It is What it Is

Throwback Thursday: The Old Guard

Last night's Lifetime DVD selection starred the lovely Richard Crenna.

You see, I actually started out the evening watching "Evidence of Love" with Barbara Hershey, but Barbara's frightening fashion choices in the film, from her crude, nearly shaved pube-like hairdo to the large overly round, bug-eye glasses, were so overwhelming and lasting that I didn't want to go to sleep with that being the last image in my brain.

There are 2 reasons for this:

1. I didn't want the nightmares.

2. As Lifetime has strategically led me to believe, someone could break into my home and strangle me at any moment. And, I might not be able to count on a psychic waitress to warn me of said serial killer's attention. Therefore, I didn't want Barbara Hershey's 80s-era Midwest androgeny to be the last thing I saw of this world.

Also, in case you were wondering, "Evidence of Love" revolves around a gruesome murder committed with an axe. And, yes, Barbara's hair scared me more than the hideously painful death by axe thing. So, I popped in Richard Crenna as a hardened cop who, through struggle and hardship, learns a lot about himself so that we, as his audience, can learn a little about ourselves.

When You're Not Out In The Club

Weekend before last, I went up North to hang out with my friend Jane* and meet her new four-month old baby. Our friend Rita joined us, and we had a great time together. On the Saturday afternoon of our weekend, we decided (or really the one of us who is actually a mom decided) to hire a babysitter so that we could go see Bridesmaids (loved it, wish I could be Kristen Wiig, must move on now).

When we got back from the movie, Rita and I decided that it was wine time. This set us off on a slew of questions:

Was the babysitter 21? The answer: yes.

Should we offer the babysitter a glass of wine? I mean, we’re Southern, so it feels rude not to ask, but she is the babysitter and has to drive. We went with “no” on that one.

Is the babysitter going to judge us for drinking at five? Does she think we’re the lush friends of our suburban mom friend? The answer to that one is probably a sad yes.

I could have sworn that yesterday I was babysitting to supplement my income (and due to the Great Recession, “yesterday” is probably closer than you’d think), and suddenly I was on the other side of the babysitter scenario. I do not know when this happened. (In my head, I’m 17. Seriously. I just wish my face would stop giving me away.)

In The Event Of The End Of The World

I realize that some people think the world might end tomorrow. I’m not actually one of those people, and honestly, I don’t even know what the theory is based on, but I do pay attention to the four stories that pop up on my Yahoo! home page, and May 21 has been getting a lot of attention lately.

I mean, if the world is going to end, it’s not like there’s a lot I can do about it. (Not that this is an excuse to stop recycling or pursuing green initiatives in case there are still any conservatives left in my blog audience.) As I was discussing with a friend over the weekend, I think most generations would almost like to think that the end of the world would come within their lifetimes. It’s a good way to put off the unnerving truth/realization that, most likely, life will go on without us, for generations and generations, and possibly even eons. An ongoing world means we’re all a little more forgettable, and no one wants to be forgettable. (Sorry to get a little dark there.)

I also know some people are freaked out by the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Anxiety disorder and all, I think this is one of the least upsetting signs of a possible impending apocalypse. Let’s be real. For a group of people that went out around 1450, I think it’s pretty impressive they even bothered taking the calendar to 2012. How far out front are you supposed to get with those? I doubt anyone is working on day planners with New Yorker cartoons in them for 2415 right now, and I hardly take it as a sign that the world will end whenever the people down at the warehouse decide to stop making kitten calendars. 

However, since we never know what can happen, I might need to get a few things off my chest before tomorrow – just in case.

Truth And Fiction

Sorry for the short post today. Other than the big news coming about my Bissell SpotBot, it's been a less-than-creative week.

When I was working on my Master’s degree, I signed up for a fiction workshop one semester. Actually, I am no good at making things up. It’s the very reason I write creative nonfiction.

I cannot lie, I cannot cover for anyone and if you want to commit or have committed a crime, do not tell me about it.

