Porque no tiene marihuana pa' fumar

[wowbright]

My brief random thoughts about Tuesday's episode. If I didn't discuss gender fluidity and sexual orientation, I would be completely remiss.


Who Cares About Labels
Last week, likeasouffle commented here about Artie not being quite straight. This week, we see him getting all doe-eyed over Ricky Martin – I'm sorry, I mean David Martinez. There was absolutely no subtlety about it. The screenshot doesn't quite capture it, so just go back to 9:35 and watch if you didn't catch it the first time.



Gender Fluidity
Okay, so Kurt's always been gender creative. No big surprises there. This episode offered two new developments on that front. The first was Kurt's comment on girl's night with Rachel and Mercedes, "Why are you being so weird and serious? Our periods don't come until the end of the month." I took that one as him making a bit of a joke to cheer them up – but it failed since they were so mopey. (In unrelated news, did you see him talk with his mouth full at Rachel? I love it when Kurt loses his composure. And what was he eating? Kohlrabi?)

Later in the episode, when he's talking to Finn in the weight room, we learn that Kurt does the Tracy Anderson Method. Okay, so I had to look that up, but apparently she's a personal trainer for women. All her stuff is marketed to women, she talks specifically about women's bodies, yadda yadda. I just seriously hope he's not on her 700-calorie-a-day diet.

Kurt
Kurt was on through this whole episode. The Señor Martinez scene. The ladies' night. The Furt moment. Everything just perfect. The alternative title for the episode could be We Know You All Like to Watch Kurt and Blaine Make Eyes at Each Other, But Sometimes It's Enlightening to See Kurt in Other Situations.

Klaine
So Blaine wasn't in this episode. I didn't actually miss him – should I feel bad about that? Nah, I'd miss him if his absence continued. Even without him, we got one of the series' best Klaine moments when Rachel asked Kurt what he would do if Blaine proposed to him. And Blaine wasn't even in the room. But he was in Kurt's eyes. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the cheez.)

During ladies' night, I wondered what to read into, "Ladies, I appreciate you spending time with me while Blaine recovers." Is he not welcome by the Andersons to sit in Blaine's room for long periods while Blaine  listens to him read? Has he been doing that a lot already and he's just taking a break? Is Blaine going to sleep at 7 p.m.? Is Blaine still on opiates? (Because when I'm on opiates, I sleep like 20 hours a day. It might be nice to have someone sit in the room with me for that, but I don't expect them to put up with the tedium.)

Tina
Where was Tina? Was she taking care of Blaine, or having sympathy pains? In either case, I guess my new headcanon for them is as besties.

Ricky Martin
I don't know why I love Ricky Martin. I never really even listened to his music, even in his heyday.

(Kiddies, sit around while I tell you a story. That was back before they had this thing called YouTube -- or if they did, it was back before I had this thing called internet access, and when most of my friends who had internet access used things called dial-up modems. So to listen to someone's music, you had to do what they call hear it on the radio or own a CD. Well, I only listened to the non-commercial radio stations, which are sorely lacking in the Ricky Martin department, and I had only one friend who owned a Ricky Martin CD. She played it whenever we were in her car. I enjoyed it. But she wouldn't let me borrow it, and I was poor and could not afford to buy a CD, so my relationship with Ricky Martin was aborted.) 

But, yes, I loved his dientes. I wasn't sure about his Chilean accent, but I could be wrong. (I dated a guy from Chile; their accents were not similar. But there's more than one part of Chile.) I thought the part about him learning English from Soul Train was a little weird. I spent early childhood in a bilingual environment, speaking English at home and school and Spanish elsewhere. And I didn't learn Spanish from TV (although I watched plenty of Spanish TV – Little House on the Prairie is awesome in Castillian, let me tell you). I learned it by going to the candy shop and the butcher and playing with the neighbors and talking to the gas station attendants on behalf of my father (who also spoke Spanish, but sometimes got a little flabbergasted). I'm sure TV helped my Spanish, but it's not where I learned it.

