Psst! I'm over here!
I may not be writing about dating as of late, but I am still writing about books. So stop by some time. And if you like what you read, pull up a chair, make yourself comfortable.
2.08.2011
2.24.2010
Bird by Bird
I apologize in advance for the let down. Not for me. For you, unfortunately. I've found in reading Bird by Bird that there isn't much in it to "review." It's a fabulous book that I highly recommend for any level of or interest in writing, a book that I find myself rereading chapters of depending on what I'm struggling with, but there's not much to say about it other than YES THAT IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL ABOUT WRITING and WHAT A GOOD IDEA TO FOCUS MY CREATIVE MIND and HAHA ONLY A WRITER WOULD UNDERSTAND THAT. See? It would be an obnoxious review. So I'm scanning my pile of unread books, looking for something I can whip up and present to you on Friday for review. The thinnest one on the shelf? Blubber, by Judy Blume. Another attempt at my Blume revival. Maybe this one will be a more positive experience?
I plan on sticking with fiction from here on out. Lesson learned.
I plan on sticking with fiction from here on out. Lesson learned.
2.19.2010
Marry Him
Apparently I’m a little cray cray. You know, completely fucking whackadoo. There was a moment on Sunday, a very raw and vulnerable moment that I am not proud of in which I wrote this:
This is not happening. This is not happening to me right now on THIS DAY after LAST NIGHT. NO. NO! I refuse to believe that this is actually happening.
Do you know what I realized yesterday around, oh, noon as my mom was being admitted to the hospital for some nasty, weakening, puke-fest disease? Do you know what I realized after a week of taking care of her at my house and six hours of sitting with her in the ER the day before, for which I had to cancel plans with this boy I've been dating for a month (yes, a MONTH!), while my sister flitted about in a state of ecstasy, partying and whatnot, and while my aunt stayed home with her controlling and emotionally abusive husband because he gets mad when she goes out when he is home? Do you know what I figured out as I was getting ready to go meet this boy, THIS BOY WHO I HAVE BEEN DATING FOR A MONTH, to go to a nice dinner with and spend the night with and, oh, I don't know, maybe have sex with because FUCK dangling participles right about FUCKING NOW, OK? I realized that, in all my of my FUCKING life, I have never had a Valentine's Day.
NEVER.
NOT A SINGLE ONE.
So you know what I did? I called my aunt and told her I couldn't take my mom to the hospital because I had plans. And I felt terrible. And I cried. And I knelt by my mother's bedside in a very melodramatic way and told her that I felt terrible and guilty and she put her hand on my head in some sort of blessing and said, "No, 104. You already do too much. You should go." (I mean, really, it was a moment.)
But I fucking left. I put my dog in the kitchen, and I packed an overnight bag with a sexy dress and my black pumps and CONDOMS and my VIBRATOR and I LEFT.
And then this morning I left Nine's apartment at 8am to go spend the day at the hospital with my mom for twelve hours, and I kissed him goodbye and he told me to text him later to let him know how my mom was doing and I locked the door behind me and got into my car and thought, "I did it."
I did everything right this time. I waited a month. We had a serious conversation in which discussed past partners and being tested and monogamy and abortion.
I waited. I was good. I did everything right. He was nice and thoughtful and sweet and smart.
EVERYTHING.
And now it's midnight. On Valentine's Day. I've texted him twice. I called him once, which in his defense he did answer and have a 5-10 minute phone conversation for the last bit of his drive to his friend's house. But he never responded to my texts. He never called like he said he would.
So I am saying this publicly: IF HE DOES NOT CALL ME OR TEXT ME OR CONTACT ME I AM NEVER HAVING SEX AGAIN.
THAT'S RIGHT! I'M RECLAIMING MY FUCKING VIRGINITY IN ALL ITS FUCKING GLORY AND I'M CLOSING THE FUCKING DOORS.
And OF COURSE I came home tonight at MIDNIGHT to a FREEZING COLD HOUSE because my FURNACE is BROKEN. AGAIN!
I can't believe this is happening again. All of it.
Happy FUCKING Valentine's Day.
I even posted it. I’m sure most of you missed it because I took it down about 27 minutes later when he CALLED and said that he had been TEXTING me all day with no response and I had been MISSING all of them because the hospital totally FUCKS with cell phone reception.
Yeah. I told you. Completely fucking nuts. But the problem since then has been all the vulnerability and all the fear and whack crackers that something like that creates have yet to subside. And since then, our communication has been limited to a few minutes when he gets home from work, a few more minutes before he goes to sleep two hours later and that’s it.
This puts me in a bad place mentally, perpetually convinced that he is about to end it. It’s not a pleasant place to be, but I’m keeping it to myself, trying my best to not let him see it. And then yesterday I was telling my mom about our lack of communication, and she said,
“Didn’t you say he’s working really long hours this week?”
“So?”
