Good Movies

Sometimes green lights align in this beautiful way so you can go for miles and never completely brake.  Sometimes, they align so beautifully that you never really have to slow down, and sometimes, in rare strokes of brilliance, the green lights just keep coming so that the occasional lessening of the gas pedal, as one may do in normal traffic, is all one needs to meet the lights in just the right way.

I think it takes years of practiced driving to find these moments, for indeed, these moments require an understanding of timing, acceleration, and good fortune.  All of which come best with time.

I want to learn to drive stick for the metaphors.

"You've got to learn to let go of the clutch," or, "feel the gears fall into place, don't push them so hard," sound like they could have profound meaning in my life, but they don't because I can't drive stick.  Alack!

Tonight, I saw an amazing movie.  I also went to the gym, so the endorphins could have had something to do with the fantastic experience.  I have learned to accept that chic flicks are going to cater to my romantic streak, that they are going to spoonfeed me something ridiculous, and that while quirky, none of the heroines are going to regularly fuss themselves up nearly as badly as I do.  Well.  Tonight, I spent $10.25 on "Morning Glory," with Rachel McAdams, and my goodness, those things didn't happen.  It didn't quite dash my expectations, but it broke them a bit in key places.  I laughed for real.  I was genuinely curious about the status of the relationship when they brought the plot back around to it.  The older male 'papa' figure(s) were convincing and kind but not cliched too badly.  The script was actually well written... it had, at the very least, far fewer adverbs than I've used here.  It was really a movie about the inner vs. outer workings of the main character, which was refreshing.  I like movies about women that are actually about the women, not about the women falling apart over a man.

Not that I'm opposed to falling apart for a man, I just don't think that every aspect of entertainment for women (from TV to books to movies and back again) should necessarily center around it.  It gives the impression that that's all we ever think about, which is only a little bit true for some of us.  So there.

There weren't many people in the audience, so we were all a little liberal with the laughing and the shrieking and the gasping (mostly in the appropriate places, too).  I think I'm probably a TERRIBLE person to go to the movies with.  At the end, my friend and I walked back to our cars.  It was a beautiful night.

The weather in Texas continues to impress me: today, standing outside my gym (which has free valet parking when it's raining, mind you, because Houston stops dead/forgets how to drive when it rains), I realized that this soft November rain looks like snow under the streetlights.  Rain, though, is significantly less comfortable than snow: it's wetter, it's warmer and therefore colder, ultimately, because it asks you not to dress properly for it, and then it makes you cold from the bottoms of your pants all the way up.  But then it stops.  And it's perfect: warm but not steamy, quiet, clean.  This was my night, tonight, as if I were you:

You're walking out of the movie that was SO GOOD you're oozing clouds out your fingertips, the donkey sitting on your chest has gotten up and left, and then you look outside and can't see a thing -- but the rain has definitely stopped, you can feel it.  So you walk across the street laughing over nothing with your friend, you get in the car and the music's just right, and it's green lights all the way home so you keep going; it's a red light at the freeway but it's a right hand turn, so hey, you can go; and then the song ends just as you catch sight of the exit a few blocks from home.  And your apartment doesn't smell like trash, even though you forgot to take it out this morning.  And in the mailbox is a postcard.  And last night you got all caught up on sleep, and the two nights before you were camping, so all is right with the world.  And it's not that life is perfect and you're exuberant and there's not a thing to complain about, but right now, in this moment, your optimism fills the glass.  I

like positivity which fills things.  I think that looking at things can change them.  I think that looking kindly makes things better.  And I think that a commitment to being happy can't be taken lightly, but it's actually a really light thing to carry around.

The problem with Houston is that it doesn't have curvy country roads, and I would like more pairs of nice work pants.

This is a high that does not last, as I know, for it was broken before I could even finish this post.  Life marches on, with all the sadnesses and broken spells which come with that.  But underneath are beautiful nights, real movies, good postcards, and a peacefulness that can no longer be broken by the little things which used to torment it.  It used to be that on a night like this, if some unfortunate force of negativity were to rumble in over the sweet evening I just had, I'd want to toss the evening out as a muckup.  Well.  I'm still breathing nice and deep, so take that and eat it, misfortune.  This is why I would not turn the clock back.  Right here.  I am actually not as ecstatic about everything as I was a few years ago -- but I still feed off enthusiasm and I am a basically happy person.  I just freak out a bit less often.

I do not think that my ability to be extremely happy has gone away.  I think that my tendency to live in extremes is fading.  That just means, I think, that when I'm happy, I jump really high, but then, coming back, there's a nice fat plushy mattress where I've been trying to cultivate the center.  Like right now.  An hour ago, I was up in the stars.  Now, I'm down in a mattress.  But I'm not in the deepest chasms of hell, which is where I might have imagined myself a few years ago, had my balloon been popped in quite this way.

I like optimism which fills the glass.

This did not end as the post I started.  Well.  Interesting.  Go see "Morning Glory."