I Shut Up Now
So, I wrote a lot more than I meant to. I could talk about Emma and Will's relationship (Emma, is it worth saving?), Will's new hope to become a history teacher, or Sue as neutral chaos. I could complain about my middle school foreign languages teacher teaching La Cucaracha without the marijuana line (we got gasolina para andar instead) and a lecture on the history of the song and its various political meanings. (I'm pretty sure Will didn't go into the latter, either.) But I suppose I ought to get on with the day. Andale.

Comments

[mander3-swish.livejournal.com]

LOVE your 'olden days' sidebar.
It was definitely awesome the amount of various Kurt scenes we got!

(it looked like those were french fries to me....)

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I wondered about those being french fries, but they sounded soooo crunchy. But a bowl of kohlrabi that big, while more nutritious and lighter in calories, would surely cause gastric distress if they ate the whole thing. So french fries makes sense.

[bigeasybreezy.livejournal.com]

I also enjoyed seeing Kurt on his own for a change, but I was glad that Blaine was mentioned a couple of times. I loved that Kurt was adamantly against Rachel and Finn's engagement, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say he would turn down a proposal from Blaine.

On the gender fluidity front, Kurt also found it necessary to explain why he was part of the boys' song.

I love how Brittany thinks every word that starts with the prefix bi describes her.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I forgot about the boys' song part. I'll have to go rewatch. Which won't be a problem, because THOSE SHOES.

Yes, Brittany :)

[alianne.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD someone else who remembers no internet access and dial-up modems. I don't feel quite so old any more. :D

I must say, I liked this episode more than I thought I would. So much Kurt!

But yes, where was Tina? First she isn't allowed to speak any more, than she stops singing, and now she doesn't show up at all? *sigh*

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

You, too? Oh, good, we can feel old/not-so-old together!

[alianne.livejournal.com]

Well, we don't get older, we get better.

Also, I miss the SOUND of dial-up modems. It wasn't so bad - click on a website and leave the house for some grocery shopping, a haircut and a walk with the grandparents dog, and by the time you got back the page was almost done loading... Good times.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

You're making me so nostalgic.

I remember trying to watch a video once on my dial-up modem. It was 5 or 10 minutes long. I had to wait for it to load for an hour or two before it was ready to play.

Yes, kids, we old folks know about patience.

[alianne.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, do we know about patience.

OMG and missing something on TV? You couldn't just go online and watch it later, you had to wait for a fucking rerun if you forgot to tape it. And no one was able to take photos with their phone because phones still had cords and couldn't be used for anything but making calls.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

That "cutest" "smile" "ever" part with Artie's doe eyes made me go "OMG I was right!" Haha. Which means I can totally write Artie/Kurt smut now without it being overly silly.

I also assume the period thing was a joke. Maybe an ongoing thing between them about how when Mercedes and Rachel are hormonal, Kurt also finds himself getting cranky if he spends too much time with them. He seems like he'd be an emotion chameleon.

Is the Tracy Anderson method just for women? Is that just a marketing thing, or is there something about the exercise that makes it less useful/less accessible to male bodies? Also, is Tracy related to Blaine?

I'm going to assume Kurt is as welcome at Blaine's house as ever (however welcome that happens to be) but Blaine is sleeping all day. Kurt visits after school and forces him awake for an hour to catch up, but then he zonks out again and Kurt goes home. And then Kurt's all "Holy shit, what did I do with my time before Blaine? THIS IS SO BORING. Oh right, I have other friends..."