“And didn’t you say that he apologized for being so tired all the time but that it was his crazy work schedule?”
“So?”
“So, how many hours is he working this week?” I looked at the ceiling and calculated. Twelve hour shifts for five days a week and then a thirty-hour shift on Saturday for the next month.
“Like… ninety?”
“104!”
“What?”
“You don’t think that is why he is tired and has less time to talk to you in the evenings?”
“No. I think it’s me. I think he isn’t into me.”
“You’re nuts,” she said and went back to watching the Olympics. Ok, so maybe she had a point. The first being that I’m nuts, and the second that it wasn’t about me.
There’s something very dangerous about the He’s Just Not That Into You argument. There’s something very all or nothing. Something very selfish. Something very “I deserve the best all the time and forever and if not then you’re not really into me and I deserve better.”
I’m reading a book that is changing my life. Well, that’s kind of questionable, but it is changing the way I view dating and the He’s Just Not That Into You philosophy that I’ve come to live by since circa 2005. The problem with HJNTIY is that it leads to women believing that they deserve all the attention, all the love, all the affection, all the perfection all the time. It does not account for a man who works more than twice the number of hours she does in a week. It does not account for a man who is in a bad mood because he put on a few pounds. It does not account for men being just as human and flawed and temperamental as women are. If women were expected to be doting and perfect girlfriends/fiancées/wives all the time or forget it, there would be an outcry of raging feminists. I’d be one of them. It’s a double standard. We think we deserve perfect men who love us perfectly when we are not perfect ourselves, when we have fat days and act like complete bitches (um, last Friday for me, I don’t know about you) and when we don’t fucking feel like giving another fucking blow job for fuck’s sake.
I had a conversation with my best friend yesterday that went something like this:
BF: How are things with the boy?
104: Good.
BF: Just good?!
104: Yeah.
BF: WHAT? You’re so wonderful! You’re so AMAZING! You deserve someone who is stunning! YOU DESERVE THE BEST!
Here’s where we get into trouble, according to Lori Gottlieb. Here is where we pass up the 8’s for the 10’s because we think that we are perfect and we deserve perfection. Here are the facts: I am not a 10. I’m probably more like a 7, and that’s only because I have my life together and have a pretty face. If we were going on looks alone, my body fat percentage would easily knock me down to a 6, if not a 5. It depends on whom you ask. So let’s say that, during all of my viable dating years, I’d pass up the 8’s in search of a 10, who BY THE WAY DOES NOT EXIST, so I’ll be searching forever for an impossibly perfect man and then I’ll be 41 and single and the only thing I can get with my shriveled up uterus is a 5. A divorced guy with kids and an evil ex-wife, or, even worse, a guy in his forties who has never been married. :::SHUDDER::: Should have stuck with the 8, right? The point is that what I DESERVE is a good boyfriend. Not a perfect boyfriend. After all, I’m not a perfect girlfriend (see above). I deserve a good man who is intellectually stimulating and a good communicator and shares my same desire for a family. (Lori asks us to separate our wants from our needs when looking for a match, and then throw out your wants because things like being tall don’t say anything about what kind of man he is, and then narrow your needs down to three. Those are my three.) Of course I don’t yet know if Nine fits the bill. I don’t yet know if, when push comes to shove, I’ll feel heard and respected when an issue arises. We’ll see.
This passage best sums it up:
"In America," she said, "when a potter makes a pot, they put a glaze on it and put it in the kiln and know exactly what it's supposed to look like when it comes out. But when the Japanese make a pot, they put it in a wood-fire kiln that could be any temperature, and when they take the pot out, it's not always exactly like they thought it was supposed to look like. And they say, 'Oh, wow, this is what the fire did to the pot and it's gorgeous!' They believe that there's no beauty in perfection.
"So instead of knowing what the person across from you is supposed to be like, ask yourself the pot question, 'But what is it, and is it beautiful?' rather than thinking, 'It's not this and it should look like this.' The question you have to ask is, 'Do I like it?' instead of 'How does it compare to what I thought I wanted?' People can surprise you." (267-268)
The point is that I’m trying to not specifically LOOK for the bad in him, which, oh hey, it turns out I ALWAYS DO. So last night when he called, sounding completely exhausted after a thirteen hour shift because apparently all the babies in the world are sick, poor things, I tried to be understanding. I tried to think about how I would act if I weren’t looking for all the bad things about him like how he doesn’t respond to my text messages or how he doesn’t talk to me on the phone for long enough lately, and I tried to think about how I would act if I were appreciating him for all of his good qualities. You know what I did? I stopped acting like a total fucking fruit basket and started acting like a supportive girlfriend. (NOT THAT I’M HIS GIRLFRIEND! OH MY GOD! MY LIFE JUST FLASHED BEFORE MY EYES!)
