Oh I just watched the Motion Graphic Watchmen DVD--or whatever its called. Basically it's a book on DVD, except in this case it's a graphic novel so while someone reads it too you, you watch the panels mildly animated (very mildly) and it makes for a very strange blending of genres. The neat thing was, you see the order the dialogue boxes should be read in and I wasn't aware, until that moment, how I might be misreading a graphic page and how that might be messing with my perception. More amazing, though, was it made for an incredibly intense viewing/listening experience--it was as if we were in the world in a way books can wholly absorb you, but even more so because it was on screen as well.

Mostly I want to cry for the horrors of the world and throw myself off a cliff, but I'm too depressed for action. Alan Moore is such a downer and a total anarchist.

But...I made so many more connections within the text itself that I had missed when I powered through it in one sitting however many years ago I read it. Also, it was astonishingly clear how close the movie had stayed to the graphic novel. The connections within the text itself added depth and interest to the story in a way I hadn't previously noticed; for example, the pirate story that is told within the larger narrative--at the time I read the novel I couldn't figure out why it mattered. This time it was so obvious as to make me embarrassed I hadn't noticed it before. Further, the complexities of the relationships between the characters were much more significant; in my mind when I read it the first time I had glossed over some of the sentences that really change how you can interpret a character and his/her thoughts about another character.

It is amazing how our memories can turn a story into what we want it to be instead of what it is.

In other news, I recently had my first article published. I received copies of the journal a few weeks back and both when I got the article published and when I told different people I've been alternately overwhelmed and disappointed with the response. I suppose what has me thinking about this, is that extended family members that don't know me are really excited about it and have read it, even though they all admit to not fully understanding it. That touches me so significantly. My immediate family members, with the exception of my brother, don't seem to care at all and I feel like I'm pushing it on them when I bring it up. They were more excited about a paper I gave that won some money, but even after I explained that didn't matter nearly as much as being published no one seemed to care. It wouldn't really bother me, except that disparate reactions from those that don't know me well and those that should know me best throw into significant relief just how out of touch my entire world is becoming with my family. I'm talking specifically parents here so all the family that's reading this can rest easy :) (I even use an emoticon to show how easy.)

I don't know why I bring that up, except that I keep dreading coming home and I'm not even sure why. I love my parents, I miss everyone terribly and I really do enjoy spending time with people. But when I come home everyone is busy which leaves most of my conversational time happening with my parents and when I talk to them I can't talk to them; my education seems to serve as a means to an end for some, or proof of my growing ego to others, but absolutely no one is interested in talking about what it means in regards to how we view the world and ourselves. Other friends pursuing higher ed degrees report the same feelings when they go home as well, so I know it isn't just me.

I don't know why I muddled into all of this. Probably it's because Watchmen made me sad and I'm just a mess of repressed emotion right now. Am I losing touch with normalcy? Can normalcy even be defined? I live in the made-up world of academia and I think I'm scared stiff that I will lose touch with reality, but I also live with a growing awareness of the construction of reality and that makes it harder and harder to talk as if everything were always the same.

And no doubt it doesn't help that I started this whole trip off being told I didn't have the proper "scholarship" to talk about feminism while simultaneously being told you can't rape a drunk girl. That would throw anyone's equilibrium off and watching the Watchmen doesn't help.

I blame it all on a giant squid.