Confession time. “Dreamgirls” is a big time favorite of mine. Major guilty pleasure. Just once in my life do I want to sing in someone’s face like Jennifer Hudson does here. (But side note, how awkward is it trying to act with someone belting out a tune, and spitting a little in your face? Jamie Foxx mostly looks constipated). Nonetheless, I dare you not to get a little goosebumpy by the end.

Some early Florence. No pants, giant glittery moon, and a fabulous, sequin drenched party. Happy Saturday y’all xx

I’ve been humming this all day. Cool video as well. A lovely Sunday evening to you all.

Last day of holiday. Unpacking, laundry and grocery shopping, and that general creeping melancholia from the sun setting on your summer vacation. Take it away, Peggy Lee.

When I dropped my husband off at work this morning, it was a pretty heartbreaking scene.  Like that sad bit in the Disney classic “The Fox and the Hound“, one of the more traumatizing cartoons from childhood.

If memory serves, there’s a scene where the old lady who had adopted the fox, takes him into the woods and leaves him there.  The fox thinks they are going to a little forest jaunt, but she lets him get out of the vehicle first and then drives off.

She doesn’t want to do it, her hand was being forced.  But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.  Poor Ben, he was having such a nice holiday.  Laughing, playing, swimming, gallivanting, traveling. We had a beautiful, fabulous time, visiting with family, feeling like children on an endless vacation.  And now it is time to be the grown ups that we are, and go back to work.

And somehow, I’ve put out of my mind, the fact that I am starting a new job today.  That this is the end of something for me as well.  Not only is the holiday over, so are my luxurious days of writing for hours on end without any agenda or time constraints.  Of course, I’m so excited to be looking into the future and seeing a number of amazing possibilities.  But…as I drove away from my poor husband, who looked positively broken by how quickly time passes. I felt a little broken myself.

I couldn’t help but wish I could turn the car around, turn time back, and start all over again.  But life doesn’t work that day…nor does time.  One must be grateful for the good times, and let that be the fuel that drives you, when you go back to the monotony of boring old day-to-day life.

All Images Courtesy of Disney, Google

My husband and I are struggling to come to terms with the end of our holiday.  I’m so good at being on vacation.  I could do it professionally.  I feel like there was this tremendous push to get everything organized pre-holiday.  I was so focused on getting everything ready, and then when I was on the holiday I was–”Is everyone happy?” “Is everyone comfortable?” “Why is there not a drink in my hand?” You know, the usual.  I was concerned with time.  “Is there enough time to see/do/eat/drink/experience everything?” Nope.  There never is, never will be, so absorb what you can, when you can, cause time, she slips through your fingers like grains of sand.

When my sister-in-law Kate arrived we hit the ground running.  We showed her Kamloops; went to my favorite yoga studio, did breakfast at Hello Toast, checked out a Project X Production in Prince Charles Park. Before the next leg of our BC tour, we showed her our favorite view.

We hit up the Shuswap region, then went to Dutch Lake in Clearwater. 

We then picked up my brother Matthew and then drove through the entire Okanagan region.

We drove to Vancouver, went to the Justin Timberlake & Jay-Z concert, then spent a few days in the city, walking around and perpetually getting over hangovers from the night before.

Of course, you can’t be on the road forever.  As the trip was dwindling, I occasionally thought about ‘home’.  I like our little space, I like our little life.  But, my brain was so focused on everything before the trip, and then I focused solely on the trip.  I didn’t even bring a notebook, I brought a book, and barely cracked it.  After Matthew and Kate left, Ben and I took the long way home. And I jotted a few thoughts on the back of a hotel receipt.   I didn’t think about the future.  I just thought about ‘right now’, which is not always my strong suit, so I’ll consider that a success.

I’m happy to be home, but it’s a shock to the system to say the least.  As I write this, my husband is lying on the office floor, completely exhausted by two days of physical labour.  He’s still getting over the amazing rental car we had.  In fact, he actually circled the block several times before finally dropping it off at the airport.  When he got back into the Kia Rio, he looked so forlorn that it totally broke my heart.

