... watching "Dark places"....

This movie reunites Charlize Theron and Nick Hoult and it's so weird to watch these people after Mad Max... Dark Places is not such a good movie done second after Gone Girl, based on Gillian Flynn dark book. I read somewhere that Flynn was working for Entertainment Weekly when writing Gone Girl and others and she didn't want the books to be like her work pieces, because she wanted dark, gruesome female characters - something that Fincher as director pulled very well from Rosamund Pike and Gilles Brenner not so much from Theron. She feels somehow not really invested in anything, not movie, not acting, not family, not people... Feels like a very post-Sean-Penn world, really. Like she did this film in between filming Mad Max and the Mad Max premiere. Gods I hope she doesn't start dating Hoult, that adorable little Vulcan zombie.

I followed an example of a research blogger and created an online dating account to see if being dumb as fuck and kind of mean and self-centered has any merit at all, if your profile pic is super hot. Naturally I stole (okay, borrowed) a completely fake photo of a hot blonde in her early twenties, and the answer is yes. 95% of the guys that started a conversation with me couldn't care less about what I say. Some were hot but too old (and hence careful and wanted instantly to switch to skype to make sure I am who I say I am), some were lonely and kind of sad, really, I couldn't help but veer to encouraging dialogue with those; most were dumb. Only one of them made me drop my act and start a normal conversation right from the get-go. I'll try to keep him via Facebook somehow. Obviously the General has made me delete the account at once (WHY do I have the need to tell that man everything?! WHY? It was research!!) and may kill me, but the point was proven. This world is full of really needy men who would bang a goat dressed in a skirt if she had boobs and fake eyelashes.

The Cosby Show

Love this New York magazine cover of the women who were "allegedly assaulted" - the article makes sure to repeat this word indefinitely until it sounds very sarcastic - by Bill Cosby, a man who is now standing in the middle of a very polarized field: you have some who ardently defend him and some who will not have anything to do with him anymore. I especially love the empty chair, which, although it could mean something like 'etcetera' or 'anyone could be next', feels more like encouragement: "If you're one, come forth. We're right here."

The General and I got into the (very short) discussion about a) why now and not before? and b) what's the truth of the he said she said situation? I get a little bit upset any time a man starts to hint he doubts an assault has taken place, which G knows, so as soon as I opened the subject, he fled, saying he is certainly not going to debate assault charges with a woman who's on her period. 

I haven't read all of the article yet, so I may return to this later - here are my thought. A lot of women get sexually assaulted. Obviously there's a difference between being raped to death by a gang or being pinched in the bum by dirty uncle Harry. A lot of times I really hate the women for being such freaking victims. Going on and on and oooon about how much they suffer afterwards. Get the fuck over it. Sexual assault is a bad thing, it's just not an excuse for you to keep attracting bad shit for decades afterwards. At the same time, though, I cannot abide men saying derogatory things on the subject. 'She probably wanted it', 'she was just ashamed afterwards, so she lied', 'why was she in his place to begin with', etc... I got sexually assaulted a couple of times in my first two decades ... maybe five or six times. Once a pedophile lured me into a street hallway and touched me and wanted me to touch him; I was about four or five. I remember EVERYTHING. Then there was the dirty neighbor, who liked us to go to a private little place and be 'nice to one another'. Suuuure, let's do that. When you hitchhike, men try. Stuff like that. These things were never really terrible, they were just kind of creepy and uncomfortable and because I was little, I had no idea what to think. I certainly didn't think 'oh, Gods, now I am traumatized for life!'... Adults did things that were a lot worse to other people. I never thought much about adults, so none of this was particularly shocking. I just learned how to avoid shit. Granted, you can never really be 100% sure. We live in a world where in some cultures it's okay to get raped for wearing a skirt, because this advertises you're asking for it. Or where a husband cannot rape a wife, because she's supposed to be always willing. Or where you get high-fived in prison for being a rapist. Heck, being polite to someone can mean you're flirty and hence a slut and hence asking for it.

