Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 19

Guy #1: You know they made a porn movie with Daleks. The story has something to do with kidnapping naked Eastern European women.

Me: A) That is so wrong. B) Why do you know this?

Guy #1: I downloaded the trailer. It was on one of my horror movie sites.

Guy #4, Me, Office Nazi: Because it's horrible?

Guy #4: Well, one of the Daleks attachments was a sucker arm.

Guy #1: EXSPERMINATE!

(General laughter)

Office Nazi: I've got to figure out how to blog this.

Guy #1: "Don't Eavesdrop On My..."

Me: That's my line! I'm not even going to try and make this entry make sense.

Guy #4: I'm going to get home, and (Chick #2) is going to ask how lunch was.

Entire group: EXSPERMINATE!

ROFL

Ahahahahahahahaha!

Notes From The Wars

Link: Mommy Wars

Because someone at the WaPo is bored this week, a new blog started up with the intention of starting a ginormous fight between women with paying jobs and women who stay at home. Predictably, the thread degenerated almost immediately. Towards the end, I posted something I should have saved for my blog, because the thread had grown too long. Here's my two cents:

These "wars" are what they are because no one is actually listening to each other. And the way everyone frames their points says more about their mindsets than the points themselves. For example:

"I made the biggest sacrifice" - did you ever wonder why YOU had to be the one making the sacrifice and not your husband? If you did, and it was you because you made less money, did you ever wonder why it's almost always the woman making less money?

"I never get a moment to myself as a SAHM" - did you ever wonder why that is? If taking care of your kids is a job, and no one's saying it isn't, why DON'T you have a systemized plan for time off, breaks, trips to the bathroom? Did it just not occur to you that you were entitled to same?

"My husband doesn't have to do chores because he makes the money and I keep the home" - a lovely arrangment, I'm sure, when there are only two people in the house. Kids seem to exponentially increase housekeeping needs - dirt, food, laundry - and yet the chores stay divided between the two adults. Why is that? Why does the breadwinner's time at work remain stable over time, but the number of hours required to complete a laundry cycle increases over time as the clothes get bigger and dirtier?

"Day care sucks up half my paycheck" - why is it YOUR paycheck that you're thinking of that is paying for the daycare? Men have children, too. His paycheck is also paying for daycare. Why aren't you framing the point as a percentage of family income?

"You have no room to complain because XYZ was a personal choice" - why do you assume it was a choice at all? If I stay home with a handicapped child who needs all of my resources, was that a choice? If I have a major case of PPD that miraculously seems to clear up the day I go back to my paying job, was that a choice? If you pull back far enough, getting up in the morning is a CHOICE, but I don't know if you can call it a choice when the alternatives are all horrible.

"I can do what I do because my husband helps" - have you ever flipped that around and said, "He does what he does because I help"? Sounds kind of dismissive, doesn't it? Almost trivializes the contribution?

Call it semantics if you want to, but we're just going to chase our tails until we're all using the same terms, and choosing only those that mean exactly what we're thinking.

Politically Incorrect

Interesting case.

On one hand - I agree. I know a couple dudes in this spot. She said don't use birth control, it's safe, she gets pregnant, she says you don't need to pay anything, I don't want you in my life... and then boom, his wages are getting garnished even though, true to her word, she doesn't want him in her life. Or her son's.

It's really, really fucked up.

On the other hand - men CAN skip out. Women can't. If they don't believe in abortion, they have to carry the baby, give birth to the baby. And then they have to raise a baby they weren't prepared to raise OR give it up. Both (all three?) are life-altering decisions, and I've seen friends go all possible ways on this one. No matter what the choice, the scars never fade.

It's really, really fucked up.

Oh, but you know what the fundies say? Just don't have sex! Nice girls don't without a ring, don't you know! Though that's not true and never was true and never will be true no matter how many Bible-thumping assholes try to claim otherwise. Girls were virgins when they got married back when they got married at fifteen, and even then "eight month miracles" weren't terribly rare. In societies where you're not supposed to do it without the wedding ring, women suffer horribly (see also religious extremist Middle Eastern societies) and men get a free pass. It's not like getting pregnant with a ring is any guarantee the man won't leave.

It's really, really fucked up.

But what about teaching kids that both the boys AND the girls have equal responsibilities? If she says she's on the pill, wear a condom. If he says the condom hasn't been in his wallet since his dad punched him on the shoulder and handed it over five years ago, whip out the spermicidal jelly.

LEGALIZE THE FUCKING MORNING AFTER PILL AND MAKE IT SO WIDELY ACCESSIBLE THAT WE DON'T NEED TO BE RUINING EACH OTHER'S LIVES AND THE LIVES OF CHILDREN OVER BAD JUDGMENT AND POOR IMPULSE CONTROL.

I can't feel too sorry for the schlub in the court case. He should have worn a condom anyway - what about disease, for crying out loud? But an eighteen year sentence is more than crack dealers and armed robbers get. He's just an idiot.

So is she.

You Cannot Copyright An Idea

I'm watching the Dan Brown case with great interest. When I started writing with an eye towards getting paid, I found myself paying attention to "intellectual property" discussions.

Some things were no brainers. I stopped getting music from Kazaa and started buying it from iTunes. I toss a few bucks in the tip jars of great writers on the internet. I don't buy strips under any circumstances.

Plagiarism is not quite as simple. Well, it is when we're talking about someone like Jayson Blair who relied on ctrl-c, ctrl-v. But what about inspiration? A news item that sparks interest? What about a short story, or a memoir? A story based on a friend's cocktail story? If a friend of mine sighs and says, "I had this great idea for a book," and then never writes that book, can I write it and keep all the profits? Even if I can, should I?

I'm still puzzling out the gray areas, but this Dan Brown case doesn't seem to me to be very gray. He took a relatively common idea, did a metric fuck ton of research, and whipped it all together into a thriller novel. A highly readable, page turner of a novel with a plot so intricate that other writers just stare in slackjawed wonder.

Even if the takeoff point for The Da Vinci Code was in fact The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, I suggest that it doesn't matter. If you look up the latter on Amazon, you'll note that one of the reviewers said it "...has all the elements of an international thriller." It seems obvious to me that it was just a matter of time before someone wrote... an international thriller... with the same plot line. There's a world of difference between a scholarly take on an interesting conspiracy theory and a gripping bit of pulp fiction, requiring totally different writing skills from their respective authors.

Finally - would this case be in court if Brown wasn't making a billion dollars from the book and the upcoming movie? A great big pile of money is always the perfect freak bait. (Warning - turn down your speakers.)

Anything else I could say on this topic is already written here, and I would hate to plagiarize and all that. Her post can be summed up as "ideas are cheap and easy, writing compelling pop fiction is hard."

We'll just have to see. For my part, it seems to me that anyone with an education and liberal grant funding could have written HBHG, and only a writer could have pulled off TDC. Your mileage may vary.