Past the Equinox

It's finally starting to feel a little bit like fall around these parts and I'm definitely relieved. We tend to have our warmest weather of the year around the same time it's actually starting to cool off everywhere else, but as always, I hoped maybe it wouldn't happen this year. Instead we wound up having an absolutely horrible heat wave that started just before Labor Day weekend and continued for a couple of weeks afterward.

We're not just talking hot weather by my standards either. Pretty much anyone would probably think temps of over 100 degrees are excessive, especially if you don't have air conditioning and double-especially in this particular part of California. I legitimately felt like I was going to die or go crazy at one point. Honestly, it's still a little too warm for my taste, but thanks to the way it's been getting so cool at night lately, I don't really feel it too much as long as I stay in the house.

At times it even feels downright autumnal and I can't help but feel like doing fall things when that happens. I couldn't (and didn't) work much while it was at its hottest, but I'm slowly getting back to being my productive self. I'm having ideas again (although I've yet to do much with any of my newer ones). I've picked things back up with some video courses I started a while back because I missed my Hitchcock class from July so much. I've been listening to some new music and reading regularly again. I even baked a few things -- banana bread, a very experimental loaf of pumpkin spice bread, and some peanut butter cookie brownies for Seth's birthday last week. It's been nice not feeling like I died in my sleep one night and woke up in Hell Proper to say the least.

On 23andMe the Strangeness of Genes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I did finally get around to doing that whole 23andMe DNA test thingamajig this summer after probably a good year of hemming and hawing about it. It's been a few weeks since I first got my results, but I've been truly fascinated by some of the things I found out, especially in regards to the ancestry side of things. 

Suffice it to say that my mixed race heritage has always defined quite a bit about my physical and biological identity whether I wanted it to or not. When I was a kid, I was a shy wallflower type that just wanted to fit in, so I used to hate being mixed because of the constant questions I always got about my ethnicity and heritage. As an adult though, I've come to realize that being different or unique isn't so bad, so I've learned to embrace it for what it is. I've even become quite curious about the bare-bones, honest details of who and what I am from a cultural heritage standpoint.

Lots of people grew up in households where cultural identity and heritage were really, seriously important things. That wasn't the case with my immediate family when I was growing up at all. I knew my dad was black and that my mom was probably mostly of Irish heritage, but that's about it. Neither of my parents seemed to consider those aspects of who they were to be terribly important. My brother and I were certainly never encouraged to really identify with anything about where we came from ethnically speaking, especially in regards to our black side. 

Moving on to Other Things

Tippi Hedren - Publicity Still for The Birds

It's strange. Whenever I do a thing, I always try to make it as easy as possible for people to find out more about me or get to know me better if they're so inclined. However, it never fails to surprise me if people actually decide they want to do that. I was just as surprised (but pleased) to learn this blog has been seeing a modest amount of traffic from the TCM forums and occasionally from Twitter over the past few weeks, especially lately. (I don't actually market my personal writings here or anything, so I don't see many passers-through as a rule.)

I suppose that can only mean people appreciate my thoughts and insights on some of the films I've been studying with my fellow Hitchcock students enough to come see what else I'm about. A couple of folks have even gone out of their way to chat with me or at least say hello. I'm used to being seen as smart, but I don't know that I'm always seen as interesting, so that's been nice. It's also been really refreshing for me to interact with new people that actually think for a change. I've probably shared more original thoughts and insights with others over the past month than I have in the past... I don't know... five years? I hope I'm able to keep some of that optimism and good energy going, because that's something I need to be doing if I'm as serious about my writing as I always tell people I am.

Tonight is going to be the last Hitchcock viewing party and the course on the whole only lasts through next week. I will truly miss the lessons, the instructor, my classmates, and all the daily discussions. This has given me so much to think about, and do, and discuss as far as my free time goes. My mind is happiest when it's busy like that, so I'll have to think about how best I can fill that void and keep going with some of these positive thought patterns. I suppose there are always more classes to look into, not to mention aaaaaaall those personal creative projects I never quite seem to get around to working on, let alone sharing. I thought maybe age and a growing sense of disenchantment with the world and with the rest of humanity had destroyed my passion for thinking and sharing my thoughts, so mostly I'm just really relieved to know that part of me is alive and well.