The problem occurs in the case of Bill Cosby, where adult, normal women of slightly inferior social standing (by normal I mean otherwise rational, even street-wise or careful women, who just want to be nice to a guy they admire or want to work on Tv or suchlike) find themselves in a shitty situation they just cannot win in. I don't think much of Janice Dickinson, I think she's an idiot, but she was young and naive once, I imagine. I imagine myself, getting a hot job offer, something really great, say, a photographer for a New York magazine - I fly to their office, I meet with some people, I meet with the chief editor at the late hours, because that's when editors work, he offers me some white decaf and I black out. I wake up in a cab with by undies on backwards and my hoho full of semen. What the fuck do I do? Do I tell G? I can't. I am ashamed, I feel so incredibly stupid, I am so afraid he will go and kill the guy. Do I tell the police? The story will be I fucked the editor for the job. And who is he and who am I? And even if I do go to the police and stand tall on my story, I will probably be paid off to be quiet. These women, they are old now and many of them respected and STILL they are now facing a shitstorm of accusations and doubts for speaking up. I know what I would do NOW, but I am old and happily married , I am not desperate for money and I am not afraid of men. But once you get this game going, as Cosby must have had with his charm and his quaaludes, you play it on young women, on kids, on desperate, naive people. People far less articulate and famous than you are.

... At this point General carefully and slowly asked if I've ever had a sexual assault experience and didn't tell him since we've been together. Adorable thing. No. It doesn't really happen much to people who can handle themselves - it happens to people who can't. Sexual predators aren't stupid. The terrible part is that sometimes the people you tell about it, like doctors or cops, are.


By the way ... I came upon this while surfing for Life expectancy rates around the world and  found ... have you guys ever heard of Lesotho? It's a tiny African country. The beauty of the land notwithstanding, that must be what Hell is like.

Do not judge a greatness of a country by how many egomaniac men took up the forced armies and marched around to rob and pillage everything they could steamroll over (Fuck you, Alexander The GREAT, you killing, raping, power-crazed fascist moron) - judge a nation by how it treats it's women. It may take a little while before we get there, but we're getting there slowly.

I sometimes feel like I live in a really boring country. But it's not really, is it, it's just represented that way by comparison. I wish I cared enough about it to try and make it seem more... dunno. Awesome, full of conflict and turmoil and sexy beasts. Alas... We got one dictator-wanna be politician whose party borderlines a cult, but that's sooooo 2012, we have no real movie or TV stars to speak of, that would withstand a trial of two years, or an interview for that matter; we have writers and artists who are cool, but too busy trying to survive to have time being truly picturesque ... There's one philosopher who is in equal measure gruesome and awesome, but he's been done to death by everyone running out of topics and it gets old really quickly. The media only ever portray money problems in respect to other people's/countries' money problems to make other's seem more pressing; death toll from traffic and whatever and incidentally a shitty political or corruption blame-placement once in a while. The things that interest me aren't that very interesting. A new exhibition at the ethnology museum! Yes! Orgasm! ... A good new book! Or a good article! A good new sandwich!

I am trying for the life of me to start a YouTube talk show that would rant about this country and all that's facing and I

cannot

find

a

single

not-fucking-lame-issue.

Everything that bothers us bothers somebody else a lot more terribly. Oh, we have poor people? Give me a fucking break. I am not saying times are not hard but have you ever seen anyone starve to death around here? I saw some awfully poor people when I was delivering mail in the poor part of town and those still live a hundred times better than the middle-class of the lot I've seen on my travels.

We have racial injustice? Really? How many racially motivated killing or a cop killing for racial reasons have we ever had? The Americans have two per week.

We have religious Vs. liberal issues? Religious freaks talking shit about the gay, about the abortion, about single mothers and teens getting it on? Sorry, I never heard them. I am not saying there are not screaming at the top of their lungs in various fancy web sites, just nobody gives a flying fuck. 

What else? Media scandal? Artificially blown up to sound scandalous. Occasional tragic death or suicide? Those things are private and do not belong on the wave. 

I do not wish a better rate of scandal or morons on this land, as you should pity the nation that needs heroes, but it's a bitch when you try to comment on how much you like your country and what could improve. 

Well, we could whine less. 

... Oh, right.

Rain stopped! Off to lunch :D

LoL, I love General's quilt-snatching patterns :D We sleep, now that it has gotten a bit colder, me covered with a sheet and he with my small blankie. Though, to be precise, I am covered with the sheet and he is sort of hugging and sleeping ON the small blankie. I pulled it from underneath him tonight, because I was cold, asking if he's cold and when he said no, I covered myself. Woke up half an hour later, he was back to hugging it, laying on it. Climbed off the bed, got a proper duvet from the wardrobe and climbed back up. Woke up later, he was hugging the duvet, sleeping on it. Pulled the blankie from the lot and covered myself with it. Neup. Didn't last long, either.