Instead of getting angry and waiting for him to say something about whether or not we’d be seeing each other this weekend, instead of assuming that he was seconds away from ending things, instead of being bitter and holding out for him to come visit ME this time because I visited HIM last time, I breathed in and out and pretended like I was normal. And I said, “I’m sorry your schedule sucks so much this month. Is there anything I can do to make it more bearable?”
And I waited for him to say no, that he just wanted to stay home and sleep all of Sunday and then I would find out that he really went to his friend’s to play video games or go to a strip club or concoct ways to end things with me without it seeming like he used me for sex because OF COURSE he is using me for sex!
But instead he said, “You could come over.”
And I melted.
So I’m going over to his place on Sunday after his thirty-hour shift. He wants to take a nap and stay in, but he wants me there with him while he does. So I’m going to go over there and be supportive and a little more generous and not so fucking demanding of perfection all the goddamn time, because sometimes, every so often, it’s not all about me.
I know. I’m just as surprised as you are.
This is not happening. This is not happening to me right now on THIS DAY after LAST NIGHT. NO. NO! I refuse to believe that this is actually happening.
Do you know what I realized yesterday around, oh, noon as my mom was being admitted to the hospital for some nasty, weakening, puke-fest disease? Do you know what I realized after a week of taking care of her at my house and six hours of sitting with her in the ER the day before, for which I had to cancel plans with this boy I've been dating for a month (yes, a MONTH!), while my sister flitted about in a state of ecstasy, partying and whatnot, and while my aunt stayed home with her controlling and emotionally abusive husband because he gets mad when she goes out when he is home? Do you know what I figured out as I was getting ready to go meet this boy, THIS BOY WHO I HAVE BEEN DATING FOR A MONTH, to go to a nice dinner with and spend the night with and, oh, I don't know, maybe have sex with because FUCK dangling participles right about FUCKING NOW, OK? I realized that, in all my of my FUCKING life, I have never had a Valentine's Day.
NEVER.
NOT A SINGLE ONE.
So you know what I did? I called my aunt and told her I couldn't take my mom to the hospital because I had plans. And I felt terrible. And I cried. And I knelt by my mother's bedside in a very melodramatic way and told her that I felt terrible and guilty and she put her hand on my head in some sort of blessing and said, "No, 104. You already do too much. You should go." (I mean, really, it was a moment.)
But I fucking left. I put my dog in the kitchen, and I packed an overnight bag with a sexy dress and my black pumps and CONDOMS and my VIBRATOR and I LEFT.
And then this morning I left Nine's apartment at 8am to go spend the day at the hospital with my mom for twelve hours, and I kissed him goodbye and he told me to text him later to let him know how my mom was doing and I locked the door behind me and got into my car and thought, "I did it."
I did everything right this time. I waited a month. We had a serious conversation in which discussed past partners and being tested and monogamy and abortion.
I waited. I was good. I did everything right. He was nice and thoughtful and sweet and smart.
EVERYTHING.
And now it's midnight. On Valentine's Day. I've texted him twice. I called him once, which in his defense he did answer and have a 5-10 minute phone conversation for the last bit of his drive to his friend's house. But he never responded to my texts. He never called like he said he would.
So I am saying this publicly: IF HE DOES NOT CALL ME OR TEXT ME OR CONTACT ME I AM NEVER HAVING SEX AGAIN.
THAT'S RIGHT! I'M RECLAIMING MY FUCKING VIRGINITY IN ALL ITS FUCKING GLORY AND I'M CLOSING THE FUCKING DOORS.
And OF COURSE I came home tonight at MIDNIGHT to a FREEZING COLD HOUSE because my FURNACE is BROKEN. AGAIN!
I can't believe this is happening again. All of it.
Happy FUCKING Valentine's Day.
I even posted it. I’m sure most of you missed it because I took it down about 27 minutes later when he CALLED and said that he had been TEXTING me all day with no response and I had been MISSING all of them because the hospital totally FUCKS with cell phone reception.
Yeah. I told you. Completely fucking nuts. But the problem since then has been all the vulnerability and all the fear and whack crackers that something like that creates have yet to subside. And since then, our communication has been limited to a few minutes when he gets home from work, a few more minutes before he goes to sleep two hours later and that’s it.
This puts me in a bad place mentally, perpetually convinced that he is about to end it. It’s not a pleasant place to be, but I’m keeping it to myself, trying my best to not let him see it. And then yesterday I was telling my mom about our lack of communication, and she said,
“Didn’t you say he’s working really long hours this week?”
“So?”
“And didn’t you say that he apologized for being so tired all the time but that it was his crazy work schedule?”
“So?”
“So, how many hours is he working this week?” I looked at the ceiling and calculated. Twelve hour shifts for five days a week and then a thirty-hour shift on Saturday for the next month.
“Like… ninety?”
“104!”
“What?”
“You don’t think that is why he is tired and has less time to talk to you in the evenings?”
“No. I think it’s me. I think he isn’t into me.”
