Tag: culture

Books and movies

Today, I finished reading the book (well, listening to the audiobook, anyway) Crazy Rich Asians.

I had read the book, because I had enjoyed the film, and discovered that it was based on a book, and that there was actually a whole little series of books, and that it was written by a man…, and my interest was piqued… especially by that last fact.

I had just recently been to Singapore a couple times, so the film easily held a little warm spot in my heart, especially since they go to eat at one of my favorite places in the world to eat (the hawker stand when they first arrive to Singapore).

At long last, I got hold of the audiobook, and dove in, and, though it was different from the film, I enjoyed it.

I mean, I knew it would be different from the film – books always are different from their film counterparts.

Except, perhaps, The Princess Bride… that one is purty darn near exactly the same…, though it does have slight differences still…

Anyway, two things came from this, but I’ll wait…

Whenever I finish a book, I let goodreads.com know, and it adds to my list of books read.

It also sends me an e-mail: You finished [fill in the blank book]. What’s next?

And then it gives a brief bit about the book, including the first few reviews on it, and then info on the author and how to follow him on the website, and, finally, other books that people who read this same book also liked/read.

On this e-mail, I saw part of a review that interested me, and so I clicked and was led to the full review, which I read.

The writer of the review and I had very different impressions from the book – I very much enjoyed it, and she was somewhat annoyed by most of it.

I easily disregarded the review, knowing full well that I often disagree with most reviews I see of books.

(Also, I almost never accept film recommendations, because people seem to have such terrible taste in films and in film quality…)

I have certain people I trust with book recommendations, and I rather distrust most others in the world for a book (or film) recommendation.

But this got me thinking more on the book…

There are probably loads of people who dislike and have terrible and ugly things to say about just about any book, right?

As JRR Tolkien wrote in the beginning of the 1976(?) edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there will be always those who dislike things he likes, and also who dislike the way he told these stories.

(He said a lot more, but that is the most relevant part in this conversation.)

As I thought about the film’s being so different from the book, I found myself wanting to talk to the author, Kevin Kwan, and to ask him how he felt about that all, and what his thoughts were on it…

Is it not basically a group of individuals declaring that your story was good, but just not good enough?, I thought at him in our mental interview within my own mind.

Then, it had me wonder, What is it like with reading the various reviews of your books by readers? All those nasty comments and thoughts…Do you just ignore them entirely and never read them, because that isn’t why you wrote them, anyway? You wrote them for those who would enjoy them?

And this idea had me think about whether it mightn’t be a good idea to go ahead and gather together people who love me, and have them tell me how they dislike or do not like something that I have done or created… practice the rejection, so to speak.

Not to experience the suffering, but to learn to separate their unkind words from my own satisfaction and pleasure from the work I have produced… to aid me in learning to love my creations period, with no dependency on what others’ opinions are, good or bad.

My mood is up to me, and my art can be perfect just for me… everything else is insignificant.

If it brings others joy, yay: joy for them and for myself.

If it doesn’t bring others joy, yay: joy for myself.

That’s why I wrote/made/created it, anyway, was for myself, right?

In some way, anything I create must be for myself… it is something I was ready to express, and in this particular form at this particular time… it is for myself that I do it, whether I realize or acknowledge it or not.

Yet, those bad reviews really stick with us… as I recently was called to consider from a quote by Orson Welles:

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that’s printed about him.

So, I wonder, how can we move past that?

How can we be untouched by the bad reviews?

And, even, the good reviews, too, for, if they suddenly were to cease, would we be saddened?

How can we be self-sustaining in our joy and satisfaction with our own art, and untouched by the opinions of others?

The second idea was about how films are always different from the book, even when the book is spectacular already.

Why must the book always be changed?

Why?!

Ugh.

Post-a-day 2020

I, phone

“You have too much on our mind,” he said…, “Hai troppi pensieri per la testa!!”

Is he right?

I haven’t felt like I’m thinking about loads and loads lately…, but am I worrying, having thoughts run silently in the background, like the pesky applications on my phone, secretly using the signal and draining down the battery power without my even realizing it until I’m suddenly at only 20%?