Ah, well, at least I still got the sheet.

Mel Gibson Vs. Taylor Kitsch (The »guy« of the eighties/nineties and the modern »guy«.)

It's been raining for a week straight now, which, after the dog days, feels incredibly soothing, pleasant and welcomed. Just the tiny scrabbling sound of the rain on the street roofs which wakes me up every morning is an excellent start of the day. I am mostly indoors, having switched the doggywalks to the evenings, when it subsides a little, watching movies and playing Warcraft and thinking. I am editing a wedding shoot; it took me three days to get into the proper mental calibration for it and of course there is no way of knowing if the client will agree with what I think they want. They had a simple ceremony, but I’ve done enough of these to know everyone wants at least a little bit of glamour in their wedding photos. Though, granted, this time the couple was young and in love and seemed genuinely happy. It’s always easier to portray happiness when people are not just suffering though the procedures, waiting for the food and one of the newlyweds isn’t ecstatically thrilled and the other hating it every time the camera is pointed at them.

I’ve also been thinking about men and the times we are in. When I spend about 8 hours a day editing the shots, I watch a lot of movies and shows during and I’ve gone through some Mel Gibson dramas and the entire season 2 True detective I’ve missed. The fact that mum and I both like Mel Gibson a lot is one of the rarest things we have in common. I grew up having to watch Lethal Weapon A LOT. But no complaints there, there isn’t much not to like. In the nineties, the traumatized, handsome young war veteran with issues, brave but unstable, smart but cynical, as portrayed by Gibson in the first lethal weapon, was a cool, lonely, chatty, charismatic guy whose problems you really wanted to solve. He’s the kind of a guy who will never hesitate to die for someone else, inflict violence on assholes, even break the same laws he is sworn to uphold for the bigger picture. He’s really macho, beer-drinking, dog-loving, sleeping-naked bottom-feeder with an excellent back story and some militant credit he is actually proud of, even if it meant killing folk.

The Taylor Kitsch character in True Detective 2.0 fits almost the exact same description – he is a loner, traumatized, bottom-feeder, not the dumbest, but fairly locked-in in his own brain, a cop, upholding some moral standard, very pretty, he’s killed people in the war and he just wants to ride his bike and be left alone. The difference is, his trauma doesn’t come from missing his dead wife but from fucking guys, he doesn’t live with a dog in a trailer on a beach, he lives with his mom, he’s ashamed of his military skills and when he is partnered up (with another awesome male character, played by Colin Farrell, but let's go into him some time later, he's a whole other story, but avoid the character of Matthew McConaughey entirely, because even I can't explain that one), he lets everyone else does the work for him, he just tags along and feels miserable and wants to be left alone to ride his bike and not have sex with men or have to deal with his Munchhausen-by-proxy mum.

Dunno. Is it just me or has the world’s ‘tough guy with a sad story’ cliché really switched tracks lately? I think of Mel’s character in that movie and I really don’t want him to die. I think of Kitsch’s guy and it’s ‘oh, for the love of God, get the fuck over yourself already and stop being the loon!’

First batch of the Brežice ethnographic museum

Dog days are over and the vacation is over. I was just getting used to drinking beer (sort of) on the porch every evening, watching X-files with the General. It's great to be home, where everything i just the way Ii like it, but it would be nice to have an Olympic-size swimming pool around, even if a hundred people pee in it and there is so much chlorine my hair is virtually straw and I have absolutely no bacteria left anywhere on my body. Win some ...

I am going to post loooooads of pickies from the Brežice ethnology museum, and am also going to build a full reportage on the place, but over time, because I have shot a wedding yesterday and need to do those pickies and also need to do some maternity pickies from a session beforehand. So, easy does it :) Watching The Witness. Dunno why. I'm embracing the word Rumspringa today :D

Having had a good cry and having gotten out of the General how much he actually resented me going to Lj – having to spend five days without me was actually way too much and that’s why he didn’t let me explore the region even for three hours – I am today allowed to go to the museum and he’ll pick me up later, on his way from the store. 