“You’re nuts,” she said and went back to watching the Olympics. Ok, so maybe she had a point. The first being that I’m nuts, and the second that it wasn’t about me.
There’s something very dangerous about the He’s Just Not That Into You argument. There’s something very all or nothing. Something very selfish. Something very “I deserve the best all the time and forever and if not then you’re not really into me and I deserve better.”
I’m reading a book that is changing my life. Well, that’s kind of questionable, but it is changing the way I view dating and the He’s Just Not That Into You philosophy that I’ve come to live by since circa 2005. The problem with HJNTIY is that it leads to women believing that they deserve all the attention, all the love, all the affection, all the perfection all the time. It does not account for a man who works more than twice the number of hours she does in a week. It does not account for a man who is in a bad mood because he put on a few pounds. It does not account for men being just as human and flawed and temperamental as women are. If women were expected to be doting and perfect girlfriends/fiancées/wives all the time or forget it, there would be an outcry of raging feminists. I’d be one of them. It’s a double standard. We think we deserve perfect men who love us perfectly when we are not perfect ourselves, when we have fat days and act like complete bitches (um, last Friday for me, I don’t know about you) and when we don’t fucking feel like giving another fucking blow job for fuck’s sake.
I had a conversation with my best friend yesterday that went something like this:
BF: How are things with the boy?
104: Good.
BF: Just good?!
104: Yeah.
BF: WHAT? You’re so wonderful! You’re so AMAZING! You deserve someone who is stunning! YOU DESERVE THE BEST!
Here’s where we get into trouble, according to Lori Gottlieb. Here is where we pass up the 8’s for the 10’s because we think that we are perfect and we deserve perfection. Here are the facts: I am not a 10. I’m probably more like a 7, and that’s only because I have my life together and have a pretty face. If we were going on looks alone, my body fat percentage would easily knock me down to a 6, if not a 5. It depends on whom you ask. So let’s say that, during all of my viable dating years, I’d pass up the 8’s in search of a 10, who BY THE WAY DOES NOT EXIST, so I’ll be searching forever for an impossibly perfect man and then I’ll be 41 and single and the only thing I can get with my shriveled up uterus is a 5. A divorced guy with kids and an evil ex-wife, or, even worse, a guy in his forties who has never been married. :::SHUDDER::: Should have stuck with the 8, right? The point is that what I DESERVE is a good boyfriend. Not a perfect boyfriend. After all, I’m not a perfect girlfriend (see above). I deserve a good man who is intellectually stimulating and a good communicator and shares my same desire for a family. (Lori asks us to separate our wants from our needs when looking for a match, and then throw out your wants because things like being tall don’t say anything about what kind of man he is, and then narrow your needs down to three. Those are my three.) Of course I don’t yet know if Nine fits the bill. I don’t yet know if, when push comes to shove, I’ll feel heard and respected when an issue arises. We’ll see.
This passage best sums it up:
"In America," she said, "when a potter makes a pot, they put a glaze on it and put it in the kiln and know exactly what it's supposed to look like when it comes out. But when the Japanese make a pot, they put it in a wood-fire kiln that could be any temperature, and when they take the pot out, it's not always exactly like they thought it was supposed to look like. And they say, 'Oh, wow, this is what the fire did to the pot and it's gorgeous!' They believe that there's no beauty in perfection.
"So instead of knowing what the person across from you is supposed to be like, ask yourself the pot question, 'But what is it, and is it beautiful?' rather than thinking, 'It's not this and it should look like this.' The question you have to ask is, 'Do I like it?' instead of 'How does it compare to what I thought I wanted?' People can surprise you." (267-268)
The point is that I’m trying to not specifically LOOK for the bad in him, which, oh hey, it turns out I ALWAYS DO. So last night when he called, sounding completely exhausted after a thirteen hour shift because apparently all the babies in the world are sick, poor things, I tried to be understanding. I tried to think about how I would act if I weren’t looking for all the bad things about him like how he doesn’t respond to my text messages or how he doesn’t talk to me on the phone for long enough lately, and I tried to think about how I would act if I were appreciating him for all of his good qualities. You know what I did? I stopped acting like a total fucking fruit basket and started acting like a supportive girlfriend. (NOT THAT I’M HIS GIRLFRIEND! OH MY GOD! MY LIFE JUST FLASHED BEFORE MY EYES!)
Instead of getting angry and waiting for him to say something about whether or not we’d be seeing each other this weekend, instead of assuming that he was seconds away from ending things, instead of being bitter and holding out for him to come visit ME this time because I visited HIM last time, I breathed in and out and pretended like I was normal. And I said, “I’m sorry your schedule sucks so much this month. Is there anything I can do to make it more bearable?”
And I waited for him to say no, that he just wanted to stay home and sleep all of Sunday and then I would find out that he really went to his friend’s to play video games or go to a strip club or concoct ways to end things with me without it seeming like he used me for sex because OF COURSE he is using me for sex!
