This is an Oscars post.

Alright, the Oscars don't appear to be anywhere on free to air TV in New Zealand, so I've been resorting to various live streams - which, let me tell you, have been of fairly deplorable quality (thank you, New Zealand internet). As such, I only managed to actually witness bits and pieces, although they seem to have been the most important bits and pieces.

On the hosts:



Anyone else have some sneaking suspicions that James Franco was high as a kite? I've got to admit, I miss Ricky Gervais. This was downright boring in comparison.

On Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross taking away the Oscar for Best Original Score:



Nine Inch Nails are amazing, Trent Reznor is amazing even when he looks like a thumb, I haven't seen The Social Network because I am a bad fan, etc etc.

On Christian Bale winning Best Supporting Actor:



I've got to admit, after my initial distaste following that incident (it's fucking distracting...), I settled on a general feeling of affection for good trolling when it comes to Señor Bale. I haven't seen The Fighter but I intend to, and honestly, it was just cute at the end of his speech when he got all choked up about his wife again. /is a romantic at heart

On Colleen Atwood winning for Best Costume Design:

I love her and I could not care less what anyone says about Alice In Wonderland. I thought it was fine. Not amazing, not mind-shatteringly awful, it was fine. People are such drama queens about that shit.

On Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law:

They warm the cockles of my heart, whatever that means. I'm still sold on this Sherlock thing.

On Florence Welch:

Ethereal goddess, musical queen, wasted on this ceremony, etc.

On Tom Hooper winning Best Director:

Laughing at these bitches who seem to think this was unexpected. The King's Speech is a beautifully directed film.

On Natalie Portman winning Best Actress:

Whatever, we all saw it coming, I just don't get it. She was alright, but seriously, best actress? Slim pickings this year, huh?

On Colin Firth winning Best Actor:

King Firth deserves this and every other award we can invent for excellence in a human being, the end.

On The King's Speech winning Best Picture:

Honestly, I wasn't sure the Academy was going to choose the correct candidate for this one, but in the end they got it right. I would've been happy with this or True Grit, so...

All Is Violent, All Is Bright

Sometimes you just have one of those days where everything seems solemn and sort of heavy, even if it's completely irrational. In my case, predictably, this is almost always triggered by some minor love-life-related incident. On the upside, in my 20 years on this planet I have managed to gain the perspective necessary to see minor love-life-related incidents as exactly that - minor - and I find it best to pass the moods with sympathetic music.

In a side note - and this is going to sound spoilt and bitchy but fuck it - it is annoying as hell to be followed around and stared at and complimented and all manner of other usually good things when it's in the context of someone being obviously interested in fucking or dating you, or both, and you would rather grow old and die completely alone than devote one more second of your time to even considering such an unappealing idea.

I don't even care, you bitches know I'm right. It is awkward and uncomfortable and you don't want to be mean about it but if they don't take the hint and quit humping your leg you're going to have to pull out the bitchface and that's a generally unpleasant prospect. If you're disagreeing, that's because you've never had it happen to you, and on that note, you should count your blessings.

Conversely, if you have had the displeasure of experiencing intense unwanted affection, it makes you hyper-aware of any time when you are interested in someone and you're not sure if said interest is returned. At least, that's how it works for me. I am suddenly very aware that there is a pretty good chance that any overt gestures are going to result in quiet but unmitigated irritation.

Or this.

I have yet to come up with a suitably subtle solution to this problem - because sometimes, just busting out with 'So, let's have sex!' doesn't seem to be the best option, and most people I know are too nice to snap out an unequivocal 'Look, I'm not interested.' I'm working on it, but until I find the answer, I think I'm going to have to stick to dear friends with Mogwai DVDs.

Today has been all about music; with a little luck the night will continue in the same theme.

Today I tidied my room and listened to these songs in a sort of endless cycle:

With the occasional bout of this:

and this:

and this:

Basically I am hoping to continue the night in much the same fashion, with plenty of this:

On people with an inherent terror of eating anything they were not raised on.

So, not too long ago I came across a recipe online - I like hunting for recipes online, sue me - for baked lemon pasta.

People of a delicate disposition should probably turn away now.

Apparently, instead of thinking "Sweet, that looks pretty easy to make, I might try something new!", I should have been wondering what kind of person would eat pasta (a disgusting and unpopular ingredient by all accounts) and lemon (which, let's face it, is a horrible and exceedingly rare flavour) in the same dish. This is judging by the reaction to my mentioning it in passing to some people who will remain unnamed. They expressed a range of emotions between shock, trepidation and outright horror at the very idea of pasta and lemon in the same dish.

Now, call me world-weary, impatient, scathing and contemptuous - I am three out of four of those things - but I think that was a pretty stupid bizarre reaction. I'm not sure I properly expressed that sentiment in the moment, because I was too busy being torn between confusion and laughter at the stunned silence, murmured "What?"s and subsequent heartily offended outpouring of "Lemon...pasta bake?" Possibly all I got out was something along the lines of "Yeah. Lemon pasta bake."

