I'm prone to terrible moodiness. The good is GREAT! and the bad is BAD! Suppose that goes for most anyone. But as ever, the end of the year brings it all back, you know. And instead of getting rest, I'm thinking about it all, bad and good. Because why wouldn't I?
What you might not know is this is the first year in my adult life where I feel I'm ending up worse than I began, for several reasons, which you probably already know. I feel vulcanized in a way. Tenderized. Contrary to popular opinion, I think my problem is kind of give a fuck. So, good bye, 2010, you were terrible. You and your little cohorts; shouldn't be so surprising people kind of ruin everything. Good bye terrible friends, and horrible job, and money problems, and emotional immaturity, and physical ailments, and you little emergencies that fuck with me every god damned day. You're all done. Blips in history. Some of you deserve better, the rest of you can fuck off.
Here's to better.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
2010: Read
I used to do a top comics bit as well, but I somehow stopped buying comics over a year ago. Still, here are the books I liked the most this year. It's very difficult for me to compile the books list because, for the most part, I love most everything I read. I read everything from popular books (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was kinds of awesome, UNDER THE DOME was no), nerd books (I really wanted to put NEUROMANCER here but I bumped it for NEVER LET ME GO), and plain old literary books (THE GRAVEYARD BOOK and POINT OMEGA were astounding!). So, here it is. Honest: I think after watching the film, NEVER LET ME GO earned a rather unfair advantage, and YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? is here not just because of its content but also because of Ms. Breslin's spate of writing over at her various blog posts and her THE WAR PROJECT and THEY SHOOT PORNSTARS, DON'T THEY? Anyway:
COMING & CRYING, edited by Meaghan O'Donnell and Melissa Gira - When these ladies do a second edition of this book, I encourage you to purchase it. Keep an eye here.
SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR by Bryan Lee O'Malley - Can a comic book series be more perfect that SCOTT PILGRIM...? (well. actually, Y THE LAST MAN was pretty perfect too!) Not going to lie, by the time the book ended, I was teary! O'Malley does in a few pages what others at all comics companies can't do in thousands of decades-worth of pages: give us the most romantic, exciting, hilarious, heartbreaking, and relevant (to a certain generation) story. Steeped in musical and pop culture, SCOTT PILGRIM's characters meander through their lives in the same way you did in your early twenties, but in SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR, the titular hero learns a few things about himself, what he needs to do in order to not just rescue the woman he loves from her ex but also from herself. And along the way, basically, Scott Pilgrim discovers how flawed a man he is, he steps up his game, not only for his love, but for himself. By the end he isn't perfect, no. But him and his girl, have a chance to continue growing, together.
YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? by Susannah Breslin - I first discovered writer Susannah Breslin through a post Warren Ellis made years ago, when she ran her THE REVERSE COWGIRL blog, and I've been a fan since. This year I sound this small collection of her short fiction and it cemented why I became a fan of hers: her language. YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? is the various ways in which men are, well, bad. Whether it is the mand who ushers a midget into porn superstardom, the man who really just hates everyone and everything (the title story), the man who wonders about eating a woman, or the man prone to fornophilia. Breslin's words cut right to it, no time for niceties, and it is evident not just in her journalism nor blog writing, it's more than clear here. And that's what draws me the most to her writing, to her bits of fiction in YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? she doesn't fuck around, plain and simple. Reminds me of my initial reads of Chuck Palahniuk. And, all through this, because of her stories, I don't get the idea that Breslin doesn't like men, quite the opposite: I think she loves them, but is not naive to the social failures most of us are. If you're a man, or know a man, read this book and it'll show you maybe ought to know less men.
NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro - Ishiguro writes about becoming an adult with pretty sharp ear for the things adults do not tell children. Everything is ambiguous or flat-out false. Adults leave out a lot of the terrible things we all have to live through, the honestly brutal bits. NEVER LET ME GO, for me, explores these ideas but expands upon them by giving us Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth to view the world through. A sci-fi story that does more than linger on what possible future may lie ahead of us. Thematically dense, Ishiguro reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's most recent novel THE ROAD: where McCarthy dealt with a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic world, Ishiguro shows us archetypes of boys and girls, and eventually men and women, who're raised mainly via their pop-culture (which could seem prescient always), which, at first may seem a bit of a reach, but if you remember finding things out your father, your teachers, your first girlfriend, your mother said were true but really were not, these stories will speak to you. NEVER LET ME GO seems to go far deeper than McCarthy, however, by exploring what the meaning of the soul is, and how it may be proven or not, along with showing the sheer naivetee with which we tend to approach the honest world, even when it's staring us dead in the heart. I want to point out plot bits but feel I would be ruining how much the story builds upon itself. Mark Romanek's film was also great.
GENERATION A by Douglas Coupland.
COMING & CRYING, edited by Meaghan O'Donnell and Melissa Gira - When these ladies do a second edition of this book, I encourage you to purchase it. Keep an eye here.
SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR by Bryan Lee O'Malley - Can a comic book series be more perfect that SCOTT PILGRIM...? (well. actually, Y THE LAST MAN was pretty perfect too!) Not going to lie, by the time the book ended, I was teary! O'Malley does in a few pages what others at all comics companies can't do in thousands of decades-worth of pages: give us the most romantic, exciting, hilarious, heartbreaking, and relevant (to a certain generation) story. Steeped in musical and pop culture, SCOTT PILGRIM's characters meander through their lives in the same way you did in your early twenties, but in SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR, the titular hero learns a few things about himself, what he needs to do in order to not just rescue the woman he loves from her ex but also from herself. And along the way, basically, Scott Pilgrim discovers how flawed a man he is, he steps up his game, not only for his love, but for himself. By the end he isn't perfect, no. But him and his girl, have a chance to continue growing, together.
YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? by Susannah Breslin - I first discovered writer Susannah Breslin through a post Warren Ellis made years ago, when she ran her THE REVERSE COWGIRL blog, and I've been a fan since. This year I sound this small collection of her short fiction and it cemented why I became a fan of hers: her language. YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? is the various ways in which men are, well, bad. Whether it is the mand who ushers a midget into porn superstardom, the man who really just hates everyone and everything (the title story), the man who wonders about eating a woman, or the man prone to fornophilia. Breslin's words cut right to it, no time for niceties, and it is evident not just in her journalism nor blog writing, it's more than clear here. And that's what draws me the most to her writing, to her bits of fiction in YOU'RE A BAD MAN, AREN'T YOU? she doesn't fuck around, plain and simple. Reminds me of my initial reads of Chuck Palahniuk. And, all through this, because of her stories, I don't get the idea that Breslin doesn't like men, quite the opposite: I think she loves them, but is not naive to the social failures most of us are. If you're a man, or know a man, read this book and it'll show you maybe ought to know less men.
NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro - Ishiguro writes about becoming an adult with pretty sharp ear for the things adults do not tell children. Everything is ambiguous or flat-out false. Adults leave out a lot of the terrible things we all have to live through, the honestly brutal bits. NEVER LET ME GO, for me, explores these ideas but expands upon them by giving us Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth to view the world through. A sci-fi story that does more than linger on what possible future may lie ahead of us. Thematically dense, Ishiguro reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's most recent novel THE ROAD: where McCarthy dealt with a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic world, Ishiguro shows us archetypes of boys and girls, and eventually men and women, who're raised mainly via their pop-culture (which could seem prescient always), which, at first may seem a bit of a reach, but if you remember finding things out your father, your teachers, your first girlfriend, your mother said were true but really were not, these stories will speak to you. NEVER LET ME GO seems to go far deeper than McCarthy, however, by exploring what the meaning of the soul is, and how it may be proven or not, along with showing the sheer naivetee with which we tend to approach the honest world, even when it's staring us dead in the heart. I want to point out plot bits but feel I would be ruining how much the story builds upon itself. Mark Romanek's film was also great.
GENERATION A by Douglas Coupland.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
2010: See
In a contradictory (to my last post) way, my movies' list nearly always consists of films from the past year. It's been a good long while since I've watched an older film that I missed or some such that had an impact on my little brain. Anyway...
Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN isn't so much about ballet as it is about the high standard we hold ourselves to. A little on the nose at times, but Aronofsky manages to get you to empathize with Nina (played by Natalie Portman), who is clearly very driven and a very technically talented dancer, even as her own sense of self and her mind fracture to the point of doing herself more harm than good. The outside forces in Nina's life (her mother, her director, her would-be adversary) seem to play a huge part of her oncoming deterioration, but I think each is enhanced more and more throughout the film by Nina's own insecurities. Still, it's not that we want Nina to see what she's doing to herself and to those around her: WE want her to be perfect, even after blood's been spilled. Aronofsky's mentioned this is a companion piece to his THE WRESTLER and it is, not just as stories, but cinematically and thematically as well. Where I think BLACK SWAN excels is in the imagery Aronofsky's DP, Matthew Libatique accomplishes as Nina, finally, gets to become the Black Swan. She's perfect, of course.
David Fincher directed a script by Aaron Sorkin is all I kept hearing in regard to THE SOCIAL NETWORK for most of the year. Never having seen anything written by Sorkin, I didn't know what that meant; it was just the Facebook Movie to me. But I went due to my being a nerd fan of Fincher's since ALIEN3. And, unexpectedly, it blew my entire set of expectations away! The art direction is solid, the acting is superb (I can see why Andrew Garfield was picked as the new Spider-Man, and Jesse Eisenberg immediately was forgiven for being the poor man's Michael Cera), Fincher's direction is spectacular as usual, if not a bit more personal than in his other features (a lot of lingering shots on the solitary (mostly) Mark Zuckerberg drive home the point each time without being obvious), and, yes, the script was so fucking good! There wasn't a line in the film that felt unnecessary nor wasted. It's not just the Facebook Movie, it is the movie for this generation, trying to be more with others, to be closer to each other, but only at a distance. THE SOCIAL NETWORK isn't about what it means to be Zuckerberg or a Facebook user, but about the lengths that we might go for a vestige of attention, of admiration, of, yes, love. The internet's provided that for people who're born for the 21st century, and Sorkin and Fincher adapted THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES very well, and to say more about the current change in the pop-culture that is most of our lives.
In my eyes, Christopher Nolan can do no wrong. INCEPTION is a perfect film: it questions our way of thinking, our way of seeing our dreams, but not just our literal dreams, but the dreams we speak of when we talk about "I used to dream..." or "I dream of..." Tom Cobb and his team are thieves in dreams, stealing ideas, but now, the harder task they've accepted is inserting an idea into a man's brain: this is inception. At the core of this heist film is the constant idea that is what we dream real or not, how solid is it in our reality, do we really understand what any of it means, or is all of this completely unnecessary since in our dreams we have everything? I want to spoil the movie for you but won't. But what I will say that Nolan as writer and director is a fucking genius: he's done with practical and digital effects things that no one else has done in a long while (THE MATRIX comes to mind in technical, not story, terms), and the way in which his characters, in particular Cobb's go-to man, Arthur, played by the stellar Joseph Gordon-Levitt, seem more normal and true than they should be considering their profession. INCEPTION is the kind of movie every director should want to make: perfect.
I am a sucker for writer Alex Garland, and when I discovered his new screenplay was being directed by Mark Romanek, how could you go wrong? Adapting Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, NEVER LET ME GO, Romanek and Garland accomplished in giving me a parable for the future, what it means to grow up, what it means to raise children, and what it means when you discover, as an adult, that everything isn't as good as you're taught to believe. A story set in an alternate Earth that begs several questions about life, morality, love, death, and when it's time accept the world for what it is. Kathy (played by the spectacular Carey Mulligan) is carer, and has seen all the death for a better cause for most of her life. But in recalling how her life and her friends' lives from Hailsham to now have changed, Kathy and her friends show us what it means to be human when you're thought of (if thought of at all) as a product. Romanek broke me with Ishiguro's three main characters. I can identify with each of them, not as various stages of growing up, but as archetypes in the modern world: Ruth (Keira Knightley), a petty and jealous and torn and damaged person, who doesn't quite know what to do with herself so she becomes what she sees around her, what she thinks people will like, what she thinks people want; Tommy (Andrew Garfield), not so much the wide-eyed optimist, but he isn't very pragmatic, willing to believe what he's told, and learning the hardest possible way that the world will fuck you over; and Kathy, a stoic realist because she's seen the truth out in the world and recognizes that accepting it as it is isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I wager she finds herself a little lonely and a little cold. I know I did at the end.
I'll just say it: SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is perhaps the best comic book movie of all time. Screw off everyone else. Directed by Edgar Wright, SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is the adaptation of the comics series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, and gives us 23 year old Scott Pilgrim's trials and tribulations through young adulthood, his flailing band, his romances, and, finally, his growth as a man, as a person. You have not see any modern movie like this, perfectly capturing what is in a black and white comic book and putting it on screen the way it should. And this movie has everything: a bad ass soundtrack, great acting (including the titular character played by Michael Cera), kick ass action, tons of heart, lots of humor, and something you'll take home with you: how do you step up your game when it comes to love, when it comes to yourself?
Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN isn't so much about ballet as it is about the high standard we hold ourselves to. A little on the nose at times, but Aronofsky manages to get you to empathize with Nina (played by Natalie Portman), who is clearly very driven and a very technically talented dancer, even as her own sense of self and her mind fracture to the point of doing herself more harm than good. The outside forces in Nina's life (her mother, her director, her would-be adversary) seem to play a huge part of her oncoming deterioration, but I think each is enhanced more and more throughout the film by Nina's own insecurities. Still, it's not that we want Nina to see what she's doing to herself and to those around her: WE want her to be perfect, even after blood's been spilled. Aronofsky's mentioned this is a companion piece to his THE WRESTLER and it is, not just as stories, but cinematically and thematically as well. Where I think BLACK SWAN excels is in the imagery Aronofsky's DP, Matthew Libatique accomplishes as Nina, finally, gets to become the Black Swan. She's perfect, of course.
David Fincher directed a script by Aaron Sorkin is all I kept hearing in regard to THE SOCIAL NETWORK for most of the year. Never having seen anything written by Sorkin, I didn't know what that meant; it was just the Facebook Movie to me. But I went due to my being a nerd fan of Fincher's since ALIEN3. And, unexpectedly, it blew my entire set of expectations away! The art direction is solid, the acting is superb (I can see why Andrew Garfield was picked as the new Spider-Man, and Jesse Eisenberg immediately was forgiven for being the poor man's Michael Cera), Fincher's direction is spectacular as usual, if not a bit more personal than in his other features (a lot of lingering shots on the solitary (mostly) Mark Zuckerberg drive home the point each time without being obvious), and, yes, the script was so fucking good! There wasn't a line in the film that felt unnecessary nor wasted. It's not just the Facebook Movie, it is the movie for this generation, trying to be more with others, to be closer to each other, but only at a distance. THE SOCIAL NETWORK isn't about what it means to be Zuckerberg or a Facebook user, but about the lengths that we might go for a vestige of attention, of admiration, of, yes, love. The internet's provided that for people who're born for the 21st century, and Sorkin and Fincher adapted THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES very well, and to say more about the current change in the pop-culture that is most of our lives.
In my eyes, Christopher Nolan can do no wrong. INCEPTION is a perfect film: it questions our way of thinking, our way of seeing our dreams, but not just our literal dreams, but the dreams we speak of when we talk about "I used to dream..." or "I dream of..." Tom Cobb and his team are thieves in dreams, stealing ideas, but now, the harder task they've accepted is inserting an idea into a man's brain: this is inception. At the core of this heist film is the constant idea that is what we dream real or not, how solid is it in our reality, do we really understand what any of it means, or is all of this completely unnecessary since in our dreams we have everything? I want to spoil the movie for you but won't. But what I will say that Nolan as writer and director is a fucking genius: he's done with practical and digital effects things that no one else has done in a long while (THE MATRIX comes to mind in technical, not story, terms), and the way in which his characters, in particular Cobb's go-to man, Arthur, played by the stellar Joseph Gordon-Levitt, seem more normal and true than they should be considering their profession. INCEPTION is the kind of movie every director should want to make: perfect.
I am a sucker for writer Alex Garland, and when I discovered his new screenplay was being directed by Mark Romanek, how could you go wrong? Adapting Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, NEVER LET ME GO, Romanek and Garland accomplished in giving me a parable for the future, what it means to grow up, what it means to raise children, and what it means when you discover, as an adult, that everything isn't as good as you're taught to believe. A story set in an alternate Earth that begs several questions about life, morality, love, death, and when it's time accept the world for what it is. Kathy (played by the spectacular Carey Mulligan) is carer, and has seen all the death for a better cause for most of her life. But in recalling how her life and her friends' lives from Hailsham to now have changed, Kathy and her friends show us what it means to be human when you're thought of (if thought of at all) as a product. Romanek broke me with Ishiguro's three main characters. I can identify with each of them, not as various stages of growing up, but as archetypes in the modern world: Ruth (Keira Knightley), a petty and jealous and torn and damaged person, who doesn't quite know what to do with herself so she becomes what she sees around her, what she thinks people will like, what she thinks people want; Tommy (Andrew Garfield), not so much the wide-eyed optimist, but he isn't very pragmatic, willing to believe what he's told, and learning the hardest possible way that the world will fuck you over; and Kathy, a stoic realist because she's seen the truth out in the world and recognizes that accepting it as it is isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I wager she finds herself a little lonely and a little cold. I know I did at the end.
I'll just say it: SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is perhaps the best comic book movie of all time. Screw off everyone else. Directed by Edgar Wright, SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is the adaptation of the comics series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, and gives us 23 year old Scott Pilgrim's trials and tribulations through young adulthood, his flailing band, his romances, and, finally, his growth as a man, as a person. You have not see any modern movie like this, perfectly capturing what is in a black and white comic book and putting it on screen the way it should. And this movie has everything: a bad ass soundtrack, great acting (including the titular character played by Michael Cera), kick ass action, tons of heart, lots of humor, and something you'll take home with you: how do you step up your game when it comes to love, when it comes to yourself?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
2010: Listen
These are my favorite records and my favorite tracks of all last year. Not all of them were released this year, but as ever, each was new to me in 2010. As it turned out, if you listen to the songs below, it's a horrible sketch of 2010. I could sit here and say it's all coincidence and be truthful, but you wouldn't believe me. I don't care.
Top records:
THIS IS HAPPENING by LCD Soundsystem
THE BOXER by Kele Okereke - I've a crush on Kele Okereke, incidentally.
COSMOGRAMMA by Flying Lotus
TURNING DRAGON by Clark
WHEN PLANETS EXPLODE by Dorian Concept - Like Clark, Dorian Concept made noise the most beautifullest thing in the universe, a song at a time.
Top tracks (click to listen and improve your life!):
I CAN CHANGE by LCD Soundsystem
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED by Kele Okereke
NOSE ART by Flying Lotus.
DAILY ROUTINE by Blockhead
LOSER WINS by Atmosphere
(Incidentally, I don't think I gave the new Atmosphere a fair shake this year. I blame the boy for it. Whatevs.)
Top records:
THIS IS HAPPENING by LCD Soundsystem
THE BOXER by Kele Okereke - I've a crush on Kele Okereke, incidentally.
