I was going through my old things and found two quotes I scribbled in a notebook. I Google-d the lines and remembered that they were from a 2001 movie called Waking Life.
Here are the complete quotes. The bold lines are what I took note of.
An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting
…the worst mistake that you could make is to think that you are alive when really you’re asleep in life's waiting room. The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. 'Cause if you can do that, you can do anything. Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes. And immediately you wake up and realize that the whole day at work had been a dream. It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free.
These, however, are not representative of what that movie was about. I'd rather not go into the details because it's old news. [Sometimes I feel like I'm writing about old stuff to compensate for the time I spent not writing. But then again, there's a certain joy I find from rediscovering gems from the past. They don't come that often anymore.]
The entire movie is a journey into the dream world. It examines questions about life, love, the universe, and consciousness in the framework of a lucid dream, which is a kind of dream in which you know you are dreaming. It's a very "talky" movie, from the writer and director of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Richard Linklater.
One character laments that people do not dream anymore. Well, I believe I still do. Whatever good it does me. And what about life and living?
I do not await the future, anticipating salvation, absolution, not even enlightenment through process. I subscribe to the premise that this flawed perfection is sufficient and complete in every single, ineffable moment.
Here's a new show on that'll surely be in a lot of people's list of favorites in the weeks to come.
Grown up Ned (Lee Pace) puts his talent to good use by touching dead fruit and making it ripe with everlasting flavor. He opens a pie shop. But his gift leaves him wary of becoming close to anyone, as beautiful waitress Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth) finds out. His life as a pie maker gets more complicated when private investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) finds out about Ned's secret. Emerson convinces the cash-strapped Ned to help him solve murder cases (and collect the hefty reward fees) by raising the dead and getting them to name their killers.
Then Ned is handed the case that changes his life forever. His childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel), is murdered on a cruise ship under strange circumstances. Her death brings him back to his hometown of Coeur d' Coeurs to bring Chuck back to life, albeit briefly, and solve the crime. But once reunited with Chuck, Ned can't bring himself to send her back. He helps her escape after her grieving aunts, Lily and Vivian (Swoosie Kurtz, Ellen Greene), former synchronized swimmers Darling Mermaid Darlings, think they've buried her forever.
Chuck becomes the third partner in Ned and Emerson's PI enterprise, but she encourages them to use their skills for good, not just for profit. Ned is overjoyed to be reunited with Chuck, the only girl he's ever loved. Life would be perfect, except for one cruel twist — if he ever touches her again, she'll go back to being dead, this time for good.
From the ABC official site
Think Big Fish and Tim Burton. It's fantastic like that.
As yet another on-impulse decision, I transferred all of my (own) poetry content to another location (pictures not mine).
Some of the pieces are from way, way back. I can't say if there are differences in tone or maturity, but what the heck.
I'm laying them all out in the open . Click at your own risk.
Karmee tagged me with this one.
Cocoy, I'm posting two desktop images. The first one's my desktop the week you tagged me, and the second one's what I changed into after putting in a little thought on, well, paying attention to my desktop, he he. As you can see, both are Microsoft images.
And I'm passing this meme to everyone who has a blog somewhere. Just link back here if you so wish.
Three pairs of teenagers in uniforms.
One pair in front of me; two pairs on my sides.
All with their arms around each other.
Gad, I looked like an out-of-place chaperone.
I am free falling toward the abyss of memories
Searching for the one who knows my name
Did you purposely share my table at the library?
Threw those furtive glances that made me wary?
Like that stranger at the ATM once
Whose words were suspended in mid-air as he pranced
Did you mistake me for someone else?
Or was it I who acted blase?
Had I been brave I would've grabbed you
to keep in my pocket for a lifetime or two
But I was the fool who bears the brunt
Of ignoring a treasure to pursue the hunt
Even if I'd never forget such face, such countenance
(That ne'er comes as often as one would want)
I tempted fate just because I can
There was never a doubt that I will find you
Like a pin in a stack of hay that I'll swim into
I supposed you'll wait, but did you? (Or was I too late and too silent, too?)
Well, I thought I was worthy, in a way; to imagine things will pan out as I prayed
Be that as it may, I should've made you stay, and left a blueprint for this play
Twice I found, twice I marveled, twice I never knew
What it could've been had you looked at me that way, too
Now, Tina Fey doesn't deserve to be a filler for a blog. Why, she's proof that women can be smart and pretty and sexy and hilariously funny (and did I mention brilliant?) at the same time.
However, in the meantime, I can't blog about anything else when all I do lately is to look for things in the Internet to make me laugh; because, otherwise, what I really want to do is to ride a boat to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and feed myself to sharks.
So here's a couple of clips from YouTube. The first one's a compilation of Saturday Night Live clips and the second one's from 30 Rock (the scene where Liz comments on her attire being suited for the President of the Philippines).
And this one, I just have to add
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-Marianne Williamson
I read this passage in Stephen Covey's The 8th Habit. I honestly don't know how to feel about it. It sounds sensible. It's even empowering. But, at the same time, I can't help but wonder, What about humility?
Taking this to heart a little too literally might be recipe for unbearability. You sure know an unbearably overbearing person or two.
Tori Amos, Live performance of 1000 Oceans @ The Hard Rock Cafe
well i can't believe that i would keep
keep you from flying
and i would cry 1000 more
if that's what it takes to sail you home
sail you home, sail you homei'm aware what the rules are
but you know that i will run
you know that i will follow you
over silbury hill through the solar field
you know that i will follow you
To feel that strongly for someone. That you would cry that much, give that much, do that much. I don't know if I'll ever feel that way. That intensely.
Which brought me into thinking, which is more exhausting, actually having someone to cry over with or crying over not having someone to throw all these emotions for. Because I don't think crying is optional in relationships. Sooner or later, for whatever reason, one of you will.
I asked that very question to a single friend of mine, and she told me it's not about closing doors, it's about accepting whatever life throws at you. Easier said that done. Of course, you'll always wish for something else. Something more than what you have right now. Then she asked me back, "What about you?" "Well," I said, "same as you mostly. But I love dramas. So I'm keeping my doors open."
Not that I don't have enough dramas in my life. Sometimes, I just wish they are like what most people my age are having. For someone who claims to feel strongly about a lot of things, I am amazingly inadequate in describing what makes me tick. Oh, to have someone who can describe yourself to you. And be right about it. And have yourself be giddy over such intrusion of privacy. That'd be worth crying a thousand oceans over.