Chillaxing over morning coffee and newspapers in a small cafe in a tiny town with a pretty castle at the end of the medieval street, that’s me in a nutshell of happy. These are the circumstances I am most comfortable in, so I am about 80% joyful. 81 if I happen to be chatting with the General on the phone. Would be a lot more if he agreed it tag along, but such as museums in old castles and coffee dates are heaven to me, they are a strain to him. I stole a Serbian Harper’s Bazaar, which had an actually really cool what’sherfaceChaleesi fashion shoot and an interview with a man talking about Serbian contemporary literature, which I have been paying too little attention to. The museum opens at ten and at some point I am going to have to use the restroom. It's so hot one hardly needs to pee and I haven't needed to use it for anything else in days. Nobody eats very much. It's still 99. We spend the mornings in the bungalow, reading and playing games (I continue to play chess very well in a sense that I throw something in the middle of the board at the very beginning and then save what can be saved. People who play a lot better sweat and gnaw on my moves, trying to figure out my strategy, not realizing I really, honestly have no idea what I'm doing. I never win, obviously, but the match can go on for hours, usually ending in a Pat. (Standstill) For the love of God just defeat me already!) :D

It's about an 8 mile hike to and fro the camp, which is fun in the morning. I wanted to see the Jovsi bog lands or climb up a hill to a landmark little church, for which I may run out of time. He won't be convinced to escort me in any walking, though he did join me for the waterslides yesterday :D Waterslides are awesome! They are almost as awesome as having sex on uncomfortable bungalow furniture and way more awesome as simply swimming around. Although I did succeed in teaching his mum to swim. Like most people, she has no problems with the physicality of it, she just worries she will sink. I didn't get very far getting her to trust me, so I employed the General to teach her to levitate and I just bought her a blow-up ball to work on her leg work. Two days later, we combined all her knowledge and she was making some first, confident, splashy moves. Earned her a happy kiss and a hug from her hubbie, too :D

Am reading some women's magazines psych articles, such as some guy explaining love is very rare and some people actually don't believe it exists. Wau. Really? Not even puppy love? Loving your kids? Loving art? I would lose a limb for my camera. That must be like me and God. It would be nice if it existed, but I just see it, really. Love, though. Unless the General has been Dextering me for the past nine years, faking the attraction, the curiosity, the protectiveness and the happiness, then I hate to say it, but some people don't understand shit about love. One thing the guy is right about, thought - you can't love until you accept yourself as you are. I may have an unfair advantage there. I never thought myself pretty, but I always considered myself kind of awesome (in an adventurous, conversationalist, dignified and righteous sort of sense.). And I never needed anyone to tell me I am okay. The women who work their butts off, buying expensive clothes and make-up to appear attractive to the passers-by, are kind of missing the point. You have to really like yourself, because there is no perfect or flawed, no good or bad, no pretty or ugly in the grand scale. Unless you marry for money, in which case you have to be super pretty on the skin, nobody will love you for your looks if you're a total dick on the inside. They may forgive you more, but in the long run, that is a miserable union. 

And besides ... A woman who takes care of her-self... How is that meant? A woman who does everything to APPEAR good? Putting products on your hair and skin and lips and eyelashes, to appear good-looking? Eating wrong and too little and walking in heels and tanning and using perfume ... I know I must sound like a cave woman, shunning these things, and yes, when I am on vacation I don't bathe or shower or comb my hair or wear underwear, though I do swim a lot, so I am not smelly or anything, and put on sunscreen, so my skin coincidentally appears really velvety and my hair goes into natural noodle-like dreadlocks which happen to look surfer-cool... But I couldn't care less on how I LOOK. How I AM, however, is healthy. Strong. Resilient. I have exceptional stamina when it comes to walking long distance. I can withstand hard cold or ridiculous heat and humidity. I have very healthy skin and fingernails and because I never smoked, drank, ate much meat, used any make up or used chemicals like soap on my skin, I look closer to 24 than 40. I have enormous boobs, which continue to defy gravity. It could be why my husband is so in love with me. And also I am, you know, brave, loyal, trustworthy, imaginative, chill, passionate, creative and nuts in a good way. 

Some pickies from the museum - will post a lot more after commercials. 

Just kidding :P

But really. 

Okay, clearly the coffee has kicked in. 

I wonder if they bent the sword for the burial after someone has died a coward?