I watched Life as a House tonight. I still have tears in my eyes.
I never used to cry so much, honestly. I rarely cry now’ really good literature and movies, mostly. Sometimes music can overwhelm me. It bothers Esteban, I think, because he’s so outwardly emotional. It makes for some interesting fights, too, as he gets frustrated by my lack of outward emotion. At some point, some mystical unmeasured or possibly wavering point, I reach my limit and let loose, but until then, I’m pretty much like a Weeble. I wobble, but I never fall over.
I come from a long line of simmering dysfunction. My mother used to use the word ’emotional’ as a sledgehammer, with a sneer in her voice. ‘Weetabix’ you get so emotional!’ And perhaps that speaks to everything, all of the paving stones we’ve laid down to create the winding history of our lives. We sink them into the earth, hiding most of the stone from the surface. They are stable, those pavers. You can’t blow them away.
But more recently, I’ve become a weepy schoolgirl. The English Patient seriously did me in. Actual sobs’not just surreptitious tears’ real full blown weeping. Charlotte’s Web still kills me too. Just the ending, though. The part where Charlotte sounds so tired and Wilbur just doesn’t understand. And maybe that’s what Life as a House really was. They say that there are only six stories in the world and a million variations on them. Perhaps English Patient too, although probably not. I could buy Willem Dafoe as Templeton the Rat, though.
Paul Lynde shares my birthday. Thought I’d drop that little tidbit on you.
So I was brought to full blown bawling by the movie.
Honestly, I view this as a good thing. I think it means that I’m edging up Maslov’s hierarchy of needs or maybe just succumbing to my emotions more. Either way, it’s all good.
I always think about how Silas Marner saved his tears in an oyster shell. The tear is a powerful thing. Biologically similar to that fluid we float around in for 9 months, the fluid that we essentially breathe.
I had a bunch more to say about the psychology of crying and everything but now I’m tired so I’m just going to bed. But I will say this’ crying fucks up my face. A whole lot.
Ok, that was an entry I wrote last night but never posted. Because I’m a slacker tool and I felt like fiddling with it some, but I never did.
Tonight, my drunken mama invited me over for dinner. She had gotten me a birthday cake and wanted me to blow out candles.
That pretty much breaks my heart, especially given what I just wrote about her above.
Mo and I were sitting in the living room while Mom was outside smoking and watching the grill. I remarked that Mom’s jade tree is like 28 years old and is humongous. In fact, it’s one of the few things that survived her colossal Christmas house fire eight years ago. Fifteen years ago, I remember trying to lift that dang thing and I couldn’t, because it was dense like lead.
Mo remarked, ‘That’s because plants just don’t die around here. Mom dotes on them.’
‘Yeah,’ I sniped. ‘They’re like the children she never had.’ Mo cracked up into hysterics.
We’re truly evil children. I know. You don’t have to look at me like that.
But Mom is trying. She made a really splendid meal and I felt sort of bad that I blew off our family’s Fathers Day celebration yesterday because none of us actually have fathers and I just wasn’t in the mood. Apparently, she brought the cake there and it went untouched. That’s so sad, in a MacArthur Park kind of way. So, it was a given that I had to eat cake, despite the fact that it was covered with the dreaded lard frosting. Gah. It may have hermetically sealed my intestines.
Very funny moment: She made Mo put candles on the cake. Mo put eight candles down. I cleared my throat and said, ‘Um, there should be 31 candles.’ And Mo sneered and said ‘Oh, so we can have a big flaming fireball cake?’ And then Mom came by and swatted Mo’s hand and said ‘You put all of those candles on your sisters cake! What do you think you’re doing with only eight candles?’
Bwahahahahaha!
I really shouldn’t take so much glee from seeing Mo get kvetched at, but it was just awesome. Seriously. When you’re not the favorite child, you take what you can get. Although, Mo was feeling a bit put out, as when Jonathon came in the house, he squealed ‘Weeeeetabix!!!’ and ran over for a hug. Apparently, she earns a grunt and a nod from him. Also, I got two lovely cards from both of them, and they made Mo a tad jealous.
Bwahahahahahahaha!
Yep, I know that I’m going to hell to be Satan’s favorite curvy round concubine. But I might as well just enjoy my sins! Cripes.
Here’s hoping Satan likes foreplay.
