For more depressing stuff try G-G the book!

For more depressing stuff try G-G the book!:

For more depressing stuff try G-G the book!

Still I (Will) Miss You

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Eternal Sunshine

Photo:

Seventy-two Days Does Not a Marriage Make - Tim King - God's Politics Blog

Seventy-two Days Does Not a Marriage Make - Tim King - God's Politics Blog

Photo

Photo:

These Boots are Made for Hiking

Cosmo Women and 14 Year Old Bbboys

I'm watching High Fidelity for the first time and wondering why I like this movie so much, wondering why so many of my favorite "rom coms" are written from the male perspective. Almost all movies about love seem to find themselves falling back on gender stereotypes, painting each character with broad generalizing strokes in an effort to gain some sort of understanding and insight into why people do the things they do when they do (and don't) love each other. Perhaps rom coms written from the male perspective help to give me insight into which paint buckets the opposite sex uses in its attempts to understand women. (The results usually aren't that shocking.)

With no further ado, my 5.5 (current) favorite movies about adult relationships (adult meaning not about teenagers, as opposed to, you now, adult as in all about the sexy sex):

5.5 L'ultimo bacio
5. The Last Kiss
4. I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks)
3. High Fidelity
2. Me and You and Everyone We Know
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

As with anything that's my favorite, this list is bound to no longer be true within minutes. But I'm definitely interested in any suggestions, any passionate disagreements. (I also just realized that *SPOILER* most of these movies have happyish endings.)

John Hughes is dead and we can't stop talking about how wonderful or flawed his work was

kimberly: am I the only one who hates that Some Kind of Wonderful movie?
me: Yes
LOL
I never liked it when I was younger but now I might like it even more than Pretty in Pink I think b\c I've become less of an Andie and more of a Watts according to the Facebook quiz I just took, at least And I totes just bought it the other day
If it makes you feel better, I hate 16 Candles, Weird Science, and Ferris Beuler
Or however you spell his name
kimberly: hahaha
that doesn't make me feel better, no
me: Damn. I tried. Hahaha
kimberly: I don't know if it's partly because I didn't see Some Kind of Wonderful until I was older like late high school or college so I was already area of what complete bullshit it was but yeah, it sorta grosses me out it's dumb that he spends his college money on earrings for a girl and it's gross that that's what's supposed to impress her and I don't get why watts would like him he treats her as a chauffeur!
me: I think that's why I hated it as a kid
kimberly: haha
so why do you like it now?
'cause of watts?
me: b\c I'm more of a dreamer now And I know that love really does suck
kimberly: LOL
I'm not sure that's one of those things you're supposed to "know"
me: http://methodsofmediocrity.blogspot.com/2008/05/pretty-unconvinced.html
Hahaha
I wrote that last year I haven't reread it but like, I always liked that Andy ended up with Blane...b\c it makes sense but their whole relationship was them talking about their relationship
Where Watts and what's-his-face were actually friends
And like, the grown up me knows that Blane and Andie won't actually last But the grown up me also knows that what's-his-face is only settling for Watts And that's what really happens in life and that's what works
Wow. That sounded way more jaded and depressing than I meant it to
kimberly: (just finished reading it...it's very well-thought out)
haha yeah, I was sorta with you until the settling part
so like regarding Pretty in Pink it's interesting 'cause when I was younger like 12 or whatever it was my favorite of the Big Three movies I really wanted to love Breakfast Club, but I was extremely disappointed, to be honest, don't love it all that much
16 Candles was okay but Pretty in Pink was like...at the time, I loooooved Andrew McCarthy and I thought the thing between him and Andie was so hot
BUT
me: Sometimes I adore breakfast club, sometimes it makes me go "Meh". I'm with hortense on always being bothered that the geek is the only one that got no ass
(Also, I always thought Andrew McCarthy was fug until I saw him as an adult in Joy Luck Club...now I think he's hot shit.)
kimberly: I agree with you, like, I remember being surprised that she was originally supposed to end up with Duckie because although I've totally been into other "in love with the best friend" narratives, I didn't feel anything between her and Duckie...Like he had this crush on her, yes, but even that was sorta the painful, not based on any real chemistry crush of people
Really? I was all over Andrew McCarthy
BUT AGAIN
then when I watched it when I was older it's like probably my least favorite....of course, the ending never made sense, even when I was younger...the whole "you didn't believe in yourself" thing but watching it when I was older it was even more like
me: Hahahahahaha
Worst."speech".ever.
kimberly: yeahhh...he's a coward and the fact that he was so easily manipulated and a snob is ridiculous
For real!
AND
me: But they're also just kids. We have to remember that
kimberly: I thought he looked so hot the whole movie except the last scene which was obviously shot later 'cause his hair is a totally different color!
they're 18...I'm pretty sure "love the person you love whether or not they own a mercedes" is a lesson even Michelle would get in season 3 of full house
me: Yeah...they had to reshoot that last scene, b\c in the original ending, it's her and Ducky. So, he'd shaved his head for another movie and they had to give him this shitty wig

