A Single Man.

This isn’t so much a movie review, as it is a movie that made me think about shit. Normally, a long, slow, and stylistically pretentious movie would annoy me and send me walking out of the theater or at least wondering when it would be over. However, in this particular instance I was moved. Perhaps the change is just me? Maybe I am embracing my inner liberal arts degree. But this is unlikely because my own pretentious, self-aggrandizing view of life will hopefully remain a dark secret until I die.

This movie also made me want to be a professor. But then I realized that the truth was much more specific. I want to be gay Colin Firth giving poignant lectures that give the kid from About a Boy a boner.

Seriously though, I identified a lot with this movie in spite of my shortcomings (not being gay Colin Firth). I loved that the movie validated depression to an extent, or at least explored it in an honest way without commenting on it too much. I think as a society we try to erase it as quickly as possible. I feel like medications, in many cases (not all) are just a means of putting a blanket on the ugly part of life. Not that I want to be depressed or I want to wish that on anyone else. It isn’t healthy certainly to feel sorry for yourself and dwell in your misery. But I also feel like being sad is normal, but as a society we treat it as a mental condition that needs to be fixed. I don’t know if depression needs to be “fixed” (again, in most cases). I think what it needs to be is experienced and learned from. Not to sit in it, but to accept it more. Not medicate it, but try to grow from it and figure out what it’s telling us.

So I enjoyed (in a sympathetic way) watching Colin Firth and Julianne Moore struggle and cope with their lives. I’m probably much more like Julianne Moore — waiting for someone to save me (I’m trying to be there for myself more). Then again, I guess this is potentially okay since the alternative seems to be attempted suicide until someone “gets” you. And then you have a heart attack. (Spoiler…)

I also liked that the important things for these people were the human connections they made in their life. Lately I have felt like there is a de-emphasis on human relationships, or “real” ones. People have become relationship collectors… just trying to get to know people on a superficial level so they can have “contacts.” “Networking” is a term now, that sort of thing. I feel like the moments that really matter though are those that we share with people who evoke love, whatever that emotion might be. Sometimes it seems like love is uncool now. Hooking up is prevalent. Being guarded and alone is viewed as a “strength”. “Independence.”

Not to say that those aren’t good things. Despite how important it is to connect it also seems that to an extent we are all alone, or at least if we can’t be there for ourselves then it is unlikely anyone else can be. I suppose it’s about finding a balance. Learning to be there for yourself and finding inner peace but being willing to open up and accept people to come and go into your life.

I regret that this post wasn’t silly and is probably pretentious. I’m trying to write more and to think less. Hopefully (and more likely) no one reads this.

February.

I successfully did not make a post for over a month.

Now, I know it might seem like I ran out of things to say, but my absence was more on par with breaking up with your significant other for a week just to make them miss you and want them back. (I ran out of things to say.)

Anyway and regardless, I’m back with words, but still not with things to say.

Oops!

I haven’t been writing at all; evident by the fact I haven’t been writing in this at all.

Several things of note have happened in the past month, which I will currently write about getting around to writing about them some day:

1. I saw The Princess and the Frog.
2. I saw it again.
3. I saw Up in the Air.
4. I saw it again.
5. I made fake resolutions for next year.
6. I thought about this year.
7. I saw The Lovely Bones.
8. I cried.
9. I laughed (at the Susan Sarandon parts).
10. I baked cookies.

COMING SOON.

or not.

Weird Week.

For having been out of commission for so long, this week has been sufficiently weird.

Mostly it seems that I have learned an important life lesson in how to go with the flow while having faith in the future. What!? Crazy, I know. Several things didn’t “happen” and yet I felt at peace with all outcomes. On top of this, I maintained a sense of optimism that those things would “happen” when the time was right. Yeah. I know, right? Fucking crazy. I must be like an adult now or something.

The other thing was that connections were found between my past and present via Facebook. Which confirms that my life would be meaningless without this social networking tool. I am a sucker for “coincidences” and ties of these sorts. Everything happens for a reason? Six degrees of separation? Small world? YEAH. Fuck yeah. It all comes full circle. I guess.

Overall this week has felt like the conclusion to insanity and the introduction to a new-found, self-assured Jdog. Goodbye baggage from this year and last! I have purchased new luggage and now know how to pack more efficiently. I won’t be carrying around unnecessary hair dryers and bitches anymore. George Clooney has effectively thrown the pillows and trauma into the trash can. From now on I’m traveling on this journey with only essential business suits and confidence. The list of approved co-pilots is impressive and reliable. I’m excited to reach my future destinations, but I’m also looking forward to the ride because I hear I’ve been upgraded to business class. I really liked the salted nuts.

