M is playing the first Halo in the next room and I'm reminded of all the rants I've never written about my (in)glorious history as a girl. And a gamer.
I've always wanted to write about the presumption in MMOs that I'm a male, and my nerves when I log into a Ventrilo channel with new guildmates who don't know yet. I'm tempted by diatribes about Cortana and how her competency is in direct correlation with her impossibility as a sex object, but I'm sure someone else has written it first, and better, and a host of fanart on the internet utterly confirms the ability of fanboyz and girlz to objectify anything, especially when it has breasts. Besides, I would have to admit what a poor shot I am in every first person shooter ever, and that's unthinkable.
But there, I've gone and done it, and does that make for other unfathomable confessions? Like the fact that I turn the difficulty down when I just want to find out what happens in a plotline, and the boss fights are too much for me? Like the fact that I want, need, to say that I do return to them and beat them the way they should be beaten, because if I don't, it's like I'm not a real gamer? Like the guilt I feel for falling so eagerly into every trap set for me by game developers, the (literal) bones they throw in romantic opportunities, clothing customization, and the ability to collect my own virtual petting zoo of vanity critters.
What upsets me most is that I polarize these things even with the education I've had and the efforts I've made not to engender behaviors in my life away from the console and the computer and just to think, this is one kind of human, this is another. But I don't feel like I can be this kind of gamer and be a girl, like it's somehow damaging, or I'll warrant rolling eyes and glances that speak nothing but I-told-you-sos. If I'm not a badass, if I don't dig LAN parties and would rather socialize than raid, then I'm just a girl who likes playing The Sims 2.
And that's not a real game, right?
31 August 2010
26 August 2010
Between the Sheets
There are few things more extravagant to me than buying books I haven't read yet.
Sure, there are long anticipated installments in series that I won't hesitate to drop the cash on, but an unknown, even with a shiny cover and a promising synopsis, so rarely tempts me. I don't know what this means for my future as a writer. Probably that no one should ever buy my books.
Maybe it's that I know a novel isn't something I can return, whether I've been handling it for six hours or six weeks, and unlike an ill-fitting shirt, a narrative that dives headlong into descriptions of clothing and hair the color of autumn wheat has no hope with me. I can't turn it into pajamas, and I won't give it away. That sort of garbage should never be written, let alone read. I don't even care if you enjoy it. We're probably not friends, anyway.
What inspires me to write is that I have recently purchased two books on recommendations alone, even from recommendations that I trust, and it feels almost too indulgent, too daring. I've lined them up on the shelf alongside the library books in varying states of decay, my usual source for new material. We have an arrangement, these new books and me. Running my fingers over the glossy mysteries of their covers and making promises about the sweet, curled-on-the-couch-drinking-coffee evenings we will share, my thrills are something entirely different from what new clothes could stir.
I can always convince myself to take clothes back but books, books are worth going without sleep, without groceries, without sex. Just ask my husband.
Sure, there are long anticipated installments in series that I won't hesitate to drop the cash on, but an unknown, even with a shiny cover and a promising synopsis, so rarely tempts me. I don't know what this means for my future as a writer. Probably that no one should ever buy my books.
Maybe it's that I know a novel isn't something I can return, whether I've been handling it for six hours or six weeks, and unlike an ill-fitting shirt, a narrative that dives headlong into descriptions of clothing and hair the color of autumn wheat has no hope with me. I can't turn it into pajamas, and I won't give it away. That sort of garbage should never be written, let alone read. I don't even care if you enjoy it. We're probably not friends, anyway.
What inspires me to write is that I have recently purchased two books on recommendations alone, even from recommendations that I trust, and it feels almost too indulgent, too daring. I've lined them up on the shelf alongside the library books in varying states of decay, my usual source for new material. We have an arrangement, these new books and me. Running my fingers over the glossy mysteries of their covers and making promises about the sweet, curled-on-the-couch-drinking-coffee evenings we will share, my thrills are something entirely different from what new clothes could stir.
I can always convince myself to take clothes back but books, books are worth going without sleep, without groceries, without sex. Just ask my husband.
17 August 2010
In the South They Call it Supper
I'm making ground beef stroganoff for dinner. It's one of those things that we always seem to have ingredients for when I am at a loss for what to make, or perhaps is one of a very few things I feel comfortable improvising. No sour cream? Greek yogurt. Only one can of soup? Just cut it with some milk. Include liberal amounts of garlic. Done. I may feel far more confident in my culinary skills than I did a few years ago, but I still love to follow a recipe and feel a little adrift without one. I am the same with knitting and sewing patterns, and probably loads of other things I'd do better not to think about or elaborate upon lest I expose myself as the World's Biggest Bore.
Better yet, let me further expose myself. I was just thinking how delightful it will be to settle in to eat this ragtag dinner and watch The X-Files with M, and how our evening ritual of dinner and science fiction will be quite undone when we have children. Instead of talking about our days between bouts of gaming or lazily together in bed before we go to sleep, I'll want to sit down to dinner at a real table which, because my bedroom most of my childhood was actually what our dining area had been, I barely have memories of doing with my family growing up. In fact, our family dinners were a lot more like the guilty pleasures of the childless life M and I are enjoying now. I remember them with some fondness, but if I'm guilty of a hundred things, one of them is wanting what I didn't have.
Once a week, I think, as a treat for us or them or both, we'll watch television while we eat. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to have children as nerdy as we are.
Better yet, let me further expose myself. I was just thinking how delightful it will be to settle in to eat this ragtag dinner and watch The X-Files with M, and how our evening ritual of dinner and science fiction will be quite undone when we have children. Instead of talking about our days between bouts of gaming or lazily together in bed before we go to sleep, I'll want to sit down to dinner at a real table which, because my bedroom most of my childhood was actually what our dining area had been, I barely have memories of doing with my family growing up. In fact, our family dinners were a lot more like the guilty pleasures of the childless life M and I are enjoying now. I remember them with some fondness, but if I'm guilty of a hundred things, one of them is wanting what I didn't have.
Once a week, I think, as a treat for us or them or both, we'll watch television while we eat. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to have children as nerdy as we are.
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