Naturally, all of my fiction was based on my life, which is why it was so incredibly upsetting to go through a workshop and have the primary comment be, “This premise just isn’t believable. Something like this would never happen.”

(In case you’re wondering, the story in question was about a married couple with squatters in their back yard. At the time, my great aunt and uncle were trying to deal with some vagrants that had taken up behind their house – in Southside.)

So, whether or not anyone believes me when I write essay and memoir, at least I’ve gone ahead and called it truth to try and avoid that particular criticism.

For God’s sake, I have an anxiety disorder and occasionally still suffer from night terrors, and I was born on Elm Street.

The only time I almost got in a bar fight I was at a place called "The Trailer Park."

And, as I’ve said so many times before, I’ll never write a joke as good as this: My senior year of college, I took “Social Inequality” with Ivanka Trump.

She defended Reagan-omics, shock of shocks.

Sister Wives '70s Style

Today, I am grateful for two things:

1. I am not Daryl Hannah or Peter Gallagher, so I don’t have the movie Summer Lovers on my resume or imdb profile.

2. I did not come of age in the ‘70s or early ‘80s, so the subconscious soundtrack to my youth does not feature music from this time frame. (As always, Dan Folgerberg, you are excluded from any and all criticism.)

I was going to put that I was just glad that I didn’t come of age in the ‘70s until I learned that Summer Lovers was actually made in 1982. Based on the quality of the film, I did not see that one coming. (It also messed with my title, but I left it anyway.)

For those who haven’t had the opportunity to see it, and I wouldn’t recommend that, Summer Lovers is the tale of a couple abroad that learns to expand their horizons and defy convention, or some kind of early ‘80s new age crap of a similar vein. I just think of it as Sister Wives 1.0.

Why did I watch this movie? Because occasionally Netflix live-streaming and I have an unhealthy relationship, and after awhile, Summer Lovers is too much of a train wreck to look away from.

In the movie, Michael (Peter Gallagher) and Cathy (Daryl Hannah) go to Greece the summer after they graduate college, and inspired by the lack of inhibitions around them, strike out on a new path that involves living together with a French woman named Lina.

A Sunday School Drop-Out Spared

My parents tend to worry – a lot. Kidnapping, hostage-taking, teen pregnancy, drugs, drunk driving – you name a problem; my parents have considered how to keep it from happening to their kids.

There’s only one thing my parents never worried about when it came to me and that had to do with joining a cult. Their theory? “You had so much trouble with conventional religion; we never really figured you’d fall for some extreme splinter group.”

I guess there’s at least one plus to raising a natural skeptic.

My parents both taught Sunday school when I was growing up. My father taught kindergarten, and my mother usually taught sixth grade.

Through what I will claim is no fault of my own, I tended to be a troublemaker in Sunday school class. It’s not that I ever meant to get in trouble; I just like to ask a lot of questions. (Outside of Sunday school, my mother and I spent many hours in the library researching my various topics of interest from why ostriches liked to stick their heads in the sand, how an egg develops and the growth of asparagus.)  Curiosity, neurotic-ism or annoyance? You decide.

The Beach, Perfection And Big Wheels

This past weekend I went to the beach, and I was reminded how important it was for me when I was little to create a “perfect” last day vacation memory. Basically, if we were leaving the beach the next morning, I thought that the last time I stepped off the beach the day before needed to be postcard-worthy ideal. (Can we say obsessive much? This is even before that obligatory age when you have to read Our Town, after which I tried desperately to notice life in the moment. I found it exhausting and only made it about two weeks.)

In particular, I remember a time that we were staying at one of those condo units where you had to use a raised bridge to safely cross the street from the beach to your hotel.

On our last day of the trip, I walked up the center of the stairs at sunset (because no perfect memory happens without symmetry or when you’re too close to the hand rail), turned around to face the ocean, took in a deep breath of sea air, and then turned to walk down the center of the bridge – without looking back – towards our condo.

At the time, I thought, “This is a perfect moment.”