As for me, August is shaping up to be extremely busy, I’m at my new job, which is like…a career, so that’s exciting, and daunting.  I’ve also taken on a temporary work contract, and will be doing some improv shows on…oh, how about this weekend?  I love it, but I fear that my brain is as mushy and squishy as my little post-holiday physique.  (Just kidding, I’m as rock hard as ever).  And then there’s the blogging.  I really enjoyed posting videos.  I may do it now and again.  I’ll always post on the daily, but occasionally, it’s going to be fast and loose, quick and dirty.  For now is the time for putting my nose to the grindstone after having my head in the clouds.

Photos Courtesy of Alicia Ashcroft

I owe my readers the most epic collection of blogs. And I know there is one reader in particular who is going to give me so much shit about this. To him I say….Stand back buddy, I’ve been busy.

Okay, we’ve been dancing around it in the long time.  In literary terms, I’m not putting out the way I used to.  It was like I had a raging blogging boner, and it’s suddenly gone flaccid.  It’s disheartening, but I’m not getting down about it.  Don’t worry, I will rise again.  This week has been, as my mother would say, “hair straight back”.  And now, It’s Saturday night, the house is a mess, laundry is everywhere, and blogging is the last thing on my mind.  Well, of course I think about it, in a “this is not going to happen today” kind of way.  But as Anaïs Nin says,

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.

I’ve been busy.  Time is no longer a luxury to me.  And it’s summertime and there are events and visitors.  And those experiences take presidence over being hunched at my computer desk.   The other day I saw a good friend from a long ago time, and coffee turned into a walk, which turned into chatting and flipping through old photos on my office floor.  She left about 11:45pm, and I posted my Marilyn Monroe photo at 11:58, with the sweaty urgency of trying to detonate a bomb.  But of course, it’s not a bomb, it’s not the end of the world, it’s not as is the Blogging Police is going to come pound on my door and take away my status as an unpaid writer. I won’t be stripped from the success I don’t yet have.  The fans will not faint or swoon, revolt or protest.   It doesn’t really matter to anyone but me.  But it does feel a bit like running really fast for a long time, and then when stopping suddenly and your legs feeling like jello, and you don’t know how to walk properly anymore.

I’ve been sleeping about five hours a night, on account of the new upstairs  neighbours, who are clog dancers who pace in steel-toed boots at midnight.  Despite I’ve been going pretty strong, regardless of my sleepless nights.  Today was another busy day, and like a fool I stayed up until 2am the night before chatting with lovely theatre people.  When the alarm went off at 8:15 this morning, I very much felt like punching myself in the face and setting myself on fire.

And sometime in the late afternoon I hit a wall.  You know that feeling, that sudden, yet slow motion, underwater, dizzying loss of energy, and this garbled voice inside your head that says “I am so sooooo tired“.

And then I got home, and unexpectedly got to talk to my  best friend on the phone for a solid hour-plus, plus.  And then my husband and I ordered pizza, and watched a mindless movie on Netflix. And now I sit amongst the many piles of papers and clothing, pizza boxes, the thump squad above gearing up for another night of tappity-taps.  The day will come when my new routine will feel normal, and I’ll find daily pockets of time to write.  And I will feel slightly more normal again…for ten minutes or so.  Now…it’s time for sleep.

My best friend Evelyn is going to Paris.  And I am vert with envy.

Incidentally, she is going because she will be in the neighborhood for a wedding.  As we are talk on the phone, she confesses that good ole Paris has never called to her as it does to me.  I then pull out the Western Europe Lonely Planet guidebook that once belonged to my friend Shannon, and read aloud, over the phone, why Paris is so great.  I’ve never been of course, I’ve only visited it in a cinematic aspect. Which is what I say to her, when she asks why it interests me so.  Well, Audrey Hepburn once famously said that “Paris is always a good idea”, and I tend to agree with Audrey.

To my dearest girlfriend, about to hit the streets of Paris, a list of my favorite movies about the “City of Light”.

Julie and Julia, Nora Ephron claimed she would miss Paris when she was dead.  Now that is an amazing impact for a city to have on you.

Two Days in Paris, I will never get sick of this movie.  I love Julie Delpy, and love this funny, strange little movie.  They visit Jim Morrison’s grave, and see other fabulous sights.  Also, they used to date in real life, that adds a particularly delicious contextual layer.

Midnight in Paris, if you want to see Woody Allen’s version of Paris. He explores era, and the most fascinating members of  Parisian avant-garde movement of the early 20th century- Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Alice B. Toklas and Gertude Stein. It’s sweet and nostalgic, and Allen films the shit out of this amazing city.  Beautiful. Funny.  Special. So up my alley.

