12-09-03 @ 2:56 am EST

I need something senseless to blither about! I feel as if I have not blithered senselessly in ages!

I know that's not true--just about any entry in this thing can be considered senseless blithering--but still...

Well, the only thing I can think about is The Learning Channel's program The Ancient Egyptians. It ran the past two nights, four hours. I recorded it. I did peek at it occasionally and saw part of the final episode, about the twins. In the commercial I was wondering why they were always so filthy until I discovered they were professional mourners. That made sense. (In ancient Egypt they actually had professional mourners. They paid women to mourn at funeral processions. Their job consisted of wailing, tearing at their hair and clothes, and pouring ashes on their heads. Nice deal, eh?) I did not catch the entire story but from what little I could make out, these girls' mother had either abandoned them or given them over to be mourners at the funeral of the Apis bull...and this woman was a real wench...the woman who played her had this bitchy sneer on her face every time she appeared. I wanted to kick her in the head. Based on the names and hair/clothing styles I'm guessing it was Greco-Roman times, which I do not count as really being Egyptian, but the story was interesting enough. The poor girls always looked so sad. They still loved their mother. Apparently they built up a good deal of wealth, perhaps from their job as mourners? I heard it said that they were supposed to stay virgins and remain in service to the next Apis bull...but there was something about a "promisary note" (I might be spelling that wrong), and freedom...apparently this promisary note promised the girls their freedom, and their fortune. (Maybe it had been their father's; they did mention him in there. I guess he was dead or something. Yeah, I should watch the entire show, so sue me.)

Well, at some procession, while the twins were distracted, their mother sent her son to go steal the promisary note...and the poor girls were left penniless. (Er...moneyless...whatever.) Their bitchy mother got EVERYTHING! They appealed to the king (I refuse using the word pharaoh as the ancient Egyptians did not call him that!)...but he never replied. The last known of the twins was a note written by some guy...they said "the son," but his name didn't seem to be the same as the son who had stolen the note. Whoever he was, from the sound of it, he was in love with one of the twins...the last surviving note on them was written by him and was something like, "I worry about her. What will become of us...?" And so, it didn't sound like a very happy ending.

After watching that I felt very depressed. I exclaimed, "Somebody should write a book about those two and give them a happy ending!" I really, really wanted to just punch that bitchy mother of theirs. Witch! I hope she got her just deserts in the Duat. With Apophis chewing her guts out for eternity! >:P

Well anyway, this is one reason I do not like novels and shows set in ancient Egypt. Now if you know me you may be saying, "Wha--? What does she mean, DO NOT LIKE??" And yes, you're right. Because I DO love things about ancient Egypt--I mean, helLO, look at my username for God's sake. (It's the archaic form of Thoth, in case you didn't know by now.) The thing is, I just always get very depressed when reading fiction or factual dramas (character-based things, I should say) set in ancient Egypt, and when viewing similar programming. I don't really know why. I guess I get too involved with the characters. It was the same way a long time back when I read a couple of Pauline Gedge's novels. They're very good books, but I have not touched them since as they depressed the hell out of me. What was it, Child Of The Morning or something like that? About Queen Hatshepsut? I was so depressed by that ending! And Scroll Of Saqqara or whatever, ditto. Thoth even made an appearance in that one and all I could think was, "DAMN do I wish this had a happier ending!!" EVERYBODY lost out in that book!

I haven't gotten to read all of her Egyptian novels, though I wish I could...they were printed in Canada and were no longer available in the US. :/ I should try at eBay someday...but I know I'd likely burst into tears reading them. *sigh*

And I've been moping over those poor twins ever since the show ended. Ditto with one of Sunday's episodes, in which a soldier watched his best friend die after battle. I don't know why it is, but I just get so caught up in these things, like I'm there, and wish that I could give them happier endings. (If I knew a WHOLE lot more about the details of Egyptian life, I think I WOULD write a happy story for those twins. But unfortunately my knowledge covers pretty much the gods and that's about it.)

I DO get emotionally caught up in non-Egyptian dramas and such, too...whenever I see somebody disappointed on TV, I feel it as if it's my own pain. I HATE disappointing people, so I know how it feels. Fannie Mae commercials, with their people in debt, REALLY get me upset! I actually say, "Poor woman," "Poor kid," "Poor guy," "Poor thing," whenever I see some victim on a crime show--FICTIONAL crime show. I know it's not real, but I still feel awful for them. That always seems to be magnified in the Egyptian-themed shows, though.