Am I missing something here? Is this a normal thing that I wasn't raised to do? Some sort of food-related xenophobia, an utter lack of any sense of culinary adventure? It's not enough that I can't attend bizarre food festivals and actually eat bizarre things, now I have to narrow my meal choices down to Things My Mother Served Me Before I Moved Out Of Home? Because, and I'm sensing a theme here, that also sounds rather boring.

So please, people who are irrationally scared of trying new foods - or clothes, or music, or dances, or sexual positions, or anything for that matter - just give it some thought. I'm just putting it out there. Sarcasm aside, I really do believe that the point of life, insofar as I can tell, is to experience it. I'm not trying to pass judgement on how you live your life, but uhh, it seems like you make the whole 'experience' thing kind of difficult for yourself.

Life in the fast lane comfort zone

So, as it turns out, there are quite a few things I am not opposed to doing/comfortable with doing that a great many people are not.
Among these things are:

• baring my face in public.
• eating 20 chicken nuggets in one sitting.
• dyeing my hair purple.
• sharing my thoughts on a series of seemingly unrelated subjects via the internet.
• participating in a threesome.
• arguing my point.
• falling in love with people of my own gender.
• eating processed foods.
• wandering through crowded places, e.g. concerts.
• shotting horse semen at a bizarre food festival.

I happen to be okay with all of the above, and that doesn't make me superior or inferior to anyone else. They're just facts. There's also a very long list of things I am/would be extremely uncomfortable doing, including stupid things like "ordering my own food at a restaurant" and "walking around naked". That does not mean I automatically feel the need to censor anyone who is fine with ordering their food or wandering their own house in the nude, because that would be pretty goddamn stupid. Of course it would, you say, but I'm not so sure it's such an obvious fact to everyone.

I'm writing this because I don't think it should be anybody's right to make anyone else feel like their list of comfortable and uncomfortable things makes them bad, strange, or unreasonable, unless one of the things listed in the Comfort Zone is "having sex with underage girls/boys", or "hitting people I disagree with", or something similarly damaging and antisocial. The idea of "normalcy" is a fabrication, and that alone makes it a piss-poor standard to judge anyone by. I tend to judge myself and other people based purely on whether or not they are hurting someone with their actions.

So I will shot my horse semen and have sex with multiple people in one go and hold my head high because I am not hurting anyone by doing it. If it makes you uncomfortable enough that you feel the need to throw names at me and tell me I'm doing something wrong, that's completely illogical and the fault lies with you, not me. Thank you for your attempt at policing my choices, but I don't intend to follow your 'rules' until you can back them up with something other than "Well I wouldn't do that, and neither would anyone I know." I appreciate that it makes you feel better if you live your life by irrationally sealing yourself off from anything you don't immediately understand or which is unfamiliar, and that's fine with me; I sincerely hope it isn't as sad and boring as it sounds. I would appreciate it if you restricted it to yourself - you know, the only person you have any right to control?

On compulsive curtain-drawing and the surrounding anxiety.

Sometimes I think about my predilection for closing my curtains the second darkness falls, and how it’s driven entirely by one night in my youth when I realized that even with net curtains, when night falls it’s easy to see straight into a lit room from the outside. Coupled with my horror of ever seeing an unfamiliar face peering back at me when I look out the windows, I am driven to obscure the windows altogether.

It occurred to me that perhaps curtain-habits are indicative – to a certain extent – of personality. I’ve known people who never close their curtains at all, lest they miss something interesting happening at their neighbour’s place. Is nosiness symptomatic of boredom in one’s own life? Conversely, is a secretive habit like my own suggestive of a certain amount of vanity? After all, why would anyone be interested in watching me watch TV after dinner?

On hilariously anti-climactic overhyped pop singles.

Gaga?
Gaga?
What is this shit?
Come on now. I'm not even a hater. In fact I love some Gaga with cocktails and an excess of makeup.
Don't get me wrong; I find plenty of her fans obnoxious, her more vocal haters even more so, and I find that 'monster' stuff generates a fair amount of second-hand embarrassment. I can't sit through interviews with her without concluding that she has absolutely no idea what she's talking about/is trying too damn hard to be a visionary, enlightened leader.

All of that aside, she tends to make good pop music, and pop is one of my all-time favourite genres. It's happy music. Don't give me shit about disliking your 20-minute epics about slaying dragons or worshiping the Beast or whatever the fuck it is, and then turn around like "Oh I can't stand happy music!" Why? Does it make you awkward to be flippant and joyous? Telling.
Anyway.

This song is not good. It's not exactly awful, but for something that's been so hyped...it should have been far, far better than this. I am disappointed, Gaga. I'll just be over here, listening to The Fame Monster and side-eyeing this single. Give me an album on which I can consider this The Track I Always Skip, and things will be cool between us, okay? I still love you.