Monet St. Croix is Muslim!

I just had to let you all know how incredibly exciting this is for me. I mean prior to this, the only Muslim x-character we had was Dust. You remember Dust right? The burka wearing, Afghani refugee, New X-men that references her religious preferences with every other word. The one that was created in 2002 as a statement in Marvel's position on political correctness. Dust is a device. She is socially aware minority representation first, badass character second. And she's a member of the New/ Young X-men. Most people couldn't care less about the New X-men unless you're like me and then you only care about the cool rising stars of the group like Trance and Loa.

Monet St. Croix is not some minor background character and she is not defined by only one aspect of her life. She is not a stereotype! I've always been intrigued by her dark-skinned racial ambiguity often thinking 'what if Monet St. Croix was a little bit more like me?' (It's what we have to do when our choice of South Asian characters includes waste-of-purple-ink-Indra, utterly-boring-and-stereotyped-Dr.-Rao, and friggin' awesome Omega Sentinel that was just decapitated by a handless long-haired emo teen boy.) And now, she is. So maybe she's not the ideal Muslim in regards to, I don't know, her clothing choices or what have you but God knows neither am I and millions of other self-identified followers of the faith. It's just nice to get some representation and some acknowledgment really. To think that there are people out there with the same questions and the same dilemmas and sometimes even the same answers. I know she's a fictional character and all, but I'm just a little bit prouder today.

And seriously props to PAD for the execution as well. The way it was done with her having to defend her faith while also bantering with Guido and talking about her hardly mentioned but obviously important mother made this scene just very well done and spoke leagues as to her character. Believable leagues. The comparisons to mutantdom felt like it was giving something back to the x-franchise that's been missing ever since Utopia if not before. This is what the X-Men were created for. To expand on the concept of what it is to be a minority in the world today. I swear, Monet is just inching her way up the leader board for possession of my heart. She just beat out Paige Guthrie in my top Generation Xers list and is really close to knocking Rictor out of the running in X-Factor and that's a hard thing to do.

Also, Rich and Grace almost got married to Daylight. I freaked like I do every time I hear that song and I'm not the one playing it. Matt says it's about urinating in the street. This song will now be playing at my wedding.

Diddly S. Quat Week in Review

Things that happened this week:
1. One of the clients I've only worked with for a couple of weeks requested me by name. Moments like these make my life.
2. Another client I've been with for 7 months before the big house change recognized me, got excited and asked when I would work with him again, then called me the name of a girl that's been there five days. Why don't you know my name? I know yours.
3. Kobe Diem.
4. My poor shipper's heart is exhausted from all the emotion. I haven't been this invested in a TV show romantic ship (I like to focus on non-romantic relationships. I'm single and bitter. So sue me.) probably since Dominic and Anemone. Yes, I'm talking about the tear-inducing, utterly maddening yet utterly beautiful heartbreak that is Brittany and Santana. Also, the absolutely saccharine sweetness of Rich and Grace. Dear God, that last shot of them silhouetted as they go in for a kiss. There are no words.
5. One hour into lent I looked at my first spoiler/ preview. There have been probably five or so more since then. What is wrong with me?
6. Japan. I keep thinking the world is going to end soon because everything that keeps happening looks like it came straight out of a Hollywood apocalyptic thriller, so I've been flooding my mind with frivolity because life is short and it makes me superficially happy.
7. I had a very long, deep conversation with a co-worker that is having a baby soon about life and happiness and love. I told him I want to find myself and he explained that no one ever finds themselves. They just keep looking and life is always about possibilities and coulds. You don't know anything until you've reached the end of you life and think back on it. That's the only way you can ever know that he was “the one.” Only after the whole story is complete. And through this whole conversation I could only think of one person and I had this crazy urge to just go see him. I swear my life is a movie sometimes.
8. Somebody said I was skinny, sort of.
9. I was watching Get Him to the Greek and Mika's 'Love Today' started playing and I didn't recognize it. This is especially sad because this song is my ringtone! Also, did you know that Rose Byrne is in that movie? 28 Weeks Later love. And rape of any kind is never funny.
10. Dust is a bad ass and the way Remy blew her up just makes her that much more awesome.
11. I was cussed out.
12. Somebody ran into oncoming traffic.
13. I fell asleep during Rango. This has to be a Johnny Depp thing. His voice is just so soothingly hypnotic I suppose.

State of Diddly Address and Jukebox the Ghost

Just to give you a time line of my life, the first half of this post has been hanging out for 4 or 5 days on my computer and the last paragraph was written today.

So things haven't exactly been going swimmingly for me lately though that's not to say I've been sinking either. More doggy paddling at the shallow end towards the stairs because it's still somehow faster than walking. I've been like uber depressed for the past two months or so and I have no idea why. And that's scary more than anything because to my screwed up mind any level of depressed can get pretty dangerous. But who cares about that? I deal with Danger the way Xavier does. You know, before she rebelled, killed Wing, and turned the X-men against the Prof. Then I've been pretty sick for a little over a week now. Like losing a pound a day kind of sick, which coupled with the previous depraved state of my mind is doing really funny things to my logic and sensibilities. On top of that, there is just so much drama going on at work (and I'm not even talking about all the corruption and questions of legality worming its way out of the woodwork). They've taken my weekends from me so now I have no chance at a social life and I work hard enough as it is to keep that thing running on it's current life support. They've moved me to a different house so I miss my guys and co-workers and now I've got all these other guys just pushing me to see how far I'll let them go so I have to pretend to be all strong and knowing and adult when inside I feel like a little girl that just lost her favorite doll. Also all that wish washy crap with Mr. Valentine. I think I know now why he's 40 and single.

Anyways, despite all this I absolutely had to go see one of my favorite bands, Jukebox the Ghost at the Echo last Tuesday. And they were awesome. They put on quite a show syncing the lights to the songs, engaging the audience, and just joking around with Charlie Sheen (they sang him in to quite a few verses). There are a few things that will always stick with me about this performance. How the audience shouted in unison the line 'shouted in unison' from one of my favorite songs, Static (my favorite performance of the night too). To turn my head to the right dramatically with the music of Empire, the song that introduced me to Jukebox, between the lines 'my heart' and 'is my keep.' Their impromptu air guitar encore of Victoria after their amps started picking up some nazi radio station. And how stupid I felt when I found out that 'Leonard Stone' really is Jesse Kristin. He's all the way in the back! How am I supposed to recognize him?

A few more random things: For the first time Glee will be covering a song that I've seen performed live. Though I'm not quite sure the Warblers have the same quirky stage presence as Neon Trees and their 'ball up all your bad habits and throw them onstage' thing. I'm giving up spoilers yet again for Lent this year (you know, for solidarity), which is actually really hard because I don't have the funds to keep up with certain comic titles without them and Fox releases so many for Glee every week. Re-reading this post, I think I might do better abstaining from parenthesis use instead. Also, I did the geekiest thing ever today. I rolled a 20 sided die. That's right, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. I joined a game already in progress as an Eldrian Druid. They came across me naked in a field and offered me a cape. I'm joking and if you watched Community you would know that. I do have a hawk though. I named him Barnell.