Before Sunset, More Julie Delpy, the amazing sequel to “Before Sunrise”, and she and Ethan Hawke wander through Paris and fall in love all over again.

Amelie, this movie is my cinematic happy place.  Maybe this is where the love for Paris was conceived.  Sometimes I just listen to the soundtrack because I love this film so much.

Moulin Rouge, the Best of Baz, I think.  Again though it is fantastical and ridiculousness, it is firmly grounded in a real time and place.

Funny Face, just what every girl dreams of, being plucked from obscurity and then being swept off to Paris for an epic makeover and fashion shoot.  And then french kissed by Fred Astaire, a man old enough to be your grandfather’s grandfather.

So, girlfriend, watch and absorb, and then walk these magical streets and know that I couldn’t be more excited for you.  And that I will require a fabulous present.

Images Courtesy of Google

My brother Matthew left his iPod in the fancy car rental, and didn’t realize it until he took an exceptionally long bus ride home. That is the worst. I like music. I need it to pass the time. Today was a very long, dusty, dirty, cleaning and organizing day. Lucky for me, I have yet to send the device back to him, so I had some fresh music for my ears. Sadly, my bearded baby brother rocks a lot harder than I, so there was a limited selection. But Feist‘s album “Metals” was on there, which is such a treat.

I love Feist, and I love this album.  I have been really enjoying it on repeat. (And yes, Alabama Shakes is also a very cool band, thanks for the recommendation!) Although bear in mind, my brother doesn’t always read my blog, so he may never know these things. In fact, he’s only read a handful, but offered a compromise, when his first album comes out, I only have to listen to the first half. Sounds reasonable.  Enjoy the album.

Images Courtesy of Google, Video, YouTube

So…I kind of went out and got myself three jobs.  I went from working the occasional waitressing shift, doing various odd jobs and writing for hours at home. I had time on my hands.  My cup runneth over with time to luxuriate over my ideas.  Now I’m driving all over town to my revolving door of gigs. My head is full of non-reflexive thoughts, my brain is running overtime, but it’s all on exciting work stuff (exciting to me, explaining my work to you would be like trying to explain last nights dream–”It was the house I grew up in, but not, and it was my dad but he looked like Tony Danza, but I knew he was my dad”.  Blech).    Don’t get me wrong, I am loving every minute of it.  But I most certainly returned from holiday to a completely different life.  I’m just now catching my breath.  For the first time  ever, I very seriously considered not blogging.  Not even posting a video, a picture.  Nothing.  And then I thought of the 1988 classic “Working Girl“.

I can’t tell you how this applies to me, just that I was almost too busy and tired to blog, and that the thought of all that big hair and the iconic running shoes/shoulder pads combo, that brought me back from the brink of my flat-lining motivation.

So, don’t thank me, thank Melanie Griffith in her pre-Antonio tattoo, pre-giant collagan lips, pre-wax statue in a sauna  heydey.  Okay, and thank you Joan Cusack, your hair is pretty amazing as well.

All Images Courtesy of Google 

One of my current occupations is a contract position for a local theatre company.  I am to collect all the props for an upcoming production.  It involves some of my favorite things: organization, lists and research.  One of the required items was the book “Jonathan Livingston Seagull“.

I feel like this is book that everybody’s heard of, but nobody’s read.  But, this just in, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” is a thing.  But, there was something about it, that felt familiar yet unfamiliar.  Right? That’s deep.  Even thinking about reading this book makes me a better writer.  A better human really.  I feared the book would be difficult to find, but it was surprisingly easy.  When I popped into the book store to pick it up, the clerk highly recommended it.  “This book was very important to me when I was sixteen”.  Now I’m not a doctor, but I’ve known a lot of sixteen year old boys in my time…and I can’t imagine any of them tucked under the covers with this classic.  I’m also not a gambling man, but I reckon teenaged “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” fans don’t get out much in the way of adolescent intimacy.  So what’s this book about anyway?

The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying, until finally his unwillingness to conform results in his expulsion from his flock. An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities as he leads a peaceful and happy life.

