Like a cardboard cutout of Legolas...

Working things out is never fun. I think you will inevitably feel as though you're giving up something important, something that you absolutely can't live without. But if there's one thing that evolution has taught us (oh yes. I went there. Science) it's that human beings can live with very little. And I am someone with a lot to lose. I can take that Occam's razor and slice and slice for a very long time before I'm down to the bare bones. Is that lucky or unlucky? Lucky if I'm being grateful. Unlucky if I'm being a teenager.

At any rate, I'm working things out. Moving forward, I think, although more like a snail than a cheetah. Nothing about this process is fast and streamlined, and it all seems to leave a messy trail behind it. Is that just life? I don't know. I'm still figuring this damn thing out for myself, and I'm not exactly doing a great job of it.

There are people out there who have it all figured out. I'd like to find those people and stuff them through a wood chipper. I'd interrogate them first--how the fuck did you get all the answers? Cheater! CHEATER!--but in the end, it's the wood chipper for them. Let's see them find the answer to being sliced and diced!!

(Some people say I have a sadistic side. I don't know what they're talking about.)

But while I'm muddling through, let's talk TV. More specifically, let's talk women and TV. It's kind of a touchy subject, especially since we, as a nation, have supposedly Defeated Sexism And Sent It Screaming For The Hills. Sarcastic capital letters aside, the depictions of women on television shows have changed a great deal in the past few decades--but they've settled into a series of new stereotypes that are very rarely broken, and are almost as frustrating as those of the 1950s and 60s.

I have a theory that most men can absolutely never write a satisfying female character. She's always one-dimensional, and most often (if she's the heroine) she's their ultimate fantasy. The real culprit of that is John Grisham. Allow me to take a moment and say: FUCK JOHN GRISHAM. I mean, seriously. Every single one of his female characters is leggy, gorgeous, intelligent, and always always always always always a fucking damsel in distress. There's never any variation, never any sort of freshness to his characters. Dan Brown is also terrible with this, but he's an awful writer, so his female stereotypes are less of a problem.

Admittedly, those are books and I'm talking about TV. But if you look at your program lineup, you'll see only a couple of female stereotypes dominate: the no-nonsense businesswoman (every incarnation of Law and Order), the sensible wife (every fat-guy-hot-wife sitcom ever), the clueless ditz/slut (Big Bang Theory and weirdly enough, Psych) and the kickass sexpot (every crime show on CBS).

It's rare that you see a female character that's able to break this mold believably. Usually when a writer tries, it seems like he or she is just randomly throwing character traits or back-story in there to mix things up. When this happens, it fails miserably. Take, for example, Psych. The character of Juliet O'Hara, played by Maggie Lawson, is a junior detective at the Santa Barbara Police Department. She has a gun, she has a badge, she has detectoring powers (yeah. It's a thing.) But despite all that, her chief role on the show is just to sort of stand around and giggle at whatever Shawn and Gus do. She's not active, and she's not interesting. The writers have tried to give her angst (which is the most common character-flesher-outer), and they've tried to give her romance, and it just hasn't worked. Detective O'Hara remains as two-dimensional as one of those cardboard cutouts that I always secretly lust over at FYE.

One show that I think has admirably created a couple of female characters that have been interesting and believable is How I Met Your Mother. Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) are fun twenty-somethings that I can actually see as real people. They're not spoiled, but they're not perfect. They swear. They can keep up with the boys, but they make space for girl-time. They're funny, they're goofy, they're somewhat crass--I think I know them! And the most interesting thing about this, from my perspective at least, is that they were created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas--two MEN.

Anyways, that's just a brief little rant about women on TV today. There will probably be more--I have a lot to say on this subject.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

"What's the point of living if you never learn to laugh?"

I think I read that somewhere once, but I can't remember where. I don't think the "where" matters, really--it's all about the "what," and that "what" has stuck with me for God-knows-how-many years. What's the point of living if you never learn to laugh?

It's a policy I live by, I've realized. I don't know what happened somewhere in my past (what's your childhood trauma?!?), but in that mess of butchered Barbies and scribbled scrawlings it dawned on me that laughing is really one of the best things in the world. I want to do it all the time. I can't be around people who don't know how to.

It's served me pretty well so far. I've gotten through my life a bubbly person, even if I am sarcastic. By being able to laugh, I've allowed myself a self-dependence that I wouldn't have been able to have otherwise. Most of the time, laughter allows you to yank yourself up by your bootstraps. Shoelaces. Whatever.

The flipside of this--the awful, stunted flipside--is that I think I've come to depend on the laughter. And that's no good. That's no good at all. I'm at a total loss in situations that demand serious thought (I avoid serious thought like the plague, as Lord Peter Wimsey once said...oh, you crime-solving, British, fictional genius, you). Someone breaks out the Feelings--and there I go, up shit creek without a paddle.

