Between working, I've been making trips out to my parents, doing a bit of cooking and watching TV. Any Ad/PR scholar will tell you, the wonderful creatives that make up the driving force of Ad/PR are in tune with the latest movies, music and are real social butterflies, so is it any wonder that I watch movies a lot?
Today, I'm sitting in my clean living room watching My Life In Ruins after a day spent working, cleaning up PR gaffes and working on a branding book. The music in the film is great, but the one thing I keep rolling my eyes at is the fact that there just seems to be an unending supply of kissing scenes in the movies I tune into. Yesterday, as I had The Princess Bride playing in the background, I heard little Fred Savage say, "They're kissing again. Do we have to read the kissing parts?" I'm feeling the same way right now.
It's been two years already, I want the kissing parts in the movie that is my life to get going already. I'm impatient. Every time a kissing scene comes on in a movie, I switch channels because I just can't take it anymore. What's worse is that watching My Life In Ruins matches my love of the classical world and my whole hangup on romance. I just keep facepalming over it.
That's the thing, I can cover my face with my hand all I'd like, but I'm not getting any younger. Waiting for any period of time for anyone at this point is making me flat out nutty, but I balance my nuttiness with the fact that maybe being patient and not indulging my addict brain and keeping it focused is good for me right now. Like Doc Cat told me, the naturally occurring (produced by the body) chemicals that accompany infatuation are pretty heady stuff. Every time I feel a rush of those chemicals, guess what, it's the same as having a relapse and I get addicted to the sensations that go with it, so much so that I totally get derailed and out of focus. My addict brain takes over and it's one giant moment of landing on my face. So, this begs the question, how am I going to handle this when I ever do go out on a date? Lordy, I can just see it now, all of those whacked out, painful moments we can't stand to watch on the screen are going to happen to me.
One of my favorite movies on right now is Couples Retreat. That movie is friggin' hysterical. Ok, eye candy moment...the yoga guy. "Encouragement!" "Yes!" Personally, I don't think I could date a guy like that. Great eye candy, heavens yes, but come on, "cheesy" is more the apt description. Love the long hair, but you know the more I think about all of those really super hot guys with the chiseled bodies, the more it makes me go "No." Why? Oh, that's easy, because simply most guys that look like that have the IQ of a dead flashlight battery. Case in point, my friend Mandy who worked with the Chippendales. You remember this story, right? She goes around to all of these gorgeous guys to collect information about their backgrounds and what does she find out? They have all the depth of a shot glass. I'm sorry, but any guy who spends that much time in the gym probably knows as much about the classical world as the sole on my cherry red Doc Martens do and I rarely wear them.
But back to My Life In Ruins, the whole movie is set in Greece (what else do we expect from Nia Vardalos?) All throughout the movie we're shown ruins all around Greece and all I keep thinking about is how much fun it would be to take a month and go over there, see Greece then go over to Italy to commune with Marcus Aurelius. Personally, I'd love to go to Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (also known as Hadrian's Mausoleum) to visit where his ashes are stored. Here, for a movie reference to Castel Sant'Angelo, remember the film "Angels and Demons," taken from the book of the same name by Dan Brown? Well the scene at the end where they figure out where they were holding all of the kidnapped cardinals was Castel Sant'Angelo. There ya go, now go rent the movie and you can see it for yourself. From what I've read, Marcus' ashes are housed deep in the structure in a room known as The Treasury.
Speaking of Marcus, I was in The Emperor's Handbook today browsing around book ten, and I found this:
# 33 - "What is the very best you can say or do with the material you have to work with? Whatever that is, you can say or do it. Make no excuse by claiming something prevents you.
You will never stop bemoaning your fate until it becomes as natural for you to follow the law of your being - in whatever material conditions you find yourself - as it is for a hedonist to go after pleasure. Indeed, every opportunity to speak or act according to the law of your being should give you pleasure, and that opportunity exists everywhere.
A cylinder is not free to roll at will, nor is fire or water or anything else that is governed by the nature peculiar to souls without reason. Many hindrances and obstacles stand in their way. Intelligence and reason, on the other hand, possess both the nature and the will to surmount obstacles in their path. See how reason overcomes whatever hinders it with the ease of fire rising, a stone dropping, or a cylinder rolling down a slope. Look no farther than this.
The remaining obstacles either act upon the body, an inanimate object, or they are powerless to defeat or do harm unless the mind yield to a false impression or surrender its own reason. Were this not so, these obstacles would have the effect of making a man bad. We observe the proof of this in nature. Whenever anything is hindered, its condition deteriorates and becomes worse, whereas a man actually becomes better and more praiseworthy when he overcomes what hinders him through the use of reason.
In summary, remember that whatever does not hurt the man who is by nature a citizen does not hurt the City, nor is the City hurt by what does not hurt the law. Now, not one of all the things a man is apt to call bad luck hurts the law; therefore, bad luck cannot hurt the City or the citizen either."
See why I love Marcus so much? He's a dyed-in-the-wool politician, but look at what he does. He asks why we're not doing the most with what we're given. He's hollering at the top of his lungs saying, "It's up to you! You can do it!" When I read him, I hear my imaginary Marcus saying, "You go girl...you can do it."
When I bounce through potholes, I run to my pal Marcus and flip to a page. See what a great guy can do for you when you're down? Well, ok, Marcus has been dead for the last 1,831 years (he died in 180 A.D.), but still, if he was alive today, I'd be begging to go have a long conversation with the man. Great, what would be the world's most perfect boyfriend for me is basically dust in an urn. Life is so not fair, and then I have the audacity to wonder why all the kissing scenes in movies are making me nuts.
But at least I'm bouncing back with a healthy attitude. I'm doing exactly what Marcus says to do, look at myself in the mirror and challenge myself to be as much as I can be with what gifts I have and overcoming whatever hinders me by using my head. See why I'm so fixated on trying to fix my broken brain?
Ah, but that's today. I cheered up with a great hamburger grilled to perfection by my father, spending time with my parents and getting to see Nan and Carl. Now, I'm curled up with a Mike's Hard Pink Lemonade (yum) and listening to iTunes playing, "Walk With Me" by Seven and the Sun, obeying my nature and doing what is in my nature to do: write, dream, cope and laugh.
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