But instead he said, “You could come over.”
And I melted.
So I’m going over to his place on Sunday after his thirty-hour shift. He wants to take a nap and stay in, but he wants me there with him while he does. So I’m going to go over there and be supportive and a little more generous and not so fucking demanding of perfection all the goddamn time, because sometimes, every so often, it’s not all about me.
I know. I’m just as surprised as you are.
2.17.2010
2.11.2010
Into The Wild
I know I’m supposed to be literary and serious with this review. I know I’m supposed to criticize Krakauer’s inclusion of personal anecdotes and his bias perspective. I know I’m supposed to take a stand on either side of the Chris McCandless debate and call him a suicidal moron or a glorified idiot or a romantic hero. But, honestly, I don’t give a shit about the debate. I think it’s reductive and insulting to give in to it anyway. Here was a young man, a life, a being struggling to live his life in the most meaningful way possible. Now, I can say that he based his ideas of a romantic and true life on some unsound sources. Jack London never lived in the wild, Chris. He was a fiction writer. But still, he found some sort of truth in his words and chose the life that he chose. I wavered throughout the book. I went back and forth between the images of his sister and parents and the underlined passages in the books found by his body and the obvious sides I took after reading each. He was selfish to be so reckless with someone his family loved so dearly, he was brave to live his life in a way that he believed to matter. I closed the book yesterday afternoon somewhere in between those. Somewhere between knowing he was selfish and knowing that we’re all selfish if we’re really living a life that matters. After all, living the life we WANT by definition is selfish.
I did something after I placed the book on my small stack of read books that was kind of stupid. I know myself fairly well at this point in my life. I’m sure I will look back at forty and laugh at my seeming self-awareness in my twenties, but one thing I won’t ever be able to deny is how I know, and always have known, how fearful I am. I am very quickly and suddenly terrified: by visual images, scary sounds, the idea of eternity, certain astronomical discussions, any theme of apocalypse, and most definitely creepy children. I don’t even want to talk about that scene in The Ring where the little girl crawls out of the television because OH MY GOD NOW I AM THINKING ABOUT HER GREY, DRIPPING SKIN AND AM GOING TO HAVE NIGHTMARES FOR DAYS!
Thanks a lot.
But after reading the last few paragraphs of the last chapter, I became curious:
At some point during this week, he tore the final page from Louis L’Amour’s memoir, Education of a Wandering Man. On one side of the page were some lines L’Amour had quoted from Robinson Jeffer’s poem, “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours”:
“Death’s a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to the centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The mountains are dead stone, the people
Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,
The mountains are not softened or troubled
And a few dead men’s thoughts have the same temper.”
On the other side of the page, which was blank, McCandless penned a brief adios: “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!”
Then he crawled into the sleeping bag his mother had sewn for him and slipped into unconsciousness. He probably died on August 18, 112 days after he’d walked into the wild, 19 days before six Alaskans would happen across the bus and discover his body inside.
One of his last acts was to take a picture of himself, standing near the bus under the high Alaska sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brave, beatific farewell. His face is horrible emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours—because he was so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down—it’s not apparent from the photograph. He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God.
I have to find that picture, I thought, as I tentatively opened my web browser and typed “Chris McCandless photos” into google image search. This is the fifth image that came up, and it is the abovementioned picture:
I thought about that picture all day yesterday, all while writing this review, all throughout breakfast and watching a recorded episode of The Colbert Report. There is something about that picture that scares me. Undeniably. I’m not afraid to admit it. It’s visually frightening: the gaunt face, the hair, the clothes, the legs that seem to not exist underneath the spaceless khakis. But more haunting than anything is his smile. He’s smiling. He knows he’s dying, he detailed it in his journal, he wrote a note for immediate help acknowledging that he was near death, and yet he was smiling. It haunts me that, even in the last moments, even when he knew that he had made a mistake and that this journey had led to his death, he did not waiver. He smiled. He smiled because he knew that he had lived a life that, to him, had the most meaning possible. It’s not my meaning. It’s most likely not yours. And he was undeniably an idiot for at least not taking basic supplies like a machete and a compass and some decent hiking boots. But it was his life, and he lived it the way that he wanted to. Entirely. How else could a person smile when they know they are hours from death? I think the debate over Chris McCandless’s life and death comes from the fact that these ideas of beauty and truth are entirely subjective. What was Chris’s truth is not everyone’s. But I don’t think anyone would disagree with the statement that they would feel incredibly fortunate to be able to know in the end that they lived their respective lives with as much beauty and truth as they could grasp.
