Metaphor_Megg: Captain's Log 3.21.25
What I'm Writing, Watching, and Reading
Top of the morning to you and welcome to our March 21st update. Tall husband and I went on a fun mid 30s birthday trip to the most Midwest place we could, Wisconsin! If I don’t mention that my husband Kyle is very tall now, you will just do this later.
We went to a place I definitely did not think was real while reading the first American Gods Graphic Novel, House on the Rock. If you have never heard of this place, it is a strange fevered dream that Alexander Jordan started by building a house inside of a rock face. Then he just kept going and creating these strange rooms filled with music boxes and strange pieces of art.
This will connect nicely to a discussion on tainted media. Because unless your hairstylist told you this recently too or like me you live under a selective media rock, I wouldn’t have known that American Gods creator Neil Gaiman was under fire for some pretty heinous upper echelon Hollywood sex scandal type shit. You can see Coraline the Musical being axed due to this as well. Honestly, thank God. Just when I wait to get into a juicy piece of media like American Gods I have to find out the creator is a piece of shit. First world problems.
Well, let’s get into it, shall we? Let’s discuss what I’m writing, watching and reading. Float on down with us below.
Captain’s Log
This is your Captain Speaking… hey those astronauts are back on Earth after Trump said they might be in love… tells you something…
Writing
Uncomfortably Present Updates:
Oh, yeah! I’m writing my first book, Uncomfortably Present, which comes out on my birthday May 7th. We are edited baby, and now we are practically formatted. I decided to buy a formatting software, Atticus, due to money and time constraints. I want to get a proof copy of my book and give myself PLENTY of time to make any changes needed. At this point, Uncomfortably Present or UP has 5 different artists and 6 different original pieces of art. These were inspired by and/or connected to an individual poem!
Atticus, Atticus, Atticus. I want to say I love you, because it is very intuitive and pretty easy to use. But, damn you can be slow sometimes. I will not lie and say I have felt the pressure a little bit with no one really to blame, but myself. I’ll wait to give my full review of Atticus only because I am using it for poetry which it is not necessarily set up for. I am feeling good about the $147 I spent and some of the knowledge I have gained doing formatting myself. I do like that you can preview what your book will look like in print or different digital formats like iPad vs iPhone vs Kindle. I did upload a Google Doc file that was already formatted and I will say I like it a bit better. However for KDP you need an ePub file so here we are. The goal is to get a proof ordered within the next week, see what it looks like in my hand, and work on my own sketches for the book. My sketches will be more basic thin black Sharpie and mimic Shel Silverstein’s style. I don’t know why, but I want to see what the book looks like first before making my simple sketches. We got time to re-upload and edit.
I will say like most creatives at this point in time in your journey, there have been so many carrots of other creative projects dangling in front of my face. I must remain focused and finish this god damn book! Here’s “Spoiler Alert” which is a poem that let’s you learn a little about me and what I want my future life to be.
SPOILER ALERT:
I write the damn book at 33
About fairies and time travel
And darkness
You publish your poetry at 34
And breathe for the
first time
You do in fact, Russell, go to the woods
In a quiet place
Where you can write
You get a job
Many jobs but it isn’t
about that anymore
You fall in love with yourself, alone
You create the best art of
Your life
You take your life back
You are brave.
You hike mountains
Fly airplanes
live so many lives
But this is the last one
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
It’s meant to be fun
Who you love is to come
Never bet on a dead horse
You have a child, Winnie
You own a house on the water
You go back to France for months
You hike to Mary Magdalene's {gratin d’oeufs}
cave and cry
You swim naked in the Mediterranean at 55
Staring at the navy sky of stars
They play “Good Riddance” by Green Day at your funeral
You don’t get buried or
“Do” church
You never drink again
You’re strong and still running
around with grandkids at 72
You never get sick of who you areWatching
White Lotus Season 3 (HBO MAX)
Holy shit. What the hell was that last episode of Season 3 with Sam Rockwell? What in the actual fuck? Okay, I watched seasons 1 and 2 as they came out. I really enjoyed the first season the most (I have a major crush on Sydney Sweeney naturally). I was excited to see the change in destination to Thailand. It is such a different part of the world that we get to live vicariously through our characters who mostly all seem to have a miserable time on a vacation of a fucking lifetime.
I really really really enjoyed the episode with the scene of “Are we really going to talk about Trump right now?” How real was that conversation?
I have some theories about how this season goes down. I will say I absolutely despise Saxon’s character and I am routing for Lochlan. The way I gagged on my crock pot corned beef and cabbage as Saxon told his younger brother that, “People want to be used…”
I’m sure the season will continue to make us scratch our heads in the best kind of way.
The 10th Kingdom - Roku Channel Free with Ads
I love this mini series. I have very specific memories of getting the VHS set from the library and watching it over and over. The 10th Kingdom is a made-for-TV mini series from 2000. The show with 1 hr 30 minute episodes that were perfection. We are taken to the everyday normal daughter Virginia and Dad (Tony) who live in New York off of Central Park. But, something is off, a dog appears in the middle of nowhere? Not a normal dog of course but a Prince who had been switched with a dog by a wicked witch from a far away land. I am not doing it justice, but the mini series is like the older sister to Once Upon a Time. Taking those myths we know so well but bringing them to life in their own respective kingdoms. But, of course with a twist. If you have Spring Break coming up or a long weekend I highly recommend bingeing this series! It’s everything right about using the fairy tales we loved growing up and giving them a new spin.
Vampire Diaries (HBO Max)
I’m getting how people start to see the show go downhill after Season 4. No spoilers though! It’s my first time watching and I usually do live updates on my Threads, metaphor_megg. I don’t know how to feel about Elena being a vampire and her humanity dial being turned all the way down. The number of curses, antidotes, cures, is getting really unlikely at this point. The vampire cure was a miss for me.
