With hearts older than their youth
Oct. 15th, 2007 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raybearIt is Monday and somewhat sunny and I am alive. This weekend was sort of odd, in that way where on paper, nothing special happened, nothing that would seem on its face so overwhelming, and yet, I feel a bit relieved that its over and I made it without sustaining any damage. The weather was absolutely bleak, the sky a shelf of grey, damp and chilled and no breeze. On its face, the perfect sort of, let's curl up under a blanket and drink tea and read a book and watch a movie, and I did many of those things, but it didn't feel so much cozy as it felt like warding off demons, barely keeping them at bay.
On Friday night, I didn't go to the concert because I couldn't find someone to attend with me, and I wasn't in the mood to go out alone, so I stayed in and opened up the bottle of birthday wine that Husband bought for me back in June. I watched lots of 30 Rock, I went to bed early. I woke up and that was the first feeling of "uh-oh". I didn't want to drop the car off at the mechanic's, I certainly didn't want to follow through on my plan of driving up with Sophie and walking the entire 3 miles home, but I did it anyway. The walk was fine, mostly because I called![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thebrownhornet and talked with him the entire time, as well as for another hour plus when I got home. When I hung up, I figured out I had been talking to him for two and half hours, maybe three. I didn't talk to anyone else the rest of the day. I made black beans and rice with bacon and spinach and it fed me all weekend. I crossed things off the to-do list for around the house. I listened to unfamiliar sad music. I had tentative plans for dinner, but the text message never came through, and then I never got around to showering or getting dressed or leaving the house to do anything else. I watched the movie Infamous1. I finished the rest of the season of 30 Rock. I started composing an essay in my head about how Tracy Jordan is the Truman Capote of our decade. This was also right around the time I was watching Designing Women on youtube. And cruising online for possible play, as well as texting an old booty call. Nothing panned out, or rather, no one who would come to me, I wasn't feeling up for leaving the house. Though finally he texted me back when I was asleep and unwilling to wake myself up to make it happen. Sunday morning I was up early and wrote a lot, then decided ok, I'm finally ready and needing to leave the house. I biked over to Mojoe's but unfortunately they were setting up a band. It was 9 am! I thought their live music wouldn't start until 11 at the latest. It was awkward, as there were only 2 other patrons in the place and every time they would finish a song, no one even bothered to pretend to clap. I was hidden in the corner behind the water cooler, with my face in my reading. I had to give up eventually the noise was too much. I went home and started watching Knocked Up2 which I rented thinking it would be silly and funny and break the spell of my dreariness, rather than watch some creepy thriller movie about paranoia and/or claustrophobia and/or paralysis, which were the majority of my other options. I made cornbread. I wrote a little more, but not in the novel.
Around 3:30 pm I got picked up bybroqued and foxycoxy and I talked nonstop. Human contact! With people I love!! We went to see the new Elizabeth3 movie, then ate dinner at Feed (1/4 white, corn pudding and fried okra). They dropped me off at home, and then my booty call wrote me and said, I can be there in half an hour, and I said, sorry, never mind. I was too full of food for sex. Plus, I didn't necessarily want to interact with anyone. The house had started to become a scary place in my mind, from spending so much time in it alone, but after my minor adventure out with friends, I was fine. I finished the rest of the movie, had some wine, went to bed early.
Part of what my brain has been fixated on all weekend is how similar everything around me was feeling to October seven years ago. When I lived alone in a studio apartment in uptown and there were weekends were I maybe saw no one or talked to anyone except forthebrownhornet on the phone. It was my first time living alone and having so much time and space to myself. I was only two months out of a break-up. It was also a sort of eye of the storm for me. I had spent the majority of the spring and summer coming out to all my friends and co-workers about transitioning. I was waiting for my mother to visit Chicago at the end of the month, and then I would come out to my family. I also had an appointment with a doctor the day after she left, to start hormones. Everything was wound up and set in place, I was just waiting for it to be released and was spending lots of timing trying to guess in which way all those marching toys would circle around and bump into each other. I thought if I could play out every configuration, I would be prepared. I was simultaneously tired of waiting but also needing to rest from everything I had already gone through.
