 Out of My Thoughts |
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I've had an exceedingly lazy day because I was so discouraged by the utter futility of attempting to vacuum the pet hair off my couch that I just gave up and decided to prostrate myself upon it to watch DVDs. I finished Pride and Prejudice and of course ogled Mr. Darcy until my eyeballs practically fell out. I watched Harold and Maude upon Jessamyn's recommendation and Lisa's insistence ("Harold and Maude, Eliza, for the LOVE OF GOD.") and I fear I might be some kind of idiot but instead of making me laugh or cry it just made me feel kind of squicky. Maybe I need to give it another chance while I'm not lying down in misery wondering why my couch fabric is akin to super glue when it comes to adhesion to fur. Remember The Girl with the Glue? I know a lot of you must. It was an online journal by Jen, who would post old black and white photos and write about her experiences as a teacher. Today from Jen I received in the mail an old copy of the paperback version of Escape to Witch Mountain, out of the clear blue sky. And it made me so happy. Thank you, Jen. My old friend Gena had her first child today. She is married to an Italian man, and I went to their wedding six years ago in Florence. They gave him an American first name and an Italian middle name. She had to have a c-section and says her abdomen hurts like a motherfucker. I said, "Well, at least your twat is intact!" She then cursed and demanded that I say nothing funny as laughing requires moving. She said he has really dark hair and really big balls. She asked me to be his American godmother, and they've also asked a close friend in Florence to be the Italian one. I don't really know how to be a godmother to a baby an ocean away. Since he already has tons and tons of baby stuff, I decided to send his mother the Elf DVD to watch during what will probably be a delirious first few weeks. I figure if she can get a good giggle out of it, then they'll all be better off in the end. It's so weird the things you go through with friends over the years. We technically met in preschool but didn't really remember each other and didn't become actual friends until senior year of high school. When the wedding was called off, she was the only person who said I told you so, and I resented her for a very long time for that, but after holding onto that resentment, I gradually realized that sometimes friends hurt each other without meaning to, and when you choose for someone to remain in your life, you have to take the bad with the good. I know that sounds so simplistic but it was a really long process for me to come to that realization. Yes, she hurt me during that time because I felt she had no concept of what I was going through and utterly lacked the sensitivity to keep her mouth shut, which every single other person in my life had done ... but the fact remains that she HAD told me so. And she has been there for me in many ways before and since, and we have laughed together until clutching our stomachs and gasping in tears, and I would rather have her as my friend than hold onto pain that she inadvertently caused me. You know? So today I am happy for her. I am jealous and I wish I could be there, but more than all that, I am happy, because I know she's wanted this for a very long time. And I really believe that she will be a good mom. Thanks to the detective work of some resourceful readers, I've learned that Finding Neverland hasn't actually been pulled, as reported by the dimwitted theater manager whom I asked about it on Thanksgiving evening, but that its release has been slowed down somewhat. I just hope it comes out here soon. Speaking of movies, I watched Before Sunset for the second time today. And to think I thought I loved it the first time! Upon watching it again, I really think it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. I'm not kidding! There's just something really special about it. I don't know if it's seeing Paris in it and remembering the beauty of the Seine and the streets or the great writing or acting or what. I think part if it is the loooooooong, uninterrupted style of the scenes. The scenes suck you in, and they make it feel so real. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have something really magical together. If you have a romantic bone in your body, I just don't see how this movie won't strike a chord in you and really resonate. (My only complaint about the DVD is that I am embittered by the mystifying lack of any commentary whatsofuckingever.) All I could think about as I watched it was that I wished I could have been watching it with my sister, because so much of it reminded me of her. The way she talks, the way she thinks. I love when Celine was explaining the little details she remembers about people, and how people are irreplaceable because of those little details, those little moments. Like the ride back from Thanksgiving with my brother and sister, singing soundtracks a capella while we shielded our eyes from the blindingly bright afternoon sunlight and seeing the way my sister hit the steering wheel to the beat and hearing my brother guffaw into his collar from the front seat when I would attempt and fail miserably to harmonize properly. It is a great movie. There's just so much to love about it and so much to relate to in its words and its story. The memories of those few magical nights that we all have, like that summer night in the Rockies where we all huddled on a blanket on a mountainside and drank wine out of the bottle and giggled while watching the stars falling or that night we snuck out of camp to go to the waterfall and the only light we could see was the flash from our cameras reflecting off the water while we posed in a pile for a group photo or standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower at nearly midnight or that freezing night on the New York City sidewalk or that New Year's Eve on the lake when we finally kissed for the first time. The regrets that we face as the time between us and those memories grows longer and more far away. The fears we have as we look back and realize, this is it. This is now. This is life, and it goes by so quickly, and there are still wonderful memories to be made if we are brave enough to make them. That sense of realization, like in Our Town, and it's so corny but it's so true, "It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed ... Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?" That's so much of what this movie says to me. I want to watch it again and again. I want to ride across the country in a car with my siblings singing and laughing.  About this time in ...
© Copyright 2004 elb |
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