But I keep thinking…how do I know you, Mr J.L Seagull?  And then it hits me, like a glorious beam of light while crouching on a beach, as a gentle breeze blows through your feathered hair.  Of course.  How could I forget Neil? I owned a Neil Diamond album that was a soundtrack to the film version.  I remember being in a thrift store, handing over twenty-five cents and chuckling over a cornucopia of images and ideas.  How they could turn this into a feature length film? Is it just a seagull flying and pondering life? Is there a voice over? Subtitles? Neil Diamond narrating from the beach? And oh Lord can’t you just imagine how serious Neil  would look in the studio, laying down tracks for “Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Movie”.  Argh, the mind reels.

I love Neil, I love his album covers, in fact I’ve had a Neil Diamond wall montage in a few different apartments.  I’ve always loved his serious expression looking back at me.

Though I reckon I was alone in that, after breaking up with my ex, he was standing by as I took the albums down.  He said he felt “kinda relieved” to be freed from his “judging and self-righteous glare”.  Don’t worry Neil, I understand that your genius makes you look like a bit of dick.  It’s because you care so much, almost too much, and that’s why you look like that.  On further inspection, I realized that old Richard Bach, writer of  “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” (How does this seagull have a fucking middle name? Why not Jonathan Livingston Seagull Esquire? Jonathan Livingston Seagull the Third? Jonathan Livingston Seagull Jr?) Anyway, I came across many inspirational quotes that relate to this book.   In the exact same apartment as the Neil Diamond record, \\ I once owned this varnished wood decorative piece that was inscribed with:

I bought it, you know, cause it was fifty cents at a thrift store.  But over the years I would stare at it from my bed, feeling heartbroken or lonely…and the saying sort of pissed me off.  That’s just about the saddest thing ever, loving something and setting it free, and knowing that it doesn’t belong to you.  Good for the seagull, for absorbing that sentiment.  ‘Letting go’ has never been my strong suit.  Maybe it’s easier being a bird.  Obvi, I’ve never read this beloved tale, but one would assume that  the novella expands on the lessons of seagull named Jonathan, who I’m sure learns plenty about life and love on the high seas.

Images Courtesy of Google

Dear George Clooney,

Rumor has it that you are in British Columbia.  And not Vancouver, our own version of Hollywood, where a celebrity could be spotted and it was no big deal.  But in Enderby, my goodness, how exciting.  Just how did I learn this? Why in my first production meeting at the theatre company.  I stayed just long enough to ask a million questions of the unsuspecting person who mentioned this in passing, jam an apple fritter into my mouth, and leave early to go see a man about an avocado colored hide-a-bed.  The height of professionalism and sophistication, darling.

George? My George? In my province? Be still my heart! I do apologize for gushing like a school-girl, but y’all know how I feel about that salt and pepper stallion.

And if Clooney isn’t your jam, may I add to this sexy stew and say that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will also be in the film?

OMG, we are practically neighbours, should probably pop by for a cup of sugar and then stay forever.  Mmm, talk about being stuck between a Rock and a Hard Place.

Whoa.  Now that’s a horse of a different color.  Wrong kind of Rock altogether.

I’m just kidding…George and I, we like to joke around. We laugh and laugh all the way to Lake Como.  I mean, we would have a blast, if he would only take my calls, and his lawyers would cool it with the restraining orders.  It’s not illegal to love you George!

I have this friend, her name is Harmony.  The other night we and two others stayed up late into the night talking about all kinds of things.  Ms Harmony told us how she felt about the Rock.  That she would climb him like a tree and swing on his body like an adorable monkey on a tree branch.  Her language was far more offensive than this.  But you get the drift.  You know what I’m thinking?  That she and I come find you.  I’m talking road-trip, Thelma and Louise style.

Obviously, we’ll tweak a few things, no one will get raped…(except for the Rock evidently), and we might skip driving off a cliff with Harvey Keitel running behind us in slow motion.  But the guns, car chases, cigarette smoking, and adorable bad-girl outfits, seedy motel rooms…that just sounds like a fun weekend.

You know what my favorite thing about blogging is? One minute I’m writing a letter to George Clooney, and then suddenly I’ve implicated my friend Harmony into molesting a wrestler-turned-actor, while firing guns and rocking some seriously awesome 90′s mom jeans.

So, lets just close this wildly drawn circle.  Mr Clooney, George, if I may. How about you call up your friend, The Rock…(which brings up an important question, in your mobile phone, is it “Rock”? “The Rock”, “Rock, The”, or just plan ole Dwayne?)  Whatever you call him, let’s set up a little double date, with me and my fabulous friend? We’ll be the dusty, gun wielding broads in the high-waisted jeans ready to take you wherever you need to go.