Try it with catsup today

("Why go out for burgers when you have steak at home...again.")

That Night

Before she was slaying vampires with Buffy, cheering with Kirsten, or playing a more acceptable version of a futuristic, brainwashable prostitute, Eliza Dushku was an awkward little girl, battling Katherine Heigl and trying to be Juliette Lewis in That Night, the Romeo and Juliet for the born-in-the-80s, latchkey-kid sect. A summer HBO staple, this movie was the stuff of fantasy for a number of young women. For me, it's sort of strange looking back on this admittedly rather mediocre film and recognizing some of these now-famous faces...because I want this movie to exist in the sort of capsule of naive magic it made me believe in as a young girl.

Moving on with life

The More Loving One
by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Maple

Perhaps it is subconsciously due to the upcoming Valentine's Day, despite the fact that I think it's more related to events currently happening in my and others' lives, that I have been in a particularly sappy mood. It is also partially due to all of the flack the movie He's Just Not That Into You is currently receiving for being a shitty movie, which is unfortunate, because romantic comedies don't have to be trite, sexist displays of patheticness. Anyway, I'm in a romcom mood.

Edit: I originally included a clip from Notting Hill, but since I'm actually watching My Best Friend's Wedding (or just finished watching it) and because I find it more pertinent to singles than Notting Hill, I've included the final scene below, that pretty much almost changed my life in high school, for putting words to something that had been scratching in my consciousness. Spoiler alert, obvs.

Me and you...

"I don't want to have to do this living. I just walk around. I want to be swept off my feet, you know? I want my children to have magical powers. I am prepared for amazing things to happen. I can handle it."
-Richard Swersey in Me and You and Everyone We Know

Reach out and touch somebody's hand

The other day I was involved in a group discussion during which a married mother made mention of the fact that many people, especially single people in New York City, receive very little physical touch. It was not something I had ever really thought about in that way...I mean, sure, I'd heard about all of the benefits of physical contact, but had never thought about it in relation to my own life.

Yesterday, the only people I touched were the people squeezed next to me on the subway and the two people in my taekwondo class I had to spar with. In my office, I have a slip of paper in which one of my old student workers wrote a prescription for "one high five at least daily." It amused me greatly when I got it and I've kept it for the past couple of years, and tried to live by it for a while. It forced me to seek out a bond with others, even if it was just a silly, 5 second high-five.

I think it's time for me to renew my prescription, and I challenge anyone reading this to do the same. And once you're feeling bold, maybe you should up the prescription to one hug, at least daily.

Tension

I have been reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand in an effort to draw my own conclusions about it. (It is difficult because I am already biased, based on what I know of her philosophy of Objectivism and based on the opinions of many others who deride her work.) I noticed, more than once, her use of a question mark in the middle of a sentence. This is one of my favorite literary "devices" so to speak, and she did it well. My heart fluttered.