COSMOGRAMMA by Flying Lotus
TURNING DRAGON by Clark
WHEN PLANETS EXPLODE by Dorian Concept - Like Clark, Dorian Concept made noise the most beautifullest thing in the universe, a song at a time.
Top tracks (click to listen and improve your life!):
I CAN CHANGE by LCD Soundsystem
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED by Kele Okereke
NOSE ART by Flying Lotus.
DAILY ROUTINE by Blockhead
LOSER WINS by Atmosphere
(Incidentally, I don't think I gave the new Atmosphere a fair shake this year. I blame the boy for it. Whatevs.)
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Two
Yesterday afternoon, my best friend and I were on the phone for a bit. We caught up on some menial work things, not-so-menial life things, and we talked about boys. One of the things that came up during conversation was how 2010 sucked. Well, I'm the one that started because it did. As I said in the previous post, wishing is for regrets, but there was something I arrived to yesterday: 2010 taught me nothing.
Maybe my little cursory glance back to the preceding year is mired in my own bitterness and hate. Who knows? I think anyone who knows me well will say I'm probably wrong. Good thing they're all sleeping. So, in our talking, I was telling Golden how there are two moments that stand out to me from 2010 that make me feel good in their own way.
The first, back in February, when we were in San Diego and he was sleeping and I walked out into an early and sleeping downtown to get coffee and juice for us. I walked out and it felt so great and glorious because I can't really recall: I was alone and there was a bit of chill and no one was about and the sun was out. And I remember very clearly walking toward a main street , making a left, and the glare from the sun coming off a building hitting me especially strong but not hurtful. I was isolated in the city. And for a few moments, before I had to head back to the hotel where he'd be waking, it was the best place I could possibly have been (a while back, I listened to Mogwai's NEW PATHS TO HELICON PT 1 and it reminded me of that).
The second was in March, when Golden was in town and we were off to meet her and Terry so see J-Live in downtown Long Beach. Ricardo and I pulled into the parking lot, I don't remember what we were talking about (probably some bullshit having to do with drinking or girls or both), but we laughed and laughed. And as mean as it sounds, I remember glancing over at a group of girls who were getting out of a car, a few of whom were dressed ridiculously for the type of show we were about to catch, and I made a ridiculous comment about how the whores are out in full force. But Ricardo didn't laugh because he saw that they were girls we knew. Oops.
Golden asked me if even the relationship taught me anything useful and I don't think it did. Neither did constant doctor issues, neither did family troubles, neither did money problems, neither did work issues. I don't recall a single good thing - even learning experience - that I can take away from 2010. At least I had that in 2009.
But this is all coming off rather depressing and emo.
It's not necessarily that 2010 was all bad, even I know this and readily admitted. But as the year comes to a close, I'm left with a feeling of "was that it?" I'm left thinking that there was no forward movement in life. There were not transformations, there was no transgression, no illumination. Maybe I'm to fucking stubborn to see it and recognize it, all of these things, but I'd gamble 2011 that I'm not wrong.
Maybe my little cursory glance back to the preceding year is mired in my own bitterness and hate. Who knows? I think anyone who knows me well will say I'm probably wrong. Good thing they're all sleeping. So, in our talking, I was telling Golden how there are two moments that stand out to me from 2010 that make me feel good in their own way.
The first, back in February, when we were in San Diego and he was sleeping and I walked out into an early and sleeping downtown to get coffee and juice for us. I walked out and it felt so great and glorious because I can't really recall: I was alone and there was a bit of chill and no one was about and the sun was out. And I remember very clearly walking toward a main street , making a left, and the glare from the sun coming off a building hitting me especially strong but not hurtful. I was isolated in the city. And for a few moments, before I had to head back to the hotel where he'd be waking, it was the best place I could possibly have been (a while back, I listened to Mogwai's NEW PATHS TO HELICON PT 1 and it reminded me of that).
The second was in March, when Golden was in town and we were off to meet her and Terry so see J-Live in downtown Long Beach. Ricardo and I pulled into the parking lot, I don't remember what we were talking about (probably some bullshit having to do with drinking or girls or both), but we laughed and laughed. And as mean as it sounds, I remember glancing over at a group of girls who were getting out of a car, a few of whom were dressed ridiculously for the type of show we were about to catch, and I made a ridiculous comment about how the whores are out in full force. But Ricardo didn't laugh because he saw that they were girls we knew. Oops.
Golden asked me if even the relationship taught me anything useful and I don't think it did. Neither did constant doctor issues, neither did family troubles, neither did money problems, neither did work issues. I don't recall a single good thing - even learning experience - that I can take away from 2010. At least I had that in 2009.
But this is all coming off rather depressing and emo.
It's not necessarily that 2010 was all bad, even I know this and readily admitted. But as the year comes to a close, I'm left with a feeling of "was that it?" I'm left thinking that there was no forward movement in life. There were not transformations, there was no transgression, no illumination. Maybe I'm to fucking stubborn to see it and recognize it, all of these things, but I'd gamble 2011 that I'm not wrong.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
The Stage
Wishing is for regrets. But, frankly, if I had one personal life-wish, it would be that I could go back to 2007 and get it out of my system. Because, as we're told over and over again, hindsight and all that noise, right? Not that everything was bad this year. It wasn't despite the job thing, the two car accident thing, the break up, the money woes, lost never to be found friends, and strangely, the second break up. Been able to keep my family afloat somewhat since the new job worked out (which hopefully will turn into something more substantial come the new year). Ironically (or not), I'm at my healthiest since 2007. I can afford to, you know, live. And my family - god love them, but they drive me crazy! - is still all intact and my nephew seems to melt my tiny snowflake of a heart every time.
But also with hindsight, I've arrived to a few things about myself that I never really considered, and it's one of the things about Corey, irritating though he can be, I really liked. In 2007, all this would've been much more useful to me (or not, who the fuck really knows?). Thing is, as recently as last week, Golden and I were talking, and I heard myself say words about Terry that I think Corey's friends or his mom probably said to him about me. Over the last couple of years, this happened a lot. And, I'll own up to it: my lack of security, my lack of openness, not just with him but my family, my lack of intimacy, my distance, my insecurity, my wavering commitment. Yes, these are all things that are true and caustic. But all of this isn't anything new. It's old news. And as I told my best friend, it's a wonder why Corey even decided I was a fair gable early this year. Again. It's a wonder why he stuck around as long as he did. Because when it was good, it was pretty much what I suppose people in a cliche sort of way call magic.