On the surface, I'm nothing like that person seven years ago, but there are also other similarities, as far revisiting some of the emotional issues. I don't think its coincidence that I went back to some of those places, this past weekend. I had originally planned to take a trip this weekend, but decided to stay home and write, since I didn't have money, but I feel like instead I travelled to all sorts of other places in my head that were way more exhausting and not terribly scenic.
Today the sun came back. The blue October sky I know and love is appearing. I went out to pick up the car from the mechanic and wore my new sunglasses and felt sort of like I was wearing a costume. I am, I suppose, not just because they are so different from my usual mask, but because I'm still sort of rejoining my body of now, not inhabiting the one of my past. Coxy was teasing me about my crunches last night, which I hadn't done last week, using my cold as an excuse, but this morning, I got right on the floor and did them without overthinking it. I think it help set the tone for the day, of getting back into my body and my own head. This is where you are now. This is the current transformation you've made and what you are inhabiting.
Welcome back.
________________
1: Watching this movie is sort of like going to see the same play done by a different theatre company and director. Which is totally something I would do. The film is more colorful, not just in the more outlandish fashion of Truman, but its more about his humor and cattiness and love of gossip. But the second half of the movie, I just didn't think the actor pulled off the emotional transformation as well. Sandra Bullock was surprisingly great. Like, um, I may have liked her better as Harper Lee than Catherine Keener, which might be considered blasphemy by some. And I loved the latter in Capote. Maybe I just loved them both. Daniel Craig was interesting as Perry, but I never did stop thinking "whoa, look at Daniel Craig acting!" Infamous had a few strengths and even though overall it felt like a lesser movie, I'm still glad I watched it and I would recommend it to people who are interested in the topic. I.e. other writers. Strange that I don't even love the book "In Cold Blood", but I am intrigued by the process and interpretations surrounding it.
2: This movie was really weird to me. I never really laughed, but there were times I thought "oh, that's funny." I was bothered that they never showed her reason for deciding to have the baby -- the way they laid it out, it could be interpreted that it was solely because her mother didn't want her to have it. The guy had numerous conversations and processes about it, but never her. In the end, this is "a guy's movie" because he gets more time and depth, but also because there were several spots of straight-up misogyny and vitriolic language towards women (and people in general) that just made me feel crappy and uncomfortable, because it just revealed how much people hate themselves too. But mostly, this movie was weird. It was not what I was expecting at all as far as how it was both completely following the romantic comedy formula, but also having these really unexpected scenes that were oddly hilarious (in that way where you don't laugh, but say, 'that's funny').
3: Halfway through the movie, there's an assasination attempt scene that was so bombastic and it marked the point where I think Jerry Bruckheimer took over directing. Everything was big! Dramatic! Overacting! Tear-streaked! But, in a sort of campy entertaining way. Like, it became Pirates of the Caribbean. The costumes and makeup was amazing. Maybe it can be summed up best with two sentences: "not bad for colonialist propaganda" (me) and "I think that was an ad for Hillary Clinton for President" (Broqued).