I AM SUCH A TERRIBLE TINA FAN. OMG I didn't even realize she was missing. I do remember having a moment of "Why isn't there any Mike/Tina cuteness happening? Why aren't they grinning at each other in the choir room? Why isn't she making heart eyes at his ridiculous bull costume?" But I didn't realize she was missing completely. That sucks! It's weird that they made a great big dramatic excuse for Blaine being missing but didn't even mention Tina. :/

Just one thing about Will: His lack of enthusiasm about history ("I like the History Channel") tells me he'll be just as terrible a history teacher as a Spanish teacher. OMG WTF Why couldn't they have ret-conned history as his secret passion or something. Like "I always wanted to teach history but there were no openings when I started" or SOMETHING. Because at this point I just think he's a terrible teacher.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I am totally looking forward to your Artie/Kurt smut. Although I think Artie would be more into Blaine. Just thinking out loud here.

Kurt as emotion chameleon = headcanon.

I don't know enough about the Tracy Anderson method to know, but her marketing sure seems to pic up on women's insecurities! And I understand that her exercises are geared toward "womanly" shape. But whether that means an hourglass shape or just litheness and strength without massive bulk, I do not know.

I like your reason for why Kurt is not over at Blaine's house.

I am a terrible Tina fan, too. [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] had to point it out to me.

Um, yeah, if Will could just be the chorus teacher or something - don't they have chorus in that school?

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree that Artie would be more into Blaine, but I was thinking of setting it in season one-ish, when Kurt and Artie were both pretty limited for options. It would start as a friends-with-benefits kind of thing.

Well, Kurt did say he never saw the appeal of weight-lifting. I think it makes sense that he wants to be fit without being bulky. A lot of exercise programs geared toward men have bulking up as a goal.

Yep, every school I've ever been to that was big enough to have a choir or a band had a paid music teacher. Oh Glee, you so logical.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

WANT THE FIC! But I will wait patiently many months for it.

I didn't think of that as a reason to prefer women's exercise routines. Interesting. (I, on the other hand, always saw the appeal of weight lifting.)

I forgot to write about Mercedes and the potential for polyamory. The problem is, although she says she has feelings for Shane, they haven't shown that in the show at all. So I'm not very inspired to do anything with it my thought about her possibly being poly. I just want her to dump him.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

Heh, basically every time I see an angsty love triangle on tv, I say "They should just be poly, that would solve all their problems." But Glee has failed SO HARD at this one. I have had zero interest in Shane from the start, he doesn't even have any personality, BORING, why is she even with him? And in the meantime they've also managed to make me not care about Samcedes. HOW DID THEY DO THAT? As of the end of season two it was ADORABLE and I wanted nothing more than I wanted them to be a cute couple forever and ever. But now I just don't care. Ugh. Fail.

[lesley-green.livejournal.com]

Wait, talk about Sue as neutral chaos! I want to know. I spent hours reading about it after you and Weeds pointed it out. It was a trope that I recognized but never knew it was a thing, with its own name. Teach me more things? If you have the time, of course.

Also, I thought it was interesting that the only two characters who believed that Sue would make a good mother were Emma and Becky. Sue has mothered both of them. Santana did not believe that Sue would make a good mother, though. Quinn was not involved at all. This gives me thoughts.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about neutral chaos - and I'm pretty sure Weeds is the one who pointed it out. My comment regarding this episode in particular is that Sue's chaos was really all over the place. I mean, she just seemed evil in the comments she made to Kurt and Artie at the beginning of the show, and at other times she was "good" - to Becky, to Emma - and at other times she was just pure chaos.

It seems that the Glee creators like to throw in something totally reprehensible for Sue to say in any episode where she's also portrayed sympathetically, just to remind us of who she is.

Now I want YOUR thoughts about Emma, Becky, Santana and Quinn.

[lesley-green.livejournal.com]

I have lots of unformed thoughts. First, Yes/No had a very... obvious? compelling? tight? parallel between Emma/Becky, and here both of them see motherhood in Sue when no one else does.

Sue has nominated herself as Emma's life coach before, and she's made some good points. I'm thinking specifically of the Madonna episode/telling Emma that Will had been with other women, telling Emma to ask Will to marry her this season, but there could be more.