Then I get to thinking, why did I even bother. With any of it. All of it. What was it about this boy that made me do stupidly out of character things. Looking back (as I ever do), I guess I really liked being able to laugh and reflect and connect and relate to a person. He's been only the second person I've been with who was my age (everyone else has been younger, and thus, useless), and I thought he got me whatever that's supposed to mean. He was insightful and bright and fun. But, thinking about it, what was I thinking? He was also so very much unlike me, I'm not certain that it would've worked. I have talking this way because it sounds like bullshit like fate and destiny. But so removed from it - and I wondered out loud many times, to be sure - it just looks like a mess. It looks like we both went into it with great intentions and were hoping for the best. Of course, it didn't come, for either of us.
When we were at the train station to go off to San Diego, there was a little bit of an incident. We didn't know where to go to wait for our train so we went in line to ask at the info desk. When it was our turn, he asked the girl where we were supposed to be, she said to him we should just form a line there, and they'll lead us there, he asked if she could just tell him where the train would arrive, she said she didn't know until it arrived, he said she wasn't being helpful, she reiterated again to just make a line, he copped a nasty attitude said she just didn't want to tell him and he nearly stormed away. I saw the black couple a few spaces behind us just look at him in the same manner people look at someone writing a check at the supermarket for $1. I couldn't believe this had happened.
I don't mean to come off as calling him irrational, because I don't think he is, but this little bit has stuck with me all this time because, again, looking back, it was just a precursor. I should've already known what it be like. I should've known that I did not want to go through my own little conflict at the train station over and over and over again. But, I'm sure I said, Fuck it, we're off to San Diego!" And the thing is I hate stuff like that in people: getting all shitty on someone doing their job, getting a nasty ass attitude while complaining, and inconveniencing others. It's so fucking retarded but it's the fucking truth! Before, I'd joke about never dating someone who returns a gift. Getting all up on the train station girl's face because she can't (or won't, who the fuck cares) answer your question is the same.
As I'm sure it was with him, every time he brought up things I entirely disagreed with, however banal or deep they were, I couldn't believe this was the person I felt I should be with. Whether it was clothes, or God, or work, or politics, books, cartoons, marriage, food, kids, strangers, sex, television, music, family, a lot of the time I couldn't believe what I was hearing, what I saw. God knows what he thought of me. And it makes me wonder, why then did I think this was a viable option?
I think it was my weird hop that he would just relax with me. That he would stop taking everything so damn seriously. He was worried so damn much when people I don't know would announce their engagements, I just wanted him to stop. He'd complain about me spending the night, I wish he would just stop. He would talk about how beautiful everyone else was and how much he wanted to be like them, and I wanted him to stop. He worried so much about ticket sales for his show, and I just wanted him to stop. But I never said so, and he never did. It was ridiculous of me, of course, to think that this man would change so much about himself just because I wanted him to. But even then, at some points, when he gave me the out to just not be together, I recoiled at the idea of him being with someone else, and I told him I didn't want him to see anyone else. Why did I do that? Did I really think he'd change in the ways I wanted? Did I think I could do the things he wanted me to? Did I really want him and I to work out, long term? Did I even want that, period? These are the things that I think about a lot.
Funny sort of thing is, now that he decided to just be a stranger with me again, I think back to 2007 because we maybe exchanged a few emails or myspace comments that year (which don't include the ones about HIV). I think he was with someone, and I wasn't even considering anything relationshipy with anyone. But, I remember telling Golden, back then, about this internet friend I'd made. I remember saying to her I liked him because he seemed more interesting than the people I knew personally at the time. I could be mangling it, my memory is terrible. But I remember him being flirty with me in a message or two, and I remember thinking how often I was in West Hollywood and how we'd not met (we'd "known" each other for about a year then, he lives in Hollywod). But I brushed it aside. I thought he'd be a good friend to have, even just on the internet. I remember him telling me he'd call me back this one time when I actually >gasp!< called him, but he didn't, and that was fine. But, after what we've been through together, and due to each other, I think back and wish I could go back to 2007 with him. Because it was easy then, and I didn't know all these things and neither did he. We could've kept going that way for however long we would. And, I, of course, would stop thinking about what a shitty friend he turned out to be.
He's shitty because he hurt me. He set out to do so, and god damn it, it worked.
One of the last times we were out, he took me to his favorite restaurant. He was right: I hated the place. Pretentious atmosphere, douchebaggery at every corner, and a menu that did not seem at all appetizing. But we had a good walk through the art scene (kill me the fuck now!) just before, and he wanted to show me somewhere he loved. As I said, nothing looks particularly good but a Thai burger (say what?), and he always orders steak (there's a reason for that, I'm sure), and he asked me what I was going to have and I told him, and he got this odd look on his face and said, "Really?" and it made me feel like he was saying, "Really? We're at this expensive nice restaurant and you're going to have a burger?" and it made me feel, don't laugh, as if my food order wasn't good enough for him. Isn't that so fucking retarded? Waitress arrives and takes our order. Later, more than halfway through bad chicken, and his steak, he notices it's pink. He's been eating it this entire time and it's only now that he wants it cooked better. Waitress takes it back to do so three times (or was it two? Does it really matter when the piece of meat in question was the size of his thumb?) until it was good enough for him to take home.
You might think me petty, but these are the kinds of things that when I think about them make me see that I should've known better. I mean, I did. But I did it anyway.
Anyway, it isn't all his fault by a longshot. I admit it. But now, I'm just thinking, what I was trying to do. And for what, and for whom. I don't wish bad things for him, but I'm also not insane: he turned out to be girl-levels of crazy, and a bad person. Instead of thinking more like this, because I am pretty tired of myself having this bullshit conversation with my best friend (I'm sure she doesn't want to listen to me bitch, either), I'll do what I wanted him to do all that time, and just stop.
In 2007 I was younger and still believed I was indestructible.
"Everything is so fragile. There’s so much conflict, so much pain. You keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it: the dust is your life going on. If happy comes along, that weird, and unbearable delight that’s actual happy—I think you have to grab it while you can. You take what you can get. ‘cause it’s here, and then…gone."
But also with hindsight, I've arrived to a few things about myself that I never really considered, and it's one of the things about Corey, irritating though he can be, I really liked. In 2007, all this would've been much more useful to me (or not, who the fuck really knows?). Thing is, as recently as last week, Golden and I were talking, and I heard myself say words about Terry that I think Corey's friends or his mom probably said to him about me. Over the last couple of years, this happened a lot. And, I'll own up to it: my lack of security, my lack of openness, not just with him but my family, my lack of intimacy, my distance, my insecurity, my wavering commitment. Yes, these are all things that are true and caustic. But all of this isn't anything new. It's old news. And as I told my best friend, it's a wonder why Corey even decided I was a fair gable early this year. Again. It's a wonder why he stuck around as long as he did. Because when it was good, it was pretty much what I suppose people in a cliche sort of way call magic.