On Friday night, I didn't go to the concert because I couldn't find someone to attend with me, and I wasn't in the mood to go out alone, so I stayed in and opened up the bottle of birthday wine that Husband bought for me back in June. I watched lots of 30 Rock, I went to bed early. I woke up and that was the first feeling of "uh-oh". I didn't want to drop the car off at the mechanic's, I certainly didn't want to follow through on my plan of driving up with Sophie and walking the entire 3 miles home, but I did it anyway. The walk was fine, mostly because I called
thebrownhornet and talked with him the entire time, as well as for another hour plus when I got home. When I hung up, I figured out I had been talking to him for two and half hours, maybe three. I didn't talk to anyone else the rest of the day. I made black beans and rice with bacon and spinach and it fed me all weekend. I crossed things off the to-do list for around the house. I listened to unfamiliar sad music. I had tentative plans for dinner, but the text message never came through, and then I never got around to showering or getting dressed or leaving the house to do anything else. I watched the movie Infamous1. I finished the rest of the season of 30 Rock. I started composing an essay in my head about how Tracy Jordan is the Truman Capote of our decade. This was also right around the time I was watching Designing Women on youtube. And cruising online for possible play, as well as texting an old booty call. Nothing panned out, or rather, no one who would come to me, I wasn't feeling up for leaving the house. Though finally he texted me back when I was asleep and unwilling to wake myself up to make it happen. Sunday morning I was up early and wrote a lot, then decided ok, I'm finally ready and needing to leave the house. I biked over to Mojoe's but unfortunately they were setting up a band. It was 9 am! I thought their live music wouldn't start until 11 at the latest. It was awkward, as there were only 2 other patrons in the place and every time they would finish a song, no one even bothered to pretend to clap. I was hidden in the corner behind the water cooler, with my face in my reading. I had to give up eventually the noise was too much. I went home and started watching Knocked Up2 which I rented thinking it would be silly and funny and break the spell of my dreariness, rather than watch some creepy thriller movie about paranoia and/or claustrophobia and/or paralysis, which were the majority of my other options. I made cornbread. I wrote a little more, but not in the novel. Around 3:30 pm I got picked up by
broqued and foxycoxy and I talked nonstop. Human contact! With people I love!! We went to see the new Elizabeth3 movie, then ate dinner at Feed (1/4 white, corn pudding and fried okra). They dropped me off at home, and then my booty call wrote me and said, I can be there in half an hour, and I said, sorry, never mind. I was too full of food for sex. Plus, I didn't necessarily want to interact with anyone. The house had started to become a scary place in my mind, from spending so much time in it alone, but after my minor adventure out with friends, I was fine. I finished the rest of the movie, had some wine, went to bed early. Part of what my brain has been fixated on all weekend is how similar everything around me was feeling to October seven years ago. When I lived alone in a studio apartment in uptown and there were weekends were I maybe saw no one or talked to anyone except for
thebrownhornet on the phone. It was my first time living alone and having so much time and space to myself. I was only two months out of a break-up. It was also a sort of eye of the storm for me. I had spent the majority of the spring and summer coming out to all my friends and co-workers about transitioning. I was waiting for my mother to visit Chicago at the end of the month, and then I would come out to my family. I also had an appointment with a doctor the day after she left, to start hormones. Everything was wound up and set in place, I was just waiting for it to be released and was spending lots of timing trying to guess in which way all those marching toys would circle around and bump into each other. I thought if I could play out every configuration, I would be prepared. I was simultaneously tired of waiting but also needing to rest from everything I had already gone through. On the surface, I'm nothing like that person seven years ago, but there are also other similarities, as far revisiting some of the emotional issues. I don't think its coincidence that I went back to some of those places, this past weekend. I had originally planned to take a trip this weekend, but decided to stay home and write, since I didn't have money, but I feel like instead I travelled to all sorts of other places in my head that were way more exhausting and not terribly scenic.
Today the sun came back. The blue October sky I know and love is appearing. I went out to pick up the car from the mechanic and wore my new sunglasses and felt sort of like I was wearing a costume. I am, I suppose, not just because they are so different from my usual mask, but because I'm still sort of rejoining my body of now, not inhabiting the one of my past. Coxy was teasing me about my crunches last night, which I hadn't done last week, using my cold as an excuse, but this morning, I got right on the floor and did them without overthinking it. I think it help set the tone for the day, of getting back into my body and my own head. This is where you are now. This is the current transformation you've made and what you are inhabiting.
Welcome back.
________________
1: Watching this movie is sort of like going to see the same play done by a different theatre company and director. Which is totally something I would do. The film is more colorful, not just in the more outlandish fashion of Truman, but its more about his humor and cattiness and love of gossip. But the second half of the movie, I just didn't think the actor pulled off the emotional transformation as well. Sandra Bullock was surprisingly great. Like, um, I may have liked her better as Harper Lee than Catherine Keener, which might be considered blasphemy by some. And I loved the latter in Capote. Maybe I just loved them both. Daniel Craig was interesting as Perry, but I never did stop thinking "whoa, look at Daniel Craig acting!" Infamous had a few strengths and even though overall it felt like a lesser movie, I'm still glad I watched it and I would recommend it to people who are interested in the topic. I.e. other writers. Strange that I don't even love the book "In Cold Blood", but I am intrigued by the process and interpretations surrounding it.