I'm not a sociopath, no matter how I may seem (that's especially for you, boy in my Spanish class). I understand feelings. I just don't always enjoy talking about them. There's definitely still that stereotype out there that girls are all touchy-feely about shit, that they have long, drawn-out conversations about their innermost secrets, most often between sexual experimentation and underwear-pillow-fights. Because that's what girls do on sleepovers.

Nope. Not so into that. I'll listen--I'm a great listener, and I enjoy listening and helping. But I don't really have much to share. I wish people would stop expecting me to share! When I have something to say, I'll say it! But I won't say it to someone I don't know very well, and I won't say it unless I mean it!

I guess my point is that I don't have a childhood trauma. There's nothing lurking in the dark recesses of my soul that yearns to be set free through...what? Therapy? A trip to the ice cream parlor? Friendship? A man? I have no impenetrable depths. I am a straightforward person. Sometimes I feel like I should be more tortured and dark, but most of the time I'm perfectly happy with who I am. My issues are about as bland as I am: boys, sure. Homework. Worries about grades and the future and my family and my friends. But no smoldering brands of resentment and anger that I've carried throughout the years deep within my chest. Haven't got any of those.

The song that's currently stuck in my head is "My Sharona". I don't know if that's relevant or not.

Flower Power

So...okay. First things first--happy Valentine's Day. Or day after Valentine's Day. Whatever. You don't care.

New experience for me: I got a rose. And not just any rose--an anonymous rose. With the message "I hope your day is as beautiful as you are" attached to it.

Don't get me wrong--it totally made my day! I'm still having trouble not smiling. I've never gotten a present on Valentine's Day before, and this is a welcome, welcome change. It's also a nice return-to-normalcy present because I spent all of Saturday working on my horror movie--got back to my room at about 3 am.

It's the anonymous thing. Blessing and a curse, kind of like the Internet. On one hand, I love that it's anonymous, because it could be anyone! On the other hand, I really, really hate that it's anonymous because...it could be anyone. Robert Downey Jr. or Steve Buscemi. Chocolate pudding or...banana pudding.

Banana pudding is gross.

I think it's that tension--the I-just-don't-know tension that fuels a lot of television shows (see? SEE?!? I can bring anything back around to TV). The classic will-they-won't-they dynamic is the same as that of the anonymous rose. There's a conflict there, especially on the part of the audience. They want desperately for those characters to be together, but at the same time, the moment that they do, the magic is gone and the show becomes crap. I want desperately to know who sent me that rose, but there's a chance that the moment I do, the magic of the flower will be gone. The last petal falls, the Beast remains a beast forever.

[Odd digression, did you know that the name of the prince from Beauty and the Beast is actually Adam? Charlotte maintains that he will always just be Prince Beast. I agree with her.]

Take, for example, The X-Files. This show set up that will-they-won't-they between Mulder and Scully so beautifully, mostly because through the first half of the show, the writers simply allowed the audience to draw their own conclusions about the relationships of the characters. For at least the first three seasons, the only scripted development in the bond between the two agents is that of a very close friendship--nothing more.

It was only when Chris Carter started giving in to the will of the fans and threw a little romance in there that the show began sucking. When Scully got knocked up--forget it. The show was over, and no amount of bringing Mulder back from the dead (oh, yes. They fucking did that.) was going to save it.

Example two: Booth and Brennan on Bones.

I love this couple. I think that they're perfect for one another, and the show has developed their relationship to the point where, if they went for one another, it would make absolute sense. No one in their right mind can question that Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth are made for one another.

But that's the problem. There's nowhere to go but coupledom! Right from the outset, Booth and Brennan have had a Mulder-and-Scully-season-six vibe to them, and in the five seasons that the show has been on the air, that's only intensified! The fact that they're not together is even more implausible than resurrecting Fox Mulder (by the way, what is it with the FOX network and weird character names? Fox? Seeley? Food for thought.) To bring the characters together, though, would be the kiss of death for the show, and Hart Hanson and his minions understand that. They've just painted themselves into a corner. They didn't get enough of a running start to this thing, and now they're facing a hurdle that's a lot closer than they'd originally thought, and they're having to do a lot of awkward leaps to get over it. (In case you were wondering, yes, I am proud of that metaphor.)

It's the anonymous rose of television conundrums. The mystery and the intrigue: is it good or is it bad? It's good in that it draws in viewers. It's bad in that, if handled incorrectly (and it's always handled incorrectly in the end), it drives them away. The last petal falls and the ratings drop and Prince Beast/Adam is stuck in the castle forever.

I have become that which I most fear...I'm BATMAN!