Then I get to thinking, why did I even bother. With any of it. All of it. What was it about this boy that made me do stupidly out of character things. Looking back (as I ever do), I guess I really liked being able to laugh and reflect and connect and relate to a person. He's been only the second person I've been with who was my age (everyone else has been younger, and thus, useless), and I thought he got me whatever that's supposed to mean. He was insightful and bright and fun. But, thinking about it, what was I thinking? He was also so very much unlike me, I'm not certain that it would've worked. I have talking this way because it sounds like bullshit like fate and destiny. But so removed from it - and I wondered out loud many times, to be sure - it just looks like a mess. It looks like we both went into it with great intentions and were hoping for the best. Of course, it didn't come, for either of us.
When we were at the train station to go off to San Diego, there was a little bit of an incident. We didn't know where to go to wait for our train so we went in line to ask at the info desk. When it was our turn, he asked the girl where we were supposed to be, she said to him we should just form a line there, and they'll lead us there, he asked if she could just tell him where the train would arrive, she said she didn't know until it arrived, he said she wasn't being helpful, she reiterated again to just make a line, he copped a nasty attitude said she just didn't want to tell him and he nearly stormed away. I saw the black couple a few spaces behind us just look at him in the same manner people look at someone writing a check at the supermarket for $1. I couldn't believe this had happened.
I don't mean to come off as calling him irrational, because I don't think he is, but this little bit has stuck with me all this time because, again, looking back, it was just a precursor. I should've already known what it be like. I should've known that I did not want to go through my own little conflict at the train station over and over and over again. But, I'm sure I said, Fuck it, we're off to San Diego!" And the thing is I hate stuff like that in people: getting all shitty on someone doing their job, getting a nasty ass attitude while complaining, and inconveniencing others. It's so fucking retarded but it's the fucking truth! Before, I'd joke about never dating someone who returns a gift. Getting all up on the train station girl's face because she can't (or won't, who the fuck cares) answer your question is the same.
As I'm sure it was with him, every time he brought up things I entirely disagreed with, however banal or deep they were, I couldn't believe this was the person I felt I should be with. Whether it was clothes, or God, or work, or politics, books, cartoons, marriage, food, kids, strangers, sex, television, music, family, a lot of the time I couldn't believe what I was hearing, what I saw. God knows what he thought of me. And it makes me wonder, why then did I think this was a viable option?
I think it was my weird hop that he would just relax with me. That he would stop taking everything so damn seriously. He was worried so damn much when people I don't know would announce their engagements, I just wanted him to stop. He'd complain about me spending the night, I wish he would just stop. He would talk about how beautiful everyone else was and how much he wanted to be like them, and I wanted him to stop. He worried so much about ticket sales for his show, and I just wanted him to stop. But I never said so, and he never did. It was ridiculous of me, of course, to think that this man would change so much about himself just because I wanted him to. But even then, at some points, when he gave me the out to just not be together, I recoiled at the idea of him being with someone else, and I told him I didn't want him to see anyone else. Why did I do that? Did I really think he'd change in the ways I wanted? Did I think I could do the things he wanted me to? Did I really want him and I to work out, long term? Did I even want that, period? These are the things that I think about a lot.
Funny sort of thing is, now that he decided to just be a stranger with me again, I think back to 2007 because we maybe exchanged a few emails or myspace comments that year (which don't include the ones about HIV). I think he was with someone, and I wasn't even considering anything relationshipy with anyone. But, I remember telling Golden, back then, about this internet friend I'd made. I remember saying to her I liked him because he seemed more interesting than the people I knew personally at the time. I could be mangling it, my memory is terrible. But I remember him being flirty with me in a message or two, and I remember thinking how often I was in West Hollywood and how we'd not met (we'd "known" each other for about a year then, he lives in Hollywod). But I brushed it aside. I thought he'd be a good friend to have, even just on the internet. I remember him telling me he'd call me back this one time when I actually >gasp!< called him, but he didn't, and that was fine. But, after what we've been through together, and due to each other, I think back and wish I could go back to 2007 with him. Because it was easy then, and I didn't know all these things and neither did he. We could've kept going that way for however long we would. And, I, of course, would stop thinking about what a shitty friend he turned out to be.
He's shitty because he hurt me. He set out to do so, and god damn it, it worked.
One of the last times we were out, he took me to his favorite restaurant. He was right: I hated the place. Pretentious atmosphere, douchebaggery at every corner, and a menu that did not seem at all appetizing. But we had a good walk through the art scene (kill me the fuck now!) just before, and he wanted to show me somewhere he loved. As I said, nothing looks particularly good but a Thai burger (say what?), and he always orders steak (there's a reason for that, I'm sure), and he asked me what I was going to have and I told him, and he got this odd look on his face and said, "Really?" and it made me feel like he was saying, "Really? We're at this expensive nice restaurant and you're going to have a burger?" and it made me feel, don't laugh, as if my food order wasn't good enough for him. Isn't that so fucking retarded? Waitress arrives and takes our order. Later, more than halfway through bad chicken, and his steak, he notices it's pink. He's been eating it this entire time and it's only now that he wants it cooked better. Waitress takes it back to do so three times (or was it two? Does it really matter when the piece of meat in question was the size of his thumb?) until it was good enough for him to take home.
You might think me petty, but these are the kinds of things that when I think about them make me see that I should've known better. I mean, I did. But I did it anyway.
Anyway, it isn't all his fault by a longshot. I admit it. But now, I'm just thinking, what I was trying to do. And for what, and for whom. I don't wish bad things for him, but I'm also not insane: he turned out to be girl-levels of crazy, and a bad person. Instead of thinking more like this, because I am pretty tired of myself having this bullshit conversation with my best friend (I'm sure she doesn't want to listen to me bitch, either), I'll do what I wanted him to do all that time, and just stop.
In 2007 I was younger and still believed I was indestructible.
"Everything is so fragile. There’s so much conflict, so much pain. You keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it: the dust is your life going on. If happy comes along, that weird, and unbearable delight that’s actual happy—I think you have to grab it while you can. You take what you can get. ‘cause it’s here, and then…gone."
