Red Carpet Season: Golden Globes 2016

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  It’s award season, and the red carpet action already giving us highs and lows.  It’s no secret that I adore red carpet fashion, and I have a wonderful circle of friends who love dishing on it as much as I do.  I’ve been hosting an Oscar party for nearly fifteen years, and it’s become one of my favorite gatherings.

Last night was the 2016 Golden Globes, and although it was a small circle, we did sit and dish on the fashion.  Here are some of the highs and lows.

I am ecstatic to see the trend of accessories coming back.  I love a simple silhouette on the red carpet, but lately the trend is for ladies to pare down with messy, ‘beachy’ (read–I either just rolled out of bed or I had a little fun with my lover in the back of the limo) hair and little to no accessories to give visual interest.  It was very gratifying, then, to see some lovely examples of simple done right last night.

Episode VII

Now that I’ve seen Star Wars:  The Force Awakens twice, I feel prepared to write up my thoughts.  After my first screening, I was still caught up in a haze of love and sorrow and ‘Oh Thank God it’s better than the prequels’ to really think about what I liked and what I didn’t.  I’ve also read articles ranging from ‘These 100 Plot Holes Ruined the New Star Wars’ to ‘Is Rey a Mary Sue?’ to ‘What’s up with all of these people that aren’t white or aren’t dudes?’  I now feel prepared to rebut at least some of these morons.  Excuse me, logically impaired neckbeards.  This is not so much of a review of the movie, as it is my thoughts of how it fits in the greater Star Wars universe, and what it says about earlier films.

Needless to say, spoilers abound below.

Enough

One of the most troubling words in the English language is ‘enough’.  

Am I geeky enough?

Am I normal enough?

Did I try hard enough?

Am I cautious enough?

Do I show compassion enough?

Am I good enough?

Enough.

Enough is the backhanded compliment.  It’s never what we really want, but what we’ll settle for.  It’s the tipping point.  It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  It’s the ‘meeting expectations’ in the great performance review of life.

I constantly question myself, and ‘enough’ pops up in all of those conversations.  I try not to let myself become crippled with self-doubt, but I think most people struggle with the same fight.  And I don’t think I will ever completely rid myself of these fears, because as much as we want peace and happiness, to stagnate and to never question ourselves is to give up hope that someday it will be more than enough.  It will be good and right and wonderful.  So keep asking yourself these questions, but do give yourself a break if the answer is ‘not yet’.  

However.

I am so done with answering these questions with respect to other people.  I may sound like a bit of a luddite, but it seems that our online lives are one big monument to enough.  Or maybe I should say ‘enough?’  Because it’s the question that is the problem.  Do I have enough compared to my friends?  Do I make enough money?  Do I go out and party enough?

And then other people pile on.  

Comment sections are quite possibly one of the worst places for enough.  No matter what the topic, some arsehole out there has designated himself as the gatekeeper.  You are constantly queried on the extent of your knowledge as they try to verify that you know ‘enough’ to have an opinion.  Much of my experience with this has been in the geeky corners of the internet, although politics is just as rife with it.  And, not to rage too hard at the fellas, I have found that much of it is centered on men querying women as to whether or not they have the street cred to discuss sufficiently nerdy topics.  Whether it’s to ask if you’ve even read enough issues of Superman to have an opinion or if you have ever gamed enough to understand the complexities of Gamergate, these people are struggling with their own internal ‘enough’ interrogation.  They can’t examine their own lives, out of fear or lack of self, so they rely on bullying other people.  They hide behind a username and an avatar, because they are too afraid to show themselves, to know themselves.  They create these god-like personas out of a fear that they too, are not enough.

So enough with enough.  I won’t worry if you’re enough, and you don’t worry if I’m enough.  We’re works in progress.  The answer is probably ‘not yet’, but I have hopes that we’ll get there.  And we’ll enjoy every step of the journey.

Except for cake.  There will NEVER be enough cake.  
And now I’ve typed the word ‘enough’ so many times that it’s started to lose all meaning.  Good.

Confessions of a Geek Magnolia

I am a nerd.

It amazes me how many years it took for me to say that without looking over my shoulder.  And it’s not just because I grew up in tiny East Texas town and went to a high school where nerds were thin on the ground.  My Saturdays were more often than not spent with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and my Sundays puttering around on the farm with my Daddy.  But small town or big city, we are all at the mercy of those around us who like to put each of us into a safe little box that they assume contains everything we are.  And I don’t like boxes.  Unless they contain jewelry or tea.

The thing is, I may be a nerd, but I am more than that.  I am a nerd.  I am a woman.  I am a Texan.  I am an Aggie.  I am a daughter.  A sister.  An aunt.  I love science fiction and historical biographies.  I love comic books and Shakespeare.  I love movies with big explosions and high fashion.  I love to argue politics with rational people and movies with other fans.  My idols are Batman and Barbara Bush.  So you see, no silly little box can hold me.

This is a place for those of us who don’t conform.  Those who serve tea from a Dr. Who teapot into their grandmother’s china.  Those that have Captain America and Iron Man  salt and pepper shakers next to their Wedgwood in the china cabinet.  Who love to cook and craft and agonize over romance novels and comics.

Welcome.  Wipe your muddy boots at the door, and come on in.