtle writer to convey it – and it takes that combined, special team to add that detail in a one-shot square the size of a drinks coaster. I won’t touch the gory details of artists or writers changing in the middle of storylines and all that because that’s a rant for another day.

But vulnerability, though – yes. The Tony Stark I grew up with pretty much showed his vulnerable side only when he started drinking, which is an extremely crappy way to convey vulnerability. It cheapens the character and prevents you from growing the character up naturally. Yes, Tony is an alcoholic. But instead of using alcoholism to keep him grounded, let his every day experiences make him a real person. In my opinion his alcoholism should be the end result of his poor decisions, not the main reason for them. And THAT’S what I’m loving about the Iron Man movie, Jon Faverau’s direction, and Robert Downey Jr.’s depiction of the character. Their combined efforts have set up that vulnerability in advance. Sure, Stark is a billionaire, industrialist playboy with all the moral fiber of a fraternity house celebrating Spring Break, but there’s something there that the director and actor saw that brought out a special quality that transcends Batman, Spiderman, Superman, and all the others: Tony is finally a real HUMAN MALE.

I like to look at it this way: Spiderman is the coming-of-age story with the title line, “With absolute power comes absolute responsibility.” After a few mistakes Peter Parker knew he had to do the right thing, all the time. Superman was already a moral choirboy and Batman – ala Bruce Wayne – started with rage and revenge to build his persona, then grew into a vigilante for the downtrodden. But let’s look at Movieverse!Tony Stark for a minute. Here’s a man who has everything, and who wants nothing more than to party it up and enjoy life to the fullest (and working a few days here and there as needed). Despite the similarities, Tony is the opposite from Bruce Wayne in a few key areas. Bruce’s experiences changed him and made him stronger…but Tony’s experiences forced him to become more *human.* Pre-kidnapping, Tony Stark was a misogynistic dick. Post-kidnapping? He STILL IS (“Tony, Tony! Do you remember me?” [Stark keeps walking & doesn't break his stride]: “Not one bit.”). Tony didn’t change! Not really. All he did was wake up to the truth about the world, and now he wants to regulate the war abuses and own up to his responsibilities for perpetuating terrorism in a post 9-11 world. But Tony’s not going to walk down the street and save kittens from trees. He’s not going to prowl the streets at night and rescue people from muggers or save street walkers. In fact, if he sees those things happening he might ignore them…or he’d call the local authorities to deal with it. He knows his responsibility is to the global society and he won’t deal with the “smaller” issues.

And I’m going to break in here and mention something else: the Iron Man movie is *extremely* timely. It’s almost as if it were made for the era we’re living in now. I don’t know if Favreau meant it, but there is no other superhero movie that has truly dealt with the post-911 age and the hero’s responsibilities towards terrorism. The comics have touched on it, but again, you can’t go into too much depth here without pulling out a preachy, political message that will turn people off. Iron Man stated the facts, shined a mirror into the faces of war profiteers, and did something about the devastation it revealed. That’s all it needed to do, because the audience will create the conclusions in their own minds.

Okay…back to what I was talking about before.

Tony Stark loves his playboy ways. He loves drinking, he loves women, and he knows he’s a jerk. He embraces those parts of himself and just because he’s a superhero it doesn’t mean he’ll stop those things. He does not believe that he has absolute responsibility, even after building a special suit geared towards fighting injustices. He feels responsible to rid the world of the injustices he’s perpetuated, and the political problems his company perpetuated, but not much more than that. And *that* makes him human.

Another thing I wanted to add: I don’t think everyone will like the Iron Man movie (and especially some of the problematic future, alcoholic storylines). Not because he’s an alcoholic per se, but because Tony *can* be a mirror to many men’s lives. Those Peter Pan men who never grow up, who always run around and have a different girl every night waaay into their late 40s and early 50s, or later (*coughHefcough*), who can’t be tied down to their families and hate the idea of being responsible for their actions. This movie will HURT. It’ll show who they really are. They’ll embrace Tony I’m sure – some might even envy him – but the kicker is, Tony is human and he’s going to fall, big time. I don’t think people are ready for that fall, because they don’t want to see how their lives are out of control. Tony Stark is the wish fulfillment of many a tomcat, and when they see the hero tomcat neutered, they will wince.

Tony Stark has a lot to teach men – and women, for that matter. Sure, this kind of man is fun for a while, but do you really expect him to settle down and have your family and stay at home? Nope. ‘Course, it’s very rare to find a superhero who will anyway. But Stark even more so.

One last point I wanted to add: Iron Man is not for children. Tony Stark is a man who refuses to grow up, even when faced with important responsibilities. He’s not going to grow up. He’s the mirror for adult men who refuse to grow up, who go kicking and screaming into that dark night (knight?) clutching their Maserati toys and Stepford trophies. Children will see the hero, but they’ll have more questions about Iron Man than they will about Spiderman or Batman. Tony Stark sits on the fence in a more public way than Bruce Wayne. Children would recognize that Bruce has to pretend to be a playboy so people won’t know he’s really Batman. But there is no analogy for Iron Man. Tony Stark *is* a playboy, and he makes no qualms about it. He’s morally ambiguous on most days and drunk off his ass on the other days.

