Spiderwoman... no more... or no less?

Last night I conned little I. into picking Spiderman II for her video selection and we watched it in all its comic book formulaity, science genius turned maniacal villain, nerdy guy in love with the pretty girl, sexy girls screaming and flailing, chained to poles, (with wet t-shirt no less). I found myself snickering despite myself, terrible, terrible film, but mindlessness is sometimes just the thing...

But today my body is paying for my spiderwoman reenactment. Hmm? You wonder, do you? No, actually no spiderwoman, just a Brazilian Jiu Jitzu class, in lieu of Portuguese class, although the demo was done in Portuguese. It felt great to work up a sweat so early in the morning, and flipping people over your back is just fun. I did learn a fabulous technique for defending against men who go for the hair... but my bunda and lower back, used for said activity (full contact), are sadly in need of attention, and my pectoral muscles are tender from so many push-ups (keep in mind that I am at least 30 lbs. heavier than I should be and I have done no such activity in quite some time). Of course I am reminded about how much I love doing physical activity and how extremely un-internally motivated I truly am (in all things, not just excercise). I can't seem to do anything that I set out to do myself, but put me in a class setting, with a clear goal and someone telling me what to do, and I will go to the end of the earth to please them. I think, that in my heart I am just a submissive... I just pretend to have some agency. I can't even write well without an implied audience.

In other news... Lit crit profe had a really interesting analogy for puritanical fundamentalist Jesusland reading of the bible, equating it to pornography... strange but wonderful. Yes, it is like pornography because it debases a multifaceted, interpretable (book as opposed to act) objectifies it and strips it of all nuance (ok, maybe I am adding that part). But it sparked an interesting coffee-break debate. I have further clarified my points about why pornography is particularly uninteresting to me (and perhaps a definition of the "pornographic" as opposed to "erotica") : lack of layering and interpretability: there is only one pat meaning meant to be derived of images we shall consider "pornographic" and they are generally geared toward the sense of an ending, whereas erotica while still possibly focusing on the human body in all its permutations and representations, is multi-facetic, demands interpretation and focuses primarily on the process, not the end product. Just a thought. Dear readers, don't mind my obsession of late, I just feel the need to work things out until I have a satisfactory analisis. Moving on...

So, tomorrow my goal (now that my classes for the week are over) is to sit down and finish the rewritten conference paper. There... external motivator... released into the world to exert obligatory pressure on me based on other's expectaions.