Images Courtesy of Google

On Twitter someone had tweeted about Netflix having everything except what you want to watch.  It received a ton of favorites and retweets, and I kind of wish that I had said it first.  It’s funny cause it’s true, it’s kind of a cinematic boneyard, where you can find the bad sequels of exceptional movies, or great actors in their worst pictures.  And we got Netflix last winter, so we’ve watched all the “Mad Men“, and we recently powered through “Orange is the New Black“.  The worst thing is trying to just find something, find that diamond, or at the very least a cubic zirconia in the manure.  Last night, sitting on the couch, after a twelve-hour work day, both my husband and I quite keen to ignore each other completely and zone out in front of the telly, but facing that old dilemma.  I just want to watch something, but not spend my allotted telly-time searching for the least shittiest thing on Netflix.

“You know what would be so good?  ‘Gilmore Girls‘”.

And this is a testament to my darling husband, who was like…”Yeah, that sounds good”.

I grabbed a season from the collection in my office.  Yes, I own “Gilmore Girls” on DVD, and I’m not ashamed.  It’s light, funny, the writing is excellent, and hey, who wouldn’t want to live in Stars Hollow? What’s truly unfortunate is that I used to own the entire series, but somehow, around the time my ex and I split up, he lent one or two to a friend, and of course, you never get that shit back.  And you know, that man put me through a lot, and I love that that’s the only thing that gets my goat after all these years.  I’m totally at peace with the heartbreak and humiliation of a cancelled wedding, but if you even mention seasons one and four of “Gilmore Girls”, and I fly into a blind rage.

About ten minutes into the first episode, amidst the catchy theme song and cold leftovers, I make my Facebook status “Cold Chinese noodles & Gilmore Girls”, which of course, people were liking, because both of those things are fucking awesome.  Ben falls asleep with his head on my lap midway through the episode.  The first one ends…and I think, “Go on, live a little, eat something else and watch another episode”.  I really should have updated the status, or tweeted “Yoghurt, pineapple and blueberries & Gilmore Girls”, but then it would have been a landslide, into “Rummaging through the cupboards &
Gilmore Girls”.  The third episode started, and it was creeping past my bedtime.  Ben wakes up with a growl, does an army roll off the couch and announces that he is off to bed.  I’m just about to update my status to “French Onion Dip, Potato Chip & Gilmore Girls”, so I can’t just drop everything to observe a decent nights sleep.  

By the time the third episode is drawing to a close, I was deep into “running my finger along onion dip container edge, and plunging hand into nearly empty bag to capture potato chip crumbs & Gilmore Girls”, I know in my heart that I’ve probably gone too far.

I turn off the television, wash my hands, and wander quietly around the dark apartment, careful to not disturb my sleeping husband.  When I finally crawl into bed, inappropriately full for the late hour, I feel perfectly satisfied with my slothful night on the couch, gorging on junk food with my favorite fictional friends.

Images Courtesy of Google

Once, I was sitting in a sauna at the YMCA when I overheard a woman vehemently criticizing one of my all time favorite films, “Before Sunrise“.

“They just walk around…talking…the whole movie! Nothing happens”.

Nothing happens? Everything happens! Two people meet on a train and wander around Vienna, and talking about magic and memories, about spirituality, travel, life, death and metaphysical energy, and they fall in love in the process.  That’s the greatest night ever.  That’s everyone’s travel fantasy.  I was obsessed with this film in high school. What I would have given to meet a man like mid-90′s Ethan Hawke.  How I wanted to be ethereal and mysterious like a young Julie Delpy.   How I wanted to explore a European city– to go places, to have been places.  To have something to say and to truly be heard.

Still, I can appreciate the woman’s complaint.  The movie is hardly action packed, it is very much a conversation based piece.  There are no bad-guys or major obstacles, it’s extremely mellow.  It’s walking and talking.  But it’s impossibly romantic, and mildly philosophical slice of life picture.  Also, the photography is excellent and the actors have serious chemistry.  Ordinarily I would say something, I like to defend the things I love, but she didn’t deserve to understand how special this film was.

“Before Sunset” followed a few years later, and I also love that film.  The original has an ambiguous ending, and so the follow-up was completely necessary and totally satisfying, like catching up with old friends.  Most recently a third film was released.  Sadly it was not released in my city, but I wait with bated breath the day I get to experience “Before Midnight“.

