How about here: Last night I saw Dark Passage at the Noir City Film Festival at the Castro Theatre. The theater is always beautiful and the film was delightful. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, mystery, murder and the streets of S.F. a la 1947. I’m certain that everyone else who has declared their love for San Francisco also finds it enchanting to see the city on the big screen. All those white buildings, impossibly steep hills and sweeping shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s like hearing a song written just for you.

On the way to the movie, we were caught in traffic amid a downpour. We parked sideways-style on a steep hill, and I nearly slid all the way down when my worn boots hit the wet sidewalk. Pile of leaves clumped at the crosswalks; trash was littered and ground into the pavement. We were drenched by the time we made it to the theater. I had begun to regret coming out on a Friday night in the rain. I couldn’t help thinking how easy it would be to go to a movie in the rain in a different place, where there are parking lots and less people everywhere.

Then the organist started to play. I could see the pipes sparkling through the massive grates on either side of the stage as the keys woke them, one bold sound after another. By the time the projector rattled to a start and the lights dimmed, I had already fallen back under the city’s spell.

A place that you love is a lot like a person you love. For every moment that you feel absolutely crazed, there’s another time when you know — absolutely, unequivocally know — you’ll never leave. Not yet.

{image via}

Well, I live in perpetual fear of invoking the afore-mentioned reaction in others. When I see it — distracted glances around the room, soulless eyes, ill-timed “uh huhs” — I immediately kill my story. “Once upon a time — oh yup, there’s a yawn, okay. The end.”

I’ve become more and more aware of this phenomenon. Not because my own anecdotes are getting more boring (certainly not!), but because now that I’m looking out for it I realize just how often I listen to other people’s crap stories. Noteworthy observations:

1. The older a person is, the more likely they’ll bore (It’s ageist, but true). Typically it’s because it’s the same story being retold for the umpteenth time.
2. The more I like you, the less likely you are to lose my interest, even if in relative terms whatever you’re saying is actually really boring.
3. If you’re just talking to toot your own horn, I won’t care. End of story.
4. If what you’re saying involves a. pain b. humiliation c. a tragedy, it’s far more likely to intrigue than something happy. Suffering is just more interesting.
5. But if you start complaining about stuff that’s totally not whine-worthy, eyes will glazeth over.
6. Okay, fine, the happy stuff can be good, but please see point 3.
7. Finally: Everything is more interesting with alcohol.

What bores the crap out of you?

I’ve never been good at defining my blogging interests like that, and it’s made me feel sort of bad about myself.

But then I was like, screw this. Why do I care if my blog fits into a mold? Who the hell made the rules and why am I following them? I mean I’m lucky if my own mom even reads the darn thing.  Why can’t I just do what I want to do? (Watch 40 second video below for apt visual representation.)

So that’s what I’m doing. Kick me off the plane if you must, but I’m not letting go of my bag.

Consider yourself warned.

Right now, I should be writing the proposal for what could be my last-ever academic paper. And yet. I suppose I’ve been hoping that a topic idea would come to me, but alas, I’ve now managed to leave things undone until the bitter end without so much as a drop of inspiration. Art mimics life, no?

When you do nothing, just waiting for that nameless thing to happen to you, well, nothing happens. At least not to me. Here’s what I know: It’s all too easy to float along. It’s all too easy to be swallowed by the minutiae of each day. It’s all too easy to forget what your point is. It’s all too easy to be mean, uninformed, selfish, hate-filled.

Yesterday my mom said, “A good life is not necessarily an easy one.” So what’s my point? It’s time to a. start taking risks and b. stop worrying so much about what other people think. I hope I don’t offend you.

What’s your point?

photo via The Infamous Gdub

The self-pity was thick enough to spread. It was ugly.

But somehow, in the midst of all that, I was able to apply to grad school and start a blog (not this one). I wrote all the time — I wrote my blog at work (heh), and I scribbled in a notebook the rest of the time. And when a genuine writing job came along, I applied and got it.