Mayhaps… perhaps… it may be… it might be so…

Yes, yes, I can see it… the money and the fitness and the job-related… those have the tell-tale arrows next to them in the settings section, declaring that they were recently using my location…, as well as a lot of “should”s… I don’t even support shoulds, yet, here they are, attacking my brain, eating up the battery life…

Ugh…

I don’t even want to think about it right now… that’s how tired I am – I don’t even want to put forth the slight effort of sorting it out… I just want to go to bed already…

So, I’ll do a run or two or few on the mala, and clear out my active mind, so I can fall asleep powerfully… hopefully it can and will last for longer than it has been doing, and I can wake up with energy tomorrow morning, ready to take on at least one of these pesky background apps in my mind… 😛

P.S. Happy End to WWII Day, and Happy Mothers’ Day!! 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Margarita mix

I was passively thinking tonight about margaritas and how much I love them, when I had a sudden memory resurgence.

It started with how my mom and I would be together, eating directly out of the bucket of frozen margarita mix that seemingly lived in our freezer throughout my childhood.

It became a totally normal thing for me to pull the bucket out in any given day, and snag a few bitefuls of the delicious, icy mix…

Basically, then, margarita mix was like my version of ice cream while growing up… it was my regular freezer-housed delight.

Granted, I loved ice cream.

However, the margarita mix was more of a regular deal, because, even though I would have only a few bites at time, I would have it on many more occasions than I would have ice cream.

You know… I don’t know for sure that there wasn’t any alcohol in that mixture… I say this, only because I can’t see how it wouldn’t freeze solid f it didn’t have at least some alcohol in it… right??

Plus, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I was somewhat sneaking the icy bitefuls… suggesting I knew I wasn’t really supposed to be having it…, but maybe it was just because it was a dessert-like treat at not-dessert-time… hmm…

I am definitely checking with my mom on this in the morning.

Speaking of underage drinking – well, you get it – we can mention my first experience of drunkenness… I was somewhere around the age range of 4-7 years.

We were at a restaurant, and the person next to me had a margarita.

In my family, we were basically always allowed to taste anything, so I was granted a taste of the margarita.

And I loved what I tasted.

It so happened that the family member on the other side of me also had a margarita… from her, too, I tasted the margarita… and then I continued to ‘taste’ the margaritas on both sides of me throughout dinner, knowing full well that I wasn’t really supposed to be doing it, yet doing it anyway, and just being very cautious not to be noticed.

Later, in the bathroom with my sisters, I was standing on the counter, kind of dancing around… definitely a bit loopy, though I say so myself…

In short, I very likely was intoxicated.

I remember my sisters laughing at how I was being silly, but no one seemed to think anything of it… I certainly didn’t at the time… it wasn’t until years later that I looked back and couldn’t see anything reasonable but the absurd likelihood of my having been at least a little bit drunk.

Face palm for sure, right?

Haha

But don’t worry: I didn’t turn into a drunk.

As a matter of fact, I hardly ever drink alcohol at all… and it is for lack of wanting it – I don’t even care about alcohol 99% of the time, it seems.

What I do love, of course, is margaritas.

I got lime juice yesterday at the grocer, just so I can make some healthy margaritas here at home… and we can’t have alcohol here, which doesn’t bother me, so I’ll be able to see if I can make something delicious to drink without that edge of flavor the tequila usually gives it.

(Note: I actually only seem to like alcohol for the edge it gives to something else, and not for the beverage itself… the only exception is champagne, which I find to be a lovely beverage.)

Anyway… we’ll see what Mom says tomorrow… haha

Post-a-day 2020

Cinco de Mayo

Perusing the various social aspects of my phone as I get in my final required steps before I am allowed to go to bed for the night, I have noticed a sense of slight oddness…, but I have been unable to identify what is odd, nor really be sure that something is, indeed, odd… I’m just tired, and under the after-effects of a large margarita (from six hours ago, mind you) and lots of tamales and tacos to fill my belly and tire me out.