— Joss Whedon
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Drafts
Here and on Tumblr, my drafts folders have grown considerably. I usually don't save anything because I write shit down and hit POST and that's the end of that. I don't edit or rewrite anything on stupid blogs because I just don't (and I'm sure it's evident considering the horrible spelling and half-thought ideas throughout. But mostly, I'm kind of sick of myself and I don't want to hear myself talk about the same stupid thing over and over again because...well, duh, right? However, I have one more post I want to write about it because I do. Was on the phone recently with Golden, and we talked for quite some time about her friend Terry, which, as ever, made me think a lot about the boy, and, seeing as how at work all I've is my brain (stupid bitch-ass brain!), I think I came up with a few things.
Ahh! But that would negate this non-post about me being tired of me.
The curious bit about the drafts folders, the bit I'm really enjoying as much if not more than unsent emails, is that I get a chance to spout on and on to my little blackened dried raising of a heart's content and feel satisfied. Just because you think something doesn't mean it gets to be on the internet immediately. Really it doesn't. You know, like THIS post.
Ahh! But that would negate this non-post about me being tired of me.
The curious bit about the drafts folders, the bit I'm really enjoying as much if not more than unsent emails, is that I get a chance to spout on and on to my little blackened dried raising of a heart's content and feel satisfied. Just because you think something doesn't mean it gets to be on the internet immediately. Really it doesn't. You know, like THIS post.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
?
There's something wrong when you choose not to answer a seemingly innocuous question and suddenly you're keeping such a huge secret the person(s) asking MUST KNOW RIGHT NOW!
What's so wrong about not answering a question? The fact that it is asked is not a voucher for an answer. Is it really that important for you to know? Is what I don't want to share necessary to your daily life?
Whatever happened to some things being just mine and not for anyone else? Can I have nothing?
What's so wrong about not answering a question? The fact that it is asked is not a voucher for an answer. Is it really that important for you to know? Is what I don't want to share necessary to your daily life?
Whatever happened to some things being just mine and not for anyone else? Can I have nothing?
Monday, November 8, 2010
Read: American Gods
what neil gaiman does in AMERICAN GODS is point out what traditions mean in the new world, and what happens when we try and establish new ones - or ideas of traditions without understanding the power they hold, the meaning they carry over the centuries. shadow, ever us, not understanding the reasons why he must do the things he does, comes to the conclusion that in the same way american cares not for the old gods, the old gods don't care very much for us. but it's not necessarily a toxic relationship, not so much that pure belief in them is a bad thing, but there ought to always be a questioning of their word.
AMERICAN GODS is also about the old world relinquishing its grasp on our daily existence. it's not about forsaking your history - a mighty sacrilege - but rather recognizing that time moves and so we must adapt to it. it's about the stubbornness of the old guard to realize that the old ways, simply, undeniably have no more the value they used to other than decoration, and it is also about how the young willingly make sin and call it 'new'. they revere the perverse ostentatious and maligned and cancerous like an odd badge of rebellion while not seeing that it isn't rebellion but conformity.
lastly, AMERICAN GODS is about a man who made several mistakes in his life, and who has to live with them. it is about the woman who loved him and whom he loved, and about being unable to make things right. neither one of them can. so what else is there to do? live or be dead. the latter thinks she wants to be alive again, and the former chooses death to live.
thematically, AMERICAN GODS could be the much older brother of cormac mccarthy's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD ME.
[cross-posted on facebook.]
AMERICAN GODS is also about the old world relinquishing its grasp on our daily existence. it's not about forsaking your history - a mighty sacrilege - but rather recognizing that time moves and so we must adapt to it. it's about the stubbornness of the old guard to realize that the old ways, simply, undeniably have no more the value they used to other than decoration, and it is also about how the young willingly make sin and call it 'new'. they revere the perverse ostentatious and maligned and cancerous like an odd badge of rebellion while not seeing that it isn't rebellion but conformity.
lastly, AMERICAN GODS is about a man who made several mistakes in his life, and who has to live with them. it is about the woman who loved him and whom he loved, and about being unable to make things right. neither one of them can. so what else is there to do? live or be dead. the latter thinks she wants to be alive again, and the former chooses death to live.
thematically, AMERICAN GODS could be the much older brother of cormac mccarthy's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD ME.
[cross-posted on facebook.]
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Junk Drawer
I should be sleeping: about two months into the new gig, and waking up at 3am is getting tougher. This morning I ran a little late, and by the time my lunch hour is done, so am I. I think cutting back on the caffeinated drinks is the reason. But now, it's so hot I can't sleep. Took a long cold shower, masturbated, cut my hair, and turned on the fan. I'm smoking and sipping on fat-free sugar-free milky coffee.
So, things:
So, things:
* * *
A couple weeks ago, I went to my summer/fall doctor's appointment. Everything was surprisingly good: my numbers were all spot on (my doctor said my t-cell count's the highest it's been since I started seeing him in 2007), I lost somewhere between ten and twelve pounds since I last saw him, and the liver sonogram I had in the spring revealed nothing serious, but the caveat is that I've a fatty liver, which, he said, could lead to cirrhosis. Doctor said I HAVE TO EXERCISE MORE AND EAT BETTER. When he said it, I imagined it all in capital letters, yes. He's never really said anything as far as exercising nor adjusting my diet - he always said before how I was in excellent health. But I think, and he knows, that all the down time I had in the middle of the year definitely affected my body. Now, obviously, he wants me to go back to there. I've had two failed attempts at regular exercising in as many weeks, and my diet's still the same. I start, yet again, on Sunday.
Last night's med-term elections always bring up something I hate about people. Not so much the voting or lack thereof, nor even the outcome (although mr Dean Trippe does a damn good job in covering the same bases I'd in mind): it's how, suddenly, from everywhere, the day of election, everyone's about get out and vote and get out and vote, and I ask what their positions are and they really have no clue what the hell they're even voting for. What any long-term situations my arise, what outcomes in other states could have in California, or even who the fuck their district representative is. It's such mindlessness and superficiality that blows me away. I hate to say that lots of people I know personally are like that, and I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any means, but I think it's okay to say, "I don't know," every once in a while instead of pretending otherwise. James Robinson put it best in STARMAN.
Over on 405, I've been posting not-so-random songs. Because I listen to them ad nauseum because of what I described over in the previous post from two weeks ago or so, and the break up. First, the obligatory Atmosphere, FUCK YOU LUCY and Then, Smashing Pumpkins's HELLO KITTY KAT, TV On The Radio's AMBULANCE, LCD Soundsystem's I CAN CHANGE, Mikey Dread's SCHOOL GIRL, and Amanda Palmer's LEEDS UNITED. I had a conversation with Golden a couple weeks back where of course I said to her I'm not over the boy, but it's not like I want him back. I'm a weird sort of lull as far as he's concerned. My awkwardness when recently we saw each other notwithstanding, I'm not sure I even want to talk to him again. Which is so counterproductive: wish I could ask why, you know, but then I think, fuck it: I'll keep hitting REPLAY when these tracks come on.