I wish this is where the story ended. I wish that I could say, “See! See what happens when you follow your dreams and take a leap of faith!”

Unfortunately, life, which we know is no Lifetime movie, had other plans for me. Fine.

Here’s what I’m pissed about: I’ve lost my ability to write with abandon. I’ve lost my passion for blogging. I’ve lost my knack.

What I haven’t lost is the desire to write.

I think of it as — excuse the dramatic metaphor, but I’m in a mood — having a phantom limb. Even though the genuine article is gone, I can still remember what it feels like. In fact, the memory is so clear, sometimes I still try to use it, only to realize, for the 100th time, that it’s gone.

I’m tired of waiting for it to grow back. It’s time to learn how to stand on one leg.

The funny thing about watching these movies (the ones that shaped my childhood and adolescence, which is no exaggeration)  is that I always expect them to disappoint me, and instead I end up loving them all over again. 

The other day I told Mike that I wished I was the age I am now back in the 80′s. And while it’s easy to say I’m doing what every generation does — glamorizing the “good ‘ol days”  — I think it’s that I’m starting to realize just how much more suited I am for life 20 years ago than life today.

This is the era of extroverts, ‘winners’, and being as similar to everyone else as possible. Cool is cool. Back in my day (joking, but really), uncool was cool. It was the age of the underdog. Think: Clarissa Explains it All, Goonies, My Girl, Karate Kid, The Sandlot, My So-Called Life, Sixteen Candles, Flight of the Navigator. I could go on. Watch these again – they’re even better than you remember them. The weird kids were cool, and they were nice, too. Nice! Remember when nice was cool?!? And in the end, they always banded together to fight some greater evil (grown ups!), instead of, you know, each other. And if you’re friends with anyone on Facebook under the age of 20, then you know Mean Girls isn’t just a movie (and ‘slut’ is a compliment).  

And don’t even get me started on technology. I’ll take Tron, the original, over texting any day.

Alice is a child; if she weren’t a child, she’d be an idiot. So why oh why are grown women so enchanted by her?  The desire for fantasy, to be able to traipse, or at least dream so, through a wonderland where cats smile wildly and decks of card play croquet with flamingo mallets, I get. It’s the obsession with being the naive, whimsical, girl-woman, I can’t grasp. And I’m sick of it. I am tired of grown women being showcased and marketing themselves as lithe fairies with nothing to impart on the world but a sense of wonder and sweet giggles.

Take Garden State. In college this was one of my favorites — I actually own the DVD — but Natalie Portman’s character is just ridiculous. She’s just so darn interesting and crazy, but in a totally innocent way. Her flaws are so sickeningly sweet, she might as well be perfect. Except, you know, she’s not (if you count an unhealthy obsession with hamsters), which somehow makes her even more endearing. She never gets angry or irrational; she only gets sad and thoughtful. She collects tears in Dixie cups and perpetually lies, but for some reason, that’s cute, too. She’s just so damn adorable.

There is no grown woman that I know like this. Thank god.

Real women are complex. They live in the real world, which like Alice’s wonderland is filled with inexplicable characters and moments, yet unlike wonderland, the strangeness of real-life requires rational thought and a range of emotional responses, some of which are pretty ugly.  There are very few actual princesses. For the rest of us, it’s our imperfections that make us extraordinary, so can we stop pretending that they don’t exist now?

 Even Alice (whom Carroll based on the daughter of a neighbor with the same name) grew into an adult woman with adult problems.

It’s extremely difficult to insert your personality into a phone conversation with a person you’ve never met unless said person is warm and willing to actually have a conversation with you.  If this is the case, I can talk for hours, in articulate, well-formed sentences without looking at my cheat sheet. But usually, the interviewer is simply there to ask you, in a series of mundane questions, to repeat the resumé she has in front of her back to her. But you already know my work history?! Can’t you ask me what I could do to make your website more user-friendly? Or what I’ve accomplished in previous roles?