Today, I came across a word in the book which I vaguely knew the definition of, but which I decided to look-up, to have a deeper, more full understanding of it. On a whim, I went to my bookshelf to pull down my Random House Webster's College Dictionary instead of looking the word up online as I usually do. As I flipped through the pages of the dictionary, I found my heart fluttering once again. I'd forgotten how much pleasure I'd once received from actually touching the thin pages, highlighting words, seeing the other words around the one which drew me to the book.

Since I'd long fancied owning one of those large dictionaries that one finds chained to podiums in libraries, my reuniting with my dictionary inspired me to go online to read more of dictionaries. I found myself at this article: Searching for the best dictionary. The author, YiLing Chen-Josephson, compares a number of different dictionaries, grading each one based on stock, definitions, usage guidance, etymologies, and enjoyment. I found myself following along in my own dictionary, and the fluttering in my heart began to expand throughout my entire body. I got light-headed...my limbs tingled. These were not symptoms of a heart-attack, or some other physical ailment. It was like holding hands for the first time with a longstanding crush. It was like the moments before a first kiss.

When I went to look up "nonplussed," a word specifically mentioned in the article, I found myself staring at the word "orgasm" across from the page on which the "N/O" label is located. How appropriate, I thought as my heart raced faster. After I finished reading the article, I proceeded to look up "orgasm" on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. I found myself titillated, not by the thought of sexual excitement, but by the differences between the ways the word was presented in each dictionary. The pronunciation guides are different. The etymology is written out differently. The numbered definition list versus unnumbered, separate entry for "orgasmic" verses a non-separate entry. And where is the verb form in the Merriam-Webster definition...?

I have nothing more to say. This story has no point. Consider this the anticlimax. From Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Juan Antonio: Maria Elena used to say that only unfulfilled love can be romantic.

Perhaps the point is that there can be no completion to this excitement I derive from these things. In grade school, I used to read the dictionary for fun, but now I use words clumsily and foolishly. I love them but they don't love me back. And that is what makes it so exciting.

Prophesy

I believe in self-fulfilling prophecy, but I am still reflecting on how I feel about this article. It's like real-life Good Luck Chuck.*

*Full disclosure: I have never seen, nor ever plan on seeing, Good Luck Chuck.

Settling

Upgrading

MTV has a reality dating show entitled Parental Control in which parents who dislike their kid's significant other choose two other people for their kid to go out on dates with. After these dates, the kid then has to decide whether or not to stay in their relationships or to continue to date one of people his/her parents selected.

As with most MTV "reality shows," it's difficult to gauge how much of what happens has any basis in reality. The directing and scripting are both heavy handed. And the fact that these are not actors delivering the lines makes it that much less credible. However, the fact that these are not actors is what infuses the situation with a believability.

My problem with this show is watching these kids decide to leave their relationships. A lot of the times, the parents' complaints are silly things: they have an annoying voice, they wear weird clothes, they talk too much. (Occasionally, there are situations of obvious, but glossed over, disrespect and emotional abuse.) The fact of the matter is that most of the time these are 16-18 year-olds we're talking about, and they aren't necessarily in the most serious of relationships. Many of them probably do have dead ends. But basically what happens is that, if the kid goes out on a date with someone who's hotter, the original boyfriend/girlfriend gets tossed aside. This is the part of the show where I've actually seen people look hurt and shocked. Even if it's all a big fake, it's a scary, hard, and dangerous lesson to teach teens: someone who you think you love and who you think loves you can and probably will toss you aside for some better looking fame chaser.

Inventions

I write because it is through my words and inventions that I can live all of the lives that I don't have the time and/or resources to live in the "real" world.

Favorite Link(s) of the Day

From New York Magazine:

• The 33-Year-Old Yearning for His First Real Relationship

From the Hathor Legacy:

• Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test

From Cat and Girl:

•