I did something after I placed the book on my small stack of read books that was kind of stupid. I know myself fairly well at this point in my life. I’m sure I will look back at forty and laugh at my seeming self-awareness in my twenties, but one thing I won’t ever be able to deny is how I know, and always have known, how fearful I am. I am very quickly and suddenly terrified: by visual images, scary sounds, the idea of eternity, certain astronomical discussions, any theme of apocalypse, and most definitely creepy children. I don’t even want to talk about that scene in The Ring where the little girl crawls out of the television because OH MY GOD NOW I AM THINKING ABOUT HER GREY, DRIPPING SKIN AND AM GOING TO HAVE NIGHTMARES FOR DAYS!
Thanks a lot.
But after reading the last few paragraphs of the last chapter, I became curious:
At some point during this week, he tore the final page from Louis L’Amour’s memoir, Education of a Wandering Man. On one side of the page were some lines L’Amour had quoted from Robinson Jeffer’s poem, “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours”:
“Death’s a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to the centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The mountains are dead stone, the people
Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,
The mountains are not softened or troubled
And a few dead men’s thoughts have the same temper.”
On the other side of the page, which was blank, McCandless penned a brief adios: “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!”
Then he crawled into the sleeping bag his mother had sewn for him and slipped into unconsciousness. He probably died on August 18, 112 days after he’d walked into the wild, 19 days before six Alaskans would happen across the bus and discover his body inside.
One of his last acts was to take a picture of himself, standing near the bus under the high Alaska sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brave, beatific farewell. His face is horrible emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours—because he was so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down—it’s not apparent from the photograph. He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God.
I have to find that picture, I thought, as I tentatively opened my web browser and typed “Chris McCandless photos” into google image search. This is the fifth image that came up, and it is the abovementioned picture:
I thought about that picture all day yesterday, all while writing this review, all throughout breakfast and watching a recorded episode of The Colbert Report. There is something about that picture that scares me. Undeniably. I’m not afraid to admit it. It’s visually frightening: the gaunt face, the hair, the clothes, the legs that seem to not exist underneath the spaceless khakis. But more haunting than anything is his smile. He’s smiling. He knows he’s dying, he detailed it in his journal, he wrote a note for immediate help acknowledging that he was near death, and yet he was smiling. It haunts me that, even in the last moments, even when he knew that he had made a mistake and that this journey had led to his death, he did not waiver. He smiled. He smiled because he knew that he had lived a life that, to him, had the most meaning possible. It’s not my meaning. It’s most likely not yours. And he was undeniably an idiot for at least not taking basic supplies like a machete and a compass and some decent hiking boots. But it was his life, and he lived it the way that he wanted to. Entirely. How else could a person smile when they know they are hours from death? I think the debate over Chris McCandless’s life and death comes from the fact that these ideas of beauty and truth are entirely subjective. What was Chris’s truth is not everyone’s. But I don’t think anyone would disagree with the statement that they would feel incredibly fortunate to be able to know in the end that they lived their respective lives with as much beauty and truth as they could grasp.
2.10.2010
Ten-ish
Before things started going well with Nine, there was a Ten lined up. I ended up not returning his call one Sunday when we were supposed to meet because he sounded abrasive in his voicemail message and kind of annoyed and hadn't put much effort into planning the actual date and I felt fat and I really just wanted to have coffee with my mother read the paper. We know this about me: I like a man to take charge. I like a man like Nine who has a plan for a date and executes it. A man like Nine who says, "It's too bad you watched Food Inc. and are now a vegetarian because I made a reservation for us at Ruth's Chris for this Saturday," to which I said "SCREW THE COWS, I WANT STEAK!"
Ten was kind of half-assing his way around meeting me, and I didn't feel inclined to put in any more effort than he did. So I didn't return his call, and when he texted me two days later, I said I got busy and had made other plans since our plans weren't definite. It's true. I take the plan of sitting around in my pajamas on a Sunday very seriously.
He still texts me occasionally, and I keep him on the far back burner in case things go south with Nine. I'm always prepared for failure, for a change of heart, for a total 180 of character. But the other day he sent me a link to his blog. His triathlon blog, where he records his workouts, his clean eating attempts, and his undying feelings for his ex-fiancé.
Hold up. What?
Yes, that's right. In his blog, he details his past relationship with her four years ago, how he has never gotten over her, and how he found out that she is pregnant and engaged and couldn't breathe for a few minutes.
Listen, I'm all for romanticism. According to my therapist, I am a romantic. But I also have a nasty realistic side that pops in and tells me NOT to send the link to a personal journal detailing how I am, and always will be, in love with my ex to a boy I would like to date in the somewhat, whenever I can get my act together and make a fucking plan, future.
Not to mention he's from Massachusetts and a Republican and has, like, ten siblings and a dysfunctional upbringing sprinkled with abuse and addiction. At least that is what I gathered from the blog.
Ten was kind of half-assing his way around meeting me, and I didn't feel inclined to put in any more effort than he did. So I didn't return his call, and when he texted me two days later, I said I got busy and had made other plans since our plans weren't definite. It's true. I take the plan of sitting around in my pajamas on a Sunday very seriously.