Also: The-what-makes-you-want-to-work-for-unspecified-company-question makes me want to poke wooden skewers through my eyeballs. Why do they even bother asking?

These days the answer is always the same: Frankly, I’m not sure I want to work for you, but I need a job! You may have noted the giant gap on my resume that coincided rather perfectly with ’08′s economic collapse. Do I need to spell this out for you? I’m desperate. Beggars can’t be choosers, so let’s not pretend that the reason I chose to apply to your business is even relevant.  PS: Regardless of whether I want to work for you or not, I will do a damn good job, because that’s what I do, which you would know if you took the time to a. ask me more intelligent questions, b. met me in person, or c. (and this is a wild thought, I know) asked for my references and then actually called them.

Imagine if all the capable, intelligent, hard-working unemployed were hired tomorrow based, not on phone interviews or resumes or cover letters or even an in-person interview, but actual dialogs, multiple conversations and reference checks.  Actually don’t bother; you’re brain might explode.

Exhibit a. Tuesday I woke up with what’ll I’ll gently call an “easily-irked disposition.” It was one of those moods when pretty much no matter what anyone says you’ll find it offensive, irritating or just down-right dull. Mike might say, “You look pretty today.” And I’ll think, “What’s that supposed to mean?” (The key is to think it, not say it. Saying things like that leads to arguments – the kind that go no where fast.)

Thankfully, I was alone in the apartment all day so most of my frustration was directed at inanimate objects. Until my mom called and asked me about my weekend. Then I was reminded of the Saturday night meal with my dad and my step-mom, in which she continuously went on about how my younger sister “is a real writer, and she reads all the time; isn’t that special?”  Gee, that is. And it reminds me of someone. Oh yea, ME. Do you even remember me as a child, Step-mom?!? And by the way, do you get that I’m actually in school for writing? DO EITHER OF YOU EVEN KNOW ME AT ALL?

My poor Mom took the brunt of the tirade, but she was a real trooper and said something nice like, “It sounds like you’re having a hard time dealing with the world today.” Too true.

Exhibit b. On Wednesday I wrote a thousand words, and I worked, and I ran errands, and I was given some very kind words from one of the people I work with, and I went for a lovely night run with a good friend, and the world was my oyster.

Exhibit c.  Today I woke up at 9:30 am and considered staying awake. Oh look, it’s raining, I thought. I can sit in the window and read. But the bed beckoned. Look how snuggly and warm I am, it said. So I climbed back into bed and slept until the embarrassingly late hour of noon, and now I’m considering a cat nap for good measure. I feel a little guilty, but not particularly sad. Maybe even content? But also still guilty, and lazy, too.

Who can say what tomorrow will bring?  Here’s hoping for a little peace of mind.

Often I find this comforting. I am so thankful to have other people who I can talk to, who get what a painful and exhausting undertaking all of this is. But sometimes, if I’m going to be completely honest, it bothers me. Not in a competetive way; after three years taking classes with a multitude of talented people I’ve pretty much nipped that issue in the bud. No, it’s irksome in a much more personal way.  Imagine if all your life you had had this secret inside you. Not a bad secret, but a special one. And maybe one day you got brave enough to own your secret, only every time you told someone, they said they had the same secret, too. You feel silly, like a fraud or, I suppose, just like everyone else.

Still, for every time I feel bothered, there are five more times I feel hopeful and inspired by one of these writerly-types. And amused. To think that there are all these people dying to write, to publish, to be read, while the publishing world is drowning and day after day news reports come out warning us that it’s only a matter time before books are obsolete. It’s a such a strange phenomenon and seems to illuminate the fact that far more people want to be writers than actually sit down, open up a legitimate book and read, page after page, word after word.

So I’ll say this: If you think of yourself (or would like to think of yourself) as a writer or there’s a writer out there that you love, please go out and read something, many somethings, if you can. Don’t just write. READ. Like your life depends on it. Certainly your not-so-secret dream does.