2: This movie was really weird to me. I never really laughed, but there were times I thought "oh, that's funny." I was bothered that they never showed her reason for deciding to have the baby -- the way they laid it out, it could be interpreted that it was solely because her mother didn't want her to have it. The guy had numerous conversations and processes about it, but never her. In the end, this is "a guy's movie" because he gets more time and depth, but also because there were several spots of straight-up misogyny and vitriolic language towards women (and people in general) that just made me feel crappy and uncomfortable, because it just revealed how much people hate themselves too. But mostly, this movie was weird. It was not what I was expecting at all as far as how it was both completely following the romantic comedy formula, but also having these really unexpected scenes that were oddly hilarious (in that way where you don't laugh, but say, 'that's funny').
3: Halfway through the movie, there's an assasination attempt scene that was so bombastic and it marked the point where I think Jerry Bruckheimer took over directing. Everything was big! Dramatic! Overacting! Tear-streaked! But, in a sort of campy entertaining way. Like, it became Pirates of the Caribbean. The costumes and makeup was amazing. Maybe it can be summed up best with two sentences: "not bad for colonialist propaganda" (me) and "I think that was an ad for Hillary Clinton for President" (Broqued).
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 06:32 pm (UTC)my favorite part of the whole movie? the scene where the two main characters are walking out of the baby store, she says to him casually "god, why is it always so hot in the valley?" because that's what randy and i would say to each other all the time when we'd go shopping in the valley. that was the only thing that made me laugh and say "so true!!"
no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 07:24 pm (UTC)You've got an audience for that (me). Such an odd juxtaposition I'd have to read it.
This post reminded me that working at home is probably a big reason why I slip into funks so easily. I know, I have the power to take charge and get myself out there and all that, but even if I do, by definition I'm alone for looooong stretches of time.
One of my friends just started teaching high school and she's like "OMG, was this a huge mistake or is that just how everyone feels their first year?" I asked her if she could talk to her co-workers for commiseration/advice. She said "yes, but the thing is: People with 10 years' experience feel the same way." OK, so my job is waaaayyy less stressful than teaching high school, but I have a similar feeling of "I'm not crazy to have the problems with this job that I do, because pretty much anyone would. Yet...if that's the case, am I just stuck feeling this way, or what?" Meh, maybe I just need to dance and get drunk more.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 11:43 pm (UTC)I would say this is a situation common to many outspoken and flamboyant (I mean that word literally, not to mean gay!) people who are also a minority having to operate within a group of dominant-culture. But since I watched the DVDs close together, they seemed like interesting examples to me to stand next to each other.
Yeah, its definitely important to get out of the house. Its part of why this evening legal job is good for my sanity -- its good to have a place to be everyday at the same time, that gets me out of the house. I both resist structure and need it, and I'm still trying to balance which ones are the necessary kind and which are the impeding kind.
Also, its nice to have someone you live with and you'll have some positive human contact -- even if I come home and she's asleep and we don't talk, I still can crawl into bed and have that physical reassurance. Although, I was thinking this weekend about having a dog is helpful, and I can hardly believe I ever lived alone with no animal. That just seems creepy.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 12:51 am (UTC)Hmm...since "30 Rock" is a show within a show, I wonder if the show is playing around with the celebrated/reviled Other concept or indulging in it (don't have strong opinions about that, really, but seemed like an interesting question. I like "30 Rock" a lot).
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 01:34 am (UTC)I was thinking about the 30 Rock show-within-a-show, and I think its both, which makes it sometimes skate over into problem territory, but then again, that's bound to happen when you are playing with pushing boundaries, so I forgive it. And I think Tracy Jordan is doing to us, the world of watching 30 Rock, the exact same thing he is doing to the world OF 30 Rock, which is sort of amazing, and actually, this might have been the part of my internal monologue where I stopped myself and said, damn, I sound like a stoner. Ha.