May
2012

Seriously check this out. Best drugstore product ever: Color Tattoo

May
2012

They're undead... but I think maybe there's something beautiful about it. Maybe one day you wake up and you forget what it's like... to be human. Maybe then it's okay.

I read Mystic River by Dennis Lehane a month ago. I had to see the film, to see what hacked up version of the book was going to be portrayed. Having the knowledge of reading the novel, I felt rushed through the first half the rest played out rather nicely.

There were so many great lines about alienation and vacant emotion delivered by Robbins, including the quote I used for this very post. This is the victim's story. You become someone else a shell of what you once were. Innocence is priceless, once you become aware you can never escape the responsibility so heavy on one's shoulders.

The movie doesn't tell or show those things. Instead it shows the torment on Robbin's face, the thought patterns that slowly unravel. I would rather a softer man for Sean Devine, since what I envisioned was more Mark Ruffalo than Kevin Bacon. The the rest of the male cast was exact. Dave Boyle, played by Tim Robbins was the very definition of what I imagined this damaged boy would be become. There was a soft permanent vacation in his eyes. The mannerisms of someone lost was purposeful. Clint Eastwood created a great visual to a novel I thoroughly enjoyed.

March
2012

I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I'm free. [The Fast & The Furious/2001]

I am many things, both good and bad. I am nerd with a true sense of curiousness that every page of Wikipedia has quenched. I am a rather plain girl, chubby even, with no sense of female direction, a plain Jane. I not saying any of this to lessen anything I think or feel about myself. I like me and everything that has gotten me to the me that I am today. I embrace all cheesy soundtracks and guilty pleasures that have become some of my favorite movies.

I admit and share all of this so that the next few statements will have some effect. My best friend is a car. She is a '99 Milano Red Honda Civic Si (USDM B16A2). She is cool, smart and swift. She corners turns like an Italian roadster and is about as sexy as a Porsche. Her name is Stella.

Over six months ago my friendship with her became non-existent for reasons beyond my control. It was immediate heartbreak. She sat on the lawn reminding me everyday of all my losses. Stella is coming back in two months. Stella is the cool kid who is going to make me cool again. She is going to make everything about the world seem right again. She is going to understand when I am furious. She is going to keep the secrets I willingly tell her. She is going to allow me to comfortably drive in the rain again. Can't wait.

Its never going to not hurt. Ever. Returning to St. Bernard is not like ripping the band-aid off, it is more like pulling stitches before the wound has properly healed. It opens up for infection. It bleeds. It hurts every time, no matter how big, no matter how small.
March
2012

The world we know is gone, but keeping our humanity? That's a choice.

So i have been big into Walking Dead. This is very odd considering I am the biggest scardy cat you can ever meet. I didn't follow it from the beginning. I did the New Year's Eve marathon and picked it up from there. The greatest thing about zombie story lines that I find intriquing, it is always about something else besides the message you are given. As my previous post was about Land of the Dead with Saint, he went on about the movie being about politics. I really wish I could recall that conversation! I feel that The Walking Dead is more about humanity than apocalypse survival. Of course, that's an easy one.

March
2012

Without disappointment you cannot appreciate victory. Gone in Sixty Seconds [2000]

I was talking about The Walking Dead episodes where both Shane and Dale die. I was in a group of people, some friends, discussing the loss of humanity in the portrayal of Dale's dead. I enjoy how those random memories creep up on you. It was June 2005, Land of the Dead had just been released and Dustin had to see it. There were discussions of how Romero was displaying his political message. I knew there was some underlying message and now I would kill to have that conversation back, but I remember very little of it.

He knew how I felt about the beloved St. Bernard Parish, so instead of forcing us to go to a Metairie theater, he agreed to the Chalmette cinema. He hated the sticky floors, the lonely feel of only four other people in the theater. "No on comes here anymore. Oh, except you..." he motioned with his head. I remember that motion, I could draw it from my burned memory.

I have always hated scary movies. I get scared easily when it comes to movies or paranormal. I can handle all else, but the moment you make a mean face and chase me, survival mode kicks in and someone may get hurt. He knew all of this. There were many late night conversations over coffee, dripping our pasts on to the table.

When I got home later that night I started to walk outside. I looked both ways out of the door. Hmmm... Nope I wasn't going outside. I called him to inform him even with his compromise of staying in the parish, I was never seeing a horror movie again. They could get me.

January
2012

To understand the living, you got to commune with the dead. [Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil]

It happens so quickly. You find out and the rush of emotions is faster than any sports car. Every memory of that person is flooded through your mind. You become drunk off the past immediately since you can't stop it.

He was the messenger on a cold October night. We had not talked in awhile at that point. It was Ocktober Fest in 2006, he sauntered up to me in an intoxicated swagger and doled the news to me as if it was yesterday's sports scores. He could not read the devastation on my face, I didn't show it. Not yet. I waited to experience it privately. Isn't death always private?

So now he has passed on too. I have to wonder. So much of it passing through an already haggard and sleep deprived mind. There is so much processing and flooding.

Saint

January
2012

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is my release. My processing of daily events. This is my mind wandering outlet. I am allowed to be frank and honest here. The government wants to take this away from me. How can I let them? You shouldn't let them either...

Stop Sopa

December
2011

The Golden Globe nominations are out. Disappointing. I know I am a little late on this. I am glad to see American Horror Story getting recognition.

Also for book club I won the hat draw with The Visible Man. Check this video out. Seriously.

December
2011

"I had one of those moments. One of those moments where it's a certain kind of day and you're in a certain kind of mood and a certain kind of song comes on. Suddenly, you're 15 years old again and in the middle of the frantic 5 minutes between 5th and 6th period and you seek out those two brown eyes. Those brown eyes that--on the rare occasions when they catch yours--have the power to warm you to your toes. For a moment you are lost. And then the stoplight changes to green and it's time to go but your eyes have misted over and you've been punched in the gut. All because of the memory of two brown eyes. "


I have been looking for a journal or looking for something that I could associate. Either the topic or the style of writing scream at me. This statement is from The Undertoad and it is perfect.

I think people don't admit to themselves how they feel. I do on every level. I don't believe I am less of a person because I have feelings or that I willing tell people about them. I don't think its bad.

I just don't agree that it is all my burden to carry. That only I have experienced this turmoil. Then again how representative it is to the whole endeavor.

December
2011

"I've got you now, I'll show you all, I'll kick out the chair, let you dangle slow, In the back of the bus all of us, Like the coats in cloak rooms." [We Know Where You Sleep/The pAper chAse]

I have researched this album, read so many articles about the singer, and watched live performances on Youtube. It became an obsession easily. He spoke to the depths of my feelings on life, humanity, on trust. I had to know who this was and where this was coming from.
This particular song is "about using fear to control others..." and "the implications of attachment and the unraveling through chaos." Oh but wait there is more, "The way you feel alive is to confront the darkest side of life and to stare right into it without any fear." The heart of the matter is fear.