Less Ill

I feel less ill. The sniffles are down considerably, and the sore throat is completely gone; sayonara mono!

Since becoming less ill I have actually done things that do not involve couches. I can’t say that I’ve started to eat anything that isn’t soup, but so far this seems to be a clever weight loss strategy. (The weight loss is countered by the fact that I still eat a bag of cough drops everyday. 15 calories a drop adds up pretty quickly.)

Accomplishments have included:

• Auditioning for a UCB Harold Team and not getting a callback.
• Purchasing a new business suit for the off chance I become a career woman someday.
• Watching Sentimental Lady and thinking about how my boss wants me to date a Vassar grad.
• Taking a nap because I had a bad headache.

Oh, well, I guess illness still has me in its clutches. But I swear it’s losing its grip. Everyday. Tomorrow I even plan on going into work.

Speaking of work, the quest to google the class of ‘85 continues.

It seems that in addition to being a lawyer or a doctor, my career options include marrying John C. Riley. And hey, I just started with the Ds, who knows what other possibilities are out there.

In the future I will write a review of Up in the Air, and possibly write a list of things I want for Christmas that will probably just be pictures of beagles. Stay tuned!

Couch.

This couch and I have become especially familiar over the past week +. We’ve known each other for a long time already — years. But now I can safely say I know what this couch is up to at all hours of the day and night.

Mostly, it is becoming difficult to fathom life outside of a couch. I’ve managed to be a little productive here, doing some work stuff that could be accomplished lying on my back (reading a script). It seems that there is no career to be made of having mono though. The good news is, there isn’t really too much mono left. My body has almost decided its had its fill and is ready to move on and do shit.

The doing shit aspect is almost daunting now. Things that were once routine are now far away from this couch, a world that for days I have only glimpsed through the TV.

I need to get out more.

Voice of Reason.

It’s so much easier to be sane for other people than it is for yourself.

Mono.

Turns out I am very ill and have been for a while. Oops! Right now I feel sick and miserable and if I have any sort of contact with other human beings it seems I can make them sick and miserable too. The truth is, my life has probably always been this way, except now the ailments are more physical.

I’m wondering if there is a way to start over and make friends and connections that do not know I have mono. I sort of feel like I must have ruined it with the other ones. I haven’t had human contact in about eight days, aside from family that is forced to provide a roof and soup for me. Isn’t eight days about the same time you forget people in? I think so.

Plus, I probably need to find people who I don’t care about a lot or who don’t care about themselves so I can make out with them and give them my mono.

I have no idea how I got this. It’s only slightly miserable, really. I do love soup and toast and movies and sleep. I pretty much love those things more than anything else, in fact. Maybe I have it too good. But either way, I sort of hope everything is okay. With everyone else and health and stuff. Yeah.

Speaking of Google…

I should also mention that part of the reason why I made a blog post at all is because, in googling so much today, I realized that when you google me this blog does not appear as high up as it should in the search results. My twitter is the first thing, which is ridiculous, because my twitter is retarded. And after my twitter is some blind girl who can sing well, which is retarded because she isn’t me.

So, hey, here’s an idea. These are the top ten things people googled in the US today:

1. overton window 2. marv albert 50 cent 3. vince flynn 4. buzzport 5. carmike cinemas 6. malco theaters 7. justin bieber roosevelt field mall 8. tappy phillips 9. black friday 2009 ads 10. blorenge

What the fuck are any of those and what the fuck do they mean? No wonder I’m not getting a book deal. I can’t even anticipate America’s need to know about pertinent topics like Tappy Philips.

Googling Vassar ‘85

I am currently googling the entire graduating class of Vassar College 1985 for my boss, even though I’ve been trying to think if there’s a more efficient way of finding this information than my own slow research techniques. Apparently there isn’t.

It seems that everyone who graduates from this college is, surprise!, either a doctor or a lawyer. If they aren’t one of the two, then they seem to have gone crazy and/or opened a non-profit that no one cares about.

I myself fail at science and have no attention span for law. The answer is clear then; I should become a spiritual healer in Texas.

There are a bunch of crows outside my window and it’s kind of freaky. They’re making crow noises and flying around in circles with no clear intention or purpose. There is no obvious stop to these antics, and let me tell you, it’s difficult to google Vassar alums when the world is seemingly ending outside your window.

My co-worker just stopped in to announce, “it’s Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds out there.” She is correct.

Shut up, birds. Seriously. This is getting ridiculous.