Better- Wind, sun, and walking

I take back what I said before...I'm over the Golden Notebook blues. I've just been spending too much time in the house since the accident. But this morning resumed the get-out-of-one's-own-head-into-the-world activity- walking, exploring. So simple. I've been here a month, maybe a bit more already, and haven't really explored. Thankful for being able to walk and for the windy weather and the shrouded sun. Pictures to follow soon- Graffiti, trash dumps,curtains blowing through windows from rooms blasting dancy Mexico music. Iguanas. Vultures. The dusty street butting up against a jungle garden. Smiley face smiley face smiley face.

The Golden Notebook and the BFG

Just finished reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, taking time out yesterday to reread the BFG by Roald Dahl. Chloe had just finished it when the U.S. was losing their last World Cup game. The best part of the game was watching their sad faces at the end- not because I felt triumphant or any kind of schadenfreude, but because their close-up teary faces were easy to relate to.

The BFG is, as always, a pleasure, great medicine for the rolicking disasterous previous night's antics. I found myself empathizing more for the carnivorous giants, Bonecruncher, Fleshlumpeater, Manhugger, and the like, more so than in times past. At the end, when three drunken men wander over the fence and into their pit after imbibing their lunch of beer, I felt happy for the poor giants forced to eat snozzcumbers everyday. So the BFG has switched to bacon and they've become vegetarians? Hardly fair.

The Golden Notebook has left me feeling empty, hopeless. Maybe I'm too like the character of Tommy (not too too much though) self righteous and rebelling against the limitless boundaries of his parents, or perhaps their varying strict philosophies. He becomes happier as a blind person, having imposed his own very literal boundary on his life. His dissatisfaction as a young person who can do anything, have anything, any kind of job, form a future from his parents' capitalist or communist connections, leaves him immobile, indecisive. Now I feel similar, freefloating, without real aim or purpose or the vision of such thing, when I try to form it, remains blurry in my mind's eye- only snippets of what others do or have said rain down in detritus. Mexico, OK. Korea, whatever. Another place- fine. No food, weather, company, architecture entices. And the exhausting demolition of love offers no enticement either.

Get the hell out, Out of Africa

Nat rented this on our movie night (Tuesdays because Blockbusters has a 15 peso per movie dealio) because it won 7 academy awards. It's set in Kenya in the early part of the 20th century and based on a book by nom de plum Isaak Dinesen, a Danish woman who wrote this as a memoir. I can remember when it came out- I was 9 years old in 1985 and alert of cultural shifts- we had a TV at that time and I'm sure I watched more than my fair share. I remember being aware that it was a romance, a woman's movie, and feeling somewhat repulsed by the connotations that went along with that. So it has stayed in my memory ever since and I've never had the urge to see it.

But all's fair game on movie night.

We watched the whole thing, not being charmed or impressed by Kurt Russel at all, but definitely impressed by Meryl Streep's gorgeous nearly 1920s wardrobe- sparkly hats, loosely hanging suits,nightdresses with hoods, neutral-colored work pants and flowy work dresses. What a relief the new fashion must have been in those days, corsetless?

Nat said the next day, "I've been thinking about that movie, and I think its so sad."
I was thinking that I agreed. As we were watching it, we were both rolling our eyes a bit at the airplane scene and what was supposed to be romantic camping and hunting outings. Wondering, is this what passes or passed for romantic? Who is this supposed to be pleasing? What are we supposed to think of Kurt Russel's free-wheeling, non-commital rejection of poor Meryl Streep's everyday life, everyday duties on the farm? And his rejection of her wanting some kind of commitment.

I would like to read the book because I think the movie was manipulative in the typical Hollywood way and I wonder if people shed tears at this one and at what point. I remember watching Titanic and crying when the band played and the ship went down and feeling so angry at the director for manipulating me in this way, at this moment. Telling me what was sad or what was romantic or what was tragic. Is this movie similar? It just seemed weirdly dated. And sad because she was constantly portrayed as being alone, abandoned, and cheated on.

I suppose it's interesting in a way because of how the issue of marriage is treated. This was in the 1920s and 30s and we hear criticism of the institution, "who do you know who is in a happy marriage?" and now I'm reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing which is set in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, with some similar tropes. The marriages and relationships there are dissected in their entirety and none of them fall flush with whatever illusions of marriage we see in advertisements or on TV sitcoms.

But I think women needed marriage much more in those times than now. The pressure on one of not being kept, not being married must have been enormous, scary, possibly dangerous.

How is it different now?

Thoughts from the notebook

Welcome to my notebook!



















The mind focuses






games






Korea is all about the high heels.






And the무, big white radish...





Another idea for a show, tiger and the bear...






Smoke break







The Mirror





The Bunny, a nightmare that kind of came true.



Love Dump




Waiting for a call




A dream I had

Cozumel Birthday

I've been in Cozumel, Mexico for the past month, visiting and living with friends from Korea.
I used to do spinning with Nat before the accident- that being slipping off the wet 2nd story porch and falling on my head onto a stone wall.

"It could've been a lot worse," is what we all said.

I had never been in ambulance before. Or had a black eye. I slept for a week after and was just scared, remembering trying to grip onto the slippery side, my body and gravity pulling me down, that brief moment of awareness that I wouldn't be saved this time, and curiousity about how it would turn out.

Now when I go out, I turn the evil eye on the gap where I fell, knowing the landlord won't fix it, thinks its my own fault. Because of the beers.

So now I don't go spinning, per doctor's orders- no heavy exercise for a couple of months and vertigo exercises to do. Vertigo exercises. Sounds cool. Doesn't feel as good or as bad as spinning. And I don't have the teacher to yell at me to push it.

And now I'm 34. 1 person on the 23rd turns 34. Its going to be a good year. Every year there's more and different shit to shovel. Not to get the questions you ask yourself get muddled with society's expectations about what you should be- the overwhelming expectations we have all been swimming with or against every year since our birth.