Movies
Ferris Bueller's Day Off - YouTube Free with Ads
I’ve seen this movie many times. My Mom did well to educate me on various 80s movies, mostly John Hughes movies like this one, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science, 16 Candles, and my favorite The Breakfast Club. My mom really liked Molly Ringwald. I have an album of The Breakfast Club soundtrack.
I find myself with a complicated relationship with Ferris’s escape for the day. Here’s why:
Another movie colored by an actor’s misdeeds - it’s not surprising when you think about his character in the movie. The principal Ed Rooney was played by Jeffrey Jones. Rooney is creepy towards Sloane, and he goes to his students house and BREAKS in. WTF. Don’t forget he was also the Dad in Beetle Juice. The more time goes on, the more the darkness of Hollywood is unveiled. Jeffrey Jones was charged with a felony for sexual assault.
I love that it is featured in Illinois and shows all the cool things you can do in Chicago in one day. The way that the three main characters interact and respond to the world is interesting. Ferris positive, Cameron negative, and Sloane being neutral. I am beginning to notice some of my favorite books or movies/TV shows have 3 characters at play at a time.
You get to see each of their perspectives as the day goes on. Cameron is surrounded in wealth, beauty, opportunity - yet is completely paralyzed on how to proceed in his life. Ferris chooses to look at the world and see the possibilities. What good CAN happen?
I align so much with Ferris’s older sister - Jeanie -the rage of being right and knowing her brother gets away with shit - however she spends her time miserable trying to be right. Maybe it’s just relatable as the oldest child.
She cares so much about being right and doing the right thing that she chooses to make that HER personal problem. The conversation she has at the police station was very valid to the point she needs to worry less about what Ferris does and live her own fucking life. From Charlie Sheen as a druggie punk in the waiting room. Some Buddha like truth.
PSA: Don’t be like Jeanie. Don’t spend your life worrying about what other people are doing right and wrong and forget to live your own fucking life.
Billy Madison
I have seen this movie, but not in a long time. I have been working in education as a teacher and usually with middle age kids or young adults with disabilities. Either way - I can’t for the life of me watch a movie that has a student/teacher relationship trope. Ever. Even Billy Madison makes me cringe. Yes, it’s a fantasy example where Billy Madison rich son of a millionaire gets a chance to go through each grade of school to prove he is worthy of his inheritance. Yes, Billy and his elementary school teacher are adults. No, I do not like it one bit.
I’m glad this is a trend that will continue to go away. Power dynamic relationships are not ones to be fetishise, they are straight up dangerous. Grooming within care taker type roles is HUGE. Trust me it is sickening how common stories are of this happening. Man, I have a former teacher from my high school that might be on a hit list for major creep factors.
As in D-E-A-D meat. So, it bothers me a LOT a bit.
I skipped shows that tried to play these roles out like A Teacher (2020). Upon researching this, I realized so many of the shows I watched growing up had this featured like Gossip Girl, Glee, and Degrassi to name a few. Let’s stop making shows about people who like to date children, okay? Because men’s brains aren’t even full developed until their mid 20s.
Palate cleanser here: A favorite education show that I love and respect is Abbott Elementary.
Reading
I have read 23 books so far this year. Follow my goal to 100 books on Goodreads, Metaphor_Megg.
American Gods Graphic Novels 1-3 (Library)
These graphic novels are absolutely stunning. The story is great but the illustrations are better. I found out while getting my hair done and pulling out the 2nd volume that Neil Gaiman is a huge piece of shit. Speaking of power dynamic relationships, Neil Gaiman has committed this crime in real life as well. He and his estranged wife Amanda Palmer are charged with rape and sex trafficking of their nanny. It was a very insidious and sick case of abuse. I have a belief that these Hollywood types get to a point in their life that they have everything they’ve ever wanted and begin to crave abusing people to continue feeling like they are powerful. Well, good luck with that because the truth will always come out. Great books, shitty Author/Creator. I have yet to watch the TV series. It’s hard to know which media hasn’t been tainted these days.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (Library)
I came across this book at the library a couple of years ago. In 2022 to be exact. I picked up the book and remember incorporating some elements into my beginning of the year lesson with my middle school students. I taught French and Spanish at the time. I remember a student showing me that she bought the book a couple weeks later. I love when you get to see the small impact you make on kids.
This is a book filled with new words and definitions of things yet to be defined. I really enjoy that the parts of speech are including and the root of the word from different languages if applicable. There is a sense of wonder but also sadness in this book. The collection took almost a decade coming from John Koenig’s website, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. You can see some examples of words he has created on his website. I think this is a really genius idea and is inspiring me to create my own words and include them in my poetry.
Currently reading:
The 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson (audiobook)
Leave This Book in Your Bathroom by Mami Onami
Hidden Talent: How to Employ Refugees, the Formerly Incarcerated & People with Disabilities by David Delong
Destroyer by
- I am in love already with this book.
Let’s feature another amazing artist:
Crystal is an amazing artist, Reiki master, light language speaker and channeler. You can find Crystal at Crystal Dawn Alchemy on Instagram as well as her website. Crystal offers Reiki and Tarot sessions as well as selling a variety of beautiful crystals, necklaces and bracelets. I connected with Crystal on Instagram when she was a Beach Body coach. I got to see Crystal go through her spiritual awakening and leave her job that left her feeling empty. She was really inspirational for me on my journey to becoming who I am today. I’ve done sessions with Crystal and they have always been life changing. I’m running out of space so we will share the poem that goes along with this piece next time.
Peace out girl Scout and see you in 2 weeks,
Megg