Iron Man is not a children’s hero, but he is an adult hero. He’s the everyman of today, the partying hard red-blooded American male who wakes up and smells the ozone layer shrinking. He’s the man who recognizes his faults and makes no effort to hide them. He’s a man with an indomitable spirit and a snarky, almost grinch-like heart struggling to grow three sizes in a day. He’s our corporate CEOs who are smart, and they know it. He’s our lonely everyman, struggling to make sense of a post-911 world, dancing as fast as he can to avoid the truths in his heart.

He’s Anthony Edward Stark – the true hero of a war-weary earth.

And by God, I love the snarky asshole.

I was actually working at Lee Hecht Harrison as a temporary employee (kind of ironic, really, since I was also in transition limbo). I remember coming into work and one of the workers ran into our office room shouting something about a small plane hitting a building in New York. I shook my head, thinking it was the darndest thing…and then the story suddenly grew and became insane. And surreal. The propeller plane became a jet liner. The jetliner became two jet liners. Then three. I began wondering if our country were under attack and if we were going to get more attacks. Everyone stopped to listen to a portable radio (we didn’t have TV reception) and then they made the executive decision that if people wanted to go home, they could. Some stayed. Me, I wanted to go home and make sure my mother was ok, and I wanted to be home just in case things got worse.

I started seeing the reports on TV, and I couldn’t believe it. The radio made it sound so separate from the true horror, and I stared in stunned silence, watching a HUGE passenger plane plow into one of the Twin Towers in Manhattan. The picture that haunted me most was from the ground. A news correspondent was talking to someone and you could see the camera angle from above as the second plane plowed right into the tower, on camera.

For weeks I couldn’t get those images out of my head. I was in shock as I saw the cover of Time. I felt ill when I saw the undoctored photos of people leaping from open windows as the towers burned, plummeting to the ground below. I didn’t eat or sleep well. I remember feeling the same sense of outrage as everyone did, and yet I felt the backlash coming against the Muslim community and I cringed inside. I grieved for the foreign people who were in our land because I knew everyone would want to blame them, whether they were Muslim or not. And I grieved because I knew our nation – already distrustful, already paranoid – would become crazed with “keeping our boarders safe” and we’d get out of control.

But.

For all that, I also remember the courage, the kindness, and the love of the firefighters at ground zero. I remember hearing about the police who were first on the scene, and about the police and firefighters who lost their lives either saving others when the second plane hit, or when the towers buried them alive. I remember hoping and praying to see one more face alive, one more person, even days after the event. And I remember being awed and bewildered about stories of people who should’ve been on that plane or that plane, who missed their bus, plane, and train that morning, or who broke a shoe and couldn’t make it into work. I also grieved with that one passenger who was on standby, and decided to take that fateful flight, even when they were scheduled for a later one.

So many things.

For good and for ill it changed us. We became heroes and demons, proud and profound. We became a new nation seven years ago today, and I hope we continue to look back on the things past and learn and grow from all that happened. I pray we finally grow up and see the world as a place that needs us, as much as we need them.

I just got back from early voting (heh! Voting on a Saturday, who’da thunk it?) and I wanted to share a few of my experiences. First off, I don’t care who you vote for: This election is historic. We’re either going to have the very first female VP, or we’re going to have the very first African-American president. All politics aside, can you sit back for a moment and take that in? America still has a long way to go to make healing strides with minority groups, but today gave me hope for the future.

I saw an African-American man coming in to vote who looked about in his late-50s, with three young kids beside him. I like to think he was a grandfather, with his three grandchildren, and they were here to witness history. I saw more African American people voting today than I’d ever seen in an election before – either as volunteers, or as actual voters – and it sent a thrill through me. When I finally cast my electronic ballot, I said goodbye to everyone…and was suddenly hit with combined feelings of joy, honor, and awe.

The. First. African-American. Presidential. Candidate.

I was taken aback.

My mother fought for rights and freedoms in the 1960s. She told me stories of her trips when she was young, and they visited her family in Texas. She told me they had to be careful to drink from the proper fountains and to stay on the correct sides of the street. She reminded me that they had to sit in the backs of buses in Texas – not like in Illinois, where she had a bit more freedom – and she remembered seeing her brothers getting severe looks from relatives because they’d “forget their place” (and they were just being normal kids…).

Both my parents were in protest marches and sit-ins, and they were semi-hippies (the eat organic, love the earth, and be free with your body types). My grandparents and great grandparents suffered still more – and fought to be recognized as respected individuals.

And today, I feel as if I’ve just respected their memories, and their spirits.

I express my gratitude to those folks who have gone on before. Thank you for this historic day, and thank you for preparing it for us.

Yes. May God Bless this nation with many, many more historic and *healing* experiences.

Hum. Well, for once I’m speechless.

Town of “Batman” sues for copyright infringement.

…yes, seriously.

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world, folks. And it just gets crazier.

http://wizbangpop.com/2008/11/13/town-of-batman-suing-batman-over-use-of-batman.php