Archives for September 2000

I can tell you right now that the phone company are a bunch of fucks. All this Verizon B.S. just means that they’re friendlier while doing even less for you. After making three calls to them today i didn’t manage to get my turn-on date (next friday) changed one bit. Aside from internet related things, i need a phone to be able to communicate with my mother and the two jobs i’ll be working next week, so that doesn’t please me too much.

Meanwhile, job#2 (the second bit of Orientation at Drexel) is piling the work onto me via the internet and i haven’t had the time to sit down and look at it before tonite. In the next hour or two i need to get in contact with my entire group of sub-leaders and inform them of who has which of my 225 students. fun fun fun. And, job #1 refused to give me a tentative schedule early, so i have no idea when i’ll be working next week. What i do know without a doubt is that there will be at least one time that my two employers will come into conflict either with each other or with my many doctor appointments. Blah…

It seems the whole blogging world has forgotten about me now that i’ve dropped off of P.B. for two days. It’s all been a mess of trying to move into the new apartment (which is currently without phone), so i’ve not been at my computer very often.

All of my non-essential items were moved except for my furniture. So, right now my belongings here consist entirely of my computer system, two changes of clothes, my cds, and my guitar. I refuse to disconnect my computer from one place of residence before it has a place to go in the next place, and without my desk or a phone line there’s really no place for it in the apartment.

Matt and i signed the lease. We don’t seem to have any utilities turned on, a way to get my couch to the apartment, or a way to carry my stuff up the stairs (me – bad shoulder, mom – bad knees). Should be fun. Rest assured that i refuse to sleep there until i can connect to the internet.

I have been every character in American Beauty. I have been miserable for wasting my own time. I have been obsessed with my couch, as it were. I have stood detached and enveloped in beauty. I have known i met someone before even though they forget me. I have been ordinary.

Movies that use a finite number of actors always connect to me on some level. Knowing that everyone from Kevin Spacey to the girl in the burger joint got their own chance to be directed involved me. Every second of American Beauty was beautiful and deliberate, carefully intertwining the characters as it went along. It succeeded where Magnolia failed for me by first showing us connections and then making them abstract, and by filling silence with meaning rather than filling meaning with silence. No one changed as much in Magnolia as they did in Beauty.

Change. From the first scene we know that Lester is horribly self aware. He admits that masturbating in the shower is the high point of his day. He has no illusions, and his lack of them is both his power (against wife Annette Benning) and his weakness (with his detached but cool daughter). We see the result of this lack of illusions play out; he becomes easily content with his life but alienates everyone else.

Also, three twists in the movie that i loved. 1 – Does Lester’s wife want to do that / 2 – Does the kiss really mean anything, or was it just a moment of trying to understand? / 3. Would it really be her first time?

The most intriguing character was the wife next door, and i wish i could tell you why. Sometimes i feel a lot like her. Scott Bakula was cast to a tee; the “partners” line was worth the price of the movie. The movie is worth the price of the movie; the Academy picked well (even after jilting Aimee Mann, featured below).

it’s not what you thought when you first began it

you got what you want now you can hardly stand it though by now you know

It’s not going to stop until you wise up.

you’re sure there’s a cure and you have finally found it

you think one drink will shrink you till you’re underground and living down but

It’s not going to stop until you wise up.

prepare a list for what you need before you sign away the deed ‘cuz

It’s not going to stop until you wise up.

(so just give up)

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