And it's the same with native Indian things too...I have this book called Michilimackinac or something, set on Mackinac Island in the 1700s, about Alexander Henry and an Indian woman named Lotah...it's historical fiction, VERY graphic too, almost on a par at times with the Ameni Chronicles...Lotah is treated very horribly near the end and plummets from Arch Rock, I think, after being raped, suffering a miscarriage, and having her nose cut off. I've only browsed the book and I can't bring myself to read the entire thing because it depressed me so much.

It's just like the feeling I get when reading diary/journal entries from homophobes and racists and bigots and such, talking about how wrong gays/other races/whatever are and how much they hate them...I always get so furious, and so grieved, and want nothing more than to leave them the longest-winded note in history telling them how wrong they are to hate somebody for such a stupid reason...but I always have to bite my tongue REALLY hard and refrain because, it's just their personal diary/journal, who am I to lecture them? They can say whatever they want--unless they go and present a lie or a myth as a fact, in which case I can simply correct it, I cannot deride them, ON THEIR OWN TURF, based on their opinions. It's only the courtesy I expect from others if they don't agree with what I have to say, so I should abide by that request, too.

Doesn't stop me from feeling that hurt inside, though, almost as if they have insulted me personally. And most often, that's exactly how I feel. I have logged off so many times and felt anxiety and depression the rest of the night simply because of things I read in someone else's personal journal. Telling myself that it's stupid to feel bad over how somebody else feels about something that doesn't even concern me does not help lessen the feeling. It hurts even more when it's somebody I thought I had liked...that happened recently...somebody whose journal I had really started out liking, until I read it longer, and they soon started sharing opinions that really made them out to seem like quite a narrow-minded person. They even said they hated my country (something which I can live with, even if I don't agree with it) and support terrorism (something I CAN'T agree with or put up with, at all)...they'd seemed pretty openminded until that entry. :/ I felt bitter disappointment that I had apparently misjudged them so much and as they had apparently lost interest in me already, I stopped reading them as well. It was for the best, as in some of their angry entries I sensed hatred toward people much like myself...veiled hatred, but hatred nonetheless, and I was always agonizing over what I had possibly done to make them hate me...and what good is it doing me to read that stuff on a daily basis? I get enough of that in real life as it is...

But anyway, tangent off, that's how I start to feel when I read these books and watch these programs...I just get way too involved for my own good, and feel the hurt and anger of a thousand people who aren't even me. (As my mother once asked me, "Why are you so interested in gay people--?" To which I replied, "They've been put through a lot of crap. I just know how that feels...") Like I said I do get this way with regular reading and programming, but even more so with things based on my own areas of interest. I literally get to feeling like yelling and arguing with people who do not even exist, at least not anymore. At least with a bigot's journal I would be arguing with a real live person. Why do books and shows set in ancient Egypt and native Michigan get me so upset all the time? Especially if I'm so interested in them?

(You should see me whenever I hear something on TV about a cop killer, whether real or fictional...grrrrrr...)

I'll probably never even watch those programs, not only because of lack of time and opportunity, but because I know they'd depress and infuriate me! o_o

It's quite bothersome when you can't read or watch something you're very interested in because your emotional reaction will likely override any enjoyment you get from it...I hate getting way too involved in things. I need DETACHMENT, but I just don't know how to achieve it.

And yes, sometimes it's the same way with my own writing--you've seen me mention how particular scenes make me cry--I'm not saying it's because my writing is evocative (it's probably mushy sludge), I'm saying that I just get way too caught up in it! I really DO feel my characters' emotions as my own...UUUGGHHHH!! I should not be reduced to tears by my own writing; that just seems fatheaded. Happens anyway. I think it might be easier for me to take as I can CONTROL my writing, where it goes, but with other reading and programming, I have no control. I can't give everything a happy ending. Not even those twins.

I wish somebody else would. :/ But not Pauline Gedge, because she'd just depress the place right up.

Well, I guess I'm done, though this made little sen...what am I talking about? I WANTED senseless blither, didn't I? Blah. Tar.