He still texts me occasionally, and I keep him on the far back burner in case things go south with Nine. I'm always prepared for failure, for a change of heart, for a total 180 of character. But the other day he sent me a link to his blog. His triathlon blog, where he records his workouts, his clean eating attempts, and his undying feelings for his ex-fiancé.
Hold up. What?
Yes, that's right. In his blog, he details his past relationship with her four years ago, how he has never gotten over her, and how he found out that she is pregnant and engaged and couldn't breathe for a few minutes.
Listen, I'm all for romanticism. According to my therapist, I am a romantic. But I also have a nasty realistic side that pops in and tells me NOT to send the link to a personal journal detailing how I am, and always will be, in love with my ex to a boy I would like to date in the somewhat, whenever I can get my act together and make a fucking plan, future.
Not to mention he's from Massachusetts and a Republican and has, like, ten siblings and a dysfunctional upbringing sprinkled with abuse and addiction. At least that is what I gathered from the blog.
Late Fees
I should have written fourteen book reviews by this Friday. I just went through the calendar year to count every Friday that I have been writing this blog. That means I'm five books behind. Holy mother of Christ. Good thing I work best under stress.
2.02.2010
Adaptation
Oh, I've been meaning to tell you that I caught a random showing of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh on HBO or Cinemax or some movie channel that I pay far too much for to use so sparingly. It was good. Interestingly, they took some serious liberties with the story. They completely left out Arthur, the man Art has a love affair with, and transferred that story line (and ensuing hot gay sex scene) onto Cleveland. That then complicated things with oh what was her name? Oh right, it doesn't matter because she is a girl in a Michael Chabon novel. Jane. Of course. You can't get any more plain than that. It complicates things because Jane is Cleveland's girlfriend, and she walks in on them naked in bed together. Yeah, that was definitely not in the book. And Phlox is essentially replaced by Jane, except for a few sex scenes and pornographic acts of revenge. They essentially rewrote the damn thing, but it seemed more cohesive and fluent that way. It was a very effective adaptation for as many liberties as it took.
Now, as far as the first half of The Lovely Bones, which I watched the other afternoon with my mother who works at a car dealership full of sketch balls who do things like sell crack and pirate movies before they're even released in the theaters? Yeah, that was a huge hunk of cheese. I mean, come on Peter Jackson. An echo effect to make all of Suzie's lines "ghost-like"? You're worse than Sebold.
Now, as far as the first half of The Lovely Bones, which I watched the other afternoon with my mother who works at a car dealership full of sketch balls who do things like sell crack and pirate movies before they're even released in the theaters? Yeah, that was a huge hunk of cheese. I mean, come on Peter Jackson. An echo effect to make all of Suzie's lines "ghost-like"? You're worse than Sebold.
Julie and Julia
Do you think Julie Powell has a Le Creuset? I bet she does now that she’s a famous author. I’m pretty sure she has one in the movie version. But a prop on a movie set does not a gourmet chef make.
Julie, Julie, Julie. What am I to do with you? The truth is that I wanted to read this book after the piece you wrote about how you were depicted in the movie version of your book, which is a blog-turned-memoir for those of you living under a rock. She has a point, I thought, as I read her words about what can be conveyed and what can’t and what must be changed for Hollywood standards. Poor Julie Powell, I thought. Although I saw the movie and had kind of liked her. But maybe it was my penchant for all things Amy Adams. So, I thought after reading the article, she must be a SAINT in the book!
Let me tell you a little something, Julie Powell, the way you were depicted in the movie is WORLDS above how you depict YOURSELF in your book. I liked ya. I did. I wasn’t so interested in the scenes concerning you, what with the distraction of Meryl Streep as Julia Child, but I didn’t think you were whiny or annoying or self-obsessed like some of my friends.
But oh ho ho, Julie! In the book, which YOU yourself wrote? You’re a flipping nightmare, woman!
The thing that is so wonderful about writing, and more specifically blogging, is that a writer can create a version of herself that is flawless. I’d imagine for most people it happens without even trying. It’s like internet dating. You say the best stuff about yourself. You turn on the charm via text and phone conversations. The person doesn’t get to see how you get bloody noses on a daily basis or how you walk uphill like a duck. Sometimes I read what I’ve written on this blog and think, “Damn, I’m cool!” I’m not. I’m lonely and kind of a loner and I let the dust bunnies build forts in the corners of my house. When I told the story of Eight to my friend, it went something like this:
“He was a Catholic! He was coming home from a youth ministry trip! It was really uncomfortable and weird.”
The truth is that I am terrible at telling stories out loud. I second guess myself, I worry whether or not the other person is enjoying themselves, I tell myself I’m not funny and no one is listening and why don’t you just sit down and shut up and stop fucking rambling already.
