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Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit
Dec. 2nd, 2024 10:50 am
I'm back from the mountain, where we traditionally hold Thanksgiving. It was simultaneously a huge affair and a much smaller one: Thursday night's dinner had about 20 people, but different circles came together on different nights after that. Friday was for the local folks; our host likes to have sex-positive parties with like-minded friends, and those of us who weren't inclined just hung out and soaked in the good vibes. Saturday was for us "non-local" folks; we dropped acid earlier in the afternoon so we weren't quite up until sunrise. I think it worked a little better, though I do miss watching episodes of "Old Enough" in that floaty haze with the sky lightening behind the screen. Still, I'm not a spring chicken, so being able to pass out before the sunrise was much appreciated.
Thanksgiving dinner prep went...all right. I forgot a LOT of small ingredients that were still really important for what I had planned to make, so the menu was pared back quite a bit. The deep-dish pie crust I needed for the apple pie was left in the freezer; we forgot the cream cheese I'd need for the carrot cake, that sort of thing. It was disappointing, but I also didn't feel quite as up to cooking as I did before, especially since the group was a bit smaller this year after the dinner. Friends picked up some cream cheese and saved the carrot cake, so that's lucky! I had thought I'd have to make an on-the-fly buttercream icing and I'm super glad I didn't have to.
The acid trip was really chill this year, which is how I wanted it. I think, instead of getting in my head about stuff, I wanted to just follow my body where it wanted to go and focus on what was right in front of me. We watched The Death of Stalin, which immediately became one of my favorite movies this year, and Welcome to the Space Show, this nifty little anime about a bunch of kids in a small Japanese town left alone for summer vacation and going on a truly-wild space adventure.
The Death of Stalin is a 2017 adaptation of a comic-strip series, directed by Armando Iannucci, quite possibly the best political satirist of our generation. (He's also responsible for Veep, The Thick of It, and Avenue 5.) It's a fictionalized account of what happened the week after Stalin's death, where his various lieutenants jockey for power in his wake and set up crosses and double-crosses that end up just killing the low-ranking soldiers and helpless citizens. It's a very black comedy, but also one of the absolute-funniest movies I've ever seen. One thing I love about Iannucci is his sharp eye for human folly, even in these storied halls of power. We hear so much about these bogeymen of Russian history, so it's...somehow cathartic to see them in this light, this fucked-up family fighting at Dad's funeral. At the same time, he holds these people to account for the many, many abuses of power they committed as part of their petty grabs. There is real tragedy happening in almost every frame, and we're never too far from the consequences of their brutality. It's this meditation on the limitations of consensus, and how hard it is to have an objective truth with parties so invested in creating whatever truth they want.
Welcome to the Space Show was much lighter. Five kids are left at a schoolhouse in the Japanese countryside to fend for themselves over the summer, which I guess is a thing that happens in small Japanese villages? Natsuki is the nominal main character of the ensemble, a recent student who longs to be a superhero but struggles to fit in due to her absent-mindedness. She lost her cousin's rabbit, Pyon-Kichi, before the story started and it's caused a rift between them. One of the children, Koji, is a sci-fi geek who meets a spaceship mechanic's daughter during his adventures and, I think, has to learn how to deal with the ache of missing someone who seems to just get you. It's a quiet arc played out in the subtext of a few scenes, but I really love how understated it felt.
The movie as a whole is SUCH furry bait. The alien they rescue to start the series is a dog-like humanoid named Pochi who comes from a whole dog planet. Pochi's ex-girlfriend is this pop idol who sings the theme to the Space Show, the most popular show in space. And there's a "hacker" alien character who is basically just this giant bear-like cabbit-person who is JUST. THE. CUTEST. It's also incredibly weird; it comes across almost like a Miyazaki coming-of-age tale, but there are more rough edges that make for some profoundly disturbing implications. Definitely recommended if you're in to weird anime; our host had it on Apple+, but I imagine it's available for rent/purchase wherever you buy quality anime.
Overall, the trip did its usual thing of making me less...fearful, in general. What's different this time is stumbling on an insight into what's driving that fear -- which hopefully gives me a much better shot at untangling that knot.
Over time, I think, I've absorbed the narrative that I'm bad or deficient at expressing myself. Or that the things I think aren't worth expressing. When I speak, I often get caught using the wrong word or saying something that someone else just can't parse. Or I'll catch myself expressing a thought that -- if I had thought about it for a second -- leads down this shameful path I need to examine. The more I speak, the more it feels like what's reflected back at me is "you're wrong/bad/dumb/weak" etc.
That feeling chills me to the point that I just don't say what I feel -- or even think about how to express how I feel. I think what I think, and I don't have the spoons to constantly defend myself from using the wrong word or being...gross/weird/awkward.
But I don't like the version of myself that doesn't engage with the world or advocate for the things I love. I don't mind being quiet, or contemplative, but I do mind being passive -- and not learning how to tell a good story, lead/manage a project, or help someone else through a problem they're having. I also feel more of a responsibility for myself and my place in the community, and I want to be someone who contributes as least as much as they consume.