I had consciously decided to gorge on them in celebration of Cinco de Mayo – truly more of a Texas day of celebration of Mexican culture than a Mexican celebration of boosted morale in the midst of a takeover by France… – and to be delighted with the whole experience… and I have been – today has been great.

But, sitting here on my bed, there is something tickling at the back of my tired mind and body…

I wiggle and trench my shoulders a bit, and it suddenly hits me, as I declare happily, “That’s what’s weird! I don’t have a shirt on!”

As usual when I am really tired, I messed up the order of things in getting ready for bed, and forgot the one that involves putting on a shirt. 😂

So, I popped over to clothes, selected a soft t-shirt, and pulled it on happily.

Aaahhh… that feels good… satisfying.

At last, the oddness is gone, and I feel whole in my bedtime preparations. 😂

Silly, silly… 😂

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Rapunzel

It turns out that I have done and regularly do just about everything listed in the song “When will my life begin”, from the film Tangled.

Like… seriously…

I mentioned this to a friend this morning (her tonight*), and how I was considering doing a set of photos with the song lyrics as captions to them.

But she was determined that I make an actual video… especially since I live up on top of an old house, creating an extra layer of comparability to Rapunzel and the song.

After much deliberation and some concern on copyright concerns, I have almost determined to make a video that includes clips of me doing all of these different things, and with myself singing the song in the background… no copyright issues on a cover, and more interesting than just photos…

It could be quite fun, I dare say…

Though, I do not have chess, nor do I have darts (though I can play/do both reasonably well)…, so I am considering two different unique tasks to fill their places in the song… unsure yet what, though.

(How many times can one use “though” in a single sentence or idea??? Haha)

Lots up in the air right now, but the idea has definitely been planted well, so there’s a chance!

The hardest part will be to get back to making myself actually get up at 7am, and not just to use the bathroom and then go right back to bed (as I have been doing most days lately)… 😛

*If you don’t get it, ask around until you find someone who does. 😉

P.S. May the Fourth be with you 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Lifelike emotions

I did many positive things today, and they were rather satisfying, both individually and as a whole…

And yet, here I sit, cross-legged on my made-up bed, feeling a shiver go out of my body, both from the chill of cool air blowing directly on me and from the feelings of angst deep in my belly.

Perhaps this sense of injustice, of feeling lost as to what to do to make a difference for this suffering individual (i.e. for myself), is not actually caused by the lack of knowledge as to how I will earn money in the near and far futures, nor in my upset and still not having things worked out enough to find my partner in life…, perhaps, the cause of this belly-deep feeling is really just that I wanted some ice cream (coconut milk, not dairy milk) earlier, but it was already after 8pm, and this whole intermittent fasting thing that the nutritionist really wanted me to do made it easier for me to have some tea, instead of eating anything… until tomorrow morning, that is…

But now, I can’t tell if I really just want ice cream, or if my other concerns are manifesting physically, as well as mentally tonight…

Oh, well…

I guess I will find out if my nutrients were too low for today by being awakened by hunger later in the night… hopefully, my dreams can satisfy everything for the emotions, and I can happily have ice cream tomorrow at some point…

😛

Actually, I was pondering dreams while showering tonight:

Dreams help our minds to handle all sorts of emotions and psychology via our subconscious… and, thinking on that, I thought, upon feeling such dread relating to my disappointment of an attempt to date someone recently, ‘Go ahead: dream about it… that will let your brain handle the desires and attached emotions, and enjoy them all, but then let you move along from them all…’

And then, on a whim, I added, ‘Plus, the dreaming usually ends up a better tale than the real thing, anyway, so go ahead and enjoy it.’ (The real thing being when real life actually turns out successful in an endeavour.)

At that, I had myself wondering, ‘Then why do we bother with the real thing, after all? There must be something to it, if the dreams are seemingly better, yet we prefer to live life itself…’

In the book Ready, Player One, this concept is somewhat addressed – that of preferring a dream world of an immersive, lifelike video game to the real world… (I highly enjoyed reading this one, by the way!*)

I choose the real world, for sure…, but can I say why?

As I mentioned, the dream world has an often significantly improved version of life…, so, why do I pick real life?

