Chaos Attraction

Life-Affirming Shit

2005-10-15, 7:43 p.m.

I've been in a grouchy mood the last four days. Keep writing entries and not posting them.

(Eh, what the hell, let's go with this one.)

Today I bought a ticket to see Serenity and then went to go see Elizabethtown.

There were some ...interesting... trailers even before the movie started. One doing an updated "Mrs. Robinson" plot and one featuring Queen Latifah being told she has three weeks to live- so she quits her job, gets ahold of a buttload of money, and spends it on clothes, a swanky hotel and BASE jumping lessons. Given how suspiciously active this dying woman is, I can only assume this is some kind of modern update of The Blue Castle. We'll get back to this bit later.

I've heard this movie is getting mixed reviews. After seeing it, I can understand why because it is a FUCKING BIZARRE MOVIE. I am not even kidding, it takes place in some kinda surrealville. The first 30 minutes of it, I seriously was considering just plain walking out.

Here commences spoilers for Elizabethtown. If this bothers you, please blur your eyes and scroll down until you see the next bit of bold text. Mmkay?

Orlando Bloom's character (Drew) is a shoe designer who has designed a shoe that is a "fiasco." Like, his boss takes him around the building telling him that they're gonna lose almost a billion on the shoe, and saying stuff like, "We'll have to cut the entire global environment department. We could have saved the world..."

So naturally, Drew feels like the only way to make up for this is commiting hara-kiri by tying a knife to his exercise bike and attempting to impale himself on it. (I can't help but think, "Dude, just stab yourself. Or get a gun. Or some pills.") But he's interrupted by a phone call from his sister ("Can you call back tomorrow?" "No." "Can you call back later?") to tell him Dad dropped dead of a heart attack while visiting his relatives in the town of- well, guess where. "And you have to take care of it! You're the oldest!"

So Drew postpones the hara-kiri and flies off to Kentucky, where he is the ONLY passenger on a flight (seriously, they wouldn't just cancel the flight? I don't think a plane was ever that dead even right after 9/11), and the lone flight attendant, Kirsten Dunst (Claire), is totally allllllll over Drew. She claims to have a boyfriend named Ben, but if you believe that even this early in the movie I have a bridge to sell you. Besides, she freaking slips the guy every phone number she has- come on, she's single. Though I do have to give her credit for figuring out on her own that Drew's dad is dead when he lies to her about it.

Anyway, he meets up with the family, stuff happens, he goes back to his hotel, which has turned into the world's biggest frat party celebrating Chuck and Cindy's wedding, and is all lonely and wanting to talk to people. He leaves a bunch of messages (including one to Claire when he runs out of people to call) and then everyone calls back at once, and the other calls go very badly. The sister is all, "Come home right now! Mom's taking tap-dancing and cooking lessons and says she wants to learn how to laugh!" So as the best alternative, he ends up having an all-night phone chat with Claire.

Thankfully, the movie improves from that point on. There's also an entertaining monologue by Susan Sarandon (the widow) in which she tells the story of "Boner Bob" and tap-dances to Moon River, and Drew's cousin's band reunites to play "Freebird" and their pinata bird prop gets set on fire...

It's LOOPY, yo. I can't even figure out if it's good or not. There's some good moments, and some really bad ones (the whole shoe thing? It's really sucktastic, honestly), and some good lines, and some "Oh, RIGHT, like anyone's gonna SAY that" lines.

Here ends spoilage for Elizabethtown. You are now free to move about the cabin...er, finish reading the entry.

But it's obviously one of those Life Affirming Movies, like the one with Queen Latifah (I believe it's called "Last Holiday."). One of those ones that's supposed to make you realize that Every Moment Counts and you shouldn't put off doing that road trip with your father because he might drop dead and such.

This is a point that people make to me fairly often. That I can't postpone things because what if I drop dead or get in a car wreck and get paralyzed from the neck down and can't ever do anything I want to do again? What then? You can't wait two years for your life to begin!