So learning how to speak to the people around me is a skill...and I know it's one I can get better at with practice. It's more important to reach out, to be engaged, to really connect.
That's where I'm at right now. I'd like to be more assertive and confident, more self-sufficient, more conscientious. That means a bit of exposure therapy for the rejection-sensitive dysphoria, and learning how to deal with the barriers to being understood.
Thanksgiving dinner prep went...all right. I forgot a LOT of small ingredients that were still really important for what I had planned to make, so the menu was pared back quite a bit. The deep-dish pie crust I needed for the apple pie was left in the freezer; we forgot the cream cheese I'd need for the carrot cake, that sort of thing. It was disappointing, but I also didn't feel quite as up to cooking as I did before, especially since the group was a bit smaller this year after the dinner. Friends picked up some cream cheese and saved the carrot cake, so that's lucky! I had thought I'd have to make an on-the-fly buttercream icing and I'm super glad I didn't have to.
The acid trip was really chill this year, which is how I wanted it. I think, instead of getting in my head about stuff, I wanted to just follow my body where it wanted to go and focus on what was right in front of me. We watched The Death of Stalin, which immediately became one of my favorite movies this year, and Welcome to the Space Show, this nifty little anime about a bunch of kids in a small Japanese town left alone for summer vacation and going on a truly-wild space adventure.
The Death of Stalin is a 2017 adaptation of a comic-strip series, directed by Armando Iannucci, quite possibly the best political satirist of our generation. (He's also responsible for Veep, The Thick of It, and Avenue 5.) It's a fictionalized account of what happened the week after Stalin's death, where his various lieutenants jockey for power in his wake and set up crosses and double-crosses that end up just killing the low-ranking soldiers and helpless citizens. It's a very black comedy, but also one of the absolute-funniest movies I've ever seen. One thing I love about Iannucci is his sharp eye for human folly, even in these storied halls of power. We hear so much about these bogeymen of Russian history, so it's...somehow cathartic to see them in this light, this fucked-up family fighting at Dad's funeral. At the same time, he holds these people to account for the many, many abuses of power they committed as part of their petty grabs. There is real tragedy happening in almost every frame, and we're never too far from the consequences of their brutality. It's this meditation on the limitations of consensus, and how hard it is to have an objective truth with parties so invested in creating whatever truth they want.
Welcome to the Space Show was much lighter. Five kids are left at a schoolhouse in the Japanese countryside to fend for themselves over the summer, which I guess is a thing that happens in small Japanese villages? Natsuki is the nominal main character of the ensemble, a recent student who longs to be a superhero but struggles to fit in due to her absent-mindedness. She lost her cousin's rabbit, Pyon-Kichi, before the story started and it's caused a rift between them. One of the children, Koji, is a sci-fi geek who meets a spaceship mechanic's daughter during his adventures and, I think, has to learn how to deal with the ache of missing someone who seems to just get you. It's a quiet arc played out in the subtext of a few scenes, but I really love how understated it felt.
The movie as a whole is SUCH furry bait. The alien they rescue to start the series is a dog-like humanoid named Pochi who comes from a whole dog planet. Pochi's ex-girlfriend is this pop idol who sings the theme to the Space Show, the most popular show in space. And there's a "hacker" alien character who is basically just this giant bear-like cabbit-person who is JUST. THE. CUTEST. It's also incredibly weird; it comes across almost like a Miyazaki coming-of-age tale, but there are more rough edges that make for some profoundly disturbing implications. Definitely recommended if you're in to weird anime; our host had it on Apple+, but I imagine it's available for rent/purchase wherever you buy quality anime.
Overall, the trip did its usual thing of making me less...fearful, in general. What's different this time is stumbling on an insight into what's driving that fear -- which hopefully gives me a much better shot at untangling that knot.
Over time, I think, I've absorbed the narrative that I'm bad or deficient at expressing myself. Or that the things I think aren't worth expressing. When I speak, I often get caught using the wrong word or saying something that someone else just can't parse. Or I'll catch myself expressing a thought that -- if I had thought about it for a second -- leads down this shameful path I need to examine. The more I speak, the more it feels like what's reflected back at me is "you're wrong/bad/dumb/weak" etc.
That feeling chills me to the point that I just don't say what I feel -- or even think about how to express how I feel. I think what I think, and I don't have the spoons to constantly defend myself from using the wrong word or being...gross/weird/awkward.
But I don't like the version of myself that doesn't engage with the world or advocate for the things I love. I don't mind being quiet, or contemplative, but I do mind being passive -- and not learning how to tell a good story, lead/manage a project, or help someone else through a problem they're having. I also feel more of a responsibility for myself and my place in the community, and I want to be someone who contributes as least as much as they consume.
So learning how to speak to the people around me is a skill...and I know it's one I can get better at with practice. It's more important to reach out, to be engaged, to really connect.
That's where I'm at right now. I'd like to be more assertive and confident, more self-sufficient, more conscientious. That means a bit of exposure therapy for the rejection-sensitive dysphoria, and learning how to deal with the barriers to being understood.
