Movies

John Cusack is the Song Lyric Inspiration for This Thursday


What would the world be like without XM radio, I wonder? How would I be reminded of all those romantic songs and movies of my youth?

In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel is a song I knew long before John Cusack became the sad-eyed romantic figure of my generation. The song is wonderful. It speaks of longing and finding kindredness that is frightening but can’t be denied.

I am a sucker for great lyrics and this song qualifies.

love I get so lost, sometimes
days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
when I want to run away
I drive off in my car
but whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are

all my instincts, they return
and the grand facade, so soon will burn
without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

in your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes
oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light
the heat I see in your eyes

love, I don’t like to see so much pain
so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

and all my instincts, they return
and the grand facade, so soon will burn
without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

in your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes
oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light,
the heat I see in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes

Knocked Up


No, not me. The movie. I didn’t see it when it was out in the theaters. Honestly it takes a hell of a lot to convince either Rob or I to actually expend the effort and waste the time to sit in a movie theater. Perhaps if he liked people more and I enjoyed sitting still for someone else’s story-telling. The only time I can sit still is when I am writing or reading. Otherwise, my mind is too full to entertain someone else’s ideas.

But BabyDaughter and I have been making fairly regular stops at the library in town since I discovered (after nearly a year) that I can use the county library card I have there too, and I saw the dvd and I thought it was worth a movie night.

Yes, I can watch movies at home without too much wandering of attention but it’s not a given. Plus I have the added incentive of my viewing pleasure being enhanced by the ability to curl up next to my husband in bed while we watch. You can’t snuggle horizontally in a movie theater, I don’t care how great the seats are – stadium seating and snuggling just don’t mix.

Knocked Up, if I remember correctly, got quite the rap for being another one of those films that glamorized the idea of pregnancy and keeping the baby as opposed to having an abortion, I guess. Personally, I don’t see either option as glamorous in the least, but I understand the vexation. The movie does make it seem that pregnancy can create a relationship where none existed or ultimately strengthen ties between two people. Frankly, a baby should never be saddled with that kind of baggage or responsibility. More people should disregard the notion of getting together or staying together for the sake of children, born or in the making. The movie was more than a bit fairy tale in that respect.

For me the movie brought back memories of being pregnant with BabyDaughter, mostly because it was mid- way through the pregnancy that her dad began to show signs of mental instability. Just one in a long list of early warning signs of his illness that we missed. I don’t have many fond memories of pregnancy, birth or the first year. It was overshadowed by odd and/or scary behavior that had me on the verge of walking out by the time the doctors agreed that “yes, there does appear to be something physically wrong with your husband”.

Some of the movie annoyed me too. There is a scene – several really – of the female character being “hormonal” and I complained to Rob that I hated movies that went all stereo-type like that about pregnant women. Hormonal does not mean “out of control bitch” and I insisted that I was never like that. But there were tense and even ugly moments when my late husband would do things that seemed so far out of character that I wondered who the hell I had married and perhaps I’d made a huge mistake. I don’t think my reactions were overly influenced by hormones though. I think most sane women would have been upset regardless.

Hindsight is a miserable and useless thing.

Perhaps another reason why I dislike movies (and television even moreso) is that it strives to entertain me with things that are not entertainment. Trauma. Disease. Death. Heartbreak. 

Considering the fullness of my life and my ability to keep myself quite occupied within its framework, I guess it is no wonder I am not much in need of what Hollywood seems to feel I need to vicariously experience more of.

Weekend Update: Movie, Organization and Ike


The weekend has flown by once again. Even without a 9 to 5 job, I still lament the relative shortness of the weekend in comparison to the rest of the week. I don’t get as much done of course in terms of my fiction writing but it’s a worthwhile trade-off because I have my husband around. There is much to be said for even the drive-by smooches and snuggles as we go about the domestic routine.

So this weekend’s Friday Night Flick was Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal with David Duchovny, Julia Roberts, Catherine Keener, David Hyde-Pierce and that guy who was the photographer on Just Shoot Me. 