I think I'm lonely.
Saw David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK and Mark Romanek's NEVER LET ME GO last week. Both were so abso-fucking-lutely fantastic. The former was such a machine gun spray of dialogue and story and movement and laughter and, even, a bit of sympathy. It perfectly encapsulates what this supposed generation has to offer the world, and at the same time, how they distance themselves from each other as a social norm. At the same time, for me, it put into perspective why I was the last person I knew who used Facebook and how, even now, I don't think I get it. Lastly, I think it made a pretty decent point about how everyone everywhere in your circle can know everything about you without you even knowing, and how it takes away some of few unique qualities your life may have by having it shared and diluted by your 'friends'.
NEVER LET ME GO on the other hand had me in tears throughout. Because it is about the brevity that is life and how you go through it, the span you get. Either as an icy bitch who will only realize she's a bad person at the very end, or as an idealist and optimist who's willing to put his heart on the line every time and who is willing to be willfully naive that life will always be better if only you wish hard enough, or as a realist who can see before her what life really is and all the types of people who surround her, even her friends and family, and realizing that it's not all games and ice cream, and still venturing out into the world with steady steps, a little heartbreak, courage, and lost relationships.
Next week I'll see Danny Boyle's 127 HOURS.
Still hoping to make it to Las Vegas for my birthday. Doesn't look good right now, but if I do, Golden says Chuck Ragan and Lucero will be in town then. This is where praying would come in handy if it was at all useful.
At work, my boss and her boss have briefly discussed what I might want my future to be with the company. Both will be in tomorrow. And, as I think about these small conversations, it becomes rather obvious to me that I'm overqualified for my job, and that I can do my boss's assistant's job a thousand times better than he does. Which isn't to say he's bad at it, but I know I'm better. Hopefully, as time moves toward December 3rd, I'll be able to gauge better where I want to be if there are possibilities. Because I feel older every day and I'm tired. And maybe, frankly, putting some thought into MY future is more than due. I like that everyone who can do something about work for me is talking about me in this manner. Because even though most anyone else would simply just kick back, I know it will pay off. I always know it will and then does.
Finally, this is my favorite book of the year: COMING & CRYING. It made me cry and it made me think and it made me laugh and it made me cheer and it made me nostalgic and it made me yearn and it made complete when I needed it the most.*
*it may still be available!
* * *
Last night's med-term elections always bring up something I hate about people. Not so much the voting or lack thereof, nor even the outcome (although mr Dean Trippe does a damn good job in covering the same bases I'd in mind): it's how, suddenly, from everywhere, the day of election, everyone's about get out and vote and get out and vote, and I ask what their positions are and they really have no clue what the hell they're even voting for. What any long-term situations my arise, what outcomes in other states could have in California, or even who the fuck their district representative is. It's such mindlessness and superficiality that blows me away. I hate to say that lots of people I know personally are like that, and I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any means, but I think it's okay to say, "I don't know," every once in a while instead of pretending otherwise. James Robinson put it best in STARMAN.
* * *
Over on 405, I've been posting not-so-random songs. Because I listen to them ad nauseum because of what I described over in the previous post from two weeks ago or so, and the break up. First, the obligatory Atmosphere, FUCK YOU LUCY and Then, Smashing Pumpkins's HELLO KITTY KAT, TV On The Radio's AMBULANCE, LCD Soundsystem's I CAN CHANGE, Mikey Dread's SCHOOL GIRL, and Amanda Palmer's LEEDS UNITED. I had a conversation with Golden a couple weeks back where of course I said to her I'm not over the boy, but it's not like I want him back. I'm a weird sort of lull as far as he's concerned. My awkwardness when recently we saw each other notwithstanding, I'm not sure I even want to talk to him again. Which is so counterproductive: wish I could ask why, you know, but then I think, fuck it: I'll keep hitting REPLAY when these tracks come on.
* * *
I think I'm lonely.
* * *
Saw David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK and Mark Romanek's NEVER LET ME GO last week. Both were so abso-fucking-lutely fantastic. The former was such a machine gun spray of dialogue and story and movement and laughter and, even, a bit of sympathy. It perfectly encapsulates what this supposed generation has to offer the world, and at the same time, how they distance themselves from each other as a social norm. At the same time, for me, it put into perspective why I was the last person I knew who used Facebook and how, even now, I don't think I get it. Lastly, I think it made a pretty decent point about how everyone everywhere in your circle can know everything about you without you even knowing, and how it takes away some of few unique qualities your life may have by having it shared and diluted by your 'friends'.
NEVER LET ME GO on the other hand had me in tears throughout. Because it is about the brevity that is life and how you go through it, the span you get. Either as an icy bitch who will only realize she's a bad person at the very end, or as an idealist and optimist who's willing to put his heart on the line every time and who is willing to be willfully naive that life will always be better if only you wish hard enough, or as a realist who can see before her what life really is and all the types of people who surround her, even her friends and family, and realizing that it's not all games and ice cream, and still venturing out into the world with steady steps, a little heartbreak, courage, and lost relationships.
Next week I'll see Danny Boyle's 127 HOURS.
* * *
Still hoping to make it to Las Vegas for my birthday. Doesn't look good right now, but if I do, Golden says Chuck Ragan and Lucero will be in town then. This is where praying would come in handy if it was at all useful.
* * *
At work, my boss and her boss have briefly discussed what I might want my future to be with the company. Both will be in tomorrow. And, as I think about these small conversations, it becomes rather obvious to me that I'm overqualified for my job, and that I can do my boss's assistant's job a thousand times better than he does. Which isn't to say he's bad at it, but I know I'm better. Hopefully, as time moves toward December 3rd, I'll be able to gauge better where I want to be if there are possibilities. Because I feel older every day and I'm tired. And maybe, frankly, putting some thought into MY future is more than due. I like that everyone who can do something about work for me is talking about me in this manner. Because even though most anyone else would simply just kick back, I know it will pay off. I always know it will and then does.
* * *
Finally, this is my favorite book of the year: COMING & CRYING. It made me cry and it made me think and it made me laugh and it made me cheer and it made me nostalgic and it made me yearn and it made complete when I needed it the most.*
*it may still be available!
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