Sandy ego

I spent this last week in San Diego with my friend Tommy. I had been promising for the past 7 years that I would visit him...and finally, it happened.

Little background on Tommy..

We were really good friends around the 98-99 session. When we first met, we were drinking buddies. If I remember correctly, the majority of the time was spent trying to get alcohol, drinking alcohol, and getting as trashed as possible. This was the year of the house party, partly because half of us were underage, and partially because none of us had the cash flow to hand over as cover charge.

One of my first memories of Tommy, we were sitting on Erica's (the resident hoe) couch, wasted as can be. Someone was in the middle of telling a buzz-kill story about some parapalegic, when Tommy, who was quietly sitting next to me, turned his head and licked my arm. Not a porno lick, more like an ice cream cone lick. This sent me into hysterics of laughing and crying from laughing. After that, we were inextricably licked..
er.. I mean 'linked.'

Our friendship was somewhat curbed by a blonde harlot backstabby trashy fake tanned chubby upstate NewYorker who had a knack of scrwing up other people's lives. A little update on her.. she got knocked up at 20 and got married to some guy with the last name SIMONETTI.

I'm sure she and her husband are very happy owning their very own meatball sandwich stand on Jersey shore.

Back to Tommy.. he moved out to San Diego 7 years ago or so, went through a whole bunch of crazy, inclusive of the scary hot crazy bitch girlfriend who, of course, fucked him over. And smoked, snorted and ate as many drugs as possible.

Ahh, to be 20-something and reckless.. especially with a nice tan.

Tommy's great. He's one of the most pragmatic people I've ever met. He never makes a decision without turning over every possiblity in his head first. He figures things out. And unlike most people, he actually follows through.

I've been telling him for years that I'm unhappy in my station, and he's pretty much been waiting for me to get up and turn the dial. But he'll never tell me that. And I guess that's why I respect him so much.

Maybe

Is it always the breaking up part that hurts the most? I'm gonna venture a Carrie Bradshaw and say that when a relationship ends, the first thing that happens is a realization of potential lost.

Go through the reasons for why I stayed around...

- The best date of my life happened with him. We ate sushi, had drinks and saw the Hepburn version of Sabrina at an old theatre. There aren't many people that can stand seeing love on the screen in black and white. He was one that would have been up for a double feature.
-For the first time in my life I heard a man say to me, "Small steps." Which translated to me as "Let's take this slow. I know this is amazing and I don't want to fuck it up."
-There is always the one person in your life (I've heard) that is supposed to make you laugh and cry the hardest. He has had me in both kind of tears.
-He was the first guy I had dated that didn't think the AFL-CIO was an expansion league for football.
-He loves my cat, a little less than he loves his own

All of these potentials, wrapped up nicely with a big fat bow sat before me, as I nodded away the disallusionments..

but I won't trouble you with those...
maybe later.

It all comes down to one simple truth that has nothing to do with the lack of availability, communication or even foresight.
You can plan and plan, and have state of the union conversations on how to improve your relationship.
You can fight the inertia.

But you can't make someone love you.

He didn't love me.
Yes, maybe it wasn't the right time.
Maybe he is going through too much to deal with it.
But it's still there, dead as silence..
He didn't love me.

And what is the point in fighting for someone that is inevitably going to break your heart?
To make sure, I guess. To feel alive.
There is a moment at the beginning of a relationship where it is mad, passionate and extraordinary... and people have told me that relationships are meant to settle down.. the drive goes away, that the excitement is in the chase and once you've arrived at couple nation, you take the solemn oathe to settle.

One thing that I realize about myself? It's never me who suggests the slowing down. It's never me who gives into inertia. The only thing I have ever done whole heartedly in my life is love someone. I'm good at it.
It might be the only thing I acknowledge that I am good at.
And at some point maybe I'll start to figure out why this scares them. At some point I'll figure out why it's easier for them to fuck up than to fix things. And finally, at some point I'd like to know why it takes me six months to figure out that this is what makes me better than them.

At some point, maybe mad, passionate and extraordinary will become more than a distant memory.

maybe.

I have a confession...

I'm about to say something that will forever mame me in uppity film circles around the world.

I HATED 'BEING JOHN MALKOVICH.'

Man, for me that was equivalent to being a first timer at an AA meeting.

"My name is Sujata, and I can't stand Charlie Kaufman movies."

Don't get me wrong... great premise. Great, great cast.
As the Youth from Auschwitz said "Quite a movie. Weird and idiotic sense of humour! But does make one think."

Yes, yes, young Petr, it does make one think. It makes one think about the time when weirdness was not a theme in mainstream movies. I remember back in the day when movie critics would stick to their trade..
Forrest Gump, two enthusiastic thumbs up!!
Terminator 2, double the energy! double the fun!

What killed it for me? People. More importantly, psuedo-intellectual privileged asshole college students who decided it was their mission to usher in the 'new' direction of filmmaking..

Where weird became interesting, unmotivated characters became a commentary on the mediocrity of today's American youth, and ugly became misunderstood or sometimes, genius.

I liked being weird, unmotivated and ugly... now I'm classified as an interesting, misunderstood genius who has issues with defining herself within the confines of her own generation.

Kaufman.. you told on us.. we used to be able to be geeky and tragic in the privacy of our own homes.. now it's..

Mainstream.

Ugh.

it's not limited to Kaufman though..

without this constituent, Owen Wilson would have never been 'good-looking.' He would have remained the ugly brother of Luke Wilson with the shmank shnoz.

And it's not like Luke Wilson is friggin' Adonis.
Okay, I admit it. I liked the Tenenbaums. I liked Rushmore.
Wes Anderson movies will make me laugh... but it's not the writing, it's the absurdity of the language.. it's not the acting, it's the lack of consistent timing/beats, it's not the outfits..well, no..it is the outfits..kudos kids.

But I stand by my initial assessment.

I won't even start on Paul Thomas Anderson.. did anyone like Punchdrunk Love? oooh, Adam Sandler!! He's sooo dreamy!

Please.

For those filmmakers of future generations who have posters of the original release of Bottlerocket and have sad dogeared copies of the Magnolia script, I beg of you to stop your worship of these so-called "pinnacle" films of your generation.. don't warp your ideas of great filmmaking on a trend of the strange.. remember.. there will always be cool kids, and there will always be the pee-ons.. Stories are always better when the pee-ons get back at the cool kids..
When the pee-ons become the cool kids.. you kill the us and them construct..you kill the underdog component... you kill all the geeky kids in the world that were fine with being the geeky kids in the world.

For my sake and for the sake of future pee-ons, geeks and losers.. stop making us mainstream.. and Kaufman..stop being such a goddamn genius, and go back to being ugly... we'll still love you.