YOU DON'T JUST BOIL THE BONES!

The fact that this is completely incomprehensible to me makes it funnier than if I could understand it

skill issue. i understand it completely

Ooooh!

My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.

I'm in so much debt and have been out of work for months now. Partners car just died and he is panicking because the used car market is so fucked up. We have an extra car my sister was going to sell so I think he will use that for the time being but it just sucks so much. Everything is so stressful. I am having to tap into my emergency funds which I have been trying to avoid doing because I wanted to save them for when my mom dies.

This does really make me want to try to sell off some of my art. I feel like trying to sell bracelets and necklaces and stuff for $10 would be reasonable (that would include shipping) and it would give me some funds. But I don't have a big enough of a following and I would probably have to open an Etsy again and even then I feel like with the fees and free shipping I would literally end up making, like, $1 off of a $10 piece of jewelry. Ugh. I wish this was easier.