Camping

No movies this weekend. Instead we enjoyed an enormous bonfire and later slept in a tent with walls billowing in cold May wind. Rising early, we rode our bikes through sand, wiped out gleefully, climbed dunes, waded and skipped stones in the surf, paddled kayaks, spent days wet and sunburned and sandy and nights exhausted, tucked deep inside sleeping bags, reading by candlelight.

The Crying Game

Number one on my movie list for the weekend will be... The Crying Game.

Unfinished Heart

I shouldn't be allowed to read. Progressing to page 116 of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, it has begun to sink in with some clarity that I am a weak human being, a pathetic character with few redeeming characteristics. Probably my best quality is my tendency to isolate myself, thereby sparing society the embarrassment of my presence. My thought processes are too close to Chip's for comfort.

"I'm saying the structure of the entire culture is flawed," Chip said. "I'm saying the bureaucracy has arrogated the right to define dertain states of mind as 'diseased.' A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that's free, which means the person has to spend even more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental 'health' is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you're buying into buying. And I'm saying that I personally am losing the battle with a commercialized, medicalized, totalitarian modernity right this instant." (The Corrections)

In the real world I drove across the state to see Dolly yesterday, and after signing her out of the retirement home, swept her away for a couple of hours. ("Are you sure it's ok if I leave?" "Did you tell them I was leaving?")

We ate at a riverfront restaurant where everyone looked "familiar" to Dolly, as usual. "The people at that table over there look familiar," she said. "You always think people look familiar. You don't know them, Dolly," I reply. And let's face it, everyone in the midwest looks pasty and overweight. Later, as they were leaving the restaurant, the "familiar" people stopped to say "hello" to Dolly. It turns out they are old friends.

"That girl has a big butt and tight pants," said Dolly, observant as ever. I watch her study the faces at the surrounding tables. "Do you call Georgia and Willa," I ask? Dolly assures me that she doesn't call either of my sisters, but to make sure, I quickly quiz her. "What is Willa's speed-dial number? "I don't know!" exclaims Dolly. "What's Georgia's," I demand. "I don't know." Satisfied, I smile at her across the table.

"You're so pretty," Dolly says. "I think about you all the time."

Fast-Approaching Global Devastation and Total Chaos

AJ seems to have had some sort of epiphany resulting from an Arctic Monkeys concert which totally changed her life. The magical night also produced a hangover that took a full two days from which to recuperate. I too need an epiphany, so I bought myself a fifth of Ketel 1 and a six pack of beer. Now I have a headache. It must be the weather, which if you follow the headlines, may be causing fast-approaching global devastation and total chaos.

Lately I tend to blame all the earth's ills on over-population. Sometimes I long for a world less populated. Don't you? We are big animals, like this gorilla, running amok over the earth. And when I see the Expedition Bhutan advertisement on the Discovery Channel, it makes me crazy. "No one has seen this sixteen miles of the river before." Who are they, Christopher-fucking-Columbus? Kiss Bhutan goodbye. Here come the gorillas to stomp your country into empty Western conformity.

Bhutan, to me, always represented the last holdout, the one place that wouldn't compromise itself, that declared the whole country a wildlife refuge, where "...the King said that "Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product."

What are you doing, Bhutan?!

Well, I'm gonna go ride my new mountain bike. "You can't be sad when you're riding a bike," I've heard.

It's All Right

Like I said, my father was cast in the mold of John Wayne, and my mother was a person who put my father first in all situations. What John Wayne thought, Dolly thought. She believed in "love", the kind where you were "swept off your feet" by a knight in shining armour to wait on John Wayne happily-ever-after.

But now Dolly has Altzheimer's Disease, and John Wayne is hardly given a thought, lost in the everyday activities of the retirement center, which consist mainly of moving furniture around with another resident and looking at squirrels. But even more alarming for her youngest daughter, Dolly has also forgotten me!

This became clear a few days ago when Georgia called. "Guess where I am?! In Dolly's room!" Surprised that Georgia had come all the way from Oregon without telling me, she proceeded to explain how busy she's been because two of her employees quit and she's been working 14-hour days. Here's more of the conversation:

Georgia: "I didn't even tell Willa I was coming that long ago!"
MJ: (She told Willa she was coming?)
Georgia: "I should have told you I was coming!"
MJ: "That's OK. "
Georgia: "No it isn't."
MJ: "How do you think Dolly is?"
Georgia: "I think Dolly's short term memory is better! She calls me and tells me what she has been doing!"

MJ: "Dolly calls you in Oregon and tells you what she did that day?"

Georgia: "Yes! Doesn't she call you?"

MJ: "No. She has never called me. Not once."

Georgia: "Oh!"

Later, I tried to sort out the issues, the pain, and my response. "That's OK?" That's all I could say? Fuckin-A!

It's not OK, Georgia. It's not OK that you didn't tell me you were coming. I could have taken a day off to be with you. It's not OK that you told Willa you were coming and not me. And it's not OK that Dolly has forgotten me.

My family seems to have misplaced me. In all the chaos, I have disappeared.

Solitary Man II

In an attempt to get out of my weekend rut, yesterday I avoided the microbrewery and went directly home to movies influenced by Jonathan Lethem, violence, solitary men and dystopian dreams:

1. The Searchers. I'm sure my father based his identity on John Wayne's portrayals of men in isolation. Wayne's role in The Searchers is "...the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western--the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West." -Jeff Shannon



My identity (and the identity of all women in the US) has been indirectly shaped by these portrayals of "real" men. I'm still working my way through the great commentary by Peter Bogdanovich.

2. The Warriors. All of the gangs in NYC come together under a temporary truce for a meeting in the Bronx. After the gathering goes bad, The Warriors make their way south through the streets and subways of the city, facing rival gangs along the way to get back to their turf, the shores of Coney Island.

Hilarious gang apparel (a gang dressed as mimes?) make for some memorable movie-watching, and I love the New York City stage.

3. V for Vendetta. A man in a mask who blows stuff up because of deeply-held political belief and a painful past and who recites Shakespeare? "Real" women who are highly conflicted have gotta want that. (This seems dangerously close to The Phantom for comfort, however.)

4. & 5. Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Cars. Motorcycles. Recklessness. Fearlessness. Lunacy. Cruelty. Gasoline shortages. Real Americana.

"Just one man can make a difference."