When inspired to do so, I write scripts in my head when I should be sleeping, alternate endings, director’s cut, that kind of thing. I make a lot of revisions until it comes out perfect and everyone says and does exactly what I want them to, even me. Of all the cast members I am by far the least cooperative at taking direction. (And here you probably had no idea you’d even auditioned for a part before you won the lead role; congratulations.) It makes it hard to sleep but I want it. I want to do it at work too but my thought bubbles keep getting popped.
You being far away and many years removed, it’s probably easier to imagine me not being an inconvenience. But if you asked people who are stuck with me in the Here and Now, I think you’d see how well it still fits. The differences between reality and imagination are so painfully vast sometimes. I think I’d rather be the one you imagine.
The driving is absurd; when I went to give my information, the other driver looked at me with such incredulity that I almost laughed. Inappropriate affect.
You’ve read it all.
I was going to ask you why but I think I already know. I’m certain I’d have done the same if I had discovered your hiding place. So now you have the dubious honour of knowing more about me than anyone else – who’s also known me in Real Life.
I wondered if Brando was my adjective -but not pocketbook- because I’d once mentally attached him to you, strangely. I wondered if I’d written it or just thought it to myself. I wondered how many other times I’d written about you, whether I’d qualify as obsessed or just stuck, spinning my wheels, but maybe there’s no discernable difference. I wondered, vainly, how it would alter your perception of me to know too much.
But then I thought you probably already knew most of it, having seen the neuroses firsthand. I've collected more since then, I suppose. I don’t think I ever did a good job of hiding them. Maybe I’m better at hiding it all now as it becomes more necessary to do so because no on thinks it’s cute to be flakey anymore. I always had the (mistaken?) impression you already knew everything about me.
I wondered all of these things and tried to start rereading my own words in case it wasn’t too late to edit out anything that made me look cuckoo. But there's not enough time to catch it all. There's so much of it to read, years and years. It always was meant to be written, not read. All that being aside from the fact that it’s deadly dull, I credit you with impressive perseverance both for having gotten through it all and for sticking around afterward. Did you come back to tell me about four years late? Did you come back to tell me your secrets? By now I think you owe me a couple, at least...
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I'm delighted to be a part of this cast, but as is my nature I'm going to require a producer credit. You see I'm concerned about how it is that we are treating our young starlet, the center of the piece, we are simply not cutting her enough slack. Different is good, different is interesting and the line between cuckoo and genuine insight into the nature of being human is razor thin.
For example, take denting a poor-man's-Honda, a Mazda in colloquial English. I'm sure there is much frustration in having our pride and joy marred by a careless driver, but there is also the existential reality that we don't own our shit, our shit owns us. So as frustrated as we might be at the inconvenience of having to get our car fixed, is outrage not laughable? What is going to be missed, the next episode of American Idol? I freely admit that my response would be righteous indignation, but really, no one died what's the big deal? I think the originality in response is beyond interesting, it's compellingly original. The desire for a "normal" affect is the desire to be typical, to be boring and to be bland. That would be a shame.
There are some narratives in this collection of reflections that are truly fascinating. The taking in of a lost soul, raising someowne else's child becasue it is right and needed is the epitome of moral good. It's noble, in the classic sense of an ethic that should be admired, looked up to as an example of how compassionate humans can be. And well beyond me. The biology of taking care of one's own child is undeniable, the act of taking care of another's child is a sheer force of will, an intellectual decision to sacrifice to do what's right. It is truly heroic and for some of us difficult to imagine. You add in the ability to find genuine joy in the experience and it becomes even more remarkable.
Our little starlet is fascinating.
To be honest all the crap about home renovations is something I skimmed, and is exactly why I ran away from the suberban hell that is described. I'm embarassed to share my lifestyle other than to say I don't do grout. I don't mix it, I don't set it, christ I refuse to even clean it.
And the descriptions of work are in the same category. If I were to share the workload of my guy doing the same job the effect would be somewhere between envy and outrage. Thus our starlet pounding away at a summer of home reno's deserves some credit, according to the producer who could never do it himself.
Once upon a time some friends and I were doing bad impressions of the dude from Big Wreck who sings the line "pocketbook Brando" as he tried to explain to girls who did not speak that much English what it meant. Despite his desire to sleep with at least one of them he eventually gave up , pointed at me and said "that guy" which made my friends fall off their chairs. I prefer to think he was not referring to Fat Brando but it was all made ok when my drunken Irish roommate punched the guy from Moist in the mouth. The episode took place a long time ago, but the episode has stuck. You making the same comparison is remarkable and I wish I knew what it meant. The track fits though, it certainly fits. I could swear I saw you in Milan.
I do think I know you, still. And like a moth to a flame I'm still awed by the enormity of your character but undeniably compelled. None of this blog alters much of what I think, it all fits really. You continue to scare the hell out of me in all the right ways.
I don't know if I owe you secrets, but I do want to tell you. But I'm more of an old school pen pal than a blogger.
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