My query for the time being, to be ever-present in the semi-passive side rooms of my mind for the foreseeable future… perhaps I will end up inspired by it all. ;D

*Reading meaning listening to the audiobook… it has a tiny fun flair of the reader’s being someone who is actually mentioned within the book itself! (I’ll leave you to discover who that is.) 😉

Post-a-day 2020

I love my city

I really do love my city. I spent most of the day today out riding my bicycle around it, and taking photos of things I like, so that I could send them to my buddy in Italy, so that he could see some of the everyday and the beloved that are part of my life in Houston.

(What a sentence!)

What’s funny to me right now, though, is that, though I did that and I exercised and I made delicious food and healthy and delicious juices afterward, and I sent the photos on, and I chatted a long while with a good friend while winding down just now…, though I did all of these things, and I was incredibly satisfied by and fulfilled by my day…., I suddenly am filled – in my intense sleepiness, as I prep as quickly as is possible for bed – with an experience of loss regarding that guy… I almost want to cry, yet I couldn’t say why specifically… but it has to do with him, I know.

It is much like the song I wrote the other day about loving my city, yet not wanting to be in it right now…, because I wanted to be with him, instead… I was just going through all of these awesome photos, and it was on my mind how much I love my city…, and then, bam… some utterly unknown tangent busts in this old topic.

I know it was a tiny affair on paper, but it wasn’t tiny for me, for many reasons… and I understand that it isn’t just going to go away – it is going in small steps, with every day involving less and less brainpower and attention occupied by thoughts of him and that whole situation, and also less intense emotions connected to all of it… but, even still, it doesn’t feel good when, after a whole day of being in great spirits about it, my guards of logic and consciousness begin to close down for the night, and I am whooshed by a sudden sad reminder of something I really wanted – something I expressed wanting – didn’t work out, despite my going for it.

I’m just going to sit with that for now… perhaps it is what will do me best, not to resist it or disappear it right away… perhaps it still just needs to be felt at times…

So, I’ll feel it…

Post-a-day 2020

Movie night(mare)s

My siblings thought it was an acceptable idea to have me watch the original ”Scream” film when it came out. I was five. My mom was furious. But I survived. I even have a sort of affinity for the film, despite the many nightmares it produced throughout my childhood. 😂

Then, “I know what you did last summer” was another they shared with me, only a year later… yikes. Again, though, I survived.

The sequel was freaky but fun for me, because it was possibly the first sequel to release during my lifetime for something that I knew.

At some point, before age nine, they showed me “Jaws”. “Jaws” is actually one of my favorite films – I even read the book recently! – despite the nightmares… and general fear of the ocean… that still exists today… 😂

Frankly, seeing “The Sixth Sense” at my mom’s strong recommendation when I was eight was significantly more traumatizing than any of the others, and I, to this day, have bad dreams and spooky nights because of it…, but that’s for different reasons. “Scream” isn’t very practical or realistic for everyday life.

“Deep Blue Sea” and “Lake Placid”, at age eight, were probably the films that put me over the edge in terms of being comfortable swimming alone in any body of water… I just couldn’t do it – even in the pool at my brothers’ dad’s house, I was somehow convinced that, after I had started to swim away from the wall, someone had opened up a secret panel behind me, and released a shark into the water…., and so I would rush to the other side and wrench myself out of the water as fast as possible, breathing hard… always to find no shark, of course… fortunately, of course…

One of my brothers – one not involved in having me watch the scary movies – had mentioned to me, after his having seen “The Ring” in theatres, that the film was terribly funny due to the fakeness of so much of it… he was the only one laughing during the film, but he was laughing hard at times, he said.

The thought of a scary film’s being funny was new to me, and I considered that I might want to see this film…, but not badly enough to seek it out – I had already written away scary films from my life by that point.