She's very obviously Becky's life coach. But Sue didn't behave the same way with other Cheerios captains. Santana didn't see the mothering side of Sue, even though she's Cheerios Captain as much as Becky. Probably because Sue exploited Santana's hesitance 'I heard you like to play for both teams' in Purple Piano Project. And indirectly lead to that pizza guy's commercial. And I hoped that Quinn would weigh in on the issue since she's the only regular member of the cast who has mothered a child, and of course was Cheerios Captain twice, and she's bested Sue also twice (glee picture in the yearbook season one, becoming captain again in season two, maybe more?), but... did she have any lines at all?

Basically, this episode lumped the Cheerios Captains together for me, even though Quinn didn't say anything, and I wonder about how Emma shares some Cheerios Captain character traits. Especially since she's the one with tenure now. Maybe the story/being captain is about really strong women (Sue, Quinn, Santana, Becky, and Emma) who fight for themselves and are victorious? Centering around a motherhood storyline. Maybe someone else could flesh it out a little more.

[whiterose0328.livejournal.com]

Maybe Blaine had to stay over at the hospital after the surgery therefore hospital hours and hence Kurt not being able to stay with Blaine.

I loved it that Blaine was mentioned in that scene but hated Rachel saying that to Kurt. I said it in my reaction post but they live in Ohio and Blaine really can't propose to Kurt because they can't get married in Ohio and you would think Rachel would know that since she has two dads. I mean Kurt and Blaine have to be living in a state where they can get married before they can even think about marriage though I'm guessing they have thought about it.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I wasn't bothered by what Rachel said to Kurt. Gay people in the U.S. have been getting married long before it was legally recognized by any state or municipality. You have the ceremony and the celebration, but the state is too stubborn to recognize it. I have it in my headcanon that her dads got married that way. (Personal anecdote that shows I'm over 30: I'm female. Five years before same-sex marriage was recognized by any country and close to a decade before it was offered in any U.S. state, my girlfriend at the time and I had a big fight over whether or not we were going to get married. The fact that it wasn't legally recognized anywhere never came up.)

Also, if Kurt and Blaine wanted a legal wedding, they could go to a state that recognizes same-sex marriage, or to Canada, and then come back to Ohio. Ohio wouldn't recognize it, but New York would, and hopefully they'll be moving there one day. (The federal government still wouldn't recognize it, in any case.)

And, yes, it does suck when you have to travel several states away for a legal wedding, just to come home and have your home state (and the fed) refuse to acknowledge it.

[specialj67.livejournal.com]

I was also wondering what Kurt was eating from that one bowl and decided on plain old French fries, because if you're going to ingest unhealthy amount of sodium, you may as well go for the best delivery vector. In my opinion.

Pre-high-speed Internet. I try not to think about that too much--don't have tons of fond memories of Compuserv. I remember that if you wanted to download a song, you must REALLY WANT IT because dial-up was a cruel and fickle mistress. (NOBODY pickup the phone! God, why did you pick up the phone?! How could you forget, I just told you like 2 minutes ago?!?!?) College and its attendant T-1 connection was a revelation.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

So what is the best delivery vector for unhealthy amounts of sodium? I'm curious now.

Wow, I forgot all about CompuServe. I remember Prodigy though, vaguely. My dad didn't get anything until AOL. Aaah, AOL.

[sin-fuego.livejournal.com]

*randomly visiting journals today wave*

Interesting thoughts on Artie's orientation - I am definitely to leaning towards him being more than just "bi-curious". Kurt was so wonderful in this episode. I saw elsewhere on LJ someone mention they thought that it might be zucchini sticks or fries instead of regular french fries. That makes sense to me as I personally think cold fries are gross & that's an awful big bowl ;)

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Ooh, zucchini sticks are crispy and less likely to cause bloating than that amount of kohlrabi. Although kohlrabi tastes better. Hmmm. I think I'm going to go with mixed zucchini and kohlrabi sticks. Delicious and nutritious.

Random journal visits are fun! I am overdue for making a few. Maybe that's what I'll do instead of work.

I am looking forward to all the bi Artie fanfic now.