Just a quick aside, has Duchovny ever starred in a motion picture (aside from his neutered alter-ego Mulder) where he didn’t play a sexual deviant of some kind?

Full Frontal is not one of Soderbergh’s recognized triumphs. It’s a film within a film that is ultimately within yet another film. It took a while but I eventually realized that the film within was written using elements of the life of the screenwriter whose life and that of those connected to him are being explored via pseudo-documentary and character interviews. The reviews complained the that film doesn’t go anywhere but it’s really about how life influences art and artists, and about the small worlds we all really live in.

We were better than half-way through the movie when Rob realized he’d seen it before thanks to a plastic sack and David Duchovny’s penis. Which you don’t see. Although you do see the plastic bag and wonder once again what attracts this man to characters like this, but the penis is prominent – I assure you. Even though I missed it the first time and Rob had to “rewind” for me.

But anyway, two hours of life – gone – when we could have had sex instead. But it is not an awful movie (Rob will beg to differ) just one that makes you work hard to figure it out. We in North America are not into thinking while movie watching.

Saturday was organizing. Rob is determined to have a garage sale in two weeks. In admiration of his sorting and purging zeal, I tackled my side of the pigsty office because it would be nice to write at my desk again instead of the dining room table (which is hell on my posture).

I nearly pitched my high school yearbooks but Rob thought they should rest in the basement for a bit until I am sure. 

I am sure I don’t know what to do with them. I haven’t cracked one open in BabyD’s lifetime and since I was too mousy and unpopular to rate much of an inclusion in them aside from a head-shot and the newspaper group photo, I can’t think why I should keep them. It’s full of people I can’t remember or have no fond memories of. And they take up shelf space.

I found Will’s old Sunday bible group bible too. Another space hog that holds no personal value for me, so I am thinking about sending it to his mother. She has been less her nasty self in cards and letters of late, and I have been thinking that it might be safe to cultivate a correspondence type relationship now. She found God after Will died – or so she claims* – and the bible has memories for her.

Now I have a clean desk and a surprisingly small pile of papers to assign to folders. I even have my calendar updated and all pertinent dates marked for the next little while. So why am I still writing at the dining room table?

I also began a rewrite of Kumari because what I am trying to do isn’t clear to readers yet, judging from a new review I received yesterday. I am liking it, so the reviews have been a plus. I wish, though, that the site was more like a message board because single reviews are only so helpful. I really need a give and take forum.

I also ventured over to the widda board and signed on. Something I haven’t done since February. I noticed that I was getting referrals from my profile there – something that has never happened. It made me curious. To my surprise I had a message waiting from a board member who’d found this blog through a google and traced me back there. She wanted to talk about remarriage/recoupling because she thought I might have something valid to say. That I can understand if the only sounding board she’s had is the widda board. There are probably only a handful or better of people there who don’t have an agenda when it comes to this topic and will listen/share their experiences without spouting absolutes. The board is really a singles haven and that is what is pushed – mostly by people who haven’t found a new partner despite their efforts or those too frightened or traumatized to try.

I did find one interesting thing in the short perusal I made of the active topics. Someone who used to jump all over me with both feet about my opinions of moving on and remarriage requested a new forum for remarried widowed – because she got married again recently. Funny how that can swing a person 180, eh?

Although the remarried thought this was a great idea, the other vintage widows nixed it. Remarrieds, in the general opinion of the board, have a duty to grieve for the edification (and probably entertainment) of everyone else. End of discussion.

And finally, Rob and I took great interest in watching the reports on Ike. If Rob hadn’t turned that transfer down last spring, we would have been losing our hurricane virginity this weekend in our new home somewhere in the Houston area. Actually, Rob would have been doing this most likely with me worrying at my folks in Iowa. We are not so attached to stuff (and honestly are well enough off financially that we don’t have to be) to ride out a hurricane. 

I will take a Canadian winter over the balmy, hurricane prone Gulf coast any day.

*And it might be true. She was nastier than she had ever been while spouting religion at me in the aftermath, but I have found that “coming to Jesus” brings out a rather substantial amount of bile and intolerance in some people.