The point is sitting in front of my little silver computer is safe. I can make my life sound amazingly entertaining and uproarious. I can sound smart and funny and sassy, when really I’m sitting around in black yoga pants and a grey Red Sox sweatshirt that I bought for an old boyfriend that he returned to me when we had terrible makeup sex. An old boyfriend who just happens to be married with a child now. An old boyfriend who I just happened to have a dream about last night in which we were at a baseball game and I asked him whether or not he would ever cheat on his wife and he looked at me with his sweet blue and brown eyes and was totally skeeved out.
But this isn’t the version of myself that I show in my blog. I show the funny 104, the smart 104, the sassy 104.
So here is my gripe with the Julie in the book: she is awful to her husband (“’No, no, no. I have aspics. I have to bone a whole duck. Can you even conceive of boning a duck? Of course you can’t. Your brain’s too consumed with the NewsHour and FreeCell to waste time on something just because it’s of all-consuming importance to your wife’”); she is childishly and needlessly perverted (“I was feeling very cook-y in general, actually, cool and collected, until I got to ‘forming the ribbon.’ This sounds like some ancient Asian euphemism for kinky water sports” [um, no it doesn’t]); she is an admittedly bad friend (she includes anecdotes that are completely off topic and unrelated about her friends’ love lives only, I can imagine, to make her flat book a little more lively); and she uses some of the most obscure and unclear imagery in the world. If this is the cleaned up and polished version of herself that she wants to show to the world, the version that is most appropriate for public consumption, she must SUCK BALLS in real life.
That is all. One star. I can’t muster any more.
Julie, Julie, Julie. What am I to do with you? The truth is that I wanted to read this book after the piece you wrote about how you were depicted in the movie version of your book, which is a blog-turned-memoir for those of you living under a rock. She has a point, I thought, as I read her words about what can be conveyed and what can’t and what must be changed for Hollywood standards. Poor Julie Powell, I thought. Although I saw the movie and had kind of liked her. But maybe it was my penchant for all things Amy Adams. So, I thought after reading the article, she must be a SAINT in the book!
Let me tell you a little something, Julie Powell, the way you were depicted in the movie is WORLDS above how you depict YOURSELF in your book. I liked ya. I did. I wasn’t so interested in the scenes concerning you, what with the distraction of Meryl Streep as Julia Child, but I didn’t think you were whiny or annoying or self-obsessed like some of my friends.
But oh ho ho, Julie! In the book, which YOU yourself wrote? You’re a flipping nightmare, woman!
The thing that is so wonderful about writing, and more specifically blogging, is that a writer can create a version of herself that is flawless. I’d imagine for most people it happens without even trying. It’s like internet dating. You say the best stuff about yourself. You turn on the charm via text and phone conversations. The person doesn’t get to see how you get bloody noses on a daily basis or how you walk uphill like a duck. Sometimes I read what I’ve written on this blog and think, “Damn, I’m cool!” I’m not. I’m lonely and kind of a loner and I let the dust bunnies build forts in the corners of my house. When I told the story of Eight to my friend, it went something like this:
“He was a Catholic! He was coming home from a youth ministry trip! It was really uncomfortable and weird.”
The truth is that I am terrible at telling stories out loud. I second guess myself, I worry whether or not the other person is enjoying themselves, I tell myself I’m not funny and no one is listening and why don’t you just sit down and shut up and stop fucking rambling already.
The point is sitting in front of my little silver computer is safe. I can make my life sound amazingly entertaining and uproarious. I can sound smart and funny and sassy, when really I’m sitting around in black yoga pants and a grey Red Sox sweatshirt that I bought for an old boyfriend that he returned to me when we had terrible makeup sex. An old boyfriend who just happens to be married with a child now. An old boyfriend who I just happened to have a dream about last night in which we were at a baseball game and I asked him whether or not he would ever cheat on his wife and he looked at me with his sweet blue and brown eyes and was totally skeeved out.
But this isn’t the version of myself that I show in my blog. I show the funny 104, the smart 104, the sassy 104.
So here is my gripe with the Julie in the book: she is awful to her husband (“’No, no, no. I have aspics. I have to bone a whole duck. Can you even conceive of boning a duck? Of course you can’t. Your brain’s too consumed with the NewsHour and FreeCell to waste time on something just because it’s of all-consuming importance to your wife’”); she is childishly and needlessly perverted (“I was feeling very cook-y in general, actually, cool and collected, until I got to ‘forming the ribbon.’ This sounds like some ancient Asian euphemism for kinky water sports” [um, no it doesn’t]); she is an admittedly bad friend (she includes anecdotes that are completely off topic and unrelated about her friends’ love lives only, I can imagine, to make her flat book a little more lively); and she uses some of the most obscure and unclear imagery in the world. If this is the cleaned up and polished version of herself that she wants to show to the world, the version that is most appropriate for public consumption, she must SUCK BALLS in real life.
That is all. One star. I can’t muster any more.
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