And yet, somehow, this argument never uh... fails to NOT move me into taking life-affirming action.

I don't know WHY this is, exactly.

Yeah, sure, it's easy for Queen Latifah to clear out the bank account and go blow it on a skiing vacation. What repercussions is she gonna have from that? (Course, if my "Blue Castle" theory is correct, that might not be the case.) But if someone told me that, what would I do?

I haven't the faintest bloody idea.

I can't figure me out these days, and it worries me. I usually know who I am and what I want (mostly), even if I haven't the faintest fucking clue how to GET it. But lately? Nooooo idea. I'm so goddamned wishy-washy. My head feels one way, my hormones feel another, and I can't resolve jack squat most of the time. I've got "postpone this" and "postpone that" drilled into my brain after eight years and it won't or can't get out. I'm not sure it SHOULD get out. I still think postponing certain things is right, and if I drop dead without getting everything I want, then that's how life goes, man.

Though the paralysis thing certainly does spook me.

Problem being, I don't know how to get what I want in the first place. I'm a pretty good example of that joke about the three-part business plan. Step two.... ? I have no idea. Being as I am in general a believer in good or bad timing really affecting how things work out, I figure that if I wait for awhile, eventually something will come to me, circumstances will conspire to assist things working out, or something like that.

I do think that if I wait two years, I'll be in better shape and clearer mind to do...whatever. Right now, I'm a mess. I feel like the Dad stuff has put a big permanent black cloud over everything I do, and even the more cheerier moments aren't as good as they could be because of it. A lot of me thinks I'd rather wait to pursue happiness until I can fully enjoy it instead of having it half-assed and tainted.

And mostly, I just don't fucking know how right here and now anyway. I don't know what I want or how to get it. (Other than, as Jess pointed out, that I want the whole Dad thing not to be hanging over my head like an anvil. But well, everyone knows that story.)

I'm back to doing tarot readings again, and I'm getting a lot of stuff along the lines of (to quote from ye olde books):
(a) transition, "something is coming to an end or morphing into a new form, or something entirely new and different is emerging."
(b) letting go of anxiety, a lot of stuff about feeling trapped, nervous, ambivalent.
(c) "perhaps it's time to take a stand and go in the direction your heart wants to follow, no matter what the opposition." (I can't say I agree with this...)
(d) "You may have to choose between changing or not changing some other aspect of your life"
(e) "Sometimes we unwittingly create the very events we fear." (And that makes me want to go hide under the bed.)

And... I get certain cups cards in the number six position of the Celtic Cross. The last one of late, the Ace of Cups. Hoo boy.

Yeah.... there's a possibility of That Issue- the dating issue- coming into my life. Okay, nothing is going on really, but someone might like me (or did... lately I get the vibe he might be over it, but then again, for all I know he's in a crabby mood too), and he might not be bad to date.

I did not actually think I was going to be seriously confronted with this issue for real before Dad died. I find someone attractive once every 2-3 years and that time isn't up yet. And I'm still convinced that anyone dating me at this point in time is going to find it a disastrous experience. That hasn't changed. Nor do I think I'm all that pleasant to be around given the anvil-over-the-head issue.

Realistically, this isn't going to become a major issue right this instant. I found out about the liking thing out of the blue a few weeks ago, only to find out that circumstances are conspiring so that I won't even see the person in question much (if at all!) from now on. Why, yes, that would be an issue of Bad Timing, wouldn't it? So really, I don't have to worry about confronting the whether-or-not-to-date thing any time soon. Can't get asked out if the fellow never sees me.

It just worries me to be...interested. It's such bad timing for this to happen!

Posting about this is most likely jumping the gun, considering that (a) I think the dude is kinda over it already, and (b) I highly doubt anything is going to happen, between the bad timing on his end and on mine, and (c) me being in a shitty place in life sure as hell wouldn't help a relationship to start. But ever since I found this thing out it's been bugging the crap out of me, and I had to say something.

So there you go. Status quo goes on except for in my own head, where everything is confusing.


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