As for today, my husband and I, worn down from the week, had downgraded a planned night out for dinner and a movie, to nachos and rented DVD‘s.  At the Movie Mart, I spotted the series on a shelf.  Four dollars for both films, I’d be a fool not to snap them up.  And so, while my husband played a bit of X-Box, I tucked into the office, a place I have not spent much time, and half-watched the film as I puttered about.  What I love about this movie, now almost twenty years old, is that within the scenes and dialogue are my own memories and aspirations: what I wanted for my life, where I wanted to go, who I wanted to meet.  How this film reflected a romantic version of the life I craved.   I grew up in a small town, and had a perfectly dark and difficult youth.  This movie was so light and lovely that it genuinely brought joy into my claustrophobic existence.   To watch it now, many years since the last time– having traveled, having found love, having grown up–it’s interesting to compare the then to the now.  And it’s the strangest feeling, how you can suddenly feel like a teenaged girl and a grown woman at the exact same time, like this cinematic quantum leap; like being able to tell your younger self: You will go somewhere. You will meet someone.  You will be alright.

Images Courtesy of Google

Yesterday I was in the grocery store, doing the weekly shop with my husband.  Passing through the dairy aisle, I noticed an elderly gentleman, hands gripping the cart, his expression totally blank.

Now, it is not uncommon for me to straight up approach a stranger.  It doesn’t surprise my husband in the least, who keeps pushing the trolley down towards the freezer aisle.

“Are you alright?” I ask the man, gently resting my hand on his wrist.  In the cart was supplements and margarine.

“Yes…I just don’t what I’m looking for”.

He looks so lost that it breaks my heart.  I wish him luck with his shop, and continue on my way.

As I near the freezer aisle, I notice a sample table with strawberry tarts and whipped cream.  I get the tart, and seek out the man, who was now staring blankly at the shelves with napkins and other paper products.

As I approach him, I am stricken with a splash of panic.  Who am I to just walk up to strangers and touch them, ask after them and then bring them dessert, just because I sense sadness or loneliness in them?

But I push on, and offer the man the tart, who takes it, and holds it with both hands and takes a long look at it.  I put my hand on his arm and gave it a gentle stroke.  He smiled warmly at me, and I left him to his tart in the paper aisle.

I can’t resist reaching out like this sometimes.  You can count on me to compliment a stranger’s outfit, offer to take a family photo for other holidaymakers, crack a joke in the hospital waiting room, airport lounge, or in any kind of queuing situation.  I believe that you have the ability to change people’s day, and possibly their lives, with a tiny gesture.  This is the general story in “Amelie”, a young woman butting her nose into the lives of others, to try to brighten potential dark moods in the drudge of day-to-day existence.  Is that so wrong? Is that weird? I ask this of my husband, who sort of shrugs indecisively.

I don’t know.  Maybe it is a bit strange, a bit risky.  Sometimes I’ll offer to take someone’s photo and they look at me with disdain or mistrust.  Like I’m only pretending to help so I can run away with your shit.  I just want you to have a nice picture of your family on holiday.  Something frame-able.  I’ll keep on doing it because it’s in me to do it.  It’s worth the danger of offending someone, or being rejected.  To me, there’s nothing more dangerous than loneliness, and sometimes you just need to be reminded that you are a part of a giant cosmic web, and that you belong.  And I’ve only come by to say that I see you, I acknowledge you, I’d like to help you, and most importantly, that you are not alone.

Images Courtesy of Google

Just come back from a walk around the block. That has to happen sometimes, especially after a particular emotional movie.  And I wasn’t expecting this from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower“, I just wasn’t. Then again, as my husband says, the list of movies that make me cry is far longer than movies that haven’t made me cry.  And he’s gotten kind of used to it, my sniveling, the ever mounting structure of soaking wet tissues, and worse, my pretending that I’m not crying, which is just embarrassing for everyone.  And eyes don’t bleed water, you can’t butch it up either.

Anyhow, Ben had to sort of pack me up like a baby, and get me out walking, like getting fresh air after mild carbon monoxide, I have to cleanse my cinematic palette.  Something about trees and traffic that wrench you from the agony of fiction.  Once, in Australia, we had to do this after I brought home “A Single Man“.