One night, however, years later, I was drawn by a film that came on television, not knowing what film it was. I had an odd feeling that it was “The Ring”, however, and I turned out to be correct in that judgment. Keeping my brother’s idea of humor in mind, I stuck with the film. Frankly, I also found the film quite stupid in many ways, as my brother had suggested and described years beforehand. I was still haunted in dreams by certain aspects of the film, but I recovered much more easily than with any other scary film I had ever seen, and I attributed it to the mentality of laughing at the graphics and illogic of certain visual scenarios within the film – thereby distancing myself from the story itself.

I still stay firmly away from scary films, though, and horror films are a solid no for me, with no question of even discussing them and their subject matter…

I’m almost certain that almost all of my nighttime and dark-alley fears have come from films…, so, perhaps life could have been a lot easier not having the scary films in it…, but perhaps it is just those fears that have me be so prepared for just about anything in life…?

Anyway, the point is that I very much dislike and avoid scary movies (now that I have say and am not a little kid), but I was exposed to several as a young child, yet I survived.

So, if you are watching a film, and discover in the middle that it might be a bit too gory or freaky for a child in the room, don’t worry too much… you’ll probably traumatize them much more with other things in life than with that movie… I don’t encourage the scary films – not at all – but I recommend not panicking too badly, if they end up seeing something you think might be a bit much for them… they’ll survive. 😂

Thursday night

I finished having dinner, showering, and generally readying myself for bed tonight while the sun was still up… I dare say that it was around 18:45 that I was up in my room, ready to begin whatever I wanted to begin after all of that.

I tidied and rearranged certain things, continuing along what I had begun earlier this week.

I listened to my audiobook, enjoying it greatly.

I found myself somewhat hungry around 20:30, and so made some tea.

It helped beautifully with the hunger feeling, and improved my already high spirits.

The evening and night have been going lovelily, indeed – it has been just as I have longed to have my average evening go, tonight, and I have loved it.

Rather than proving unsatisfying, it has proven my dream and goal worthy of existing.

I love going and doing things in life, but I am quite the homebody I’m the average night… and I like it.

I didn’t even notice that no one was with me, I was so content.

Now, I am off to final preparations for bed, so that I might wake up early and do a distanced group workout at the park at 6:30 tomorrow.

And then, I think I shall have my Friday night be rather similar to tonight’s… I have so enjoyed organizing and tidying things so well.

Plus, as I declared a while back now, I have had this feeling that I would meet my someone once I cleaned up my room and living space, and had them true to how I want it all to be…, so that is an extra little edge of delight behind it all (though by no means the main impetus).

P.S. It is only now that I realize, with the coming of May tomorrow, that I missed ‘celebrating’ the ides of March… more like lamenting, but acknowledging, nonetheless… I have for many years valued the contributions of Julius Caesar, and even joked for a time that he was my kind of guy… he was, in many ways, amazing… he was also, in every way, still a man… ‘P.S. I love you, Julius Caesar’, I guess 😛 Haha

Post-a-day 2020

Who’d’a thunk?!

There are lots and lots of ‘Who’d’a thunk?!’ going on in my life these days.

I have been contemplating even more, since not having my main source of income the past few months, my life and my career direction.

Where, how, and on how much money I live is somewhat baffling, when one considers where I was with things five years ago.

My long-time dream job became available recently, and I had the jarring reality check of discovering that it was no longer my dream job – who I am now is not the person who wanted that job. So, it’s kind of scary to re-evaluate and ask what my active dreams are now and for the near future, since all my previous goals are now invalid. 😂

I absolutely love who and how I am as a person, and I am extremely grateful for everything that has led me to my current point and has me continuing along such a beautiful path of pursuit in my life. It is just not where I would have thought things would go. At all. 😂

What’s more, the utter uncertainty of it all can be frightening at times…., but, perhaps, that is what courage is: to stand in a terrifying scenario and to forge on nonetheless, aiming for and working toward success in the pursuit…

So, perhaps, I am not being assured – or not absurd only – but courageous right now.

Perhaps I am absurdly courageous, full stop.

I think I’ll try on that cal for a while, and see what glories it produces, both mentally and in the physical life around me… it is likely to be quite the bit of adventure, I dare say….

Absurdly courageous… yes… yes, indeed.

Let’s do this. 😉

Post-a-day 2020