Sideways

Watched the movie Sideways last night, one of those movies that I have seen countless times and would watch again and again and again given the opportunity. I love it. I’d say it falls into the category of perfect movie. If there is a flaw in it I have not found it…yet.

For those who don’t know this movie it is about two buddies, Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church), who go away for a week to California wine country in order to celebrate before Jack gets married. Miles is a divorced suffering writer — and boy does  he suffer. While Jack is a carefree actor who is the epitome of the power of positive thinking. He’s also a playboy hell bent on getting laid during this  his final week of bachelorhood. And he does, much to Mile’s chagrin.

I loved this movie when I first saw it, before I was divorced. I even read the book, which was descent, but I prefer the movie. However, now that I am divorced it appeals to me even more. I understand Mile’s suffering in ways that I don’t think I did before. How could I?

I’ve been thinking particularly about one part in the movie. It’s the part when Jack is going to ho0k up with the chubby waitress after Stephanie (Sandra Oh), the women he not only has sex with but decides that he might be in love with, discovers that he is getting married and bashes his nose in with her motorcycle helmet. Jack and Miles are standing there. Miles is lamenting to Jack, wanting to know why he has to hook up with this stranger after all that has happened, that is going to happen, i.e. his impending marriage. And Jack explains to Miles that he, Miles, does not understand his, Jack’s, plight. What is his plight exactly? He does not say. Only that there is a plight. Made me wonder if Jack’s optimism is merely a mask for a deeper angst, that he feels the need to sleep with strange women, in spite of the fact that he’s about to get married, to prove something, fill some void, to what? It strikes me as a jab at the whole phoniness of “staying positive” attitude, that there is something inherently shallow about. It is disingenuous, dismissive. And that Miles, the sullen, miserable man, is the more authentic human being, the more admirable one.

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Well, that’s that then…

… I guess.

So why do I feel as if there should be more, I don’t know, not fanfare, that’s not the right word, but more…something to mark this dismal occasion.

For one thing , it’s too bright and sunny outside to reflect my bleak  mood. My misery. Where is the rain? And the gray overcast sky? The chilly ill wind? Eh, who am I kidding, I know better — the world does not adjust itself to your moods. If it mirrors it it is simply a coincidence.

I think I’m done…

…studying for my first Environmental Science exam, even though I’ve got at least two more hours in which I could pour of my notes some more.

I used to do this in undergrad (grad school didn’t really have exams). I’d just reach a point and I’d stop; I couldn’t study any more. Well, I could have, I suppose, but I just felt full up and that anything more was just overflow. But maybe that was justme being lazy,  a slacker. Still, I didn’t do half bad in college — community college, undergrad and grad school. So…

In any case, I can’t help wondering what difference it will make. Good grade, bad grade. What am I doing anyway? Aren’t there more productive/constructive ways I could be spending my time? Is this just a distraction? From what? And why?

I guess I just got kind of worked up about the idea of Environmental Science, but as always the reality set it. And as we all know Reality Bites, right. I know because I’m watching it on cable…again. This was a profound movie for me when it came out. Just as Generation X by Coupland was a profound book for me and Smells Like Teen Spirit was a profound album for me.

I still like the movie. But I guess I just woke up one day and realized that I wasn’t Troy. Oh, sure, I might be a slacker extraordinaire but I’m not as smart as the character is supposed to be. And I never was. I may have thought I was for like a blink but …

Anyhoo…it’s been kind of existential (if that is the proper term) day. Can you tell?

Mission Impossible

I’m beginning to thank that perhaps I can’t blog about this whole separating thing. Maybe it’s too new still, to raw. After all it’s only been about 3 months. Ugh!

Maybe it’s too new, I’m too raw. I don’t want to lament and complain, whine and bitch, but too often it seems as if that is all I have in me.

I’m too tired. And despite being exhausted I can barely manage to sleep 4-5 hrs a night, if I’m lucky.

And whoa to the poor soul that gets me talking about it, because once I get going I simply cannot shut up. I try, but I can’t. Was up yakking until 2am  last night on the phone with someone, and I could have gone on longer, much longer.

No matter how much I talk, no matter what “conclusions” I come to it doesn’t really help. In the end, that tight, knot of angst is there in my chest, like a fucking clencheed fist.

It’s this feeling of abandoment that’s the worst. Like a free-fall through my emotions.

You know what makes me think of? When I was kid, shopping in K-Mart with my mom. I’d wander away in the toy section,  pull some toy off the shelf and sit down and start playing only to look up after who knows how long to realize that Mom is gone. Where is she? Where’d she go? I fill with dread, as if someone was pouring into me from the top of my peeled open head. I get up to look for but can’t find her. Panic and sweat. I begin running moving through the store. ….

Of course, I found my mom. She wasn’t that far off, it didn’t take me long to find her but it felt like an enternity. And from then I’d suffer nightmares and even sudden waking dreams of finding myself suddenly and utterly alone.

What do you make of the Sigmund?

Ugh!