Capsule Review and a Piss'n'Moan

A friend came by for dinner and a movie tonight, and we checked out Hustle and Flow starring Terrence Howard. Cool flick. Very fun. Loved the lingo. Editing was top-notch. Acting, exceptional. Great feel. Very authentic. Enough said.

(Plot: Pimp "DJay" decides to pursue his lifelong dream of being a rapper. Ergo. Similar to 8 mile with the authenticity and feel, but this was decidedly funnier than 8 mile, and occasionally more touching.)

I'm trying to decide which mini-life story of mine to tell on here first. None of them are standing out for me yet. I feel like a cheap actress in a low-rent drama. "What's my motivation?"

"Fuck all, honey. You're doin' whatcha gotta do, baby. Carry on. Bring it."

Yeah, nice direction, asshole. That helps.

You see, the problem is, whenever I tackle what's ostensibly a "project," such as this, I always feel the need to start with a trump hand. I gotta know I'm goin' in holdin' aces high, or it's just no go. What, am I a control freak? Yeah. Probably. Am I insecure and want to compensate? Well, sure, you could say that. Or you could say I know I've got an A-game somewhere, and just expect myself to bring it.

I'm not saying I'm all "A" material. Are you nuts? I wish. I have little fantasies about such things. "Oh, to be an "A" girl."

But I know I measure up some of the time. And some of that time, I know it when I see it. I just want to be seeing it this time, and right now, nothing's crying out as the play-me card.

In a way, it's made all that much harder because of this disconnect I feel from my past. The person sitting here now in this moderately well-decorated bedroom, hardwood flooring stretched out below her, a quite period apartment from the '50s with the low drone of distant traffic is a world away from the chick tucked in with blue shag in the north, or the insecure loser living at home with mom.

Writing about the present is great. Writing about the recent past is better. Writing about the distant past is sometimes like trying to package time travel. It's just not going to work. And everything, my whole life, it just seems so very far away from this person sitting here now, and I wonder, where did all those miles go?

For some reason, I can't help but thinking of this Sunday morning in early February in the Yukon where Lisa and I were just leaving the Five Corners, where we'd had pancakes, and were blazing a trail down the highway towards Carcross, where we'd be going into a native ceremonial sweatlodge, and Nirvana's Lithium came blaring over my stereo. Lisa, the uber-Tom Petty fan, had never heard this track before. (Hey, it was '95 then.)

I like it - I'm not gonna crack
I miss you - I'm not gonna crack
I love you - I'm not gonna crack
I killed you - I'm not gonna crack

And there I'd be, moshing as I'm driving, singing along. And that person, that time, that world, seems so far away. How can I write about it in an interesting, engaging way?

So, what this is, boys and girls, is performance anxiety. You see my pattern? I tell you what I'm going to do well before I'm even ready to do it, so I'm fucking committed and my pride's on the line, and I gotta lay down and follow through. It's self-administered peer pressure.

Insanity is what it is, but there you have it, and here we are. Something's gotta come. I think what I might do is pick a smaller moment that meant a great deal. Maybe my first Northern Lights. Something like that. Hmm. Either way, I'm tired of feeling like I'm in another galaxy from my past, since so much of who I am comes to me by way of those times. I wanna own it again, and I guess this is my way to do so.

This isn't that uncommon, the great disconnect from one's youth, but I think it's an important thing to deal with in the proper manner. Life's too short to forget where you've come from, so whatever it takes to reinvigorate that, then so be it.

Anyone wanna do my dishes? I wanna crash. :P