Designer Tom Ford directed this movie, and got a bit of mention in fashion magazines.   This movie is so stylish, so elegant, apparently shots were filmed with a silk stocking over the camera to create this dreamy, filmy look.  This movie also snapped me like a twig. It certainly falls in the category of ‘once is enough’ category.  I would highly recommend this heartbreaker, but for me, it’s too emotional to repeat.

That is pretty rare, as I usually prefer a film the second time around.  But when it’s so upsetting that you have to literally come to terms with just happened,  Once is more than enough.   I feel this way about “Life is Beautiful“, I couldn’t even talk about that movie after I saw.  It won a bunch of Oscars, and then Roberto Benigni went out and remade Pinocchio, which wasn’t the thing to follow a stunning Holocaust-themed picture.

I would absolutely watch “The Perks of Being A Wallflower” again…eventually.  This film it got me right in the heart.  I won’t even venture into the plot, as its a relatively recent film, and I won’t want to spoil it.  But it’s really special.  There was such vulnerability it choked me up a couple of times.

So, maybe it was a really touching movie, or I am slowly descending into some kind of premenstrual madness.  Perhaps a little of Column A and a little of Column B.  That’s the point of a good story, either it’s amusing, educational or cathartic.  Sometimes it’s a little mixed bag of all three.  “Wallflower” does a good job of mixing light with dark, humor blended with serious issues.  And you want so badly for the protagonist to be well, find that place to belong, and be safe there.

I’m such a sucker for a well told  tale, my little heart will absorb it, and hold on it, and I will carry it along with my own memories.  And I will mourn the losses and failures of characters who were created by other writers who might just feel the same way I do: ” Happy and sad all at the same time [and] still trying to figure out how that could be”.

Images Courtesy of Google

My husband bought me a lovely little present.  A 1956 Rambler 500 bicycle, blue with white trim and a wire basket.  She’s a rough old girl, but she just needs a little loving, a little sprucing.

On the drive home, I think about what I would name her. I’m big on naming things.  My bicycle in Australia was Miss Daisy, my car, Cracking Rosie. In a downtown apartment I lived in my early twenties, I stuck a label above my mail box that said ‘H. Golightly’.   Any excuse to make a movie/book/music reference I guess.  What would I  call her?

She’s icy blue, and classy as hell, how about Grace Kelly?

But she’s also a sweetheart, maybe Doris Day?

Is there anything cuter than Audrey Hepburn?

I love Carole Lombard, and who doesn’t want room for your dog? (I’d like to give a shout out to my good friend Harriet for this one).

Should Igo for something exotic, Brigitte Bardot?

Maybe something short, a la Twiggy?

 I reckon this bike is a bit feisty, if she talked maybe she’s sound like Katherine Hepburn.

I won’t commit just yet,  I think.  Riding around the parking lot, on this nearly sixty year year old bicycle, I think about when she was brand spanking new.  And all the people that owned her.  This bitch has seen some things.  And so I named her Norma Jeane.  And then the bike belonged to me, even though we had already purchased her and bought her all the way home.

(Just a snap of me riding bikes with Audrey Hepburn.  I think the bicycle is rather slimming, don’t you?)

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I had a very long day, one that started at 6:00am and ended around 10pm.  And it was non-stop jungle madness.  I feel stupefied with exhaustion.  I sort of shuffled through the front door, plunked down on the couch, in the attire from my third job, delicious black polyester pants, a rich burgundy collared top with a shiny name tag.

I feel like I can hardly string a sentence together.  I know that I really need to go to bed, but I’m sitting here, with the computer on my lap watching “Cougar Town” with a great deal of interest and intensity.  This show is something I’ve heard of, but never seen.  And it’s…a little bit horrifying.  Courteney Cox was the hell did you do to your face?  Seriously? How do you go from dancing in the dark with Bruce Springteen…

…to scaring the hell out of children because you look like the a wax rendition of the Joker, but placed  somewhere in the hot Sahara desert.  I’ll never understand why people do that to themselves, and as far as “Cougar Town” is concerned, it’s just so damn distracting.  I feel like a boozy toddler trying to write now.  I’m feeling like Courteney Cox’s face, totally messed up and completely out of sorts.

Golly, poor crossed eyed me.  It’s time for sleep, if I have any hope of looking fresh faced in the morning.

All Images Courtesy of Google