Zoom Zoom...And I'm Off

Hey guys. So I come to you overflowing and lost. So much I want to write about, but so little of it I actually know how to put into words. I'll begin with a short aside:

I saw the film "Precious" over the weekend. If you don't know the whole story, I'm not going to explain it all here, but it's basically about an undereducated black high school student who has great adversity in her home life. She eventually attends an alternative school, a school where troubled teens can work toward acing their GED exam. The most important thing their teacher, Ms. Rain, teaches them is this: Write. It's this singular phrase that she repeats throughout the film, with the same calm voice, even as Precious' world falls apart around her. "Write," Ms. Rain counsels. "Write." Despite Precious' pregnancy, her abusive mother, her contraction of HIV from rape, writing is the one way that she can control and filter life, which so often felt like it was one big rug being pulled from underneath her feet. Ms. Rain has a point.

Taking Ms. Rain's advice, I'll forgive myself that I don't actually know what exactly I want the topic of this entry to be, instead I'll just WRITE. (Although, I will say for sure the "Precious" is one of those movies that absolutely must be seen, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. It's because it's disturbing that it's important; see the world through greatly different, and much more troubled, eyes.)

So, anyway, lately I've been thinking about traveling, wanting to push off so badly it's like a physical need. I've been daydreaming of (almost) everywhere: I want to revisit Paris and Vienna and the Middle East and I want to venture for the first time to Japan and Kenya and Botswana and Senegal and Cameroon and Morocco and Australia and China and Moscow and Ireland (for some strange reason, I've never had the inclination to visit South America...hmm.) I'm longing to meet someone whose questions I can't answer because I don't understand their language. I want to have to act out my sentences with hand movements. I want to marvel at the subtle things that make one homesick: differences in light quality, how the sun sets there, the smells. In short, I want to get lost.

And I've been thinking: honest to God, who am I, anyway? How is it that I've come to accrue certain feelings when talking about certain topics, certain knee-jerk reactions to things my mother says, the way I laugh even? Aren't we all, in the end, merely a collection of habits? Habits, that, if examined, leave us bewildered as to where to go next--we don't know any other way to be. But how did it all begin anyway? People are always saying, "Well, you've got to start someplace," and that's true. But how do we find that sweet spot, anyway? How do we come to choose that someplace? It's mostly started by our parents, of course, and we're not really conscious of who we are until much later, but by then, so much is already in place. And did I even want any of it? Where does "me" really begin and predestination end? How is it that I have needs in my soul and don't actually understand where they originate from? Ach, to be a fish, free in the sea. Or Mae West.

Philosophy major much? Probably. Then maybe I'll find some satisfying answers to my incessant questions. Although, I do risk just treating myself to more and more questions and then POP. I'll self-combust. Hah.

On Vogue: I was flipping through an old October issue this evening and finally got fashion, which has long eluded me. It's meant to be art (right, duh, it is art.) No, but it's more than just being art; you have to view it like you would any other canvas as well. Appreciating the aesthetics, questioning the symbolism. Haute Couture is just another way of experimenting with visual manifestations of the introversions of ourselves (although, it's a bit more exciting than an art museum--that's partly the point, too.) Fashion is art. Got it.

Ooh! Meant to mention: if you're looking for a great read, check out "The Giant's House" by Elizabeth McCracken. It's about a spinster librarian (I don't actually know any real life librarians who are spinsters, just sayin',) who falls deeply in love with a real life giant--a boy who grows to be 8 foot 4 inches. It's a remarkable novel, not what you'd expect. Less about the love between them as the mental snapshots we take in the day-to-day and a truthful commentary as to the way people are and why they are that way. It might be one of the saddest books you'll read.

G'niiiiight. Gonna watch "Dead Like Me," that oddly touching show with the similarly oddly beautiful Ellen Muth. Seriously. Google her. You'll be puzzled and pleased simultaneously. She's that kind of pretty.