I started my first day of my screenwriting class at UCLA (online), which I'm very excited about. Each week I have around 60 pages of reading and two hours of lectures, plus 4 movies to watch a week. Easy! So far I'm loving the content, the syllabus looks great, and I'm just so thrilled to be learning again.
The first lesson's required viewing is Back to the Future and Star Wars. I've seen Star Wars, but since my family doesn't have cable I never got to take advantage of the endless reruns and marathons for Back to the Future, so tonight was my first time watching.
It's always exciting when you know where pop culture references come from, and you've seen the clips, but then you finally get to experience them in context and it's like all the pieces of a puzzle came together from a million different conversations I've had over the years.
Stay tuned for more updates on the class as I continue to expand my pop culture knowledge, and be sure to offer your own suggestions on what I should be watching (with best-written movies in mind). I'll be using letterboxd to keep track of everything I watch. And if anyone is interested in watching with me, let me know!
“In college, 29 had seemed impossibly old. By now, she'd thought she'd be married and have kids. But as each year went by, she didn't feel much different than she had before. Time kept going by and she was just here, the same.”
“It made them restless and irritable while they waited for something to start. They all knew they ought to feel different in their new lives, but they felt the same and it put them on edge. Hot and impatient, they fidgeted in the heat, grumbling and asking each other, “What next? What next?”
It has now been just over 6 months since I moved to Youngstown all by myself to cross off one of my bucket list items: live alone. Since then, I've rounded up some of my observations on just how I've been pulling this off, the struggles I've faced, and the habits I've acquired: 1 week- The amount of time it took before I stopped shutting the bathroom door all together. Why bother? As a bonus, in the winter the steam from my shower usually heated up the apartment pretty well.
1 month- The amount of time it took before I was willing to put a shower curtain up that wasn't see-through. I still occasionally check to make sure no one is hiding in my shower, but so far there's been no issue.
Conversation?- I tried talking to the pet plant, and that didn't work for me. I tend to only talk to myself only when I'm trying to remember something. So most of the time, that meant (unless someone called me) I would go from 5pm-8am every day just not speaking. It got weird. Now I've started to be more of a Marshall and tend to sing everything I do.
The lack of conversation sometimes makes me feel desperate, and when something exciting happens in my life it's like I go through a roll-a-dex of who I could call that would care. There have been very lonely times when I realize that I really don't have a go-to person for a lot of the types of conversations I miss, but I can pretty much always count on my Aunt Joanna to send me emails, and that helps a lot.
And the Loneliness?I don't mind it as much as I mind the weird effects that follow. Like having inside jokes with yourself (Ex: "Thin Mint Ice Cream is Back!" sign, to which I always respond "Where did thin mint go? It's the most generic flavor ever.") but you forget that no one else knows them. The same also goes for using people as a way to remember certain events-- "Did we go see Pitch Perfect 2 together? Who was that?" oh, that's right. You saw it by yourself.
What Do I Love? I love going to bed early and having no one's schedule to work around. I love watching only the TV shows I want to watch. I love using breath right nasal strips, or face masks, and having no one see me. I love having my own space that I'm responsible for, and cleaning it to my standards (and knowing that it can only be my fault if it gets dirty again). I love getting magazines addressed to me at my apartment. I love burning smelly weird candles. I love spontaneously deciding to foster a family of cats without asking anyone's permission. I love eating weird meals at weird times of the day.
So, would I want this permanently? No. I think, in reality, a good roommate would be a better situation (but New Girl and HIMYM has spoiled me with its fictional friendships). But I'm glad I'm doing this now, and learning what I do and don't like, and making my space all my own while I figure out this crazy life.
I love both of these women, and their positive energy, but more than that I love that KBell is raw and emotional and honest and unembarrassed of that. If this were me with a manatee, I would completely have the same reaction.
I believe in embracing your honest and overwhelming feelings. Especially the happy ones.
It seems like once I shake off one illness, another one creeps right back! I had to miss work two weeks ago from food poisoning, and I've missed at least 3 other days since I started 6 months ago. I don't know what's "normal" for sick days-- my company's policy is that you should just not come in when you're sick-- but I would almost feel better knowing how much is too much.
Purely from the motivation of wanting to feel better, it feels like it's been too much.
I usually struggle during the first year of anything, when I think back to it (freshman year of college was especially rough) but I've never been in a position where I put extra stress on myself feeling guilty about being sick. If I missed a class in college, I was wasting my own money. Missing a half day of work is wasting someone else's.
So it's been a desperate scramble these past few days. The best part of living alone is that I can come home, shower, and immediately throw on a breath-right strip and gargle away. My apartment is a disaster of laundry and dishes and tissues, and no one has to put up with that. But now I'm out of juice, and it would be nice not to have to make my own dinner.
More importantly-- where can I find a down-on-her-luck prostitute that will brush and dry my hair? It is my least favorite thing to do. I don't know what the going rate is for Youngstown ladies of the night, but if someone was looking for some honest cash I would pay good money for someone to bring me a blanket and pat me on the head. I might just be looking for a personal care aide, but that seems extreme.
Anyways, trying to follow in the infinite wisdom of Barney Stinson:
1. Under the Skin - Michel Faber
Just finished this-- a good quick read, but really bizarre. Not Sci Fi, not horror-- not quite sure what to compare it to. It deals with compassion and empathy and power all while mirroring our own farming industry. I wouldn't say it turned me into a vegetarian, but it is an interesting examination in how we define our moral codes.
"Shared suffering, she’d found, was no guarantee of intimacy.”
2. Girls in White Dresses - Jennifer Close
Started this yesterday, and it seems like I should blow through it pretty quickly. It deals with the struggles of finding your identity after graduating when everyone around you seems like they have their adult lives figured out, so it's pretty fitting for my mood as of late.
3. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
Hoping to finally start a Southern Grotesque book club, and I think this is probably the first we should tackle.
4. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
What should #5 be? Something young adult, maybe? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was on my list, as was If I Stay. I'm embarrassed to admit that I will be reading Grey when it comes out on the 18th, but surely it doesn't count as my 5 in June.
“We must live in the radiance of tomorrow, as our ancestors have suggested in their tales. For what is yet to come tomorrow has possibilities, and we must think of it, the simplest glimpse of that possibility of goodness. That will be our strength. That has always been our strength.”