Back when I was about eight years old, I used to draw these little sketches of what I called "Frilly girls." These frilly girls would always be depicted meeting their ends in various horrible ways--machete, velociraptor, alien attack. It was all very kindergarten-Edward-Gorey, but with waayyyy less artistic potential. In other words, I was a weirdly sadistic little bastard, and it's no wonder that Rachel maintains that I will give birth to, raise, and ultimately be murdered by a serial killer. "Welcome home, son! Oh, that's my aorta."

My point is that I never wanted to be That Girl. I spent a hefty portion of my life campaigning against That Girl. I subjected That Girl to fire, water, earth...like those popes in that second Dan Brown novel that was better than the first, but the female character was exactly the same because Dan Brown doesn't know how to write women...THAT'S a post for another time.

That Girl was what I knew I never would become. That little eight-year-old Caitlin was going to remain in leggings and t-shirts forever (curiously enough, those are now in style. I was obviously ahead of the curve), reading Young Adult fantasy novels and writing little weird sci-fi stories about ghosts that died from the influenza back in 1918--although I can attribute that last one to my dad, who was writing a story about flu-ghosts at the same time. I obviously wanted a piece of that juicy action. Eight-year-old Caitlin was less than subtle about how she got her ideas.

So here I am, eleven years later. I still have some of the same views that made little-me sketch those somewhat disturbing things in that flowery notebook (I did not appreciate irony at that age). For example, I do not appreciate help that is offered without my asking for it. If you do something like offer me a hand to help me climb a rock, you will probably get your head bitten off. Boris knows what I'm talking about. I also have very little patience for stupidity, which was always a key trait among the Frilly Girls (I mean, seriously. Who doesn't know how to escape a velociraptor attack in this day and age?)

But...I don't know. I also give a lot of thought to how I dress and how I look, which at age eight, I never thought would be the case. The biggest failing to my eight-year-old self, though, is in the feelings department. I never, not in a million years, thought I would be one for pining. And, hypocritically enough, I still have no patience for pining in others.

But damn, can I pine! I am an Olympic-level piner. I could pine all day if it didn't make me so miserable, and if I didn't have some wonderful friends to get my mind off things. It's not even for the same guy! I'm a fickle piner, a horrible, fickle piner. And do you know what? Fuck that. It's not productive, and it makes me kind of miserable, but I can't seem to stop.

I have become that which I most fear. Eight-year-old Caitlin, that judgmental little bitch, would be so ashamed.

Where we're going, we don't need roads!

I think about the future.

Like, a lot.

All the time, in fact.

The future, food, boys, homework, family, friends...that's what's on my mind. With slightly more emphasis on the food, especially these days. I've turned stress-eating into an Olympic-level sport. Why don't you try that, Vancouver!

But seriously, it's gotten to the point where I'm having difficulty sleeping at night because I'm tossing and turning and imagining and letting my mind wander--no, trot--no, sprint down the path of What Will Go Wrong. And it's just too easy, because the life I'd like to lead, the life I dream of leading, is not one that's going to be easy to achieve. There's just so much crap lying in my way, and I have some serious doubts about whether I'm strong enough or smart enough to clamber over it.

I want to be a writer. If you're reading this right now, you probably knew that already since I've got more than enough pretentiousness in me to scream it from the fucking rooftops. You're probably sick to death of me talking about My Stories and My Inspiration and My Dream. Tough shit and hahahahahahaha to you. This is my blog.

But weird, pathetic digressions aside, I want to be a TV writer. In all honesty, I can't imagine another road for my career to take (unless it's food service. I can imagine that. Or I could be stuck at Phonathon for the rest of my life. I have fucking nightmares about that). But I can't help but think--am I good enough?

I've never really let anyone outside my immediate family or friend group read anything I've written, and they're pretty much obligated to rave about it to me, whether it's total trash or not. So I don't have a clue as to how good I actually am. Am I the second literary coming of F. Scott Fitzgerald (fuck The Great Gatsby, by the way)? Am I so-so? Or am I flat-out awful? No idea. You tell me.

I think very frequently that I should just put aside this far-fetched dream of writing for television. The odds of me achieving it are so slim that it would probably be better for my sanity in the long run if I did. I should start working towards a nice solid career in law. Or medicine. Computer science or mechanical engineering or a bunch of other stuff that I neither understand nor am interested in. I could describe it as "not my scene," but that might be just...no.

The truth is, I just can't imagine myself doing anything else, for the same reason that I'm having a hell of a time trying to find a double major, or at least a minor here at Northwestern. The radio/tv/film major so completely sums up everything that I'm interested in that it leaves no room for any other interests. I am major-stranded. And I am life-stranded. On an island with a coconut tree and a typewriter and a bunch of ideas bouncing around inside my head and no way out but down further into the realms of imagination.

Pretentious crap. Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall for an extended period of time.